un anno

March 25-31, Tuscany school trip

2009-10-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

This trip was informative but a little hectic. We revisited some of the places later, with friends and again with Marg&Ken&Henry.

The first stop was Pienza, a small hilltop town (between Montalcino and Montepulciano on the map). Pienza is named after Pope Pius II Piccolomini who started major reconstruction of his home town in the second half of the 15th century, aspiring to create a "perfect" town. Pienza is cute, like a miniature Siena. It is also famous for its locally produced Pecorino cheeses, which we liked a lot.

This picture of the cathedral is all we have from this visit to Pienza:

But there are many, of course, on the web (for example, http://www.giorgiozanetti.ca/centro_italia/toscana/pienza_comune.jpg) and our own from a later trip. Next to the cathedral is Palazzo Piccolomini; we didn't get to see it this time but visited it later -- a worthwhile visit and a nice view of Val d'Orcia from the terrace there.

Our base for the first three nights was Hotel Villa San Giorgio near Poggibonsi -- a nice place for a big group, strategically located in the center of places to visit (25 km from Siena). You could see San Giminiano on a clear day, 11 km away. Our double-decker couldn't make it through to the hotel, so every day we had a nice walk 20-minute down the hill to the bus (and up the hill after a long day of sightseeing -- still nice).

Students chilling on the patio at sunset.

... and yet another group photo.

(I guess M was taking the picture and i was checking business email inside.)

Next day, a trip to Siena, a brief guided walking tour.

This view is from the "Facciatone," the wall of the unfinished grandiose facade

of the "new" cathedral. It was left from the glory days in the 14th century , when Siena tried to enlarge its cathedral to make it bigger than Florence's. The project was interrupted by the plague, only the unfinished wall remain.

Then Palazzo, Pubblico, the Hall of the Nine,

the "Good Government/Bad Government" frescoes by

Ambrogio Lorenzetti. According to the Comune di Siena

web site, this is the first cycle of secular paintings in history

of art. A fine example of 14th century "socrealizm."

On the other wall, the famous Simone Martini's equestrian

portrait with a horse standing on two left legs:

Around the corner from Piazza del Campo...

... little visited Siena Synagogue, with these commemorative plaques on the wall:

The bottom one says that on June 28, 1799, 13 jews were burned in Piazza del Campo by the fanatics of the Viva Maria antijacobin revolt.

100 Posts

2009-10-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

It turns out I had made exactly 100 posts since our arrival to Viterbo. A nice milestone. I interrupted blogging in March 2009 for no good reason, when we still had over three months in Italy left. Perhaps I felt the end of our stay was in sight. Now 6 months later, and back in the U.S. for 3 months, the memories are blurred, but the photos are as sharp as ever and waiting to be organized. So here it goes.

Friday March 13, Campo Marzio

2009-03-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Another school trip to Rome.

First, a Giotto exhibit at the Vittoriano museum complex at Piazza Venezia. A big event [1, 2, 3] -- made me a little dizzy.

Then, goodbye students -- lunch at "L'Orso 80" (located at via del Orso 37). A little overbearing and overrated [1, 2], if you ask me. So I posted my own review. A spread of too many appetizers made me a little dizzy, too. I must be developing Stendhal's syndrome (a.k.a. Florence syndrome). We'll see on the upcoming trip to Florence. But M liked it.

After lunch, Ara Pacis [1, 2, 3] and Mausoleo di Augusto [1, 2], then a couple of churches near Piazza Navona, in search of Caravaggio. Madonna di Loreto in San Agostino was lovely, but The Calling of Saint Matthew and The Martyrdom of St Matthew at San Luigi dei Francesi were closed for restoration (or for removing the damage from the previous restoration). The façade of the church was closed, too. BTW, a good complete Caravaggio site: http://www.castelmeteo.it/arte/Caravaggio.htm.

Then a train back to Viterbo.

March 8

2009-03-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

The international women's day is widely celebrated -- many restaurants offer special deals. Mimosa blossoms everywhere:

M got nostalgic.

Puglia

2009-03-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

The long-awaited trip to Puglia, February 23 - March 5, 11 days 10 nights, was both relaxing and hectic. Relaxing, because we were driven, lodged, fed, taken on guided tours, and entertained; hectic because we had too many short stops in too many little towns where we saw too many unremarkable sights. On the 7th day (aren't you supposed to rest?) the hecticity has taken its toll, and we left our camera in a restaurant in Otranto. So no personal pictures, only maps...

... and links. We left on Monday, 2/23. The first stop was in Paestum (again, see December 9). Next morning we looked at the Paestum temples and museum and headed further south, to Matera.

Matera is in Basilicata, near the Puglia border. The main attraction in Matera is the so-called Sassi di Matera, which are two ancient districts of town where houses are carved into rock, basically caves. Nice picture -- we were there. And lots of pictures here.

The caves date back to prehistoric men, so Matera is one of the oldest known settlements in Italy. Unfortunately, the Sassi were still inhabited in the 1950s -- people living in extreme poverty in cave dwellings together with farm animals with virtually no windows, no water, no even outhouses (collected the stuff in big pots inside). The child mortality rate was 50%. Finally the government closed the area and moved the people to modern housing. Not just closed, blocked the view of it from the main square of town!

Now they are trying to revive the Sassi as a tourist attraction: set up a tiny exhibit of the past life in a cave house, even talk about "negative" architecture (carved out instead of built up). All this is pretty sad. The tour guide girl said her grandmother keeps asking her what exactly tourists find there. But it is pretty unique and a UNESCO protected site since 1993.

Matera's other claim to fame is the movies. Mel Gibson shot here The Passion of the Christ (one of the desolate hills seen from the main square served as Golgotha). Giuseppe Tornatore shot here pieces of his L'uomo delle stelle (The Star Maker), which is one of my favorite films.

We didn't sleep in a cave, but moved to a friendly four-star hotel in Massafra in Puglia about 60 km away.

The next morning we started in real Puglia: first Taranto on the west coast, (the archeological museum, then lunch), then Galipoli (port, fish market), then hotel in Galatina (we stayed there for three nights, looking at the sights around).

Galatina is the center of Salento, which is the Griko area in Puglia. The Griko language is still spoken by some old people in a few communities. We visited Calimera, Corigliano, Sternatia, Martignano, I think. In Martignano a local dance group (3 people) performed traditional songs and dances for us (with the audience participation). Too bad the pictures are lost. Then we went up from the dance cellar to taste and buy local wine and snacks. (M managed to buy a little vase used for decoration.)

Our guide explained that the tarantella originated in the 16th-17th centuries when it was performed in loud and colorful ceremonies in a public square to cure people, mostly women, afflicted by a kind of hysteria believed to be caused by a tarantula bite. According to the guide, the condition was common because women were locked up in houses and went nuts; she also said tarantula bites are not toxic. The wikipedia article on tarantism says the whole thing might have been a ploy to engage in bacchanalias right under the church's nose. Galatina has a fountain from which the victims of tarantism drank: the water was believed to have curative powers. The fountain was presumably given to the town as a gesture of gratitude for their hospitality by St. Peter, who happened to pass through. The fountain functioned until 1970s, but then was closed due to the unhygienic conditions: the victims were supposed to throw up after drinking the water -- back into the fountain...

In Galatina, 59 young Americans jumped on a 90-year-old man in his little front yard: he spoke Griko. He was supposed to possess special wisdom because he stayed in the same place all his life (he worked as a mechanic, said he still tries to work). Our English teacher later wrote a cheesy song about the man:

...
Ninety years have I lived in this same house,
Her stones brought from our grandfathers' fields,
Keep the sun off our backs in the summer,
Chill our bones when the Mistral won't yield.
And there in the same bed I was born in
Lovers have moaned, their newborn have cried.
One sundown soon I'll lie down there
And by morning's sun I will have died.

Refrain:

Non prendere le brutte strade,
Know that god lives in the back of love's eye,
That your blood runs in the veins of your children,
That uprooted the tree will soon die.

etc.

When we got back to Viterbo, he translated it into Italian for his presentazione orale and sang it in our Italian class -- pretty clever. I, like an idiot, talked about Caravaggio. (Actually it wasn't so bad. The Simon Schama's BBC film about Caravaggio is quite interesting -- now also on youtube.)

In Sternatia we visited an ancient underground frantoio (olive oil press), converted into a little museum. There was a network of these where people worked and hid from saracen invasions.

On March 1 we headed back up north, to Alberobello. This is the town of trulli, quaint houses with round roofs made of rocks, a UNESCO International Human Resource. The tourist area of town looks like a fairy tale. It was pretty warm, by the way, but not summer. The town's name has to do with albero belli, a "war" tree, not a beautiful tree. We saw a tiny trulli museum (in a trullo, of course). Some of the books on the gift stand dealt with fancy engineering theories on how the round roofs made of rocks stay up without any cement. The history of Trulli is on the web.

In the morning we headed for a guided tour of Bitonto, a small picturesque town, in a hunt for il barocco leccese (that is, baroque churches in the province of Lecce). (We had had already seen fine samples earlier in Lecce: the cathedral, the Santa Croce basilica). Here is the Bitonto cathedral.

From Bitonto, further up the east coast to Trani. We made it to Trani right in time to see its cathedral in the sunset. Its location seems unusual, right on the sea shore. Here is a rare surviving picture taken by M with her little camera:

The cathedral is built of local yellow stone. In the late 1800s it was scraped inside completely clean of all decorations, baroque and otherwise, presumably to restore its original condition. Indeed, nice, white, and clean. So much so, that some of the columns look all chewed up. Must be good for organ concerts.

Next day, a guided tour of Castel del Monte, a huge octagonal puzzle (see picture) that Frederick II ordered built from his precise drawings to baffle scholars and amateurs for centuries. They are still looking for its purpose and golden ratios everywhere. Frederick never set a foot there. This is another UNESCO World Heritage site.

Later a stop in Monte Sant'Angelo. The main attraction there is the Sanctuary built over a cave where archangel St. Michael has been appearing (no less than 4 times). This is the end of the popular pilgrimage from Mont Saint Michel in Brittany. Feels like we've completed one!

Our last stop was Vieste, a small resort town on Promontorio Del Gargano. The weather didn't cooperate (rain, cold wind) but the kids had a good time on the beach in the rain...

We haven't been to Bari. My general impression of the countryside and small towns is that Puglia is pretty poor and underdeveloped. It is a wannabe tourist destination and is quickly losing its authenticity, while lacking really interesting sights as compared to other places in Italy.

Sunday morning excursion

2009-02-16T04:33:00.000-08:00

Another archeotuscia morning trip -- this time to the necropoli of San Giovenale, near Blera, about 40 minutes from Viterbo.

A happy sunny day, still a bit chilly.

Lots of people on this trip...

... and lots of commotion. The group has become visibly friendlier to foreigners since M joined me on these trips.

Found a lost baby lamb in the field:

Several women felt like petting him (some of the men had more sinister thoughts).

A walk near Bomarzo

2009-02-09T06:03:00.000-08:00

Sunday. Another morning walk with the archeotuscia group.

This is a strange "monument" carved into a big rock:

Etruscan? Roman? Who knows.

These trips end by lunch time. We had pasta at La Cantinella, finally a place in Viterbo that we both liked. The only trouble, they give you a menu on 20 pages with 300 kinds of spaghetti (they are in the Guinness Book of Records). Luckily a helpful waitress suggested 3 or 4.

Friday 2/6 -- Musei Capitolini

2009-02-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

I haven't been here for many years... The museum has been expanded and improved a lot. La Lupa is still there:

Scholars are still arguing about its provenance: the Etruscans or 13th century? I didn't know the twins were added much later, in the 15th century. Here are a couple of SYA girls posing with La Lupa:

La Lupa was on their list of things to visit and on their Ancient History quiz the following Monday.

The original equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius is now inside in a special hall (a copy stands on Campidoglio):

It has been restored after the 1979 dynamite attack.

