Zurers in Italy: 2006 II

Day 22: Frascati

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 21:38:00 +0000

Yet another warm and sunny day......we continue to luck out with the weather....and today we are driving to the hill town of Palestrina--the Roman city of Preneste. Palestrina is about 30 km west of Frascati; to get there we have to drive up to Monte Porzio Cantone, down into the valley and then back up a hill to Palestrina.

Palestrina is well known in musical circles as the birthplace of Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina--the 16th century composer and creator of polyphonic harmony- but it is also one of the oldest towns in Italy and the site of one of the largest and most famous temples of the ancient world. The temple was the home of the very popular oracle named Fortuna Primagenia and many Romans made the trip from Rome on the Via Prenestina to consult her.

The temple had been lost and only was rediscovered when Palestrina was heavily bombed during World War II. The houses in the upper part of town were destroyed and the ruins of the ancient temple were uncovered. The temple complex was enormous; it covered the entire area of the present day town from the top of the hill to the valley floor. There were a series of large terraces and stairs that led up to where the oracle sat and it was richly decorated and could be seen for miles. In addition to the temple, the area was a summer resort and many wealthy and famous Romans--Cicero, Horace, Pliny - praised it in their writings. The emperors Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and Hadrian all had villas in the area.

Once Christianity took hold, the fortunes of the oracle took a turn for the worse and gradually the temple fell into disuse and people began living on the site and building houses. During the 17th century, wealthy and powerful Roman families, like the Colonnas and the Barberinis, moved here and the Barberinis built a large palazzo at the top of the hill incorporating pieces of the temple into the structure. Apparently, all the notable architects of the time--Bramante, Bernini, Palladio, Raphael--were familiar with the temple complex and incorporated features of the temple in their work.

We drive up to the top of the town Palestrina to the Barberini palace which now houses the very excellent museum containing many of the artifacts from the temple as well as explanations about the history and construction. The museum is quite wonderful---well arranged with plenty of light--and the primitive audioguide (walkman and cassette tape) is well done.

Entrance to the upper town

Palazzo Barberini (museum)

Artist's rendering of the temple complex with the Barberini Palace on top

No pictures are allowed in the museum but the statues, columns and other artifacts are well worth seeing. The most wonderful exhibit in the collection is a 2nd century B.C. mosaic depicting a map of Egypt and the Nile which includes scenes of people, buildings and animals in wonderful detail. (The picture below doesn't do justice to the mosaic; there is a bigger picture if you follow the link below to the museum exhibits).

There is a model of the temple complex which gives a good idea of the size and elaborateness of the building. Here is a link to pictures of exhibits in the museum.

The views from the terrace in front of the museum are wonderful and in ancient days, the temple was visible for miles around. After we finish in the museum, we sit in the sun and enjoy the views before heading down to the very attractive "centro storico". We stroll through the town, stopping to see the statue to Palestrina

in the main square, take a quick look at the duomo and its belltower and note the Roman columns embedded in the walls of the town buildings

do a little shopping and admire the street signs which look like mosaics.

We have a very nice lunch in the local hotel's dining room (the Coccia restaurant in the Hotel Stella)......polenta with cheese and lardo followed by gnocchi with beans, clams and mussels for me and Diana has a selection of antipasto from the buffet and the house specialty of fettuccine with a nice ragu.

After lunch, we drive back to the Colli Albani and take a driving tour of the highest and steepest town in the area--the very picturesque Rocca di Papa. The town is at about 2,500 feet and after driving up a very steep hill to the main square, the upper part of the town still towers above us.

View of the upper town of Rocca di Papa

The street patten is thankfully one way as we drive up almost to the top (on very narrow, windy streets) and quickly drop back down to the main square. Needless to say, the views over the hills are wonderful. We make a stop in Genzano di Roma to pick up some of their famous bread and then take the scenic route back to Frascati.

Bread from Genzano di Roma

At dinner time, we are tired and neither of us is too hungry so we decide to skip going out, eat some bread and cheese in the room and make it an early night.

Tomorrow we are off to Rome.

Day 21: Frascati

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 19:18:00 +0000

Another bright, sunny morning as we set off to explore the the Colli Albani (Alban Hills). Our first stop is the old Roman city of Tusculum which is on the top of the hill/mountain over Frascati. This site doesn't have too many identifiable buildings other than a fairly well preserved theater and most of it is behind a fence because of ongoing excavations. The setting is wonderful however....beautiful sweeping views over the green hills.....and very peaceful. There is a good network of hiking trails that cross the site and we see two walkers (one with a dog) while we are there.

Theater at Tusculum

View from Tusculum

View up from Tusculum

We spend most of the day driving through the countryside and admiring the scenery. The towns all seem to be very attractive and prosperous looking and the hills are for the most part rolling and gentle, making for very enjoyable driving. We drive around the larger of the two volcanic lakes in the area--Lake Albano--and descend to the lake shore to take a walk.

View over Lake Albano

From the shore of Lake Albano

On this Monday morning, there is not much activity but it looks like they are quite busy in the summer and on weekends.....there are many restaurants and places to rent boats. The water is amazingly clear. The town that overlooks this lake is Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope has his summer residence. There are other large villas with views over the lake and a very nice "centro storico" with a very narrow main street that we drive through.

For lunch, we head for Ariccia, which is known as the "home of porchetta". It isn't hard to find places to sample the speciality....there is one neighborhood that is essentially a dozen restaurants that all feature porchetta. We sit outside in the warm sun with a plate of the local speciality, a basket of great bread and some local white wine....very, very pleasant.

Porchetta Alley - Arricia

After lunch, we drive through town--Bernini designed a couple of churches here--before heading to the other (smaller) volcanic lake--Lake Nemi. The road to Lake Nemi takes us through Genzano di Roma--a town known for its bread--but at this time, all the bakeries are closed so we can't stop for a sample. The road then drops down to the lake front but there is almost no commercial development evident...we pass one trattoria and a sign for a bed and breakfast...but it is very peaceful and tranquil. We drive as far as we can around the lake but have to turn around when the road turns into a dirt track.

Lake Nemi

In addition to being known for its strawberries, Lake Nemi in Roman times was a favorite place of the Emperor Caligula and he built two large ships to take his guest on cruises. In fact, the ships were sunk over 2,000 years ago and and were retrieved from the bottom of the lake in the early 20th century. Mussolini built a large museum on the lakeshore to display them but the Germans--when they were retreating--set fire to the museum and little of the ships remain.

However, the museum is still open and has displays and explanations about the ships and how they were recovered. The ships were very large (almost three football fields long) and decorated very elaborately. There are scale models of the ships, displays of some of the pieces that escaped the fire and pictures that show what the naval archaeologists think the ships actually looked like. The museum itself is very impressive and the exhibits are well mounted and interesting. We have the place entirely to ourselves.

Museum of Roman Ships

Artist's rendering of Caligula's ship

Reconstruction of rudder of one of the ships

Scale model (1/5 the size) of the ship

Nails and other fasteners recovered from the lake

Reconstruction of the keel of one of the ships

The other half of the museum houses some of the finds from area archaeological digs but the holdings aren't anywhere as interesting as the exhibits about Caligula's ships.

Back in Frascati, I go out to explore more of the town. I walk around the very nice public gardens that used to be the grounds of the Villa Torlonia.

and admire a very nice sunset.

In doing some research for dinner, in the Italian restaurant guide Gambero Rosso, I find a listing for a wine bar with good selections of salumi, cheeses and bruschetta. The wine bar is called Vie dei Canti, which is the Italian translation of the title of the Bruce Chatwin book "Songlines". It is a located just on the edge of the "centro storico" in an old palazzo. We are the only customers but Chet Baker is playing in the background and the young owner seems very enthusiastic so we decide to stay. We have a very pleasant evening.....we get a tour of the wine cellar, enjoy an excellent red wine from the Alto Adige and have a very delicious assortment of cured meats from all over Italy, some interesting cheeses and a selection of tasty bruschetta.

The walk back to the hotel is very peaceful. Tomorrow we are planning to go to the hill town of Palestrina.

Day 20: Frascati

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 18:16:00 +0000

Following up on a suggestion made by our friend Maureen in Rome, we have an appointment to visit the Tenuta Pantano Borghese, an agriturismo and large farm located about 30 minutes from Frascati. After breakfast--surprisingly ordinary for such a classy hotel, we find the right road which climbs steeply to the next town of Monte Porzio Cantone and then descends sharply into the valley where the Via Casalina runs.

Tenuta Pantano Borghese

The farm is located behind a security gate and down a long road lined with plane trees. We meet the owners--Federico and Monica Cavazza and they take us on a tour of the property. There are 15 apartments (most of them recently refurbished and tastefully but simply furnished) and a large dining hall with a professional kitchen. In addition to taking in guests, the farm also hosts weddings and other large parties that Monica arranges. She tells us that she will be supervising a lunch for 150 people next week...as part of the inauguration of the fox hunting season (her husband is one the leaders of the local fox hunting group) which will be held on the property. In fact, she invites us to come--to watch the fox hunting but more to enjoy the homemade pasta.

In the back of the buildings--which are built on the foundation of an aqueduct that passed through the property--there are about 300 cows in pens. This is a working dairy farm although the owners are very critical of all the Italian and EU regulations which are constantly changing and making it difficult for them to farm. In fact, they will start marketing their milk directly because the current agricultural policy has been paying them not to produce and they want to keep the farm going as a working farm as well as an agriturismo.

Tenuta Pantano Borghese main building

Cows in pens in back of Tenuta Pantano Borghese

It turns out that Federico is a Borghese count and the farm has been in his family since the 1600's. Monica and Federico invite us for some coffee and cake and we hit it off very well. We have a very pleasant chat about the travel business, the difficulties connected with operating a farm, their experience with getting the business started as well as their family trip around New England and Quebec in a motor home last summer. After our tour of the apartments, Federico invites us to come with him to another horse club event--where many of the members of the fox hunting set get together for a show of the horses that are being used this year as well as demonstration of jumping and cross-country racing.

We follow him from Pantano Borghese to the horse club...which is located just inside the ring road that goes around Rome and just off the Appian Way. The setting is in a very green and bucolic area, almost within the city limits of Rome. In order to get to the stables, we actually have to drive for a short way on the Appian Way with the old stones in the roadway.

A wide view of the riding area

Riders galloping across the fields

The riders of the future

This is a glimpse into a piece of Italian life that we didn't even know existed....fox hunting was brought to Italy about 100 years ago. The people we see at this event are both Italians and foreigners--but from their dress, we could be somewhere in England. We watch the jumping and the riding for a while--many of the riders at this event are policemen and military--and then thank Federico and say goodbye. He urges us to come back to Pantano Borghese next week for the first fox hunt of the season.

We drive back to Frascati for lunch....the porchetta stands in the Piazza del Mercato are too inviting. On this overcast Sunday afternoon, Frascati is very lively....there is a monthly craft/antique sale that fills the main piazza and the streets of the "centro storico". There are four porchetta stands open but one of them is staffed by a natural salesmen who hawks his product aggessively and offers tastes to all who walk by. We order two sandwiches--delicious moist roast pig with savory spices in the middle and crispy skin on wonderful, fresh rosetta rolls--and eat them on a bench in the square.

Porchetta

After lunch, we drive back into Rome; it is Sunday afternoon and the traffic is quite light. My goal is to see the Via Appia Antica (Appian Way) and the memorial at the Ardeatine Caves (Fosse Ardeatine) where more than 300 Romans were massacred as a reprisal for a partisan bomb that killed 33 German soldiers in 1944. I drive straight down the Via Appia Nuova almost to the center of Rome, go past San Giovanni Laterano and down to the Circus Maximus. Along the west side of the Via Appia Nuova, it is still undeveloped for a long stretch and you can see the remains of Roman buildings in the fields. The Via Appia Antica is closed to car traffic until 4 pm (another half hour) so I try to negotiate the confusing Rome traffic patterns to get as close to some of the monuments as possible. After wandering around a residential neighborhood for a while, we find ourselves right along the wall near the Porta San Sebastiano and follow the traffic right onto the Appian Way (even though it is a bit before 4 pm.) The road at this point is lined with high walls and it hard to see anything. We pass the Ristorante Quo Vadis and soon come to the catacombs of St. Calisto....there are a lot of tour buses and a good number of tourists there. Continuing on, we reach the Via Ardeatine and the entrance to the memorial.

The memorial is set in old catacombs which are the actual caves where the Germans executed the Romans who were rounded up quickly--both political prisoners and people from the streets. Out of the 332 murdered, about 80 were Roman Jews, but the killings were specifically reprisals for the killing of the German soldiers and not necessarily part of the plan to exterminate Jews. The tunnels go back under the hill and there are plaques showing where the Germans set off bombs to seal off the caves to conceal the evidence of the murders. There is also a large cemetery covered with a thick concrete roof where the victims are buried and a small museum with exhibits and documentation about the event. There is one large statue commemorating the victims and the gate to the memorial is also a work of art dedicated to them.

Iron gate at entrance to Ardeatine memorial

Entrance to Ardeatine Cave

We continue down the Via Appia Antica for as long as we can---at this point, there are big estates with high walls but we can catch glimpses of beautiful gardens through the gates.

Garden of estate on Via Appia Antica

We head out of Rome on the new Via Appia but just before we leave the city, we make a detour to see what the Appia Antica looks like. We find the road next to the monument called Casal Rotondo, a large circular tomb. The setting could be out in the countryside but we are still within the city limits. There are bikers, joggers and walkers enjoying the late Sunday afternoon

--the sunset is quite beautiful

--and there is also a large flock of sheep coming out of the field next to the Casal Rotondo and crossing over the Via Appia Antica.

Back in Frascati, I make a exploratory trip into town to find a suitable restaurant for dinner. Most of the recommended restaurants in town are closed on Sunday evenings but I find plenty of attractive possibilities. The town is still full of day trippers and locals on their Sunday evening passeggiata and the porchetta stands are doing a good business.

We end up eating at a place recommended by the desk clerk called Aranua. When we arrive, the place is not too full, but after we order, the tables begin to fill up. We then see that this is another place where just about every table orders the house antipasto which is brought out of the kitchen on several plates. The food is quite good....strozzapreti with cacio, pepe and mushrooms for me and strozzapreti amatriciana for Diana. For secondi, Diana has the sliced steak...it comes very rare and is very good...and I have the "straccetti (rags)"---thin sliced pieces of piece served with lots of rucola. The waitress recommends the Nero d'Avola--a red wine from Sicily--which we enjoy very much.

By the time we make our way back to the hotel, the crowds have left and it is peaceful. Tomorrow, we explore the Colli Albani and the two volcanic lakes.

Day 19: Bacoli-Frascati

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 03:48:00 +0000

We have to move on today.....our time in Bacoli was sort of fractured because of the car incident but we did enjoy the area and would think about coming back in the future. The hotel is a bit quirky (especially the lighting) but--because the weather is so uncertain and cool--we don't get to take advantage of the wonderful balcony and roof terrace. The staff is very nice and helpful and it was fun to have the whole place to ourselves for the most part.

The weather today is sunny but a bit cool....certainly an improvement over the past few days. We decide to drive slowly up the coast into Lazio and on to Frascati, rather than getting on the autostrada and making it a fast trip. I am curious to explore the beach towns along the Campania and Lazio coast and it is always nice to check out new areas.

Bacoli to Frascati Map

For most of the ride up the Campania coast, the views of the sea are few and far between. We make a couple of jogs from the main road to the beach but the towns are sort of depressing....both because they are a bit rundown and because it is off season. We make good time through the various towns enroute--Castel Volturno, Mondragone and Baia Domizia--but the scenery between towns is mostly uninteresting....long views of flat farm lands with the mountains in the distance on one side and either scrub pine woods or empty beach establishments and campgrounds between the road and the sea on the other side.

What we do see in every town are numerous places that make and sell mozzarella di bufala.....this is certainly an important part of the region's economy. And a fair amount of uncollected garbage.

One instance of the uncollected garbage epidemic in Campania

The other puzzling thing that we notice--especially around Castel Volturno--is a large number of black men just standing on the side of the road--sometimes in groups, sometimes alone, not appearing to be going anywhere or doing anything. Are they day laborers looking for work? Farm workers with nothing to do out of season? It is a mystery.

There is a drastic change in the scenery the moment that we pass the Lazio regional border....the rugged mountains are suddenly extremely close to the waterfront and there are expansive views over the Mediterranean from the highway. In addition, the first big town that pass through--Formia--looks very attractive....not run down at all, with a fresh looking center and a long pleasant promenade along the water. The same thing holds true for Gaeta...although we don't actually make a tour of the "centro storico".

We make a stop in Sperlonga--I had clients stay there in August who liked it very much. And, in fact, it is a very pleasant town....a small centro storico on a bluff over the beach and very attractive resort area with a very nice sand beach. There is a promenade along the beach in town and then there are some hotels directly on the beach beyond the built up area.....one that we saw had a beautiful outdoor pool. We think it is probably the nicest beach town we have visited in Italy....and they advertise that they have been awarded the "Bandiera Blu" which recognizes the towns with the cleanest water.

