Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Bagatelli Romani
Since our last note there has been no communication from us simply because we had not figured out intricacies of Italian computers. In the two weeks Frosty (that would be Lucretia or Big Red, but no longer Big Red because she recently opted for a more sophisticated hair color) and I have been here, we have done plenty.
This issue will catch you up, if you dare to read on and have the slightest interest in the bagatelles of two Seniors who have dropped off the Hendersonville Radar for six weeks.
In the last posting, we stated that our goal was not to relive La Dolce Vita of the 60’s, but merely to blend in as cittadini en un borgo Italiano, in this case Palestrina, just thirty minutes east of Rome by commuter train and learn a bit about conversing in Italian. Grocery shopping, having a coffee or vino in a bar, figuring out the metro and finding a restaurant are all parts of the scheme
To re-familiarize ourselves with the language, we begin our days with coffee and cornetti while translating our detective novels, kinda like being at the Carolina beaches with John Grisham. Lucretia has another Donna Leon book with Guido Brunetti fighting the forces of evil in Venice, while I am happy with Marco Vichi’s Commissario Bordellli tracking down the bad guys in Florence.
So, in no particular order….
Road Trips? Yes, we have had several. The first was to the south to the coast just above Naples. One of the very few travel books we had brought was Frances Mayes’s A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller. After she and husband Ed had accumulated serious fundage from touting the joy of restoring a home and writing about Cortona, they apparently picked up and hit the road for while, composing travel essays on exotic (to us) locales such as Andalucia, Fez, Taormina, Mantua and Turkey.
In her chapter Tasting the South, she mentioned Gaeta and Sperlonga, two coastal towns just above Naples. We arrived in Gaeta, port of colorful fishing boats and luxury yachts. We parked on the Lugmare Caboto, a large open space that surrounded the port, and forthwith found ourselves among other pensionati or retirees from the South, in their case, probably Calabria. After fifteen minutes or so of exploration in narrow alleys, I compared ourselves to curious hens pecking about for morsels, but all we found were one of two open bars where we stood and munched on fresh cornetti and stirred hot cappucini.
Up the road was Sperlonga, “….a white village with houses like sugar cubes above the sea, arm-wide cobbled streets running under Moorish arches, and outrageous flowers swaggering of balconies like bright skirts or ballgowns.
Naturally we went there, but what we saw on this cold Monday afternoon in mid January was nothing like what she had presented. There was not much going on in a place that we could easily envision teeming with tourists in July. All we saw against the backdrop of the sea and narrow alleys was an occasional startled cat leaping to safety under a bench, bearded workers pushing wheelbarrows of cement for winter patch work. It was so hard to find even a bar that was open for sandwiches and beer that we moved northward to Anzio and Nettuno, sites of invasions by the British and Americans in 1943.
Another road trip was to Frascati. Originally our destination had been Castello Gandolfo, the summer residence of the pope, but because it was raining, the going was slow, so we re-negotiated our mission and settled on Frascati, a village noted for its wine. We were delighted to arrive at a town with a wide square and ample parking, none of these narrow streets and hard-to-find parking places.
We donned our rain gear and headed into the Centro Storico, where we found that perfect restaurant, one that an American food editor might report as a find, but was in fact a plain old family establishment run by a Cerebus-like momma who sat at the cash register with a hawk’s eye and her son who served as waiter and cook. Upon entering, we were greeted by a couple from Rome about the same age as we who recommended the red Frascati instead of the white. The fact that they chose to speak to us in Italian rather than English buffeted our spirits that had been pretty well dashed the past week or so.
We were the only ones there, and seated in the corner we loved our salad, maiale (pork), dessert, coffee and red Frascati. Piped music was The Best of Barry White—he seems popular here). Unfortunately, at three or so we had to leave as we had an appointment back in Palestrina. We made the appointment and even had time to stalk the main street in Palestrina where Lucretia decided on a trendy warm jacket. I mean, after all, she had done all the driving, and it was cold outside….
After dark we arrived home where Lucretia rustled up chicken and tomato sandwiches while we watched L’Éredita, an inane Italian game show that helps with the vocabulary.
Yet another road trip was to Calcata, about an hour (depending on how well I could read the road map for Frosty the Driver) north of Rome. Rather than appear pretentious and knowledgeable, I will, via Google, direct anyone who has read this far Calcata New York Times, for an article on it. I hope you will do so.
Of course we go to Rome. To do so, we drive fifteen minutes to the parking lot at Zaragolo and then take the commuter train to Rome’s Stazzione Termini, and from there keep our noses on the city map that leads you to Trastevere, the Via Veneto and more. NOTE: City maps can easily take you elsewhere.
