I am awakened by the uncomfortable feeling that I have been sweating under my chin. In the common area I french-press some coffee and burn some toast, then try to organize the next couple days. A few cups later, Monique, our hostess, appears and delivers a monologue about her hopes and dreams for The Heights – a dozen cabins, a swimming pool, and a mini golf range. At a critical intake of breath, I’m able to blurt, “More ground coffee, please, Monique.” I shower and repack. Ali rallies. We’re on the road by 9am, bidding the daffiness of The Heights adieu. It was sweet and comfy and had eight seasons of Stargate on DVD.

We seem to be the only ones heading north at this time of day. Midway, it’s time to recaffeinate – a most excellent flat white is to be found in Dangara at a beach shack café called Starfish. Our lodgings in Geraldton are easy to find, sort of. We drop the baggage and head into town for lunch. Lunch at Café Fleur is perfect because wild berry waffles. Black Panther happens to be playing at 6pm at the Orana Cinemas right downtown. Our two-bedroom apt has a washer/dryer, so garment refreshment can be accomplished. The afternoon’s other challenge – we probably need to pack a picnic tomorrow due to desolate terrain. Overlander Roadhouse, the one spot on the map between Geraldton and Monkey Mia, may just be a lonely one-pump service station.

The movie begins. Aussie preview ads are just as lame as US ones. Black Panther has many assets, but in the end, it’s a fucking superhero movie. Geraldton rolls up its sidewalks on the early side of early. After four or five disappointments, we finally find a restaurant whose kitchen’s still open. Big bolognese for me and salad for Alice. Our clothes are dry.

Again, I retrieve morning coffee from the mellow, hippie cantina. And today, I am V. The hell with Barb. We depart at nine o’clock, bound northward for two places – The Pinnacles, an alien landscape of stone towers, and New Norcia, Australia’s only monastic community. We leave Perth on a six-lane divided highway that quickly shrinks to two. Once the exurbs of Perth have slipped behind us, the vegetation becomes scrubby and dry and the air warms up considerably. The passing landscape seems devoid of people, inhospitable to all but a few hardy sheep. We soon have our first encounter with the legendary road trains of Australia, trucks that pull two or even three trailers. On a two-lane road, these monsters are quite intimidating, all noise and color and turbulence. It’s one thing to pass a road train in the ‘overtaking lane’, but when one barrels down the on-coming lane, all I can do is hold on.

New Norcia is hard to find, being both obvious and invisible. We sign up for a tour, but first go up to the hotel for lunch. The burgers are most excellent, though the flies are most insistent. A little discreet poking around the first floor of the hotel reveals a Game of Thrones pinball machine. A) Pinball machines are still being made and B) The brothers dig GOT. Awesome squared. According to the chatty bartender, there are nine monks remaining. Founded as a mission to the aboriginal people in 1846 by Spanish Benedictines, the monks ran an orphanage and, until recently, boarding schools for girls and for boys, St. Gertrudus and St. Ildephonsus. The campus is eerily quiet and spooky and hot. We are shown the interior of the dormitories, which are empty and expectant. There’s a big room with squares of sunlight on the floor and metal frame beds all made up. Ali finds it creepy. We abandon our tour.

After a frustrating half hour of GPS craziness where the white arrow that indicates our trajectory veers alarmingly into empty space, we pull ourselves together and decide to forego the fucking Pinnacles in favor of reaching our destination today.

This is The Heights B&B in Jurien Bay. We park in a driveway surrounded by garden gnomes, ceramic toadstools, and kitschy figurines (e.g. hedgehogs in teacups). Variations on this ridiculous theme extends to all exterior and interior surfaces, which are covered with plaques of sappy aphorisms and pictures of Disney princesses. Out back in an enclosure, two lambs – Lamborgini and Burnie, who has a black head ‘as if he were caught in a fire’ – bleat tragically. Our search for dinner is futile, so we pick up some convenience store sandwiches and eat on the patio with the sheep.

The Apple Store in Perth opens at nine o’clock and we’re there. I sprang into action earlier and went and got us coffee and banana bread from a relaxed neighborhood place, one big, leafy patio with dogs and toddlers running amok. The young woman took my name as ‘Barb’ even though I repeated it twice. Why do I always default to ‘Bob’ when under the slightest stress?

