TESSERAE - 6 - Monte Amiata, Tuscany

Monte Amiata

They say there is no such thing as an extinct volcano.  Italy has its active ones – Etna, Stromboli, and (?) Vesuvius – and so it is reassuring to come across one that is at least tame, and almost extinct.  Monte Amiata, the highest mountain in southern Tuscany (1791 metres), is just that.  There is sufficient activity to run a geo-thermal power station at Piancastagnaio, and to heat the baths of Bagno Vignoni or nearby Saturnia, but not enough to shake the flanks of this mighty mountain.

It’s a mountain for all seasons, too.  Not too far up the Via Cassia from Rome, but far enough to put it firmly in Tuscany, the twin summits are well-equipped for skiing, and there are several good hotels to stay in, where log fires, strong food and a range of grappe provide comfort at the end of the day.  There are all the attrezzi you need for fun skiing or tobogganing, but the woods are also suitable for off-piste.  If you are not a skier, there are views to be had from the iron cross, rebuilt in the forties after German troops had destroyed the original, which has a platform, from where, on a clear day, you will glimpse far away mountains and recognisable landmarks, such as Monte Venere that overshadows lake Vico, or even the Gran Sasso (and even, believe it or not, Corsica).  There is also the Madonna of the Boy Scouts, who perches above tumbled volcanic rocks, adorned by votive offerings of neckties from zealous scouts.

There’s a choice of bars and food stalls and huts selling kitsch, but not so much as to offend.  The beech woods, that cover much of the higher slopes of the mountain, are serene at any season, whether it’s snowy and cold or you are looking for shade and cool in the hot summer months.  At several points on the roads that entwine the shoulders there are parking spaces and barbecues, and there is room for all.  It’s a vast area of unspoilt woodland full of funghi when the weather is right, and occupied by all kinds of wildlife throughout the year, from deer to wild boar, buzzards to tree-creepers, snakes to porcupines.

Lower down the hillsides, the forests become chestnut woods, and here the autumn is the best time to explore, as the colours are wonderful.  Plumes of smoke rise from fires where contadini have cleared the undergrowth, as it is still a part of the annual rhythm of life.  Things have changed, of course, and where the braying of donkeys was a familiar sound in the morning and at home time, now the sound is the mechanical chugging of mini tractors.  There’s not so much agricultural activity on the mountain either, as the younger generation has slipped off to find work in the building trade, or to live in the cities.  It doesn’t pay to scrape a living off the land any more in this region, unless you own big fields of olives or are lucky enough to have a decent vineyard.

It’s this last that has brought the area most fame.  The name of Brunello di Montalcino is not quite Monte Amiata, but the town of Montalcino is only a few kilometres to the north.  Built by exiles from the just visible Siena (also to the north) the inhabitants of the area found that their San Giovese grapes just happened to grow bigger and better than they had done in the Chianti region, and that the rich red wine they produced kept ever so well in oak barrels.  With practice they learnt to produce one of the world’s great wines, and nowadays to qualify as Brunello the wine has to be kept for a minimum of five years in botte di rovere.  There are dozens of different versions to choose from, and many can be bought direct from the producers, though do not expect it to be cheap!  If you would like to taste, you can try the Bar Caffè Fiaschetteria at the heart of the town in the Piazza del Popolo.  This café claims to be the first wine bar in Italy, having opened for business in 1888.  For another sophisticated experience you might like to seek out the Borgo Hotel at the Castello Banfi, where you can try a variety of wines in the fairy tale medieval castle, and, in addition, you can stay in one of their suites (prices starting from about €600 per couple per night, five course dinner with six Banfi wines, bed and breakfast).

There is now a rival name in wine just next door to Montalcino, though it is a relative newcomer.  You will see yellow signs to the Strada di Vino di Montecucco, and if you venture to the Castello di Potentino you can sample this.  This castle, which is almost a village in itself, was until a few years ago falling into ruin, most romantically.  Rumour has it that even Prince Charles expressed an interest at one time, but it has been taken over and completely restored and here you can also acquire fine wines an olive oil (and also rent a small apartment).  In the same region, one of the brand names now found in foreign delicatessens is Seggiano.  This is something of a con, perhaps, as the cheese factory in Seggiano went bankrupt and closed some years ago, and there are nothing like as many pecorino-producing sheep on these hills as there once were.  It is good cheese, however, and certainly some of it is local. 

