Dreaming In Italian

One weekend I went to the mountains. Not just any mountains but the Dolomiti. I had seen photos of this area but never had visited. I also didn’t know that they are called Dolomiti because they are made from a kind of rock called, you guessed it, dolomite which ranges in color from almost pure white to rose colored. They are even more spectacular in person than in the photos. I always find it difficult to photograph grand vistas but I did get some decent photos. Here is the best one.

During the week I searched for a rental car. I found that Kayak.com works wonderfully in general for travel reservations of almost any sort and this time was no exception. Interestingly enough the rental cars here are cheaper at the airport than in the city which seems to be reversed in the U.S. So I found a car, the cheapest available, for about 25 euros a day. Quite inexpensive. I packed a small backpack the day before and took it to school with me. After school on Friday I summoned a taxi. I say summoned because I found a website that you can use to send an SMS and the taxi arrives almost immediately. A great innovation. So after the taxi ride to the airport I had the car. Only one potentially disastrous hitch: I had forgotten to bring my passport. Fortunately I had a copy of all of my documents; credit card, atm card, driver’s license and, most important of all, passport. They accepted the copy and I was on my way. Well, I was on my way to search for the car. That took awhile because unlike the states where there seem to be signs everywhere directing you hither and yon, Italy is, well, more relaxed in this area. In any case, I found the car, a Fiat Panda and it was easy to exit and immediately get on the autostrada. I needed to make good time so I went as far as possible on the autostrada. Like I said, the Italians are much more relaxed about signage. In this case I was NEVER sure about what the speed limit was. There were lots of warnings about electronic monitoring of speed but none about what the speed limit actually was. Some people were going slow, maybe 60 miles an hour, either to conserve fuel or because the car was not in great shape. Occasionally someone would zoom past going at warp speed but I found that a lot of people seemed to be holding at 130 km/hour – about 80. So I fell in with the 130 crowd. After getting to the end of the freeway I still had perhaps 60 miles to go on increasingly winding roads but it went relatively quickly and I arrived after a little over 3 hours. Here is the route that I took.

I had arranged to stay with a Servas host. This is an international organization that is a hospitality organization. One can be a host and be hosted by others – you can find out more about it by clicking here. I had, of course, arranged beforehand to stay with someone and that someone was Marilisa. She’s 57 year old school teacher that lives in Calalzo di Cadore, a nice little town in the Veneto not too far from Cortina d’Ampezzo, a ski resort on par with Aspen. It was cloudy when I arrived but there were still I could see that the mountains were spectacular. She fixed dinner; potatoes from her 82 year old fathers farm which he still farms, a sauce made from a type of cheese unique to the area, some salad and cantaloupe. Wine was of course part of the picture.

The next morning was to be a clear day but it started with clouds. I kept telling here that I’m sure that the mountains were quite impressive, if only I could see them. It became a running joke. She took me on a tour of the area – loop north and then a bit east coming back through Cortina and back to her house. Along the way we stopped a farm where the chickens were running free and she bought a half dozen eggs from someone that she has known for many years. I experienced the watchdog behavior of geese. Those critters can be downright scary so I kept my distance. On a side note, the farmer there said that he didn’t speak Italian, only the local dialect. We stopped occasionally for photo-ops and for a stroll around Cortina. It’s certainly beautiful but you could see from the shop windows that it was a place for the wealthy. When we were not far from her house we stopped at a local restaurant for a meal of foods typical of the area. The food was very good and the price was quite reasonable. I paid, naturally.

 

After arriving back at her house she packed a small backpack and changed shoes and we headed off in search of wild mushrooms. I’d never done this and it was great fun. She found a bunch of them and I found a pathetic 3. BUT I found a porcini! It wasn’t very big but it did give me bragging rights. She fixed the mushrooms in a sauce and served it over pappardelle. We had porcini carpaccio as the antipasto and melon with speck for desert. Followed by some terrific German style pastries we had bought along the way. The Germans may not have the best cuisine around but they DO know how to make pastries. This was followed by an espresso and lemoncello made by her son.

 

 

The next day I left fairly early because the forecast was for rain and I didn’t want to rush. It didn’t rain so I was able to take some state roads rather than the autostrada much of the way. There was one detour that went along a little road, barely 1 ½ lanes wide where the trees almost formed a tunnel. There was almost no traffic and it was a very pretty drive. Unfortunately there was really nowhere to stop to take a photo.

Before I returned the car, I filled it with gas. I had used almost the whole tank and it cost about the same amount for the gas as for the car rental! In all it was a delightful trip and my conversations with Marilisa were completely in Italian. I understood most of it and she was very good about narrowing the vocabulary to help my understanding when necessary.

When I first arrived in Bologna I stayed in an apartment outside the walls. I was looking for a location that had an easy connection to the school so I could minimize the amount of walking I would need to do. I had some, er, mobility problems earlier this year and wasn’t sure how things would go after I got here. It turns out that not only did I have no problem at all walking for quite a distance but the price paid for the location was pretty high: there was a lot of street noise because the room fronted on a very busy street along which buses ran almost all of the time. So that’s the back story.

The guy whose apartment it was, Lorenzo, took me for a walk the first evening while it was still light and pointed out some fantastic murals. Some street art has become quite famous. Perhaps you’re familiar with Banksy from England. If not you can check out his inventive art by clicking on this link.

