Today we headed north from Calabria up to Pompeii then on to sorento. We packed, said good bye to the neighbors, four legged, two legged and winged., fed them some of our leftovers closed up the airbnb and  were ready to go when Luigi cane by at 8 to pick us up 

This has been a really nice place to stay..   Really homey

We piled in the van and headed north

 

The contryside  we drove through was really beutiful.. very green and mountainous.. It got busier the further north we got. By the time we hit Salerno it was like one bug city. We pulled off the highway and headed in to. the Pompeii site. It was a zoo as one might expect.. super crowded.. bt from what we understand it was nothing like the peak crowds of summer. It was a very fun place to just do people watching.> tHere were som many languages being spoken.. I think English was the most common… but we heard italian  (obviously) , german, french, hebrew, hindii.. etc.. kinda cool

 

We met our guide Paulo.. He was Italian… but also a native english speaker. His mom is from England.. He gave that away when he used the term ‘cats eyes’ to describe some  reflective white stones embedded in the ancient cobbled streets to guid people to the market. Paulo was a great guide. In addition to facts, he gave us context.. and asked us questions to draw out our understanding.. I loved the way he explained that at the time of the eruption in AD 79 no one had  ever recorded a volcanic eruption .. The ancient Pompeians had no way to interpret the huge earthquake of AD 62 as a harbinger (never used that word before) of the eruption. Paulo told us that as many as 16000 people died as a result of the earthquake . The folks of the day viewed that the earthquake and the eruption were the rath of the gods. .. Paulo explained that when other romans arrived after the eruption they found the land where the city was apparently wiped clean.. actually it was covered with 20 feet of volcanic ash.. Pompeii had once been a port town that directly abutted the sea. The ash moved the shorlien out more than a kilometer..  When others arrived at the shorline. it was completely bare.. what were they to think other than the gods had wiped the city from the face of the earth.. 

Our tour was full of surprises like that .. Paulo knew the place well and after spending some  time in the central parts.. we took off for less touristed sections of the city which was very welcome. Paulo is also nearly 2m tall and was in several episodes of James May : Our man in Italy 

You can see him in Episode 2 here:

Note: it took some sneakiness to be able to do a screen capture from Amazon Prime.. They evidently add a black rectangle over all screens to prevent screen capture of stills or movies I did a little digging and found out that if you turn off the ‘use hardware acceleration if available’ feature in settings, then relaunch your browser you can circumvent this anti copy stuff.. bwa-ha-ha !

Anyway.. back to Pompei.  . I took way too many pictures to post everying I saw (>400 .. ) So I’ll try to share a few that really stuck me. 

I took a bunch of pictures of this statue before Palo told me it was a piece made for a recent contembeperary art exhibit.. Still I liked it

 

Here’s the central square of the city with Mt Vesuvious in the background

 

And here”s what the crown looked like through most of the center of the city

Paulo showed us the first plaster casts made of victims of the ash cloud. The ash cloud was so hot that the people died within a few breaths. The ash sealed around their bodies then set like clay around them as their bodies decayed. What was left was their bones and a hollow place where their bodies had been  . When people started unearthing the city in the 19th century they came across these hollow places  not knowing what they were. In 1860 the head archeologist at Pompei  Giuseppe Fiorelli  developed a way to fill the cavities with plaster  which made the forms and position of the victims visible. Looking at them eas fascinating.. but I also felt the deep sadness of people dying while  trying to save themselves and others. THough copies have been made, These are soem of the first casts made.. and they are original. The bones of the victims are still embedded in the plaster.  

these people were found within the market place. The frescoes of where people could find, fish, meat and vegatables were still visible on the walls. Paulo explained that as a port city, there were many poeple coming through and not all understood  latin…. so the pictures were like a menu

 

It was amazing to see the frescos  on the walls and the tile floors. They looked totally  modern.. 

 

Thehere were many of these small faces hidden in the pictures. some of them grosteque. They were thought to be there to scare off evil spirits. 

Some of them were decorative, some  were boastful.. some were vulgar.. like this one. Actually the large penis in this one is balanced against coins.. meaning the owner was rich.. probably newly rich and wanted others to know it

In that same house, the slave quarters also served a brothel.. and the frescos were like a menu .. no  translation required

We got a glimpse into what life was like in AD79 and how they made things workl. Like these lead pipes.. still intact. That must have effected their health..  though their life span was already pretty short. 