Beach at Sperlonga facing north

Beach at Sperlonga looking south toward the town.

As we continue along our way, the road leaves the coastline for a while but at Terracina, we are back in sight of the water. Now we are looking for lunch....I would like to find a porchetta truck or a place that sells the Campanian specialty "panuozzo". We drive through Terracina--another very pleasant beach town with a nice downtown, a long promenade along the waterfront and nice beaches. We don't find the food that we are looking for so we continue on toward the San Felice Circeo area...which is a resort and park area dominated by a high bluff, a long beach and some exclusive resorts. On the road out of Terracina, I see a sign advertising "panuozzo" so we stop and go into the pizzeria/delicatessen. At first, they say that they don't have any but the proprietor relents and makes up the sandwich for us....freshly baked warm pizza with lots of prosciutto and mozzarella cheese inside.

As soon as we reach San Felice Circeo, we stop by the waterfront, open the car windows and enjoy our lunch. The "panuozzo" doesn't disappoint.

Panuozzo

This resort is more upscale than Sperlonga....it has a long pretty beach, an exclusive little beach town (with two yacht brokers), a nice harbor, a national park with hiking trails and, for good measure, an attractive "centro storico" high above the water.

Beach at San Felice Circeo

The next beaches we come to are the nicest of all.....a completely undeveloped strip of sand on a barrier island off Sabaudia, separated from the road by dunes. There is a large lagoon between the barrier island and the mainland that looks very pretty and suitable for boating and fishing.

Beach at Sabaudia

Even the town of Sabaudia---which was built by Mussolini as a new town--looks inviting. All these towns are convenient and understandably popular with Romans for their summer holidays but virtually unknown to American visitors.

Now we leave the coast and find the Via Appia (the same Appian Way that begins in Rome) and drive up its absolutely straight path from the sea to Velletri--where the Alban Hills begin. Lots of agriculture and long flat vistas.....but we are making good time towards Frascati.

Once we hit Velletri, the road climbs into the Colli Albani which reach almost to the southern city limits of Rome. The drive along the Via dei Laghi (there are two volcanic lakes in the Colli--Nemi and Albano) reveals no trace of any lakes because the roadside is heavily wooded for almost the entire trip. There are a number of large restaurants along the road and we see at least two big parties being held as we drive past.

We arrive in Frascati about 4 pm.....the main square is very crowded on this sunny and pleasant Saturday afternoon.....and make one wrong turn enroute to the hotel--which gives us an unplanned introductory tour of Frascati's "centro storico". We finally extricate ourselves, note that we had misinterpreted the direction meant by a downward pointing arrow on the hotel sign and find the Hotel Flora located a few hundred meters down from the main square.

The hotel is in a very attractive villa

that is very stylish and very modern---sliding glass doors to the lobby, electronic keys, an elevator, and wireless high-speed internet access (finally). Our large room has a separate sitting area, a large marble bathroom with a (very strange) glass door, a big, comfortable bed and lots of light.

We unpack and spend some time getting used to all the creature comforts and then we make a quick tour of the town. It's a five minute walk from the hotel to the town's main piazza. There is a large villa high over the main square--the Villa Aldobrandini--and a wide promenade with an overlook that gives you a broad vista over the city of Rome, to the hills north of Rome, and the mountains to the east towards Abruzzo. From the main square that has traffic routed around it, you can walk into the historic center with nice piazzas...one in front of the Duomo and--a few blocks away--one that is front of the market and has four porchetta stands lined up around it. There are small, pedestrian only streets with shops all through the center, which is mostly level; however, once you leave the center there are serious hills...some going up and some going down...and a number of places that give you panoramic views over the valley.

On our first walk around we find the large duomo

a church with a 13th century belltower

and a bakery that bakes giant loaves of bread in wood burning ovens

with the wood for the oven stacked outside.

Frascati seems like it will be a nice place to stay.

We have dinner at Cacciani, one of the most famous restaurants in Frascati. It is a very handsome, professional and well organized place. And the food is very good also.....we share an antipasto plate which has fabulous salami, prosciutto and parmigiano-reggiano. Diana has spaghetti cacio e pepe and then pollo alla romana and I have pasta with oxtail ragu and a fritto misto of vegetables--all are good but not earthshattering. The wine is a white from Marino and very refreshing. The check comes to over Euro 100.00 which is a bit pricey for what we have.....but we do enjoy the evening.

It is a short, easy walk (downhill) to the hotel on this somewhat chilly evening. Tomorrow we have an appointment to visit an agriturismo nearby and then we plan to explore the Via Appia.

Day 18: Bacoli

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 01:22:00 +0000

Friday, November 3, 2006: Day 18: Bacoli

The sun is back but it is comparatively chilly and breezy this morning. Our first stop this morning is the Casina Reale--a hunting lodge--built for Ferdinando IV of Bourbon on one of the volcanic lakes in the area--Lake Fusaro. It was designed by Carlo Vanvitelli, the son of the famous architect Luigi Vanvitelli (actually a German who was quite active in Italy in the 18th century). It sits about 25 yards off shore connected to the land and makes for a pretty picture.

The lake is famous as the first instance of oyster farming (by the Romans) and oysters are still grown there today.

Oyster markers in Lake Fusaro

Next we visit the archaeological site of Cuma--most famous as the location of the Sibyls' cave as described in the Aeneid. H.V. Morton--travel writer par excellence--was completely enchanted with Cuma and we too found it fascinating...but in different ways.

Cuma is in an out of the way corner of the Campi Flegrei; when we get there, there are a lot of staff but we don't see any other visitors. You enter the site up a long grade and through a tunnel hewn out of the rock. There are some burial chambers on the right and the entrance to the Sybils' cave is on your left. The Sibyls of Cumae were in the same business as the oracle at Delphi (and many other prophetesses in the ancient world) and they were sought out by many for their predictive skills. The Books of the Sibyls were prized possessions of the Roman state and they were guarded tightly and consulted frequently by many Roman leaders.

Relevant passages from Virgil are inscribed in marble at the entrance to the tunnel. The tunnel leading to the cave is dug out of the rock facing of the cliff and provides a suitably mysterious entrance hall leading to the cave. The only light comes from openings cut into one side of the tunnel at regular intervals and it is still quite mysterious.

Entrance to Sibyls' Cave

Looking back towards the entrance of the cave of the Sibyls

The petitioners would encounter the Sybils deep in the cave - there's an area where they presumably sat - she would go into a trance and answer their question. For Morton there remained a romantic, "religiously" mysterious air to the place. Not so much for us.

Once out of the cave, we climb the hill to the Acropolis of the town. Cuma was the first Greek settlement in the area -dating to 730 B.C. There are a number of temples to explore and climb around, which also have beautiful views of the surrounding countryside and the islands of Ischia and Procida. The site is very peaceful and we are more or less alone---except for the large number of staff who are reading magazines, strolling the ground and enjoying the beautiful weather. The temple of Apollo and the temple of Jupiter (at the top of the hill) are not in very good shape but on this sunny day with blue skies and no one around, we find them quite attractive and enjoy being in this ancient spot and just poking around both of the ruins.

Temple of Apollo - Cuma

Temple of Apollo - Cuma

View towards Ischia from the Temple of Apollo

The Via Sacra leading to the Temple of Jupiter - Cuma

View of Temple of Jupiter - Cuma

Baptismal Font (from subsequent church) - Temple of Jupiter - Cuma

Temple of Jupiter - Cuma

We spend almost two hours at the site.....while we are admiring the view, we see movement on the beach. There are horses pulling carts moving up and down the beach...we can't tell if they are actually racing or just practicing.

If you look closely on the beach, you can make out the horse and cart.

On the road to our next stop--the Solfatara Volcano--we drive through the Arco Felice. This was a cut in the mountains that was excavated by the Romans and decorated with an elaborate arch which served as the monumental gateway to Cuma. The decorations are now gone but the arch remains intact and traffic flows through it everyday.

Arco Felice

Solfatara, located just above the town of Pozzuoli, is actually a "Campo Flegrea"--a burning field. It is an active volcano that looks like a moonscape punctuated with boiling mud pools and a number of holes in the ground that continuously spew hot steam. It is set in the bottom of a crater and the smell of sulfur is very strong. I had expected that much of the area would look like this but this is the only example that we come across. I am intrigued by the scene as I walk around the crater and feel the hot smelly steam.....one can imagine that this would be thought of as the entrance to the underworld.

View from the top of the crater at Solfatara

Hot steam at Solfatara

Rocks colored by the minerals from the volcano

Bubbling mud pool at Solfatara

Reflectors that are monitored by satellites to detect any volcanic activity

We have lunch on the waterfront....I have been looking for a local specialty called "panuozzo"-- sandwiches made using pizza as the bread. Driving by, I spot a sign for them so we park and walk back up the street...only to find that the shop is closed. There is a restaurant with a enclosed terrace next door so we decide to eat there. It is a good thing that there is a nice view because we spend a long time waiting for our food. The locals are having the multi-plate seafood antipasto but we just want some pasta. My spaghetti with clams and mussels arrives first and I am just about finished when Diana's pennette with tomato sauce arrives. The house white is very nice--another Falanghina--and the food is fine, but it took an awfully long time for the food to arrive.

After lunch we take a short stroll along the Lungomare Yalta and drive up to the upper town of Pozzuoli to visit the amphitheater--the third largest in Italy. It is now 3:15 pm and it is closed. We read that after November 1, they close at 2:45 pm. So the amphitheater will have to wait for our next visit.

Back to Bacoli and, after a short rest, we take a walk around the center of town, window shopping and trying to co-exist with the cars that share the narrow street with pedestrians. Bacoli's main street is very nice and more extensive than one might think when driving past....there are some very nice shops as well. Our only purchase is some duct tape...to seal up the bottles of olive oil that we will be bringing home.

We have dinner at one of the "downtown" restaurants--Da Caliendo. When we arrive at 8:15, there are only two tables occupied--an American couple and some French tourists. We think that our making reservations was unnecessary but by 9 pm, almost every table is filled. We decide against the seafood antipasto and have the "land based" version--good meats, cheeses and vegetables followed by a very good baked fish with a lemon sauce. We have our second bottle of wine of the day....the house wine which is another Falanghina and is again very delicious. We do notice that every other table is having the extensive seafood antipasto--which starts off with a big plate of white pizza with some kind of condiment, continues with large fried shrimp and seems to go on forever. Next time, we will have seafood antipasto.

For dessert, we have a chocolate cake, which is really some kind of white cake with lots of good chocolate sauce. A very successful dinner.....

Tomorrow we are off to Frascati.

Day 17: Bacoli

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 01:36:00 +0000

No rain this morning, but it is still overcast and as cool as it has been on this trip. After breakfast--we still seem to be the only guests at the hotel so we have the breakfast room to ourselves--we get specific directions from Rosanna, the desk clerk, about how to get to Naples by public transportation. We are supposed to take the grey Bacoli-Naples bus as far as Pozzuoli and then change to the Naples Metropolitana. This will take us directly to the Piazza Cavour stop which is a block from the Archeological Museum.

I buy the bus tickets and we find the bus stop (although there is no sign to confirm it and no other people waiting). For the first twenty minutes, there is no sign of any bus at all...then a couple of local orange buses pass by. After forty minutes, we are getting a bit impatient. At this point, a woman runs up to the bus stop and we ask here about the bus to Pozzuoli. She tells us that in fact we can't get to the Pozzuoli metro station from this stop but--once she figures out that we are ultimately going to Naples--tells us to follow her. She is taking the bus to the Cuma commuter train at Lucrino which will then take us to Naples...where we will change to the Metropolitana for one stop to get to the museum. We quickly follow her on the next bus that arrives and she shepherds us off the bus and into the train to Naples. When she gets off the train, we exchange cordial goodbyes and thank her for her help.

We make the switch in Naples (it is now raining lightly) and get off at Piazza Cavour. It is now 12 o'clock so we stop at a bar for coffee and cornetti to fortify ourselves for the museum. The museum is housed in a very large palazzo with a monumental entrance hall. There is a special show going on now called Egittomania...and there are large posters and banners for it plastered all over the museum. Egyptian deities were very important in Roman religious life and the extensive exhibit shows how pervasive the Egyptian influence was all over the Roman world. But we are here mainly to see the paintings, statues and mosaics that had been at Pompeii and Herculaneum and are now on display here.

We rent audio guides and sit down with a map of the museum to get located and plan our itinerary....for a change, it is a bit confusing and it takes a while for us to get our bearings. We first head toward the rooms that display the mosaics......and they alone are worth the price of admission. We are frequently impressed with the beauty of the mosaics that we have seen--whether they are 5th century Byzantine from Ravenna or later Byzantine or Roman ones in Sicily or those in churches in Rome; the ones that we see here are just as impressive. There are large scale mosaics like the very famous scene of Alexander the Great's victory over the Persians

Darius and Alexander at the Battle of Issus (333 B.C.)

Darius fleeing Alexander (detail)

Alexander in his chariot (detail)

There are smaller, delicate portraits and pictures detailing aspects of life in the Roman world

and they all feel very timeless...not dated at all. The detail is as extraordinary as the art and it is staggering to think of the work that goes in to getting all the pieces, sorting them and creating the art.

Looking for the rooms that feature the wall paintings from the houses in the area, we conclude that unfortunately these rooms are closed at this time. We do take a quick stroll through the "gabinetto segreto"---the room where the erotic paintings and sculptures are kept---and see a lot more phalluses and depictions of all sorts of sexual activity. In these times, I don't think that they have the same shock value that they apparently had previously. (We had read that in the past, women tourists were excluded from viewing them).

There are several rooms devoted to the finds from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum (which was also closed when we visited) and we are impressed with the statues and intrigued with the charred remained of the actual papyrus scrolls that are on display.

Hermes resting

Bust of Seneca or Aristophanes

Homer or Sophocles

Charred scroll of papyrus

We take a brief walk through the very extensive special exhibition "Egittomania" and then head for one of the major holdings of the museum--the Farnese sculptures that come mostly in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. This collection of monumental sculptures are remarkable not only for the artistry but for the size of the works; walking through the galleries you feel dwarfed by them.

The most famous is the Farnese bull--depicting the story of the vengeance of Zethus and Amphion on Dirce, Queen of Thebes. It is extraordinary

but the large statue of Hercules resting from his labors is also amazing.

We have hit our "museum limit" now and we quickly walk through the collection of Farnese jewels and some wonderful busts of Roman emperors on our way out of the museum.

The emperor Vespasian

Julius Caesar

The museum really is a essential complement to a visit to Pompeii and Herculaneum....it definitely enhances your sense of what the cities were like when they were alive--not to mention the wonderful art that was being created 2,000 years ago.

Back outside in 21st century Naples, it is cool but it isn't raining anymore so we walk down the Via Toledo, one of the main streets of Naples, looking for a place to eat. There is no question that Naples is gritty and somewhat worn down and filled with traffic but it is also lively and filled with things to do and see. We have lunch at a pizzeria at Porta Sant'Alba--again we like the pizza...simple but with the wonderful charred crust that we usually don't get in the U.S. Diana buys an umbrella at a nearby shop to replace the one we lost in the flood and we hop in a cab to take us to the rental car office. The cabbie is very friendly and when when we compliment him on his skillful driving, he rewards with us a ride down some of the narrow streets off the Spaccanapoli and takes us past his own house. We talk (in our limited Italian) about the recent crime surge in Naples and the increased police presence - Prodi is also scheduled to visit today - which he thinks the media exaggerates. I think the "tour" adds a few Euros to the fare but it is worth it. He drops in front of the car rental office and we say goodbye.

As might be expected, there are a few complications before we can actually pick the replacement car, but after a phone call to AutoEurope in the States, all is resolved. After a half hour or so, we are on our way out of the city. Today I am able to find the right way out of town--it does entail realizing at the last minute that I need to make a left turn from the right lane of the street--and we are quickly out of Naples with no further problems. I decide to try a different way back to Bacoli and we are rewarded for our curiosity by having to turn around (the road to Bacoli from this new direction is closed) and retrace our steps back to the "regular" route.

It is now getting dark so we rest in the room for a while before dinner. We go to dinner late (for us)--almost 9 pm, because we had finished our pizza around 3 pm. As it turns out, this is a dinner we should have skipped and just had a snack in the room. The Family Nest is a very nice looking, informal trattoria/pizzeria just a short walk from the hotel. We order the antipasto and pasta dishes.....but the antipasto that is delivered is huge--lots of good meats and cheeses, wonderful white pizza, some beans, stewed peppers, two dishes of mushrooms, grilled cheese with vegetables inside. Some of it is great, some of the dishes are less successful, but after only managing to make a small dent in it, we are full. We barely touch our pastas and quickly pay the check and make our way back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, we will explore the immediate area--the Campi Flegrei.