If you are looking to buy yourself a Tuscan retreat, you need look no further than the paese of Seggiano.  This classic hilltop village, with pink and ochre buildings leaning towards the morning sun and a precipitous scarp falling to the north towards a gurgling river, is rapidly changing hands.  Once proud of the fact that it did not even have a petrol pump, it is now almost completely devoid of shops, except for a bar, a trattoria and a ferramenta on the main road.  Curiously, where there once was a bar at the top of the village, there is now a bank.  But where once there was a post office in which you could also drink refreshing white wine, and a butcher with home made wild boar sausages, there are now padlocks and dry leaves.  It became almost a ghost town, with the permanent population down to reportedly only one hundred.  It has a wonderful position, with great views of the imposing mass of Monte Amiata, but its people need work and they’re moving away and at the moment they are being replaced by foreigners, many from Albania.

If your time in the area is brief, however, make sure you visit the Abbazia di Sant’Antimo, which is on the road from Seggiano to Montalcino.  In a hollow in the hills, surrounded by olives and wheat fields, this Romanesque church literally glows with light and beauty.  It is almost a thousand years old, linked in history with the troops of Charlemagne; it is built of a honey coloured stone, some of which is alabaster, and it has windows of slivered onyx.  Inside the proportions are perfect with slender columns and a rounded apse.  A small community of Regular Canons, who draw their inspiration from the Premonstratensian Order (founded by Saint Norbert in the 12th century and from the Rule of Saint Augustine) have taken charge here, where once the custodian had to come rolling down from Castelnuovo dell’Abate, puttering on his moped, fuming two-stroke mix, tobacco and wine.  This most beautiful of churches was in a state of quiet abandonment and many years ago I saw a Roller nesting in the cypress tree by the campanile.  There many visitors nowadays and the church is thronged on Sundays, or for weddings, so such a rare bird will not find peace, but the cypress is still there, and peace is still the keyword.

Back up the mountain, there are a number of places to stay, either near the ski runs or in the busy town of Castel del Piano.  But between the two, at 750 metres above sea level and with one of the best sunset views in the world, is the hamlet of Pescina where you can stay, and eat, at the family run Albergo La Scottiglia where the Magini family has been catering for visitors to the mountain for getting on for 200 years.  Their home made pasta is superb!  You won’t want to leave!  And if you want proof, just arrive a little early for lunch or dinner.  You will find the family together, from aged aunts to the youngest grandchild, at table together in the Dining Room, the view sweeping away towards the Maremma and the sea, plates of local produce and Tuscan traditions before them, glasses of deep red wine chinking in conviviality.  Even if the ground began to shake and lava began to flow, you really won’t want to leave!

www.lascottiglia.it/

http://www.antimo.it/

http://www.castellobanfiilborgo.com/

http://www.potentino.com/index.aspx?site=125&page=none

Eskdale



Nothing will come of nothing


Where was I that day?  Where were you?

Firenze (Florence)

A Day in Florence

With recent advances in the services provided by Trenitalia, Florence is now only an eighty-minute trip from Rome.  What is more, you can book your own seats on the trains from home, on the Internet, and, with Eurostar, move comfortably and swiftly between cities.  In some ways this brilliant advance in transport may, however, be a drawback, making the world ever smaller.  It’s like the Apple or Blackberry.  It’s all so easy now; we take things for granted.  In the “good” old days, the first stop out of Rome on the way to Florence was at La Storta, where lunch at the Trattoria del Quarto Secolo might have given you the strength to make it as far as Campagnano, or perhaps Sutri, depending on whether you were travelling in style or tourist class.  Whatever else this meant, by the time you got to Florence, you were probably in need of at least five days rest, giving you time perhaps to see the major sights before moving on.  At today’s pace, you’ll do a bit of shopping in Via dei Calzaiuoli, have a bistecca alla fiorentina for lunch, and then back on the Eurostar to Rome for tea at Babington’s.

