Heading to the Heel of Italy

During my Junior College years at Monterey Peninsula College Mr. Nada, the language lab director, used to advise us to learn these 4 important phrases in any language.

Where is the Toilet?

How much does this cost?

I didn't do it!

He did it!

I would probably differ on 2 of those phrases and the point being learning basic words in the language of your travel destination is one of the keys to smooth traveling.

It helps to know the word for Strike in different languages - Italian "Sciopero" - French "Greve". You could spend a lot of time waiting for a train that ain't gonna come if you can't read what is posted.

One of our longer train rides, 11 hours with 2 train changes, was suddenly altered by this powerful, slicing word - Sciopero.

We rebooked a new train taking us from Assisi to Foligno (8 hour wait) then to Rome and a midnight ride down to the heel. I love the Italian boot description since that's what I am living in these days, boots.

To while away 8 hours we found a great palazzo to visit and admired their current Lego exhibits. Each one of the 5 different scenes were to be appreciated for the team vision, creativity and hard work. No one takes on a project like this unless they LOVE Legos.

The change in plans also gave us a once in a lifetime opportunity to share a 4 bed-sleeper compartment with total strangers.

Sweet Dreams-a top bunk bed pulls down with an attached ladder.

Lecce - Puglia region

We headed to Lecce which is known for its highly decorative and theatrical churches -Baroque style.

I tend to like simple and this was overwhelmingly not simple. I needed time to absorb all the heavy confection that was dripping down the cathedral windows, doors, walls and niches.

We took a tour with Sara, an archaeologist, who shared her learnings and insight into Lecce's importance in the Baroque history and Lecce's archaeological importance.

Why Baroque? Glad you asked.

In response to the austere Protestant Reformation the Roman Catholic Church needed a comeback after losing worshippers. They felt that showing off their wealth would be just the trick. Baroque was their theatrical answer to represent the glory of God by inviting people to experience direct, emotional involvement via ornamentation, worshipping close to the altar in large domed spaces connecting the heavens and earth to stimulate piety and devotion.

We are left with amazing art from the Baroque era with the artistic vision of Caravaggio, Rubens, Velazquez, Rembrandt and Bernini, many supported by the church and wealthy benefactors requesting religious works that expressed the dramatic intensity key to Baroque.

Experts suggest that opera was Baroque's most important musical invention.

Our tour group with Sara, our guide.

Apulians to the north and Messapians to the south. Stuck in the middle with You(ssef)

Alberobello, Locorotondo, Matera, Monopoli, Gallipoli, Ostuni, Santa Maria di Leuca, Castro, Taranto. Names that roll off most Italian tongues but get mangled on ours.

Ostuni - Puglia

My friend Joanne's grandfather came from Ostuni Italy, a fun fact that we learned after we had visited. Ostuni called The White City with its white washed buildings is refreshingly not on the tourist beehive trail. As with so many cities it is built up high on a hill to anticipate the invading tribes approaching. As we approached in peace and the fog cleared it slowly came into view like a magical kingdom.

Ostuni has the world's oldest mother exhibited in the cathedral. The Mama from Ostuni's burial possessions indicated that she was a woman of importance with her jewelry and red dyed beaded shell hat. She was about 8 months pregnant and had probably died from eclampsia.

Carbon Dating place her as 28,000 years old.

Locorotondo - Puglia

Another hill town not yet on most traveler's radar but with so many cyclists in town, someone let the secret out. Locorotondo (love saying that name) was another impressive little hill town with a trulli or 2 and the Patron Saint Giorgio who is honored for saving them from the Plague.

No city in Italy is complete without a patron saint who saved them from plague or dragon.

View from Locorotondo with the trulli design (pointed roofs) becoming prevalent.

Locorotondo is one of the only Italian cities that still suspends the witch in the streets during Easter celebrations before burning her. Looks like a sweet enough village with a superstitious side, yet another common theme in Italy.

