For Mom

My mother and her husband were our first visitors after we moved here two years ago. They came over our first Christmas. While they were visiting we went down to the local Saturday market where my mother bought us a red cyclamen to make our apartment a little more festive. She commented on the same plant in a picture of our February snowstorm of that year when it was still in full bloom. After that the plant took a beating – several in fact. It didn’t get much care while we were gone for our long trip to Sicily and then several times over the summer when we took off for long periods of travel. We brought it with us to our new apartment as there were still some small signs of life. By this fall, it was pretty much a woody plug in the pot, but I put it out on a windowsill in our interior courtyard where I proceeded to forget about it until our round of recent guests arrived. They commented on the pretty flowers outside their window. It isn’t nearly the same plant as the greenhouse grown and forced one that my mother gave us. But, it is back, probably looking much more like it would in its natural setting. They do grow wild in this part of Italy. So, this picture is for you Mom.

Happy Mother's Day, a few weeks early!

Puntarelle

Several weeks ago when we returned from our Easter Break with nothing to eat in the house, Amy instructed me to go to the Fruit and Veg and buy “something green” in addition to the usual assortment of onions, peppers, etc. I complied, albeit reluctantly since green vegetables aren’t my favorite. I happened across something that looked interesting. It was sort of a cross between asparagus and fiddleheads. I didn’t recall having seen it before, so I got a “head” of it.

It turns out I had stumbled upon a Roman delicacy known as puntarelle or cicoria asparago. It is a late winter plant which isn’t widely available except in our region. It was everywhere I looked. I saw it at both supermarkets and both fruit stores that I went to. Then the next day it was gone, to return again next spring, perhaps only for a day. There are entire websites dedicated to preparing the dish. Amy took on the task of chopping all of the tender stalks into thin strips and soaking them in water to get out some of the bitterness. After that she topped it with a vinaigrette made with anchovy paste. It was certainly tasty, but not worth the hours of labor she put into it. I snapped a picture of the dish in progress, but not of the original head and, as indicated above, when I went back to try to do so it was all gone for the year.

The First Wave

When we first made plans to move to Italy, at the time only for a year, all of our friends, family, etc. were envious and wished they could be going as well. But, _____ (fill in an excuse) made it difficult if not impossible. Recognizing that we were going to miss people, we invited basically everybody we knew to come for a visit. A handful of relatives and others took us up on our offer, but we were basically alone for the majority of our time here.

Until now. Sensing our immanent departure back in November and December, people began contacting us and setting up visits. That culminates this month as we host 8 guests in 5 clumps across the space of four and a half weeks. The first wave consisted of Amy’s sister, Gretchen, and her partner who flew home today. They overlapped with Amy’s former co-worker, Julie, and her husband, Craig, who left yesterday. Both couples were very laid back and enjoyed just hanging out in Viterbo or borrowing the car for quick day trips without us. We did tour around a bit with them on a long weekend we had. I took all four to Civita di Bagnoreggio.

The place was packed on a Sunday morning and it was a good thing we made reservations to sit outside in the glorious weather at one of our favorite restaurants.

The second wave arrives beginning on Wednesday with my brother Nathan and then continues on Friday when Amy’s best friend Becky arrives with her daughter Sarah. More adventures to follow.

Castel del Monte: 19 March 2013

One of the interesting features of the common euro coinage is that, while all of the countries share coins with a common design on one side, they have chosen distinctly different designs for the other side. In the case of Italy, the three smallest denomination coins depict iconic buildings. The 5 cent coin depicts perhaps the most recognizable structure in all of Italy, if not the world. It is the Colosseum in Rome. As discussed in a prior post, the 2 cent coin depicts the spire atop the Mole in Turin. We visited there this fall on our school’s northern swing. People from other parts of the world might not know what it is, but it is easily recognized by any Italian. Finally, the 1 cent coin depicts the Castel del Monte. As an avid coin collector, it was then with great anticipation that I awaited our stop there near the end of our trip.

The building was constructed during the 1240’s under the orders of Frederick II. Frederick was quite the builder, completing dozens of castles across his empire. Due to his Germanic origins, they are referred to as the Schwabian Castles. Many were repurposed from other buildings, but some, like this one, were purpose built from the ground up. There is a great deal of speculation as to the purpose of the building. While it is referred to as a “castle”, it never had a moat and appears to have had few, if any, defensive features. It is equally unlikely that it was meant as a long term dwelling as it lacks the infrastructure necessary in such buildings. Some speculate that, due to its size, it was meant as a hunting lodge. Unless other sources are uncovered over time, the question will remain without a definitive answer.