Clothed and fed, we’re off to the AppleLand. The question is – Am I adequately caffeinated to negotiate big city streets from the erroneous side of the road? After a couple of parking fails, we dump the thing in a lot, bickering all the way. Apple Stores are daunting; they feel like some techie’s vision of heaven, clean and white, with a very, very high ceiling. This of us with tech problems line up in the center of the room next to an over-micced instructor giving arcane instructions to a tableful of rapt nerds. We get to see a technician almost immediately. The software problem I thought I had turns out to be a hardware one. I am assured that if I leave the laptop, it’ll be fixed by the time we come back through Perth in a week. And here is where I sing the praises of Apple Care. I don’t always add this warranty to a new computer purchase, but this time I did. A $1,200AUD bullet dodged. Our return trip to Fremantle is much more relaxed.

Chips follow fish as logically as DC follows AC. Thus nourished, we embrace the two museums that Fremantle has to offer – the Maritime Museum and the Shipwreck Museum. Because Perth lies a ways up the Swan River, Fremantle served as its roughneck port. The Maritime Museum showcases Fremantle’s complex relationship with all forms of marine activity  – fishing, naval, transportation, sport: while the Shipwreck Museum tells tales of centuries of disasters along the west coast of Australia. My hope of inspecting the HMS Ovens, an Oberon class submarine, is dashed due to its arbitrary closure. It sits there, impassively, in ‘dry dock’ behind the Maritime Museum, looking exceedingly formidable. Someday, I will see the inside of das boot.

The Maritime Museum is a sleek, white, modern structure with sweeping nautical lines, while the Shipwreck Museum is contained within a reconfigured 19^th century warehouse of golden limestone. Its centerpiece is the enormous, blackened stern section of the Batavia, which fills an open room three stories high and against the eastern wall stands an imposing sandstone portico that had been part of its cargo. The Batavia, carrying a treasury in silver for the Dutch East India Company, had gone down off the west coast in 1629. The wreck was discovered in the late 1960s and salvaged in the 70s. She foundered on her maiden voyage and subsequently became famous on account of the mutiny and massacre that took place among the survivors. This incredible story was recorded in diaries and court records, which detail abandonment, starvation, savagery, and heroism. Gripping can’t fully encompass the drama of this tale, roughly contemporaneous with the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony.

The museum displays artifacts of many other maritime disasters, notably the enormous engine recovered from the steamship, SS Xantho, which sank in 1872. It’s the only known example of the earliest mass-produced high-speed, high-pressure engines. The thing looks like new and evidently can still be made to turn over. We are amazed how quickly the afternoon has passed. As we’re poking through the gift shop, a fictional account of the Batavia catches Ali’s eye. Maybe this will ease her sunburn.

Strategic lie-downs and showers are a prelude to the terrific meal at Bread in Common. We are introduced to a savory, dry garnish called Dukkah. Walking home, the moon is full and shines through the superstructure of the Ferris Wheel of the city park.

I rally at 5:30am feeling delusionally envigorated and stroll along the jetty in the dawn’s early light. The passive-aggressive whines of the gulls, however, take on an accusatory tone, signaling the end to my constitutional. Back in the apt, I discover the coffeemaker only makes mini-espressos, useless one-sip pseudo-beverages. Damn Keurigs and their ilk. Ali appears and we commit to ambling over to Shed B, our portal for a day on Rottnest Island. The ferry ride takes 45 minutes, the highlight of which is watching television coverage of Cher’s triumphal entrance into Sydney for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Rottnest is known for, indeed, named for, its indigenous marsupial, the quokka. Early Dutch explorers thought the beasts were rodents of unusual size. In actuality, a quokka looks like an opossum that swallowed a basketball then stopped by the beauty parlor for a chestnut brown rinse. Marsupials could be considered the space cadets of the animal kingdom, cute but very very dim. This makes quokkas the plebes of the cadet corps.