There is an open balcony in the Tabularium on the lower floor with a perfect view of the forum:

Friday 2/6 -- La Centrale Montemartini

2009-02-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

La Centrale Montemartini is the second stop of the day. The former power plant on via Ostiense, named after the engineer Montemartini, was used in the 90s to house temporarily the surplus from Musei Capitolini and for an experimental exhibit, then became a permanent museum. Here ancient statues (mostly headless) are intermixed with 1930s steam and diesel engines and other heavy machinery. Looks cute and still reeks of machine oil.

Here is a very modern-looking fanciulla seduta -- a Roman copy from a Greek original (from sala caldaie -- "the hall of the heaters") :

Here is a better picture and other photos.

Friday 2/6 -- F & I

2009-02-06T10:58:00.000-08:00

The day happily ended at Fabrizio and Isabella's, with a cooking lesson (pasta con vongole, mozzarella buffala con puntarelli e alici):

After supper, a tape of Carlo Verdone's comedy (Un Sacco Verdone, 1982), unfortunately most of it not very easy to follow. Here is an easier one (La telefonata) on YouTube.

Rennes

2009-01-28T04:23:00.000-08:00

M went to Rennes Wednesday through Sunday, ostensibly for a meeting of all the math teachers.

Remember Rennes...

... Saturday morning trips to the market...

All the math books out... I'm sure for the picture:

Si mangia bene in Rennes...

Visiting with friends:

Meanwhile, I had to stay back and review 5 levels of math, from algebra to calculus with a bunch of rowdy kids (some of them nice, others rude) on Wednesday, then administer tests and grade all 60 of them! Please remind me not to ever get close to a school...

Ostia Antica

2009-01-25T05:20:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile... A Friday school trip to Ostia. A big town of ruins on a cold day:

Had everything, even a synagogue or two...

The students were supposed to do a treasure hunt for famous buildings with a map, but mostly fooled around:

... and Civita di Bagnoreggio

2009-01-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

A lonely Sunday trip with the group called Archeotuscia of Viterbo to Civita di Bagnoreggio. It's, sort of, Viterbo's Grand Canyon:

Not bad if you haven't seen the real thing.

We didn't stop at the village, just took the trail up to the canyon and back.

The group was about 30 people. The place is about 30 km from Viterbo; someone gave me a ride. On the way back, we stopped at a muddy field, which had some buried remnants of walls. Looked to me like an abandoned foundation of a 19th century building. But they said "Roman." The "archeologists" then happily dived into the mud and emerged with a few suspiciously modern-looking clay roof tile fragments. Took me a while to wash my shoes at home. Next Sunday to Sorano...

Palatino and Colosseo

2009-01-20T05:06:00.000-08:00

Friday Jan 16: an all-day school trip to see the forums, the Palatino, and the Colosseo.

Nice sunny day...

Somehow, I never took the Coliseum very seriously. In particular, I didn't know that it was built on the spoils from the Judean war:

I didn't know either that it is called Colosseo not because it's huge but because it had a huge statue at the entrance.

Inside, an interesting exhibit about protecting art as national heritage, including this cute 19-th century statue "Young Michelangelo carving a faun's head."

Sicily trip: Dec 22, 2008 - Jan 4, 2009

2009-01-19T09:20:00.000-08:00

We left Viterbo on Monday, quite ready for the break. A train to Rome (2 hours), another train in Rome, a third train to Naples (2 hours), a walk to the port (we had very little stuff with us), an overnight boat to Palermo.

Off the ship in Palermo around 7 am, breakfast in a bar, walked to the Hertz office in town, left our bags there and went for a quick stroll around the center. This is Politeama, one of the two grand theaters in the center:

Then an early lunch -- couldn't resist sandwiches from a street vendor at the market -- then back to pick up our car, and off we go!

Sicily trip: Dec 23, Tenuta Stocatella

2009-01-19T05:36:00.000-08:00

The first thing that strikes you in the countryside after Palermo is how neat and clean everything is. (Palermo is pretty dirty: you need to always keep an eye on the ground and dodge dog shit.) It was a very pleasant drive to the south, and the day was gorgeous:

Our agriturismo, Tenuta Stocatella, is located up on a hill, about 3 km from the sea. You could see the sea from there:

It is a big farm, with vineyards, olive groves, etc. Also a little orchard:

We spent 6 days there. Would I recommend it? Possibly, but for a shorter stay. It is off the beaten track, with pretty countryside around, close to the sea, next to a huge forest reserve for long walks, convenient to major attractions on the west coast -- Segesta, Selinunte, Trapani, also not far from Agrigento.

There was little "agri" though, mostly "turismo." The place seems to be run by two friends and their wives; one of the men is the chef. They didn't want or had no time to deal with us much. No chance to learn anything about their farm, no animals (except dogs), no real hospitality. We expected a warmer reception.

There were no other guests, except one couple with a kid -- they stayed for a couple of days. But they had two big banquets, about 80 people each -- people came for pranzo, stayed for a few hours and left. Is that their main business? I'm not sure. That was Christmas time.

The room was comfortable; no Internet. The food was reasonably good but not spectacular. A carafe of freshly squeezed orange juice in the morning made my day. There are good restaurants in Sciacca, about 20 km away.

We arrived around 2:30 and went for a walk, accompanied by a friendly dog:

"Smelled the roses," so to speak.

And made plans for the next day:

Sicily trip: Dec 24, Selinunte

2009-01-19T04:48:00.000-08:00

Selinunte is a Greek settlement site located in a picturesque spot on the coast, only a few kilometers from our agriturismo. The colony was founded in 628 BC. The location is spectacular and the ruins of the temples are quite impressive.

Here you can walk on them all you want.

One of the temples is in "good" shape...

... only pieces remain from the others:

The colony was sacked in 409 BC by Segesta (see Dec 28) aligned with Carthage (the guidebook says: "In one of the most terrible massacres of the ancient world").

M saw this magpie...

("сорока" in Russian, gazza in Italian) and got nostalgic -- haven't seen one in years. She asked to add it to the blog. Why not?

We stopped at a bar in Selinunte for a Marsala tasting. It turns out Marsala, a local sweet wine, was "discovered" in 1773 by a Brit, John Woodhouse, and he made it popular.

From Selinunte, up to the hills to Castelvetrano. A picnic lunch near Chiesa della Santissima Trinita di Delia, named after the river Delia below. This is a cute 12th century church in Arab-Norman style...

-- now a private chapel for the family that owns the surrounding land.

From there up to Gibbelina Nuova. The old town was completely destroyed by the Bèlice earthquake in 1968. In a kind of social experiment, it was decided to abandon it and build nearby a new town from scratch. The result is Gibellina Nuova, built in a planned manner (or one might say, contrived, depending on one's taste). It has a "system" of piazzas, reminiscent of an ancient Greek or Roman town, a big theater, lots of outdoor statues commissioned to famous artists. It is conceived as a sort of monument and outdoor museum. In other words, "the whole production," a little incongruous. This is the "entrance" on the main highway:

I wouldn't want to live there!

Sicily trip: Dec 25, Mazara del Vallo

2009-01-19T04:33:00.000-08:00

On Christmas day a short ride to Mazara del Vallo and up to the hills. Mazara is a small town (pop. 51,000) on the sea. In the morning lots of people in the street, closed to traffic; first only men, later joined by women and children. Some people looking pompous, women wearing long fur coats, despite rather warm weather.

After a picnic lunch by the sea we went to town to browse with the rest of the people. The town is rather pleasant. We thought everything would be closed, but Museo del Satiro was open. The bronze statue of a dancing satir was fished out by the crew of a fishing boat by accident in 1998. (A year earlier, one of the satir's legs was found near the same spot.) The museum offers a 30-minute film describing the history of the find and the details of the restoration. See also a one-minute video on YouTube.

Back home early in the afternoon to rest and do some work before dinner at our agriturismo.

Sicily trip: Dec 26, Agrigento

2009-01-18T11:43:00.001-08:00

The famous Greek temples and ruins of Agrigento are interesting, but I think Paestum and Segesta (see Dec 28) are more impressive. We went to the museum first, because it was open only until 1 pm. The centerpiece is an original giant telamon (about 8 meters) in a big hall that describes the temple of Zeus.

A Greek vase (5th cent BC) with "a sacrifice to Apollo."

One of these was sold for over one million dollars -- and that was over 30 years ago.

Terracotta reliefs with molds, a rare find:

A cute statuette of a god:

Etc.

The temple is on the hill...

... overlooking pretty countryside.

I think these temples are not very photogenic: in pictures they look as if they are built from a toy construction set. In reality they are magnificent.

Some almond trees began to blossom -- the peak is in February. M picked some last-year almonds and brought a bag of them to Viterbo! They were edible!

After the ruins we stopped at the house where Pirandello was born and at his tomb.

In his will he asked to entomb the urn with his ashes in a simple rock somewhere in the countryside. They did that, near his house, under a lovely pine tree. We saw it in a picture, but apparently the tree had to be taken down -- they left a couple of pieces and planted a new tree:

Inside there was a little exhibit on Pirandello and the war, that is, WWI. It turned out he was swept by the patriotic surge, despite his generally ironic demeanor. Happens.

On the way back we stopped in Sciacca (about 20 km from our agriturismo) to check e-mail and find a place for dinner. We found an Internet point near the port, in a game hall packed with teenagers. Slot machines were ringing, music was blasting, and cigarette smoke went right up into our noses -- not a perfect place for computer work. But we managed to check e-mail and send a couple of messages.

As far as dinner is concerned, most places were closed, but one, by the port, was open and it was OK.

Sicily trip: Dec 27, Sciacca

2009-01-18T11:04:00.000-08:00

We took it easy that day. A long walk in the adjacent forest preserve, taking pictures of wild irises:

Then went for lunch at La Vecchia Conza in Sciacca (recommended by our guidebook). Antipasta mare della casa turned out to be a spread of a dozen seafood appetizers -- very good!

Then some of us took a nap, others wrote a few teacher comments. After our lunch, supper was out of the question.

The day ended with a visit to Baldassare "Baldo" Interrante's place near our agriturismo. Baldo is a local phenomenon. He grew up as an illiterate shepherd, left Sicily as a young man, went to Switzerland, got a heart disease, got a pacemaker (he claims the first in Europe), learned to make jewelry, made money, left his greedy wife (according to his story), came back to Sicily, bought a diciotto tumuli (about 7 acres?) of land, and converted his house into a mix of a theme park, ethnography museum, art studio, and junkyard. This is one of Baldo's installations:

Baldo has built half a dozen of these over 22 years, each in a separate hut.

Baldo's story is on the web, of course, like everything else (see p. 6). The local press loves his back-to-the-roots story. He also runs presepe vivante every Christmas, which is a re-enactment of nativity scenes with live actors (his family and friends) and live animals (a donkey, a calf). This is not uncommon in Italy. We missed the live "performance" because it was scheduled for the next day. Baldo also writes verses, a little simplistic to my taste: he went to school only until the 3rd grade. There is a sample on the web (for some reason accompanied by a funny picture of a rabbi!). He gave us his book of poetry, which includes newspaper clippings about him. He must be about 70 now. His daughter, about 25, didn't appear too enthusiastic about all that was going on around her. Or maybe she was just tired of acting in the presepe several times.

Sicily trip: Dec 28, West Coast

2009-01-18T08:16:00.000-08:00

On the 28th, our last day at Tenuta Stocatella, we went for a long tour of the west coast, with stops at Segesta, Trapani, Erice, and a night drive through Marsala:

Unfortunately, M left our camera at home!

Segesta is the site of an ancient Greek settlement. It has a very well preserved Doric temple and a theater on a hill, with spectacular views. From there you can see the sea. We spent a very lovely morning there, uninterrupted by picture taking...

It was lunchtime when we left Segesta, and we decided to go to Trapani to Trattoria Cantina Siciliana on via Giudecca, the place recommended in our guidebook. The lunch was good, but it set us back by a couple of hours and slowed us down in other ways. By the time we emerged, Santuario dell'Annunziata, the main attraction (one star), was closed. Well, as they say in Italy: "Non si può avere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca."