Paulo told us about some of the subtleties of archeology used to pinpoint the date , season and even time of the eruption. This is a Pizza /bread oven that was goign during the eruption. the loaf got burnt.. but it preserved the stamp of II.. out of.set that had I,II, and III. from that archeologists figured that eruption happened early afternoon (I think) during the second baking of the day. . THe flour grinding stones where near by

Paulo is tied in to the new discoveries being made at the site. He showed us soem recent forensic work that shows facial reconstruction based on the shape of the casts and the skulls they contained. It was amazing to see these creconstructed faces

 

Paulo took us out of the most vistied part of the site to  places where we were often the only folks in sight. THat also speaks to the size of this place.. its a whole city !

This one villa had only recently been opened.. it was beautiful !

We learned that the ancient romans were pretty short.. so these spaces were more diane and linda sized

 

THe mosaic and fresco work is amazing and has just been opened to the public.. 

 

There wer soem great examples of forced perspective and  Trompe-l’œil.

We also saw a reconstructed garden where archeobotantanist  (is that a word).. reconstructed the type and placement of plants based on  plaster casts of their burnt roots

 

Here’s an ancient fast food restaurant  

 

We learned abotut he construction of the roads.. they were two siedwalks where b=people walked.. and a channel; in the middle where the romans through all their sewage. and waited for rain to carrry it away.. must have been a fragrant place..   THere were ruts where wagons went and stepping stones for people to cross the channel .   And frequent aateer spouts for peopl eand animale

And like everyhere.. this good luck sign 

 

We visited two amphitheaters ,, one for music, one for plays.. and were told that the guides tease each other about trying to sign there. 

 

Then oit was time to go.. We said bye to Paulo and found luigi .. and headed off to Sorrento. 

Then on to Sorrento…

 

And thats where I need to change directions a bit.  I debated how much I should say here..  but decided to include this editorial, because I want to be honest.. 

We decided to go to Sorrento to check out the the famed beach and the legendary  Amalfi coast. If you look at them and guide books, they sound like paradise. I have to say, though  they were not for us. .. Or maybe it was that we were not for them . I’m sad to say this because I know many people love the place ..  

Our vacation to this point was in a small back country towns that were Quaint the people were friendly, and the prices were good.  The towns were friendly to tourists, but not completely about tourism.. 

Sorrento and the Amalfi coast were completely different.. While , they were physically beautiful. They were packed with so many people that it was very hard to enjoy the beauty.  every street was packed with shops  catering only to tourists . the food, though great, was very expensive.  We are devfiently small town people. 

The hilight of our days in Sorrento were the beautiful Airbnb we’d rented from Mariangela and the hiking trails we found that took us outside of the city. Indeed sorrento was much more fun and beutiful when viewed from a distance. 

OK.. that said.. here’s what we did. 

Our stay began at a nice restaurant on the beach. It had a sun deck where you could swim . The chef said he’d take care of us.. and chose food he thought we would like. The food was very  good and beautifully served .. though it turned out to be much(!)  more expensive than we expected.  

The highpoint of the meal.. even though it was a bit sad, was to saying goodbye to our driver and now good freidn Luigi. He has been such a wonderful companion for us. Not only is he an excellent driver.. but he is an excellent tour guide, our translator, our trip planner, our genological researcher , our social director , our counselor and our language coach 

((He taught me how to say:  Trentatré Trentini entrarono a Trento, tutti e trentatré, trotterellando .. which means 33 people from torento entered terento , all thirty three were trotting) 

We  had a short goodbye celibration including a short poem we wrote for him. We will never forget Luigi for his kindness  and for his skill. We hope to see him again soemtime.. you never know !

