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?

TESSERAE - 4 - Spoleto, Umbria

SPOLETO

I am standing in the middle of a major road, the SS3, five hundred metres from the mouth of the tunnel under the Castle at Spoleto.  A set of traffic lights has just turned red and nothing appears to be coming toward me.  I seize the opportunity to walk the concrete ribbon and snatch a photo of the castle from a rare standpoint.

I
t’s not the greatest view, but it is not a conventional one.  The road, a modern carriageway though bearing the name of the ancient Via Flaminia, burrows into the hill above the dry Tessino river bed, shafting straight under the fourteenth century Rocca (castle). 

It is eerily quiet.  The light still red, nothing oncoming, I sneak forward to improve the view.   A cowled figure, angular, grey, fleeting, seems to beckon me toward the mouth of the tunnel.  He calls out, but I cannot catch the words in the silence, the idle engines blurring the edges of the call.  I step forward, the road inviting me under the hill, and like a fox I am there, sniffing the dark, padding forward into the gloom.

A scent of sweat and musky blanket precedes me; a stair opens into the rock and the pungency of wool and rope entices me upwards.  The stairs are narrow, dank and slippery, but I can hear the slap of leather sandal on stone above me, and then I am in a cave, a room, a glorious opening, with angels spinning round me in a canopy of blue.  God himself kneels, not for me, of course, but to bless the virgin, his right hand held upright with fingers ranged in benediction,. His left hand gently lowering a golden crown, the very image of his own, onto the virgin’s brow.  His hair and beard, uniformly white but combed and trimmed, connects the jewelled red mitre with the jewelled red coat, his cuffs adorned with gold and precious stones.  His shoulders are kept warm by a green mantle, itself held in place by a golden chain.  The girl is decked in finery beyond the reach of mortal purse, her hands in prayer to beg pardon for her unworthiness.  Gold, pearls, opals, topaz, amethyst – the sheen of silk and lace glittering into the golden sun behind.

The freshness of the paint overcomes me, but Filippo steadies my arm and leads me up the wooden scaffolds, past guttering wicks, and into an enclosed garden, with a tiled patio.  A golden haired angel in a red robe kneels before a doorway, a white lily in the left hand.  From a cloud above a white haired and bearded figure lasers down a message that strikes through a grille and pierces the shoulder of a delicate girl in red and white who sits demurely with her fingers intertwined in shy confusion.  It is the remarkable announcement of an imminent birth that prefigures ultrasound by two millennia. 

We pass through into the crowd, and move past the priest, the mourners and the praying women; past the ashen faced corpse with her delicate hands clasped above a rich orange coverlet; I pass Filippo himself with his angelic son Filippino then I pass the green hills and rocky mounts,

until I stand behind a young woman kneeling before her infant, which lies passively on a cloth on the stony floor, his father humbly musing at his head, a cow and a donkey gently smiling down from behind wicker hurdles. 

I step gingerly on, past a wooden saddle and through an arch in the crumbling wall.  The path leads back down, into a cave, down the slippery steps and I find myself back in the tunnel, hurrying to my car. 

I didn’t notice that the lights had changed.

Umbria III - The Valnerina

The Heart of Italy – Part III



The Valnerina - the green heart of Italy


Question:  What do New York, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Sant’Anatolia di Narco have in common?

Answer:  Cannabis.

Er?

Cannabis Sativa.  Hemp.  All four places have Hemp Museums.

Of course…….

Sant’Anatolia di Narco is a village of some 600 inhabitants which is situated at 328 metres above sea level about half way up the Valnerina, or the Valley of the River Nera.  Thanks to a post-97 earthquake bypass operation it is also on the route from Spoleto to Norcia, but that’s another story.  The origins of the village go back to the 8^th century BC, but most of what you see today is medieval or later.  Saint Anatolia was a young Roman lady executed for her Christian beliefs in the year 253. 

The name Narco, but the way, has nothing to do with narcotics.  It may derive from a French family who once dominated the area, or from a corruption of the river’s name, or from the ancient people the Sabini Naharci.  It is not Saint Anatolia of the Narcotics.