From Trapani we drove up a serpentine road to Erice (750 m above the sea level), and found the town completely covered by thick fog. Good thing M left our camera at home! We were able to make out vaguely the tower of the castle at which we were standing. Even in the fog, the town seemed "overtouristisized." The enterprising mayor, probably in cahoots with the local church authorities, set up a so-called "friendly tour of churches." They made posters with a little map of the tour, slapped numbers on a dozen churches and charged for admission!

We wanted to see also the salt factory near Trapani, but by the time we got there it was too dark, and it would be closed on a Sunday, anyway. That part of the coast is not pretty, with run-down subdivisions on unfinished, unpaved streets leading down to the sea. We then took the coastal road (by mistake) to Marsala, which at night looked like an unattractive blue-collor town.

We were home by 8, had oranges for supper.

Sicily trip: Piazza Armerina, Dec 29-31

2009-01-18T04:55:00.000-08:00

On the 29-th we left our agriturismo and went to our next stop, Piazza Armerina:

We planned to spend 3 days there. The idea was to see a little town in the interior, see the famous mosaics in Villa Romana del Casale, and possibly take side trips to Etna and Taormina.

B&B Armerino that our travel agent booked for us turned out to be a little unusual: a modern apartment on the 4th floor of a residential building. We had our own bath in the hall. The kitchen was locked up; Carla, the owner, a young woman, came every morning to make us breakfast. All this was OK, but obviously lacked any charm, and the place didn't have the Internet.

In general, things didn't work out quite as we expected. First, it turned out the roman villa was closed for restorations, so we saw the mosaics only on postcards and plates in a souvenir shop. They are also on the web. Second, the town itself turned out to be unremarkable. A couple of cute churches...

... not much else to see. Third, we were up in the mountains, and it was cold and rainy. We decided to drop our long-range trips because the fog wouldn't let us see anything, anyway. Instead we headed for Morgantina, just a few kilometers away, to see the ruins of the ancient Greek town.

Morgantina turned out to be quite spectacular.

At first we came to a side entrance, and there was no one there, so, knowing our luck, we thought it was closed -- it was Dec 31st after all. Only sheep and fog:

We entered through a hole in the fence, anyway. Soon the fog lifted and we saw some tourists as we approached the main area. (We walked back to the main gate and paid for admission.)

In Morgantina you can feel what a Greek town could look like.

And the countryside around is pretty. In other words, il luogo è molto suggestivo, just as the guide book said.

These are the remains of an oversized kiln:

There are pictures on the web from excavations in Morgantina by Princeton archeologists in the 1960s.

After the excavations we went to Aidone, a small town of 5000 nearby, for lunch and to see the archeological museum. It holds many finds from Morgantina. There was also a lot of plunder at the Morgantina site; in 1984, several magnificent silver objects from there surfaced at the Metropolitan Museum. A sign by the photograph at the Aidone museum states this silver is "pending return from the Metropolitan."

A very pleasant day overall.

Our New Year's Eve was unremarkable. We checked e-mail at a small tabacchi store, bought a bottle of wine and some sweets, and went home. M woke me up at midnight to see the fireworks on TV. We planned to leave for Palermo early the next morning, anyway.

Sicily trip: Palermo, Jan 1

2009-01-15T08:34:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

We arrived to Palermo on the first, around 11. It was a gorgeous sunny day and a holiday; the traffic not as crazy as usual. We found the Hertz office in town closed, of course, despite their assurances earlier that it would be open. We called their central office and they said there was no drop-off box at that location and suggested that we returned the car at the airport. We said "you must be kidding," parked across the street, and walked to our apartment, which was 3 minutes away. (It turned out later that Hertz did have an open entrance from another street, but no one told us about it.)

Our apartment was on a quiet street, 5 minutes from Politeama, not very pretty, but functional, private, and convenient. By a funny coincidence, Violetta, the owner, was Russian, but we were met by her husband who spoke only Italian. Nice guy. He immediately said that on a sunny day like this he would go to the beach to Mondello (a bus near our street, 20 minutes) and he would get panini there (and indicated by a gesture how good they are). We were a little tired of the fog and cold in the mountains and, frankly, of sightseeing, so we took his advice.

Mondello is indeed 20 minutes away; it is part of the so-called Conca d'Oro around Palermo. It is a little resort place around a beach, with its Kursaal, not the prettiest one you can find, but still nice on a warm winter day.

It wasn't exactly a T-shirt weather: M took her jacket off for the camera:

We couldn't find the promised panini at first, but when we reached the central square by the beach we suddenly found out where all the seafood and all the people were. All restaurants had fresh seafood displays out in the street. But M placed her bet on a kind of a street-side seafood bar that served octopus. We asked for a portion for two and a plate of mussels.

The guy at the counter fished out a big octopus from his pot, sliced it and served us some with lemon.

That and the sun pretty much made our day. We came home by 4 and decided to take it easy, took a nap, and even did a little work, believe it or not. Everything was closed anyway, and we had an ambitious plan for the next day. Vacation is hard work, you know -- you need a break once in a while.

Sicily trip: Palermo, Jan 2 morning

2009-01-15T06:20:00.000-08:00

We left the house at 8 to return the car to avoid getting a parking ticket and to have more time to see the sights. Our plan was to first go to Palazzo Reale (a.k.a. Palazzo dei Normanni) to see Capella Palatina, then the cathedral, then perhaps the modern arts gallery, then a puppet show. But on our way we stopped at the tourist office in the center, at Piazza Castelnuovo, across from the Politeama theater, and that led to a change of plans.

The two ladies there were extremely helpful (despite their tendency to speak in chorus). They found out for us that there was a special unannounced puppet theater performace at 11 at the historic theater near the cathedral. They also said that special night visits to Palazzo Reale and Capella Palatina were available for a few days only (molto suggestivo e emozionante according to their brochure). So we decided to go to Capella Palatina at night and went to the cathedral first:

Its architecture seems to have a little bit of everything, like the rest of Palermo.

Inside, there is a fenced section housing the Tombs of the Emperors and Kings. It holds simple tombs of Henry VI, Frederick II, Constance of Aragon, and three others.

Given the Christmas season, there was, of course, a presepe (or presepio, a nativity scene, literally "crib"):

We have seen dozens of those in churches, some made with antique figures, some cute. There was also a tacky celluloid baby Jesus on display:

The cathedral has a meridiana, a line that catches a ray of sun that comes from a small opening high up in the wall and crosses the line precisely at noon. This was used for synchronizing clocks.

The meridiana is decorated with the Zodiac signs, located to match the time of the year.

I realized that this was going to be a very long day...

From the cathedral we headed for the puppet theater, Teatro Argento (we actually stopped by earlier and reserved our seats). It turned out the special performance was for a tour group of 30-40 people, who completely filled the little theater.

The theater was founded in 1893. Here is the owner demonstrating a marionette:

These marionettes are big and heavy; the elaborate costumes and armor are all handmade.

A large photo on the wall shows the present owner with his... father:

The show was fun: first Orlando and Rinaldo fought over Angelica, then Carlomagno came and shamed them into going to fight the infidels together instead.

The infidels --

literally fell apart under the swords of "our" knights. Bodies split in half, heads rolling. It was a little "bloody," I thought, for the youngest spectators. In fact, as Mr. Argento explained, this kind of traditional Sicilian teatro dei pupi used to be for men only. The shows went in installments every night after supper. Here the royal "fool" is announcing the end of our puntata (installment):

Back in the streets... This is a traditional carretto siciliano, for some reason dirty and parked on a dirty street:

No tourists to carry?

We instinctively headed for the Capo market at Porta Carini where we had had unforgettable sandwiches when we first arrived to Palermo: cooked veal (or was it sheep's? or cow's?) heart (or was it stomach?); cooked in a pot set on a little cart, served on very fresh Sicilian sesame rolls. Please leave a comment if you know what I am talking about.

Unfortunately no heart vendor this time, so we had a quick snack at a fast (by Sicilian standards) place at the market and then took a cannoli break:

On to see Oratorio di S. Lorenzo, S. Anna, and Galleria d'Arte Moderna, peeking into S. Domenico and other churches on the way. I must say, these baroque churches in Palermo are quite cheerful, not at all severe like those medieval Roman churches in papal Viterbo.

Sicily trip: Palermo, Jan 2 afternoon

2009-01-15T04:30:00.000-08:00

We browsed around the the old town a bit, the ghetto, which seemed like a mixed neighborhood:

(The Jews were expelled, of course, under the Spanish rule, in 1492.)

A long stop at GAM -- Civica Galleria d'Arte Moderna located, since 2005, in the restored convent and church of S. Anna alla Misericordia. "Modern" is relative: the gallery presents the paintings and sculpture mostly of the 19-th and early 20-th centuries. The exhibit is arranged according to the accepted theory of evolution of artistic styles; it clearly shows little originality in Sicilian art of that time. I found it disappointing, given the rich history. M liked neoclassical mannerism: she found the white bull cute:

(I didn't care for the bull, thought he was... well, a bully, and Europa was not my type.) I generally like sappy art, so I thought Young Dante was cute.

After GAM, I had a beer and a snack in a bar and read a local paper while M was shopping. Don't ask. It was around 8 when we finally headed for the Royal Palace and recently cleaned up Capella Palatina (two stars), to see the 12-th century Byzantine mosaics (two stars).

Unfortunately this visit turned out to be most disappointing. I'd say it was organized in the "old Europe" style, with much regard for bureaucracy and little regard for the customer. First, it turned out, they took reservations. There was room for all but they made us wait until all the people with reservations were let in. Then they put together large guided groups that kept clashing into each other. Our guide was a young woman who happened to be the fastest talker in Italy, possibly in the universe. I've never met anyone who can talk so fast -- only in TV ads. She led us to the Capella. There were rows of chairs set up and she invited us to sit down and lectured for about 15 minutes, speaking too fast for me to catch a single word, except "normanni" and "mosaici." Then we got up and she led us out. M took a couple of pictures...

I'm not sure why -- there are better pictures on the web. We thought we would be able to go back and see the capella in peace, but they turned us away and dumped us instead into a hall that held a Picasso exhibit from the private collection of a German nuts and bolts manufacturer, who, apparently, gave money for the cleaning of the capella. Somehow, I felt cheated of the 12th century mosaics -- the hell with Picasso. We returned home very late -- Io molto stanco e un po' infelice, M non stanca e abbastanza felice. (But we saw very similar mosaics in Martorana, a 12th-century Norman church -- two stars -- the next day.)

Sicily trip: Palermo, Jan 3 morning

2009-01-14T12:28:00.000-08:00

The day started with a short walk to the old town to see several baroque churches and oratories combined into the so-called I Tesori della Loggia itinerary.

On our way, a monument to the victims of the struggle against the mafia:

It seemed to us rather unattractive and badly located near the port. The square is called Piazza XIII Vittime.

The oratories were built by wealthy merchant lodges for services and meetings at the very end of the 17-th century in a lovely baroque style. They are very similar to each other: three of the five were decorated by the same sculptor, Giacomo Serpotta, with stucco bas reliefs of the scenes from the life of Christ and allegorical statutes (cardinal virtues, etc.), and lots of playful cherubs:

Oratorio di San Lorenzo is the richest and the most elegant one. (It is in the same area, but actually, it wasn't part of this tour -- we saw it on the previous afternoon, on our way from the Gallery of Modern Art.) There are many more pictures on the web.

Sicily trip: Palermo, Jan 3 afternoon

2009-01-14T11:56:00.000-08:00

After I Tesori della Loggia, we walked to the Ballaro' street market, bought some stuff for the ship and had lunch at Il Bersagliere a small eatery on a side street, recommended by a fish vendor: "Si paga molto o si paga poco?"' -- "Poco" -- " "A centro metri, sempre dritto, si mangia bene, si paga poco."

