ITALY, GERMANY, AND MORE!

Boy, have we been had!

Two of our best friends, Mary and Sal joined us last year in SienaMary to go to Scuola Saena Iulia with us and study Italianand Sal to do other things, such as researching his father’s career as a Carabinieri, or federal police officer, back before WWI, and to go on excursions with Karl.We last saw them in June, when they visited us in Lottsburg for a few days. We outlined our plans for our trip to Europe this year, saying we wished they could join us.

We didn’t hear from them after that. An email sent when we arrived in Rome was not answered. We were a little concerned, but they are very busy, especially with their grandchildren so we didn’t worry too much.

When we got to Siena on Sunday, we sent them a picture of Leslie Ruth having a aperitivo on the Piazza del Campo,saying “Wish you were with us.” Again, no response.

Then, on Monday, just as we were pushing open the door to the school, what did we hear but, “Well, hello!” And there was Mary, with her grand daughter, Sarah!

They had decided to surprise us. And what a wonderful surprise it was!

Well, when you see the Duomoyou begin to be suspicious, but other towns have Duomos. When you hear the drumsand see the flagsyou are pretty sure, especially when you notice that all the females have been relegated to the back of the paradeyou begin to think this must be it, although other towns have drums and flags (but not as many as Siena, we think). Having an aperitivo on the Piazza del Campo, reinforces your suspicion.But, when you pass by one of your favorite restaurants and find it closed, but the proprietor spots you and comes out to welcome you backyou know you are back in Siena again!

Back home, before you do any construction related digging, everyone knows ya gotta call “Miss Utility” who comes and marks all the utilities. It’s not so easy in Rome! When you dig there, you don’t know what you’ll find, but you know you will find antiquities buried over the past 2,000 plus years, and if you do a lot of digging, you will find a lot of them.

This was a concern when they decided to build Roma Termini, the main Rome train station. This was a very large project, so before they began, they built a museum to hold the artifacts they expected to uncover. And did they uncover artifacts! So many, in fact, that the building they built wasn’t big enough. Today, many of these artifacts are on display at the National Museum of Rome in the Palazzo Massimo.

Tiled floors!

So many sculptures!

This woman looked very uncomfortable.Leslie Ruth wanted to see how close her hands were.She determined that she was just as flexible and could strike the same pose. She should never need to, however; it turns out that in the legend illustrated by the statue, the woman was trying to pull an arrow out of her back.

Many of the statues are copies of Greek bronzes, the Greek originals of which were famous in Ancient Rome but have since been lost. There are many Roman copies of a famous sculpture of a Greek discus thrower; this is said to be the best.

Many other statues are, at least to our untrained eyes, equally stunning.

We loved this boxer.Like so many others, at some point this guy was buried under rubble – perhaps discarded, perhaps hidden away when the Visigoths or someone else were about to sack Rome. Then, hundreds and hundreds of years later, someone was building something, so they dug a hole. And there he was!

The most astounding exhibits, to us, were the frescos recovered from the Villa of Livia. Excavation of this site outside of Rome began over 150 years ago. One thing which they found was a very large roomwhose walls were covered with frescos of beautiful garden scenes.Upon excavation, the frescoes were carefully preserved and are now on display at the museum.

The last gallery we visited contained, among other things, thousands of coins going back two or three hundred years BC. The early coins looked pretty old, but once the Romans started making gold coins, the gold coins look good as new. Here’s one from the first century BC.

What a museum! We spent nearly six hours there and didn’t see everything.

We had read that the Santa Maria della Vittoria Church had a wonderful sculpture done by Bernini in about 1650. We tried to visit last time we were in Rome, but there was a wedding going on. Since we had not been invited, it seemed wrong to go in.

Yesterday, there was no wedding, so we got our chance. Respectfully declining to make a contribution to the man nicely dressed in black standing at the entrance holding a basket and asking for “donations to the church” (these scammers have nothing to do with the churches they frequent) we entered the church, which was stunning.The famous Bernini sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, did not disappoint.As one commentator put it, Bernini could carve marble is if it were wax. The sculpture is illuminated by natural light,and it is hard to believe that Teresa’s robes are, indeed, carved out of stone.

