Jack does Rome, Montalcino and Lerici!

Last Saturday Dom and I drove to Rome to meet up with my father, Jack. He had been to a conference in Zurich and tagged on a quick trip to Italy. Part of this was to see Dom and I, of course, but he also wanted to attend the Oct. 21 canonization mass at the Vatican. Seven saints were created last Sunday including a Native American woman, Kateri Tekakwitha. She is credited for a miracle in the Archdiocese of Seattle--the cure of a young boy with a incurable case of flesh eating bacteria. 

We met up on Saturday night at our hotel near the Vatican. There were a number of tour groups there for the canonization mass including one from Seattle. There were so many Americans in the hotel that it would be difficult to tell one was outside the U.S. except for the staff. 

On Sunday morning we walked over to St. Peter's and joined the queue to enter the piazza. It was necessary to go through metal detectors but in fine Italian fashion there was not exactly a "line." In fact, it was a real mob scene.

Here are Dom and Jack waiting. Dom doesn't look too happy but this was early on before the real pushing and shoving started. Promptly at 8 am they began letting people into the piazza. It took us about an hour to enter.

You can see the crowd in front of us. I could not see any of this but I held my camera up and took the picture. The real reason was that I wanted to see what was going on and realized a picture would give me some clue. I felt particularly sorry for two young girls stuck in the middle of the crowd with their family. They allowed as how it was quite hot down where they stood. I was hot too because I had people pressed up against me on every side. This is not an experience I (or Dom or my dad) am eager to repeat.

Once we were inside the piazza it was a glorious day. We had tickets to enter the area where there were seats but they began turning people away from the entrances about the time we got to one. It turns out they give out way more tickets than there are seats.

Here is a panoramic video view of the piazza. People came from all over the world for the canonization mass. Once inside the piazza everyone was happy to be there.

After being turned away from the seating area we went over and found space on the steps of the colonnade. We were even lucky enough to find spots with a back rest!

Even though we had seats (of a sort) it was still difficult to see or hear the mass. There was a video screen not far away but even I had trouble understanding the speakers.

As I mentioned before, there were people from all over the world. The kids above were from Quebec. In addition to the maple leaf flag, the boy was carrying the flag of Quebec. That is where St. Kateri spent most of her life.

A boy from the Philippines was also canonized so there were a lot of people from there. I also met a family from New Jersey that was originally from the Philippines.

Shortly before the mass started people came around handing out booklets with the order of service. Also included were biographies of each of the new saints. The biographies were all in English and Italian and also in the saint's native language or languages.

Two nuns from Mother Theresa's order, Missionaries of Charity, sat in front of us. Unfortunately, they were good about standing at those parts of the mass where one is supposed to do so. I could have gotten up and down (with difficulty) but Dad, Dom and many of those around us would have had great difficulty doing so.

On the left of this picture is the video screen closest to us. That allowed us to see most of what was happening at the alter.

Above the alters were hung banners with pictures of each new saint. Cardinals, bishops and priests sat to each side of the alter. The Pope sat in the red canopied chair in front of the red curtain with the cross on it. We certainly did not have the best seats in the house.

You can see that the steps of the colonnade were well occupied. Many people wandered around throughout the mass. When it started at 9:30 the piazza was about 2/3 full. However, people kept coming and coming. By the time we left at 12:00 it was pretty well full.

Some people just sat on the ground.

Other people knew enough to bring their own seats. We saw lots of different sorts of folding stools.

These people were from Northern Italy and were dressed in an "alpine" style. All the boys wore leather shorts. This teenager found an interesting spot to store his water bottle.

The walk from the hotel and the long standing in line to get into the piazza was hard on my father. So we decided to leave early (at communion) and take a taxi back to the hotel. That was pretty easily done and once away from St. Peter's we found a restaurant for lunch. The weather was warm and sunny so we sat outside. Afterwards we all took naps before heading off for dinner later in the evening.