 

Luigi dropped us at our Sorrento adventure

 

It was pretty cool seeing vesuvious in the backdrop.. hope it doesn t\t blow its top druign our visit … (htats what diane is saying in this pic 🙂

 

If Pompee was the highpoint of the day.. then meetign up with my freidn Shmul and his family was the highpoint of the evening. Shmul lives in Israel and is one of my favorite peopl,e on the planet (and I’d say that even if he wasnt reading this 🙂 .. He and his lovely family have visted us here in VT>. Shul and I have met many places incluing a really great day in las vegas  which inclded and 8 mile run and a phil lesh show, he’d stayed with me and a coupel of other freinds in my moms house in massachuestes ..e ven though she was out of town.. and last year shmul and three other freidns and i rented a house in Betherl NY to see two nights of Phish shows.. Now, SHul was were in Sorrento for the holidays (between the days of the jewish new year). The fact that we overlapped was a complete coincidence. We met up at a nice tratoria they found and had a wonderful eveing catching up .. and introducing  Shmul, his wife Karen and their kids Noah, Tamar , and Aaaf to  Linda and David . It was so great catching up !

 

we walked down to the water. .then went back and slept great.. 

it had been a busy day !

nioe all, nite sam

-me

Like alll our days so far in Marano Marchesato (Maraschino Cherry as we call it) Today started  with cats and a short run among the hills of the village

Luigi came ’round at 9AM and we headed to the cast. Our destination today was the town of Fiumefreddo Bruzio which is the closest point on the Tyrrhennian Sea to us.  Fieumefreddo is another city divided into two parts. Lower Fiumefreddo is a beach village with lots of restaurants, a nice long beach and lots of hotels.. The upper villiage is an ancient fort city.. kind of a standard pattern around here it seems.

 

First stop was the nbeach. The water was clear and cold.. we didn’t go in.. but stood in the water a bit. What was amazing abotu the place was the variety of colors in the pebbles on the beach.. unlike anything I’ ver seen.. bright greens, yellows reds.. that sparkeldwhen wet.. and looked like rocks when dry.. and evidently when photographed 🙂 

 

Here’.. let me play with the colors a bit.. Here’s what my iphoen camera captured

 

and here’s moe like what we saw

 

Similarly before and after

 

I put this near the wterline and watched it get taken by the sea.. felt good/sad

 

we walked for a bit then headed back to find luigi

 

The road up tthe old city was curvy, narrow and  steep., I tr4ied to get some pics.. Not too successfully.. There was this local take on the  ‘Christ the redeemer’ statue in rio

The old city was a medieval fortress surrounded by a  wall, with narrow streets and alleys and a crumbling castle.. Like every place we’ve. gone in this country.. I think the US should invest more in Crumbling castles. 

This one is from 1200s if I recall correctly

here’s the view up one of the old chimneys

 

Luigi met us up at the castle with  his good friend Fabio. THey met back in college and have stayed close ever since. He’s a super nice guy .. he showed us around the town.. 

 

We came across this great square with a beutiful view of the ocean

We were surprised to see this on one of the church buildings essentialy read ‘The Mafia cannot enter here’

We ate  at a really  nice ‘slow foods’ place that also associated with a wholistic breasty cancer center ‘La Casa di Rosa’

 

Interestingly that poster was just near this one 🙂

 

We all got combo antipasta plates.. vegitarian for us. They were so tasty !

 

These folks were militantly healthy

 

It was time to go.. so we all said good bye to Fabio and headed for the van

 

We got back to our place in Marano Marchesato in time to meet our hosts family. including Juri , His very pregnant wife and their 2 year old son Gianfranco

 

AN our neigbor came by to say hi too (I think thats what she said) 

 

This evening we met Luigi for a light pizza dinner at a place near his B&B.. It was  a really nice place.. with a  different spin on pizza than I’d ever seen: eg pistachio and potatoe pixza.. and they weren’t even  trying to be fancy..  

One surprise  was that I managed to break two differnt chairs while I was eating. Must be all the pasta !

 

then it was time to go home

 

full day !

niote all, nite sam

-me

  We were greeted  this morning by the zillion cats when we opened the door.. they are sweet and pretty much leave us alone.. though  they have tried (unsuccessfully) sneaking into the house a few times.  Diane and I started the day with a nice run through the countryside .

Today was our main family history day for Linda. Luigi picked us about about 9 and We made the hour and 15 minute drive to  the town of Tiriolo , Calabria where Linda’s  Maternal grandmother and great grandparents were  born .