Brick by brick, slowly but surely, the language barrier is coming down between us and the friendly people of Italy. The hard work that we have invested in learning Italian is allowing us to learn about and go to places that formerly would not have been accessible to us, or within our comfort zone.

We have spent a few lovely days in Puglia, in the boot of Italy. It is an area that sees very few English speaking tourists. For example, we encountered only two Americans during our visit to the very crowded city of San Giovanni Rotondo.

The proprietor of our hotel there told us that he seldom has American guests, and when they do come, they tend to be Spanish speaking Catholics from Los Angeles or Miami. There were no signs in English in the museum dedicated to Saint Padre Pio, and only a few in the church which houses Saint Pio’s body. (However, I admit that I was grateful to the nun who spoke English when I was trying to make an offering and request that a Mass be said for a friend of ours; my Italian was not up to that job! But I will do better next time!)

One other advantage of speaking some Italian is being able to learn about places that Italian people think we should visit. Our waiter at lunch in San Giovanni Rotondo asked us if we were going to visit Monte Sant’Angelo while we were nearby. We had never heard of the place and told him no, we did not plan to go there. But he insisted. It was an “important part of the patrimony of the Italian people” he explained. He told us that it was where the archangel Michael is said to have appeared three times between the years 490 and 493. The city was the site of an important castle dating back to the 800’s. He told us we could easily get there by bus. How could we resist? We found the schedule, bought the tickets, and were off the next morning for a new adventure.

We are so glad we did. Monte Sant’Angelo is high above the Adriatic Sea.The shrine where Archangel Michael is said to have appeared is in a cave deep in the rock. You reach it by going into a churchand descending a long staircase. Many people question whether Michael the Archangel, doing battle against Satan, is real. It seems to be part of the popular tradition of the Catholic Church, mentioned in Dante’s Inferno, depicted in important works of art as early as the 4th Century and especially in the Middle Ages. Specific references to an “archangel” named “Michael” are found in the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Interestingly, Michael is one of two archangels mentioned in the Quran. Also, an angel appeared in a vision to Daniel as described in the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, who identified Michael (but not specifically an archangel Michael) as a protector of Israel who will rise up in “the time of the end”. Therefore, there are some common threads about Michael in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Whatever the literal truth, I found the grotto to be a very holy place, perhaps made more so by the thousands of pilgrims and believers who come each year to pray there.

The castle was quite unusual.Part of it was shaped like an almond. It was hard to imagine how any army could scale the high walls. The views of the Parco Nazionale di Gargano and the Adriatic Sea from the top of the castle were incredible.

The coastline along the Adriatic Sea is very beautiful. Some of the buildings in Monte Sant’Angelo high above the sea remind me of Greece. Our hotel room had a good view,but the view from the hotel’s breakfast room was even better!

Most of the vacationers in Monte Sant’Angelo are Italian and stroll the streets arm in arm until late at nightstopping to talk or have an Aperol spritz or a gelato. Karl and I joined right in.

We really enjoyed our time in Puglia.

When the record breaking heat of August in Italy this year made serious trekking imprudent (impossible? Potentially life threatening? Definitely marriage threatening!) we were able to score the last cabin on Jewel of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship sailing out of Civitavecchia, the Rome port.

The first thing we noticed after boarding was that the air conditioning was doing a great job! We decided that this cruise had been a GOOD IDEA! The next thing we noticed was that unlike other cruises we have taken, most passengers were European – there were more Italians, and more Brits, than Americans. Our table companions were Brits and Americans and we enjoyed their company.

The ship went Cartagena, Spain, first. Karl’s mom had been there in 1990 or so and said it was great. She didn’t say anything about the Roman theater there, though; it was pretty much buried under layers and layers of neighborhoods, Christian, Moorish, and others, until it was excavated starting in the 1990s. The results are spectacular.We clambered up and downexploring the theater. Over the years, rubble from the theater was incorporated into other structures. Here, columns were used as building material.

