It was quite hard to leave the villa: it was such a perfect spot that saying goodbye to it was quite a wrench. Couldn't we stay just another couple of days? After squeezing our cases into the back of the car, we set off for Arrone, a point about half way between the villa and Rome. On the way, we stopped off in Assisi. As we approached, we could see that the massive Basillica di Francesco d'Assisi dominates one 'end' of the town. Parking well below the level of the streets we would be visiting, we start our ascent by stairs then escalators until we are delivered onto the street. Assisi is a busy town, its population swelled by tourists and pilgrims, St Francis being both an important saint within the Catholic Church and, therefore, the main reason this town is a major tourist attraction in this part of Italy. Consequently, the visitors to the tomb of St Francis below the basillica are a mixture of tourist gawkers (me) and the deeply pious, the latter stopping to pray in the basillica before praying at the site of the tomb. With the numbers of people in the small crypt, it is quite claustrophobic and I am glad when we emerge into the bright light and sit for while on a cool stone bench. As we leave the basillica, we see that a couple are having their wedding photos taken against its magnificent facade. How lucky are they to have such a setting as this? After the obligatory ice creams (gelati - yay!), we head back to the car park. Unfortunately, we choose the wrong route and end up having to tramp up a murderous incline in the midday heat. I return to the car sweaty and a bit grumpy.
We set off for one more stop, the small town of Spello to see the frescoes in the church that featured in an episode of 'Unpacking Italy'. We park outside the centre of the town and proceed on foot and, yes, it is uphill all the way. When we reach the church, we are confronted with a small sign that explains that the church closed (for lunch, presumably) and will reopen at 3.30pm, giving us almost an hour to wait. We decide that we will pass on the frescoes and make our way to the accommodation in Arrone. We arrive in the centre of the town and puzzle as to where the guest house is: the sat nav is not giving any clear signals as to where we should go. Two of our number head off up a very narrow street which seemed promising and, a while later come back reporting that the guest house is up there, but there is no parking space: we will have to lug cases up the (steep) hill. But of course - all uphill today! After throwing the cases into the room, E and I head out to look for restaurants. My first choice turns out to be a little way outside town and would involve driving, so that is a 'no'. The second choice, we can't find: we seem to being sent onto a small housing estate, an unlikely place to put a restaurant, so that is also out. That leaves really only one restaurant in the town, indicated by a little hand painted sign that says 'Dream King'. It's an unlikely name for a restaurant but, hey, beggars can't be choosers. It turns out to be very, very good food. We are the only customers and the place is in serious need of a makeover, but the bit that counts - what turns up on our plates - is done really well. And to top it all, the bill at the end is tiny! We head back to the guest house but, before going to bed, E and I go further up the road, past the guest house and emerge into the old walled town that sits on top of the hill. The narrow cobbled streets, the side arches that hide lines of ancient houses decorated with baskets and tubs of flowers are all slightly surreal, like something from a film set. A nice find.
The next morning, we head for the Cascata delle Marmore, a spectacular set of waterfalls created by the Romans and now the tallest man-made falls in Europe. They really are a pretty sight. They do not have the vast size and power of Niagara but they have their own magic. We go near to the top of the falls and get very wet. I had scoffed at the plastic ponchos being sold down below and only now do I get it: they are not for rain showers, they are for the constant fine spray that creates beautiful mini rainbows while soaking everything around it. The camera, therefore, spends most of the visit packed in its case. When we are headed back to the car park, E notices that she has lost the lens cap for her camera. I suggest she retraces her steps for a while and see if it turns up. She does so and returns, relieved, about ten minutes later with the cap. Camera loss - Strike 1.