The lunch turned into a real "slow food" affair. First we waited for 20 minutes outside for a table, because the place was packed. Then they put us at a table with perfect strangers, actually a nice couple from Palermo, Eugenia and Pietro. They apparently came to Ballaro' for the same reason we did: to try something different or "authentic." Then we waited at the table for half an hour to get served. Eugenia and Pietro were starving and, while waiting, finished their liter of white (we only ordered "un quartino" for me). So a conversation started, then pictures...

We did ask for caponata, and thus followed the first of Isabella's directions. (Caponata is sort of like Russian eggplant caviar, only much better, with olive oil, and added anciovi and pine nuts. M made some after our return to Viterbo -- came out pretty good.) The second part of Isabella's advice was to eat arancini, stuffed fried rice balls. Eugenia at our table got very enthusiastic about them and sent us to Bar Touring, which is famous for its arancini bomba. This small bar is located on Via Lincoln, near the Villa Giulia park. Each bomba is a dinner in itself:

After our big lunch we only managed to split one (we chose one stuffed with cheese). Very good!

Then it was time to go back to our apartment, pack quickly, and head for the ship.

Sicily trip: Naples, Jan 4

2009-01-08T07:42:00.000-08:00

Off the ship in Naples on Sunday Morning. Last stop: the archeological museum, which had a magnificent exhibit Ercolano: tre secoli di scoperte, mostly marble and big and small bronze statuettes, very pretty. No pictures from this exhibit for some reason (probably the no-camera rule was enforced).

The exhibit included a kind of display/memorial for the victims: a large sandbox with lots of skeletons in it, surrounded by mirrors for stronger effect. Apparently the herculanians had plenty of time to escape the eruption but didn't see much danger. They moved out to the nearby beach and were relaxing and observing the eruption from there. 12 hours later Vesuvius exploded and sent a heat wave of 400 degrees traveling at 80 km/hour...

The museum also hosted a special exhibit Il Gladiatore, featurning objects found in Pompeii:

One poster explained that gladiator games were not very frequent, and that citizens, "especially women," were very grateful to the organizer who paid for the games. An expensive way to impress women, if you ask me.

We liked this wild boar from the permanent exhibit:

And, of course, a stop at il gabinetto segreto:

These are cute oil lamps:

The censor (M) found this post too... one sided and asked to include a few more pictures for a more balanced presentation. Well here they are: the Philosopher...

the Atlas, still holding, thank god (note also The Thinker by the window, doing a puzzle -- no one cares about your camera here...)

a very fine Roman mosaic:

Like Mona Lisa, she seems to be looking at you from every angle.

Christmas shopping

2008-12-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

The last school function on Saturday before the vacation -- a cocktail party with visiting US parents and Italian families. Most teachers in school gave little presents to every colleague, so we had to do last-minute Christmas shopping at the little market, called Mercatino di Natale, two dozen tents set up at the square near our house.

No, not this:

Rain

2008-12-17T08:53:00.000-08:00

No one remembers when exactly the rain started -- probably 2 weeks ago. To be fair, there were a couple of hours when it stopped and the sun came out, and we even went for a walk. Was that on Sunday? Venezia is flooded; the Tiber rose by 10.5 meters and threatened to flood Rome. A woman drowned in her car in a tunnel.

ROMA IN GINOCCHIO,TEVERE IN PIENA:IN UN GIORNO PIOGGIA DI UN MESE
TG1 barcone disancorato, tevere in piena 12.12 ore 12.12

Finally, this morning the sun came out. Viterbo emerged clean and refreshed, a little wet...

This is the persimmon tree (cachi in Italian, pronounced "kaki") that we noticed last time and wanted to photograph but couldn't because of the rain.

At about 3pm it started raining again... Two days of school left before the Christmas break.

Orvieto

2008-12-13T05:24:00.000-08:00

We left our camera at home on this second trip to Orvieto on Friday, expecting (correctly) that there are enough good pictures on the Internet. Also, it has been raining all week, and I was not in the mood to fuss over the camera. M simply chose to forget hers at home.

It was a school trip by bus; we drove by the flooded banks of the Tiber; on that day it rose by 12.5 meters in Rome! We only had time for lunch and to see the cathedral and the archeological museum on the central square.

The lunch at the yuppy-ish Caffè Montanucci on Corso Cavour (recommended for "great sandwiches" by our Latin teacher, a big foodie) turned out to be a total flop: overpriced, the place didn't have any decent bread, so it was impossible to order sandwiches. We carefully avoided it last time, but it would be not polite to leave now. M ended up with a rather cold vegetable soup (€ 6.80), I -- with some rather cold vegetarian pasta (€ 6.80).

There are indeed good pictures of the cathedral on Wikipedia, initaly.com, and, for example, at

http://www.paradoxplace.com/Perspectives/Italian%20Images/Montages/Umbria%20&%20Le%20Marche/Orvieto/Orvieto%20Duomo.htm

http://www.paradoxplace.com/Perspectives/Italian%20Images/Montages/Umbria%20&%20Le%20Marche/Orvieto/Orvieto%20Duomo%20Inside.htm

http://www.paradoxplace.com/Perspectives/Italian%20Images/Montages/Umbria%20&%20Le%20Marche/Orvieto/Orvieto%20Duomo%20San%20Brizio.htm

Either we have overdosed a bit on the church stuff, or Luca Signorelly's frescoes in the Brizio chapel are indeed a masterpiece, but we found the chapel pretty revolting, especially the smaller medallions showing with gusto gruesome scenes of clubbings, hackings, and impalings of sinners. Normally you have to pay 6.50 euros for the privilege to see the chapel.

The archeological museum holds the Faina collection, which by itself is not great (unless you are seriously interested in ancient coins), but the detailed explanations give an interesting insight into the amateur archeology (that is, pilfering of antiquities) in the 19th century Italy.

Finally some sun this morning.

(If all this sounds a little like grumbling, recall that we've been in Italy for a while now, four months to be precise.)

Sorrento / Amalfi Coast 12/5-8 -- Friday

2008-12-09T08:37:00.000-08:00

The occasion for the trip was Isabella's talk to a group of practitioners at a rehab clinic about emotions or something like that. She always takes Fabrizio with her; the kids are now too big and not interested. So they invited us to go along. The rehab clinic is located in the mountains above Amalfi Coast, between Naples and Salerno. The organizers booked a room for Isabella in a four-star Villa Soglia ("villa threshold") in Castel San Giorgio; we booked a room there, too.

We left Viterbo on a 2:30 train and arrived to Isabella/Fabrizio's place around 5. It was raining like crazy. Fabrizio had parent conferences and came home late. So we left home around 6:30 and made it to Castel San Giorgio around 10:30 at night.

There was a restaurant open on the main street (Adinolfi Restaurant). It looked pretty fancy -- the kind of place with 3 wine glasses in front of each setting. In such places they often don't give you a menu, so you have no idea what you might end up spending; our Italians are too proud to ask. We ordered pasta frutti di mare and two seafood plates to share for the "main dish" -- octopus on potatoes and mussels, a bottle of wine. (No pictures from that meal -- everyone was too hungry.) It turned out to be good and very reasonable (18 euro each) -- put everyone in a good mood.

When we found our hotel we just crashed.

Sorrento / Amalfi Coast 12/5-8 -- Saturday

2008-12-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

For some reason Fabrizio called us at 8 to say that he was at the breakfast room. OK. We got up and explored first the breakfast...

... then the hotel. Actually both were quite nice. The hotel is an old villa, furnished with lots of fake (and maybe a couple of real) antiques:

... statues on the front lawn, good views:

Having delivered Isabella to her workshop, Fabrizio took us to Ravello. It is very near the coast but a little higher up in the mountains. This is the standard postcard view of Ravello:

We started with the cathedral. The number of columns on the pulpit stubbornly refused to match the description...

Finally, Fabrizio discovered that he was reading about the wrong cathedral... Anyway, this one has on display San Bartolomeo's blood, which miraculously liquefies every year on July 27th! It also has pretty funny old mosaics. Goodbye, Jonah...

Hello, Jonah...

On to Villa Rufolo, built in the 13th century and then modified and remodeled many times, so it has a little bit of everything:

We all had a good time, especially Fabrizio, with his wife away:

At lunch time we went to fetch Isabella, but took wrong turns several times. When you ask for directions, people say "sempre dritto", even though there is not a single straight road in that area. "Sempre dritto" quickly became a private joke. So we arrived late and everyone was hungry, and the restaurants were closed. We looked for the recommended "La Terrazza" for a while ("sempre dritto"), but it was closed too. Finally, Fabrizio got distracted and took a wrong turn, so we ended up on the autostrada heading towards Salerno. This caused a quick "recalculation" of the route and plans -- by Isabella: their GPS stayed at home with the kids. She called the Dal Pescatore restaurant in Vietri sul Mare (on Amalfi Coast), which she knew from some scientific gathering, and we went there. The waiter actually remembered Isabella and Fabrizio. We ended up having a good, late, slow lunch of seafood and pasta.

M wanted to buy ceramics for a while, and Vietri turned out to be just the place, with a huge factory / show room. Some people sort of liked the place...

... others less.

But it made someone really happy:

When we finally left for Casale Antonietta, our Bed and Breakfast near Sorrento that Isabella had booked for us, it was already quite late, and there was a lot of traffic. We arrived around 10:30 and discovered that the final stretch of the route to our B&B was an alley the width of a car plus six inches on each side, with a stone wall on one side and barbed wire on the other, and with nasty turns. Fabrizio and Isabella didn't like that one bit -- they have a brand new Japanese car. What if someone comes from the opposite direction? Anyway, we made it up safely. A friendly Polish guy who works there put us in a tiny two-bedroom cottage -- a far cry from Villa Soglia.

Not a chance to go out that evening again, of course, but we had had a late lunch and we had some fruit with us.

A long day!

The next morning the weather improved, we discovered a lemon orchard on the property...

and good views of Vesuvio...

So the mood improved, even though Fabrizio kept grumbling about the cheap place and the narrow alley.

Sorrento / Amalfi Coast 12/5-8 -- Sunday: Paestum

2008-12-09T05:29:00.000-08:00

In the morning we headed to Paestum, south of Salerno, to see the ancient Greek temples of Poseidonia. It is a picturesque and romantic place, especially on a bright sunny day:

The temple of Hera here is apparently the oldest and best preserved Doric temple in the world:

The Romans built Paestum on the ruins of Poseidonia...

... but they eventually abandoned the town because it was impossible to defend and unhealthy: malaria. No malaria now -- we had a very healthy picnic lunch on the Roman ruins: prosciutto, mozzarella di bufala, caciocavallo, capicola, a bottle of wine...

(Poseidonia was founded by the Sybarites, you know...)

Golden ratio?

Well, sort of , if you find the right line...

On to the archaeological museum. It has interesting wall paintings from the nearby necropoli. These were discovered during WWII when the Americans landed on the beaches of the Gulf of Salerno and needed to build an airstrip. An American lieutenant on the site happened to be an archaeologist and he identified the tombs and managed to save them from destruction.

What is this? A pagan Annunciation? Our knowledge of Greek mythology proved lacking.

It got dark early and we went back to Sorrento. The Christmas season is already in full swing:

We stopped for half an hour at the free Christmas concert at the town hall, attended mostly by the locals...

and caught a couple of favorite Rossini arias and extremely passionate soprano renditions of O Sole Mio and, of course, Torna a Surriento...

After the concert, Fabrizio wanted pizza (to be in Naples and not to have pizza?!) His theory is that pizza is too simple for restaurants and so they don't make it well. Fair enough. He thought he found a rustic enough place (three large wooden tables with benches, no tablecloths), and everyone was expecting a good pizza/beer/wine supper...

... but it turned out to be a fregatura.

I didn't drink much and managed to deliver us and the car safely along the killer alley back to our Casale Antonietta.