Day 16: Bacoli

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:56:00 +0000

When we look out the window this morning, it is dark and cloudy---overcast and definitely cooler than it has been. But while we are eating breakfast, it looks like the sun is trying to break through.

We are driving into Naples today to go to a laundromat. (For those of you who have followed our laundry chronicles over the years, we had a load done at the hotel in Campobasso, so this is our first laundromat foray of this trip.) There is an Onda Blu laundromat near the university in the center of Naples and we are attempting the drive only because it is a national holiday (Feast of the Dead) and most offices and many stores and businesses will be closed. I have always said that Naples was the only place in Italy where I don't want to drive, but we anticipate that the traffic will be light and that we will have no problem parking.

The drive into town is uneventful--a few stores and bars are open but there are few people and not many cars on the streets. The sun has lost its battle and it is now steadily drizzling; we have picked a good day to be inside. We find the laundromat with almost no hitches and are able to park a half a block away. It is open and there are no other customers. There is a very pleasant woman on duty at the laundromat and she is very helpful getting us started.

In addition to all this, Onda Blu has now added internet points at some of their laundromats (including this one) so while the laundry is in process, we are on the computer reading e-mail and surfing the net. We finish the laundry in about an hour, say goodbye to the staff person and are on our way with a suitcase full of clean clothes.

It is now raining steadily and it is very dark but I decide that this will be good day to practice driving around Naples. We make a tour of the Piazza Garibaldi (near the train station), pass the National Archaeology Museum (which to my surprise is open on this holiday), and drive down one of the main shopping streets, the Via Toledo. But with the rain falling harder and traffic getting heavier, we decide to head back to Bacoli. It is lunchtime and, driving down near the water, I see a sign on a side street for a pizzeria called "Vera Pizza" (true pizza). This is too fortuitous so I quickly circle back around, we see that the pizzeria is open, find a parking space right across the street and make a dash through the rain to the door.

We enjoy our lunch...the pizza is better than the Neapolitan pizza we remember from our last trip and we also have some excellent appetizers--a sautee of clams for me and mozzarella in carrozza for Diana. We have to make a run for the car--the wind is now blowing very hard and the rain is pouring down. We plan to take the fast route back to Bacoli and hole up in our hotel until the storm passes, but we miss our turn and end up on the scenic route up and over Cape Posillipo, through Pozzuoli and around the harbor to Bacoli. At least it would have been very scenic had there been any visibility over the water, but we drive on. The rain intensifies and it is now raining as hard as we have ever experienced.

After driving along a particularly pleasant looking stretch along the harbor in Pozzuoli (lots of restaurants and bars along the sea front promenade), just as we are about to enter the center of Pozzuoli, the line of traffic stops and we see cars beginning to turn around. We assume that there is something blocking the road ahead (although we never get close enough to see what it might be) and we make the decision to also turn around and look for an alternate route.

Turning around entails retracing our steps back about three miles to the town of Bagnoli, a Naples beach suburb. There is some standing water on some of the streets but nothing too alarming as yet. We drive through the streets of Bagnoli trying to find our way up to the main road but when we come to a railroad underpass that we need to go through, the amount of standing water there seems ominiously deep. A few cars make it through but others (including us) turn around. Finding another way under the train tracks becomes a trying process. There are many other cars in the same predicament....there is a lot of driving the wrong way up one way streets to avoid high water spots.

After about 15 minutes of essentially going around in circles, we hit upon a street that goes under the tracks and doesn't present a water barrier. We have finally gotten back to the main road, the rain continues to pelt down but we are feeling more confident about our trip back. Even on the major roads, there are times when four of the six lanes are water covered and when we try to get on the "tangenziale" (limited access highway), the access road is not only water covered but strewn with garbage that has ended up in the roadway.

While we are on the "tangenziale", it is pretty clear. Once on local streets, we are moving along pretty well until we get to the bottom of the hill in Baia....traffic is moving slowly as some cars search for alternate routes, others turn around or stop and wait. This particular stretch of water covering the road is about 100 yards long and several cars are already stuck in the middle. We watch as a number of cars are able to make it safely through and, since we are driving a Opel Zafira (a small van) that rides pretty high, we think we can make it. Trying very hard to keep going forward at a steady pace, we make it successfully to the dry road on the other side.

We are feeling pretty confident now that we are in the homestretch. As we enter Bacoli and drive down the hill to the waterfront, traffic is moving at a crawl. At the bottom of the hill, most of the traffic turns left but we have to go to the right. There are several cars and a local bus stopped just in front another long stretch of flooded street. There are two cars stuck in the middle of the high water but they are not vans. Since we have made it through before, I feel pretty good about our making it through again....we are only 1/2 mile from the hotel.

At first, all seems to be going well...we are moving forward steadily and making progress. But suddenly the road dips and the water is higher than it had been before and I am getting worried. I keep my foot on the gas and hope for the best. But all at once the engine sputters and dies and we stop. For a few minutes, we just sit in the car and try to figure out what to do next. But the water is now coming into the car through the floor where the holes for the pedals are....and it is rising quickly. We will have to abandon the car or else end up sitting in a few feet of water. We jump out into knee high water--I grab the clean laundry suitcase and Diana's coat and Diana takes my bookbag which has my computer in it. It's still pouring. We wade to the side of the road to higher ground in the waterfront park. We are under some trees and not getting too wet but when someone opens the gate to the parking lot of the small amusement park across the street to let some of the cars wait there instead of in the street, we wade across the street so we can take cover under a tent and stay dry.

The rain is letting up somewhat. All the people waiting around are remarking about the intensity of the rainstorm. I call the emergency number for Europcar and try to arrange for a tow truck and a replacement car, but there is a lot of confusion about whether this situation is covered by their emergency services. Nothing is resolved and I call AutoEurope in the US to try and get their assistance.

We have to wait until the water recedes enough to let traffic get by. Soon the Bacoli fire department and emergency services trucks arrive. They push two cars out of the middle of the street, try to unclog the storm drains and check to see how deep the water actually is. Finally, after about an hour, we hop on the local bus when it leaves (we are wet, cold and carrying a suitcase and bookbag) and it takes us close to our hotel. We had left Naples about 1 pm and it is now after 5 pm (the trip should have taken an hour), but we are happy to be in our room and able to clean up and dry off.

The rest of the afternoon is spent negotiating with AutoEurope and Europcar about the towing...the desk clerk at the hotel spends a lot of time on the phone with the towing company and finally it is all arranged. An hour later, I walk back to the scene of the mishap in my sodden sneakers (about a ten minute walk) and the only evidence of the flood is a lot of mud on the ground. The tow truck comes, picks up the car and delivers me back to the hotel with the remaining stuff that was in the car.....luckily, we had stowed a suitcase, the olive oil and some books in the rear compartment and they all stayed dry. We finalize the arrangements to pick up a replacement car in Naples tomorrow -we will also take the opportunity to then go to the Archaeological Museum.

It has been a long and trying day.....but we feel fortunate that we got stuck so close to the hotel. It would have been even more complicated if this had happened 10 miles away. The only issue left outstanding is a question of whether this incident is covered by the insurance on the car but that negotiation will wait until we get back home.

We have dinner in the hotel dining room, one floor down from our room. Not only are we the only guests in the hotel, we are the only customers for dinner. We have the very attractive dining room all to ourselves. The meal is mostly fine....the cook comes out and asks if we like "pesce". We say yes and we have another elaborate seafood antipasto, spaghetti with clams and mussels and a stewed octopus dish (which is too strong for both of us) but is served with small portions of a very good spinach sformato and some kind of eggplant lasagna. Dessert is a pretty good panna cotta for me and some fruit for Diana. We drink the Villa Oteri house wine--another very refreshing white made from the local Falaghina grape.

We are glad that we only have one flight of stairs to climb after dinner. Tomorrow we go back to Naples by public transportation to the museum and to get the car.

[NOTE: No pictures today...in the heat of the moment, I lost my photographer's instinct and there is no record of the flood, etc.]

Day 15: Pompei - Bacoli

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 03:24:00 +0000

The sky is very blue this morning, the sun is shining and the temperature is on the cool side. This morning, we leave Pompei for Bacoli just on the other side of Naples. Before we check out, we take a walk around the "centro". We go into the big sanctuary church--Santa Maria del Rosario

Santa Maria del Rosario - Pompei

--and go up to the top of the campanile (by elevator) to see the view over the city, the excavations and and the surrounding area. We are treated to a sharp exchange between the elevator operator and some teenagers who are apparently trying to bargain with him about the admission price.

The views are wonderful.....

View of Vesuvius from bell tower in Pompei

View over Pompeii from bell tower

We stroll up and down one of the main shopping streets, stopping at a fancy food store called Melius to admire their inventory. But we go next door to a local bakery and buy some pasta for gifts and some biscotti to snack on. We make one more pass through the main piazza/park,

Kids hanging out in park/piazza in Pompei

load up the car, say goodbye to the hotel staff and get on the road. We have enjoyed staying in Pompei...once you get away from the entrances to the excavations and the street filled with vendors in front of the sanctuary church, it is a pleasant small Italian city....traffic is bad (as it is in most places) but it isn't a place to be avoided. It is much more pleasant than most of the towns in the area and the nearby countryside isn't very appealing, but for visiting Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum and the other attractions in the area as well as having easy access to Naples, I think it works well. The Hotel Amleto was a very nice place to stay....old fashioned but comfortable, with a very helpful and pleasant staff. It does tend to be noisy...cars, vespas, street traffic....but it wasn't a big problem for us.

The drive to Bacoli takes about an hour...the autostrada to Naples, the "tangenziale" (limited access highway) across Naples--no need to drive in the center of the city- and then local roads around the beautiful harbor that stretches from Pozzuoli to Baia to Bacoli.

Pompei to Bacoli Google Map

This whole area to the west of Naples is known as the Campi Flegrei (the burning fields)--it was thought to be the entrance to the underworld in ancient times--and there is still volcanic activity in places as well as a number of volcanic lakes dotting the landscape. In addition, this was the "Roman riviera" at the height of Rome's power--all the rich and influential Romans had villas on the sea and on the hillsides. It had been settled by the Greeks in the 8th century B.C. and had been an important Greek outpost until the Samnites and then the Romans took over.

So there are a lot of mythological connections as well as Greek and Roman settlements in the area....Virgil wrote about the Campo Flegrei in the Aeneid and educated Englishmen made the Campi Flegrei an important stop on the "Grand Tour".

The hotel in Bacoli--the Villa Oteri--is located just across the street from a land-locked salt water lake called Lago di Miseno. Our room is large and comfortable (one drawback--not as bright as we would like)--and it has a large balcony overlooking the lake and the sea beyond. Vesuvius can be seen in one direction and Capri is visible in the other direction.

View from balcony of Villa Otero

We walk across the street to an empty restaurant but the waiter invites us to sit down at a table next to a window with a view over the lake. He doesn't give us a menu but asks if we want antipasto "of fish". We say okay and he proceeds to bring us six plates of various kinds of seafood....sauteed clams and snails in a garlic sauce, boiled octopus, stewed octopus in a savory tomato sauce, beans and mussels in a rich sauce, fried balls of dough (zeppole), a salad with fennel and seafood--it is all delicious and while Diana doesn't eat all the octopus, she enjoys the sauces. The bread is fantastic and we use it to mop up the remains of the sauces. We follow the antipasto with spaghetti alle vongole....cooked with fabulous little cherry tomatoes....which is also terrific. The wine is a local white made of the Falanghina grape....crisp, dry and fruity. The food is great, the waiter is very friendly--it is a wonderful, leisurely lunch in a great location. He, by the way, is the first Italian we've spoken to who likes George Bush and approves of the war - he quotes an Italian idiom to the effect of - to get peace you sometimes have to make war.

After lunch we stagger back across the street to the hotel and climb the two flights of stairs to our room (no elevator). Diana stays in the room to read and I go out exploring. The small lake turns out to be a perfect place to walk around, past the beach, across the strip of land that separates the lake from the bay, into the town of Bacoli where there is a long park and promenade along the lakefront and back to the hotel....the circumnavigation of the lake takes about 45 minutes.

We then take the car out and go for a ride...first to Cape Miseno (Misenum in Roman times and the place where the fleet was harbored under the command of Pliny)--a large rock outcropping with sheer cliffs dropping into the sea.

Cape Miseno

We drive to the top of the hill, take a tour of a beautiful hotel (the Cala Moresca) with gorgeous views back toward Naples

View from Hotel Cala Moresca

and out toward Capri and stop at the lighthouse at the tip (inadvertently barging into the local lovers' lane). We then head in the opposite direction and drive up the hill to the town of Monte di Procida. As we climb, the views in the direction of the islands of Procida and Ischia appear and we just catch a bright red sunset over the islands and the water. Lots of restaurants and bars line the road on this ridge...all with panoramic views.

We decide that dinner tonight is not going to be possible...there was too much of a late lunch, so we walk over to the food store down the street and buy some cheese and bread to augment our picnic leftovers if we decide we are able to ever eat again.

In fact, we do end up having a small picnic at the table on our balcony -the weather is cool but pleasant .

Tomorrow is a holiday....the Day of the Dead when Italians traditionally go to visit the cemetary and bring flowers to relatives' graves. We will take advantage of the fact that Naples will be closed up to drive into town and do a laundry.

Day 14: Pompei

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 02:40:00 +0000

Today it is still sunny....but breezier and a little cooler than before--still nothing to complain about.

Today's destination is Paestum, located about an hour from Pompei--south of Salerno. There are three beautiful and wonderfully preserved Greek temples as well as a very good museum of Greek and Roman artifacts from the area. When we visited Paestum 12 years ago, it made a very strong impression on us and we have always wanted to return. Paestum is also the headquarters of some of the best mozzarella di bufala cheese producers and you can sometimes see the water buffalo grazing in the fields.

The drive from Pompei takes about an hour...we make one brief stop to admire the view over Salerno, the bay and the Amalfi Coast from an autostrada parking area. The Paestum site is located close to the beach but supposedly it was completely lost--some accounts are skeptical of this--from the Dark Ages to the mid-18th century when some road builders stumbled onto it. The city of Poseidonia had been created by the Greeks as a stop on the trade route across the peninsula from the far south to the area on the Bay of Naples. Its importance declined as better ports were developed near Rome and Naples. As it became more deserted, malaria became prevalent and the temples completely disappeared into the forest.

The site itself is spread out on a long level area surrounded by three miles of nearly intact walls. One smaller temple sits on its northern edge and two much larger structures are on the south end of the city. In between there are excavations of houses and stores, an amphitheater, a large forum, several smaller temples and other buildings common to a Greek and then Roman city.

We find Paestum to be extremely compelling...the buildings are elegant and moving, even more so because of the wonderful state of preservation. In ancient times the limestone columns would have been covered in stucco and painted to look like marble, but the buildings that one sees today, albeit of brown, pitted stone, are still very compelling. The site is very peaceful and free of crowds, so there is no commotion or crowding to divert your attention. It is a wonderful place to sit and admire the architecture and watch the clouds, the butterflies and the birds.

We walk from one end of the site to the other....Diana strolls leisurely and I make a more concerted effort to investigate the remnants of the houses--some with traces of mosaics on the floors--and the palestra, with its very large swimming pool. But for most visitors, the rest of the site is just background for the temple structures.

Temple of Athena

Temple of Neptune (with basilica on the left)

The basilica

Temple of Neptune (the other side)

Columns from an atrium of a house

Plane tree on the Paestum site

The intrepid explorers

We spend about two hours leisurely poking around the site and visiting most of the buildings....we are reluctant to move on---the brisk breeze moderating the temperature also contributes to our stamina---but we want to visit the museum, which had been closed on our last visit. It is housed in a large Mussolini style building but inside there are rooms of beautiful exhibits, nicely displayed. The history of Paestum is laid out in detail...both in Italian and very good English....but it is a bit too dense for us at this hour--after two hours of walking around and as lunch time approaches.

Map of the Greeks settlements in Italy

An example of the explanatory materials in the museum

Highlights of the holdings for us are the details from the temples--the facing of the pediments, statuary that served as waterspouts and the decorative tops of columns, the incredibly beautiful Greek vases from the 6th and 5th century BC and, most amazing of all, the tomb paintings that decorated the insides of the coffins of the dead. Richly detailed, playful and wonderfully painted, they look like they could have been painted ten years ago rather than more than 2,000 years ago.

Marble statue of the goddess Hera (with photographer in reflection)

Detail from the frieze of one of the buildings

Water spout from a temple roof

Tomb painting of a diver (leaping into death)

Detail of friends painted on tomb wall

Picture showing how paintings are arranged as walls and top of coffin

Greek vase - 5th century B.C.

View of museum garden, fields and mountains in distance

Leaving Paestum, we look for one of the recommended mozzarella producers in the area so we can buy some to eat at a picnic lunch. (We've brought our plastic plates, knives, napkins and water, in anticipation.) We find the producer we are looking for--Vannulo--and get two fresh balls of cheese as well as a picture of the water buffalo.