Returning to Rome, we drop the car back at the airport and take a cab into Rome to our hotel that is conveniently situated just round the corner from The Vatican City, the site we will be visiting on Tuesday. On the Monday, Paul and Dawn go to visit the Forum while E and I take a trip around the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain and the Piazza de Navone. The Pantheon is a spectacular space, the huge dome with the window at its apex that allows a shaft of sunlight to pierce the space below - very dramatic! The Piazza is also an amazing space, packed with sculpted gods and monsters that decorate a series of small fountains. As for the Steps and the Trevi… scaffolding! The Trevi Fountain is dry and almost completely boarded up - nothing to see there - and the Spanish Steps head upwards and climax in a massive advert hanging from the scaffolding that conceals the crowning monument and buildings behind it. Slightly disappointing. Less disappointing were the clerical socks that I got from a religious outfitters near to the Pantheon! Fit for a cardinal - one pair red and the other a lovely purple. In the afternoon, we decided to have a beer. There was a bar next to the hotel with three tables outside and that seemed a good place to refresh after the days tramping round. We had a couple of beers then decided to drop the cameras off in the hotel before heading out to explore a bit more. The next morning, E realised that her camera is nowhere to be found in the hotel room. Mine is still there so theft is unlikely. The only place where it could be is the little bar a few doors up and what is the liklihood of it having been handed in? After breakfast I checked that the bar was open and, on finding it was, Paul and E headed out to see if anything had been handed in. A short while later, a very, very, very relieved E returned with the camera: someone had noticed it sitting there by one of the outside tables and had handed it to the barman! Camera loss - Strike 2.
On the Tuesday, we had our guided tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Capel and St Peter's Basillica. All three contain sights that are jaw-dropping. The paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine dazzle first in terms of sheer scale, then in their beauty and finally, thanks to a very informative explanation by our guide, in their meaning and significance. The paintings on the walls are not exactly poor either! The sheer opulance of the decoration of the corridors of the Vatican Museum stunned me (albeit there was a fair sprinkling of scaffolding present - especially for us!), while the size and scale of St Peter's leaves the mind reeling. The contrast between what is contained in these three buildings and the interior of the catherdral on Mont St Michel in France is startling: the finery, the splendour, the wealth displayed in the former versus the stark white walls of the latter. Which is the greater monument to faith? Outside St Peter's we found a Swiss Guardsman or two and, of course, had to photograph them. I think the Swiss, back in the day, had rather a reputation for producing fearsome mercenary fighters, hence the choice of them to guard the pontiff. Times change, don't they! As we walked to the far side of St Pete's Square, E noticed that the detachable viewfinder for her camera was missing. Again, retracing our steps, we found it by the barrier where we had photographed the guardsmen. Relief etc. Camera loss - Strike 3: you're outta here!!
So that was it. Amazing sights, some great food and wine (apart from the 'medium' Orvieto bought in error - ugh!), a lovely villa stay and some great memories. Oh, and by some miracle, E still has a complete camera!
Thursday, 16 July 2015
Tuesday, 7 July 2015
The Italian Jaunt 2015 - Part 2
The morning following our arrival at the villa, we were able to have a proper look round. The property we were staying in was formerly the grains and crop storage area for a monastery (the main building) and between us and the latter was a small, high-sided chapel. There were apartments available to hire in the main building although no-one would be staying there during our visit. To the side of our building was a decent-sized pool with plenty of space to bake in the sun by its side.
Our home for a week
View to the back (a field of tobacco?)
View to one side. Can just about see the nearest neighbours!
All around the property, there were rosemary plants: not just polite little potted shrubs that we grow in our gardens for some fresh herbs but thick, gnarly, ancient plants that had grown into fragrant hedges. To release the most wonderful smells, one had only to run a hand over their foliage. Needless to say, rosemary featured in one of the meals that we cooked - it would have been rude not to!
Inside, the villa was spacious and pretty well-appointed with a choice of three dining areas: very informal (kitchen), quite informal (a covered area adjoining the kitchen that could be opened onto to the garden) and completely alfresco, the preferred option for meals when it was dry. It has to be admitted here that, alongside the very, very good weather, there were a couple of wet periods. And when I say wet, I mean ‘wet’ as in Noah and the Ark, virtually. In fact, the first day it rained, we suddenly found that quaint properties sometimes have little faults. In this case, some of the seals where a sloping roof butted against a wall were obviously less than sealed and we found water running down the wall, a shower on the main staircase and a lake forming behind one of the sofas in the living room! However, we decided not to panic as a) the floors were all stone tiled, so no wood to warp or rot and b) this was pretty definitely a problem that happened whenever the rains came. Rain is probably inevitable in Umbria as the region is so lushly green. If you are looking for sun 7 days a week, head further south but the colour pallette will not contain such a variety of greens.