Ahhh...the joy of being in Rome in the off season where the Spanish Steps seem to be no more important than the steps of the county court house in one’s home town or the Trevi Fountain seems more like a giant bath tub than a mecca for lovers. Yesterday we were in Rome with no other purpose than just to walk about, and, yes, it did rain, and, yes, we did buy an umbrella from one of a battalion of Pakistani Umbrella Sellers.
We saw plenty and walked plenty, and by dark we were seated comfortably in the warmth of Harry’s Bar at the top of the Via Veneto. Our waiter, Mario, was so solicitous that that we did not blink when presented with the bill of thirty-four dollars for two Peroni beers plus a dish of peanuts and a small plate of olives.
This was as close as we got to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. We had arrived fifty years too late, much like in New Mexico last summer when we were searching for remnants of Route 66 and all we found were a few seedy motels with cracked cement parking lots, weeds coming from these cracks and broken down billboards that must have been aglitter with neon back in the 50’s. The walls of Rome’s walls of Porta Pinciana just outside of Harry’s were a reminder of what used to be. We were glad to be here, and instead of Anita Ekberg, there was Frosty to insure the dolce vita of today.
A note on the weather: Each day before setting out we would check the weather report on line. After a few days we realized that with on line reported temperatures above 9 or 10 degrees Celsius we would forgo study and travel. In a few days Lucretia figured out another barometer by looking out the kitchen window to a garden where a herd of giant rabbits lived. Any time there were more than three clustered together for warmth under a tree it had to be cold outside; thus a “three-bunny day,” one that warranted excessive cold-weather apparel.
OBSERVATIONS or QUESTIONS
Drivers in Italy regard red and green traffic lights as suggestions rather than mandates. It seems as if there is a shortage of space on roads, and traffic is “fluid” in that it is much like water trying to fill a void. “If the space in front of you is empty and no one is there, claim it as yours.” No one seems to mind someone cutting in front if you get there first, whereas in America doing that earns a prolonged blast on the horn. Drivers are like a friendly fraternity.
The foliage on the mountains is all brown as the leaves here in February have not yet fallen to the ground as they do in North Carolina. I wonder what kind of trees those are?
Why is there so much trash on the roads and right next to street and road side trash bins? For example, the sandy beaches from Sperlonga to Anzio were littered with paper, plastic containers and other assorted trash, and it appears that city sanitation workers ignore overflowing trash bins.
Bars are a wonderful social institution; thus explaining why there are so many of these small hole-in-the-wall retreats on Palestrina’s Corso Piero Luigi. In the morning the bar is lined with customers sipping assorted coffees, and in the evening men and women, young and old, cluster for their favourite libation and animated conversation about the day at work. In the crowded room there are newspapers from Rome and Naples spread on small tables with chairs that invariably screech on the marble floors when moved. Nonetheless, joviality is the prevalent mood. This afternoon after a road trip, Frosty and I enjoyed two Spritzes (prosecco and Campari), olives, chips and two ham and mayonnaise sandwiches for 7 euros, around $10.00! Next time when I enter my favorite Hendersonville watering hole and order a glass of wine for $9.00, I will give pause and fondly remember Palestrina.
MORE TO COME: Got to figure out this Italian keyboard and Word formatting....
FLASH! We just scored two hard-to-get ducats for “Don Giovanni” at Milan’s La Scala Opera House for Friday the 12th! There were only 16 left
Since our last note there has been no communication from us simply because we had not figured out intricacies of Italian computers. In the two weeks Frosty (that would be Lucretia or Big Red, but no longer Big Red because she recently opted for a more sophisticated hair color) and I have been here, we have done plenty.
This issue will catch you up, if you dare to read on and have the slightest interest in the bagatelles of two Seniors who have dropped off the Hendersonville Radar for six weeks.
In the last posting, we stated that our goal was not to relive La Dolce Vita of the 60’s, but merely to blend in as cittadini en un borgo Italiano, in this case Palestrina, just thirty minutes east of Rome by commuter train and learn a bit about conversing in Italian. Grocery shopping, having a coffee or vino in a bar, figuring out the metro and finding a restaurant are all parts of the scheme
To re-familiarize ourselves with the language, we begin our days with coffee and cornetti while translating our detective novels, kinda like being at the Carolina beaches with John Grisham. Lucretia has another Donna Leon book with Guido Brunetti fighting the forces of evil in Venice, while I am happy with Marco Vichi’s Commissario Bordellli tracking down the bad guys in Florence.
So, in no particular order….
Road Trips? Yes, we have had several. The first was to the south to the coast just above Naples. One of the very few travel books we had brought was Frances Mayes’s A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller. After she and husband Ed had accumulated serious fundage from touting the joy of restoring a home and writing about Cortona, they apparently picked up and hit the road for while, composing travel essays on exotic (to us) locales such as Andalucia, Fez, Taormina, Mantua and Turkey.