Sorrento / Amalfi Coast 12/5-8 -- Monday

2008-12-09T04:54:00.000-08:00

In the morning, not very early, we left our B&B and headed to the place called Sant'Agata sui due Golfi in the center of the Sorrento peninsula:

From there you can see both the Gulf of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno. A nearby monastery, called Deserto, has a belvedere, but, unfortunately, it was closed in the morning, so we could see only one gulf, the Gulf of Naples. It is prettier, anyway, with Capri, Ischia, and Procida, Naples and Vesuvio. (We saw both gulfs later from the road.)

From Sant'Agata we decided to go to Positano on the Amalfi Coast.

A rest area on the road...

... is decorated by funny pictures on ceramic tiles...

... and some cheesy Neapolitan poetry:

Fabrizio took this picture at one of the "scenic outlooks"on the road to Positano:

(Believe it or not, some assholes dump garbage over the rail, here!)

Positano itself is more vertical than horizontal:

Our visit to town was not very successful, though. Fabrizio, for some reason, decided to park a mile away, above the town. By the time we walked down it was already 1:30 and we realized that we might miss our planned 5 pm train from Rome to Viterbo. So we skipped the planned picnic lunch and hurried back to Rome, watching the clock and eating sandwiches in the car. By the time we got close to Rome it became clear that we would miss that train, anyway, by a few minutes. I proposed to go to Fabrizio and Isabella's house and have tea. Isabella then calmed down considerably and said we can check e-mail there, too. An hour later they drove us to the station and we took the 7 pm train...

... and were home by 9, "stanchi ma contenti."

Sunday, Tarquinia

2008-12-03T06:42:00.000-08:00

Rain and thunderstorms in Viterbo, but a warm, mostly sunny day in Tarquinia, just a few kilometers away. You can see the sea from here. Etruscan necropoli: we missed a few "fun" tombs on our last trip.

Taking pictures with 300-year-old olive trees in the background:

For some reason wild dill grows really well around necropoli.

Then the archeological museum:

See the Saturday post for the description of the evening activities.

Saturday, the K-ovs are back from Tuscany

2008-12-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

Early start for them -- to take Masha and Vanya to the airport -- late start for us. Lunch-brunch, then a trip to Vitorchiano.

Not a great day weatherwise. The castle in Soriano inexplicably closed. Villa Lante in Bagnaia closes at 4:30 in winter; we were there at 4:20.

Not such a great sightseeing day, perhaps, but good food (gnocchi with mushrooms, rabbit niçoise), wine (Nero d'Avola), and company. S said "better than agriturismo."

Friday 11/28 Rome, Palazzo Massimo

2008-12-03T05:36:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, a school trip by bus to Rome, to see Palazzo Massimo and Palazzo Altemps. These are part of the Museo Nazionale Romano, which has four locations. Palazzo Massimo is a fairly new addition (1998), a very pleasant state-of-the-art museum with a great collection of statues, some Roman, some Roman copies of Greek originals. This is Augustus with a toga covering his head (symbolizing, in fake humility, his role as the head priest).

Striking Dying Niobid is an original from 440 BC. The students had an assignment to compete in groups trying to "sell" "their" statue. The Niobid (adding insult to injury!) was one of the few subjected to this treatment:

(See a better picture of the Niobid here.) Other statues "to sell": Sleeping Hermaphrodite...

... and Resting Boxer:

We had, for a while, silly "advertising" posters hanging all over the school building. For example: "Penis and vagina? Pagina? No, Hermaphodite."

Palazzo Altemps seems a little "tired" by comparison: worn down, dark -- not a happy place.

Nov 21-23, Friday - Sunday -- the K-ovs in town

2008-11-25T07:58:00.000-08:00

S, M, and their daughter Masha with Leva and Vanya arrived late on Friday, "tired but happy" after touring Rome, Naples, Pompei. Unfortunately, on Saturday S and Masha had to go back to Rome, to put Leva on the plane -- alone! -- back to Moscow. He didn't want to miss a week of school. This turned into a long trip, but they got back unharmed, around 3 pm. Meanwhile, we slept pretty late, except Vanya, who woke up early and engaged in energetic reading of "The Diamond Thieves" or something like that.

After breakfast, a tour of our market at Piazza Faustino...

... tasting and purchasing porchetta, insalata di mare...

and some fruit and veggies:

In the afternoon, after the family reunification (minus Leva), a "Viterbo by night" tour, including the olive oil "festa" -- two or three oil tasting tents set up around the town center. Here we ran into a "renaissance" travelling band performance by the fountain on Piazza della Morte, next to one of the tents:

Olives on a tree...

... olives on bruschetta:

From there, through the medieval quarter, on to wine tasting -- they had one at the place where we usually buy wine.

They had all kinds of tasty snacks, including pecorino cheese with honey and...

... "typical Viterbese," they said -- pancakes with grated pecorino and sugar. M also liked the honey dispensing gadget, but unfortunately they didn't sell those at the place, so it went on a shopping list. Primitivo di Puglia tasted good to all...

... so we bought a liter... and went home for supper: that seafood salad, couscous with lamb, etc. What a nice way to spend a depressingly-big-number birthday eve.

Nov 23, Sunday morning, Ferento

2008-11-25T07:20:00.000-08:00

The ruins of the ancient Roman town of Ferento are only 10 minutes away from Viterbo. Naturally, it is closed "for technical reasons, until further notice."

Naturally, there is a hole in the fence next to the sign.

A very nice and relaxed way to see the sights on a sunny day: no crowds, no lines, no tickets. (Eventually an Italian family joined us there.)

Here S, our railroad engineering expert, explains how the grooves in ancient Roman roads carved by the wheels eventually forced standardization of the distances between the wheels in carriages and later determined the distance between the rails in railroads (and why, according to a popular "MIIT" legend, this distance is a few centimeters wider in Russia).

Nov 23, Orvieto, Sunday 2 pm

2008-11-25T07:15:00.000-08:00

Orvieto is in Umbria, near the Lazio border, about 50 km north of Viterbo. We picked a "scenic" route which gave S a chance to practice his shift-driving skills, tested our GPS, which kept mumbling something incomprehensible about recalculations and u-turns, and made Masha a little car sick (the latter mostly due to her own condition). A series of escalators in tunnels dug through the rock take you from the parking lot to the town streets above.

The first stop was at a little trattoria Da Carlo on a side street -- the kind of place that does not have a "menu turistico," in fact, doesn't have any written menu at all. It was run by a family (father, mother, son, daughter) and was pretty packed -- the end of the lunch time on a Sunday afternoon. The mother said to us, apologetically, "Siamo stanchi..." Took a while, but we didn't mind much: I guess it was our own contribution to the Slow Food movement (and a chance to raise a birthday toast for me, too).

Nov 23, Orvieto, Sunday 4 pm

2008-11-25T06:56:00.000-08:00

Orvieto has a very lovely cathedral in the Italian gothic style.

The door is modern, though.

Next to the cathedral is a small park with a vista of the valley and a castle below.

Nov 23, Orvieto, Sunday 5 pm

2008-11-25T06:47:00.000-08:00

The town center seems to be populated mostly by artists, with whole streets of arts and crafts workshops and gift shops.

Lots of colorful (kitchy?) ceramics, fake faience and majolica.

There was also a make-shift crafts market where M picked a small dish and the honey dispenser gadget made of olive wood.

More olive oil

2008-11-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, my language and culture exchange with Elisabetta rose to a new level: I gave her an Andover sweatshirt and a T-shirt for her daughter; she gave me a little bottle (5 liters) of olive oil made by her father. He is 80, takes care of about 100 trees.

Now we are all set for a couple of years. If you come to visit, bring empty bottles.

Olives

2008-11-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

When we got off the bus from Torino, our boss was there to meet the group. He immediately invited us to come to his house next day to help him harvest olives. You can't say no to a request like this... His wife picked us up at 11 on Sunday morning ("after church"). T & H (the English teacher and his wife) were invited, too.

They have a fairly small house, but it is on about an acre, and they have 58 olive trees. The trees are over 100 years old! We spread the nets under the trees and went at it with plastic combs.

I felt the trees rather liked my gentle touch...

After lunch (pasta, sausages with fried potatoes, quiche, wine, tiramisu, coffee) we worked a little more, but less energetically. By sunset we had 5 bags of olives, about 150 kg total -- enough to make about 15 liters of oil. We took our crop to the press operator nearby, but it's the height of the olive season and everyone finished at the same time. The line was a mile long, no chance for us to get our oil. (We were promised some, as "pay.")

But we got a glimpse of the big olive press (four huge vertical stone wheels rotating in a big basin...

... and the centrifuge that separates oil from water:

Our little olive farmers union:

Empty cans ready for the finished product:

School trip to Turin, Nov 12-15, Day 4

2008-11-19T05:36:00.000-08:00

Basically all day on the bus. We left Torino at 8:30 and got back to the Viterbo area around 5:30, too early for the agreed return of 7:00. Thus an unscheduled stop in the dark, cold Tuscania, a night view of a couple of churches, a glimpse of the ancient Roman road, back on the bus, back home.

It seems the kids have finally bonded in a nice way and started acting like a group, not like chain gang. (Maybe the brief toga party at the hotel helped.) There were several drinking incidents before the trip with discipline consequences, which took a lot of everyone's time. I believe they should subside now in favor of healthier fun.

School trip to Turin, Nov 12-15, Day 3

2008-11-19T05:35:00.000-08:00

In the morning, a tour of the royal palace. Italy became a republic after the 1946 referendum; the Savoy house tolerated Mussolini and had to go. The Italian guides are pretty formal, don't allow time for questions.

After the palace, a detour that we didn't think through carefully. The art history teacher is a "crunchy," and she proposed to go on an "urban archeology" tour and see an old Fiat factory converted into a food exhibit sponsored by the Slow Food movement. Slow Food's mission is to preserve traditional cooking from the onslaught of fast food. So we agreed to go to this place, called Eataly. To get there, we took a tram, then a bus, 45 minutes each way.

Eataly turned out to be a red concrete and glass building...

...with a sketchy Vermouth Museum on the second floor...

... and a pretentious health food store/food court on the first floor. (The converted Fiat factory turned out to be the huge building across the street, which is now an enormous shopping mall and a movie theater.) It was lunch time, and the place was packed. I am not sure about slow food, but there was some very expensive food on display. The prices for these truffles are for one etto (100 grams):

To be fair, the bakery was not bad, and I ended up with a sandwich and a bottle of milk.

It seems the commercial "health food" business, places like Eataly, are rapidly invading and destroying the traditional Italian food culture. The only redeeming feature for me was free fast Internet access. But the students just loved the place!

After the Eataly lunch adventure we got back to town for a tour of the cinema museum. It is housed in the building called La Mole, which is an emblem of Turin (it is on one of the coins). The building started modestly, as a synagogue, but was never finished as such. Then it grew in height and became the tallest "traditional brick building." In fact at some point it was deemed unsafe and massive concrete reinforcements were built parallel to the original walls, basically a building within a building. The building is all open inside with the spiral gallery along the wall. Probably nobody knew what to make of it, until some genius proposed to put a cinema museum in it. Then a glass elevator was added at the center to take tourists up and down. It is sometimes called Torin's "Eiffel Tower." Here is Fellini's hat and scarf:

Turin had a street art week; one of the displays was lit Fibonacci numbers floating around la Mole in the night sky... Didn't get to see it. Another display, planets and stuff floating above one of the central streets:

I am telling you, a little self-conscious for Italy.

"Tired but happy," back to the hotel.

School trip to Turin, Nov 12-15, Day 2

2008-11-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

First impression: are we in France?

It seems Turin aspires to be Paris, but lacks Paris's scope and romantic charm. Thus the first capital of the unified Italy is non very Italian. Turin seems to be a little formal, "aristocratic," cold, and conceited, especially after the 2006 Winter Olympics. (When we returned, I've learned the expression "I torinesi -- falsi e cortesi.") The main square can serve as a metaphor: in the 17th century the Savoy dukes slapped a baroque façade on one side of the medieval castle that faces the main square. It is now called Palazzo Madama and houses a museum. The castle itself was built over the ruins of a Roman gate, which can be seen under the main floor.