Once we disembark, we pick up bikes and helmets to traverse the paths that wind through the scrubby landscape. Though neither Ali nor I have had much recent bicycle experience, nevertheless, off we wobble.  Whoa: critters at eleven o’clock. Some dude is stalking a pair of quokkas through the underbrush with his selfie stick. You go, asshole. We aren’t pedaling for long before we reach a bathing opportunity called The Basin, a sandy-bottomed pool surrounded by submerged rocks. It looks sublime, but not for us.

We wobble back to ‘town’ and order two small pizzas. A quokka appears, ostensibly inspecting the floor beneath our table. They’re not very efficient crumb prospectors. Above us, trees provide shelter to a species of vocally adept and insane birds we have taken to calling Cats-Fucking Birds. Their call can vary from a child’s cry to a yodel to, yes, the ear-popping screech of cats fucking. When the salad-eating Italians at the next table depart, a swarm of avian predators attack the leftover roughage, raising a general alarm. At the local Museum, we discover that for almost a hundred years Rottnest Island had been a penitentiary for aboriginals when a Governor-General of Western Australia chose the island as a summer retreat. And so began its transformation from prison to a playground. Alice asks the docent to identify the bird with the bizarre cry. It’s a goddamn crow.

We catch an early boat back to Fremantle, amused and satisfied. Cher has arrived! Wandering back to our digs we keep one eye out for the statue of Bon Scott, front man for AC/DC, rock legend, and dead since 1980. Much potential statuary exists. When we discover the thing, Fremantle’s favorite son has been immortalized in bronze,  half life-size and standing on an amp.

Hoping against hope, I place a call to Apple Support. There will be no easy fix, but they’re helpful nonetheless. Dinner is outdoors at Little Creatures, a well-known pub with neo-galactic decor.

It’s a rainy morning in New York the smart phone tells me: information available to anyone capable of looking out the fucking window. I am so ready. The checklist double-checked. My old friend, Rolf Potts, will be staying at 54 Bleecker while I’m abroad. I guess the pitter-patter on the windowsill has not muffled my puttering. Rolf’s sipping coffee as I stand before him, a vision of preparedness. “Do you have your passport?” he asks. Simple question. The illusion bursts. “No!” I exclaim, choking on the vowel. Shit. It’s where it always is, in the red plastic envelope of old passports and inoculation records in the night table bottom drawer. Okay, now. Off I go, with my big, blue Samsonite and my new over-the-shoulder bag mit laptop. I’m flying American to San Francisco, rendezvousing with Ali in the International Terminal, and from there, Qantas flight #74 to Sydney. And from Sydney, across the continent, to Perth.

I’m typing away in the troposphere when the cursor freezes. Then the screen goes black. A gray folder icon with a question mark in it sits in the middle of the blackness, mute and implacable. I can’t coax any kind of response. Nothing works. Well, I still have my phone, which is smart. Cold comfort that is. Cold comfort, indeed: at 35,000 feet no one can hear you scream. I’ve planned to type my usual travelogue and post the thing online. I don’t know what the fuck went wrong with the machine, but it’s dead to me. I set my mind into the rictus of acceptance and begin writing  longhand.

San Francisco International Airport. After some texting back and forth, sure enough, there Ali is at the bottom of the escalator. Poor kid’s been waiting here for nearly twelve hours, because coming from backwater Austin Texas meant taking the single daily flight available. Although she’s been able to snooze at the in-terminal Nap Hotel, she hasn’t had a shower in an awfully long while and is wearing the sludge of travel. So, we sit down to gather our wit and eat these tiny, inherently funny, meatballs.

We heed the call to board, settling into protective custody. Sleep is uneasy, of course. I have a dream where she and I are in Cuba running to catch up to a fast-moving tour group. ‘Tis a metaphor of the future. Seated in front of us a few rows, a pair of good-looking young men remind me of the Winkelvi twins, Mark Zuckerberg’s nemeses from The Social Network. Both wear the currently fashionable spotless white sneakers that resemble nothing so much as sensible nurse footwear. Independently, Ali and I watch Thor: Ragnarok, which turns out to be a hoot, except for the battle scenes, which are epically lame. It’s directed by that New Zealander whose movies we like.

