Marta's Lungolago

A stroll along any lungomare (a landscaped street and park-like walkway along the seashore) on the Italian coast isn't the only way to enjoy a passeggiata. There are equally beautiful lungolagos along Italy's magnificent lakes. A couple of lakes are better known thanks to a Hollywood couple that got married in the castle on Lago Bracciano (thanks Tom and Katie) or another popular American actor who purchased a villa on Lago Como (thanks George). Nevertheless, warm weather attracts Italians and international travelers alike who crowd the roadways, restaurants and bars trying to escape the cities.

So before the onslaught of summer tourists arrived we recently made two trips to the nearby village of Marta that sits on the southern bank of Lago Bolseno; one trip just to walk around and explore and the second for Sunday pranzo and another stroll. Nothing defines the Italian concept of “la famiglia” like watching children, parents and grandparents together walking, playing, eating gelato and just enjoying being together along the lungolago.

Che bello...buona passeggiata!

INNAMORATA

Orvieto is drop dead gorgeous.

We arrive early Thursday before the morning fog has lifted. The medieval city seems to be rising from the clouds. The fog burns off and the sun lights the piazzas with bright morning light.

Market day in Piazza del Popolo finds nonnas shuffling along the cobbled streets pulling their market carts behind them and housewives hustling to get their shopping done. We sit in a caffe' in the piazza, watching the Orvietiani go about their market shopping. One of the cheese vendors has no less than 8 kinds of Peccorino (sheep) cheese, from bone dry to mozzarella fresh, each type labeled with the exact locality of it's production. A grandfather parks his grandson's stroller at the vegetable vendor and picks up a red pepper the size of a football. He dangles it above his grandson, asking “what color is this?” Next, he tries an eggplant, then a green pepper, then other veggies and fruits...teasing and entertaining the toddler while nonna does the serious business of buying today's dinner.

Except for marveling at the intricate the stonework of Orvieto's amazing Duomo,we didn't do any touristy stuff...no museums, cathedrals, underground tours. Today we just wandered the streets and piazzas, admiring pretty lace curtains and flower boxes, taking pictures of doors and windows, laughing as we got caught up in a herd of middle-school kids in neon-yellow caps on a field trip. The city is delightfully empty of tours and tourists. Lilacs in full bloom, so fragrant, they perfume the entire street. Stuffed zuchini flowers and truffled pasta in the garden terrace of a tiny restaurant make a romantic lunch. Nothing is urgent. Life here is slow...alert...fresh...content.

Leaving Orvieto in the late afternoon sunlight is just as breathtaking as arriving in the fog..The beauty of the sun's reflection on the rocky plateau on which Orvieto sits is overwhelming. I feel light-headed...like breathing pure oxygen. I want to stay here....near this place. I don't feel like I need to travel all over the country anymore. I want to return to these places often...these towns in Upper Lazio, Umbria, Southern Tuscany... discovering and rediscovering all the nooks and crannies. I don't want to go far.

Do you know what this feels like? It feels like falling in love. When you've dated for years...then you find the right person, and you just want to know all there is to know about him. The others become less and less important. All you want is to know everything there is to know about the special one.

That's what it feels like living here.

THEIR DAYS ARE NUMBERED

35 years ago, when we first lived in Pozzuoli (part of Metropolitan Naples), I was surprised by how little trash and garbage individual households generated and how trash was collected. Naples has never been a trash-free city and labor strikes by sanitation workers have left garbage piled 12 feet high in the streets. That said, on trash collection days our Italian neighbors would put out one small bag of stuff compared to our multiple bags of garbage and trash. Years ago we learned to deposit trash in those big, ugly, roadside bins. Today, thanks to the recycling movement, the number (and color) of trash bins has increased with a greater mix of overflowing plastic, cardboard, metal and organic refuse.

Nevertheless, I think Italians traditionally “recycled” long before the movement became fashionable simply because they didn’t waste much. They fed their dogs and cats leftovers; glass bottles were saved for preserving tomatoes; cans were used for starting seedling plants; and, vegetable peels, coffee grinds, egg shells, etc. was composted for the garden. Today urban Italians’ consumption habits have changed as they shifted (unfortunately) from home grown/homemade to manufactured foods and products resulting in more disposable plastic, glass and metal packaging and containers that have added to the collection problems.