So Bologna has it’s own equivalent. Actually I would say that he surpasses Banksy. He goes by the name Blu. I was quite impressed and went back a few days later to take a picture of the most spectacular mural as well as some others of his nearby. The biggest and most intricate mural depicts a battle between merchants and politicians of Bologna arrayed against the students and various idealists/activists – clearly the forces of good. The merchants are flinging giant mortadellas (those incredible and monstrous sausages – or maybe they should be called salamis) that are a staple of Bologna. The idealists, on bicycles no less, are responding with watermelons. There are local politicians that only a Bolognese would recognize, Berlusconi, and a banker on the one side. Probably there are Bolognese activists that would be recognizable to many Bolognese but certainly not to me. There are elements from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

There were some other murals by Blu. One that I particularly liked is the evolution of man and a second is the manipulation of man.

As I was walking toward the murals I happened upon these other murals, probably not by Blu but interesting nevertheless.

Not only that I found that he has an incredible website. Not only does he do morals and sketches of various sorts but has made some fantastic videos which involve painting, erasing and painting again to create stop-motion videos. One can only imagine the effort that went into these works of creative genius. I’ve put one here and I recommend that you take a look at his website by clicking here to see others.

Comments are always welcome and of course I always like subscribers. Remember that clicking on any image will enlarge it and you can click forward and backwards to see the complete set.

One last note: my little camera does quite a good job but cannot hope to have the scope of a really good one. I envy my cousin Scott’s camera and his skill with photography. You can see some of his work by clicking here.

What?! There are private castles? I guess we Americans can hardly conceive of such a thing since in our definition of the word there are no castles in the U.S. Sure there are grand estates built by people with way too much money, but a castle with a moat? No way. But in Europe there are still a whole bunch of castles remaining. Of course they’re not all huge and imposing or as picturesque as the “Disneyland castle” – the one in Bavaria which is the model for the one in Disneyland (there’s one at the Hong Kong Disneyland too). This one was built in the 15^th century (Wikipedia says 1411) and is about 15 miles from Bologna and much more modest. But it DOES have a moat!

In any case it was quite a treat to go to a benefit concert in the castle here in Emilia-Romagna. How did I manage to go to this concert and even be introduced to the very wealthy owner? It was Paolo again. I did separately receive an invitation from Lisa, an American who has lived here for more than 20 years, but Paolo was instrumental since he has a car and it would be nearly impossible to go there by public transportation. As I mentioned this was a benefit for the reconstruction of an “oratorio” that was severely damaged last year in an earthquake. The best description of an oratorio that I could find is kind of a catholic version of a sunday school.

In any case there were two singers. The first sang only 5 songs which was a bit of a relief since she wasn’t particularly good and neither were her accompanists. The second, Lisa, was really terrific and her guitarist was also excellent.

We, Paolo and I, arrived after dinner. We ate dinner while mosquitoes attempted to eat us. The concert started at 9:00 PM so it was quite dark. Even so, I managed to get some photos and have augmented those by some gleaned from the web. Paolo said that he had met Michelangelo, the owner, because Michelangelo was looking for a private pilot to fly a photographer over and around the castle to take some photos. So one or more of these may well have been taken from Paolo’s airplane.

 

Almost all of the songs were in English for both women and I must say that I never would have imagined hearing “The Tennessee Waltz” in Italy. Quite a little piece of Americana.

 

 

 

What the heck is a T-Day? It’s described exactly in this way, including the “day” in English rather than using “giorno” in Italian. So a T-day is held each weekend and last from 8:00 AM on Saturday until 10:00 PM on Sunday. During these hours the very heart of the city is closed to vehicular traffic completely. No taxis, no cars, no buses, not even the omnipresent motorini (scooters). Of course emergency vehicles must be allowed but the streets are totally devoid of motor traffic and the streets are filled with pedestrians, bicyclists and entertainers of various types. It started last year when I was here, in fact the first one was on May 12^th. They proved to be immediately popular and have continued since. They are a delight not only for the hordes of people walking around but certainly for the merchants since Saturday, especially, appears to be a great day for shopping. I’m not sure if they are year round but from some of the videos and photos that I’ve found that may be the case.  The only real downside is that the buses, of course, are rerouted on T-days and obviously no longer run through the center so it can be a bit of a hike to get where you want to go.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. What’s with the “T”? Well, there is a street, well, really two that are contiguous that are right in the center: via Ugo Bassi and via Rizzoli. One flows into the other to make one street. At right angles there is a major street named via Indipendenza that dead ends at the intersection with the other two at Piazza Nettuno . So these form a “T” and this is the area closed to traffic. The map below shows the area of closure.

There are banners that explain what’s going on…

The second weekend that I was in town I went to the center to buy a moka. A moka, you may know is a stovetop coffee maker. Each time that I’m here I buy another one to use for the duration of my stay and to add to my little collection when I return home. Last year I bought one at the Bialetti store that I like a lot and have used every morning at home. This year I wanted something a little different, perhaps a little more elegant, so after a web search I found one from Alessi (a brand with great style) that didn’t cost too much and was available at a department store called “Coin” nel centro (in the center of town).

So now some other photos….

It’s a good opportunity for promotions since it really draws quite a crowd. Keep in mind that these photos were made at around 10:00 AM. The streets get quite crowded in the afternoon. So, BMW was showing off their new all electric car…

Street performers are quite popular. I particularly liked this one. The couple are having quite a lively dance and in the end all is revealed.

By the way, I’m not sure if emails are going out to subscribers or if nobody is actually reading these posts. It would really be nice to get a comment to know if these are just going to the moon or are actually being read.