All in, it was a relaxing week although we did not stick solely to turning ourselves lobster-red by the pool. We took a day trip out to Gubbio, a lovely medieval town just north of Perugia and, on another day, drove a circuit taking in Lake Trasimeno, Citta della Pieve and Orvieto. Pieve is an old walled town with lots of character and many, many churches. It also claims ’the narrowest alley in Italy’ in Vicolo Baciadonne (Kisswomen Passage) which is less than half a metre wide at its narrowest. Orvieto too is a beautiful town with a striking duomo at its heart, the external colours of which (striped in light and dark stone) reminded me of the duomo in Siena. In fact, the colour palatte of the area is gorgeous: the greenery (numerous woodlands, young crops in the fields, hedges) against the light, sandy-coloured earth, the light rose of building walls, the darker tones of the sun-bleached curved terracotta roof tiles and, standing out aganst all, the bone white of civic and religious infrastructure. However, along with a feast for the eyes comes a test for the muscles, mainly those powering the legs. I thought Ramsbottom was hilly but it has nothing on these towns: everything one might wish to see involves steep ascents on cobbled paths. As you stagger ever upwards, sweating and daring not to look at how far you still need to climb, you need to remain vigilant for cars, vans and, of course, scooters. There are virtually no areas in these old towns that are 'pedestrian only’ as the streets are too narrow to cater for such niceties. You can only pray that God is protecting you, the poor pilgrim, as you progress slowly to the architectural gem that (invariably) sits at the highest point in the region.
One final note: aside from the man-made beauty that we got to see during our week in the villa, there are two memorable moments that were provided by nature. Firstly, sitting outside following a meal, we carried on talking and opened another bottle of wine as the sun went down. Although there were meant to be external lights, we never did find out how to turn them on so, after a time, we found ourselves sitting out with just enough light to enable us to find our wine glasses. Suddenly we saw first one, then two or three and finally, many, many firelies were flitting between plants around us, a magical display of natural fairy lights! Secondly, preceding a storm, we were treated to an hour or more of lightning flashing among the dark clouds of the afternoon sky before we had to move inside as the rain began. That show was good but the sounds that accompanied it were even better: throughout that period, there was virtually no break in the sound of thunder. While the flashes were numerous, they remained discrete, but there was no way of knowing when one thunderclap began and another ended, an endless gigantic ‘grumbling’ in the hills around us. Truly, that was rolling thunder.
Our home for a week
View to the back (a field of tobacco?)
View to one side. Can just about see the nearest neighbours!
All around the property, there were rosemary plants: not just polite little potted shrubs that we grow in our gardens for some fresh herbs but thick, gnarly, ancient plants that had grown into fragrant hedges. To release the most wonderful smells, one had only to run a hand over their foliage. Needless to say, rosemary featured in one of the meals that we cooked - it would have been rude not to!
Inside, the villa was spacious and pretty well-appointed with a choice of three dining areas: very informal (kitchen), quite informal (a covered area adjoining the kitchen that could be opened onto to the garden) and completely alfresco, the preferred option for meals when it was dry. It has to be admitted here that, alongside the very, very good weather, there were a couple of wet periods. And when I say wet, I mean ‘wet’ as in Noah and the Ark, virtually. In fact, the first day it rained, we suddenly found that quaint properties sometimes have little faults. In this case, some of the seals where a sloping roof butted against a wall were obviously less than sealed and we found water running down the wall, a shower on the main staircase and a lake forming behind one of the sofas in the living room! However, we decided not to panic as a) the floors were all stone tiled, so no wood to warp or rot and b) this was pretty definitely a problem that happened whenever the rains came. Rain is probably inevitable in Umbria as the region is so lushly green. If you are looking for sun 7 days a week, head further south but the colour pallette will not contain such a variety of greens.