The ship then went to Barcelona, our current favorite European city. We walked and walked, first to the Ramblas, a famous wide boulevard with a pedestrian walkway in the middle. We stopped at the Boqueria, one of the most famous markets in Europe. Unlike a lot of famous markets, the Boqueria has not succumbed to the tourists and become a marketplace for tourist kitsch. It continues to be a huge, very real, marketplace for all kinds of seafood and vegetables, with quite a few counters where you can eat food sourced within a few meters. We went to our favoritewhere we had grilled shellfish.

Then, we were off to the Sagrada Família to see how construction on the Gaudi designed cathedral was coming along. Gaudi began work on the cathedral in the early 1880s, and worked on it for the rest of his life. The plan is to finish it by the 100th anniversary of his death in 1926. It seems to be coming along well.

We returned to the ship, having walked about 12 miles.

The next stop was Palma, a city on the Spanish island of Mallorca. We climbed up to the fort that overlooks the townand then walked along the waterfront to the cathedral.Along the way, Leslie Ruth got to have one of very favorite beers, Estrella Galicia.On our return to the ship, we had walked another 12 miles.

The next stop was at Ajaccio, on Corsica. Since Corsica is part of France, we had a great time using our French and eating a huge French meal.Afterwards we walked around the town (well, Leslie Ruth walked; Karl staggered a bit).

The final stop was Portofino, Italy. The harbor is small and not very protected. The ship deployed lifeboats as tenders to get us in.Many fellow passengers reported having this port cancelled on previous cruises due to the weather, so we were glad we could visit.

Portofino is very beautifulbut it has been a favorite spot for the very rich and very famous for a long time, and does not feel very real. Sort of a Disney version of an Italian coastal town. We preferred Vernazza or any of the Cinque Terre towns which seem more real, and, at least at night, the tourists mostly leave.

We returned to Rome, having really enjoyed visiting some old favorites and some new places, traveling in air conditioned splendor.

Karl does not enjoy bus rides in Italy. Invariably, our bus rides take us over zig zagging mountainous roads and jaw dropping drop offs.We have seen cars pass our bus at high rates of speed on impossible curves.We have thanked God when a car has blocked our kamikaze bus driver on a winding downhill. We have felt the scrape of our bus against a stone walland watched the driver back down and up again in order to make the turn.

Karl reads a book on his phone or writes blog posts when we are on a bus in order to distract himself from the terror. It is up to me to chronicle the trip and tell Karl about any interesting animals, crops, rocks, ocean views, farms, or villas I see along the way.

Today, we traveled from San Giovanni Rotondo to Monte Sant’Angelo by bus. We had to come to a stop several times in order to let oncoming cars go by, and several times they had to stop for us because the bus did not exactly have a great turning radius.

Today’s ride did not bother me. We had a priest on the bus who was quite calm throughout, although I did have pause when I saw the woman in front of me cross herself at one particularly steep drop off. This was not as bad as the bus ride from Foggia to San Giovanni Ritondo the day before. Note in the reflection in the window of this photo that the Cappucin monk in front of me is desperately clutching the hand hold on the seat in front of him.I must admit that even I have my limits. I refuse to take a bus from Sorrento to Amalfi. I would have nightmares the night before going, and I would not be able to calm down until at least a day after my arrival.

The fountains of Rome are romanticized in Hollywood movies. The pines of Rome are evoked in Resphghi’s orchestral work, “The Pines of Rome”. Fountains and pines, art and nature, have enraptured me during my previous journeys to Italy. But this journey? In 2019, given what is happening in the world today? For me, the objects of my rapture this trip are the Obelisks of Rome, not art, not nature, but the symbolic monuments built by man-gods.

Egyptian obelisks can be found everywhere in Rome.The rulers of Rome shipped them in from Egypt in great quantities. Some of the obelisks are so huge that it is hard to imagine how a multitude of Roman slaves could carry them onto a ship, or how the ship would not sink under the enormous weight of the stone. Egyptian Pharaohs considered themselves to be gods, and the people they ruled regarded their Pharaohs as gods. For this reason, Roman rulers greatly admired the Egyptians and promoted a sense of awe and submission in the people they ruled by erecting the Egyptian obelisks all around Ancient Rome.

As it turns out, my rapture with Rome’s obelisks since I landed in Italy two weeks ago has been quite prophetic. Rulers who think they are gods. Hmm.