 

There are, however, variables and you don’t have to be so hurried.  Florence is a city of changeable weather, and I, for one, seem to have been quite unlucky on some of my visits.  The surrounding mountains and the nature of the Arno valley, combine to create a microclimate that can be very cold in winter or very heavy in summer.  And then, of course, it rains sometimes.  The first time I went there was the tenth anniversary of the 1966 floods, and it was very worryingly wet.  I squelched about the streets encountering shopkeepers uneasily checking their defences and entering churches that still bore the tide marks half way up the walls.  Subsequent trips have been icily cold, with winds like liquid nitrogen scouring down from the Casentino.  On other occasions it has been breathlessly hot, with brown clouds and an airlessness that gave even Michelangelo’s implacable David something of a headache.  On some occasions, however, I have been treated to perfection, and have greatly enjoyed afternoons in the Boboli gardens or on the Ex-Forte Belvedere (partially closed at present for restoration, but a delightful place to picnic and view the city below).

The weather is not a huge issue, however, for Florence is a very internal city – indeed perhaps this is because of the weather.  Massaccio’s Adam and Eve, bitterly ashamed of themselves for their stupid disobedience (or simply annoyed that they got caught?) care not a fig leaf for the climate, as their punishment is fixed within the Brancacci Chapel, roofed over by the strength of Santa Maria del Carmine.  From another point of view, perhaps, one of the delights of Florence for many visitors is to take hot chocolate in Café Rivoire on Piazza della Signoria (though my preference is for un espresso at Gilli’s on Piazza della Repubblica) and it’s the internal glitter, the antique but well-maintained opulence, that is the attraction.  Exteriors, by and large, in Florence (despite notable exceptions) don’t count for much.  Just look at the facades of San Lorenzo or Santo Spirito for confirmation – they just aren’t there.  The streets don’t really lend themselves to views; it is after all a cramped Roman settlement at a prestigious bridging point.  Buildings have risen on the original grid plan and the streets have become deeper and darker.  It is very hard to match outsides with the glories within in this proud and self-contained city.  Try to imagine what lies within the rough-hewn fortress of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi for instance, and then go and view Benozzo Gozzoli’s Journey of the Magi (1459-1463) within.  The contrast between the vibrant colours and the exciting swirl of people and animals on the interior walls and the rugged, chipped and impregnable walls outside is, to use a local word, impressionante.  Despite, of course, the irony that the walls within depict outside scenes.  Almost as if the whole of life is an illusion.

Or a piece of theatre, which is coincidentally what I stumbled on in the vicinity of the Piazza della Signoria one cold and rainy December afternoon.  Some hundred or more mature citizens of Florence had got themselves into medieval costumes and, with a variety of weapons and musical instruments, were parading in a stop-start, heavy, slow procession.  Trumpets blared a tune, followed by martial drumbeats, and then, at someone’s imperceptible signal, the four characters in charge of the trundling cannon, set fire to the charge and all were deafened to a standstill.  And then it started again.  Police in escort, ladies and gentlemen, hand in hand.  Striped pantaloons, red shoes, steel helmets, halberds, pikes, and flags – the works.  As the crowd pressed in, the rain began to intensify, the whole troupe approached the Palazzo della Signoria, and, then….  it broke up.  Tourists had their photos taken arm in arm with five hundred year old gentlemen; the party was over.

I asked a frightened looking policeman what it was all about.  He hesitated, twitching like a rabbit with a stopwatch.  “Una manifestazione,” he explained.  “Scusi, devo andare.”  Leaving me feeling like Alice in a slightly awkward Wonderland.

And so, if it’s a phoney world, why go there?  Why does half the world knock on the door?  Could it be that this is perhaps the only place in the world where you can see a fur coat on a bicycle?  Could it be that this place has perhaps the greatest concentration of pictorial and sculptural riches anywhere in the world?   As with so much, some of it is a matter of opinion.  Some will argue that Michelangelo’s David is overbearing and disproportionate and that Cellini’s Perseus (and Donatello’s David) are too pretty and posy.  But the arguments will continue, because of personal opinion, and informed opinion at that.  Those that prefer Fra Angelico have plenty to see.  Those who enjoy the brightness and mannerist exuberance of Pontormo in Santa Felicita cannot complain, while those who love Domenico Ghirlandaio have only to go to Santa Trinita if they cannot get into the Refectory of Ognissanti (recently elevated to be a Benedictine Abbey, after the Franciscans moved on). 