In her chapter Tasting the South, she mentioned Gaeta and Sperlonga, two coastal towns just above Naples. We arrived in Gaeta, port of colorful fishing boats and luxury yachts. We parked on the Lugmare Caboto, a large open space that surrounded the port, and forthwith found ourselves among other pensionati or retirees from the South, in their case, probably Calabria. After fifteen minutes or so of exploration in narrow alleys, I compared ourselves to curious hens pecking about for morsels, but all we found were one of two open bars where we stood and munched on fresh cornetti and stirred hot cappucini.
Up the road was Sperlonga, “….a white village with houses like sugar cubes above the sea, arm-wide cobbled streets running under Moorish arches, and outrageous flowers swaggering of balconies like bright skirts or ballgowns.
Naturally we went there, but what we saw on this cold Monday afternoon in mid January was nothing like what she had presented. There was not much going on in a place that we could easily envision teeming with tourists in July. All we saw against the backdrop of the sea and narrow alleys was an occasional startled cat leaping to safety under a bench, bearded workers pushing wheelbarrows of cement for winter patch work. It was so hard to find even a bar that was open for sandwiches and beer that we moved northward to Anzio and Nettuno, sites of invasions by the British and Americans in 1943.
Another road trip was to Frascati. Originally our destination had been Castello Gandolfo, the summer residence of the pope, but because it was raining, the going was slow, so we re-negotiated our mission and settled on Frascati, a village noted for its wine. We were delighted to arrive at a town with a wide square and ample parking, none of these narrow streets and hard-to-find parking places.
We donned our rain gear and headed into the Centro Storico, where we found that perfect restaurant, one that an American food editor might report as a find, but was in fact a plain old family establishment run by a Cerebus-like momma who sat at the cash register with a hawk’s eye and her son who served as waiter and cook. Upon entering, we were greeted by a couple from Rome about the same age as we who recommended the red Frascati instead of the white. The fact that they chose to speak to us in Italian rather than English buffeted our spirits that had been pretty well dashed the past week or so.
We were the only ones there, and seated in the corner we loved our salad, maiale (pork), dessert, coffee and red Frascati. Piped music was The Best of Barry White—he seems popular here). Unfortunately, at three or so we had to leave as we had an appointment back in Palestrina. We made the appointment and even had time to stalk the main street in Palestrina where Lucretia decided on a trendy warm jacket. I mean, after all, she had done all the driving, and it was cold outside….
After dark we arrived home where Lucretia rustled up chicken and tomato sandwiches while we watched L’Éredita, an inane Italian game show that helps with the vocabulary.
Yet another road trip was to Calcata, about an hour (depending on how well I could read the road map for Frosty the Driver) north of Rome. Rather than appear pretentious and knowledgeable, I will, via Google, direct anyone who has read this far Calcata New York Times, for an article on it. I hope you will do so.
Of course we go to Rome. To do so, we drive fifteen minutes to the parking lot at Zaragolo and then take the commuter train to Rome’s Stazzione Termini, and from there keep our noses on the city map that leads you to Trastevere, the Via Veneto and more. NOTE: City maps can easily take you elsewhere.
Ahhh...the joy of being in Rome in the off season where the Spanish Steps seem to be no more important than the steps of the county court house in one’s home town or the Trevi Fountain seems more like a giant bath tub than a mecca for lovers. Yesterday we were in Rome with no other purpose than just to walk about, and, yes, it did rain, and, yes, we did buy an umbrella from one of a battalion of Pakistani Umbrella Sellers.
We saw plenty and walked plenty, and by dark we were seated comfortably in the warmth of Harry’s Bar at the top of the Via Veneto. Our waiter, Mario, was so solicitous that that we did not blink when presented with the bill of thirty-four dollars for two Peroni beers plus a dish of peanuts and a small plate of olives.
This was as close as we got to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. We had arrived fifty years too late, much like in New Mexico last summer when we were searching for remnants of Route 66 and all we found were a few seedy motels with cracked cement parking lots, weeds coming from these cracks and broken down billboards that must have been aglitter with neon back in the 50’s. The walls of Rome’s walls of Porta Pinciana just outside of Harry’s were a reminder of what used to be. We were glad to be here, and instead of Anita Ekberg, there was Frosty to insure the dolce vita of today.
A note on the weather: Each day before setting out we would check the weather report on line. After a few days we realized that with on line reported temperatures above 9 or 10 degrees Celsius we would forgo study and travel. In a few days Lucretia figured out another barometer by looking out the kitchen window to a garden where a herd of giant rabbits lived. Any time there were more than three clustered together for warmth under a tree it had to be cold outside; thus a “three-bunny day,” one that warranted excessive cold-weather apparel.
