Sunday,
May 20, 2007
Book: About
The
ANNOTICO Report
Prior
to About Italy: Puglia to the
Po, David D. Hume has written;Cities of the Italian Renaissance
and About
Tour
Currents
Star News Online.com
May
20,2007
As David D. Hume sees it, most Americans miss the real
Hume should know what he's talking about. Ever since he and his wife Cathy
retired to
Between trips, he's shared his experiences with armchair travelers in such
volumes as Cities of the
Italian Renaissance and
About
Hume introduces readers to such out-of-t he-way gems as Paestum, with Greek
temples that were ancient before Rome was built; Piacenza, where Giuseppi Verdi's house is preserved as a shrine; Pisa,
which has much more to offer than an off-kilter tower; and Perugia "where
the chocolate comes from."
Between travelogues, Hume also dishes up details on ancient Roman
road-building, the convoluted family trees of Renaissance popes, and the real
scoop on Lucrezia Borgia (who apparently wasn't as
bad as she's made out to be) - "the byproducts of a disordered
education," Hume said, with a chuckle.
Hume, a Yale graduate, knows his stuff - but he didn't know modern Italian
until he and Cathy began traveling there. "Your mind's like a muscle and
needs to be exercised," he said, "and one of the best ways to
exercise it is to learn an inflected language like Italian. Every time someone
speaks, there's this whole collection of inflections that can change the
meaning. You have to pay attention."
Fortunately, man y Italians speak at least some
English today and feel flattered when someone attempts their language, he
added. Besides, any tourist can quickly figure out simple phrases like the
abbreviation for "double bed."
Not all of the Humes' trips have been smooth. (For
hotels rated less than 3 stars, he advised, always check the bed before you
agree to move in.) Still, he finds, the overwhelming courtesy and generosity of
most Italians quickly smooths over any misadventures.
An avid sailor, Hume is especially proud of his first book, Blueberry: A Boat of the Connecticut Shoreline (1994), an account
of his building and sailing a somewhat unorthodox gaff-rigged cutter around
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