With our daughter, Jamie, here last week and starting Italian lessons this week, we have obviously not gotten around to posting anything to our blog. I will try to make up for that today and tomorrow.
Attending a concert of flutes and a harp in the park, we noticed that the cemetery that we had passed several times that as always closed , was open. We had to go inside to have a look around. What a stunning contrast to any cemetery I had ever been in. Some of the family crypts seemed to be as big as small churches. I think the pictures speak for themselves and I will just say I found the whole place fascinating.
Last Friday (the 13th, how appropriate to be in Templar territory), Holly and I decided to take a 3 and 1/2 hour train ride north to a small town up the Adriatic coast called Termoli (just above the spur of the boot). It is a place that was recommended by one of Holly’s Italian teachers in Seattle. If you have ever wanted to visit a small Italian beach town where the sea seems to peek out at the end of every narrow street and passageway, Termoli would be a good choice. It was still early for actually sun bathing and swimming and the beach was being prepared for what will surely be a busy summer season. I am sure that later in the year, it becomes somewhat of a madhouse of visitors, but we had much of it to ourselves. It has a fairly large fishing fleet and moorage for pleasure boats with several large yachts tied up to the piers.
I don’t know about everyone else, but my impression of paper mache has always been to make a mess when I was a kid. We would soak newspaper in water with glue in it and whatever came out, we had a good time. As we traverse the world, we find that others have different priorities. Who would have thought that in some corners people take it seriously and create objects of real beauty. Here in Lecce it is an art form. The following are all paper mache, cartepesta, for sale around Lecce.
We will soon settle down to a more regular routine, but for now the adventure just continues.
I had contacted a friend of a friend, Rosita D’Amaro, who has her permanent residence in Amsterdam, but teaches Turkish literature for part of the year at the university here in Lecce. We were going to meet up over the weekend, but she became ill and we needed to postpone it. She called us yesterday to say that she needed to run an errand to buy a wedding present for relative and asked if we would like to accompany her to visit the studio of relatively famous Italian stone artist, Renzo Buttazzo (www.renzobuttazzo.it). For those of you who know Holly and I, you know we jumped at the chance. Again, we hopped in a car with someone we barely knew and braved the Italian highways (they really don’t seem to understand the idea of lanes). What a treat! Renzo was was such a genuine person with so much passion and love for what he does, we could not help but get caught up in the the day, the art and the person. I just hope the pictures capture even part of the magic.
The artist, the friend and Holly
The tools
The workshop
The workshop
The hands that do the work, the stone here is very soft and he uses woodworking tools
The art
The art
The benchThat is all one piece of rock. The dark part was created by flaming it.
I think Holly found her place in the sun
One final note for today, as many of you know Holly is planning on continuing to teach via the internet while we are here. We thought ourselves very smart by buying a roll up keyboard and taking it with us. After having played with it for a little bit, she decided it just would not do. So today we purchased an electronic keyboard,. Not her Steinway, but we are hoping it will suffice. We have it set up on our ironing board and here is her new piano studio:
Our new-found friends, Lili and Robert from Espressino Travel, invited us to a performance of some traditional music and dancing on Sunday evening not far from Lecce. When we arrived, it was a beautiful, clear Italian afternoon, not a cloud in the sky. However, we were told that the performance had been postponed due to the torrential rain that had just occurred (we saw little trace of it). As we looked around, we discovered that we were in an old quarry. That was interesting all by itself. I have included some pictures below.
Not to be deterred, Lili and Robert suggested we take a side trip to Gallipoli and have dinner. Turned out to be a great idea. We had a delightful dinner on a rooftop deck at sunset.
The magic just seems to continue.
Lili and RobertThe quarryInteresting parking jobGallipoliThey do churches right here
Part of the fishing fleet
Old town Gallipoli in the back groundBeautiful sunset from Gallipoli
All I did was go to the directory where the pictures from the Nikon live and changed my view from a list to large icons and when I went to try the upload again, it worked. Sometimes the mysteries of computers are beyond me, but I got it to work so I won’t question the method.