All in, it was a relaxing week although we did not stick solely to turning ourselves lobster-red by the pool. We took a day trip out to Gubbio, a lovely medieval town just north of Perugia and, on another day, drove a circuit taking in Lake Trasimeno, Citta della Pieve and Orvieto. Pieve is an old walled town with lots of character and many, many churches. It also claims ’the narrowest alley in Italy’ in Vicolo Baciadonne (Kisswomen Passage) which is less than half a metre wide at its narrowest. Orvieto too is a beautiful town with a striking duomo at its heart, the external colours of which (striped in light and dark stone) reminded me of the duomo in Siena. In fact, the colour palatte of the area is gorgeous: the greenery (numerous woodlands, young crops in the fields, hedges) against the light, sandy-coloured earth, the light rose of building walls, the darker tones of the sun-bleached curved terracotta roof tiles and, standing out aganst all, the bone white of civic and religious infrastructure. However, along with a feast for the eyes comes a test for the muscles, mainly those powering the legs. I thought Ramsbottom was hilly but it has nothing on these towns: everything one might wish to see involves steep ascents on cobbled paths. As you stagger ever upwards, sweating and daring not to look at how far you still need to climb, you need to remain vigilant for cars, vans and, of course, scooters. There are virtually no areas in these old towns that are 'pedestrian only’ as the streets are too narrow to cater for such niceties. You can only pray that God is protecting you, the poor pilgrim, as you progress slowly to the architectural gem that (invariably) sits at the highest point in the region.
One final note: aside from the man-made beauty that we got to see during our week in the villa, there are two memorable moments that were provided by nature. Firstly, sitting outside following a meal, we carried on talking and opened another bottle of wine as the sun went down. Although there were meant to be external lights, we never did find out how to turn them on so, after a time, we found ourselves sitting out with just enough light to enable us to find our wine glasses. Suddenly we saw first one, then two or three and finally, many, many firelies were flitting between plants around us, a magical display of natural fairy lights! Secondly, preceding a storm, we were treated to an hour or more of lightning flashing among the dark clouds of the afternoon sky before we had to move inside as the rain began. That show was good but the sounds that accompanied it were even better: throughout that period, there was virtually no break in the sound of thunder. While the flashes were numerous, they remained discrete, but there was no way of knowing when one thunderclap began and another ended, an endless gigantic ‘grumbling’ in the hills around us. Truly, that was rolling thunder.
Friday, 3 July 2015
The Italian Jaunt 2015 - Part 1
We flew into Rome Fumicino Airport on the Thursday afternoon. Never again will I make negative comments about the time it takes to collect baggage at Manchester Airport: after travelling when all you want to do is get out of the airport and into a shower and a cold beer, a three quarters of an hour wait for cases to appear is the last thing you need. In addition, we had decided that we should get the express train from the airport into Rome and travel two stops on the Metro to get to our hotel: cheap and convenient. Well, it might have been without the suitcases, the heat and the fact that, by the time we rached the platform of the Metro, the rush hour was in full swing. It was like Tokyo in terms of crushing onto the train! In fact, we passed on the first ‘available’ train that stopped as it was full when it arrived and, despite quite a few passengers getting off, remained full before even more people crammed onto it. As that train departed, we moved to the edge of the platform to give ourselves a chance of finding some space on the next one, a minute or so behind. When it arrived we somehow managed to squeeze our cases and ourselves (further encumbered by carry-on luggage and camera cases) into a carriage. And just when the train was definitely full, a few more people dived through the doors as they started to close, the sheer momentum of their arrival allowing them to somehow slip into non-existant spaces between bodies already overly-intimate in thier forced proximity. The beer that night was certainly well-earned.
Friday in Rome
As the hotel was only a short walk from the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Forum, we decided to use the Friday to explore these monuments. Rome is a place like nowhere else that I have been. London is pretty well-endowed when it comes to having an abundance of history: almost everywhere there are statues, imposing buildings, coats of arms, guardsmen and so forth. However, in the main, London’s tourist hot-spots actually date from the 18th and 19th centuries - Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and so forth. Of course there is the Tower of London with its roots in the Norman conquest, almost 1,000 years ago and, next to it, part of the roman wall that once encircled the city but, for the most part, London reflects the years of Empire and industrial might, a nation ruling a third of the world. Now, just think that some of Rome’s sights are similarly reflective of a glorious past where Rome ruled most of the known world and then consider that their heyday was more than a thousand years before the Norman invasion of Britain and it just makes some of the sights even more jaw-dropping in terms of how they have survived and how they are able to so vividly link us to that distant past (or is it so ‘distant'? - more later).