What we do know is that it is a near perfect, regular octagon. The length of each side differs by no more than a few inches along any wall. At each vertex of the main octagon is a smaller octagonal tower.

The building was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of its aesthetic and cultural appeal. In the 18^th century the building fell into disrepair. Vandals stripped it of its marble facing and most of its ornaments. At one point herders sheltered there with their flocks. The building was purchased by the Italian state in 1876 and, after much debate, was restored to its current form beginning in 1928. The interior is devoid of decoration, making it relatively uninteresting, but there are remnants of fireplaces on the upper floors

and even a “bathroom” in one of the small towers.

Many people feel that the castle was the inspiration for a similar castle in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

Grotte di Castellana: 18 March 2013

OK, so what do you do when you are scheduled to walk a kilometer or more from a parking area and stand out in a field discussing Hannibal and the Punic Wars and it is raining? Well, being SYA we almost did it anyway. But, seeing as I was left in charge when our director had to be elsewhere and no one on the faculty really wanted to do it, we persuaded the trip organizer to divert from the schedule and find something else to do. That ultimately involved a trip to the Grotte di Castellana. The 3 kilometer cave, discovered in 1938, is among the most famous and important in Italy. The caves themselves are a karst formation and feature many interesting stalactites and stalagmites.

The main cavern, referred to as The Abyss, has an opening in the roof some 60 meters above your head through which the rain was falling, so we didn’t miss out on it entirely.

We did the shorter itinerary, spending around an hour being guided through the various parts of the cave. They do not allow pictures except in the principle cavern, so there isn’t much to show.

It was interesting in that it marked the second time this year that we found ourselves underground with a group of 60+ teenagers. What was more unusual is that Amy and I ended up underground again roughly a week later on Gibraltar as I have already blogged. While wandering the area waiting for our tour to begin we happened into a shop where Amy struck up a conversation with the owner. It turns out he had given up a career as a PhD Robotics Designer to return home and take up the family business. He didn’t regret it in the least. Made me wonder what I should be doing. But wait, being a college professor IS the family business!

Oh the Places We've Been

The next week+ saw a whirlwind of activity. Because we had already been to this region last year, many of the most interesting sites were repeats for us. Other cities were essentially one hit wonders where we visited a particular church or feature. Several of them stood out and I will blog about them individually later. For now, what follows is a quick overview of Puglia and surroundings in southern Italy.

We spent two nights in downtown Matera. You might remember this as the setting of the cave dwellings which had been inhabited for 6000 years. We stayed in a boutique hotel in a cave last year. In addition to houses, they carved other buildings out of the rock, including this church under what is now the main square of the city.

Notice the stone carved to look like ceiling beams. The Sassi of Matera are yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Next we went to Metaponto, to a different set of ruins near where Pythagoras had his school.

The ruins weren’t all that interesting, but I did catch a really cool picture of the clouds as it was about to rain on us.

Next up was Kalimera. The students were there for an activity on Grico, a unique language derived from ancient Greek and spoken only there. The language was nearly annihilated by the Italian government from the 1950’s on as they strove to unify the language of the country, but it is now making a resurgence. The students were able to find and speak with a few original native speakers. It didn’t have much to offer the rest of us other than a bunch of gnarly old olive trees which were quite evocative.

On the same day we visited another church with important paintings in Galatina.

Otranto had a church with somewhat crude stone mosaic floors as well as the skeletons of hundreds of people martyred in 1480.

As one of his final acts, Pope Bebedict the 16^th set them on their pathway to sainthood. That process is expected to be finalized by Pope Francis in the coming days.

Lecce had the remains of an ancient Roman amphitheater.

Locorotondo brought us back to the land of the trulli, the circular, stone-roofed buildings barely visible over Amy’s shoulder in the background of this picture. We also went back to Alberobello, another UNESCO World Heritage Site.

At Trani we visited yet another cathedral, this one right on the water.

We also visited Molfetta which found us in, you guessed it, another church.

This one had a little piece of what is purported to be Santa Lucia.

She had hers eyes gouged out as part of her martyrdom. Pieces of her are scattered all over Europe, but I can find no mention of any of her being in Molfetta even though that is what the container suggests. I’ve blogged before about the Catholic obsession with preserving their saints and divvying them up between various churches. I find it both fascinating and puzzling.

Paestum: 12 March 2013

When wandering around Italy it is forgivable to think that places earning the designation of UNESCO World Heritage Site are common as dirt. Little could be further from the truth. It is simply a reflection of the fact that roughly half of the so designated areas are in Italy. Thus it was that the second day of our southern school trip brought us to the ruins at Paestum, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. The modern town of Paestum is a tiny little place with next to nothing else to offer except the occasional tourist trap and a museum dedicated to artifacts discovered during the excavations of the ruins.