There is an olive tree fungal disease, Xylella fastidiosa, that is decimating the olive trees in Italy, mostly in Puglia. Some statistics state 1/3 of the trees (20 million of 60 million) in Puglia have been lost, some 100's of years old. They are trying to graft resistant tree buds to existing trees and of course plant new trees to replace the old ones which takes 3-5+ years. The loss and new plantings are obvious as you pass through the countryside. Puglia produces about 50% of Italy's olive oil.

Puglia where they are Trulli Sassi - time to explain these two terms.

Alberobello - Puglia

A trulli is a marvelous thing, an elfin like structure lifted from a fantastical fairy tale. I could Imagine a furry hobbit or two emerging from its entry.

A trulli is basically a limestone mortarless structure built using prehistoric construction techniques. The biggest concentration and best preserved are in Alberobello while in other parts of Itria, they are scattered throughout the valleys.

They were generally constructed as field shelters, storehouses or dwellings for laborers or small scale land owners. The building roof markings are mythological or religious to protect the occupants or the stored items within.

Tax evasion was a good reason for those clever feudal lords to develop a home that could be easily deconstructed whenever the tax man came to collect. It also gave him an easy way to remove unwanted tenants.

More than one trulli = trullo

The draw of tourism for overnight stays in a trulli has created a new real estate boom. Trullis are being repaired at a rapid rate and it was obvious that it is an economic boom for moneyed investors.

Like a mosquito pond the touristic areas are swarming with people, We found an area that was less tourist bitten and were invited in to visit the inside of a trullo (2 trullis joined together) where 2 families would have lived.

It's funny I don't call ourselves tourists but voyagers who come, meet the locals, witness and report. Maybe my sharing will satisfy you so you don't have to rush to these places. Quiet traveling, leaving a lighter footprint.

Sospeso

We like to pay it forward with a Cafe Sospeso in train stations. It's a custom to buy an extra coffee and leave the receipt for the person who can't afford one.

Matera - Basilicata Region

Sassi

Matera is one of the oldest living cities in terms of continuity in Europe. 9,000 years.

After reading a book by Carlo Levi•, “Christ stopped at Eboli”, Matera became a city I wanted to visit.

Levi’s observations humanely describe the extreme inhumane conditions, poverty, malaria that riddled the daily lives of people in Basilicata.

Matera the capital of the province, is divided into 2 Sassis, Barisano and Caveoso. The two Sassis (meaning rock) are separated by a ravine. 1,500 cave dwellings tumble on top of each other into the ravine. There are 150 church caves.

Until the 1950's when Levi's book highlighted the horrible living conditions, families lived in caves with their animals resulting in high infant mortality, dysentery, trachoma. Matera was used as a vehicle to get funding to improve the lives of villages in Italy under the Marshall Plan after WWII.

Most of the population was forcibly relocated by locking the doors so people couldn't return. Some people refused and remained until late 1980’s when a new law allowed habitation to encourage development of the sassis. People found adaption to a new life outside of their communities difficult living without their animals, for food and livelihood.

As in Alberobello, investors came in and turned some of the cave dwellings into boutique hotels, pubs, shops. Some of the caves have been expanded much deeper into the rock unlike the original spaces.

After taking a tour, we came away with 2 different views on the current redevelopment to ponder:

1. Bad: The Sassis are only for tourism funded by wealthy investors who care more for profit than reinvesting in the Materanis (as claimed by our tour guide born in Matera). Rehabilitating the Sassis for tourism brings money to the investors and doesn't strengthen the feeling of community, building schools or knowing your neighbors.

or

2. Good: The small group of people who rebelled against the local officials to rebuild/innovate, claim the story of Matera and highlight the long history of 9,000 years of continual occupation and in the process set up businesses for profit. They felt the government hadn't dealt with the real economic issues of poverty but moved the poor to unsustainable areas making it difficult to make a better life.