We arrive at the Colosseum and note that there is some scaffolding up on one side but we are now immune to this (wherever we plan to go, the local response seems to be to shroud that sight in scaffolding and hoardings. I think we should visit Ayers Rock next and see what they do about that!). The exterior is imposing in its height and one can imagine the sense of anticipation that would have been engendered in the approach to such a massive venue whan it was in its pomp. We survey the lines of people waiting to enter. Even the line with pre-booked tickets is enormous and the morning heat is already stifling. As I am about to go off to see if there is a way of booking online via the phone, we are approached by someone offering a guided tour of both the Colosseum and Palantine Hill. Coupled with the fact that it will mean that we get straight into the former, we consider the cost - double the official entrance only rate - to be worth it. It turns out to be very much worth it: the guides are knowledgable and entertaining and getting straight into the Colosseum (following a bit of bureaucratic to-ing and fro-ing - hey, it’s Italy!) is definitely worthwhile. In fact the guide in the Colosseum offers some interesting parallels with the current day: gladiators did not fight gladiators (why kill highly-trained, well paid sporting superstars?) but, instead, fought criminals. The whole thing was about propoganda and control: a mix of state-sponsored ‘opium for the people’ as well as making a political point about stepping outside the rules and norms of Rome. Think of it as Big Brother crossed with the Old Bailey...possibly. He also noted that in the Roman Empire, for every Roman citizen, there were an average of five slaves. Consider that today, five-sixths of the world lives in poverty while the final sixth is rich and that the seemingly labour-free life of the Roman citizen - 180 days of leisure each year - is atcually no different to many of our own lives in terms of days that we don’t work. Suddenly ‘ancient’ Rome doea not feel that different to modern Western civilisation. Eventually, when we could face the curse of the selfie-sticks no longer (if you are not being pestered by the street sellers to buy one, you are being stabbed by one or having you way blocked by a group of people guring at an iPhone suspended six feet in the air) we exited the Colosseum and, after lunch (a bottle of beer and a bottle of water each), we headed for Palatine Hill.
Although there were some interesting things to view and stories to be told about the palaces built on the hill, the real moment of drama for me was when we reached a balcony and looked down onto the Forum below. There, in a relatively small space (a half mile from end-to-end?), was crammed so much surviving infrastucure from the glory of the Roman Empire that I found the experience of reaching that lip and looking down upon it to be similar to my first view of the Grand Canyon: no photo could ever do it justice, could capture the magnificance of what is laid out before you. Though what remains is incomplete, there is enough to convey the importance and grandeur of this spot that sat at the heart of the Empire. I have attached a couple of photos which merely give an idea of the sight.
Saturday
In the morning, we take a taxi from the hotel back to the airport to collect the hire car for our trip into Umbria and to pick up Elaine’s brother, Paul, and his partner Dawn who are staying with us in the villa we have arranged, three hours outside Rome. Bad news starts to filter through as we set off for the airport. Their flight has been delayed a little but things will soon be back on track. In fact, their flight which was due to land in Rome at 10:30-ish, actually lands nearer to 2:30 pm and then takes one-and-a-half hours to unload the baggage meaning that we don’t set off from Rome until four in the afternoon! Consequently, our arrival at the villa (originally communicated to the owners as being around three o’clock to allow for a spot of lunch and a supermarket shop on the way) actually happens at nearly 8 in the evening. We are all stressed, tired, hungry and thirsty. As beer is consumed and the decompression following Rome’s noise and action begins to kick in, we put together a simple meal and relax into our new surroundings.