Founded by the Greeks at the end of the 7^th century BC, Paestum was an important city in the region. It continued to prosper over the centuries, even under Roman rule, until it was eventually abandoned during the middle ages. Interest was rekindled in the site during the 18^th century at roughly the same time as the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The majority of the 60 acre site is an open field crisscrossed by the foundations of the original buildings and an occasional column jutting up into the air. 

However, what really sets it apart are the standing remains of three Doric-order temples. Attributing these temples is often an imprecise game accomplished mostly by looking at the statuary which remains inside. However, when more than one deity is prominently represented or if the identification of that deity is disputed, then disagreements occur. Such is the case at Paestum. The oldest temple on the site is the Temple of Hera, built around 550 BC. It is 9x18 columns and lacks some of the optical refinements found on later temples. It was originally misidentified as a Roman era administrative building rather than a Greek era temple. Hence its original title of the Basilica.

Next to it is the second Temple of Hera also attributed at various times to Poseidon/Neptune and Ceres. It was built about 100 years after the first temple to Hera and is smaller, with fewer columnsm(6x12) more widely spaced. Over time the Greek architects came to understand that they didn’t need as many supports and were able to open up their buildings more. In addition to being narrower at the top than the bottom, the columns lean slightly inward and the long top support is slightly bowed to give the building better aesthetics when viewed from a distance.

What I find mindblowing is the amount of interior structure which is still present. The double tiered rows of columns used to support the roof as well as the cella are all still largely intact.

A few hundred meters away at the other end of the site is the Temple of Athena, built around 500 BC.

In addition to the three main temples, there are several theater complexes which are more intact than most of the other structures. Here is the Greek Ekklesiaterion, built around 480-470 BC. It was originally used for political assemblies and was later converted to a sanctuary.

At this time of year it plays host to a wide assortment of yellow and white wildflowers, a tiny bouquet of which were picked by a student and presented to Amy.

The nearby museum holds artifacts from the site such as this reproduction of the Olympic Woman.

Paestum is also famous for its painted tombs, found in necropolis outside of the original city wall. Most of them date from the time after the cities fall to the Lucanians. However, perhaps the most famous is the only one known to be from the Greek period. It is referred to as the Tomb of the Diver. The diver was on the top cover of the enclosure with other paintings on all 4 walls. The diver is diving from above into the unknown of the afterlife.

This December Amy and I journeyed to Athens to visit the Acropolis and see the Parthenon. It was certainly a sight to see. But, for all my friends who wax poetic over it I have to say you ain't seen nothing. It is a distant third on my list of Greek temple sites (maybe even fourth or fifth) behind the temples at Agrigento on Sicily and now these at Paestum. Believe it or not, if you only get to see one set of Greek temples in your life, you might want to skip Greece altogether and visit this one.

Herculaneum: 11 March 2013

The year was 79 AD, the place, Mt. Vesuvius and environs, the upscale playing grounds of wealthy Roman citizens. The mountain had been grumbling for years – earthquakes and tremors – but no one gave it any thought until … the top of the mountain lit up in fire. Ash rained down from the sky, covering the surroundings at the rate of a meter every few hours. Then came pyroclastic lava, burying everything in its path as it made its way to the sea and reshaped the coastline. That path included the cities of Pompeii, Stabiae, Boscoreal, Oplontis and Herculaneum.

Amy and I visited the ruins of Pompeii many years ago on our first trip together to Italy in 1996. It was a less than stellar visit and left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. It was crowded, dirty and large portions of it were not open to the public. Apparently, the intervening years haven’t been kind as the site slowly decays with the Italian government unable to provide the necessary funding to preserve and protect the remains.

That brings us to Herculaneum. For many years this site was accessible only to scholars. Now, through a unique private-public partnership this UNESCO World Heritage Site can be viewed by all. Early March is a good time to visit. The weather is mild but the site is free of the throngs that visit during the high season. Approximately 1/10 of the area has been unearthed although more exploration has been done using tunnels.

Herculaneum is more intact as it was buried by the lava flow from the ground up, allowing the upper stories of houses to be preserved as well. In Pompeii the upper stories were destroyed by the rocks falling from the sky. You can walk the streets just as the Romans might have some 2000 years ago.

Scholars have even gone so far as to replant the gardens using the same varieties of plants in the same configuration that archeological work indicates was present at the time of the disaster.

The intense heat of the lava carbonized wooden beams and objects, turning them into charcoal.

There are even remains of a wooden staircase.