The Qantas lounge in the Sydney domestic terminal offers showers, which we both enjoy partly as a sanitary measure and partly to make the fucking four-hour layover come to an end. We’re both extremely punchy at this point, but eventually we land in Perth. The car that Hertz has in store for us is one of those boat-like Holdens, the national automobile of Australia and New Zealand. After some finagling, we secure a downgrade. Blessedly, it has GPS, which takes the pressure off both of us. Driving on the left never fails to take my breath away, hopefully not permanently. We make it to our destination in Fremantle, despite the GPS’s insistence that we take a road that does not exist. Our abode for the next three nights is a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the harbor.

Attempted napping fails, so at five o’clock we embark on a search for fish-and-chips. A bustling nearby place features fish tanks and crayons and a mystifying order/pick-up system. Early to bed. It is, after all, Tuesday, two days since we left the US.

After a semi-hearty breakfast, featuring not enough coffee, we bid arrivederci to Venice. We have walked our asses off, overcome colds, prayed for rain, and thrilled to the process of exhausting ourselves. This fog could be rain, except the moisture is not falling. Slowly we make our way around the Lagoon on the Alilaguna.

At the airport, we schlep from line to line as the semi-mystical process of embarkation unspools in airport time. Then, we enplane; then, we’re aloft. Eight hours later, we’re in the taxi line at JFK International Arrivals. Joss and I share a cab to the Hooters in Fresh Meadows where I’ll pick up the jitney to Greenport. We hug, knowing we’ll see one another later in the week.

On the today’s docket is a barge cruise down the Brenta Canal from Padua to Venice. We lug our luggage across the cobblestones, making the universal noise, and board Il Bruchiello at 7:45. Joss takes one look around and observes, “I’m the youngest one on this boat.” In addition to leisurely vistas, we will visit three Palladian villas – Villa Pisani, Villa Widmar, and Villa Foscari, known as La Malcontenta. Actually, Villa Widmar was not designed by Palladio. Villa Pisani is more a palace than a villa. It has over 100 rooms and an enormous ballroom with four chandeliers, a forty-foot ceiling, and convincing trompe l’oeil elements, notably elaborate Rococo woodwork. The obverse is true for Villa Widmar. It’s just a house. Frescoed to a fare-thee-well, of course, but simply a home. Prominently displayed is a very old telephone. Why? Some dispute with A.G. Bell? La Malcontenta, though, is the real Palladian deal. It doesn’t have the majesty of La Rotonda, but its exterior symmetry and the wonderful faded frescoes throughout create a sense of almost painful sophistication. Our guide for the day speaks for eight hours straight, first in Italian, then German, and finally English. Rinse and Repeat.

We have been hoping for rain. This whole trip – NOT ONE DROP. Instead today we have a dense, chill fog. Interesting lunch sidebar – the red wine vinegar on the table is called Aroma Antico, or Old Smell.

Once again, we approach Venice via the Lagoon. This somehow makes the magic of our journey complete. Our final Italian resting place, the Savoie and Jolanda, is a few steps from the drop-off and just across the Riva degli Schiavoni from the Alilaguna Blue Line which will transport us to the airport tomorrow. I inquire at the front desk for a dinner recommendation. I am so through making decisions every five fucking minutes. Her suggestion results in a quiet dinner at Osteria ae Spezia; pasta with cuttlefish for Joss and a chicken cutlet for me. Our final gelato is at La Mela Verde. When we get back to the hotel, rather than go to our rooms, we opt for a stroll along the quay to the Amerigo Vespucci, Italy’s tall ship and very formidable. Its three masts are lit green, white, and red.

Ciao.

A brilliant day has dawned. We caffeinate and croissanate at a café mere steps away from our front door. We have a 9am spot for our designated quarter hour in the Scrovegni Chapel, but it’s a little hard to find due to my mistrust of the obvious. Enormous care has been taken to preserve and protect these frescoes of Giotto’s; building stabilization, climate control, and the meticulous restoration of the work itself. Joss and I must sit for a preliminary fifteen minutes in a acclimatizing room with thirty other 9am-ers, that’s how strictly controlled the environment is. Then we’re led into the Chapel and for fifteen minutes we are spiritually transported. Not an inch of the interior is without decoration. It is Giotto’s masterwork, an epic rendering of the stories of Jesus and of Mary, as well as Heaven and Hell. This is a world treasure of the first magnitude. I’m an atheist, but this is humbling, exquisite, and human. Storytelling at its most profound.