But first a morning group visit to the Egyptian museum.

It has a great collection, "better than in Cairo." In the early 1900's the Turin archeologists did a great job bringing home what remained after the other grave robbers. M went with the English group of students, I went with one of the remaining three Italian groups and understood everything (our guide, Valentina, spoke like to 7-year-olds.)

After the tour, the students ran around with notebooks and cameras, taking pictures and making sketches for their art history assignment: discuss the relation of function and form in one of the objects, or something like that.

Meanwhile we found a rather pleasant mostly vegetarian nouvelle cuisine place for lunch, (incongruously called I Fratelli Bufala).

Then a walking tour of the center, a group photo on the stairs of Palazzo Madama...

...followed by the Palazzo Madama museum. It has all kinds of things including a rich collection of porcelain and majolica, textiles, small bronzes and ivory pieces, etc. -- interesting. Finally back on the bus and to our hotel. A long day.

School trip to Turin, Nov 12-15, Day 1

2008-11-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

(Questa puntata è in italiano perché serve anche come una composizione scritta per la classe.)

Siamo partiti alle otto e mezzo è alle 'uno siamo arrivati a Pisa. Piove a catinelle. Abbiamo solo due ore per la visita.

La torre pendente sta sempre là, pendendo... Però, non è più un miracolo: adesso è attaccata con una corda forte a un sostegno e il sottosuolo è rinfonrzato per ridurre la pendenza. Non sapevo che la torre aveva cominciato a pendere già durante la costruzione. (L'architetto è ignoto...) Tuttavia, dopo qualche annio si decisae di continuare la costruzione. Se per il valore turistico, avevano raggione! Per dire la verita, il Campo dei Miracoli forse sarebbe più bello con ~~una~~un campanile verticale -- ma non tanto famoso.

Dopo una visita breve al duomo, abbiamo preso un caffè (piove sempre).

Poi M è salita sulla torre. Ecco la veduta dalla cima sul Campo dei Miracoli, il duomo e il battistero.

Io, invece, ho visitato il museo del duomo. Ho appreso che a partire dal terzo leivello della torre, le collonne sul lato pendente sono più lunghe delle colonne sull'altra parte per stabilizzare la torre.

E gli studenti? Eccoli -- "bagnati ma felici":

Dopo altre quattro ore ~~di più~~ siamo arrivati all'hotel ina Torino. La cena...

... e la giornata è finita.

Rome, Friday, Oct 24

2008-11-10T02:57:00.000-08:00

The day started with the school trip to the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia located in the Villa Borghese park. It was built by Pope Julius II in the mid 1500's as a fun place for entertainment.

The park of Villa Borghese has a piazza and an alley with monuments to famous writers (usually donated by the respective countries) featuring quotes about Italy.

Gogol is big and his quote is a little pompous: "О России я могу писать только в Риме..."

And Pushkin:

Кто знает край, где небо блещет
Неизъяснимой синевой,
Где море теплою волной
Вокруг развалин тихо плещет;
Где вечный лавр и кипарис
На воле гордо разрослись;
Где пел Торквато величавый;
Где и теперь во мгле ночной
Адриатической волной
Повторены его октавы;
Где Рафаэль живописал;
Где в наши дни резец Кановы
Послушный мрамор оживлял,
И Байрон, мученик суровый,
Страдал, любил и проклинал?
..............................................
.............................................
Волшебный край, волшебный край,
Страна высоких вдохновений,
(Людмила) зрит твой древний рай,
Твои пророческие сени.

etc. (http://www.relga.rsu.ru/n48/cult48.htm)

(Notice a couple making out in Pushkin's shadow -- the poet would approve.)

On to Pincio, featured in Fellini's Roma (where M left her glasses 18 years ago on the balustrade -- still not found).

From Pincio down to Piazza del Popolo...

There we ran into the Il Genio di Leonardo interactive exhibit in Galleria Agostiana, Sale del Bramante. It displayed functioning models of machines built from da Vinci's drawings (and the fabulous drawings, too).

Among other things, Leonardo invented a bicycle, a parachute, a submarine, and a mirrored infinite-recursion room:

Then we looked at Caravaggio's Crocifissione di San Pietro and Conversione di San Paolo in Santa Maria del Popolo.

Then a little people watching and "un gelato" in piazza Navona...

...and finally a bus #44 from Piazza Venezia to Fabrizio and Isabella's house off via Portuense near Largo Gaetano la Loggia.

Rome, Saturday, Oct. 25

2008-11-09T12:40:00.000-08:00

Being very cool tourists, we decided to skip all the familiar sights ("been there done that")...

and settled on a leisurely walk... from Trastevere, through Isola Tiberina...

...to piazza Rocca della Verità...

...by the synagogue...

...through Ghetto... (most everything was closed, but this souvenir shop, was open for some reason, and M couldn't resist a small wooden Pinocchio -- for Henry)

...by a pretty Turtle Fountain (La Fontana delle Tartarughe)...

...in Piazza Mattei...

...(a German tourist took this one)...

...and on to Campidoglio (make your own postcards,

look at the forums from the terrace where every great man stood,

peek through other people's windows)...

Then we headed slowly towards the Colosseo...

..with a lunch stop (lasagna) on one of the side streets.

Rome, Saturday, Oct 25 -- La manifestazione

2008-11-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, October 25, the Pd (Partito Democratico) staged a big manifestation in Rome.

Duecentomila o due milioni: il numero dei partecipanti alla dimostrazione
organizzata sabato a Roma con tema "Salva l'Italia"
rimarrà probabilmente un mistero ma
"in ogni caso si tratta di una massiccia partecipazione
da parte dell'opposizione di centrosinistra" come riporta BBC News.

Many people carried signs denouncing education minister Gelmini's school reform:

We marched, too... long enough to take a picture.

Canale Monterano

2008-10-26T02:09:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday an outing with the SYA host families to La Riserva Naturale di Canale Monterano, about 40 km south from Viterbo. This is a nice large park around the ruins of the ancient Roman town of Monterano.

Sulfur springs, bronze-age caves (on the background):

"La tagliata" -- a narrow Etruscan road cut [the same root as in taglia -- waist size] through the tuffa rock (to control the traffic):

The ruins of the palazzo and the San Bonaventure convent and church designed by Bernini for the Pope Clement X in the second half of the 17th century.

The place was used in the 1981 popular movie Il Marchese del Grillo with Alberto Sordi, which by a coincidence, was on TV the previous night.

The day, which started at 8 am, ended with an 8 pm catered supper. It took place at a pavilion by a rugby field...

Our guide, Massimo, (next to me) is a history prof at a school in Viterbo and also a rugby coach.

The menu: papardelle (wide noodles) al sugo di cinghiale (wild boar), a stew of cinghiale, a "surprise" stew with beans (pictured above - email for details), ice cream pie, and coffee. Back home at 11 pm. Non è possibile per me così! (We have been using this phrase often! It is the first thing you learn in the Michel Thomas' Italian CD course.)

La rosa dei venti

2008-10-26T01:20:00.000-07:00

My four-week sailing course is over. What did I get out of it? Lots of food and wine consumed on a boat, many hours of barely comprehensible Italian chat, and, of course, a pretty certificate, signed by the seven skippers and il presidente.

Also learned la rosa dei venti - the Italian names of the eight Mediterranean winds:

I later recycled la rosa for la presentazione orale in my Italian class:

...Di tutti i venti mediterannei, il più pericoloso è il ponentino. Ma non per i marinaii. A Roma è il vento di pomeriggio che viene dal mare e rinfresca la città dopo una giornata calda dell’estate. E’ il vento leggero e dolce; non il ponente ma il ponentino. Si dice che apporta l’amore. Dunque, bisogna fare attenzione!

A hike to Monte Cimino

2008-10-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning we took a train to Soriano and went on a hike to the top of Monte Cimino (1053 meters, about 12 km round trip). We went with the American colleagues, husband and wife, from school.

A very nice day for a hike, around 20 degrees C, lots of blackberries and chestnuts on the way. Near the top, the "famous" faggeta, what remains of the old beech tree forest (beech in Italian is faggio). Most of the forests in Italy are gone, so the Italians are proud of what remains. Some of these trees are 300 years old.

The tower at the top of the mountain has a Madonna in a niche and a solar panel on top.

Back to Soriano by 5 pm.

A "miracle of nature"

2008-10-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

Near the summit, the so-called il Sasso Naticarello, a boulder balanced on a narrow base and presumably movable with a slight touch. Pliny the Elder called it a "miracle of nature."

But since then, either the boulder lost its balance or I haven't gone to the gym for too long...

Soriano: "medieval" artisans

2008-10-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

La Fiesta delle Castagne in Soriano. A "medieval" artisans' exhibit in a little courtyard is part of the festivities:

Chestnuts

2008-10-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

Chestnuts everywhere -- they are a big deal here this time of year. Several towns organize La Fiesta delle Castagne over two or three weekends. We've run into one in Soriano nel Cimino. Here they are, quite ripe:

The nature park at the top of Monte Cimino seems somehow a little naive, probably due to the fairly recent arrival of the idea. There are fancy geological maps and posters about plants and birds.

But not a single marked hiking trail, direction sign, or a "you-are-here" map.

Back in town, decorations, flags, parades, battle reenactments, and competitions among the four "rioni" (districts) of the little town. Each has its own colors, of course.

And chestnuts.

We came just in time as the "big guy" finished roasting a batch, skillfully flipped the grill dropping the hot chestnuts onto a canvas, and was about to distribute them to eager takers, all equipped with white paper bags --like little chicks opening their beaks.

Back on our way to the main square:

Vetralla

2008-10-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

While I was sailing last Sunday, M visited with the host family of one of her students.

M narrates: ‘They live in Vetralla, a small town not far from Viterbo. We went on a 3-hour walk in the Marturanum Regional Park in Barbarano Romano, mainly to see the ancient Etruscan tombs (6th through 3rd century BC), right along the path.’

‘The tombs are like real houses, with “beds” and carved decorations.’

‘In one place we saw a centuries-old carving on the outside wall.’

‘After a pleasant lunch (two hours) we toured Vetralla ’s streets and churches. My hosts live in a palazzo built in 1670 (the one with the merlons).’

More sailing

2008-09-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday -- same boat, same skipper, same place, new, younger crew. This time lasagna instead of fettuccini, more wine consumed. These guys kept talking about girls, the woman kept rolling her eyes (more precisely, shrugging): un marinaio è sempre un marinaio... One of the guys spend a few months in the US and had an American girlfriend, so, unfortunately, he felt he was an expert on all things American. But this time we had pleasant wind and actually did some sailing after lunch.

Umbria trip

2008-09-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

School "orientation retreat" in Umbria, September 24-26. Bevagna, Assisi, Lake Trasimeno, Perugia, Spoleto.

Umbria trip, Day 1 - Bevagna

2008-09-27T09:50:00.000-07:00

The first stop is Bevagna -- a small town that developed hands-on exhibits of medieval crafts, sort of like Colonial Willimasburg or the Old Sturbridge Village. The trip organizers thought it would be a fun activity for students. I guess it was.

Making candles from bee wax. It is not completely separated from honey, so the smell is really pleasant. Melted wax is repeatedly poured over a hanging wick until the candle reaches the required thickness, about 1/2 inch, then two candles are twisted together to make the finished product. The candle maker explained that melted wax was also used to seal small cuts and wounds.

A medieval pharmacy and spice shop.

Making paper from scraps of old rags -- a fairly complicated process that takes almost a month from start to finish. This is the final stage before drying: scooping some goo from a salty solution with a wire net and transferring it to a piece of fabric to dry.

Also painting and gilding: "This is red, we add some mercury to it; the white paint is based on lead..." Ouch! They used static on a donkey hair brush to pick up and move around very thin golden leaf.

