Hoist up the Sails

We arrived back to Marina di Ragusa where our boat resided for the winter. We spent a couple of weeks of cleaning, waxing, polishing, buying supplies, fixing minor repairs, more waxing and polishing, blowing up the tender and all the other myriad of things required to get the boat ready for the summer. The pictures are of one of the winches. We have to strip every gear apart and relube them every couple of years. We set sail on May 15 to officially begin the summer season. It is so amazing to be back on the boat. It feels like home the minute we hoist the sails and punch in our destination for the day into the navigation system. We hop along the southern coast and then turn northwest up through the Straits of Messina. The towns along the shores are ones we are familiar with and have spent the last summer exploring. Porto Paulo, Syracuse, Catania, Taromina and Messina all bring back memories of past trips. Finally at Messina, we say our goodbyes to Sicily and head to the Italian mainland. Sicily may be a part of Italy, but it is not Italy. The culture and people are remarkable different. Our first stop on the mainland is Tropea, one of my favorite towns in the south. Built on a flat plateau that plunges hundreds of feet into the sea below, this town has charm and character that has aged well through the centuries. The shops and stores rise straight up from the sheer cliffs, bleeding directly into the cliffs to the point that it becomes difficult to distinguish where the cliff ends and the town begins. It is like a water color painting that the color of the houses on top have run down into the cliffs below. After climbing 200 steps to get to the top of the bluff, you are rewarded with stone-block streets, small shops, wonderful food and yes, beautiful Italians. Italians seem to have this Jackal/Hyde nature about them. I have pulled into ports and the local fishermen have jumped up and down telling me I have no right to dock my boat in there harbor and they will call the authorities if I even think about staying there for the night. But when asked where I should go, they will smile and say “Oh just stay where you are, no one will care.” You see men on the street passionately arguing with each other nose to nose with only inches separating them and then a moment later, the argument is forgotten and full embracing hugs are wrapped around each other. They glory in the noble history of the ruins of a once great civilization, but have no problem defacing those same historical treasures with adolescent graffiti. The men are flashy and pay fastidious attention to their clothes, with just the right shoes, just the fitted shirt and the perfect pants, yet leave their cars unwashed and trashed for weeks. The women are also dressed to the nines even when they have no particular place to go. Short skirts worthy of a prom flashing shapely legs, 6 inch stilettos and lots of glam are typical outfits to go get pizza in the early evening. They can’t go anywhere without sparkling. The children are spoiled rotten, challenging their parents with foot stomping statements and defiant looks and the next minute wrapping arms around whoever is walking next to them. I love Italy with all it’s Janus-like contradictions. It is good to be back on the mainland.

Turning Heads in Turin

Today is Palm Sunday, and while Italians don’t carry around palm fawns, they do carry around olive branches. I think it is just an indigenous way of acknowledging the same event Italian style. We decide to take a train to Turin from Bologna. But on this particular day, the trains are on some kind of strike. The first train we planned to take left the station without letting any passengers on board. So we cross our fingers, and cross platforms in hopes the next one decides to take passengers. The train is there at the platform, but no one knows if the engineer is going to actually take on passengers. The closer to the departure time, more religious the people on the platform become. Some blessing the train tracks with their olive branches, some content with the traditional signing of the cross, and some going with the never fails, I hope, crossing of the fingers. While waiting, we form a little bond with our fellow travelers. An Italian who is clearly used to this kind of behavior says, “It’s Italy” which for her explains everything. Ten minutes after it was suppose to debark, the doors swish open and the platform people swarm aboard before the engineer changes his mind. But the blessing does not cease until the creak of the wheels are heard. Then in unison, everyone breathes once again. As grand as I thought Bologna was, Turin manages to trump. This is a city with grand palazzos, one right after the other. For me, the most impressive building and one of the most interesting I have ever seen is the Mole Antonelliana, an amazing structure built in the 1800’s. Originally it was commissioned by the Jewish community to be a grand synagogues. But somewhere along the way, the architect and cost got so out of hand that the Jewish community withdrew from the project. The citizens of the city were so enthralled with the building that the city took over the project and completed it after the death of the architect to its now grandeur. They weren’t quite sure what to do with this building, however, but after a few tries at different uses, it settled in to becoming a magnificent museum of the cinema. And it is magnificent. As big as any Cecil B. DeMill extravaganza. We spent hours in there, and still felt like we were rushed. One of the things I really wanted to see was the Shroud of Turin. Perhaps the most well known medieval relic, it was purported to be the actually burial shroud of Jesus. It first appeared in the 1400’s. People have been trying to figure out it’s authensity every since. In 1988, however the myth was exploded when carbon dating came back proving that it was no older than the 12th century. Of course, those that have it dispute those findings and still cling on to it’s authenticity. Seeing it proved to be as illusive as determining its legitimacy. We went by the museum 3 times and always it was closed. I knew that the original is rarely put on display, so in the end, we never got to see it or the copy that is on display. I know, kind of sad.