For dinner we took a taxi to Piazza della Rotonda where the Pantheon is located. We randomly picked one of the many restaurants that ring the piazza and had a nice dinner. This was the view from our table. It was just like a summer evening in Seattle.

The next morning we meandered back to Capannori by way of Montalcino. We decided to stop there because it is a very picturesque spot. The town is lovely and not too large so my dad would be able to walk around without too much trouble.

The town of Montalcino sits high on a hill above the Val d'Orcia south of Siena. It is famous for the incredibly good red wine that is made in the area. There are lots of shops where one can taste wine and buy the local product.

We wandered around long enough to find a likely place for lunch. The meal was good but the Brunello di Montalcino we had with it was very, very nice.

After lunch we took a stroll through the town. There are many beautiful buildings such as the one above.

Beautiful lanes are broken by...

...lovely vistas out over the valley.

Many of the buildings have interesting architectural features such as the beautiful ironwork on the window above and...

...this old ring where one would have tied one's horse. It is interesting that the face looks like something from Africa but you see similar designs all over Italy in the old Renaissance towns.

We continued on to Capannori after lunch and arrived about 5:00 pm. Since we had been eating out for days we had a light dinner that evening at home.

The following day, Tuesday, we drove out to the coast for lunch in the seaside village of Lerici. It is located on the Golfo dei Poeti and is about and hour from Capannori. Along the way we stopped in Lucca to pick up Anne from Sydney, Australia who I had been in class with at the Lucca Italian School.

Lerici is across the bay from Portovenere, one of our favorite spots. However, it takes about another hour to reach the latter town. You can see Portovenere through the masts of the sailboats.

Lerici has a large small boat harbor and a big castle. Along the waters' edge is a lovely town with buildings painted golden yellow, terracotta and cream. There are restaurants everywhere and because the weather was so nice tables were still outdoors. Many of the restaurants will close for the season at the end of the month. Even now it was practically deserted. Most of the other tourists we saw were Italians.

We parked at one end of town and strolled to the other in the midday sunshine. There was just the hint of a nip of fall in the air. In the distance we could see another town. We later drove through it on our way home.

It was fun having Anne with us. Dad, She was in Lucca for three weeks. Like me she did two weeks of language school and then she spent this week just relaxing. Tomorrow she heads off to Berlin to meet some friends for a week before returning to Sydney.

There were all sorts of boats in the harbor. It is difficult to tell in this photo but the blue boat on the right has a traditional lateen rigging with the sail held up by a mast that crosses the mainmast on the diagonal. This was the traditional rigging of the Romans and is still widely used throughout the Mediterranean.

After we dropped Anne off in Lucca we headed back to the apartment for a later afternoon rest. In the evening we met up with Mary and Orlando for a really fun dinner at La Terrazza in Valdottavo.

On Wednesday morning we took Dad to the airport in Florence were he began his journey home. Dom and I came back to the apartment where we have lots of chores to catch up on. It's time to get all our ducks in order before we leave Italy on November 13th. It's hard to believe we will only be here for about two and half more weeks.

Tomorrow we are driving to Padova for the day for the annual Auto e Moto d'Epoca exhibition. It is one of the biggest classic car and motorcycle shows in Europe. We have been before and it is always fun to see the beautiful automobiles on display. Unfortunately the weather finally broke and it is now raining. The temperatures are supposed to drop precipitously in the next few days--from a high of 74 yesterday to about 50 by next Wednesday. We were lucky to have the good weather so long.

The next post will be a recap of the best of the Padova show.

A Visit to Cremona

On Saturday, October 6th we went to Cremona for the day. It is a city I had never visited and Dom had only been there once about 25 years ago.

It is located in the Po Valley about an hour southeast of Milan by car. It took us about an hour and a half from Capannori. The day was beautiful and we drove through the mountains on the A-15, always a nicer drive than the A-1. It has a lot less traffic and is wilder terrain.

 The GPS took us right to Cremona and we found ourselves parking within sight of the main church--the Duomo with its Torrazzzo (Big Tower). The tower is the third highest brick tower in Europe according to Wikipedia.