Padua is a relatively charmless city, certainly compared to the beauties we’ve seen. Though architectural modernity encroaches on the old infrastructure with abandon, Padua has many and various treasures. A walk through the Eremitani Museum, of which the Scrovegni Chapel is part, yields some amusing curiosities, but serves primarily as a way to come down from Giotto. Walk it off. I particularly loved a 14^th century angelic bowling league, a golden-winged heavenly host earnestly holding black spheres in their laps. What I wouldn’t give for one of their bowling shirts.

The city’s old piazzas hold daily markets. The fruit and vegetable market in Piazza dei Frutti is gorgeous. The corresponding clothing market carries no navy blue crewneck sweaters that I could see. Padua’s Duomo is big. That is all. Following a quick sandwich of speck, we are up on our feet. “Oh, Joss. This. Let’s go here. Palazzo Bo.” She gives me a ‘Palazzo . . . Bo?’ look.

Palazzo Bo is the heart and soul of the University of Padua, the second oldest in Italy founded in 1222. It was the University’s first permanent building, built on the site of La Taverna Bo (Ox). Doing the math, its 800^th anniversary is in five years. A guided tour starts in a half hour. We visit a couple of ‘Great Halls’ that look immensely dignified and very Renaissance, where no one ever took off their robes. Galileo Galilei instructed here and his putative podium is on display. In 1678, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, a Venetian noblewoman and mathematician, became the first woman anywhere to be awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree.

The room I really want to see is the oldest operating theater in the world, constructed in 1594. We are ushered into the pit of it and are allowed a couple uncomfortable glances upward. Still, fantastic. Anatomical lessons only took place in the winter, as a precaution. Dead people may be free from pain, but over time they do get exceedingly ripe. In the next room, we gather round a wooden model that serves as a decent surrogate. Padua’s medical school taught men from all over Europe, including William Harvey of England, who discovered the circulation of the blood. Its law school served the same international student population.

“Where to next, Dad?” “How far is Orto Botanico?” “Spell it.” Twenty minutes later, we’re at the gate of the world’s oldest botanical garden, established in the 16^th century by the University for the study of medicinal plants. Centered on a spurty fountain, four large square subdivided plots lie within a circular perimeter, around which stands a grove of specimen trees, including an ancient fucking palm that Goethe kvelled about. The vegetation in the Orto Botanico is definitely past its peak, but the place offers us one more evocative connection to antiquity.

Not far is the Basilica di Sant’Antonio, the elaborate final resting place of St. Anthony of Padua. What makes this church different from all the others we’ve seen is the fact that it’s a center of active faith. People by the thousands come here to pray to ‘The Saint’ for medical miracles. There are creepy relics behind the altar and offertory candles of all sizes, used and unused. Worshipers bow their heads and press their palms against his tomb. On either side are spontaneous collages of photographs of the healed. Joss bridles at the religion stuff, but seeing it in action, seeing people honestly place their trust in the whatever has a bit of a mollifying effect.

Months ago I made a reservation for the two of us at a restaurant, Le Calandre. I want our trip to end with a really great meal and Le Calandre has three Michelin stars. Tasting menus, here we come! The menu (only mine had prices) offers three tasting menu price points or, as our waiter explains, if we wish, a complete eleven-course meal. We opt for the doable seven-course option. It will cost us two hundred and fifty euros apiece. Trepidation soon gives way to the giggles. The food is crazy good and we’re just having so much fun. Three hours later, we call a cab.

We thought we were headed to Padua but we got distracted and spent the day looking for Petrarch’s mummified cat. There’s a unique geological area southwest of Padua called the Euganean Hills comprised of conical hills of volcanic origin. It was here, in the town of Arquà Petrarca, that the poet Petrarch retired from the world near the end of his life. His home may be the oldest writer’s house museum in the world. The dwelling has had countless visitors since the 14^th century and, yes, is reputed to contain the remains of his beloved pet cat.

