Museo Villa Puccini on Torre del Lago in Tuscany is a wonderful place. Why? It tells me what gave Giacomo Puccini the inspiration to write my favorite operas.
The house isn’t fantastic, but when we went there I recognized a photo on the piano of a very young girl and her grandfather and knew this grand-daughter would be showing us around and telling stories.
As I saw the home, grounds and lake I liked to get a feeling for what inspired someone to write such great works as La Boheme and Madame Butterfly.
Today, I’m a top contributor to a major travel site and they’d rather know the entrance fee and whether they accept strollers. You know who you are because you won’t let me get in touch to write reviews of esoteric things like music, images, or experiences that don’t fit the common format.
I’ve an entirely new concept for you but you don’t have a phone and won’t answer email. So people worldwide will be bereft to never have seen Artemesia Gentilleschi’s self-portrait. She was the only female artist of the Renaissance known today and I saw it at the Queen’s Gallery on a brief viewing and it is now back at Buckingham Palace for no-one to see. The marvel is that I joined a group of women at the corner of the room with the painting and it was a remarkable experience to talk of art and women.
Travel sites don’t want to hear about that, only about whether you traveled couples, single or on business.
At the 1964 World’s Fair, I was five and my parents took me down an escalator to a blackened room. In the middle was a spotlight on the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Michelangelo’s Pieta. The escalator brought us right back up without an opportunity to exit to see the work. A few years later some jerk shot it so it is now under supreme security. I went back at age 25 to the Sistine Chapel to see it again. It still takes my breath away.
No travel site will let me write that, they want to know if it has restrooms.
I saw the legendary Scylla and Charybdis and took a yacht through the Strait of Corinth. There are stories around that.
All the travel site wants to know if I traveled within the past year or my review is invalid. How long has the Parthenon stood? Will it have changed but a few centimeters if I was there ten years ago?
Perhaps this story site will change a bit not just about travel but things of the heart wherever they may be, at home or abroad. I may still do hotel and restaurant reviews but am limited by that company’s small-mindedness. They say thanks for being a top contributor but don’t want ideas so I’ll plant some here to make travel better for all, and share stories that may stir your heart. Cheers, Dee
Cooking with Dee 