The Duomo itself is HUGE. In the above picture you can see one side of it and at the bottom of the picture some of the awnings of the large street market that was in full swing when we arrived.

 We walked around the Duomo until we found what looked like the front of the church.

This doorway looked a little small for a grand Duomo but not unusually small. We went inside to look around.

The inside is incredibly ornate. Unfortunately it is not well lit so some of the details were lost in the shadows. After wandering around a while we figured out that we had entered through one of the transept doors. The church must be one of the largest in Italy inside.

The ornate ceiling was especially beautiful, all blues and golds.

There were dozens of frescoes on the walls along with smaller decorations on every surface. I have rarely seen a church in Italy that was so thoroughly decorated.

Above another huge fresco is a lovely rose window over the main entrance to the church.

More frescoes! The above has a nice Annunciation on the left hand side.

Still more frescoes!

This lovely Madonna and Child with its ornate surround was located in one of the many side chapels.

We finally left the Duomo and found ourselves in the main piazza in town. Above you can see more of the market. There were a lot of flowers and plants available for sale.

To the right of the Duomo was the baptistry. It is a pretty little octagonal building.

Above is the "real" front of the Duomo with the Torrazzo to the left.

The Torrazzo has an interesting clock on one side.

Here is a little of the detail of the towers on top of the Duomo. There must have been a dozen of these towers topped with copper roofs. They reminded me of minarets.

Cremona's street have something of a French flavor with lots of wrought iron balconies. There were lots of interesting shops and a lot of people out enjoying the market and the sunshine.

One of Cremona's claims to fame is that it was, and still is, a world famous center for luthiers (makers of violins and all related instruments such as guitars and mandolins). As a result there are many pictures of violins and you can even buy chocolate violins!

Here is one of the many buildings that look French to me.

We visited the collection of violins and violas that is located in the main Commune (City Hall) building opposite the Duomo. Many of them dated to the 1500s. After that we walked across town to the Pinacoteca (Painting Museum) that also houses the Stradivari Museum. The collection of paintings was very interesting especially the collection that showed Cremona throughout its history. The Stradivari portion of the museum included a collection of the famous violin maker's tools and an interesting explanation of exactly how violins are made. There were more famous violins and some information about the famous musicians who had played them and others who collected them. Did you know Henry Ford played and collected violins?

From the 16th Century to the present Cremona has been know as a center for musical instrument manufacturing, especially violins. It began with the Amati family and the tradition expanded with the Guarneri and Stradivari shops. We saw many shops similar to the Liuteria above.

After visiting the museum we had a nice lunch near the Duomo. We were seated outside and it was fun to watch the market stalls wrapping up business for the day and driving away. By 2:30 or so the streets were nearly deserted. It was just us tourists as the Italians were all having lunch.

Here is a picture of the main piazza all cleaned up. We headed over to a gelateria at the foot of the Torrazzo for a little dessert.

The gelateria was located on the ground floor of this building. I loved the cupola with the roses growing in all the openings. The pink and green was lovely against the soft yellow of the walls and the bright terracotta of the roof tiles.

We had a nice drive home and were back by about 5:30 in the late afternoon. It is really the only excursion we have taken since we arrived. Between me being in school and our painting project (thankfully finished!) we have stayed close to home the last two weeks.

Today we head to Rome to meet my Dad and go to the Canonization Mass at St. Peter's Square on Sunday. That will be the next post!

P.S. I hope there are not too many typos in this post. No time to proofread!

Catching Up - Oddities of Life in Italy

Yes, it has been a while. We have been really busy since we arrived in Italy on September 30th. Unfortunately, this will be a mostly picture free post as I have taken few pictures except when we went to Cremona (another post).

Pigeons

We arrived on a Sunday evening and Monday morning I got up and immediately began cleaning our  terrace. Anna, our friend who looks after the apartment when we are gone, had told us the pigeons had taken over and made a BIG mess.