OBSERVATIONS or QUESTIONS
Drivers in Italy regard red and green traffic lights as suggestions rather than mandates. It seems as if there is a shortage of space on roads, and traffic is “fluid” in that it is much like water trying to fill a void. “If the space in front of you is empty and no one is there, claim it as yours.” No one seems to mind someone cutting in front if you get there first, whereas in America doing that earns a prolonged blast on the horn. Drivers are like a friendly fraternity.
The foliage on the mountains is all brown as the leaves here in February have not yet fallen to the ground as they do in North Carolina. I wonder what kind of trees those are?
Why is there so much trash on the roads and right next to street and road side trash bins? For example, the sandy beaches from Sperlonga to Anzio were littered with paper, plastic containers and other assorted trash, and it appears that city sanitation workers ignore overflowing trash bins.
Bars are a wonderful social institution; thus explaining why there are so many of these small hole-in-the-wall retreats on Palestrina’s Corso Piero Luigi. In the morning the bar is lined with customers sipping assorted coffees, and in the evening men and women, young and old, cluster for their favourite libation and animated conversation about the day at work. In the crowded room there are newspapers from Rome and Naples spread on small tables with chairs that invariably screech on the marble floors when moved. Nonetheless, joviality is the prevalent mood. This afternoon after a road trip, Frosty and I enjoyed two Spritzes (prosecco and Campari), olives, chips and two ham and mayonnaise sandwiches for 7 euros, around $10.00! Next time when I enter my favorite Hendersonville watering hole and order a glass of wine for $9.00, I will give pause and fondly remember Palestrina.
MORE TO COME: Got to figure out this Italian keyboard and Word formatting....
FLASH! We just scored two hard-to-get ducats for “Don Giovanni” at Milan’s La Scala Opera House for Friday the 12th! There were only 16 left
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Roaming Romans
This weekend Lucretia and I leave for Italy for six weeks. A former student of mine at Christ School asked if we would be interested in house sitting in his family home in Palestrina, forty minutes from Rome. The house is for sale, and because there are no current buyers they want someone with a feral presence to establish residence in the home.
We deliberated for a nanosecond and forthwith agreed. Our plans are to study Italian (there are still several thousand Italian words we don't know yet), read, take the train into Rome for day trips, drive to nearby villages, and sample wine and cuisine in the neighborhood.
Several planned road trips are as follows: Naples to attend Mozart's La Clemenza del Tito at the Teatro San Carlo, Parma (famous for Toscanini, Verdi, cheese and ham) for three or four nights, and San Polo-in-Chianti for a day or so with friends. For the last two weeks we have registered in a two-week language school in Venice. We will stay in a cloister on the island of Giudecca and every day take the water taxi to Dorsoduro for classes attended by Bright Young Minds from all over--Slovenia, Japan, Russia, Egypt, Poland, Malta , etc. ... much like the composition of students at the Lake Garda classes we had two years ago.
Part of our regimen will be to send blogs of daily life in Italy. Daughter Lucretia was with us this weekend and showed me some of the entry-level techniques of blogging.
I know that we are just creating more spam for you; nonetheless we will keep you posted.
And, if you wish, please send us any comments or suggestions you may have about places you have enjoyed or visited. Baedeker and Rick Steeves have not covered everything about Italian travel.
Reed and Lucretia
We deliberated for a nanosecond and forthwith agreed. Our plans are to study Italian (there are still several thousand Italian words we don't know yet), read, take the train into Rome for day trips, drive to nearby villages, and sample wine and cuisine in the neighborhood.
Several planned road trips are as follows: Naples to attend Mozart's La Clemenza del Tito at the Teatro San Carlo, Parma (famous for Toscanini, Verdi, cheese and ham) for three or four nights, and San Polo-in-Chianti for a day or so with friends. For the last two weeks we have registered in a two-week language school in Venice. We will stay in a cloister on the island of Giudecca and every day take the water taxi to Dorsoduro for classes attended by Bright Young Minds from all over--Slovenia, Japan, Russia, Egypt, Poland, Malta , etc. ... much like the composition of students at the Lake Garda classes we had two years ago.
Part of our regimen will be to send blogs of daily life in Italy. Daughter Lucretia was with us this weekend and showed me some of the entry-level techniques of blogging.
I know that we are just creating more spam for you; nonetheless we will keep you posted.
And, if you wish, please send us any comments or suggestions you may have about places you have enjoyed or visited. Baedeker and Rick Steeves have not covered everything about Italian travel.
Reed and Lucretia
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