Our challenge now...at 1 pm...is to find a store that will sell us some bread and fruit to complete our picnic menu. Agropoli is only about 6 kilometers away; it is a pleasant beach town with a centro storico that overlooks the beach on one side and the harbor on the other.

Agropoli Harbor -- where we had a picnic lunch

After passing a few closed stores, Agropoli comes through for us. We find a bakery that is open and sells us some of our favorite rosetta rolls and a link of salami and then---our food finding karma in good shape on this day---a fruit stand where we buy oranges, grapes and tomatoes. With the food in hand, we try and retrace our steps to the beach but are frustrated by the town traffic patterns. We do find the port however--a protected harbor--with benches lining the promenade just perfect for our lunch .

All is delicous...the bread, the fresh mozzarella, the salami, the tomatoes and the fruit....a great picnic. We sit and enjoy the view for a while....

View across Agropoli harbor to Amalfi Coast

...and then start back toward Pompei. We try to hug the coast road but, for the most part, there is a dense pine forest between the beach and the road, so the views are sporadic. We stop for a coffee at a bar on the very pleasant waterfront of Salerno but unfortunately we don't have time to explore much of the city on this visit.

The drive back to Pompei is memorable only for a near collision when a car pulled out into the passing lane right into us.....fortunately I hit the horn and had enough room on my left to swerve and avoid the other car--but it was very close.

We eat dinner at Al Presidente, recommended by Antonio at the hotel. The food ends up being very good but the evening is somehow a bit bizarre. The proprietor is very welcoming but his affect (in English) is off-putting.....a sort of fawning oversolicitousness. The restaurant is pretty stylish and very comfortable--candles on the table, doilies on the plate (it seems to be in this year) and nice curtains on the windows. When we arrive, there is only one table occupied--four Swiss (we think) businessmen and two Italian colleagues (both women).....the common language is excellent English. They are having a lively discussion about their business between courses.

The menu is bound in a thick leather cover and is very large...but inside there are only about two choices per page. The wine list is also handsomely bound and about 4 inches thick. We have a bit of a difficult time making choices--some of the choices and combinations are a bit odd--but, in the end, we thoroughly enjoy our food. Diana has a pumpkin risotto with mussels followed by filet of fish with potatoes in a lemon, olive sauce. I have a very delicious bean and clam zuppetta and a very good pasta dish--mezzi paccheri with mussels. We drink an excellent local white wine--a Falanghina.

While we are eating, a party of five comes in and we spend the rest of the evening trying to figure out who they are and what they are doing. There is one Italian-American man (who speaks English with a New York accent and Italian with a American accent--perhaps Neapolitan dialect) who we think owns a restaurant in Brooklyn. There is a younger woman who doesn't seem to speak Italian but is also in the restaurant business...we think her husband (who owns a restaurant where she works) left for the States yesterday). There are three Italians at the table...only one who seems to speak English; they all speak heavily accented Italian or dialect. There is a lot of discussion about wine and food and Diana concludes that the American restauranteur is on a wine discovery mission and the Italians are their "local contacts" and are probably "connected". It's hard not to evesdrop - they are very loud. Listening to the discussions is sort of like a floor show....and it would be nice if we could somehow figure out how close we are to what was actually going on.

By 9:30 the restaurant begins to fill up with regulars and we are ready to leave.....well fed and still intrigued.

Tomorrow we leave Pompei for the other side of Naples....Bacoli and the Campi Flegrei (the burning fields).

Day 13: Pompei

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 03:35:00 +0000

The weather....warm, hazy and sunny--no change yet. We have been so lucky with the weather. Saturday night had been pretty noisy in downtown Pompei--the young people were out in the streets until late--but we still managed to sleep well. This morning, we get on the autostrada for the short drive to Ercolano where we will visit the other big excavation in the area--Herculaneum. The site is at the bottom of town, near the waterfront, and the autostrada exit is at the top of the town, so we get to see a lot of the main street. It is surprisingly lively for a Sunday morning...there is a small outdoor market, some fish stores and butchers are open for business and the streets are pretty full of people--some coming or going to church, others just hanging out.

We park in the same parking lot where we parked when we came in 1995....right next to the police station. But this time--perhaps because it is Sunday morning--no one is collecting any money. At the entrance, we get the map of the site (with the various houses numbered--they correspond to the audio tour) and the small pamphlet (in English) which has a short description of each numbered location. (They have similar handouts at Pompeii and they are actually quite good--they didn't have anything like them on our first visit twelve years ago.)

There are several differences between Herculaneum and Pompeii....the first is that Pompeii was a larger commerical city and Herculaneum was smaller and a much richer city than Pompeii...most of the residents lived in villas and had money. In addition, Herculaneum was covered by a sea of mud (rather than ash) so when it hardened, the whole city was sealed up tight and kept intact until it was discovered in the mid-18th century. This means that there are a good number of two story buildings that can be visited and there is even some organic material---wood beams, doors, even some rope--that have survived and can be seen as you walk around the city. And, much of the city remains unexcavated since it is below the modern city and would be very difficult to try and uncover. So the site is much smaller and that much easier to take in on a three hour visit.

We rent audio guides for our visit and have an immediate problem. The map shows a different entrance than the one now in use so we have to take a few minutes to figure out exactly we are. This process is complicated by the presence of two different systems of house numbering. Once we figure out our location, it takes a few minutes for us to catch on to the nuances of the directions that the narrator gives as we move from house to house. But this problem is soon overcome and, in fact, the narration and the information that audioguide provides is excellent.

In many ways, we enjoy our visit to Herculaneum more than our visit yesterday to Pompeii. There are fewer tourists. Of course, the site is more compact and easier to cover. But the presence of so many two story buildings and the fact that we can see burnt beams still intact or a blackened sliding wooden door that has survived since 79 AD somehow makes it easier to envision the city when it was intact. There are some wonderful wall paintings of course and grand houses with large gardens. The baths--especially the women's--is wonderfully preserved with lovely mosaics. There are the by now familiar fast food shops and the bakery and, astonishingly, the laundry with the press that was used to iron clothes standing in the middle of the shop. There is less of the public and official Herculaneum on display...these locations lie below the town of Ercolano....but what is there is quite striking and affecting.

View of Herculaneum

Iron grating that has survived since 79 AD

One of the large houses and its garden

Mosaic on the floor of the bath

Paintings from one of the houses

Mosaic from the women's bath

Remains of sliding wooden door panel in large house

House paintings

Entrance gate with brick columns

After three hours, we have walked through the whole site and visited just about every open building.....it is starting to get a bit warm as well as getting to be time for lunch. We buy some souvenir books at the bookshop including a scholarly treatise on the Jews of Roman Campania. We stop on the way back to the car at an open (on a Sunday!!!!) alimentari and buy two large sandwiches (prosciutto and mozzerella di bufala on large crusty rosetta rolls).

My idea is to drive up to the crater of Vesuvius and stop on the the side of the road to eat our sandwiches ......but as we drive up the thin and twisty road, we find few opportunties to stop. On the lower slopes, any possible stopping place is piled with trash and as we go higher, there are no obvious places to stop by the side of the road that are not restaurant parking lots. There are a lot of restaurants on the road to the summit and on this sunny Sunday afternoon, they are very crowded.....cars are overflowing the parking lots and along the sides of the narrow road (but always leaving enough room for traffic to get by.)

As we climb higher and higher, lava flows from the most recent eruption of Vesuvius (1944) are visible below the road and there is a lot of volcanic rock lining the road. After a while, we see two large empty tour buses parked by the side of the road and we wonder where the passengers are. Around the next curve--seemingly out of nowhere, we are in the middle of a traffic jam. A big bus is trying to go down the mountain and there is not enough room for the bus to squeeze by--because there is a line of cars parked on the side of the road. It is a slow process to ease the bus past the parked cars and the line traffic heading up the mountain.

Once past this traffic jam, we find ourselves in the middle of large parking lot.....there are probably 20 buses parked there and at least 100 cars. There are a couple of bars crowded with customers and parking lot attendants collecting a Euro 2.50 fee. What I hadn't realized is that there is still 1,000 feet to climb to reach the crater and in order to do that, you have to pay another Euro 6.50 for the privilege.

We sit in the car and eat our (delicious) sandwiches and, since I have always wanted to see the crater of Vesuvius, (and Diana not especially) she stays in the car while I attempt the climb. The path up to the crater is paved with loose volcanic gravel and climbs fairly steeply in a series of switchbacks up to the crater. There are a lot of people climbing up and coming down....all ages, nationalities and in a wide range of physical conditions. The climb is tough...it takes me about 25 minutes to reach the next station...where there is another bar and the chance to hire a guide to escort you the rest of the way and give you an explanation of the volcanic activity and the crater.

Walking up to the Vesuvius crater

View of old lava flow

Naples obscured by smog

I pass on the guide and walk along the edge of the crater unescorted....but not alone. It is actually quite amazing....very wide and very deep and very austere looking. There is no longer any smoke rising from the crater but I am very glad that I made the climb. It is possible to walk around the crater to a higher vantage point on the far side, but I decide that I have achieved my goal. I admire the view from the top over Naples and the bay...although it is fairly limited due to the hazy smog.....and head back down to the parking lot.

Two views of the crater

We make one more stop on the way back to Pompei....in the town of Torre Annunziata, where we want to visit another of the Roman villas that has been excavated--this one is Villa Oplontis. The drive through the coastal towns of Torre del Greco and Torre Annunziata is pretty depressing...they are both quite shabby and drab, especially so since there is little or no street life on this late Sunday afternoon. And it is hard to believe that we are only two or three blocks from the waterfront...the main streets are almost completely cut off from the sea.

The villa is definitely worth a stop...it is the largest of the villas that we have seen and the paintings are wonderful and, for the most part, in wonderful condition. We enjoy being one of about six visitors..at least until we are ready to leave and a busload of French tourists arrive.

Overview of Villa Oplontis

Villa Oplontis painting

Large atrium of Villa Oplontis

Another painting from Villa Oplontis

View into garden at Villa Oplontis

It has been a long day but very enjoyable.....we make our way back to the hotel to rest. The town is completely mobbed and the streets are crowded.....not with tourists, but with locals out for a Sunday passeggiata. The main square and the main street are wall to wall people and most of the them appear to be teenagers out in packs--boys and girls mostly separate---giving each other the eye.

We walk up the street for a pizza at Zi' Caterina.....surprisingly the crust on my pizza with sausage is better than the crust on Diana's pizza with salami--I actually like mine very much. We stop for a quick gelato and then hurry back to the hotel to escape the crowds of teenagers.

Tomorrow we head south for Paestum and a switch from Roman to Greek.....

Day 12: Pompei

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 02:22:00 +0000

We sleep well in spite of the fact that Pompei is not a quiet town. It is hard to tell from our window (which looks out on an interior courtyard) whether or not the sun is out but we can tell that it is warm and it hasn't rained. The Hotel Amleto has a superior breakfast....featuring wonderful crusty "rosetta" rolls.

In fact, the sun is out but the smog/haze is so strong that it is hard to make out Vesuvius and the other nearby mountains. However, it is quite warm again as we walk over to the Porta Anfiteatro to meet our guide Ninetta, who will give us a three hour private tour of Pompeii. (We don't usually take guided tours, but I wanted to experience one for myself so I can give better advice to clients.)

The excavations at Pompeii are vast and three hours is not enough to cover it all (although it might be about as much as we can absorb at one time...especially with the temperature in the 80's.) We were here twelve years ago and used an assortment of guidebooks to help us navigate and make sense of the ruins. Ninetta gives us the usual historical background about the city (an important commercial town with a population of about 20,000...perhaps the third or fourth largest in Campania, which was still rebuilding from a major earthquake in 62 A.D.....17 years before) and the eruption (no one suspected that Vesuvius--actually known as Mt. Somma back then--was a volcano but an estimated 90 percent of the population escaped). Basically, the clock stopped on the day of the eruption and what has been unearthed and excavated shows us what the city was like at that precise time.

We start our visit in the Anfiteatro...one of the largest in Italy and in very good repair. It could seat 20,000 spectators for events. We stop to sample some Pompeiian wines at a special exhibition by the Mastroberandino wine company which has been replanting grape varieties that were known to the Romans....the rose is a bit sharp and aromatic- but not really to our taste. The Romans added honey, we were told.

From there we walk past the large palestra--athletic field--and then begin visiting some of the large private houses, shops and businesses that fill the excavated area between the amphitheater and the "downtown" area--the forum, the markets, the temples and the basilica. Some of the houses are quite grand with the remaining walls painted in the various Pompeiian styles....some of the pictures and designs are exquisite. Most of the original mosiacs and sculptures are in the National Archeological Museum in Naples, which we will visit in a few days. We are becoming familiar with the plan of Roman houses--atriums with basins designed to catch and save rainwater, the kitchen and bedrooms off the atrium, and the public spaces--the dining rooms and the gardens--further off the street. Many of the interior rooms are painted with scenes of nature--animals and flowers--to disguise the lack of windows in most rooms...light came in from skylights and roof openings.

Interspersed with the houses are shops....the most common of which are the Roman equivalent of "fast food" emporiums where workers could get a quick lunch and get back on the job. There are the laundry and wool merchants...both of which use human urine--the collection of which was a business in itself--to clean clothes and process wool. The baker's shop still has the mills that ground the wheat and the ovens that baked the bread. There are taverns and wine shops with announcements written on the walls and advertising posters still on display. The Roman baths are vast and interesting, and there are two theaters...one very large and one smaller--both in wonderful condition. We even get into the newly reopened "House of the Lupinare" (the brothel), where there are pictures supposedly displaying the specialties of the various prostitutes.

Roman Road

Fast food shop

Mills for grinding flour

Roman baths

Roman theater

House of the Lupinare (brothel)

The most moving site is the display of corpses that have been preserved by making casts of the found bodies....men, women and children--all in their death throes...

We walk up and down and across the well paved Roman roads with the stones set at crossroads so that pedestrians can cross without getting wet (if it is raining) but which allow the wagons to pass unimpeded. We learn about the grooves set in front of shops that allow sliding doors to be opened and shut and the holes in the sidewalks which were for the purpose of holding the poles for the awnings that shaded the shop.

Since we had started at the far corner of the site, for the first hour and a half we are hardly aware of other visitors but as we approach the center, the streets become crowded with tourists---especially large groups that sometimes make it difficult to maneuver in the narrow streets. And as it gets to mid-day, it gets very hot; there is little or no shade in the city.

Our last stop is in the place that most people start.....the forum surrounded with all the public buildings--the basilica that held the law courts, the central market and the temples to the various deities that protected Pompeii.

We had started at 10 am and it is now almost 1 pm.....we pay Ninetta and say goodbye. Even though we were not too impressed with the whole guide experience, we had certainly learned some things that we didn't know and she had pointed out details that we probably wouldn't have noticed on our own. And Pompeii is amazing....to get a sense of how the Romans lived and to see the sophistication of the art and the technology from almost 2,000 years ago is extraordinary. Diana has just (the day before) finished the recent novel "Pompeii" which tells the story of the eruption and explains a lot about the water system and the politics of the city.....the experience of reading the book and visiting the city in close conjunction is very appealing.

The first thing we do when we leave is to have a cold drink....a spremuta (fresh orange and lemon juice)...and then we have to decide how to get back to the hotel. We are now about a mile from the hotel and I find out that there is a city bus from the Porta Marina gate back to town. We decide to wait for the bus but after a half hour, there is no sign of it. There are no local taxis to be found....only taxis from Naples waiting for their passengers to finish their Pompeii tours. We finally decide to walk back to town.

We walk across the square and have a late lunch at Il Principe, where we ate last night. But we sit outside in the shade, cooled by a nice breeze and take advantage of their more informal, less expensive and more extensive wine bar menu. The food is very good.....caprese salad with local mozzarella di bufala, spaghetti cacio e pepe (cheese and black pepper) and panna cotta for Diana and very good carpaccio and spaghetti with clams for me....a relaxing and enjoyable lunch.

After a rest and some work back at the hotel, we take a ride into the "paesi Vesuviani"--the towns that are located on the lower slopes of Vesuvius. However, the expedition is not too successful...the towns that we drive through are very gritty and seemingly run down and the traffic is very heavy. The grime is compounded by the presence of mounds of garbage everywhere....we are thankful that Pompei does a good job of picking up trash....making the drive even less pleasant. So we cut short the expedition and return to the hotel.

We walk over to La Situla for a late dinner - it has been recommended to us by the desk clerk at the hotel. It is a very busy place on this Saturday evening....there is only one other table of non-Italians--apparently very popular with the locals. Tonight my meal is more successful than Diana's.....I have a local pasta variety called "paccheri"--wide tubes of pasta--with a seafood sauce--delicious mussels and clams mostly--and a plate of assorted fried fish, which are beautifully fried and very tasty. Diana has a nice plate of local salume and an okay dish of agnolotti with a spicy tomato sauce. The wine is very good....a local white called Greco di Tufo. In order to avoid the long wait for our check, we get up and go directly to the woman who makes up the bills and pay quickly.....the bill comes to Euro 65.00.