This week our landlord arrived at our apartment door with three large plastic recycling containers. He explained in detail the pick-up schedule…Tuesdays and Fridays - organic garbage; Mondays – paper and cardboard; Wednesdays – metal and plastic; and Thursday - glass. The good news is that starting May 3^rd, those big, ugly street bins will no longer line the streets of Soriano. The bad news is we have to find space in our tiny, one bedroom apartment for those three containers and lug them up and down the stairs several times a week.

Currently we deposit our trash every day in those ugly bins. Starting in May we will be required to keep garbage for several days and recycling for up to a week. We can rinse the recyclables before bagging and storing them in their respective bins but organic garbage will be a challenge…I guess we’ll be cooking with less garlic and fewer onions.

MISTRESS OF THE VATICAN

I love to read. So you'd think I'd be a good candidate for book groups. But I'm not. I've never found a book group that selected the kinds of books I wanted to read...books about Italy: fiction set in Italy, memoires of people who live in Italy, historical fiction set in the Renaissance, ancient Rome, World War I and II, the Venetian Republic, biographies of historical Italian's...you get the idea.

Last year I read The Mistress of the Vatican by Eleanor Herman. Herman is a historian, who wrote about the life of Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili, sister-in-law to Pope Innocent X. Olimpia was an ambitious and manipulative woman. After the death of her rich husband, she used her weak and indecisive brother-in-law to gain additional wealth and power in 17^th century Rome by providing the political strategies and tactics needed to ascend to the papacy. It was also rumored that she was the pope’s mistress, in addition to being his primary advisor; but there’s no hard evidence. As a result of Olimpia's reputation of her relationship with the Pope, she eventually left Rome to spend the remainder of her life in the hill town of San Martino al Cimino, given to her by Pope Innocent X.

A few days ago we visited San Martino nel Cimino after reading the description in the Blue Guide to Central Italy; something sounded vaguely familiar. According to the Blue Guide, “San Martino al Cimino is a village which was entirely rebuilt in the 17^th century by Donna Olimpia Maidalchini-Pamphili, when she was given the principate by her brother-in-law in gratitude for her help in having him elected Pope Innocent X.” Seems like the Blue Guide left out all the good stuff.

Not only was Donna Olimpia a skilled political advisor, she had an eye for urban planning, architecture and landscaping…a true Renaissance woman! San Martino al Cimino is nothing like the old medieval walled towns with their narrow, dark streets and vicoli (alleys). Olimpia had the new walled hilltop town designed with wide streets and boulevards that provided the attached houses with ample daylight and panoramic views of the fertile valleys below. She made sure the streets were lined with ornamental trees that added color and softened the hard stone paved streets and stucco faced houses. Several large landscaped piazzas provide larger open spaces which are supplemented by smaller piazzas with public fountains and large shade trees. The entre urban composition speaks volumes to Olimpia’s many talents and intellect that brought a better life to the cittadini (citizens of the city).

By all accounts Donna Olimpia Maidalchini-Pamphili was a demanding, tough and very unlikeable woman; but she knew how to get things done. It would be great to travel back in time and spend an afternoon sitting under one of those trees in the piazza with Donna Olimpia, sipping wine and listening to her side of the story.

F.Y.I – We share the writing and editing. Bill writes about the substantive, architectural, and historical stuff and Carol writes all the fluffy stuff. This particular post is based on Carol’s reading of the book, a little additional research by Bill and our brief tour of San Martino. In other words: Carol = chiacchierone and Bill = maestro.

THOSE SCARVES

Spring, la primavera, has arrived in the beautiful hill towns of Alto Lazio. Dozens of shades of green appear up and down the hillsides, as trees and plants begin their annual display. Purple and white irises are popping up in the most uncultivated of places, as if they were wildflowers and window boxes and sidewalk planters are bursting with spring flowers. I'm not immune to Spring Fever and was compelled to plant a few pink and red geraniums (and a basil plant) in the concrete planters on the condominium terrace outside our kitchen window.