A Slice of Bologna

A couple of years ago, I read a novel that took place in Bologna. Every since then, I have been interested in the tall medieval towers built in the 13th century. It seems like the wealthy families at the time wanted to show off their wealth in a very visible way. The towers stood as a symbol of a family’s power and influence, the higher the tower the more influential a family was. They also served as safe havens and lookout spots for a nervous aristocracy. Perhaps the best known tower in Bologna is Torre degli Asinelli, which stretches 97.20 meters into the sky and leans by two meters. Between the 12th and the 13th century, the number of towers in the city was very high, possibly up to 180. During their heyday, there were high aerial bridges connecting important families together so that they never had to actually go down to the streets below where all the “little people” lived. How strange it must have been to see this far off city in the 13th century that looked more like modern Manhattan than a medieval town. While we were there, we visited a museum. There was a painting with a small detail of what Bolonga looked like at the time. You can see from the painting that some of the towers were already starting to lean. Of the numerous towers originally present, fewer than twenty can still be seen today. The other amazing architectural feature of Bologna is the amazing number of porticoes walkways connecting the city together. There are over 38 kilometers of these covered walkways. You can virtually walk to any part of this amazing city under these grand covered walkways. It’s a great city to visit even during a rainy day. It all seems so civilized. I am not much into collecting souvenirs when I travel. It seems more like you are collecting dust rather than memories. And the boat has only so much shelf space. But one of my favorite things to collect is taking local cooking classes. So Steve and I signed up for a morning cooking class. When we arrived, we were the only ones whose native language was English. The class started in Italian. That was going to be a problem. So the instructor switched to basic English. You know the type that occasionally his word choices were a bit hilarious. It turns out everyone spoke some English. And when we didn’t quite understand what was being said, someone was more than happy to help us out. We ended up learning how to do a 7 course Italian meal starting with appetizers that were amazing, made our own pasta and sauce, and finished with dessert. It was both amazingly helpful and delicious. We got to eat all of our creations at the end of the class. It is going to be a bit difficult to make any of the dishes on the boat because of so many special ingredients and the space to spread out. Rolling out pasta along takes up more than the counter space I have on the boat. But I can’t wait to get home and try mastering each and every savory dish. Yummm. While we were there a special exhibit of Dutch masters was going on. The superstar of the collection is Vermeer’s “The Girl with the Pearl Earring”. And it is a masterpiece. It originally sold at auction in 1881, almost 200 years after Vermeer’s death for 2 Guilders 30 cents. That is less than a dollar. How did a painting that was once considered almost worthless rise to become one of the world’s most treasured works of art?

Bards and Balconies.

After a winter in San Francisco, we once again find ourselves back on our adventure. We flew back to Milan, but instead of spending more time in the city, we took a train to Verona just a little over an hour southeast of Milan. The city of Verona is, of course, home of the legendary Romeo and Juliet. And though this famous work by Shakespeare may be factious, the opportunity to catch romantic tourists is not. So of course Verona has the famous balcony of Juliet as well as her sarcophagus, though they are not located in the same building claiming to be the family home of the Capula. If someone could explain that to me, I would love to understand. But then again, how do you have an authentic sarcophagus of a fictional character. It is rumored that the legend did have its origins in fact, but Romeo was really Pietro, a handsome clerk from Florence. Juliet was born in Venice, the daughter of wealthy Bartolomeo Cappello. They fell in love and Pietro whisked her off to Florence when they were only 15. However, she did not get on well with her husband's family, who were very poor. They both died on the same day, possibly poisoned, or as some historians believe, from malarial fever. While Shakespeare may not have gotten it all historically right in the story, he did write one of the most beloved plays in history, which is all it really takes to make Verona residents happy that they have something to draw the gold coins from those making pilgrimages of love to their fair city. Verona itself is a beautiful walled renaissance city that still retains much of it’s glorious past. It is built along the banks of a fast moving river that almost completely loops around it. At one time, the homes and shops had beautiful frescos painted that covered the outside walls. Now only a few fragments remain. In the central plaza however there is a beautiful example that still remains. This must have been a very prosperous city at a time when artistry was valued and enriched the citizens every day life.