We find the old poet’s digs only to discover 1) it’s fucking chiuso lunedì and 2) we’re famished. Signs point to a place called L’Enoteca di Arquà and we follow ‘em. We’re offered a table by the railing of the terrace. The day is perfectly balmy. We share the meat and cheese plate and the homemade marinated mushrooms and kill two bottles of sparkling water.

Onward to Padua! Today, we will return our VW, it having served us mightily and well. But first we locate our apt for the next two nights. It’s in the middle of the outskirts of the University of Padua campus which is in the middle of Padua. The rental agent is charming and makes us feel at home. Onward! Effortlessly, I fill the tank with many litres. The Hertz folks are mildly amused to see us. The tension of the ding inspection melts away as we’re given a thumbs up. And we just walk away.

I discover an interesting osteria and make a fucking reservation. Boy, are we glad I did, because it got packed. It’s just a modest place with a two-page menu. We order the medley of Padovan appetizers (yes, we love bacala) and what’s listed simply as ‘Spaghetti Bolognese’ but is the best iteration of gluten I’ve ever encountered. Osteria Ai Scarponi – remember the name.

We are back on line at the Van Gogh exhibition, intent on following the audio guide this time. The real benefit of the guide is that it slows me down and I rest on each selection. Some of the explanations add to the enjoyment, some are just stem-winders, but seeing this a second time adds immeasurably to the thrill of being in Vincent’s company. Some of the paintings are now imprinted, though perhaps temporarily, in my old memory bank.

Palladio’s Teatro Olympico is not far. It is the oldest extant indoor theater in Europe, planned by him and completed after his death. The first performance took place in 1585. The Globe Theater in London was built in 1599. The onstage scenery, designed by another, depicts a full-height Roman-style screen of statuary, columns, and niches of painted wood and stucco, with three open arches that give the appearance of long streets receding into the distance. We sit in the amphitheater of wooden tiers and gape at the stage. I can imagine Medea killing her kids right here.

This is followed by the aimless search for fucking lunch. When your dogs are barking and the breakfast croissant and coffee are but fumes, what better time to try to make a well-considered decision where to sit and have a midday meal. Meandering is hopeless, then I spot a spot that looked attractive yesterday and still does. Osteria Monelli. It’s dimly lit. They miraculously have a table (this is Sunday after-church / brunch hour). The food is slow to arrive, but my gnocchi in squash purée and Joss’ piece of perfect tuna would set the tone for the rest of the day.

But. A stop back at Campo Marzio reveals that housekeeping has staged a fragrance assault on Joss’ room. She demands and gets new bed linen, but the ever-expiring insect on her windowsill remains extant. We rest the puppies.

In the late afternoon, we take the car and drive to Palladio’s most iconic building, Villa Rotonda. This is his most copied, adapted, and historically important work. Basically, it’s a four-story domed cube with pedimented porticos and grand staircases off each of the four sides. The perfect symmetry and luminous golden stone in the slanting sunlight create an ambience of classic serenity. The interior is closed to us, but wandering the grounds is eminently satisfying. An adaptation of Don Giovanni was filmed there in the late ‘70s.

Several hundred meters from La Rotonda lies Villa Valmarana ai Nani. The three buildings that comprise this ‘villa’ were lavishly frescoed in the 17the century by Giandomenico Tiepolo and his son, Giambattista. The motifs range from rustics at play to exotic Asian tableaux to mythological dramas. Hundreds of putti. The Valmarana family still owns the complex as evidenced by the hoard of family snapshots. FYI: the ‘Nani’ are sculpted dwarves. A cockamamie ‘legend’ involving an ugly princess ignorant of her looks recounts the petrifying of her dwarvish retinue. Walking back to the car, I am struck by the autumn colors of the trees and vines, having completely internalized the morning’s Vincent exhibit.

Once again, we take our chances finding a place to eat. I’ve written down a couple choices on a scrap of paper. Our first try nets us a table. Fuori Modena is its name. I can’t remember what our main courses were, but for an appetizer Joss ordered Culatello di Zibello, a thinly-sliced, aged pork of exquisite flavor. It has an apple scent and melts in your mouth. I’ve never tasted anything like it. It’s not available in the US.

It’s such a perfect day. I’m glad I spent it with you.