Umbria trip, Day 1 - Assisi

2008-09-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

San Francesco (Saint Francis) is considered one of the most important figures in Catholicism. He is the patron saint of Italy and, of course, the founder of the Franciscan order. He was sort of a reformer, calling for more virtue and service and for fewer worldly goods and pleasures, but, obviously, not a dissident: he was careful not to put the popes and the church on the spot. Assisi is his place of birth and the center of his life. San Francesco died in 1226, and the famous basilica was begun immediately after his canonization in 1228. It has the lower church and the upper chucrh; the latter is decorated by the famous Giotto frescoes.

A traditional school picture on the steps of the basilica.

Around the corner, a couple of Franciscan friars can't resist worldly pleasures...

Umbria trip, Day 2 -- Lake Trasimeno

2008-09-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Our hotel is on Lake Trasimeno, one of the largest lakes in Italy. This is the place where Hannibal ambushed and destroyed Roman troops in 217 BC.

After breakfast, the teachers and students got busy with workshops and lessons (Italian, nutrition). I meanwhile borrowed a mountain bike at the hotel and went for a ride on the bike path, which goes all around the lake.

My goal was Passignano, a little town about 12 km away, where I could check my e-mail. Back by lunch. Finally, at 3 pm we headed for Perugia.

Umbria trip, Day 2 -- Perugia

2008-09-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

Perugia is a city of about 150,000 -- very lovely! Unfortunately, we only had about three hours to hang out, buy some Baci Perugina, taste Perugian ice cream and get back on the bus. Poor trip planning!

Perugia is a three-dimensional city. A set of escalators brought us up to the old center. Every turn brings you to a terrace with a gorgeous view of the roofs and valleys below and the Umbrian hills beyond.

This is Pozzo Etrusco -- an Etruscan well (II-III c. BC, 36 meters deep), up at the city center. I seem to vaguely remember seeing it in some movie. The glitter comes from tourist coins that missed the pit.

The fountain at the central square would be prettier without a fence, but tourists would probably destroy it quickly, or some local kids would cover it with graffiti, as they do with more or less everything in sight. Worse than pigeons!

Umbria trip: Day 3 -- Spoleto

2008-09-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

Spoleto is famous for its Festival dei Due Mondi -- summer arts festival, its Ponte delle Torri , and its Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta with Fra' Filippo Lippi's frescoes.

The Ponte -- a gorgeous bridge over the deep, green valley -- was built in the 13-th century on the foundation of an ancient Roman aqueduct.

The views are spectacular; our photos don't do them justice. There are, of course, better pictures on the Internet.

The cathedral is a bit eclectic on the outside and not very impressive inside, with the exception of the frescoes and paintings.

Our crowd is heading back from the cathedral square to the bus. It's pretty chilly; people are wearing jackets, and our Italian teacher of Ancient History even a skiing hat.

Umbria trip: Day 3 -- back to Viterbo

2008-09-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

Around 5 pm loading our doubledecker bus.

Back in Viterbo around 6:15, just in time for my sailing theory class.

Sailing

2008-09-22T04:42:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, those of us who were not required to attend the all-school picnic went on the first sailing outing of the Circolo della Vela della Tuscia, off the coast of Santa Marinella /Riva di Traiano. I signed up for this course hoping to see the coast, do some sailing, and improve my concversatio skills. The course includes four lectures (at the university, in Viterbo) and four Sunday sailing trips to the coast. The people enrolled in the course are pretty much my age, some university people, some younger people. Several did this course before, but learning sailing skills is not exactly the point...

Santa Marinella is a pretty resort on the coast, not far from Rome. The marina is under a restored castle. Our boat, Aramis, was an antique of sorts, made of wood: not high performance, but pretty. These wooden boats are a big deal in Italy. No helm, just a big carved tiller.

The day was lovely and pretty warm; I even went for a short swim. But unfortunately not much wind -- we had to keep motoring most of the time.

There were five of us. Here I am with my crew mates, Bruno and Mauro. Another crew member was Teresa (around 60). Our skipper, Alberto, (around 65) is a math teacher at a high school (liceo scientifico), not far from ours. I suppose they arranged the crews by age.

I picked up a few sailing terms. It turned out bowline is called la gassa or, more precisely, la gassa d'amante -- "lover's knot." The bow is prua or prora; the stern is poppa; a point of sale is, naturally, andatura (from andare -- to go, a pretty word!); to head up is orzare, to bear off -- poggiare; a tack - virata. Trimming a rope, for some reason, cazzare. Is it from the ubiquitous cazzo (dick) or vice verso? I didn't ask, afraid to say some cazzata (stupidity).

It seemed the morning was filled with anticipation... of lunch! (See below...)

Lunch on high seas

2008-09-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

The mariners started snacking on little hors d'oeuvres at noon and by 1:30 were ready for lunch. Another boat joined at anchor -- the lunch rendezvous was planned ahead. Their crew passed over some antipastas to us. We reciprocated with home made fettucini (noodles) with tuna sauce, all brought from home. This is our skipper Alberto (right) and Mauro posing with the fettucini.

Pasta followed by meatballs, then coffee with cookies. Passing a hot coffee pot from one boat to another took some care -- I'd say the most dangerous moment at sea that day. You can't say we learned nothing: the table cloth had diagrams of knots on it.

Not long after lunch one of the crew -- Teresa -- started getting a little sea sick, and pretty soon we headed back to the marina.

I got home by 5:30, after 9 hours of listening to the Italian. (Have I mentioned that Italians like to talk?) It was like an audio equivalent of a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle; the pieces did fit together once in a while. I dreamed in Italian that night.

Mater Dolorosa

2008-09-22T03:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday all-school picnic with students and their host families took M to a picnic area not far from San Martino Al Cimino. No pictures from the picnic because M was too busy organizing the food and cleaning up. In the afternoon she headed home on foot (about 12 km) with a few colleagues. It was a holiday in In San Martino and they ran into the Mater Dolorosa procession. The streets and squares were decorated with ornaments and flowers in colored sand or salt.

And flowers in the fountain.

Saturday performance

2008-09-22T03:11:00.000-07:00

Santo, a colleague who teaches Italian Civilization and Ancient History, has written a "romanzetto medievale" "Lo Drago de Cammenòt." This is a whimsical piece, not exactly a parody, not exactly a tale, written in pseudo medieval Italian, which is in fact a mixture of distorted Italian, various dialects, some Spanish, some French, etc. Requires concentration:

A piece from the "romanzetto" was performed on Saturday night in the auxiliary room of Teatro Comunale by a small group of amature actors in costumes. It was preceded by a fairly long lecture, Italian style, by someone who looked like a university professor. Did I mention before that Italians like to explain things? I didn't get much of it and passed the time ruminating on the subject of hearing impaired. It must be hard to use a sign language here: how do you combine required signs with gestures? The performance was kind of fun, though, and well received.

Cerveteri

2008-09-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

On Friday, M went on a school trip to Cerveteri, about two hours by bus from Viterbo. Cerveteri has one of the best preserved Etruscan necropoli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerveteri). It rained, so it was cosier inside the tombs than outside... After sightseeing, a cioccolato caldo con caffè -- a soupy hot drink -- was good.

Meanwhile G went to his first sailing class and learned some important stuff. For example, the stern of a boat is "poppa" in Italian.

Felliniesque Moments

2008-09-17T03:29:00.001-07:00

Yesterday afternoon we stepped out of an office in Via Garbini, and there she was: Santa Rosa, holding a cross, on a small pickup truck, followed by 3 eighteenwheelers carrying three big chunks of her "macchina."

(Sorry about this "macchina" business again. Still better then posting more of my Italian homework. The assignment was: "Write a letter to a friend describing your host family and your own." Didn't have any host family, so I wrote a fake letter, presumably from my daughter in France to her friend in Germany, tenderly recycling a few memories and family legends. Is this the genre that my father is pursuing? Got an A-.)

Errands and The Swingle Singers

2008-09-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight at 9 a concert: The Swingle Singers (http://www.singers.com/jazz/swingles.html) performing "Jazz Sebastian Bach" a capella, imitating musical instruments. We invited a colleague (the usual) and his wife for an early simple dinner before the concert (pasta with tuna, mushrooms, and tomatoes that Fabrizio had taught us). This led to a few morning and afternoon errands: refilling the vine supply, rearranging books and papers, washing all windows and floors, a trip to a big supermarket...

M is holding a free sample of Ferrero-Rocher -- they are rolling out new lines: peanuts, coconut, pistachios. And we are the first to know! (I, predictably, prefer the classic haselnut.)

Rossa, Fiorile, and Napoletana (with anchovi)

2008-09-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

And a glass of Est! Est!! Est!!! -- this is our dinner on Friday.
M insisted on having this documented for posterity.

Still around

2008-09-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

The "macchina" is still around, now parked at the piazza near the sanctuary of Santa Rosa, about 5 mins from our house. A nice landmark. A cloudy Friday afternoon and some rain overnight and Saturday morning, actually quite welcome: it washed away a lot of dust and pigeon shit accumulated over several weeks.

I am not sure what happens to the "macchina" when its parking meter expires (probably this coming weekend).

"Il mio arivo in Italia -- le prime impressione"

2008-09-10T00:43:00.000-07:00

Signed up for the "advanced" Italian class with the students. Unfortunately, it is the first class in the morning, at 8:10. Disgusting!

The first homework: write a brief description of your arrival to italy and your first impressions. Here it goes, after the spellchecker and then the teacher went over it:

Il mio arrivo in Italia — I le ~~primi impressioni~~
prime impressione

Siamo ~~arrivate~~ arrivati a Fiumicino alle due a e mezzo. Era una bella giornata, ma faceva caldo, e si sembrava che la città aveva il sonno. Anche noi avevamo sonno, dopo un viaggio abbastanza lungo da Boston ~~via~~ passando per Zurigo, ~~abbastanza lungo~~. ~~Anche~~ Perfino il nostro ~~autista di taxi~~tassista aveva sonno. Era il 10 di agosto, il tempo delle vacanze. Due colleghe della scuola ci ~~incontrano~~ accolgono alla porta; portiamo i nostri bagagli ~~sul~~ al terzo piano; apriamo le finestre; e... Che bellezza! I tetti di Viterbo lì sotto, le colline ~~verde~~ verdi più ~~lontano~~lontane. (Avremo capito dopo che non tutto è tanto bello in Viterbo: per esempio, l’edificio della Posta Centrale con la sua torre dell’ orologio, che possiamo vedere nelle finestre e sentire a ogni ora, è anzi abbastanza brutto. Ma questo — dopo.)

Un arrivo in Italia mi dà sempre dà una grande felicità. Mi ricordo la prima volta, trent’anni fa: questo profumo di caffè, questo senso ~~della~~ di libertà... Adesso, come sempre, mi ~~senso~~ sento che sono ritornato ~~nella~~ a casa mia dopo una assenza molto lunga... Non lo so perché.

A long way to go...

La cena "medioevale"

2008-09-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

On Saturday evening, a "medieval" supper with the school colleagues and the most enthusiastic of the host families. A colleague picked us up near our house and we drove to Orte, about 30 km from Viterbo. The supper was in a "cantina" which opened as a restaurant for only two weekends in a year. The place, we were told, was probably not a cantina but was used to hold sheep and other animals. Very apropriate. We were warned that it will be very hot, and the food won't be all that great, but we should go "for the atmosphere..." The atmosphere was mostly CO2, with about 200 people in a cellar-like room with a couple of windows open somewhere. It was also extremely loud, but after an opening by group of "medieval" musicians, we didn't pay any more attention to the noise, and stayed in (and with) good spirits. The main dish was wild boar, of course.

"Tired but content..."

Vitorchiano

2008-09-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning, around 11, we took a train to Vitorchiano, a small town about 20 km from Viterbo. Actually this line is a part of "Met.Ro." -- Metropolitana di Roma. Unfortunately it turned out the Vitorchiano station was actually about 3 km from town. And it was a hot day. But the town is pretty, situated at the confluence of two ravines.