On our way back to the hotel, we have to walk through crowds of young people who are hanging out around the main piazza....the town has closed off the streets in the center and the young people have taken over the town. We escape to the relative quiet of our hotel......

Tomorrow we head to Herculaneum and Vesuvius.

Day 11: Campobasso-Pompei

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:14:00 +0000

We say goodbye to Molise--it has been a wonderful eight days and we are now big Molise boosters--and get on the road towards Benevento. The road skirts the Matese mountain range but the landscape that we see as we enter Campania is still very hilly but much greener than most of the countryside in Molise. We make good time heading south but--due to a serious navigational error (we think are closer to Benevento than we in fact are), we turn off too soon and find ourselves on the road to Caserta. We could make a u-turn but there is a serious traffic backup in the other direction so we decide to keep going and take the longer, non-autostrada route.

The road takes up through apple country...stand after stand featuring local apples...and potato country---large nets with potatoes spread out under them. Reaching the outskirts of Caserta, the scenery takes a rapid turn for the worse....the area is very industrial and gritty, the traffic is increasing in intensity (and recklessness) and--worst of all--there appears to be a garbage strike. Piles and piles of garbage--in boxes, filling plastic bags or just loose--can be seen at regular trash pickup points and more garbarge is strewn by the side of the road, in parking lots and in vacant lots. It is really unappetizing to drive through...we wonder what is like to live in the midst of this garbage pileup.

It is a relief to get on the autostrada and head south around Naples. The sun is shining brightly but a smoggy haze covers the entire area....a great (and unwelcome) contrast to the clear skies and neat towns of Molise. We exit at Pompei (one "i" for the modern town, two "i"'s for the old city) and find our hotel--the Amleto, which is right in the middle of town. In order to get there, we pass the main entrance of the ruins and run the gauntlet of parking lots and souvenir shops until we enter the town. Our landmark for the hotel is McDonald's--at its corner we turn right into a narrow street and ease the van into the very tight garage entrance, inflicting a few minor scrapes on the left side of the car as we enter.

We check in--the hotel is old fashioned with high ceilings in both the lobby and the rooms. Our room is a bit tight but there is a lot of light with the afternoon sun shining...there are pretty tiles on the floor, a small balcony, ornate old light fixtures and a promising bathroom and shower. We unpack, go out and buy some sandwiches and eat them on the third floor roof terrace.

While Diana reads, I go down to the lobby to try and hook my laptop up to the hotel's high speed internet line. After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally get the right setup information entered and, with a fast connection, finish up some travel business .

Around 3:30 pm, we decide to head south to Castellammare di Stabia to visit one of the large suburban Roman villas that has been excavated there. The road from Pompei to Castellammare is pretty dreary and the traffic is reminiscent of why I don't like to drive in Naples.....but we arrive in Castellammare without incident and head up into the hills to find the villas. We are following the pretty good signage for a while...until it disappears. When we get to the next town, we realize that we have gone too far. We make a u-turn and--going in the opposite direction on the same road--find the missing directional sign to the Villa San Marco excavation. The sign points down a narrow road which ends quickly in an empty parking lot....there is no sign of the excavations.

We park and walk down the dirt road that goes past a small farm--nice looking vegetables are growing and there are some goats and horses grazing. Just around the corner, there is the entrance to the site with a ticket office, etc. The staff waves us in without having to pay anything and we go down the stairs that leads to the villa's front door.

We don't know exactly what to expect--our guide books have very little information about this villa which was buried in the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius--but when we go in, we are surprised at the extent of the villa and the amazing wall paintings that are still intact. Luckily there are explanations in English about the house--it was one of a number of villas owned by rich Pompeiians which were set on a hill overlooking the sea at the port of Stabiae. These villas had sea views and were very sumptuously decorated....

It is also nice to be almost alone walking through the villa....as though we are discovering a secret place.

The drive back to Pompei is less frantic than the earlier drive and we find our way back without a problem. We make a slight detour through downtown on our way to the hotel and--aside from the traffic--the center of town is a typical small Italian city. There is a massive church that dominates the town...with a very tall campanile tower that serves as a landmark from any direction. It is a famous sanctuary church that attracts many pilgrims completely separate from the attraction of the Pompeii ruins. The main piazza (in front of the church) is actually a pleasant park with a fountain, benches and grass and there are a number of bars with outside seating around the piazza.

For dinner, we walk across the park to Pompei's best known restaurant, Il Principe--famous for reinterpreting old Roman recipes into modern versions. It is a very beautifully decorated place with wall paintings in the style of Pompeiian houses as well as very nice light fixtures with shades painted with Pompeiian scenes. There is a nice outside seating area (which we learn later has a more informal, more extensive and less expensive menu). We decide to sit inside and have the more creative, upscale menu although we choose not to have the special mushroom menu that they are offering (and it seems that most of the customers are choosing). Diana's dinner is more successful than mine......she has a truly delicious mozzarella cheese souffle with a lemony sauce and then a tempura of shrimp, lobster and string beans and a chocolate cake (baked to order) for dessert. I have a potato "gatto" with smoked baccala--pretty good--and wide pasta sauced with their interpretation of the traditional Roman fermented fish sauce...garum. It was fine but more successful for research than for its deliciousness. We have a very good local white--Fiano di Avellino. The service--which starts off very well--breaks downs as the meal goes on and, with the wait for the individually baked dessert and the reappearance of the "disappearing Italian waiter syndrome" when waiting for the check, the evening goes on a bit too long.

We recross the square--which is pretty well filled at this hour--and I stop for a disappointing gelato on the way back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we visit Pompeii.

Day 10: Campobasso

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:17:00 +0000

The sun is shining again....it may be a little cooler than yesterday....but it is another fine day. Today is our last day in Campobasso and we decide to stay close to "home" for the day. We drive to the "centro" and find a convenient parking spot without difficulty....the traffic is pretty bad in Campobasso and the signage is poor, but parking has not been a problem.

We first make a quick pass at the food market....it is located in large building but it is barely half full, giving it a somewhat forlorn feel. We stop to buy some local apples and ask for four apples....the lady begins counting out 4 kilos. When we stop her, she refuses to give us less than 1 kilo and we pay her 1 euro.

Our next stop is the Samnite Museum....located in an old palazzo part of the way up the hill in the old city.

Getting there requires some climbing but the museum is worth the effort. The displays are very attractive and well-organized...this has been true of the other small museums we have visited on this trip. There is one big room with artifacts arranged in four categories....war, home, personal decoration and religion....and there are the usual assortment of weapons, pins, brooches and combs, lamps and cooking utensils and sacred objects. There are other rooms devoted to the costumes of local people in the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. as well as an exhibit about 7th century AD warriors and some recreated burial sites. There is a large (room-sized) relief map of Molise with lights set in the map to mark locations. When the corresponding button is pushed on the control panel, a picture of the site is illuminated on the wall and the bulb showing the location is lit......pretty clever.

We stop for a quick look at the church at the bottom of the hill--Santo Leonardo

--and the Duomo--which is of pretty recent origin--then decide to go and visit the dentist that we had met at dinner a few days before. We find his office and he rings us in, asking us to wait while he finishes with his last patient. On the walls are many certificates attesting to the continuing education work he has done at Harvard in periodontology, as well as pictures and framed Italian documents. After we sit and chat for a while, he shows us his modern office. He invites us to come to his house for lunch in the neighboring town of Oratino--he will cook spaghetti carbonara and give us a tour of his village.

We follow him in our car and he doesn't make any apparent allowances for the non-Italian driver following him on the narrow and winding road....but we make it to his house without a problem. He lives on the edge of the village in a new three-unit condominium which is quite modern and attractive...but the best part is his terrace which looks out over one of those amazing Molise landscapes.

We sit in the sun while he cooks the spaghetti.....his brother, who is running on the Communist ticket for the Regional Parliament, stops by and we meet him and his wife.

Lunch is very pleasant...the carbonara, local pecorino cheese and salad and Sardinian wine....the day is warm and sunny and the view is fantastic.

After lunch, we walk through the village--a particularly beautiful town with lovely stonework everywhere--and Luigi introduces us to friends and relatives whom we meet. The view from the town park on the main square almost trumps all the other views we have seen in Molise....a broad expanse with towns perched on hills everywhere you look, high mountains in the distance, rolling hills in the foreground---the usual.

He shows us the house he grew up in and the school where his mother taught....he likes to say that he is a "citizen of the world" (he has traveled extensively) but it is obvious how connected he is to his home town.

We say goodbye and we head back to Campobasso. I take a last walk in the old town climbing almost to the top to see two of the churches and to admire the view.

For dinner, we decide to go back to Vecchia Trattoria di Tonino (since it was just about the best meal we have ever had) and we find a parking space right across the street. Unfortunately, the restaurant is dark and obviously closed...even though Thursday is not its regular closing day. We then head out on foot for one of the other restaurants on my list....which I had trouble finding because it had moved in the last year. We find the new location of Miseria e Nobilita (I haven't figured out what the name alludes to yet) and walk up the stairs. I push on the door and it doesn't budge. Can this restaurant be closed also? But I notice that the sign on the door says "spingere forte" (push hard) so I do and the door opens.

Miseria e Nobilita is another very stylish place...more heavily decorated than Tonino...dark walls, elaborate light fixtures. The menu is equally inventive.....and the meal is good although not even close to the meal we had at Tonino. Diana has the better experience, starting with a sformato of local radicchio with a piece of gorgonzola on the plate followed by an excellent, very simple ravioli with cherry tomatoes. I started with a different sformato--made with savoy cabbage (verza) with strips of guanciale on top and a fresh local cheese on the plate followed by a somewhat bland cavatelli in a colorful brocoletti sauce. We drank another Molise red...lighter than the other two we had on previous nights...but very distinctive.

The evening is still pleasant as well walk back to our car but by now the streets are just about empty.

We have no problem finding the hotel (I think we have finally solved Campobasso) and tomorrow we--somewhat sadly--leave Molise for Pompeii.

Day 9: Campobasso

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:01:00 +0000

Yet another sunny day....even warmer than yesterday and barely a cloud in the sky. Today we plan to drive north of Molise to visit the hill town of Agnone, which is famous for the manufacture of church bells and other bronze works. The Fondereria Marinelli has been in business for over 1,000 years. I called yesterday to make an appointment for a tour and was told that we could show up at either noon or 4 pm. There is no really direct route to Agnone so we take the opportunity to meander from village to village, up and down hills, enjoying even more amazing vistas than we had seen in the previous days.

We make it out of Campobasso reasonably quickly but we lose all of our advantage when we take a beautiful road to the village of Santo Stefano. Unfortunately, we discover on our arrival that the road doesn't go through and we have to retrace our steps. The beauty of the drive just about makes up for the time lost. We drive for almost two hours before reaching Agnone and are consistently entranced by the views....hill towns scattered all around, valleys and mountains and once in a while, a glimpse of a long modern viaduct cutting through the landscape.

Agnone is really a hill town...it takes us about 20 minutes to climb up to the center which is stretched along the top of a ridge and divided between the modern town and the "centro storico". We drive the whole length of the town and miss the bell factory on our first pass; after asking twice for directions, we pull into the parking lot of the bell factory. We walk into the office and ask the man in the office about the tour.....he shrugs and tells us that they only can do tours if there is a larger group. I tell him that we called yesterday to ask about that but he says that for two people, he can take us on an informal tour of the foundry but that the museum and the official tour are not possible. We look mystified and disappointed but we take him up on his offer for the informal tour.

He quickly explains the bell making process--in Italian with a few words of English mixed in--"false bell", "cap", etc.--and shows us the ovens that heat the bronze for the bells. He plays us a few tunes on a set of bells hung in the shop and then we see how the bells are cleaned and finished. We hope that he will relent and let us into the musuem or at least show us the film about the factory but I think he is ready for lunch.

Here is a link to the web site that gives all the pertinent details...

Fondereria Marinelli

We then park in the town and walk up to the centro storico, stopping for a coffee and to pick up a map at the tourist office. Both the modern town and the centro storico are attractive as most of the Molise towns have been...we walk to the belvedere at the end of the town which has another of those unbelieveable panoramic vistas which make it seem like you can see forever.

It is now lunch time so we drive to the other side of town to find one of the restaurants that I have researched...but it seems to have changed hands in the interim (this is becoming a common occurence) so we decide to eat at the Hotel Sammartino restaurant in the middle of town. The dining room has windows that give you a great view over the landscape as you eat. Lunch is very good but a bit strange.....the waitress is completely unforthcoming about what is available and seems very reluctant to answer any questions or let us know about any dishes that are not on the menu. We decide to have the Euro 20.00 menu which we know will be too much food but we want to have a sample of the Agnone cuisine. The antipasto plate is in fact terrific...the ham, salami, cheese, etc all very good...and one of the two pastas served is excellent--a fat spaghetti with a savory mushroom sauce. The local specialty....diamond shaped pasta sheets called sagne...is less impressive; the tomato sauce is pretty ordinary. The secondo--a mixed grill served with fried potatoes and salad--is very daunting but we do our best with the grilled lamb, sausage and cheese while leaving the pork roast alone. The waitress's affect doesn't change at all during the meal but we see that she is the same with all the Italiancustomers as well.

After the long descent from Agnone, we are going to visit the ancient Samnite city of Pietrabbondante, which dates from the 3rd century B.C. We drive through modern Pietrabbondante first which has one of the most amazing settings that we have seen....

Photo of Pietrabbondante

perched almost on top of a hill but with three large rock crags overhanging the village...the one in the middle has been carved into some type of memorial. The ancient city of Pietrabbondante is just outside the town...you have to walk down a steep hill to the entrance (where you pay a Euro 2 admission fee) and then descend further down to the theater and temples. The site is magnificent...set into a hillside with another one of those Molise vistas....

and the theater has been nicely restored, with several rows of remarkably comfortable stone seating and statues guarding the arched entrances.

The two other temples are less well preserved but the location and the isolation give Pietrabbondante a very special feeling.

We take it slowly back up the hill to the parking lot and take the faster route back to Campobasso....

We decide that we do want want to go out for dinner but are looking for a lighter meal. We eat at Vecchia Trattoria da Tonino, a very stylish place on the main corso of Campobasso. The restaurant is very nicely decorated with a great sense of style as well as an inventive and unusual menu. We usually are not big fans of "cucina creativa" but our meal at Tonino is fantastic...one of the best we have ever eaten in Italy. We only have an antipasto and a pasta course--but all of the dishes are delicious and delicate. I start with a version of stuffed savoy cabbage (verza) filled with onions, sausage and cheese served on top of slice of polenta and including a small scoop of a mouse of broccoletti.....which is also wonderful. Diana has a sformato made of polenta and parmigiano reggiano topped with tempura like fried broccoletti--also amazing. We both have the lasagnetta--a crepe like pasta sheet encasing string beans, broccoli and potatoes, lightly baked until the ends are crisp yet the pasta remains tender. It is served with a basil sauce--making a take on the Ligurian pasta dishes with pesto that incorporate string beans and potatoes. Another remarkable dish....inventive, creative but not fussy at all. We drink a local Molise wine....a Ramatello from 2002..which is also wonderful.
Dessert was also great.....the best mille-foglie I have ever tasted with a pantelleria wine spiked light custard.- just a fabulous and very memorable meal for only about Euro 60.00.

It is a quick trip back to the hotel, feeling not too full but very satisfied. Tomorrow we will stay close to Campobasso.....

Day 8: Campobasso

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 02:24:00 +0000

Another sunny and warm day.....how long can this last? Today we head to Isernia in western Molise. It is the "other" provincial capital in Molise...in fact, it has only been a province since 1970. In the Cadogan Guide, the town is characterized as "dismal" but we are going anyway. Isernia is about 60 kilometers from Campobasso (about 40 miles) on pretty good roads--two lane limited access highways for the most part. But we take a scenic route for part of the journey which gets us out into the country and gives us another series of wonderful views.

As we get off the main road, we first drive through modern Isernia---a neat and clean long shopping street. Signs keep pointing us to the "centro storico" but the modern town goes on for a long way. When we reach the "centro storico", it is closed to traffic so we make a complete loop around the town and park in a small lot just outside the center. We enter town at one of the main squares....which contains the duomo, the bishop's palace, a grand looking cafe and and one of the town's orginal gates.