Or, indeed, look inside Filippo Brunelleschi’s dramatic and elegant Ospedale Degli Innocenti in the busy Piazza Santissima Annunziata.  Within, apart from the offices of UNICEF, aptly housed in this ancient Foundling Hospital, you can find the masterpiece of Domenico Ghirlandaio, the Adoration of the Magi, as well as the beautiful Madonna col Bambino degli Innocenti. by Sandro Botticelli, which was painted between 1465 and 1467.  Or, again, slip into the Palazzo Davanzati,  one of the few remaining medieval Florentine houses, a palazzo signorile, which dates back to the 14^th century; it is an extraordinary, wonderfully decorated and furnished building, recently reopened after extensive works.  Internally, at least, Florence is a feast.  Enough to feed a thousand art history schools.

Externally, however, it does have a few glories.  There’s marble enough to interest the lapidarian, from Santa Croce, to Santa Maria Novella, to the Duomo to Giotto’s exquisite Campanile up to the gem on the hill of San Miniato del Monte, (which is as good inside as out).  And when up on the hill, rest awhile and gaze back over the town and its coursing river.  You can see why the Romans needed it, and why everyone else since has kept it on the map.  You can perhaps understand why Dante loved the place so much, and why, for a while at least, it was capital of the new Italy. 

And when you have done musing, wander down the hill again and try one of the Hostarie in Via San Niccolo, or walk on back to the central market and sniff out the Trattoria Gozzi, where, despite the demise of the imposing Sergio himself a few years ago, the enduring standards of friendliness and honesty are practised by his son.  It’s only open for lunch, but their food is procured daily from the adjacent covered market and prepared in traditional Tuscan ways.  Ribollita, aqua cotta, pappa del pomodoro; excellent red wine, first class meat.  Its welcoming interior lit by bright chandeliers that reflect off the Della Robbia (type) ceramics on the walls.  Only now, I notice, the chandeliers are burning energy efficient bulbs, a faultless piece of modernisation, that perhaps matches the practical resourcefulness and famous intelligence of the Florentines.

And if that was the lunch, an eighty-minute nap on the train back to Rome will do just nicely!

Trattoria Toscana Gozzi Sergio

Piazza San Lorenzo, 8r, Florence, Italy

(no website)

Napoli (Naples)

Naples without a jacket

Naples is an informal city.  No need to dress up.  No need to stand on ceremony.  Yes it has its glamour and glitz, but for the temporary visitor, there is no need to put on a show.  Naples has all types, and takes all types, and all swirl together in a multicoloured melange.  In the great hall of the “Maschio Angioino”, as they call the Castel Nuovo, which dominates the centre and the port, the local government sits and conducts its business.  At the same time the door is open, guarded only by a couple of chain-smoking Vigili Urbani (local policemen), and anyone, from concerned citizens to crocodiles of schoolchildren can wander in and observe the proceedings.  In the gloom of the vast hall a disembodied voice drones over a PA system, while assorted councillors read the newspapers, or discuss football discreetly.  Outside visitors and officials, attendants and petitioners, children and adults all crowd indiscriminately, almost oblivious of the astonishing surroundings (originally built by the Angevin dynasty in the thirteenth century, and then renewed by the Aragonese kings in the fifteenth).  Beyond the walls, on one side is the bustling ferry port, from where an almost continual stream of people arrives from and departs for island destinations such as Ischia, Capri, Stromboli and Sicily, and on the other side rises the Royal Palace, with its eighteenth century Bourbon riches, adjoined by the San Carlo Opera House.  Few cities anywhere can boast such a range of spectacular architecture and history so casually close together. 

Thanks to the brooding presence of mainland Europe’s only active volcano (Vesuvius) no city anywhere can claim such a close connection with the past.  Vesuvius last blew red hot magma into the sky in 1944, as a kind of poetic commentary on the surrounding warfare, but in A.D. 79 it sealed the fates of both Pompeii and Herculaneum, the former by smothering it in cinders, the latter by engulfing it in hot mud.  Today they are among the most visited sites on the face of the earth, not without justification.  In Pompeii you can wear yourself out pacing the rutted streets and examining the interiors of well-to-do villas (although of course you can now watch Mary Beard do it for you!)  From amphitheatre to bathhouse, from temple to marketplace, the city defies its age.  Despite the hordes of visitors, there are quiet corners and splendid views.  From certain angles the jagged crown of Vesuvius looms terrifyingly close; in other directions craggy and even snow-capped mountains appear; to the south the sparkling sea shines as footlights to the show. 