A cart full of hemp 

The museum, proper name Museo della Canapa (Hemp Museum), is housed in the former Town Hall, tucked into the medieval core of the village next to the Church of Sant’Anatolia.  It is one branch of the Valnerina Ecomuseum and tells the story of the production and uses of hemp, principally in textiles and ropes.  The name Canapine which features in some villages in the region and which is applied also to the banks of the River Nera, means “hemp lands” and is testimony to the importance given to the cultivation of this plant and its uses in the past.  In a series of rooms, you can follow the story of this valuable plant, from retting, through braking, to carding, spinning, warping and weaving.  At the end of your visit you see an eighteenth century loom which produced household fabrics for the Santucci family until the 1950s.  It is both fascinating and beautifully presented.

We stay in the ex-convent of Santa Croce (www.conventodisantacroce.com) which was once the home of Franciscan Friars and was built in the thirteenth century, just outside the town walls.  It is a peaceful and very comfortable place, with excellent food and very friendly service.  The walls and ceilings display remnants of religious frescoes, and it is said that the vivid colours and creative designs may have been inspired by a particular plant that grew in the monastery garden; a plant which is now remembered in the nearby museum. 

I don’t believe it!

The Valnerina, one of the most beautiful valleys in the heart of Italy, is peppered with villages, castles and religious houses, from Oratories, such as that of Santa Maria delle Grazie at Sant’Anatolia, to the gracious independence of the Abbey of San Pietro in Valle.  On the way you pass, or stop to dine in, the village of Scheggino, which clings to the left bank of the Nera and steeply rises from it in winding, stepped alleys.  The Osteria Baciafemmine (www.osteriabaciafemmine.it) which occupies a connected series of stables and cellars, is well worth stopping for, but if it is a combination of the de luxe and spiritual isolation you seek you must make a detour to l’Abbazia di San Pietro. 

Osteria Baciafemmine

When I first saw this place it was in a sad state of disrepair; although the church was clad in scaffolding, the place was deserted and closed up.  Nevertheless I was struck by its harmonious structure and by the stunning setting, surrounded by wooded hillsides but with a view down the valley into a shining distance of interwoven blue and gold.

L'Abbazia di San Pietro in Valle


Now, as well as being able to study the twelfth century frescoes in the nave, particularly those that tell stories from the Old Testament, you can stay in one of the suites that have been immaculately remodelled within the Benedictine Monastery (http://www.sanpietroinvalle.com/index.php).  If you do so, you can take breakfast in the refectory, or in the cloisters.  And without walking more than a few paces through the garden, you dine at the Ristorante Hora Media.  Just like the monks in olden times!  In fact you could bring your colleagues for a weekend of team building, with rafting, caving, climbing and a medieval banquet; or you could come alone for spiritual peace, a sauna and some fire-walking.  This place has it all!



The frescoed apse of the church of San Pietro in Valle

We move on, down the valley, going with the flow of traffic toward Terni.  But there is just time to admire the spectacular Cascata delle Marmore, one of the natural wonders of Italy.  In the unspoilt valley, where trees grow miraculously from the vertical cliffs, and a perpetual stream launches itself into 165 metres of air, spraying the ferns and rocks to create mist and rainbow effects with the delicate music of droplets splitting into spray.



La Cascata delle Marmore - about twenty years ago


Or so it was.

The waterfalls have been Disneyfied!  A vast car park means that you have to queue for tickets to gain admission to the spectacle.  And you have to be there at the right time, because they turn it off in the afternoon and at night to pump the water back up, so that now, instead of a gentle splashing you will hear a siren blast and then a furious roar, as tonnes of water are released to crash violently to the valley floor, smashing their atoms as they hit the three rocky levels on the way down.

OK, so it never was natural….. it was actually the engineering brainchild of a roman consul in the third century BC and it has been reworked several times in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries before now.

But when we passed by some twenty years ago, it really did seem an awful lot more natural!  Now, to return to the metaphor of the heart, a pacemaker has been fitted, the arteries have been cleaned out, the valves repaired, and the beating heart of Italy is (almost) as good as new.

Ah well!  Change is not always for the worse!

The cloister of San Pietro in Valley - tables for breakfast!