We follow the sign for the tourist bureau information office which takes us up a gentle hill on the attractive main shopping street. This opens up into a large piazza at the top of the town--Piazza Celestine V. I leave Diana in a shop that sells lace--"merletti"--(Isernia has a lacemaking tradition) and I go to the information office to ask for a map and brochures. The young woman in the tourist office answers me in perfect English--she had studied in Glasgow and worked in Dublin--and when I tell her that I plan trips to Italy, she is very enthusiastic. It turns out that she also runs a tourist business specializing in trips to Molise and she gives me all her brochures and trip information. She is very interested in collaborating with me if I have any clients who want to visit Molise. When I tell her that Diana is in the lace shop, she tells me about her family's private lace museum--her mother still does lace work and it is a family tradition--and offers to take us there if we are interested.

Diana has bought a piece of lace and, in fact, is very interested in going to see the lace museum. But first, we go to the town museum which--in addition to a large and interesting collection of Roman statues and inscriptions--has a fascinating exhibit dealing with the recent (1979) discovery of the oldest neolithic community in Europe, found a few miles away while a new highway was being constructed. The encampment--no human remains were found but there is a large amount of evidence that humans were there based on the animal remains...including elephant, bison and hippopotamus....and the primitive tools that were found--is estimated to be about 730,000 years old -with a margin of error of 40,000 years :) We watch a film (with English narration) that tells about the discovery, the process of studying the find and what the evidence tells us. One section of the film recreates (very effectively) the way that tools were fashioned by primitive man and how they were used to cut food and crack bones and extract marrow. We wander through the exhibit...one of the best parts was a recreation of the field where the find was made that shows the position of all of the remains....and then spend some time in the Roman section. The Roman empire had a strong presence in ancient Aesernia and there are extensive displays with very good English translations of the descriptions.

When we are finished in the museum, it is time for lunch. The first restaurant that I had in mind--the Taverna Maresca--appears to be out of business. My second choice--the Osteria del Paradiso--is open but at 1:40 pm is still packed and can't seat us. The waiter tells that we can come back in 30 minutes. We sit in the square and read and at 2:15 we sit down to eat. The place is very good; the owner is friendly and even tries to speak to us in his limited English. They bring a complimentory antipasto plate with salami, a kind of cheese muffin, some foccacia and a fritter. For the first course, Diana has a pasta with an extremely fresh tomato sauce which she likes very much. My pasta with beans--the waiter smiles approvingly when I order it--is a bit bland. My secondo--grilled sausages--are very good but Diana's grilled lamb is a bit tough. We have a bottle of the house wine...a very sturdy red...and we finish it without difficulty.

By the time we finish, the restaurant is empty and they are ready to close up. We pay the bill--Euro 43.00--and we walk back up to the tourist office to see if Barbara can take us to see the lace museum. She immediately closes the office and leads us down the street to the museum. On the way down, she gives us an impromptu guided tour of the town--the market square that had been bombed in 1943 by American planes, the Duomo which is an ancient building constructed on the remains of Roman buildings with a modern classical Greek column and pediment front, the old town gate...the only monument left standing after the war, and the various Roman statues and stones that are built into the walls of the buildings along the street.

We stop along the way to pick up her mother.....under her window, we can hear the clicking of the wooden sticks that are used to produce the lace.....and continue on to the museum. The "museum" is a single room with displays showing the process and historical pictures of women making the lace. Barbara's mother demonstrates how it is done and then shows us examples of both her work and some pieces of antique lace. Barbara tells us that she is trying to get the government to give some support to the "museum" but so far unsuccessfully. We then head up to her aunt's grocery shop where Barbara's mother shows us some more lace that is for sale as well as examples of some lace lingerie that they are going to display at a fashion show in Dublin later this year. Diana does buy a few pieces as presents and then we head back to the car. The day has been interesting and fun and the town is attractive and worth seeing; we are not sure why the Cadogan guide author had such a negative reaction to Isernia.

We take the fast road back to Campobasso but it is after 6 pm by the time we get back to hotel room. Diana reads and I go down to the desk to see if the wireless broad band is now working. The desk clerk says it is....my computer recognized that there is a network but some setting is missing and no data can be received. We then proceed to spend about an hour fiddling with settings trying to make it work...but in the end, it still won't download any data. I go back upstairs to do some work and some writing.

We are not too interested in dinner tonight since we had such a large lunch that ended only a few hours ago but we do want to get out of the room, so we decide to drive downtown and get our first gelato of the trip instead of dinner. It is a very mild evening and there are still a lot of people strolling in the "centro". We eat our ice cream sitting on a wall in the park and then head back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we will head to northern Molise to see the bell factory in Agnone and the 3rd century BC Samnite theater in Pietrabbondante.

Day 7: Campobasso

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 03:02:00 +0000

Breakfast at the Hotel San Giorgio is just okay but the cappuccino is the best that I have had in a while--hot and strong. The weather is again beautiful....sunny and warm with no hint of rain; we have had very good luck with the weather during our first week.

This morning we are heading to Saepinum, a Roman city built on the site of an older Samnite town; the Samnite tribe was the power in the area until the Romans came along and there is still a strong Samnite identity among Molisans. The archaeological site is directly south of Campobasso, under the shadow of the Matese mountains which form the border with the region of Campania. Finding the right road out of Campobasso is a bit of a struggle but after a few false starts, we are on our way.

We see the lone sign for the "zona archaeologica" at Altilia and pull off into the parking lot...which is empty save a small booth and an old gentleman sitting on a tractor. There is a sign that says that parking is 1 Euro an hour but when I walk toward him to pay or get a ticket, he waves me off.

The whole site is quite distinctive and surprising because over the years, farmers had continued to live within the Roman walls. They used the old stones to build their farmhouses which still stand (although they are no longer occupied except by the staff of the site.) It is also striking that there is no admission and no guides and only one bar where some postcards are sold. A few of the buildings are used for the Saepinum museum. It is also strange and wonderful that there are virtually no other people walking around. During our two hours at Saepinum, we saw four other visitors and a handful of workers involved in restoring parts of the site.

There is not much written about Saepinum in our guidebooks...Cadogan has about a page....but we have an excellent article from the NY Times Travel Section from 1990 written by Michael Frank which helps us during our visit.

A Rarity Among Roman Towns

One of the gates--the Porta Bojano--is quite well restored; many of the thick stone walls are still standing and long stretches of the original Roman road is in place. There is a basilica with about a dozen upright columns, a large forum area, the remains of a row of shops and houses, the hexagonal market area and baths. There is a town fountain marked by a relief of a griffin and an inscription detailing who gave the money to build it. Next to the fountain, we see several brick vats that had been used to store olive oil and the remains of a water collection system. Just outside the walls, in the necropolis, there is a large, very grand tomb of the public official who built the griffin fountain.

The site is covered with grass and in the spring, the flowers are said to be very beautiful.....and there are a few stands of trees scattered around the site. It is quite a magical experience and we expect it will be a great contrast to our visit to Pompeii next week......

Here are a few pictures that may give you an idea about the site.

Here is web site with some more information about Saepinum.

Sepino, a treasure in the heart of Molise

We have lunch at the small restaurant right next to the parking lot....at first we think it is closed but in fact there is attractive small dining room on the second floor where two tables are already having lunch. It is a real mom and pop operation....mom is in the kitchen and pop does most of the serving. We point to a pasta dish at a neighboring table and we get two plates of thick home made pasta in a rich mushroom sauce..very delicious. Diana has a half-successful cheese plate and I have a some very good sauteed chicory which is cooked with oil and garlic. No wine today for lunch...we are trying to stay awake for more sightseeing.

After lunch, we take a roundabout route back to Campobasso....beautiful scenery, attractive hill towns and amazing vistas. We make a brief stop in Ferrazzano, a hill town just a few kilometers from Campobasso to check out a possible place to eat and then return to the hotel. Actually the return to the hotel is not that easy....we have to make several passes before we hit on the right route.

I walk into town from the hotel while Diana stays back in the room and reads......I walk up and down some of the shopping streets, through the old town with its hills and stairways, into the public garden, past the city food market and back to the hotel. Campobasso is certainly not the nicest town we have stayed in but it does have some nice areas and is well located for visiting the rest of Molise. Just before it gets dark, we get in the car and attempt to find the route to the Castello Monforte which sits on top of a hill that dominates the town. After a circumnavigation of Campobasso, we finally find the road that climbs to the top. However, it is dark by then so we don't get the full effect of the views from the top.

For dinner, we head back to town by car to eat at one of the restaurants listed in the Slow Food Guide. Feeling confident about my sense of direction, I try to take an alternate route downtown.....and end up somewhere very far away from the center. We retrace our route and find a parking space just around the corner from the restaurant. But when we get there, the name of the restaurant is different that the one that was listed. After some hesitation, we go in....the restaurant is empty and we have some more hesitation.

We decide to stay and we are happy that we do. The proprietor of "Trattoria Nerone" (no longer da Enrico) is very welcoming. He suggests that we let him bring us some local specialties so we put ourselves in his hands. The bread and wine arrive first--the house wine is very good and the bread--somewhat like a thick pizza--is terrific. We start off with two slices of very smooth and tasty polenta--one covered with a meat ragu and the other with sauteed mushrooms--and a portion of greens (maybe spinach) mixed with cheese. He brings a pitcher of pepper oil to use as a condiment--it is very spicy and very good. We pass on a pasta dish but for secondi, he brings Diana a piece of grilled veal and some potatoes and I get pork chunks in spicy, oily gravy...the pork is a bit tough but the gravy is wonderful.

We discuss Molise with the proprietor; he asks why we are visiting. I tell him that I am doing research...so he brings out a few brochures and points out some places that he thinks we should visit. For dessert he brings us a vanilla pudding and home baked cookies, which we only pick at...not our kind of dessert.

While we are eating, another table is occupied by two men. They finish before we do but, before they leave the restaurant, they come to our table and introduce themselves. One is a local dentist (a regular customer of Nerone) and his brother is a doctor in Campobasso. The owner of the restaurant had told them that we were from the USA and had showed them my card. The dentist tells us that he has studied in Boston and invites us to come visit him at his office. He gives us his card and there are handshakes all around. We pay the bill (Euro 43.00--about $50.00 US) and say goodbye to the charming owner.

The drive home is easy. Tomorrow we will visit the other provincial capital of Molise--Isernia.

Day 6: Colletorto-Campobasso

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 02:34:00 +0000

Another sunny day......and a somewhat late start after the party last night. The group at breakfast is slightly subdued--both from fatigue and perhaps the prospect of the end of the weekend. After we eat, we head up to the village and go to the church on the hill that has some intarsia (inlaid wood) choir stalls. The church is being repaired--there is netting to catch any pieces of falling ceiling and lots of scaffolding--but the door is unlocked. We are able to walk right up to each of the 23 panels...all but two are Old Testament scenes... and see them very clearly. The intarsia work is a little rougher than others we have seen but the panels are very appealing and direct. The accompanying decorative intarsia designs surrounding the panels are also quite intricate.

We return to the main street and hang around with some of the group at the bar, watching the passing parade and talking. Then we go back to the hotel, pack up and wrestle the bags down the three flights of stairs. Luigi and Giovanni pass out the spoils from the weekend--two bottles of Colletorto olive oil per picker. There is a lot of discussion of how we will pack the bottles since liquids are not permitted in carry-on baggage right now.

The last offical activity of the weekend is a pizza lunch at the hotel--the pizza is actually pretty good and most people are able to eat most of theirs despite the amount of food that had been eaten over the last 2 1/2 days. We walk up to the main street to say goodbye to the group getting on the bus, heading to the airport and returning home to England today and then we hang out at the hotel with the remnants of the group before tearing ourselves away and leaving for Campobasso. Perhaps if everything works out, we will be two of the returning pickers next year...

It has turned overcast and there is even a light drizzle as we leave Colletorto. It is not that far to Campobasso--perhaps 40 miles--but the drive is leisurely on country roads. The scenery is quite spectacular....since there are not many trees, there are long, broad vistas--gentle rolling hills in the foreground and high mountains in the distance. It makes the drive very pleasant. We pass quite close to a number of modern windmills set on the tops of ridges...these high towers with large propellers on top look quite out of place in this landscape. Hopefully, the windmills are generating enough power to justify the intrusion on the scenery. (Diana disagrees and thinks they are a charming sight.)

Campobasso appears in front of us.....the town is in a valley and, compared to the rest of the towns we have passed, seems to go on forever. Once we enter the city limits, we find that there are no hotel signs to direct us (as is common in most Italian towns). Not only are there no hotel signs, but there are very few helpful signs to direct us to the center of town. So we make a few passes around and through the town before we finally stumble on a road sign that I recognize as the street that our hotel is on.

The Hotel San Giorgio is a modern building in a commerical strip just outside the center of town. It is pretty deserted when we check in. The room is large and seems fine...although the afternoon is warm and the air conditioning isn't on. We unpack and I expectantly turn on my computer to see if the advertised wi-fi broadband access really exists. Needless to say, it doesn't. The desk clerk at first says that is not working today but later suggests that guests can't access the connection because of the new government anti-terrorism laws. In any case, I will try to ask tomorrow when there is a different desk clerk on duty.

After checking e-mail through the telephone line connection, I take the car out to explore Campobasso. Once I get to the middle of town, I realize that there are lot of people out for the Sunday evening passeggiata so I go back to the hotel, pick up Diana and we park the car and the join the citizens of Campobasso on their stroll. I am able to find my way back to the hotel and then back to the center with not too much difficulty....even though the Campobasso traffic patterns and the lack of signage make this a tricky process.

The passeggiata route goes through a very nice part of the Campobasso downtown....large piazzas and parks, broad pedestrian only streets and nice shops. There is pony and buggy ride for children set up in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II and people are buying roasted chestnuts and walking eating gelato. The lights are on and they give the town a nice glow. We walk through a large tent where a book fair is concluding, take a quick look in the Duomo and examine the posters for concerts that might be coming up during our stay. The old city, which climbs the hillside that stretches up to the big castello crowning the hill that dominates the town, is immediately adjacent to the center. We walk the neighborhood of narrow, crowded streets for a while before heading back to the hotel.

Many of the recommended restaurants in Campobasso are closed on Sundays so we decide to eat in the hotel restaurant. There is only one other customer when we are there and I think that they have limited options on Sunday nights. But the meal is fine....Diana loves her farro (barley-like grain) soup and my pasta dish (cavatelli with Molisan meat sauce) is very good. Diana's grilled lamb is less successful but my grilled sausages are fine. We have a local Merlot from eastern Molise which is very drinkable. The bread basket has a wonderful crisp biscuit with whole almonds--the waiter tells us that they are something like "taraluci". No dessert tonight and it is a quick elevator ride up to the room.

Tomorrow we are planning to visit the Roman city of Saepinum.

Day 5: Colletorto

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 02:31:00 +0000

Sunny again this morning.....after breakfast, we all get on the bus and head for Termoli, about an hour to the north and east--Molise's largest beach resort with an attractive ( and old) "centro storico"and the embarkation point for ferries for the Tremiti Islands and Croatia. The bus almost retraces our drive from Termoli to Colletorto except that it takes a slightly longer route to avoid the very narrow and curvy road from Larino to Montorio. By the time we get to the coast, the sun has given way to overcast skies. We arrive in Termoli just after 11 am and climb the circular staircase from the ferry parking lot to the town. We admire the views over the Adriatic and look at one of the last surviving "trabucco"...a long fishing pier with rudimentary housing that used to be common in the area.

We walk as a group through the old town, past the Duomo and the 13th century castle built by Frederick II and into the very attactive and busy main shopping street. We are given an hour to walk around before we have to board the bus for the trip inland to Provvidenti for our lunch in the country. After a quick coffee, we stroll down the main drag--window shopping and people watching. We double back on the much less fashionable parallel street heading for the duomo. Unfortunately it is closed for the lunch hour so we admire the rose window, the facade, the Moorish-style arches and numerous carvings of animals and mystical creatures. While waiting for the rest of the group, we sit in the square and catch up reading some of the tourist information about Termoli and Molise.

The road that takes us to the restaurant is fairly new and a good portion of it is on a high bridge that goes for a long distance diagonally across a man-made lake in the area....it is quite a feat of engineering. For the second half of the crossing (maybe three miles) the "lake bed" is barely even damp; it has been a dry summer.

Provvidenti is a small valley town of something less than 100 inhabitants.....although there is housing for a lot more. It was damaged in the last earthquake and there are some "temporary" cabins lining the approach to town. The road is also decorated with several "arches" advertising an upcoming rock and reggai music festival to be held in Provvidenti....it is a strange contrast with the seemingly deserted town. The town--although losing population--has become something of weekend day trip target because of the restaurant which is large, attactive and fairly new--with nice views of the hills from the large windows in the dining room.

Although everyone professes that they are still full from the night before, we manage to do a good job on the very delicious five course lunch......a very tasty antipasto plate featuring salami and a frittata, pasta shells with a rich sausage sauce which we spiced up with some homemade hot peppers in oil, a mixed grill of beef, lamb and sausage, a green salad and--thankfully--a light fruit salad for dessert. Of course, a large quantity of wine accompanied the meal...which was (again) extremely well cooked and served.