On our first night in Bari, as we wandered through the little streets and even littler alleys, of old town, we found ourselves in a little square filled with no one but local peoplesocializing, drinking beer, and eating pizza from the Pizzaria di Cosimothat looked really good.

The next day, for lunch, we set off to walk to a fish restaurant in the new city which Karl had identified and which was said to be very nice. It was a few kilometers away. About half way there, Leslie Ruth, always the practical one, asked “do we know this place is open?” Karl checked, and, sure enough, it only served dinner! We headed back the way we had come.

Along the way, getting pretty hungry and very hot, we remembered the pizza at Pizzaria di Cosimo. We decided to try and find it so we plunged into old town. Finding the pizzaria was a challenge; the winding streets and alleys were very confusing and GPS was ineffective with all the stone and concrete walls. We’d stop to look at a map on our phones and the cursor would wander around and around and around. It was as lost as we were!

However, we persevered, and finally found the Pizzaria di Cosimo locked up tight!The square was almost deserted except for one tiny reataurant.We knew their pasta was home made as we’d seen them drying it on screens the night before.All of the cooking was done out of doors.It was brutally hot, so we thought we’d leave, but the proprietor beckoned and invited us into their basement where they had a one table dining room set up.It was cool, so we decided to have our lunch there, joining four other people.

The proprietor asked if we wanted “il menu” and we agreed, figuring there wasn’t much food in that part of Italy we didn’t like. And what a great meal it was!

First, after bringing a liter of sparking water and a carafe of wine, she brought us fried polenta with some sort of fried dumplings and a bruschetta.Next, we had eggplant, sort of like what we call eggplant parmesan back home.Then, a mussel, potato and rice dish.And finally, “little ears” pasta and bracciole.Bracciole can mean different things in different parts of Italy. Usually, it is some sort of chop. This was what we’ve had in the US at Italian American home cooked meals: a thin slice of meat wrapped around a cheese filling, tied up or closed with string or a toothpick, and tossed into the tomato sauce to cook and become tender.

What an unexpected surprise this feast was!

As mentioned earlier, we are on a bit of pilgrimage to visit San Giovanni Rotondo, the home of Padre Pio, a saint we have been learning about. To get there, you pretty much have to go through Bari, in the Puglia region. As we all learned in grade school, Italy is shaped like a boot. Puglia is the heel of said boot.

Most of what we had heard about Bari was negative. Some said it was a dingy port city of little interest. Others said it was crime ridden and poor. But, after doing some research, we learned there were some interesting churches and other sites, so we decided to spend a day there en route to San Giovanni Rotundo. We weren’t expecting much.

Turns out, Bari, today, is a beautiful city with lovely pedestrian avenuesmagnificent fountainsall of the usual very high end stores found in the expensive sections of Rome and other cities, excellent restaurants, beautiful architecturenice hotels, and a stunning waterfrontwith an excellent public beach.What’s not to love?

The day we arrived we had a great lunch at a seafood restaurant. It featured octopusso we had that first and then inspected the fresh fish they were offering.We chose sea breamand it was excellent. As usual, there wasn’t much left after Leslie Ruth was finished!

That evening we explored old town, the original section of the city. Unlike the newer sections, old town consists of narrow winding streets.We had a great time wondering around, soaking it all in.

The next day, we walked several kilometers along the waterfront, stopping at a museumwith a great collection of paintings, and featuring the works of an artist we had not heard of, Guido di Renzo. Some of his portraits were, in our opinion, spectacular.There were also many works from the 11th through the 14th century which were just hanging there with no glass or rope barriers. Their accessibility was unusual, and, we thought, very enjoyable.

We also visited the Basilica of St. Nicholas(old St. Nick!) where we saw various relics, including wood from the box his remains were transported in when they were brought to Bari from Myra, Greeceby a group of merchants, whose motivation escapes us.

Like so many places in Italy, Bari has built up in layers over the years. In one place, they have preserved a cut in the modern, paved, roadway, revealing the previous road paved in large stone blocks, still showing grooves cut into the pavers by years and years of carriage traffic, and, under that, an even earlier pavement of smaller stones.It was fascinating.

So, it turns out Bari is a wonderful city, well worth the visit, and we were very happy our plans brought us there.