One of the first things I did when we arrived was look to see how bad it was and it was BAD! The clean-up project haunted me all night. I donned old clothes and found my rubber boots, gathered equipment and started in.

The first thing I did was put a garbage bag inside a large bucket and start shoving up the pigeon shit. I did not literally "shovel" but I did use a large trowel to much out the spots where it was really thick. There were two buckets full! The smell was horrendous--like a badly maintained outhouse. We had moved the patio furniture into the house but there were still plenty of surfaces to clean. The worst spot was the counter on top of the washing machine. Luckily, the latter was well covered and did not seem to be affected.

I was extremely grateful for the hose Dom hooked up last spring. There is a drain on the patio so once I mucked the place out, I mixed up a bucket of soapy water and started scrubbing and rinsing. The only difficult parts were the planters on the terrace. There were feathers and pigeon shit stuck all over them. There were also four eggs in various places, all of which went into the trash.

Finally, after about three and a half hours, I finished, cleaned myself up, and went to the store. Unfortunately, that evening I kept getting whiffs of the pigeon shit smell from the patio. The funny thing was it did not seem to smell when I was out on the patio. It really bugged me and it was only when I opened the door to the washing machine that I realized the smell was coming from that area.

At one end of the patio, right by the door, is the laundry area--a counter top with a sink on one side and the washing machine under the other. Under the sink is storage and the hose hook-up. There is also a fresh air vent by the washer to the interior of the apartment, required because of the gas stove. I knew I had not cleaned that area very well but did not realize it would be a problem.

The next morning, I pulled the washing machine out and found a large nest in the gap behind it. I also found all the vegetation that had disappeared from the planters. Once that was all cleaned the smell disappeared. Interestingly, the pigeons have not been much of a problem either. They clomp around the glass over the terrace but have not tried to recolonize the terrace itself.

Dom was a really big help to me on this project. I kept hollering at him to bring me different things and he hopped right to it. I suspect he was happy to have me handle the clean-up mostly on my own.

I thought afterwards I should have taken pictures of the pigeon "debris" but it really would have been too disgusting.

The Rest of the First Week

The rest of our first week was full of the usual paraphernalia involved in settling in here--unpacking, cleaning, grocery shopping, jet lag, and catching up with friends. That doesn't sound like a lot but falling asleep every afternoon for a few hours takes up a lot of time.

One afternoon we stopped by to see our friends Mary and Orlando. In the course of "catching up" we told them we planned to paint about half the interior of our condominium and asked about the availability of TSP to wash the walls and ceiling. They said they had never seen any in Italy but had some floating around from when they moved from the U.S. I gratefully accepted it and spent a long day washing the ceiling of our kitchen, living and dining areas. The walls had all been painted recently but the ceiling was just filthy and that is the primary reason we are painting. The other reason is the walls were stark white except where the previous owner had painted areas of bright orange and royal blue. We quite liked the modernity of it when we bought the place but once we moved in we realized it did not suit our more traditional furniture.

After I washed the ceiling and Dom removed some unused doorbell and alarm items from the walls, we spent several days patching and sanding and patching and sanding. At a certain point, we gave up and decided the walls were never going to be perfect. Every time we looked closely we found more flaws, things we never saw until we started patching. Since we are using a darker color the flaws should be less apparent (hopefully!).

The Bus to Lucca

On Friday, Dom and I took the bus from in front of our condominium into the center of Lucca. I planned to take the bus to my Italian language classes the following week (so Dom could have the car) and wanted to do a trial run. We purchased our tickets at the news stand in our building and then went out to the bus stop. Luckily, we were early and decided to walk through the weekly market in the piazza to the stop on the far side. The stop we originally planned to wait at is not used on Fridays because of the market!

We arrived in Lucca as scheduled and walked over to the Questura to pick up our Permessi di Soggiorno (Long Stay Permits). In the spring we had applied for the renewal of these and knew they were ready to pick up. That took us about twenty minutes. After that we walked back to find the school and check out the area around it. Then we meandered around town for a while, bought a few things, had some lunch and caught the bus back to Capannori. It all worked out splendidly.