Most everyone takes a stroll around the town...which is not tiny but appears to be underpopulated. The main church suffered a lot of damage and has an extensive set of scaffolding shoring it up. At 4 pm, the town sort of wakes up and we see some children playing in the streets, some old men walking around and sitting on the church steps and people begin to emerge from their houses.

When we get back to Colletorto, some people head back to rest and get ready for the final banquet. Others (incuding Diana) congregate in the optician's shop (he is a relative of one of the organizers and people have shopped there in previous years) to look for Italian designer frames. Another small group (including me) takes the opportunity to climb the 14th century Angioino tower that dominates the town. Even though the tower is "in restauro" and closed to the public, a cousin works for the village and Luigi is able to get the key to unlock it. There are 124 steps to the top (the two young boys on the trip count them for us) and we are rewarded with great views over the countryside.

After another short session for me on the internet at Luigi's house, it is time to go down for pre-dinner drinks......most of the group say that they would be happy not to eat again but everyone is anxious to have this last opportunity to socialize. The group is augmented by a number of townspeople and family--all of whom have had a connection with the groups over the years. In addition, Luigi and Giovanni have hired a local folk band to perform during dinner. The music is fantastic and dinner (although some of us do skip some courses and pick at others) is again excellent. The band is made up of a young accordion player (who was sent to music school so he could replace his grandfather who used to play but died a couple of years ago), his father who plays the bass (made of a broomstick, a bucket and piece of string), a drummer, a very stylish tamborine player, a vocalist and two very unusual rhythm instruments. One is a water filled jar with a skin stretched across it and piece of bamboo that is inserted in through the skin and is "caressed" by the player as he stands over the instrument. Rhythmic sounds are produced as the water amplifies the resonance from the taut skin. The other unusual instruments are two wooden square poles that are hinged at the bottom with cross pieces on the top that have metal disks attached loosely. As the two poles are clapped together, the metal disks create a percussive effect. There is also a smaller version that is worn around the neck of the musician.

The band is excellent and they play for hours....slightly too long perhaps....but they seem to be enjoying themselves very much. There is a "guest" singer....from Turin...who is supposed to sing two songs; he is terrific (a real pro) but he goes on for almost two hours. There is some dancing.....mostly by Luigi, his family and the band but some of the group take part...and some of our group take a turn on the instruments.

And we eat.....the menu is bresaola with rucola and parmigiano cheese, ravioli in a light sauce, baked eggplant with a delicate bechamel and, just when we thought it was safe, a plate of savory porchetta. It is so good that I eat the whole thing...even though I had just picked at the previous two courses. One of the group makes a thank you speech to the town (in Italian), Diana reads a poem she'd written about the weekend that was very well received, and I make some remarks about how much we enjoyed the whole event.

The climax is a big cake with candles with a picture of the olive fields and the town....and there is a final champagne toast. By now it is 12:30 am and, although no one really wants to end the evening, the wine and the excitement have taken their toll so we say good night to all and climb the three flights of stairs.

Tomorrow most of the group leaves for home after lunch and we head for Campobasso to continue our visit to Molise.

Day 4: Colletorto

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:09:00 +0000

When we open the electric powered window blinds this morning at about 8 am, the balcony is wet and the sky is overcast. It had rained overnight and, although it isn't raining when we get up, we wonder how it will affect the plans to pick olives.

After breakfast--a very nice spread of pastries, rolls, ham, yogurt, fruit and cakes--the weather appears to be improving. Luigi tells us that the plan is to wait for for a couple of hours for the fields to dry off...not only to avoid soggy ground but because picking when the trees are wet could damage them. While we wait, we walk up to the main street of the "village". In fact, Colletorto is more than a small village but is really a small town (certainly larger than Pienza). There are shops lining the main street and houses climb up the hill above the town and also down below the "centro". In the light of day, we notice two things that we had missed when we arrived last night. There is wooden and iron scaffolding supporting many of the buildings in town and there are a number of "temporary" buildings (large trailers) which house stores, bars and other shops. We find out that Colletorto is two miles from the town of San Giuliano di Puglia where 26 schoolchildren died in an earthquake just four years ago and, while there was no one killed in Colletorto, there was extensive damage that is still not repaired.

We stroll up and down the main street and into the old section with narrow lanes and a lot more scaffolding. We pass the very attractive city hall (municipio) with its open courtyard and the tall round medieval stone tower--the Torre Angioina--which seems to be closed for repairs. The hills surrounding the town are covered with olive trees--the main crop of Colletorto--and. across the valley, we can also see the town of San Giuliano di Puglia and "temporary" town of new wooden buildings close by. After our walk through town--there are groups of older men congregated on the street but very few women are out--the sun seems to be trying to break through and Luigi tells us that we will wait another hour and head to the fields at 11 am. We take the opportunity to drive over to San Giuliano di Puglia and see what we can see. We see a large number of construction vehicles along the road and several new houses being built on the hillsides between the two towns. The landscape looks quite stark and rugged....very brown and pretty steep.

The road into the village of San Giuliano is closed but we continue on to the temporary town....it is quite extensive with rows of nice wooden buildings for housing, a school, a commercial center and a large athletic field. The Molise regional elections are next week and election posters are plastered everywhere. We are surprised to see lines of television trucks from the Italian networks parked next to the town center and crowds of men in suits and in uniforms, but we don't have time to stop and find out what's going on.

By 11 am, the sun is out, the sky is blue and the temperature is very pleasant (in the low 70s). The group of 25 "workers" all walk together to the fields on the edge of Colletorto...the "weekender" participants are augmented by Luigi's sisters who usually return to Colletorto for the olive picking. Some of the participants have been coming back every year - others are newcomers, like us. They hail from Scotland, England and Wales, and are mostly colleagues and friends of Luigi, and then also friends of friends. One couple is here with two young boys. There are architects, educators, a fireman, an events planner - folks who are taking a break from their mostly high-pressured jobs to experience something altogether different in a very remote, beautiful spot. The equipment and a trailer full of refreshments are waiting for us, as well as the owner of the trees, and we get a quick orientation to our "jobs". In Molise, most olives are picked by hand because the fields are on hillsides and it is impossible to use mechanical equipment for the job. They also feel that the machines damage the trees. Large green nets are spread under the trees and pickers are armed with orange hand rakes (almost like large plastic combs). Some people climb ladders and other stay on the ground; the technique is to "comb" the olives off of the branches. They fall onto the netting and when the tree is finished, the olives are collected into bags and taken to the "frantoio". There is no need to discriminate between green and black olives....they are all mixed together. Leaves and twigs will also get separated out at the frantoio. When a tree is finished and the olives are bagged, the nets are moved over to another tree. Depending on the size of one's holdings, olives will be picked through November, with the frantoios running 24-7.

The work is not particularly onerous when the olives are at face level or below but when you have to reach above your head for branches, it can get tiring. Some of the "workers" spend time "guarding" the refreshment trailer and handing out drinks to those who are picking.

While the picking goes on, a picnic lunch is being assembled in the field by the families of Luigi and Giovanni. After a couple of hours of hard work, it is time to eat and there is a fabulous feast on the picnic blankets. Pizzas, salami, cheese, a frittata, olives, peppers, sausages, breads....in great abundance and all delicious. Of course, it all tastes even better after the olive picking. After grapes and cookies and pastries, the work resumes for a couple of hours......all is very convivial and friendly.

About 3 pm, we wrap up....all in all, 20 bags are picked (600 kilos) which will make 120 liters of Colletorto oil.

Some of the pickers walk back up the steep hill to town and others take a ride in our car which I bring back to serve as a shuttle service. We next visit the frantoio where the olives are brought to be processed and quickly turned into beautiful fresh green oil. The picked olives have to be crushed immediately so during the olive picking season, tractors and trucks line up outside the frantoios every afternoon and the mills run all night to finish the jobs. We watch the process (not our olives) from the beginning....the branches and large leaves are removed, the olives are washed, then ground into a paste. In the traditional process, the paste is extruded onto straw mats which are stacked and then put into hydraulic presses. The pressure is carefully controlled because it is important to avoid creating too much heat---the process is "cold pressing". It takes about 90 minutes to extract the oil and water from what is pressed....this liquid is put into a centrifuge and the water is separated from oil. The oil flows out--beautifully green--and is put into stainless steel drums until it is bottled or shipped off. We then go upstairs in the frantoio and are treated to a buffet of pizza, fruit, etc. but the highlight is to be able to dunk fresh bread into the new oil....which has a distinctive, deliciously rich peppery flavor.

Those who haven't been before continue on to a second frantoio which is much more modern and uses the newest technology. After the olives are dumped into the machinery, it is all automatically controlled. The oil is extracted from the olive paste using a centrifuge; there is no need to press the paste in the straw mats. According to our hosts, there is no difference in quality or quantity but the modern method is much less labor intensive. The town has 8 frantoios and it's fun to visit these two for contrast.

About 6 pm, we go back to the hotel to rest after the long day and to prepare for our next meal....dinner at 9 pm. Luigi has offered to let me hook up my computer to the telephone line at his family's house in town, so I walk over and--after a false start--get connected to the internet to check my e-mail.

We gather for drinks in the hotel bar prior to dinner....and then have another feast in the dining room. The menu includes a beautiful slice of prosciutto and some delicious mozzarella and sliced tomatoes. Following that is a bowl of pasta with beans and a second pasta--a wonderful spaghetti carbonara. The pastas are followed by a very tasty piece of veal milanese--pounded thin and delicately fried. Dessert is a light and refreshing fruit salad (macedonia) with a small scoop of gelato. The vino rosso della casa is very good and a great deal is consumed by the group. Everyone is having a wonderful time...talking and laughing. I had intended to go out to the bar with the rest of the younger crowd after dinner but when the meal is wrapping up at 11:30 pm, it is all I can do to climb the stairs and get into bed.

During dinner, Luigi tells us that he had seen on television the festivities that had taken place in San Giuliano earlier in the day. Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had been there campaigning for his candidate for regional president.
Tomorrow we are to have a road trip to the Adriatic coast town of Termoli and have lunch in a country restaurant.

Day 3: Fermignano-Colletorto

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:43:00 +0000

No fog this morning...the sun is shining and we can see the beautiful vistas over the countryside from the Locanda. At breakfast, all three couples--one Canadian, one English and us--have a lively conversations about educational systems, movies, television programs and our travels the day before. The "structured sociability" of the Locanda has certainly has been successful....we exchange e-mail addresses and say our goodbyes.

Before we leave, we talk to Giulia about her experiences starting the agriturismo. She and her parents have been running it for the past seven years. They had never been farmers or in the accommodation business (her father--an architect--had designed hotels, however) but they were interested in organic agriculture and running a "green" operation. The house was built in the 1920s but they completely reconstructed it.....it has solar panels for hot water (augmented with a wood stove) and it is designed to keep cool in the summer and warm in the autumn. (They are only open from June through the end of October.) They use their own products--meat, cereals, vegetables, fruit--in the meals that they prepare. The house is decorated in a very attractive modern style...lots of wood and clean lines. The furnishings are comfortable and each of their six rooms has a distinctive "look and feel". The biggest problem we find is that--because the hot water is fired by a combination of solar power and wood fires, it is difficult to maintain a steady temperature resulting in quick shifts between very hot and cold.

Even though I don't usually like to stay in the countryside, our two nights at the Locanda are very enjoyable and turn out to be a good way to start our Italian trip.

We say goodbye and start out for Molise about 11:30 am. We are planning to stop on the Le Marche-Abruzzo border for lunch with our friends, Romina and Thomas and to meet their new baby girl, Gloria. We make good time on the autostrada and are in San Benedetto del Tronto just after 1 pm. Romina and Thomas have moved into a large house on a big plot of land overlooking San Benedetto del Tronto and the Adriatic Sea. Thomas meets us in town and leads up the hill on his scooter.

The baby is very sweet and we have a very nice visit and a good lunch. They are planning to open a b&b in the house and we get the grand tour of the house and the grounds. We have to tear ourselves away because we still have a good distance to go (Colletorto is almost on the Puglia border and about 45 minutes inland from coast) and we would like to arrive before dark. I make excellent time on the autostrada and we get off at the Termoli exit before 6 pm. The first part of the trip from the coast to Colletorto is very straightforward but then the road that we have chosen gets windy and narrow as it starts to get dark. We have a few anxious moments wondering if we are on the right road but it all works out and we make it to Colletorto just after 7 pm....it is now dark but the last part of the trip is not too confusing. There is a sign for the Hotel P.E.D.A. as soon as we enter town so we go directly there. The hotel is a modern building...there is a bar and restaurant downstairs and the rooms are plain but all have private baths and a small television set but no telephone.

The rest of the Olive Oil Weekender group hasn't arrived yet...they fly into Pescara from England and will be be taken by bus to Colletorto. We check in and wrestle our bags up the three flights of stairs (no elevator). We unpack a bit and rest for a while while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. The Olive Oil Weekender is annual event organized by two British-Italian cousins--Giovanni Nasillo and Luigi Scalera--whose family is from Colletorto. They have been bringing groups from Great Britain to Colletorto for the last six years to take part in the olive harvest and tour the area. I found out about the weekender while surfing the internet and made arrangements to take part.

Olive Oil Weekender

Dinner is scheduled for 8:30 pm so when we hear some activity in the hall, we head downstairs to the bar and find it full of people having a welcome drink. We meet Giovanni and Luigi who are very welcoming and are very happy that we have come. We are introduced to some of the other "weekenders" and quickly learn that a large percentage of the group are repeaters....one of them has been to six of the "weekenders"...so many of them already know each other. But we find that they are very friendly and welcoming to newcomers and very enthusiastic about the program.

Dinner (for about 25) is served in the banquet room of the hotel around one large table. Wine flows freely and the food is very good.....an antipasto plate, spaghetti with bolognese sauce, roast veal and potatoes and a plate of panna cotta and semi-freddo with chocolate sauce. There is lots of conversation and lots of laughter and a very warm feeling around the table. Dinner is over about 11 pm and we are ready for bed but a large contingent of the group heads out for the local bar to continue the festivities. We climb the three flights of stairs and are asleep pretty quickly (although I am woken up at about 2:30 am when the group returns from the bar.)

In the morning, we are scheduled to take a walk around the village and then head for the olive grove for our day of picking.

Day 2: Fermignano

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 14:25:00 +0000

We sleep through the night and Diana woke me at 8:30...that should take care of any possible jet lag. Looking out the window, we can only see a few feet away because of the heavy fog.

Breakfast is served in the same room as dinner and everyone is seated in at the same tables as at dinner. There are homemade breads and cake, cereal, tomatoes, ham, butter and fruit preserves. There is a lot of talk at breakfast about the plans for day trips; it is all very social but finally we get up to get ready for our expeditions.

We are heading for Pergola, a small town to the south, to see their prized possession in the local museum--the Bronzi Dorati (Gilded Bronzes). These are life size statues from Roman times that were found by accident in 1946 by some local farmers working their fields in the area. As we drive out from the Locanda, the visibility on the curvy road is very limited but as we descend and head west, the sun breaks through. This area of Le Marche is still very green in mid-October and the drive to Pergola is very pleasant once the sun breaks through. We pass through Cagli on the way--it must be market day because we see people walking along the road carrying a number of full plastic bags.

We make a quick drive through Pergola; it is an attractive town...the main street is lined with large palazzi...and there are parks and a large square. We make one wrong turn--misled for the hundreth time by the sometimes confusing Italian traffic arrows--but easily recover and find the town museum that houses the bronzes. It is in an old church and we are the only visitors. We pay the admission charge and the ticket taker escorts us to the room where the bronzes are displayed.

The Bronzi Dorati are four incomplete life size figures--two men on horseback flanked by two standing women. The remaining gilded bronze skins of the statues have been mounted on metal frames and they are displayed on a raised stage. Although this type of statuary was very popular with the Romans, there are very few remaining because most of them had been melted down for the metal. The explanatory panels say that there is still doubt about the identity of the figures but they have tried to match the statues with other statues from the same time.

There was a big fight about where the bronzes were to be displayed...after they were originally restored they were taken to Ancona, the regional capital, but, when they were loaned to Pergola for a show, the town refused to return them and barricaded the door to the exhibit until they were allowed to keep them. They are striking and very lifelike - you just about see the steam coming from the horses nostrils. The woman - possibly Cicero's wife - is pensive and impressive.

We quickly see the other exhibits in the museum, including some fabulous etchings for a book of Leopardi poetry and are on our way. We do a quick tour around the appealing "centro storico" stopping for some cookies in a bakery and then leave town. Heading due north, the drive is extremly scenic....the road continuously curving as it climbs and providing beautiful vistas in all directions--rolling countryside closer in and high mountains in the distance. The descent to Cartoceto is equally scenic; it packs a lot of beauty in a short 12 kilometer drive.

