Christmas in Viterbo

Christmas Eve dinner with the family of Anna's two daughters. Dinner started with homemade Gnocchi with a scampi cream sauce. As is tradition for Italians, a fish main course (tuna), deep fried vegetables and fresh garbanzo beans.

Then came dessert. This was essentially a lasagna, but instead of tomato sauce and cheese, it was baked with ground up hazelnuts and chocolate. I had leftovers for Christmas morning breakfast.

I got gloves and a scarf from Anna. I gave her a DVD player, which brought the technology in her house from the 1980's (VCR) into the 1990's. The Internet will never happen.

Christmas Eve dinner was only the first of two feasts. Here is Anna roasting potatoes and lamb for Christmas day lunch.

Christmas day lunch started with homemade tortellini soup, roasted lamb and potatoes, salad and dessert.

On Christmas Eve, my friends the Giuliano's had a Christmas present of their own as their first son (third child) Luciano "The Prince" Giuliano was born. Here he is with his grandmother Rita.

Antonio Di Natale

My favorite Italian soccer player is Antonio di Natale, the attaccante or cannoniere for the Serie A team, Udinese. For some reason, because di Natale (which translates of "of Christmas") is the type of player that runs hard and is small and quick. They say, we can't choose who we fall in love with, we just do. In soccer, you can't know why you like a certain player, you just do. And di Natale is my guy. Because of him, my Italian team, is Udinese. Udine, the city of 100,000 up in the northeastern corner of Italy, right near Slovenia, is a strange pick for a person from central Italy. For you MLB fans, it's like being from Chicago and having your favorite team be Tampa Bay. This past weekend, Udinese was in Rome to play one of the two Roma teams, Lazio. For Italian soccer, it was a "goal fest", with Lazio coming out on top 3-2. Lazio, tied with Roma, for my second Italian team, is having an awesome season, and are in second place for the "scudetto." So, I sat in the Lazio section, secretly rooting for Udinese. At least I didn't wear Udinese colors.

Antonio di Natale, taken with my new camera with 12X zoom!

Florence for a day, just because I can

Free weekend, so off to Florence for a day. Last spring, when we went to Florence as a school, I simply didn't have enough time to see all the great art, so this time, I headed back and hit three big ones.

First things first, though, food. This sandwich is the best in Italy. Hot tripe on fresh bread. Off the train and directly to the Mercato Nuovo to get it. Ate it on a crisp winter afternoon on a bridge over the Arno.....Italian life is good.

Site one, the Branccaci Chapel. This was commissioned by a wealthy Florentine in the early 1400's (Michelangelo was the early 1500's).

It tells the story of St. Peter and is in registers similar to Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel in Padua and his other work in Assisi. This one panel, the temptation of Adam and Eve is by Masolino.

His student, Masaccio (a nickname that means "fat/clumsy Tommaso" painted this AMAZING panel, the expulsion. It's a step forward from Giotto with its linear perspective and single point source of light.

The top is Masaccio's rendering of "The Tribute Money." He employs story telling by having the same character in the same clothes in different scenes in time by going from left to right. The scene on the bottom is by Fra Lippi, completed about 50 years after Masaccio passed away.

Second stop museum, the museum of the Duomo. At the entrance, a bust of Cosimo di Medici, of Cosimo the Great, the leader of the family that provided the support for the advancement of the Renaissance.

Another "Pieta" by Michelangelo. This one appears to have his face as the character being carried.

The highlight for me are the models of the Duomo by Brunelleschi himself.

This original choir is by Andrea Pisano.

I like the playful children.

The other one, also now in the museum, is by Donatello. Donatello is a big player in the next museum.....

The Bargello, which translates to "constable's office" or prison. This museum, I visited on Sunday morning at 830AM. I had it ALL TO MYSELF. A tip for all you museum goers.

The highlight is Donatello's "David". Donatello, a sculptor of the mid 1400's created his "David", the first male nude since classical times.

It's the allegory of civic virtue overcoming irrationality and brutality (hello ideas of the Renaissance) and came to be the way Florentines viewed themselves.

Also at the Bargello, are the two panels that are shown side by side that were the finalists to determine who would design the panels of the door of the Baptistry. Here is the one by Brunelleschi.

And the winner, Ghiberti. Ghiberti's is less "rigid" in the flow of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.

Many of the statues are from a sculptor, Giambologna, that my Art History class didn't get to last year. But there is amazing sense of movement, here we have Firenze defeating Pisa.

The next three pictures are by Giambologna.

I love these "dying" heros, this reminiscent of the "Dying Gaul"

There is also great humor as well. A fun weekend, full of art!

Egypt

Alas, it has happened again (remember Panama?) but I lost my camera. Sadly, this time the chances of it being returned are slim, and slim is pushing it. I left it in the taxi I took to the airport.

People are asking me, how was Egypt? I have to say, that the Pyramids were wonderful, Alexandria and visiting Sam M. was awesome, but the the traveling was exhausting and challenging, more challenging than any other place I have traveled since coming to Europe. Mostly, it comes from the fact that most Egyptians see me as a big walking dollar sign and hassle me for tips at every corner, not speaking or even being able to read the language was more challenging than I imagined and just not feeling like I had much control of my situation (and it mostly went well) was really hard.