Cremona

On our first Saturday here we decided to drive to Cremona, about 1 1/2 hours away. It was a gorgeous day and Cremona is a beautiful and interesting city. I will tell all about our visit there (with lots of pictures) in my next post.

Sunday Marcia

Last Sunday morning we woke early and went off to do a marcia podistica. These organized walks (like a volksmarch) are one of our favorite things to do here. We still belong to the Partigliano group and it was fun to see our friends from our old village. As usual the walk began in a picturesque village, this one overlooking the area around Viareggio, and meandered through the nearby lanes and fields. We finished the walk, ate our colazione, collected our premi, and we were home by 9:30. We pretty much vegged the rest of the day.

Italian Language School

On Monday I began two weeks of Italian language school. My goal is to become more comfortable speaking the language and improve my ability to understand it. Even after the first couple of days I felt better able to converse and comprehend.

Dom and I both did a couple weeks of language school in Lucca twelve years ago. Like the last time, the class is composed of people from all over the world. Most come just for fun to learn or improve their Italian. Some come for several weeks or months. Interestingly, almost everyone speaks English so when not in class we usually revert to that language.

The first morning, the new people get tested and they divide everyone into classes of like ability. My test involved a conversation with one of the instructors. I ended up in a class with two Americans on vacation, a Frenchman married to an Italian woman who lives near Lucca, a young Austrian woman working as a nanny, and an Australian woman on vacation. Only three of us will be in class this coming week. Everyone is really nice and we had a great time. Our instructor, Susanna, is good and lots of fun.

The instruction is almost all inductive. We are given exercises and have to figure out the meaning of things or grammatical rules from the context and examples. I enjoy this type of learning because it is like solving puzzles.

Our classes begin at 9:15 but the bus gets me there at about 8:35. There is a nice bar at the end of the street and I usually meet Anne from Australia there. We are in class until 1 pm with a break at 11. At the break almost everyone goes to the bar for coffee and maybe a pastry. They have tasty treats there!  My bus is at 1:15 so I have to head off quickly. One day this week I did stay for lunch with Anne and we plan to do it again this coming week.

While I have been at school Dom has made a few excursions. One day he went to Viareggio to look at the boats and chandleries. Another day he drove over the Altopascio and stopped at the tractor store to kick tires.

New Caldaia (Water Heater)

Last spring we had some problems with our caldaia. Frequently it was necessary to hit the reset button before it would work. When we arrived this fall it quickly became apparent that it would probably need to be replaced. A technician came and looked at it about a week ago and as I type he and an associate are finishing up the replacement. After we agreed to replace it, it really began to act cranky sometimes requiring ten or fifteen presses of the reset button before it would light. One of the problems we had was it was old, none of the technicians we talked to was familiar with the unit, and we had no manual for it. So, really replacing it became the only option, albeit an expensive one.

Painting

After spending quite a few days patching, sanding and then painting over the orange and blue with white paint, last night we painted the final color on the walls and ceiling of the living room portion of the condominium. The color is a dark beige and I really like it. Here are some before and after pictures:

It is a bit difficult to see but there in the far corner the lower part of the wall was painted royal blue, where the wall stair-stepped.

 You can see in this "after" picture that the stair-stepped portion has been painted out and that the walls in general are darker. It is a much warmer color and tones down the black baseboards. It also seems to bring out the terracotta color in the floor.

Dinner with Friends

Last Tuesday we went to Mary and Orlando's house for dinner. They also invited another couple, Richard and Denise, who have a house just outside Partigliano. The food was fabulous and we had a good time catching up with everyone. Mary and Orlando are renovating a house that they plan to live in when it is finished. They made great progress over the summer and hope to be in it in another six months or so. The olive harvest starts soon and they will have to take a break from renovations for six to eight weeks. 

That's all for this time. I hope to get the post on Cremona done sometime this week. Next weekend we head to Rome to meet my dad and attend a canonization (making of saints) mass at the Vatican. More interesting posts to come!