There are brightly painted inner courtyards

and the remains of decorative frescoes,

seen here in detail.

There is some evidence that the color palate we currently see was not the original as the heat of the lava might have altered and changed some of the pigments just as pottery glaze changes when fired at high temperature in a kiln. These three paintings sit above a tiled alcove which might have contained a fountain.

Several magnificent mosaic wall tiled areas can be seen.

Both of these pictures are in the same courtyard.

Tile can also be seen intact or restored on floors

and in this interior fountain.

Such fountains were used for air circulation as well as decoration since in the summer the cold, moving water would have promoted cooling, convective currents. There were several bathing complexes including one with these remarkable tiled floors.

Pompeii and Herculaneum offers different experiences. For that matter, Ostia Antica provides a nice opportunity to see the remains and layout of an ancient Roman city, and it is much more accessible from Rome. If you have time to see them all, by all means do. However, if there can be only one, then Herculaneum is your best choice.

Granada/Alhambra: 27 March 2013

As soon as we booked our timeshare in Costa del Sol, Amy was online looking for things to do. She quickly noted how close Marbella was to Granada and it was immediately clear that we were headed there to see the Alhambra. When we arrived in Marbella and got a sense of the options, she immediately went online to try to get tickets only to discover that general admission tickets were all sold out. Tickets through the resort were over the top expensive so it looked like we were out of luck until Amy noted a group of guided tours. The cost was significantly more than a general ticket, but significantly less than the offer from the resort so we agreed to go for it and signed up for an English language tour focusing on Women in the Alhambra. The tour began at 0930 and we were required to pick up our tickets an hour ahead of time at the Ticketmaster machine. The drive from Marbella to Granada is almost 2 hours and we left a few minutes for getting lost which made for a very early start to the day.

As it turned out, the decision to go on a tour was a fantastic one! We effectively got a backstage pass with our own security guard who followed us around and let us into places where visitors are not normally allowed. It also included a trip into the city of Granada to see some of the sites there. Unfortunately, some of those, like the convent, were closed due to Holy Week activities and others were unavailable, like the cathedral due to a mass being said. There were only 5 people on our tour, although the guide said there could have been a maximum of 30. The weather for our visit was fickle, to say the least. We started in bright sunshine and warmth, but at one time later on were being buffeted by rain swept gusts of chilled air.

The Alhambra was actually more than a single palace although most of what was originally there has been destroyed either by the Christians who later occupied it or by the Muslims themselves in a fit of pique when they were kicked out. I took several hundred pictures; far too many to include them all here with any kind of coherent description. So, I will include some of the nicer ones with brief descriptions of what they are. As you enter the complex you see the summer house of the sultans sitting outside the fortified complex.

It was situated in such a way as to provide maximum pleasantness, but the sultan had to return inside the walls at night which he did along a private road with its own entrance.

We visited the Palace of the 3 Princesses, not normally on view.

Legend has it that two of the three young ladies left through a window to be with their Christian lovers leaving the third behind.

This would have been made possible by the fact that the small, square building is built into the fortified wall.

A stroll through the remains of a palace site uncovered evidence of a Roman-style toilet with running water.

Our guide arranged for us to visit the Hall of the Ambassadors, even though it wasn’t on our tour.

Everywhere you look is decorated with writing or geometric designs, all of it was originally painted and some still has original pigmentation.

We had a chance to visit the Court of the Lions and its fabulous fountain which had just been reinstalled last week following restoration.

The base is so large that it won’t fit through any of the entrances indicating that it was placed before the palace was finished around it.

There were the remains of marvelous geometric tile work.

Another unique place we visited was the upstairs private quarters of the family.

While the decoration was more functional and less ornate, it was still obviously the home of wealthy people.

There were any number of stunning gardens and open spaces.

Rather than have windows facing outward, they always looked into these interior courtyard spaces.

Another interesting place off the tourist path was a tower decorated for Charles V as he made his way across Europe and decided to build a new palace on the site of his former foe at Alhambra. The interior is decorated with a series of frescoes depicting portions of his travels.

The tower can be seen to the far right of the picture taken from the town below where we lunched on tapas.

As part of our visit to the town, we stopped at a hamam.

   

After having seen so much of the Roman, gothic, baroque, etc. styles of architecture the sites at the Alhambra were quite noteworthy and different. Even though the Muslims were present in places such as Sicily, little of their work remains. I was impressed by how light and spacious everything seemed, not at all heavy or oppressive. Imposing wasn’t the intention. Some of that was made possible by their work with plaster rather than carving stone. This allowed them to cover every surface with detail and color.

Overall, we enjoyed the trip immensely and returned to the resort tired, but satisfied.