Herculaneum is altogether more concentrated, but here there are second floors to some of the buildings and the various bath complexes are almost intact, with amazing detail in the decoration.  The excavations have revealed wonderful remains of wooden screens and timbers, carbonised but recognizable, and wall paintings and mosaics, though not as opulent as at Pompeii, are stunning in their colour and freshness.

There are many other visible traces of the Roman Empire in the Naples area.  At Pozzuoli there is a magnificent amphitheatre (the third largest in the ancient world); on Capri there is Tiberius’s infamous villa (from which unfortunates had to leap to their deaths for his entertainment); and at Baia there are extensive ruins, some of which can be viewed under the sea from glass-bottomed boats. 

The Cloisters of Santa Chiara

Within the city, under other celebrated sights such as the Castel dell’Ovo, and the Churches of Santa Chiara and San Lorenzo Maggiore, intriguing remains of the ancient settlement of Neapolis can be found.  Also, for the more determined tourist, there are two access points to the fascinations of subterranean Naples.  Forty metres under Piazza San Gaetano you can go back to the fourth century before Christ, and, at about the same depth under the elegant Bar Gambrinus on the edge of Piazza del Plebiscito, you can follow history from the sixteenth century through to the air raids of the Second World War.  Most of the tunnels and chambers formed part of the ancient water supply, but this was closed down during the cholera epidemic of 1884.  Between the two sites only a tiny sample of the more than two hundred miles of tunnels can be explored, but it is still an extraordinary aspect of this multi-faceted city.

Procida

Apart from Capri, which is still a place of pilgrimage for fans of Gracie Fields, and whose limestone cliffs and blue grotto are stunning to visit, the volcanic islands of Procida and her big brother Ischia are easy to reach from the Molo Beverello, right in front of the Castel Nuovo.  Procida has been in the movies recently, with all of the delightful “Il Postino” and a part of “The Talented Mr Ripley” being shot here.  It is densely populated, but also intensely fertile, and every inch of soil produces lemons, oranges, grapefruit, artichokes, beans or flowers.  Ischia, a larger and more varied island, was home for many years to William Walton (who for some reason preferred it to Oldham).  Here you may need to speak German, but you will find mud baths and steaming sulphurous water to soothe your sore feet after tramping about the cultural sites, as well as pretty beaches and green hills.

One other place in the vicinity of Naples is worth seeing if you have time.  This is the Solfatara, just above Pozzuoli.  Leaving behind the scruffy modern development and the busy road, you enter a volcanic crater, and can wander amongst mediterranean macchia, and across what seems to be a sandy floor.  All around, however, there are little traces of sulphurous steam, and, in some parts, boiling pools of grey mud.  The rocks on the crater sides are stained yellow, and in some areas the clouds of steam are so thick and hot that you will find yourself sweating, even on a chilly day.  It’s a place that fascinates, and, if you want to prolong your visit, there is even a peaceful campsite, and it must be an eerie experience to wander amongst the devilish fumaroles at night.

Public transport in Naples is something of a nightmare, but it is improving.  You can get tickets (which can be for 90 or more minutes or for the whole day) for all the buses, trains, trams, funiculars and metros at tobacconists, newsstands and metro stations and, if you are brave, you can get almost anywhere reasonably quickly.  Traffic can be alarmingly dense, but most of the public forms will get you there, although don’t be alarmed if the entire tram network breaks down – it won’t be for long!  And things are improving!  Not many years ago the then President of the Republic of Italy (Ciampi) inaugurated a brand new metro station in Piazza Dante.  A huge window dressing operation took place for the official visit, with specially laid turf and new palm trees; TV and press coverage to the hilt.  And the length of new metro line?  600 metres!  But in the not too distant future, it will be possible to criss-cross the city underground and to step almost straight from the metro onto an Aliscafo (literally a winged boat – better known as a hydrofoil) to Capri or Ischia.