The people who live here are justifiably proud of the fresh air at this altitude of about 1,000 meters. Indeed, it is one of many places to which the Romans escape on hot summer weekends. But spring takes it's time up here and we’re still wearing scarves.

I used to think that those scarves Italians wrapped around their throats, twisted and knotted into chic and elaborate shapes, were simply affectations...pure fashion. Whenever I tried to wear a scarf at home, it seemed like a useless accessory…decorative rather than functional. But, since I have been here, I haven’t left the house without one. Not one of those heavy woolly mufflers that Americans wear in a snowstorm. I mean a lightweight, colorful pashmina kind of multi-tasking flowy type scarf.

No one leaves their house without one of these around their neck, because everyone walks. And they hate drafts, believing they can cause all kinds of maladies. And from one step to the next, from one street to the next, the temperature, the wind, the sunshine, the cloud-cover changes the temperature dramatically. One minute, I'm strolling along, basking in the warmth of the sunshine, then I'll step through an archway into a narrow vicola where castle turrets block the sun and its bone-chilling cold. Or the clouds will move in and the wind will attack from several directions and whip my hair into a tangled nest. Then I'll reach the top of the hill where the road switches back downhill, the wind subsides and the clouds part to let the sunshine through making the air calm again. I just whip that scarf on and off and ward off all manner of Italian ills!

On a recent overcast morning, we toured the 16^thcentury Castello Ruspoli in the nearby town of Vignanello. In the 9^th century a fortified Benedictine monastery was located on the site that the castle currently occupies. A series of Italian noble families lived here starting with the ancient Roman family of Marius Scotus (later the Italian Marescotti) to the Farnese, Orsini and Ruspoli families. My family tree goes back to the mid 1860s; the Ruspoli family tree starts in 798 A.D.

The first floor contains a chapel, large hall and quarters for the guards and horses. The large wooden gears used to raise and lower the entry draw bridges are still visible and the walls are decorated with ancient weapons. The castle’s second floor houses a museum containing the family’s furnishings and ancestral portraits; a couple of apartments are still maintained by Prince Claudio and Princess Giada Ruspoli. I was struck by an ominous sense of what it must have been like to live within this dark, prison-like place where all the surfaces were cold, hard stone with few windows to the outside.

The 17th century gardens are a graceful relief from the spartan ambiance of the castle's interior. The box hedges, fountain and old trees offer stunning contrasts to the patchwork textures and colors of the weathered, moss covered grey stone walls. Having the entire garden to ourselves, we walked around for an hour getting a sense of how those old noble families grew so attached to this place of contradictions - violence versus peace, force versus grace, past versus present...tutti e tutto Italianissimo.

Making Appointments

Growing up I never understood why my family always had difficulty making plans – whose house would be the gathering place for holidays or celebrations, etc. When invited a couple of months in advance to our house for Thanksgiving, relatives would respond with “we’ll see”. Now that we’re living here, I think I’m gaining some insights into what I always thought was my family’s strange behavior. Here in Italy I see certain nuances in the precision and social protocols for “making plans”…appointments. Within the last few weeks we made several types of appointments: one official (at the Questura); one quasi-official (with our landlord); and, one social (with a friend).

Our posting Friends in High Places described how quickly and efficiently we scheduled our appointments at the Questura for our Permessi di Soggiorno. Our “official” appointments were unambiguously scheduled for precisely 10:50 and 10:55 last Friday. In typical American fashion, we allowed for traffic and parking, arrived and were seated in the waiting area by 9:30. Arriving early with written confirmations in hand was no guarantee that we wouldn’t have to wait. But keeping in mind the Four Rules, we were prepared for whatever happened. The police officer began processing our papers 10 minutes early and we were done and out the door in 30 minutes…amazing by any standard.

