Musings

I wanted to show you that we haven’t been spending all our time in rural areas (yes, still human-managed landscapes in this long-occupied region), but that we also spent time with still-occupied connurbations, or specimens from the built environment.

This balcony in Noto (known for its distinctive Sicilian Baroque architecture), is on a residential building between, I think, the city’s two major churches, although I well may be wrong.

Noto was destroyed or at least ruined greatly by the 1693 quake, and residents rebuilt the city downslope a bit, using this distinctive stone from just uphill (or are we seeing stucco over stone? I am still not sure). And the faded green of the shutters…wow!

Still, see? We can do urban!

Posted at 2:07 PM | 1 Comment »

We escaped Taormina (not chased by a bull—which may well have been the auroch in ancient times, and not our cattle), descending to the north along the main route into town (we had entered from the south, which turned out to be effectively the back way these days).

We expended what we discovered to be our meager energy given the heat tromping the reflective white limestone ruins of the civic-ceremonial architecture at Siracusa—a Greek theater, a Roman amphitheater, and a couple of other nifty places they still let you visit (most of the zone was walled off, sigh). For me, the highlight was this person-made cave (following a natural crack? I can only speculate) in the wall of the huge quarry from which the ancients (more particularly, their slaves) removed the building stones for the city. The echo is legendary because it only has a single reverb. Unfortunately, we visited this huge cavern with two (noisy) tour groups. One of the guides serenaded all of us with an a capella piece that John ID’d as from Battlestar Galactica. (I believed him, although he says it was a similar tune, but not the same.)

This view is looking out of the cave from around the bend—so striking. Legend has it that the leader Dionysius incarcerated his enemies here and could overhear their planning from afar due to the special qualities of sound transmission in this dramatic space, now called Orecchio di Dionisio.

We are now up in the limestone Hyblaean mountains in the new part of the ancient city of Palazzolo Acreide (which controlled cross-island trade routes), trying out small town life (sorta). We are staying in a nearly new hotel/winery/restaurant. We had the chef’s tasting menu for dinner and it was spectacular, about ten antipastis, including a zucchini flan that was superb, a pasta course with a mint-basil pesto over delicate cheese ravioli over a roasted red tomato sauce, two meats for the secondi, and one strawberry panna cotta with four spoons because we were so full. The Colle Acre’s own Nero ’Avila was outstanding..

Me, my tongue, and I—all so happy!

Posted at 5:06 PM | 2 Comments »

This is Taormina (think of this line intoned by a deep, male, narrator-voice).

First thing after breakfast we visited the city’s Teatro Greco.* That’s it on the top of the hill in the rear. It’s big, and it’s still used for events. We watched workmen installing decking for stage access, the stage, risers, etc., in preparation for an event. Santana is playing on the 22nd, so it may be for that.

Then we headed uphill toward Castelmola. We didn’t go all the way, and instead detoured intending to visit a Saracen castle. At the turn from the road up to the castle, we encountered a mother-daughter from Louisiana coming down who told us that the castle wasn’t open. Bummer. So we headed over to a church, which was also closed, next to an overlook of the city (paste 37.85380,15.28401 into Google Maps to know where I was standing to take this; note that the autostrada you see on the map goes through a tunnel and is nowhere near the place I was standing).

After coming up the road (and dodging vehicular traffic), we opted to go down via the walkway that’s in the vegetation in the foreground of this shot. We saw plenty of flowers, and the steps were spaced out, so our knees were not unhappy.

We discovered that these steps came out just above the alley-steps that lead down to our hotel. Cool!

Back in our hotel room, we found the wifi recalcitrant, but John finally got both our devices online. Then, we talked via iPad with friends in Texas, and Nancy in Michigan (we’ve already talked to various family members). Fun! (Connection wasn’t so hot, maybe because…we’re in Italy.)

* You have no sense of the community this civic-ceremonial space fit into; there’s just the theater with a small temple that long ago was converted into a chapel/church, and that I skipped. And we could not figure out, other than some columns and arch-topped passage ways, what was very old, what was kinda old, and what was pure reconstruction. Most seemed to be the latter, however. I found it ironic that the stage-preparation building materials were all temporary and created surfaces above the archaeological ones—at least as presented (although the WikiP entry characterizes the theater as remarkably well preserved).

Posted at 10:43 AM | 1 Comment »

I found the spitting rain beautiful in its own way, and was glad we could mold our schedule to it. This is the Certosa di San Lorenzo di Padula, which the nation has restored. Despite its over 300 rooms, we saw maybe two dozen—a choice two dozen. This is the elaborate staircase—I’m not sure why it was added to the complex.

We all enjoyed the museum of Western Lucania, tucked into the center of the area we could explore. Expect a pottery photo or two to appear at some time in the future.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Rain didn’t best us

Sea coasts host many a land’s end. This is the one at the west end of the Sorrentine Peninsula. Its name is usually given as Punto di Campanella, or a version thereof. The latest construction there I think dates to WWII, and the guidebooks say ruins go back to Roman times. From the landward side, this is an obvious spot to keep track of passing vessels. From the water, however, this is a difficult spot to access.