When in the centre of the city, however, the very best way to appreciate the flavour and the life of the place is on foot.  Hang on tight to your bags, clutch your purses and wallets close to you, but stroll up and down the narrow Spaccanapoli, once the decumanus inferior of the ancient city grid plan, or the Via dei Tribunali, the decumanus maior.  Both these narrow streets split the city from side to side, and are lined with churches, bars, crowded botteghe, selling everything from multi-coloured pasta shapes to live octopi, and surprising little squares where children play football against church doors.  They are dark, mysterious, noisy, scary, lively, bustling and dirty, but you’ll never be bored, or hungry, and you’ll find that all human life is there, in all its informality.  When your spirits start to flag, try a fresh glass of lemon juice with bicarbonate of soda – an astonishing pick-you-up.  When you are tired of polishing the basalt paving stones with your walking, sit down for a pizza straight from the wood oven of Matteo or Michele.  If you want a little peace for a moment, drop into the beautiful tiled cloister of Santa Chiara, and wander amongst the quiet majolica pillars, the box hedges and the orange trees.  If you want a little macabre thrill, descend into the crypt of the Cappella Sansevero (though not before you have admired the fantastically life-like veiled Christ), where you will find two of the oddest exhibits of anatomical research ever housed in a church, relics of a certain 18^th century Count’s alchemical experiments.  Not for the squeamish!

Ceramics in Santa Chiara depicting a rural scene (plus cat)

For the serious sightseer, the art lover, the dedicated tourist, there are, of course, major sights within the city as well.  These are described in all the guidebooks.  It is now possible to get a pass that gives you entrance to six major museums, as well as permitting you to use all public transport, for 60 hours.  The places to see are the Archaeological Museum, which houses many of the finest Roman mosaics from Pompeii as well as some of the most famous classical statues in the world; the Capodimonte Art Gallery, with works by Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Correggio, Caravaggio and Bellini, as well as El Greco and Breughel.  On the Vomero hill, next to the impressively restored Castel Sant’Elmo is the Certosa di San Martino, which is itself a beautiful building with spectacular views over the whole area, but which also houses a fine art gallery.  Then, in the centre of town there is the turreted Maschio Angioino (Castel Nuovo – as mentioned above), the Royal Palace and, perhaps finally, as it is perhaps the original place of habitation in Naples (and it’s free), the Castel dell’Ovo, which rises in massive form on an islet in the centre of the bay, supposedly built over an egg (hence the name) that Virgil buried here.  And then, when you have tired of all this art and history, you can settle down at a table in one of the restaurants by the waterside (Zi Teresa or Ciro being two of the best) and enjoy the very best of Naples – good food, excellent wine (try Falaghina) and the play of sun on water.  And you don’t need a jacket!

Spaccanapoli

My relationship with Naples goes back well over thirty years, and, although there are have been many changes, not the least of which is the fall in importance of the port, leading to increased unemployment and a related increase in crime, the city remains rewarding and strongly alluring.  I have encountered warmth and help from the inhabitants and continue to enjoy the confusion and vitality.  It has its third world aspects, and it may not suit those who prefer their boulevards manicured, but on my last visit I took my two young daughters, and they had a great time.  Although the local habit of not opening osterie or trattorie (the cheaper eating places) until after the shops shut at eight p.m. took a little getting used to, it provided endless diversion and stimulus for the family.  The only problem was, I didn’t take a jacket, and our trip coincided with some decidedly unseasonal weather, during which we chased snowflakes on the Vomero and were treated to the unusual sight of snow on the flanks of Vesuvius.  I wished I hadn’t been quite so informal! 

Snow on the hills beyond Pompeii

When it was time for us to depart, our flight was an early one, so we had to leave early in the chilly morning.  As a remarkable contrast to the bustle of the working city, the streets were nearly empty.  Vesuvius was rising in the dawn.  The sea was gleaming like dark mercury.  The taxi took ten minutes from Piazza Bellini to the airport.  Red lights all the way.  And we didn’t stop once.

Dublin 1

WHEREVER GREEN IS WORN

This piece was written quite a few years ago - at least ten - following a stay in Dublin at Gino and his Dublin born wife Mary's home in Dalkey. In those distant days the Celtic Tiger was barely a cub - now it is just a skin on a waiting room floor. In those days Bono had just bought the end house of a row on Sorrento point, reputedly for several million euros; now his money is said to be on the continent.... Anyway, although some of the personnel at "Il Baccaro" may have since changed, Gino still commutes between Rome and Dublin and "Il Baccaro" still thrives, even being said by one reviewer to be the only Italian restaurant in Ireland! And Kilmainham Jail, the history of Ireland, and Dublin's fair city are all still there and ever will be. In fact, since the excesses of the Stag Party days, Dublin has settled down into married life, and it is possible to wander the streets without being oppressed by people desperately having a wonderful time, as if marriage opened the gates of hell and it was a duty to exceed all bounds before entering. So, if you'll forgive the odd metachronism......