Scheduling to meet (quasi-officially) with our landlord was far less efficient and precise. Our purpose was to exchange an expensive espresso machine (the type that uses those little capsules instead of real coffee) for an electric broom (a Dust Buster with a long handle). It took several days and several phone calls to establish a mutually convenient time and make the exchange because our landlord’s daily routine (home for lunch and an afternoon rest) is different from our routine (out and exploring all afternoon). Perhaps this was a case where both parties were trying to be overly accommodating and polite…better Italian-style courtesy than American-style abruptness. Eventually it worked out.

Our third appointment involved meeting an Italian friend for a casual drink. Again, attempting to be marginally efficient (but not quite multi-tasking), we tried to establish an exact meeting time after completing a few domestic errands. The closest we got was his suggestion that we call him when our errands were done on the afternoon that we agreed to meet. Apparently, anything more precise gave our appointment a higher level of social importance than necessary. This way there was no stress, offenses or hurt feelings if either party cancelled in favor of a preferred or more important engagement. Our friendship remains undamaged and life goes on.

The Italian approach to making and keeping appointments might be the cultural basis of my family’s curious “we’ll see” approach to making plans for Thanksgiving. Then there’s the entirely separate subject of the Italian concept of “being on time”…another future posting.

Belated Buona Pasqua

It's taken many unsuccessful attempts but here some slides of what we've seen in the first few weeks. I started trying to upload last Thursday, but the slow and weak signals and the fact that all the school kids have been on their home computers from Friday through today, it's impossible to get a connection. Turn up the sound on you computer and enjoy...Buona Pasqua!

Linguistically Challenged

Mostly, I listen. I listen for familiar words and phrases, for the rhythm and cadence of the language, for idiomatic expressions and exclamations! I've been listening for almost 10 years…attending Italian classes…albiet 2 hours a week of studying grammar, reading articles, trying to string 2 or 3 sentences together and learning to roll the r's. I listen to (and watch) the same episodes of Italian TV soap operas over and over and over on my computer, until the characters seem like real people in my life. I listen to songs by Laura Pausini, Andrea Bocelli and others who sing in Italian, attempting to understand what the hell they were singing about. I have watched and listened to countless hours of RAI Telegiornale, to the point of knowing the Italian politicians and their scandals!

I listen. And I understand. Capisco. But speaking is not coming easily. I want to speak correctly. I know how to conjugate the verbs, how to use the pronouns...even combine them…hello!!...glielo!! … but I just can't seem to get the words out. Everyone advises me to “...just talk. Don’t worry about the correct verb form”. But I was doing that 10 years ago. I'm not making progress here! I'm afraid that if I keep talking in the present tense and broken sentences that I will never improve.

Part of the problem is that Italians talk very fast. They also listen very fast. They can’t wait for me to get out all of the words that I need to say what I mean. It's hard to have a conversation when everyone wants to finish my sentences. And it doesn't help me get comfortable wrapping my tongue around all the syllables. Another part of the problem is that I spend too much time thinking of how to say something, instead of following the conversation. In a nutshell, I don’t speak spontaneously.

For years, I've been telling myself that my speaking ability would improve if only I could spend a few months in Italy, speaking only Italian. Well, here I’m…and I feel like I'm regressing. I get tongue tied and my brain is functioning on a 7 second delay.

The other day, I poked my head out the kitchen window to say “buon giorno” to the woman who was out on the terrazzo below. The apartment has been empty during the week but occupied on weekends (actually, this is only our second weekend). So I said buon giorno and was surprised by her response. Instead of a pleasant reply, she was telling me that I couldn't use the laundry drying rack outside my window because it hung over her terrace. She went on to say that they'd be eating out on the terrazzo, that I should move the rack to another window, where it wouldn't disturb their meals. I don't use the rack anyway, because it's kind of flimsy, but it works for a dish towel or something lightweight.

I was speechless. I understood completely what she was saying, but the only words that came out were “ va bene,va bene” and “OK, non problema”, even as proper responses swirled through my brain, such as:

“The landlord hung the rack here. I can ask him to move it.”

“ It won't be a problem since I don't hang dripping laundry from here anyway.”

“ We've just been here a few weeks, and I haven't had the pleasure. Hi, I'm Carol , what's your name? Are you here for weekends only, or all the time? “

This is simply not going well. It's been 3 weeks already and I'm still not fluent!