Vittorio Emmanuele II Monument, by Marta Steele

There were exceptions, though. I could not stare at the Parthenon long enough, even on blazing summer afternoons that turned the back of my neck so dark I must have ascended to another ethnic group: the Ethiopians or the gods. I felt transported into cinematics: the building, my favorite in the world, swayed enticingly before me in the heat of the air. It became a large grin. The columns were noticeably curved yet defiantly straight à la fois: one of the first optical illusions we know of. They created the illusion of straightness this way and besides that, a structurally far sounder edifice; ask an architect for the science behind this (which to my knowledge they haven’t been able to duplicate). All I know is the fascination it held out to me. I also loved the palace of Minos in Knossos almost as much, for all the colors, so completely defying our concrete stereotypes, for the labyrinth that actually still stands, though reason defies the probability of the myths we associate with the enigmatic place. It did happen, I told the smirking clouds. And more than that, something happened that has fired and swayed and captivated some very vital foundations of thought itself: I stand on the grounds where all this occurred, trying to let it happen again, through me, to give rebirth to it and revive, à la fois, our suffering, parched, vestigial civilization.

Pompei, by Marta Steele

The wealthier classes early on added the dimension of the genteel tour to our concept of travel: the accoutrements of trunks laden with elegant excess and overkill, the lavish balconied hotels, horse-drawn coaches, languid boat rides, ruins virtually untouched, remnants enticingly strewn about for the taking, reams of journal pages scrawled in studied calligraphy and grammatical exactitude that would make even educated people these days wistful and more attentive not only to their content but how they express it, the luxury of months on end en voyage rather than the rationed days and hours of the disciplined middle-class work schedule, with holidays carefully trimming either end of the furlough if possible: oh, they could journey, they could think, they could breathe, they could experience, not just glance, rush, and desperately attempt to stretch out the experience with the various late-twentieth-century portables that burden us: Camcorders, digital cameras, automatics, pocket recorders, laptop computers, $99 sets of matched luggage on wheels courtesy of Sears or Penneys and packaged tours courtesy of the Greeks in New York City with all their hometown contacts. We can glimpse their luxury and envy it, especially wish that all the sites worth seeing weren’t so traveled by everyone else so we could get a better idea of what they really looked like in antiquity.

Assisi from a Distance at Dusk, by Marta Steele

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