Roman Holiday....

Looking for a Further Christmas [Dies Natalis Solis Invicti ]....

I didn't want another Christmas at home alone.....  Even if I wasn't alone, last year was miserable as it was the first apart from Amanda in nearly forty-five years.  Also, having had my trip to the gluepot truncated in September by the so-called Covid, I had old friends to catch up with..... So I didn't decorate my cell, and planned to fly south.

As things turned out, our elder daughter would also have been alone, so we arrived in Rome together, escaping from responsibilities and the dark-wet Norfolk winter, sharing a plate of amatriciana and a glass of vino Rosso on our arrival.

The sun shone blue and yellow above the short green sparks of grass as we took ourselves down the Via Appia Antica on our first day.  We had first descended into the underworld, the endless doom and gloom of the catacombs of S Callixtus.  For those not familiar with cats or combs, I advise you that they are all pretty much the same, and these days you can't take any bones away with you.....

But then we entered the monumental mausoleum of Cecilia Metella,

Where the lady herself appeared, suitably distant and careful netted, to welcome us to her afterlife, and to offer a wonderful audio-visual display projected on the rocks of the igneous substrata of this ancient road, as well as a vertiginous Virtual Reality headset display of the continuous development of this site over many centuries....

For me, it is a strangely haunted road. Once, with Charlie Borromel (recurrent extra in Fellini films), we made a pop video here and for years some of my pupils would say, I saw you on TV last night, Sir!  though I never saw it.....  Then there was a party at the house of the Canadian Ambassador, when La Lolla sat on the stairs as natural as a domestic cat.....  (fond memories, Andrea....)

Despite H's broken foot, we march as the legions did, ever disregarding the crucifixions, until we reach Santa Maria Nova, where another wonderful audio-visual display links the Appia to history and contemporary culture, such as La Dolce Vita, and the sprawling Villa dei Quintili with its views across the airport of Ciampino to the Colli Albani......

Back in Rome Sol Invictus sparkles at us across the graveyard of bread and circuses.  This is a city of brave confusions, holy days of obligation and the obligations of holidays......

In the evening, I take H to my old stomping ground - Trastevere - where I lived for seven years in the last century (! That sounds soooo creepy!) Here we notice that my front door, for so many years on recent visits completely defaced with graffiti, is now clean.  A jazz band plays in the street nearby and a random bagpiper honks in the Piazza di Santa Maria.

To satisfy my nostalgia we drift across the Viale to the Pizzeria Ai Marmi (Antico forno a legna, dal 1931) where nothing has changed since I lived across the road. Filetti di Baccalà, Supplì al telefono, pizze and Peroni beer....

On the way back to our hotel, we pause to wonder at the passage of time.  So many stories.  So many memories....  Iris Origo lived on the right, just here.....

On the 24th H and I take a train (double-decker, quiet, clean, efficient, punctual) to Anzio (approximately one hour ten minutes, three euros and 60 cents), in order to satisfy a yen for fish in inclination to the catholic tradition. As befits, H has a sea urchin, but then we indulge in spaghetti alle vongole verace:

And I sacrifice an ἸΧΘΥΣ (IKhThUS), or ἸΧΘΥϹ, the symbol of the Christ (this is what comes of spending time in Catacombs....Ed):

Back in Rome, in the piazza hard by the spot where Caesar Julius hit the bloodstained deck, there are those who tire of roasting chestnuts, despite the glories of the natural aromas, 

While in the meantime, baby Jesus is about to sprout from the dung and the straw of innumerable cribs, a miraculous fungus amidst the terror of foreign oppression.....

The panting cries of childbirth fill the night air on Christmas Eve.  Thousands of tiny figures mime the events of Bethlehem and the curious and the faithful fill their mobiles with pictures of the revolving doors of the story.....

And over at Santa Maria Maggiore the bells ring out (for Christmas Day)

And so Christmas Day dawns, and the suffering is over (for the moment).  The queues have left the churches, the lights are down, and we lift our weary selves to Stazione Termini to get the train up the Tiber Valley,

to Orte (fifty minutes on a clean double decker, efficient, punctual, quiet....  for five euros and ten cents) where Gino collects us for the drive up to his Umbrian refuge.

The village is very quiet.   Even the motorini are asleep.... 

I meet Sandro who has spent three years constructing a Presepio in an old stable near the church, 

then the family gathers round the table for a generous feast that brings together family and friends as well as diverse European standards (don't get me started) culminating in the immolation of fruits and grains as an offering to peace (thank you so much, dear friends):

The days are slipping, and on Santo Stefano, we pass an hour or so in the Museo dell Terme di Diocleziano... where Amanda and I mused on one of our last days in Rome.

It is a wonder.  The bath complex - bigger than Caracalla - took eight years to build (the joys [sic] of a confident dictatorship, perhaps?) but since I was last here the museum has been advanced and now rivals such poor brethren as The British (we don't need to steal others' marbles....) [but don't get me started....]

Michelangelo was here.  His is the great cloister:

Then we take the train to Frascati (clean, efficient, punctual, quiet, comfortable) [thirty minutes for two euros ten cents]....  

to meet Antonio and Pina, and to nourish our souls in a traditional Fraschetta (wine and cheese and cold meats).  Oh!  How the wine tastes good!  Oh!

Forgive me, please.....  It is good, sometimes, to taste the finer things of life.