Oh, and that looming chunk of rock on the horizon? That’s Capri. (Where’s the hem on your slacks?)

That hike occupied our morning after we tore ourselves away from the fine table our B&B set. Mid-day we drove south to Paestum, a long-occupied city that today has some Greek ruins (temples/civic-ceremonial architecture) set amidst mostly Roman residential streets and housing complexes. Here’s a photo of the two largest standing stone buildings, within, I think, a walled precinct. I wonder how much time the hoi palloi spent near them.

Posted at 6:37 PM | Comments Off on Punto Campanella and Paestum in one day

I didn’t really stand around and listen to the guides talk to their groups, but I did overhear one guy (in authoritative British English) say that this is the oldest temple here, and another say the white marble came from Ephesus (west coast of what is now Turkey). Both mentioned that the white pillar to the left of the steps supports a sundial. One of these three tidbits is mentioned in the WikiPee entry for this, the Temple of Apollo at Pompeii.

I might have given you a photo of a (wild?) poppy or a hedge (huge, mind you) of rosemary, but here you go with the imposing columns thing.

I found the sundial and a large water basin to the right out of the frame particularly interesting. They indicate this wasn’t a pure Greek version of Apollo-worship being replicated, but a Romanized approach to the adopted Greek deity.

That lump in the far left background is the monster that did in Pompeii in AD 79. P is on a hill relative to the sea (Gulf of Naples) and the Sarno River to the south, although it doesn’t look like it on Google Maps. My sense was this temple was on the highest point nearest the water, although there’s architecture between it and the edge of the Pompeii landform. Anyway, plenty to ponder here.

This must have been spiff-up day for the park personnel, as the grass was newly cut (not mowed).

Posted at 1:13 PM | 1 Comment »

Personal news item #2: new shooze.

The most exciting news today in my personal word is that my friend Keith became Dr. Keith—okay, it won’t be formalized until he completes a few fixes here and there and the not-small chore of making a PDF…but, still, pretty darned exciting! He told me from his post-defense happy-buzz that he started along this route in 1994. Kudos, Doc Keith!

Lots of people might say somebody else’s personal news was the newz of the day, but I already wrote about that here.

Okay, one more personal news item: this is my first blog post using the iPad and an iPad picture…. Heh!!!

Posted at 5:21 PM | 3 Comments »

This aging stuff is…complicated. Apparently, I’m tough on my teeth due to a combination of genetics and behavior. So, today I went through another step in the Dance of the Root Canal, and acquired my ration of a bio-inert substance, now filling the space where the nerves were in the afflicted tooth. It’s called gutta-percha, and it’s a natural latex from the sap of a Malaysian tree.

Apparently, this latex dries in the open air/sun. This contrasts to the substance that native peoples collected from trees in the Mesoamerican lowlands to make the balls used in the games in those elaborate ballcourts; they set up that latex by mixing the tree-milk with compounds from a plant in the morning glory family.

The Doc who installed my tooth-quota of gutta-percha used a fancy light microscope and other high-tech equipment to do the job (which was pretty darned pain-free—believe it or not). The blanks are pre-shaped into long cones just right for filling those pesky canals.

I love the juxtaposition of a twenty-first-century electronics and tropical plant that lead to my own consignment of set-up plant-sap….

Posted at 5:42 PM | Comments Off on Bio-inert point-tip-needle-spikelets

There are some days I feel like I’m spinning my wheels, and, sure enough, I have a hard time putting my finger on what I got done.

Today I met a somewhat higher standard, but not a particularly rigorous one. I did track down a few dust bunnies (maybe more like dust-ponies), and I did venture out for some groceries, and, um—see what I mean?

I did find a super-helpful 2010 article by Tina Thurston that helped me understand the Bronze Age in Italy and Europe; she combines archaeological data and archaeological theory, rather than being cowed by the writings of the ancients…. Yippee!

Thurston, Tina L. 2010. “Bitter Arrows and Generous Gifts: What Was a ‘King’ in the European Iron Age?” In Pathways to Power: New Perspectives on the Emergence of Social Inequality, edited by T. Douglas Price, and Gary F. Feinman, pp. 193–254. Springer, New York.

Posted at 6:33 PM | Comments Off on White knight, white flower

We just did a drive-by (the tourist kind), as it was raining (mostly) and miscellaneous other (mostly nebulous) factors were in play, but the house looked prosperous for its time.

The house: John Glenn’s boyhood home. Long before his space tour.

The website says it was moved back to Main Street. Wonder where it was moved away to….

Anyway, the house now fronts the National Road, now US 40. We even saw the old mile-markers in a few places.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Glenn’s early days