I landed in Cairo at 3AM and waited in the airport for the first bus to Alexandria, which departed at 530AM. All went smoothly and I arrived in Alexandria at the "new" bus station, which was a big dirt lot and luckily, Sam was right there to meet me. We spent an AWESOME day, drinking tea, catching up, walking along the water and seeing the new Alexandria library (which is a big modern building) with some cool art and a great retrospective on Anwar Sadat's life. The highlight of the day for me was drinking mint tea and playing backgammon with Sam (oh there was a great picture of this) at his local tea house. His favorite server probably had never seen an Asian before and asked if I did karate! It was great. I really felt that, with Sam and his Arabic skills in Alexandria, I got a true taste of modern Islamic city life.

On Saturday morning, Sam returned to class, and I hopped on a first class train (35 L.E. (7 US Dollars) watch out because the numbers are going to start getting big) to Cairo. I get off the train in Cairo and get immediately accosted by taxi drivers. I am a bit overwhelmed and perhaps I didn't do my homework, but there was no public transportation system in Cairo (or at least none that I knew of) and I picked a taxi driver for a ride to Giza and the pyramids.

Now things get interesting. The taxi driver, speaking no English, knows I want to go to the pyramids. I want to go to my hotel. We can't communicate, the traffic is CRAZY and I end up being taken to a camel stall near the pyramids. I am offered a camel ride tour of the pyramids. At the time, I felt like I was being hijacked and had no real choice, but in retrospect everything was on the up and up. The camel ride through the pyramids was AMAZING. The weather was perfect, not hot at all, no wind and it was around sunset. WOW. Now comes the part where I am single-handedly supporting the Egyptian economy. I have to pay the camel owner, pay the entrance fee, pay the camel guide, tip the camel guide, tip my actual guide and pay the taxi driver for the ride and his two hours of waiting. I think I spent a total of 800 L.E.. Money is money, yeah? So, I'll have the wonderful memories and pictures in my mind.

That night, I haggled a taxi ride back to the pyramids for the light show, which was kind of cheesy, but a chance to see the pyramids again was worth it. Dinner? On the street for a total of 5 L.E.. Now sure what I ate. It was edible but nothing to really that memorable, other than trying to communicate with the guy at the stall who was enjoying watching this Asian guy eat.

Sunday morning, I got up and was planning on going to Islamic Cairo, but my taxi driver, better English this time, told me about another set of pyramids at a place called Saqqara. I went for it and this was the highlight. My driver got me a one-on-one guided tour. The guide took me into the funerary tombs of the manicurist and butcher of one of the fifth dynasty kings. I had a fantastic time and learned a ton about Egyptian views on the afterlife. The hour and a half I had with this guide brought Egyptian art and funerary ideas to life.

Afterwards, the haggling for the tips, the drive to the airport ended with a haggling for the fare and tips and here's where I must have left my camera in the taxi.

Now that I'm reliving the experience in my mind, I am really more sad about losing the pictures than the pain of the travel and feeling like I was being ripped off the entire time. As they say, time heals all the pain and hard parts and it's true, I'll just remember how great the good parts of the trip were.

Matera

Last stop: Matera in the region of Basilicata, the "instep" of Italy.

This is the view from my hotel room window at dawn.

Because the rock in this area is so soft, in prehistoric times, inhabitants simply carved into the stone to live.

My guess is that this is pretty much how it looked up until the 1950's, when residents of area were still living in the "Sassi" without running water or electricity. The Italian government relocated citizens to a modern part of town.

However, tourism has become an economic boom (re: people like me) and so the two main ravines which contained the majority of the "Sassi" have been restored, even gentrified, and hotels, restaurants and families have moved back into the region.

Oh, Italy, I love you so, errors and all.

The town of Metaponto was a major Greek city of Magna Grecia. This is the remnants of the Temple of Hera.

It is here on this spot that it is believed that Pythagoras lived his final years. This is purported to be his home and his tomb is here or nearby.

The morning I returned to Viterbo, I went for a tour of the Grotte Castellana. It was a 1.5 km walk in a cave to get to the most amazing "Grotto Bianco." Think white stalactites and stalagmites as far as the eye can see.

Puglia: Lecce and Leuca

Way at the end of the "heel" of Italy is the city of Lecce. It was founded by the Romans around the 3rd century BC. Here is the Roman amphitheater that sits half uncovered in the central piazza of the city.

However, around the late 1700's, when Baroque architecture was in fashion, the Leccese took it to the nth degree. Walking around town, you turn a corner and there is another church facade that makes you almost chuckle. The stone is almost honey colored and you'll see that the feeling is almost whimsical. I'll proceed from most tame to the famous Santa Croce. Here is Chiesa del Gesu.

Chiesa di Santa Maria della Grazie

Chiesa di Sant' Irene

Right on the facade of Sant' Irene is the town symbol of Lecce.

Chiesa di Santa Chiara

Chiesa di San Matteo

And we're ramping up with Chiesa del Rosario






.....and we have Chiesa di Santa Croce.

Here's a closer look at the top portion.

I think it's great that the animals are holding up their portion with little difficulty, while the humans are struggling.

The Lecce Duomo and piazza are the second best I've seen in Italy (after Siena). The piazza is enclosed with only one entrance. It's fabulous.

But even better at night!

Here is the tip of the "heel" of Italy. It's the town of Leuca and there really isn't much there. But it's the "end" of the country.