This time of year, I always love remembering a wonderful trip I took to Italy in 2005.  It was my second time to Italy and, this time, I made a special point not to dash from place to place, trying to glance at everything, rather to linger and ponder special things.

In Florence,  I went alone late in the day and lay on the floor of the Baptistry and looked at the ceiling until it was too late to join my group for dinner.

In Venice, in the Academia, I sat on a step in front of Titian’s “Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple,” again missing dinner and the Peggy Guggenheim.

I took the vaporetto to Murano and spent most of a day finding just the right piece of glass to buy.

And in Rome, I stood in front of  “The School of Athens” with a college art student who said he could die happy now having seen it.

Lately, we’ve all been thinking about the tragic figure that is our current American president.  He is presently on a whirlwind world tour.  He is the most powerful man in the world, as people are fond of saying.  Yet, he will spend less than twelve hours in Rome. I doubt he will ever even realize that may well be the greatest tragedy of his shallow, superficial life.

I am very lucky:  I’ve checked off all the places on my bucket list, but there are definitely some places I would  return to again and again and again.  East Portal.  The Nile.  Florence, of course.  And Rome. By all means, Rome.