Tiriolo is a very cute mountain town that seems to be divided into two layers.. the lower town., which has all the commercial stuff, and the upper town which is an ancient walled city with very narrow streets and alleys, very  few cars and beautiful old houses crammed together on top of each other.  

First stop was the lower city to get our bearings and find the municipal office. We didn’t have as much info on Linda’s family and figured we could do a little research on the spot. The lower town was beautiful in its own way. The mountain air was cool and fresh  and the views were amazing in all directions . 

 

We found the municipal offices  and went in to show them the genealogy that I’d helped Linda pull together for her maternal grandmother over the last couple of days. 

 

Luigi acted as interpreter  as we explained to the records clerk about the people we were looking for.   (He’s been so  much more than a driver for us !  With  him it’s been a much richer  trip !)

 

 

 

The clerk was really helpful and quickly found the records for Lindas grandparents and Great-grandparents.

 

We found so much info so quickly ! Dates, names, addresses, Linda was so excited  and happily overwhelmed

 

 

We went outside to a cafe and planned out how we’d go find some of the places that linda and luigi had identified, as well as a few more questions to ask the clerk. I   We created a subset  of Lindas a family tree to guide our search. We also had soem wonderful pasteries and this awesome coffee ice cream thing.. life here is not bad !

 

also started the process of searching contemporary phone records maybe finding a few living relatives still in town. There’s were a zillion folks still here with Linda’s family names of Badalato/Badolato , Morgentini,  Cuturo, etc. 

 

From here, the four of us started the long hike up to the old town.. Luigi stayed behind to wait… and (as uyou will see) kept busy himself !

 

We kept seeign these faces of a man with his tongue out.. I think they we’re used to scare evil spirits away.. maybe baby even spirits ? THye were kinda cute actually

 

At the very top we found the location of the house.. more like THE house where lLnda’s grandpparents had lived in the early part of the 20th century

 

Across the square (whihc was the size of 2 cars 🙂 was the church that Linda’s family must have attended

 

(Yes .. it snows here !)

The church looked locked up.. but one of the doors was unlocked, so we let ourselves in. It was so cool being in the place that was important to Linda’s family back who-knows how many generations

 

Linda was lighting a candle for her family when David found soemthign very cool: a pew donated by Linda’s family.. THat was soooo cool . !

 

there were some pretty cool and funky paintings on the walls. check out the devil in the details here

 

We found a staircase that went up to a bacony.. kinda cobwebby but very cool

 

Interesting stained glass too.. .. shades of the little mermaid !

 

It was interesting letting ourselves  into  this church with  no one else  around. It reminded me of when I was in high school and first taught myself to pick locks. I’d sometime go and let myself in to the Episcopal Church down our street (where i’d been in nursery school) .. I’d just go in and sit quietly.. never did anything. This adventure gave me the same sense of “peaceful mischief”     

We then set out to find the street where Linda’s great grandpaernts lived.. didnt have to go far.. it too was just across the street.. We didn’t have a house number, but there were only about 12 houses.. so we must have walked by the one. 

We followed the narrow alleys up to the ruins of a middle ages castle.. that dated from early in the 11th century (!)

 

The view from up there was really spectacular !  and the whole place was full of scraggly mint plants and flowers.. 

 

 

We started getting hungry so we headed back to the 21st century  and found a great restaurant .. (the ONLY one in the old city.. if Google is to be believed !) 

The restaurant is called Ristorante due Mari because your can see  across the ‘instep’ of the boot of italy two the two seas:  to the Northwest the Tyrrhenian sea (yes.. isnt that ‘yrrh’ in there cool ?!?!)  and to the southeast the Mediterranean  sea. 

 

The restaurant was so great. incredible view and incredible food. pickeld onion compote (not sure thats the right word). and anchovy garlic pasta for me

 

 

1. Midway through lunch we got a whatsapp from Luigi.. Turns out hwe’d been using his time to further research Linda’s  family with the help of the guy at the municipal office. By way of that he found a distant cousin of Lindas named Franco who runs a bar in the lower town with his son Giuseppe !. 

Franco still owns the house in the old city where Lindas Great-great grandfather Giuseppe  Badalato once lived !