The Panopticon, Kilmainham Jail

Kilmainham Jail symbolises much of the darker side of Irish history. In harder times than these there was a queue of people committing crimes to gain imprisonment. In recent times, films, such as “In the Name of the Father” have been made on location inside the Victorian East Wing, recreating in two dimensions the claustrophobia of some of the country’s past and simultaneously glamorising it and creating the romance of stardom. In some ways, it makes a stage set of the past, “unless, soul clap its hands and sing,” that recreation helps us build a better world to come. 

To stand in the rock breakers’ yard, hemmed in by high stone walls, on the spot where in early May 1916 fourteen leaders of the Easter Rising - Pearse, MacDonagh, Plunkett, MacBride and fellows - faced the firing squad, and to imagine those bullets smacking into flesh and bone is to take a serious view of Ireland yet, perhaps, such imaginings may be a trifle melancholy in the general scheme of things. For Ireland, or at least Dublin has come a long way since then. Kilmainham Jail represents something deep in the Irish soul and the men who died there in 1916, let alone the hundred thousand or so who passed through there in its 128 years of active service, stood for belief in political freedom and died for the rights of others. Their revolution may have failed at the time, but Ireland has flourished because of their determination and spirit.

Sorrento Point with Dalkey Island behind

There’s no looking back. Dublin has changed. There are few scars left from the bad times, the revolution or the civil war. There are few undeveloped plots, few derelict Georgian houses, and few bars where James Joyce or Myles or Brendan would feel at home. John Mulligan’s of Poolbeg Street (established 1782) prides itself on its authenticity, but the towering modern buildings around it are not conducive to imaginative recreations of a Joycean night out. John Kehoe’s, at 9, South Anne Street (until recently the last of the resident owned pubs in the city centre) allows drinkers to occupy the family lounge upstairs, and the wooden partitions downstairs allow private conversations to remain private despite the throngs of young patrons who have replaced the seriously dark suited men of yesteryear. The craic is good, if you can hear it! Even the National Gallery of Ireland, home of the masterworks of Jack Yeats, has a brand new “Millennium Wing”, which, with its collection of modern and contemporary Irish Art, was opened this year.

 

John Mulligan's of Poolbeg Street, not much changed since its appearance in "Ulysses"

Dublin is now truly cosmopolitan, and the tiny area known as Temple Bar has become an international byword for a good time. In terms of places to be it is in the same league as Amsterdam, Greenwich Village, the Parisian Left Bank, Prague and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Weekend flights from the UK are full of bright young things heading for the bars and restaurants in the warren of streets just off the south side of the Liffey, across the Ha’penny Bridge and through the Merchant’s Arch. Almost bulldozed into a new bus terminal in the 1980s, Temple Bar was saved from one kind of oblivion and, partly thanks to Charles Haughey and his social conscience, the place suddenly took off in the 1990s, with such institutions as the Irish Film Centre, the Arthouse (the centre for the Artists’ Association of Ireland) and the Temple Bar Music Centre, being created in state of the art reconstructions. In Meeting House Square a whole-food market attracts attention in the daytime and open-air film screenings, concerts or theatre productions draw the crowds at night. Although the area has something of a reputation for excess, especially in connection with stag and hen parties from the UK, there is a convivial good humour to the evening jostle. Street performers entertain the passers-by while innumerable bars attempt to satisfy their thirsts.