Once again, we are back in the city for the evening, and wander down the Via Margutta to pay respect to Federico, and then turn through the Piazza del Popolo, 

back down the Via del Corso to Via della Croce, where we have a little glass of wine 

in the Antica Vineria - in my memory a place where you took your bottle to fill from the tap....

And then we head home via the Piazza di Spagna:

On our last day we revisited Trevignano Romano, seen here nestling by the lake under the Rocca Romana, in the distance to the right of Bracciano Castle:

Our aim was to meet up with friends, though it wasn't possible to see everyone, (apologies!) but the memories began to overcome me and in the end I was saddened that I was there, where we had laughed and danced and played and splashed with our children.  Christmas is family time, and only half the family were here.....

That night, our last night, we had a drink in The Fiddler's Elbow, where I stared at a football match, wondering who Munich were playing that had the initials AVL.  As Munich morphed into Manchester United I couldn't work out how Leicester City were AVL, until Aston Villa came to mind.  Don't blame me!  I am quietly subsiding into a black hole and some things pass me by.....  It is nearly fifty years since I first came here, and televisions weren't the thing then....

In the morning, all went well.  We made FCO in thirty minutes, the flight was roughly on time, but England appeared cloudy and cold:

But it was there, and I got home.  The cat was pleased to see me.  I was pleased to see her.

It had been a good Christmas.  Thank you my friends.  Thank you Italy.  

I felt better than before - a little restored perhaps.

I went to see Amanda.....

It was lovely to see her.....

Roma Eterna

What was that all about?

The Magic Mountain

To step lightly, lightly....

Fresh from an early morning dip in the clear calm sea at Viareggio, my cousin whisks me up to her home above Camaiore, where Henry Moore once lived.

This is Tuscany, under the Apuan Alps, from where sculptors have extracted their stones for ever......

And this is Tuscany, a large region of central Italy which ranges from the Tyrrhenian sea to the heights of the Apennines, from the riches of Florence to humble villages where the light of life is slowly dying as traditions fade and incomers invade.

This is rural Italy, where the house and garden merge quietly into the steep wooded slopes of surrounding hills. Outhouses serve as workshops,

Where an artist may work undisturbed,

Or as storerooms to hold the fuel for winter warmth.

A little way uphill there are the remains of the Castello di Montecastrese, a 12th century castle that was used to monitor traffic from and to Lucca on the Via Francigena.

The hills are dotted with tiny villages and isolated smallholdings, indicative both of the resilience of the local people and of some deep-rooted love of the natural environment.

The nearby town of Pietrasanta was frequented by Michelangelo in his search for the finest marbles (and where, allegedly, he assisted in the construction of the staircase within the Campanile).  It is a town that is still dusty with the chippings from creative artists, and which, this summer, hosted a show by Jake and Dinos Chapman (The Blind Leading the Dead) [though I am not going to say you absolutely need to make the trip.....]

It's a three hour drive, or so, to the top of Monte Amiata (1,738 m or 5,702 ft) but I am still in Tuscany, a central Italian region covering 23,000 square kilometres (8,900 square miles.). Its summit is crowned with a 22m iron cross, first raised in 1900 at the behest of Pope Leo XIII to celebrate the Anno Santo. It was seriously damaged by the Germans in retreat in 1944, but rebuilt in three months by local people in 1946.

Looking south from the top you can see Lake Bolsena (20 kms away) and just make out the hills around Lake Vico beyond which is not far from where we used to live.  On a clear day you can (I know; I have;) see the Dalmatian coast of Croatia to the east and Corsica to the west.

Close to the cross there is another monument. The Madonna degli Scout, a marble statue inaugurated in 1961, and frequently adorned with neckerchiefs and woggles....

The slopes of this sleeping giant are clothed in dense woods - beech trees up high and then chestnuts and pines lower down.  

And at about 600m above sea level there are olives, and vines, where my 90-year-old friend Corrado used to farm, but where now his 50-year-old son, Giacomo, harrows the ground around his olives,  to control the grass and allow rainwater to seep into the earth rather than run off.

It is over fifty years since my friends bought the remote farmhouse that Corrado was born in, and forty-seven since I first visited. It is a beautiful and tranquil place, nicely evoked by Eugenio Montale (1896 - 1981) in his poem Notizie dall’Amiata (News from Amiata)

There’s woodworm in the beams

and an odour of melon oozes

from the floor. The soft

smoke that ascends the valley

of elves and mushrooms to the transparent cone

of the summit fogs the windows,

and I write to you from here, from this table,

from this honeyed cell

of a sphere hurled through space....

It is barely touched by the modern world, though every year there are more twinkling lights in the view to the west after sunset.  

It is a place to relax in the shade of a walnut tree with a book, or to walk the stony tracks amongst the field maples,

And the oaks,

And then, as the sun begins to slip away behind distant hills it will be time for a glass of local red wine, and perhaps something to eat, such as grilled fegatelli on an open fire, or Tuscan bread and sharp pecorino cheese.....

Many men

Have searched all over Tuscany and never found

What I found there, the heart of the light

Itself shelled and leaved, balancing

On filaments themselves falling.

The secret

Of this journey is to let the wind

Blow its dust all over your body,

To let it go on blowing, to step lightly, lightly

All the way through your ruins, and not to lose

Any sleep over the dead, who surely

Will bury their own, don't worry.

The Journey

by Rabindranath Tagore