We made our way down the step set of stairs and alleys down to the lower tan to meet Lindas Kin !

On the way we met a woman and her kid cleanign out a wine barrel from their basement wine making

Even the modern lower town was charming.. we foudn soem wall murals done by someone with Lindas family name

 

We found the Time  Out  bar  easily and met Linda’s brand new (to her) cousins Franco and Giuseppe

Even though they weren’t related to us.. they felt like family to us as well !

Eventually Franco had to run.. we all said goodbye and headed back to the van

 

What a day !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Went for a quick run this morning.. CHecked out two shrines just a 100 or so meters up from the house. This one says If you stand in the right place you’ll see the apparition of the Virgin Mary. Ilalians really love Mary. 

 

Heres a view from here of a nearby town… 

 

And here’s a protrait of an even more nearby chicken.. our neighbor

 

Luigi  picked us up at 9.. but couldn’t leave  just yet because the wash machine was still working. We got on the road  to Pizzo about 10.. and as always in cars.. I fell fast asleep .instantly . 
I woke near pizzo and looked around.. same wonderful scenery of hill villages

 

Our first stop was the  Chiesseta di Piedgrotta that we found in several places. The fact that it was in Atlas Obscura is always a good sign for us. 

The Chiesetta (little  church) was carved out of a limestone cliff rThe story it was based on an old story of 17th century sailors who prayed to mary during a storm and promised to build a church their if their lives were spared.. There’s no record  of the real wreck.. but the story inspired a  ia  local sculpture beginning to begin carving out a cave church there beginning in the 1880’s.. When he died in 1919, his son took over and kept expanding the church and its sculptures for about 40 years. After that the place became abandoned. The sign said that during this time a bot or boys broke in and broke many of the statues.(. not sure why they assumed it was boys !.. not girls)   . In the 1990’s (I think) an Italian sculptor  living in Canada came hoe for a visit.. fell in love with the story and moved here and began renevating the place.

It was really cool and wierd.. the statues are carved out of the same rock that the cave is made out of.. You have to appreciate the deotion all these folks had to making this place possioble

 

FRom there we drove up into the city center. First order of busienss was food !. Luigi helped us find this really great place ‘La Lampara’   

The cook was Paulo and he used to live in LA. He took really good care of us .. He modified the dishes to our preferences and explained how he adjusted the cooking times to make the pasta perfect (it was !) every time .  I had ravioli  with fish , great salad and veggies. Linda had wonderful pasta  with local tomaties and david had seafood pasta.. really wonderful food. 

 

Then we took around the very cute (and touristy) seaside town of Pizzo

 

 

THere qwas a very famos family named ‘Murat’ here.. so I took a bunmch of pics for my very good freind Murat in Wien . 

 

Then we stopped for the towns famous gelato.. there are more than 20 gelato places around the town square. Their specialty is a kind of gelato truffle. 

 

By then it was time to go find luigi and head home. We enjoyed walkign down the narrow streets

 

we kept seeign this figure of a kings head (>) wiht his toungue out.. not sure what it meant.. but there must have been 4-5 of them

 

We found Luigi.. and headed back to Maino Marchesata with a stop in a huge grocery store. It was so fun tring to make ourselves understood.. The staff at the store were so fun and helpful even though we didnt share a common language. We were looking for soemthing weird to drink.. and I came across this bottle of Fernet-Branci (or “frikky Bernachi” as Gabe and I call it.. brings back memories of our accidental trip to paraquay  several years ago where we baught a bottle of this stuff.. YUCK !)

 

We also bought a great cheese, Tellegio,  that. brought back great memories of  good friends and  good travel in e when I was an exchange student in Europe in 1979-80.

We got home and were still too full to consider dinner. We made a nice salad and sat outside and watched night fall wiht the neighbors many (many, many) cats. 

We tool a late evening walk back up to see the church.. it’s a nice place to alk around..

 

we went by the Mary shrine again

 

Later that night I decided I wanted to go for a swim. It turns out the owners want you to where bathing caps.. whcih is funny.. for two reasons.. 1). my head is where I have the least hair on my body.. and 2).. they didn’t say you needed to where anything else :

Well.. at least my head had something on 🙂 

Nite all, nite sam

-me