Since it is lunch time, we look up Cartoceto in our guide books and discover that there are two places in that town with excellent reviews. But when we drive through the town, there is little evidence that there is a town at all---no stores, no signs, no evidence of anything. We drive down some minor roads but see nothing. We call the restaurant and tell them we are in front of the church in the middle of town and they give us directions to find the restaurant. But the directions as we understand them don't correspond with anything that we can see. Finally, we check the map index and discover that there are, in fact, two Cartocetos--one about 35 km away which is where the restaurants are.

Now it is really lunch time so we head to the nearest town, Fossombrone. At 2 pm, most everything is closed but we do find a bar/sandwich place open right off the main square. We are greeted warmly by the proprietor and have a couple of delicious "piadine"....sandwiches on a tortilla-like flatbread.

After lunch, we drive through the striking Furlo gorge. The main road to Rome is in a tunnel under the gorge but the old road hugs the sheer high walls of the canyon next to the river. There is a hydroelectric plant in the gorge and there is a lot of hiking in the area.

I decide to take the back way to the Locanda through the town of Fermignano. We make one stop to buy a present for the new baby of friends in San Benedetto del Tronto where we are having lunch tomorrow. And then we proceed to miss our turn and we end up just below Urbino. We retrace our steps, drive through Fermignano and again miss the right road and take the longer route back through Acqualagna. We go past the Locanda and take the road to Fermignano just to find out where we had gone wrong. We find that we had been too impatient and should have gone another 1/2 mile to reach the right (and much shorter) return route.

We rest before dinner and then set out for a restaurant in Acqualagna recommended by Giulia--the Osteria del Parco. Dinner is very good and the restaurant is quite lively; all but one table is filled by the time we leave. We split a terrific veal carpaccio with rucola and parmigiano, Diana has a ravioli dish with pecorino cheese and then grilled lamb with roast potatoes and I have a pasta called maltagliati (badly cut) with a sauce of tomato and ceci followed by pork shanks...everything is quite good but the portions are enormous. No dessert is possible even though panna cotta is available. We drink almost a liter of the very drinkable house red and the bill comes to just over Euro 50 (about $63.00 US).

The drive back in the dark is not a problem.....unfortunately now that we have gotten the hang of the area, we leave tomorrow and won't be able to use our new-found experience.

Day 1: Fermignano

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 14:24:00 +0000

The plane trip from Washington DC to Milan was tolerable though long. Since our tickets are paid for by miles, we have two connections en route...in New York and Zurich. We leave Washington at 2:30 pm on Monday and arrive in Milan at 10:30 am the next day.....about 14 hours in all. The flights are on American (Swiss for the 35 minute hop from Zurich to Milan) and the planes are reasonably comfortable, the connections are painless, the food is edible and we arrive at Malpensa just about on time.

After a longish wait at passport control in Milan...due to a large group of drunk Russian soccer fans....our luggage arrives quickly and we are on the road in a large and comfortable Opel Zafira van. It feels a bit cool when we arrive but the day warms up comfortably as we make the long drive from Milan to the northern part of Le Marche to the Locanda della Valle Nuova, the agriturismo near Urbino run by the family of my internet "friend" --Giulia Savini--from the Slow Travel Italy message board.

I expect the drive to take 4 to 4.5 hours....almost all on the autostrada, but for a variety of reasons, we arrive at the Locanda close to sundown. At an autostrada rest stop, we stop for coffee and pastries--the pastries that they serve are better than 90 percent of the pastries that one can get anywhere at home. One idea we have is to stop for lunch at La Buca, the wonderful restaurant in Zibello where we had such a memorable lunch last Spring, but unfortunately, it is closed on Tuesdays.

We stop for lunch near Parma at the Trattoria Emiliana....we are heading for a place near Langhirano where we had a wonderful meal of prosciutto, etc. several years ago but we decide not to venture that far afield. We see the sign for the trattoria from the highway (I seem to remember having read about it somewhere) and pull in. It is a no-nonsense place with trucks in the parking lot, a mostly male clientele and a Euro 13 lunch menu. We both have the pasta with a very tasty pancetta and pecorino sauce, Diana's roast pork with mushroom sauce is just okay but my "trippa" in a rich tomato sauce is delicious. With a half-liter of drinkable red and some tangerines, the bill comes to Euro 32.00.

We get back on the road and are making quick progress across Emilia-Romagna--the autostrada is straight and level, there are a lot of trucks and the scenery is either flat agricultural fields or warehouses and factories. I am a bit surprised at how many of the trucks seem to quickly pull out to pass, without much warning, which forces me to either slow down or move quickly to another lane to avoid them....I don't remember this happening as often on other trips.

As we approach the Adriatic coast, the green, rolling hills of Le Marche make the scenery more interesting but that scenery doesn't make up for the traffic jams--due to construction near Riccione and Pesaro--that slow us down considerably. We don't reach the Locanda della Valle Nuova until after 6 pm...making it a long day after the overnight plane flight.

The Locanda is set beautifully in the very green and very hilly Le Marche countryside between Fermignano and Acqualagna, not far from the main road from Fano (on the Adriatic) to Rome--the Via Flaminia. The approach is on small, mostly paved, winding road with lots of nice views along the way. I finally get to meet Giulia and we get settled in our room. The agriturismo is stylish and modern...with a sitting area and the breakfast area downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs. There is an appealing swimming pool outside and stables and a riding area are immediately adjacent.

Dinner is at 7:30...there are two other couples having dinner tonight (another family is eating in Urbino)--and we have a pleasant talk with one of the couples while waiting......we find that we have some tangential Toronto connections with them. Dinner is very good.....a local cheese sealed in cellars to age (formaggio di fossa)--strong and pungent to start, served with Giulia's fig jam and green tomato compote- then tortellini in brodo--delicous filled pasta in a rich chicken broth, a fragrant beef stew (more like a pot roast) and boiled potatoes and jam tarts for dessert. We have a local sangiovese and a red from southern Le Marche--rosso di Piceno--to drink. There is lively conversation among the all the diners and with Guilia who is serving the dinner. After dinner, we "retire" to the sitting area and continue the discussions. This is a feature of an agriturismo that I hadn't thought of (we mostly stay in towns at hotels) and it can make for a very pleasant bonus.

Finally the long day catches up and we say good night.

Itinerary for October / November 2006

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 14:20:00 +0000

October 17 - 19 2006 - Fermignano, Italy

Lodging: Locanda della Valle Nuova (Source: User Entries)
Localita' Valle Nuova
http://www.vallenuova.it
Marche

October 19 - 22, 2006 - Colletorto, Italy
Lodging: PEDA Hotel (Source: User Entries)
Olive Oil Weekender Molise

October 22 - 27, 2006 - Campobasso, Italy
Lodging: Hotel San Giorgio (Source: User Entries)
via Insorti d'Ungheria I
http://www.hotelsangiorgio.org

October 27 - 31, 2006 - Pompei, Italy
Lodging: Hotel Amleto (Source: User Entries)
Via Bartolo Longo, 10
http://www.hotelamleto.it

October 31 - November 4, 2006 - Bacoli, Italy
Lodging: Villa Oteri (Source: User Entries)
Via Lungo Lago, 174
http://www.villaoteri.it

November 4 - 8, 2006 - Frascati, Italy
Lodging: Hotel Flora (Source: User Entries)
Viale Vittorio Veneto, 8
http://www.hotel-flora.it

November 8 - 13, 2006 - Rome, Italy
Tiberina Apartment

Day 23: Bordighera-Torino

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Fri, 26 May 2006 00:10:00 +0000

After our last breakfast on the lungomare, we take a short walk on the rocks and pack up the car. We have enjoyed our stay in Bordighera and liked the Hotel Piccolo Lido very much....a great location, not fancy, but clean and comfortable with enthusiastic and friendly staff--not to mention high-speed wireless internet access.

The road to Torino goes north from Ventimiglia and we will have to pass through a bit of France before returning to Italy. This stretch of France is particularly beautiful--the road hugs the Roya River as it winds and climbs through lovely, rugged mountain scenery and passes through pretty French towns. We see a number of French electricity generating plants along the road as well. We stop in Tende (Tenda in Italian) to take a look and buy some bread and a pastry, which we enjoy as we continue our drive. Before entering Italy near Limone Piemonte, we have to pass through the long and very narrow Colle di Tende tunnel (about 4 miles long). On the other side of the border, the terrain is strikingly different--less craggy and still very steep mountains but greener with Alpine meadows.

The rest of the trip into Torino is through a flat, unattractive, industrial area and we hit Torino on the south end of the city. Our hotel--the Grand Hotel Sitea--is in the center and we make a few wrong turns before we reach it. Our room is quite luxurious with a lot of space and a gigantic big screen television hanging on the wall. We check out all the features, including the high speed internet access. Then we pack up our laundry and set out for the laundromat, which is on the Corso Unione Sovietica in the south end of the city.

Driving in Torino is not as difficult as in other cities...the streets are broad and in a regular grid--but there are a few things that I have to get used to. Driving on the wide boulevards, you have to make all turns--right and left--from the service roads; before I realize that, we have missed our turn and we have to scramble to get back on track. We find the laundromat easily but all the washers are occupied so we have to wait for about 20 minutes. There are two Italian women who are washing their heavy winter bedding and two men (soldiers we think since they have lots of olive-drab-colored shirts) doing their clothes. Before we leave, we give an Italian man a lesson on how to operate the machines.

When we return to the hotel, we find a parking space on the street near the hotel where we can leave the car overnight. We walk over to a restaurant near the hotel called Perbacco. Nice jazz is playing in the background as we walk in. The owner--Roberto--sits down with us at our table and explains the fixed-priced, four course menu in English. (He later repeats the process with the table next to us in French.) He is one of those overly intimate restauranteurs and he tells us that he had opened a restaurant in Hawaii some time before but had left after a year because he didn't like the tropical climate. I am a little put off that he won't speak to us in Italian, but the food is mostly good. Diana has a herbed fresh cheese to start (sort of a flavored cream cheese) that is a bit odd, a wonderful risotto, a tasty lamb stew and a disappointing tarte tatin. I start with an unusual dish--eggs that are baked in the oven with prosciutto and vegetables, an excellent plate of gnocchi with swordfish, okay mussels in a spicy tomato sauce and a delicious peach pudding. The wine--a grignolino--is a little light for our taste.

On our way out, we ask Roberto about one of the saxophone players we had heard while eating and he calls over the waiter--his son--who is in charge of the music. It turns out that we like a lot of the same sax players--Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz--and I think that he is tickled that someone has asked about the music.

Tomorrow morning we plan to go to services at the synagogue.

Day 22: Bordighera

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Zurer) — Thu, 25 May 2006 00:44:00 +0000

Another beautiful morning in Bordighera and another extremely pleasant breakfast on the lungomare.

Today--feeling a bit a short on "culture" so far this trip--we are heading to Taggia, a town just to the east of San Remo. It is known for the collection of 15th century Ligurian art at the Convent of San Domenico as well as having a very picturesque centro storico. After getting turned around at the autostrada exit and almost ending up back in San Remo, we right ourselves and find a parking space just outside the town walls. The first thing that we encounter is a large tour group made up of Italian pilgrims who are standing in the piazza outside a big church. However, our first priority is to find the convent (somewhere outside the town walls) before it closes at noon. We ask for directions in a bakery and the woman tells us that the convent is about a 10 minute walk outside the walls and in "that direction". En route, we ask one more time and confirm that we are on the right road...and, in about 10 minutes, we arrive at the large church of San Domenico set in a large piazza overlooking the valley.

The caretaker lets us in--after collecting the Euro 5.00 admission price--and escorts us to the sanctuary where most of the paintings are hung. The church is very restrained and it is light enough to see the paintings reasonably well. The collection's prizes include paintings by Ludovico Brea and his sons, and frescoes by Giovanni Canavesio....not familiar names to us but certainly working in the same style as artists in Tuscany and Umbria. There is even another Last Supper for me to enjoy. The caretaker shows us from the sanctuary to the sacristy to the refectory and we then take a look at the fresco cycle based on the life of San Domenico that is painted all around the pretty cloister.

After our walk back to the center of Taggia, we follow one of the "suggested itineraries" along some of the main streets. We stay mostly in the lower town and I think that we miss some of the best streets which are in the upper town but the hills look a bit daunting. The church where the pilgrims have gathered--SS Giacomo e Fillippo--is supposed to be based on a design by Bernini and it is dedicated to a local miracle whose 150th anniversary is being celebrated next month. Posters in the church detail all the festivities and masses that are being celebrated to prepare for the event and the pilgrims all seem very devoted to the wooden statue of the saint carved by a local artist and kept on the high altar.

The part of Taggia that we do see is not that attractive, and we decide to leave town. On the way out of town, we pass by the multi-arched medieval bridge that spans the Taggia River (Taggiasca is the variety of olive grown here which is an important component of the very highly prized Ligurian olive oil). Our next stop is the "ghost village" of Bussana Vecchia but before we get there, we drive along the sandy beachfront of the resort town, Arma di Taggia. However, the beach is hard to see because of the solid line of beach establishments that block the view of the water. (We are lucky that in Bordighera the lungomare is set slightly higher than the beach which allows for clear views of the water, even where there are beach clubs.)

The road to Bussana Vecchia climbs sharply; it is quite narrow and has some unwelcome, tight hairpin turns. At the top of the hill, you can see the "skyline" of the town that was devastated by an earthquake in 1887 and was never "officially" rebuilt. A new town was built nearer the water and the old village went to ruin. You can still see the damage in the church and towers at the top of the town, but in recent years, artists have reclaimed the town, gotten "unofficially" hooked to electricity, gas and water and Bussana Vecchia is something of a tourist destination, especially on weekends.

The road up to Bussana Vecchia ends abruptly at the entrance to the village forcing a tight u-turn. We park and take a short walk into the village but most everything is closed on this weekday. I climb to the top and see the still unrepaired church and fortress and pass numerous closed artists' studios and souvenir shops. Just before we reached the village, we had passed a restaurant with tables set up on the road with a view to the water and a charcoal grill where someone was cooking steaks. It is lunch time and they have a table, so we decide to eat. The restaurant--La Casaccia--is in a pink stucco building covered with a thick blanket of vibrant purple bougainvillea. Lunch is a lot of fun...the staff are very accommodating and the food is very good. Diana has some bruschetta with tomatoes that looks better than it tastes and her tagliata (steak) is good. Her salad of finocchio with oranges and olives is delicious. I have a pasta dish (strozzapreti) made with pancetta and zucchini that is nicely prepared and a tasty grilled sausage with a wonderful "cole slaw" made with shredded savoy cabbage and caper pesto dressing.

The drive down is a lot easier than the drive up and we make it through San Remo with little delay. After a break at the hotel, we decide to take a late afternoon ride up to the hill town of Apricale that we had passed by on Sunday. We hit the usual traffic through Bordighera and Vallecrosia (in effect, Bordighera, Vallecrosia and Ventimiglia have one continuous two lane street which is both the main road and the commercial district, so delays are frequent) and pass Dolceacqua on the way up to Apricale.

We drive past Apricale heading for the parking lot that you reach after you pass the town. The road narrows as it goes around a tight curve and we meet a large truck coming down the hill. We have been waiting for this happen....and it finally does. There is no way that the both the truck and car can pass each other at this point in the road. The truck can't back up because there are two cars in back of him and we have two cars in back of us. Much as I hate to drive in reverse, I have no choice. The cars in back of me have backed down the hill around the curve and found a wider part of the road to wait on. I gingerly back the car down hugging the inside of the road and trying to avoid the preciptious dropoff on our right. Finally, there is a narrow outcropping on the right side of the road with barely enough room for the car. The truck driver motions to me to put the car there and, when he judges that he has enough room, maneuvers the large truck between our car and the side of the road. We breathe a large sigh of relief and continue on our way.

Apricale is somewhat anti-climactic after that experience, but we park the car and walk into the center of town. There are lots of tunnels and steps in this impossibly narrow town which then abruptly opens up to a small attractive piazza which is sunk below the level of the churches and the castle that ring it. Unfortunately, some of the effect is lessened because both the piazza and the castle are "in restauro" and there is scaffolding and fencing everywhere, but it is not hard to imagine the scene without the surrounding construction.

Before going back down to Bordighera, we drive up the steep road to La Favorita, a well known restaurant with a terrace that has views back to Apricale and down to the sea. Perhaps we will make it to eat there on our next trip.

Back on the lungomare, we stop at a cafe for a drink before going back to the hotel. We are not too hungry after our substantial lunch so about 9 pm we decide to go back to the Pizzeria Napoletana and have their antipasto for our dinner. It works out very well--the plate includes salami, seafood, onions, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, and various kinds of fried vegetable preparations--peppers, eggpant, vegetable flan, potatoes as well as stuffed sardines. We also have some focaccia (basically white pizza) hot from the oven. The meal is very good and very filling and I don't have room for the good looking plate of spaghetti with clams and mussels that I see going to another table. Dessert is very good gelato at a place down the street and we drive back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we leave for Torino.