Below the town we found a very nice hiking trail, and engaged in agriturismo of sorts: picked some hazelnuts from the ground along the road...

and wild figs, which grow like weeds here.

Then an impromptu lesson on the articoli determinativi e indeterminativi and verbi regolare, studying the graffiti on the wall at the railroad station.

Some quality stuff: "Se mi cherchi e non mi trovi, cerca mi in un sogno..."

Overall, a good trip: "tired but content..."

The day after

2008-09-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

The whole town inside the walls becomes a huge market. Not just the usual veggies and flowers, and some mushrooms...

and cacti... (for real admirers).

But also lots of hardware and housewares, clothes, shoes, nuts and olives, some arts and crafts, toys, etc.

...and lots of porchetta trucks, selling panini (butchers cutting porchetta slices from whole roasted pigs, and butchers' wives stuffing porchetta into panini and handling money). And crepes with nutella.

Sollevate e fermi

2008-09-04T06:12:00.000-07:00

The party started early to avoid crowded streets. People lined up the streets and sat there for hours.

I carried a 10 lbs watermelon. (From my wife: "They carry the 5 ton "macchina," and you are complaining about a lousy watermelon!") The potluck supper at the school was not very organized, in terms of who is invited and who brings what, but turned out a success, anyway.

A bunch of kids were doing arts and crafts projects for hours -- building paper "macchinas," of course. More parades and flag throwing and catching under our windows.

Finally, "Sollevate e fermi" --"lift and hold," -- the traditional facchini command.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kf-OXTBEhQ.

In a few minutes the macchina "walked" around the corner, stopped to rest for a few minutes at the piazza...

...then passed by our third-floor window.

They normally replace the "macchina" every five years. Viterbo holds a contest for the best design. This one is considered by some to be more modern, more "secular," than the previous "macchinas." Each one has a name given by the designer. "Ours" is called Ali di Luce -- Wings of Light. It is actually used for the sixth year, because its replacement was toppled by a gust of wind last summer, and there were no money to repair it.

The body

2008-09-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

Last night, the body of Santa Rosa was paraded in the streets in the annual reenactment of "traslazione" from her second burial place in chiesa della Crocetta to the Santuario, where she rests now. This year is the 750-th anniversary. In anticipation... (slightly detached?)

The colorful procession was made of people in period costumes from the middle ages to modernity. It moved quickly through the centuries; I am not sure where exactly the "chess" drummers belong:

This was followed by the current religious and civic groups. And finally, the body in the glass coffin, carried by the "facchini":

Posing for a picture at the stands when the procession is over. Getting bolder: "Signora, me può fare una foto, per favore?" She was happy to oblige, of course.

In general, the Viterbesi seem to be a little self-conscious in front of foreigners about this Santa Rosa business. Or is it my imagination?

Rosa vive con noi!

2008-09-02T05:42:00.000-07:00

In preparation for the main festivities on September 3, last night was the 42nd annual "minifacchini" celebration. Little kids carry "minimacchina" around town. It is already on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_IDaHfByO8.

We were there, on Piazza Dante:

The "mini" festivities started as early as 1 pm with parades, services, speeches, etc. At 8, there was a performance of the gruppo folcloristico "Le Sbandieratrici di Viterbo" and "Gruppo Storico Musicale." "Sbandieratrici" are all girls, age 14-18 -- they practice the ancient art of throwing flags; Gruppo Musicale is boys with drums and trumpets. It went OK, the flying flags, predictably, better than the music.

Then a kid, obviously a local star, sang, yet again, "Rosa vive con noi" -- Rosa is alive with us.(Anyone who grew up in the Soviet Russia would easily recognize the tune: "Lenin vsegda zhivoi, Lenin vsegda s toboi...") Finally, the "minimacchina" was unveiled and the "minifacchini" went to work.

Better pictures at http://www.tusciaweb.it/notizie/2006/settembre/2_10minimacchinasantarosa.htm.

Of all the rituals where young kids are made to dress in uniforms and do pointless things, this seemed to me one of the most direct. These kids, dressed in white, with red waistbands, had to lift and carry around town a really heavy contraption. Haven't they heard of wheels? Some of the kids were as young as 5, mostly boys, but also a few girls -- a "mini" bow to "mini" political correctness. The kids had little pillows strapped to their asses; they placed the pillow on one shoulder when it was their turn to carry. Pairs of 5- or 6-year-olds carried heavy trestles on which the "macchina" rested during stops.

(I suppose, this is a rite of passage of sorts: a real "facchino" must be able to carry a 150 kg box for 70 meters -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw34SwyTkz0. The aspirants probably spend the years beween 13 and 20 in the gym.)

The procession started at 9 pm and went on for a few hours to complete a circle around the Old Town, with 13 stops for rest and "facchini" changes. All the lights in town along the route went off. We didn't wait for the finish: went home.

The real "macchina" is already towering by one of the town gates, glistering behind a giant veil.

Preghiera del Minifacchino

O celeste Patrona di Viterbo Santa Rosa
noi tuoi giovani concittadini
To offriamo questa nostra fatica
come testimonianza di affetto e devozione.

Ben più gravi furono le fatiche
e le sofferenze che Tu affrontasti
per il tuo popolo.

Dacci la forza di non essere indegni di Te
accetta la nostra solenne promessa:
nella vita cercheremo di imitare le Tue
virtù e il Tuo attaccamento a Viterbo.

Concedici di passare da questa piccola macchina
alle opere che meglio glorificano il Tuo nome.
Ma sopratutto di conservare anche da grande
i sentimenti di devozione e affetto per te
e di amore per la nostra Viterbo.

The usual suspects

2008-08-31T07:04:00.000-07:00

On Friday, with the English teacher and his wife again -- now at Pizzeria San Leonardo.

Getting ready for the holiday

2008-08-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

September 3 in Viterbo is the day of the patron saint Santa Rosa. This is like Thanksgiving, 4th of July and Memorial Day combined. The main event is carrying the so called "Macchina di Santa Rosa" -- a 32 meter high 5000 kg tower, decorated with gold and lights etc. ("Macchina," pronounced 'mak-kina -- is this the origin of the Russian word "mah-'ina"?). The "macchina" is carried around town at night by 100 "facchini"(carriers). There are also several "mini-macchini" carried by "mini-facchini" (young boys) on the previous days. This is a whole separate business -- let's wait and see.

Meanwhile, the streets are being swept and decorated, the trees are being trimmed, etc.

Nothing can help much via Marconi above: it is built in Mussolini style with ugly fascist buildings on the sides and it leads to the banal Union Theater.

White, red, and blue flags of the Brotherhood of the Facchini of Santa Rosa are all over town.

The "macchina" makes several stops at piazzas, where stands with chairs are set up. This one is on the central square, Piazza del Plebiscito. The rumor has it that Berlusconi is scheduled to attend.

Sunday

2008-08-31T06:06:00.000-07:00

A leisurely morning walk in town. Il Archetto looks like a nice place to go for dinner one day.

At the same little piazza is the house called Casa Poscia. It is just a few steps from the school. The protruding balcony and steps are called "profferlo"; it served to protect the house and provided sheltered space underneath (e.g., for business). This one houses a touristy "wine and jam" store.

According to the legend, in this house lived Bella Galiana --
http://www.elegantetruria.com/fount.htm (search for "beautiful women").

Instead of rings to tie horses, there are now hooks for dog leashes with cute signs "I prefer to wait here":

The destination: Soriano nel Cimino

2008-08-31T05:33:00.000-07:00

We left Viterbo at 9:30, after a brief speech and prayers at the church of San Francisco, and arrived to Soriano by 4 pm, with an hour stop for lunch. Gained about 400 meters in altitude. Not exactly Kilimanjaro, but pretty tiring, if you ask me.

Soriano is a quiet little town on the hill. The main square and the gate to the old town:

I hoped to see Castello Orsini, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZPZFtbnTDE), which now houses a university campus, but it was closed "per motivi technici."

Luigi Pirandello spent several summers in Soriano in 1908-10 and later, after the WWI, escaping from the summer heat in Rome. "Citizens of Soriano in memory of his stays "nella perla dei Cimini" (in the "pearl" of the Cimini mountains).

Repercorrendo le vie dell'esilio di Santa Rosa

2008-08-31T05:25:00.000-07:00

Santa Rosa is the beloved patron Saint of Viterbo. as a young girl, she became a kind of dissident against Emperor Federico II in the 13th century, going around and preaching in favor of the church. As it happens, she was sent in exile for that, but after the premature death of Federico in a few days, presumably predicted by Rosa, che returned to Viterbo. She died herself only after a few months. Eventually she was raised to sainthood for her virtuous life, a few miracles, and poor health. The church movedg her body three times, to more and more prestigious places. It can still be seen on display ("like Lenin"?) around Santa Rosa days (the week of September 3).

For the past several years the Commune di Viterbo sponsors a three-day walk along the road of exile of Rosa ("po mestam boyevoi slavy"). I decided to join the first day, on Saturday, (while M was busy greeting arriving students).

Luckily, Rosa's exile was not very far: first day from Viterbo to Soriano nel Cimino (24 km), second day to Vitorchiano (22 km), third day back to Viterbo (16 km).

Some pretty views, some dusty trails, not much conversation.

And a certificate!

S. Maria del Paradiso

2008-08-31T05:10:00.000-07:00

Th Friday night walk took us outside the walls. This is the cloister of the church S. Maria del Paradiso on a hill above the old town. The building now houses a school. A paradise?

Est! Est! Est!

2008-08-27T05:18:00.000-07:00

The winery on via del Meone, around the corner from the school, sells white and red wines from around the region, and also from Abruzzo, Tuscany, etc. We came prepared with two empty bottles (we've found two 5-liter bottles in the apartment). Tried a few first... and left with some Est! Est! Est! (1.90 euro / liter) and some red Tuscan table wine (1.50 euro / liter).

Durare!

2008-08-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

To be honest, not all Viterbo is pretty. The clock tower that we see from our window is on the central post office building, which is a fine specimen of fascist architecture. The inscription under the clock says "Durare."

Gnocchi al sugo di castratto

2008-08-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

We originally planned to go back to Viterbo on Sunday afternoon, but couldn't resist and stayed. "Castratto" is a kind of lamb, supposed to be especially tender. This is a specialty of Abruzzo; Fabrizio learned it from a local chef. Gnocchi came from a bag, of course, not from scratch.

Left for Viterbo at 7 am this morning to return the car by 10. Made a brief stop at home to unload. Driving in Viterbo is a little tricky -- it is on the hills and the streets go every which way. Besides, I haven't driven shift for 10 years. It worked out somehow.

Celano

2008-08-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

The next stop -- Celano, with its pretty 16-th century castle: Castello Piccolomini http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castello_Piccolomini_(Celano).
Picnic lunch in a little park by the castle.

The castle is almost completely restored after the 1915 earthquake and decades of neglect.

There are several exhibits inside, including the one on the history of Lake Fucino (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_del_Fucino). In Julius Cesar time, the Romans built a complicated 5 km tunnel to control the floods caused by the lake and to free some land for cultivation. It sort of worked... for a few centuries. Finally, in the middle of the 19-th century, an Italian banker Alessandro Torlonia purchased controlling shares in the company set up to deal with the lake and ended up draining it completely.

Alba Fucens

2008-08-25T06:55:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, a car trip over the Lazio border to Abruzzo.

The first stop is Alba Fucens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba_Fucens), which is about 800 meters above the sea level, in the Apennines.

A 13-th century church of San Pietro

The church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1915, then restored in 1957. We didn't go to the excavations of the Roman city below -- just took a good look from above.

At the lake

2008-08-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

Later a walk up the hill to Castel di Tora, the old village. The lake is actually an artificial lake created by a dam on Fiume Turano.

The village is cute but a little claustrophobic with one narrow main street where people walk back and forth.