How do you maintain the history of a place as a living community rather than a tourist enclave with non locals? I don't know the answers but it comes up in every city we visit.

Of note: The car chase street scenes in No Time to Die, latest James Bond movie was filmed in Matera.

Monopoli, Gallipoli, Taranto - Puglia Region

Delightful beaches, port cities as pretty as 2 blue boats, named Peppe and La Barca.

Some of the best parts of Puglia were the sheep and goat traffic jams, the people and the products from the terroir we met along the way. Octopus, squid, anchovies, sardines, red mullet, cheese, tomatoes, olives. Oh My.

2 Rules for Riding the Rails

Rule 1. Bring a phone (and kleenex) when using the onboard toilet. Learned lesson as I passed by a train toilet and heard one lady's hysterical shouting and banging as she was unable to unlock her door.

Rule 2. Always check ahead of time to see if there's a scheduled strike.

Rule 3. Have a phone charger, ear plugs for noisy, phone chatting passengers and anyone on their entertainment devices who truly think we can't hear any of their conversations with their friends/family about their personal lives. Bubbles don't extend that far.

Caserta - Campania Region

Caserta is known for the Baroque Royal Palace larger than Versailles built by the Bourbon families. Not as interesting to us as the easy train access to Naples.

Our airbnb owner Mario, a young 75 year old, was the kindest man you could ever meet, picking us up at the train station, dropping off a bottle of wine, checking daily to see if we needed anything and driving us back to the train station.

Interactions in Italian are always a funny puzzle. I never could really understand the conversation context, whether they were happy to see each other or upset as the voices grew louder and hands wildly gesticulating. Only when they were parting did we learn whether they were friend, foe or family.

Naples vs Palermo

I would be hard pressed to pick a winner in this match. They are both battered alley cats who have been coaxed to spruce up for more treats and a life of respectability but can easily slink back to the street for a brawl when required for survival. We visited areas that were off limits as little as 5-10 years ago.

Expressive, colorful, gritty, explosive, playful, Catholic, hardworking, ethnically diverse and always surprising. 2 historic port cities that have both been squeezed by the Mafia, young people dominate and smiles abound.

Naples - Campania Region

Maradona, the Argentinian soccer player, played for Buitoni the Naples team and he is a demi-god here. His name is on social clubs, image imprints on every marketing design they can squeeze out of tourists, and his photo is placed in every other window.

Games, smiling locals, streamers celebrating Buitoni's success, Graduation day for students was fun to see.

The Naples National Archeological Museum was a minimum of a 3 hour visit. Amazing marble sculptures, artifacts and mosaics from Herculaneum and Pompeii. Herculaneum was buried in mud and ash keeping the city intact and covered, saving it from looting. Most of the major sculptures and mosaics in the museum were from the decorative villas of the more wealthy city of Herculaneum.

Naples sits under the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius, an active volcano, predicted to erupt in the near future.

Volcanic deposits enrich the soil with magnesium, potassium from ash making it a fertile soil to grow olives, grapes, apricots, citrus, figs and tomatoes all with a particular scent and incredible flavor.

Food is simpler in the South, lack of butter, eggs, meats necessitated a simpler cuisine, more vegetables, fish, but interestingly fried food is big in Naples. Frying became a necessary preparation in Napolitano cuisine in part due to the cholera infected water that required foods to be fried and the World War II bombing destruction of the cities pizza ovens. People resorted to a cheap and easy way to prepare food by frying.

From pizza, pizette, cuoppa, potatoe crocché, stuffed fried zucchini flower, arancini, seafood, seaweed fritters, graffa donut and more. I was surprised to see so much of the cuisine fried.

Naples also sits on a stunning coastline when taking the bus north of the city you start to see the beauty of the Gulf of Naples.