The Ha'penny Bridge over the Liffey

And tucked into a corner of Meeting House Square, in what was until five years ago a disused and dingy eighteenth century cellar, there is “Il Baccaro”, one of the most natural Italian Restaurants you will find outside of Italy. The name derives from Venetian wine shops, where it is customary to stand with a group of friends eating appetising snacks while drinking local wine, and its inspiration also comes from the Roman Osterie, traditionally simple in their fare. The mastermind behind this venture is Gino Bottigliero, an Italian originally from Naples, whose long greying hair, drooping moustaches and dark flashing eyes give him a piratical air. Gino met and married Mary Pyne, a Dublin girl from the top of O’Connell Street, and, while living in Rome, had the bright idea of opening an Irish pub in the Italian capital. That was in 1976, since when Irish theme bars have become almost de rigeur in every neck of the woods in Italy, and The Fiddler’s Elbow in via dell’Olmata is just one of Gino’s series of very successful bars in Rome and Florence, and now Dublin.



Gino, Lorenzo and Sofia

Gino’s success comes partly from a no-nonsense approach to business, where he recognises the need for efficiency and quality, but also derives from a fertile imagination and the ability to create a friendly ambience. His partner, Dubliner Tiernan Maguire, spent several years working with Gino in Rome, and he shares that warmth of personality that is engendered by a blend of cultures. “Il Baccaro” looks just as you would expect an Italian place to look, with posters of Sophia Loren rubbing shoulders with photographs of Gino’s own grandparents on the walls. It is ever so slightly kitsch, and also retro as symbolised by the poster for “La Dolce Vita” but somehow that does not seem out of place in Temple Bar, and it is evidently utterly acceptable to the diners who pack it out every night. The low brick arches and wooden furniture make a cosy environment and the Italian staff, including Claudia and Manuela alternating behind the bar and Marina waiting, are expert in welcoming and dealing patiently with customers.

Lorenzo, the chef, from Rovigo, is a highly qualified and creative cook. Among his specialities is “rotolo di crepe con ricotta alle erbe e vegetali,” which is a combination of cream cheese and vegetables cooked in a thin pasta roll. He also delivers an unusual risotto made with pears and Gorgonzola, and a tasty “caponata di melanzane,” a Sicilian aubergine stew. Gino contributes to the ideas, as well, and he found a butcher in Dun Laoghaire capable of recreating traditional Italian “porchetta romana”, which is pork stuffed with herbs and spices and cooked slowly in a huge oven. There is also an interesting pasta dish called “penne all’arrabbiaciana”, which is an imaginative combination of the fiery “arrabbiata” sauce with chilli pepper and the bacon flavoured “amatriciana” sauce from the town of Amatrice in the Abruzzi Mountains. If you can manage a dessert, the home-made “tiramisu” is excellent and then, in true Italian style, an evening can be rounded off with Vin Santo and cantuccini or amaretti, traditional biscuits that are just right with sweet wine.

Temple Bar and Kilmainham Jail may not have too much in common, nor do, superficially at least, the Irish with the Italians, but there are connections in the spider’s web of culture and history that hold them together. The origin of Celtic culture actually lies in the Po Valley of Northern Italy, from whence the Celts moved north and west, through France and Brittany to Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. The Roman Catholic Church, once universal, now less so in Europe at least, is a linking strength between Eire and Italy. The excesses of Temple Bar and the austerities of Kilmainham Jail are two sides of the same coin; without one, you won’t have the other. Like sin and repentance, or joy and sorrow, they are the faces of Ireland. In my visit to Kilmainham I was accompanied by Gino, and though neither of us was born or brought up in Ireland, we both have long-standing ties to the country and deep sympathies with it; we were both impressed and moved by the experience. The prison has iconic and metaphorical value. We are just passers-by, but we are also a part of the fabric. The economy may thrive, but not in a vacuum. The history is remembered, but not by chance.

The last prisoner to walk free from Kilmainham Jail, was.....

The last prisoner to walk free from Kilmainham Jail was Eamon de Valera, who vacated his cell in 1924. Later in his life he became Prime Minister and then President of the Republic of Ireland. The Ireland he helped to create is a land of opportunity, and a land that welcomes an Italian Osteria in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar: “All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.” Like a soup made from leeks and potatoes, food can be universal or particular. Call it “zuppa di porri e patate” and serve it with a little olive oil and a good glass of fresh Pinot Grigio and it will seem ever so Italian. Even in Dublin. It may not be quite what the youth of Europe flock to Temple Bar for, but it will do me fine. As William Butler Yeats also said, as well as the above quotation, “I have prepared my peace with learned Italian things.”

Il Baccaro

Meeting House Square

Dublin

Telephone: 671 4597

http://www.ilbaccarodublin.com/