15. September 2011 by Nancy Pinard.

My husband and I arrived in Milan yesterday after the (for me) sleepless overnight flight that is penance for the luxury of European travel, meaning no taxi fare seemed too high if it meant we might settle in at our hotel sooner. And Tremezzo, the small village on the west shore of Lake Como, midlake, where I had booked our room, couldn’t have made it more worth it. What overwhelmed me more than the lake itself, is the geography of the basin it’s in. Carved out by a glacier, the foothills surround the lake are covered in lush foliage with darker vertical veins, which in the haze of humidity appear velvetine, like the iris petals in the flower paintings of Georgia O’Keefe.

On the lake shore, the Hotel Villa Marie, complete with its own cupola (on left, below), is the most picturesque in a row of tile-roofed and pastel-painted Italian villas.

This is not where Albert and Mileva stayed, though it’s one km from the Villa Carlotta where they disembarked from their ferry to tour the house and gardens. The ferry boats are still the most efficient means of transportation to various villages on the lake, so today Beloved and I boarded the “slow boat,” (Centro Lago in Italian), and took a gestalt tour of the mid-lake villages, including Bellagio, home to luxury shops, and Varenna, a charmingly-preserved fishing village with an 11^th century stone chapel and unrestored 14^th century frescoes. Tomorrow we will tour the Villa Carlotta. Today it was focused on what it feels like to be here. This morning, in addition to the lapping of water against the stone walls that separate the land from the lake, I heard the church bells ring two strokes with a non-melodious “clong.” I heard the rigging of the sailboats clinking against aluminun masts in the tiny harbor in front of the hotel, but masts were wood in 1901, so perhaps chattering would be a better word. Regrettably, the traffic noise is loud now on the road that wends around the lake. Albert, unlike Beloved, would not have needed to jerk Mileva from the path of drivers speeding around blind curves.

At our sidewalk cafe dinner last night we sat at a small table among many other couples at small tables, all speaking in whispers, until, as invariable happens with my friendly husband, we all began talking to one another. Beside us was a couple of honeymooners, obvious and perfect for imagining Albert and Mileva, though they were not yet married on their May, 1901 trip, but their heads likely inclined toward one another in the same way, though Albert didn’t drink so they wouldn’t have shared the same bottle of expensive wine, (red, of course.) Still, they might have lingered long, ordering each course and eating it before deciding on the next, sharing each as if unable yet to acknowledge different preferences, she serving out his helping first while he sat by helpless and helplessly in love.

Around these two sat three couples of oldlyweds, none of us jaded, I hope, but clearly in a different place as we lounged back in the wicker chairs, drinking from different liters of wine—his red, hers white, ordering not multiple courses—who can eat like that after 35?–but trying not to lick the plate of our measley one course apiece. One man called the rising, almost-full moon, the sun and told the groom to enjoy the next six months as if life would never be like that again. Perhaps not, but I didn’t sense regret from any table. The most senior were a couple from Wales and England, clearly enjoying their holiday together, though they were supposed to come six months earlier for a wedding and had to postpone for his illness. I was thinking how Mileva would have envied us all—the young lovers and the mature ones with our children grown and ably fending for themselves–she who was abandoned and left to care for a schizophrenic son.

Now my patient Beloved waits, out on the balcony of our room, overlooking the lake. The rocky tops of the Alps to the north—in fact in Switzerland—turn pink at sunset. His wife writes on, but it is dinner time and he is getting hungry. I suspect we will return to our same cafe, The Helvetia, because our Welsh and British friends—last night the end of their holiday here–confirm it has the freshest food in Tremezzo.  The veal in mushrooms and wine the newlyweds were eating looked stupendous.

Posted in Generating Fiction from History and/or Fact, historical fiction, Tremezzo, Bellagio, Varenna, Italy, Lake Como, Einstein, Mileva Maric, Research methods, reading, writing | 1 Comment »

16. June 2011 by Nancy Pinard.

It’s not a rocky peak in Switzerland, Italy, or France, or so I learn from a 1908 volume called Peep at Many Lands:  Switzerland by John Finnemore (London:  Adam and Charles Black).   It’s one of those lovely old books, embossed red cloth cover with no picture, kept in the storage at Dayton Metro Library.  The book that is, not the alp.

No, an alp, in 1908 at least, is a meadow on the way up to those rocky peaks.  The peak is above the treeline, the alp below.  The livestock of Switzerland graze on the lush grass that springs up along with a kaleidoscope of wild flowers after snow melt.  In times past–the time of the book’s writing–there was great celebration in the villages on the day the livestock, cattle, sheep, and goats, would leave the lowland barns behind, flowers woven into their horns, to begin the two-day climb to the alp for their summer’s stay.  The owners and their sons stayed in rude chalets on the mountains all summer long to tend the flocks.  Where cattle were grazing, the men set up cheese-making dairies.  Alpine Swiss cheese is not a standardized product, but one that takes on the flavor of the particular herd in a particular alp’s dairy.

What about storms?  The shepherds gather the flock into circles where they stand with heads down to weather what comes, including thunder, lightning and hail.

Does this still happen?  I’ll be there in September, to find out.  Meanwhile, there’s the internet.  Why is it relevant?  Because Einstein and his mother and aunts and cousins vacationed for a month each summer in the Swiss Alps.  It’s best I  know what I’m talking about–in the parlance of the day.

Posted in Switzerland, Italy, reading, Research methods | No Comments »

10. January 2011 by Nancy Pinard.

I continue to discover that not having seen the landscapes or experienced the culture where important scenes took place is slowing my progress, as if setting were essential to the generation of words.  In service of moving the book ahead, I’m researching various settings.

Lake Como in Northern Italy, 40 km north of Milan, is one such important setting–where Albert and Mileva celebrated his potentially landing a job (after nine futile months of searching) in May of 1900 with a tryst.  I found Roland Merullo’s book The Italian Summer (result of a library catalog subject search for Lake Como) and also blog photos from people who have been there.   Such a beautiful, romantic place!  See for yourself by clicking on the pictures:

Posted in Italy, Lake Como, Mileva Maric, Einstein | 2 Comments »