Naples was alway the troubled child of Italy. Giuseppe Garibaldi unifier of Italy and Sophia Loren are good examples of Neapolitans: heat, pasta, fierce, passion, self-identity, history, revolutionary and overcoming adversity.

Sophia Loren claimed "I'm not Italian, I'm Neapolitan!" The expression "like a clam, hard on the outside, soft on the inside" describes Naples.

Oh and the pizza is fantastic!

Palermo - Sicily Region

Palermo was the most conquered city in history, ruled by 15 different nations which shows up in its amazing Arab/Norman architecture and its large ethnic communities.

Our train from Naples to Palermo - 10 hours 13 minutes. After some hours on the train, the train is loaded on a boat at Villa San Giovani, Italy and ferried over to Messina, Sicily.

It's the darnedest thing. They divide the train before loading it on the boat. On arrival half the train heads west and the other half south. That's our train in the lower part of the boat.

This one photo sums up Palermo; vendors, street musicians busking, historical architecture, some hustle going on the side, polizia keeping an eye on the action and the long shadow of a light fixture probably representing the Catholic church.

Throw in Italy's biggest opera house, Arabesque domes, copulas, teaming vegetable markets, Italy's most ethnically diverse city and stir.

Even the birds create a theatrical performance as this gentleman is headed to the Palazzo Normani Museum ahead of me.

Palermo had a lot of masters: Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greek, Roman, Vandal, Ostrogoth, Byzantine Greek, Islamic then Norman, Aragon, Spanish before being unified into Italy.

The Arab/Norman structures are the highlight of architecture here. Palatine Chapel is one of the most extraordinary churches we have ever seen and we have seen 30+ churches just on the first month of this trip. Astounding work of Islamic and Christian craftsmen.

Street scenes, Palatine Chapel, transportation options, artists and the Arab/Norman architecture of Palermo.

Sicilians have a long history with the Mafia. Addiopizzo is a grass roots movement supporting businesses that discourage paying pizzo (protection money). They work with the No Mafia Museum in Palermo to educate people and challenge past practices. They have been very successful in helping businesses break free of paying protection money and encourage people to support businesses that display the rainbow flag.

The No Mafia Museum offered insight into the rise of the Mafia, reasons, criminal actions, the leaders and players, the toll taken on human lives and the resistance of legal, journalistic, political and religious individuals and their assassinations as a result.

Palermo street market

Segesta - Sicily Region

Segesta was a hill settlement populated (according to oral tradition) by survivors of Troy. Things had not fared well for Aeneas with the cheap horse trick so he and his clique moved on to another Mediterranean island to conquer and left some cool ruins.

Trapani - Sicily Region

Roman Soldiers were paid in salt, valued as a food preservative, flavoring and used as an antiseptic. The word salary is derived from the Latin word Sal (salt). Trapani and surrounding area were at one time one of the most important salt producers in Europe.

The area still produces salt but is more importantly a nature preserve for pink flamingos. 🦩

As we learned pink flamingos are really white until they eat the famous pink shrimp this area is known for.

The windmills pump seawater between the salt pans balancing out a system of pans or basins until the sun drys it out and the salt crystallizes. The windmills also grind the salt.

Italy almost Finito

We are currently starting our 7th week of travel. Train trip downtime help me record our impressions. What a gift to see the world at ground zero.

We got insight on the Mona Lisa while traveling here. Before she left Italy to move to Paris, we found a personal painting of her revealing the secret behind her smile.

Carlo Levi• Levi was a doctor and painter who was sent to political exile in the Basilicata region under Mussolini's Fascist government. The government found it easier and cheaper to exile political prisoners in Italian cities that were extremely remote so local authorities could monitor them with curfews, reading their mail, limiting the extent of their movements, controlling news sources and ruling out contact with other political prisoners in the same town. Cities chosen were so forgotten that electricity, correspondence, medical care, news of the world was rare making the Region of Basilicata perfect.

Happy Mother's Day to Stella

and to all my remarkable Mom friends