Friday in Rome
As the hotel was only a short walk from the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Forum, we decided to use the Friday to explore these monuments. Rome is a place like nowhere else that I have been. London is pretty well-endowed when it comes to having an abundance of history: almost everywhere there are statues, imposing buildings, coats of arms, guardsmen and so forth. However, in the main, London’s tourist hot-spots actually date from the 18th and 19th centuries - Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and so forth. Of course there is the Tower of London with its roots in the Norman conquest, almost 1,000 years ago and, next to it, part of the roman wall that once encircled the city but, for the most part, London reflects the years of Empire and industrial might, a nation ruling a third of the world. Now, just think that some of Rome’s sights are similarly reflective of a glorious past where Rome ruled most of the known world and then consider that their heyday was more than a thousand years before the Norman invasion of Britain and it just makes some of the sights even more jaw-dropping in terms of how they have survived and how they are able to so vividly link us to that distant past (or is it so ‘distant'? - more later).
We arrive at the Colosseum and note that there is some scaffolding up on one side but we are now immune to this (wherever we plan to go, the local response seems to be to shroud that sight in scaffolding and hoardings. I think we should visit Ayers Rock next and see what they do about that!). The exterior is imposing in its height and one can imagine the sense of anticipation that would have been engendered in the approach to such a massive venue whan it was in its pomp. We survey the lines of people waiting to enter. Even the line with pre-booked tickets is enormous and the morning heat is already stifling. As I am about to go off to see if there is a way of booking online via the phone, we are approached by someone offering a guided tour of both the Colosseum and Palantine Hill. Coupled with the fact that it will mean that we get straight into the former, we consider the cost - double the official entrance only rate - to be worth it. It turns out to be very much worth it: the guides are knowledgable and entertaining and getting straight into the Colosseum (following a bit of bureaucratic to-ing and fro-ing - hey, it’s Italy!) is definitely worthwhile. In fact the guide in the Colosseum offers some interesting parallels with the current day: gladiators did not fight gladiators (why kill highly-trained, well paid sporting superstars?) but, instead, fought criminals. The whole thing was about propoganda and control: a mix of state-sponsored ‘opium for the people’ as well as making a political point about stepping outside the rules and norms of Rome. Think of it as Big Brother crossed with the Old Bailey...possibly. He also noted that in the Roman Empire, for every Roman citizen, there were an average of five slaves. Consider that today, five-sixths of the world lives in poverty while the final sixth is rich and that the seemingly labour-free life of the Roman citizen - 180 days of leisure each year - is atcually no different to many of our own lives in terms of days that we don’t work. Suddenly ‘ancient’ Rome doea not feel that different to modern Western civilisation. Eventually, when we could face the curse of the selfie-sticks no longer (if you are not being pestered by the street sellers to buy one, you are being stabbed by one or having you way blocked by a group of people guring at an iPhone suspended six feet in the air) we exited the Colosseum and, after lunch (a bottle of beer and a bottle of water each), we headed for Palatine Hill.
Although there were some interesting things to view and stories to be told about the palaces built on the hill, the real moment of drama for me was when we reached a balcony and looked down onto the Forum below. There, in a relatively small space (a half mile from end-to-end?), was crammed so much surviving infrastucure from the glory of the Roman Empire that I found the experience of reaching that lip and looking down upon it to be similar to my first view of the Grand Canyon: no photo could ever do it justice, could capture the magnificance of what is laid out before you. Though what remains is incomplete, there is enough to convey the importance and grandeur of this spot that sat at the heart of the Empire. I have attached a couple of photos which merely give an idea of the sight.
Saturday
In the morning, we take a taxi from the hotel back to the airport to collect the hire car for our trip into Umbria and to pick up Elaine’s brother, Paul, and his partner Dawn who are staying with us in the villa we have arranged, three hours outside Rome. Bad news starts to filter through as we set off for the airport. Their flight has been delayed a little but things will soon be back on track. In fact, their flight which was due to land in Rome at 10:30-ish, actually lands nearer to 2:30 pm and then takes one-and-a-half hours to unload the baggage meaning that we don’t set off from Rome until four in the afternoon! Consequently, our arrival at the villa (originally communicated to the owners as being around three o’clock to allow for a spot of lunch and a supermarket shop on the way) actually happens at nearly 8 in the evening. We are all stressed, tired, hungry and thirsty. As beer is consumed and the decompression following Rome’s noise and action begins to kick in, we put together a simple meal and relax into our new surroundings.
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