Friday, Holly and I wandered out of the Porta Napoli (old gate in the city walls that leads to the road to Naples) and found this wonderful old monastery that is now part of the local university. I thought it was worth a look.
The Porta Napoli is just a few blocks from where we are stayingThe courtyardThe clock (actually sundial) towerThe sundial, the time it kept didn’t seem to relate to the time of day. Maybe we just couldn’t read it right.The stairs leading to the upper level. I love how the soft stone has worn away over the centuries.The roof top courtyard
With my learning to configure this blog and internet issues in Italy, this is all a learning experience. On Friday I decided to use my smaller camera to take pictures of an old monastery that now is used by the University of Salento and got a couple of nice shots. The problem is that for some reason they won’t upload to the blog site. I just get an http error. When I go to help, it is written in a version of techno babble that is beyond my current understanding. I will load those pictures once I figure it out and use only my other camera until I find the cure.
In the meantime, last night we met up with the people who run a local tour company, Espressino Travel (www.espressinotravel.com), Lili and Robert. After an aperitivo at one of the local cafes, we strolled about town and ran into a lovely Irish couple that Lili and Robert knew and we all ended up eating what is claimed to be the best pizza in Puglia while sitting on the steps of one of the many churches in Lecce. We are told that is the only way to eat pizza here. By the time we were finished, the steps were full of locals eating their pizzas and chatting. In case it isn’t obvious, it was truly a magical evening.
After exploring Lecce for the last several days, we went in search of the bus that would take us to the Adriatic. It was a little work but with the help of a friendly Italian man, we boarded the bus (with a little trepidation). The ticket machine on the bus was out of paper, so the ride was free. 20 minutes later we were on the seashore. As we got off the driver let us know that he was returning to Lecce in 45 minutes and if we were not on board, we would need to wait 4 hours to return to town. We had a quick beer and lunch and just barely made it back to the bus stop. The return trip was also free.
Santa Croce – One of the many churches in Lecce
Holly says that driving this thing must be the most boring job in the world
City Garden in Lecce
Piazza Sant’ Oronzo – Lecce’s main square
Down by the seaThe place we had our lunch on the beachThe food was greatI love big clouds over the sea.
Nothing is ever perfect. It was a little cold and rainy when we first got to Lecce. Our apartment was somewhat dark and dank and a little sparsely furnished. At first, we did not have any heat or internet (as promised). What in the world are we doing here?
Next day the rain slowed, our landlord delivered a wireless internet device and showed us how to work the heat. Things got a little better.
We found markets to buy the essentials; wine (first on the list), meat, vegetables, paper goods, a stove-top coffee maker and of course, a wine opener (should have had one here, but who is to argue). Better.
Today we had some sunshine, got a SIM card for the phone so we now have an Italian phone number (+39 345 221 6299 just in case you need to get in touch). It is all falling into place.
Here are a couple of pictures of our hometown for the next two months.
First dinner in Lecce, a meat lovers dreamOld Roman amphitheater. Not the coliseum in Rome, but impressive none the less.Baroque Church – San MateoOld Roman theaterPorta NapoliWhat is the deal with these locks anyway?I think I need one of these.This is the first homemade meal in weeks. It really tasted great.Livin’ the dream
The first thing we did was leave one of our bags at the Rome airport, Fiumicino. Talk about panic. We had a great cab driver (perhaps if he were better we would not have left one bag on the curb), but he was a great help finding it before the bomb squad blew it up. Called all of his friends to help find it and walked her through retrieving it from security. They take this kind of stuff seriously here (in an Italian sort of way).
Rome is a great city. The Italians have perfected the art of benign neglect. Let it deteriorate just enough to be interesting. but not enough to disappear.
Tomorrow, Lecce.
Benign neglect at its bestFiume Tevere (Tiber River)Urban RenewalSaint Peter’s with 20,000 of my friends trying to get an audience with PapaThe inside of the Pantheon; it always looks like a paintingNever crowded at the Trevi Fountain.Circus Maximus (Circo Massimo), Think Ben Hur chariot raceA late afternoon snack on our balcony in Rome.
