Tasting Prato · Sep 2, 03:08 PM by James Martin
My flight to Zurich, from which I’ll take my buy-back lease car to Italy, happens in a mere couple of weeks. I’m up for it.
So today I hear of Degustando Prato
Degustando Prato is a gastronomic festival dedicated to specialty gourmet products featuring restaurants and estates.
Throughout September experience exquisite typical menus in restaurants and fascinating wine tours in estates scattered in the province territory, with visits to cultivations and local wine tastings.
It’s not only about the tender local gastronomy though, there’s something I’ll miss because it comes on September 8th, less than a week from this post. It’s the display of the Sacred Girdle. I am not at all happy that I will be missing this event.
Any young man who came of age in the early 60s will remember the challenge of the girdle and the age of liberation which came later…and none to soon. But I digress (nevertheless, we heard those heraldic trumpets in our heads upon the sacred removal!…)
The display takes place late in the afternoon, around 6 p.m., when trumpeters, musicians and the historical parade march through the city centre. From the pulpit built in 1400 for the occasion by Donatello and Michelozzo, the bishop, accompanied by the mayor, show the Sacred Girdle to the crowd.
Prato is a nice city. You should go. And eat. And remember girdles. I know I will.
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Aulla and the Marriage of the Rose and the Pomegranate · May 30, 12:56 AM by James Martin
Our little market town of Aulla is having a four day festival celebrating its origins, called Gli sponsali della rosa e del melograno. Last night there was a demonstration of heroic medieval warfare by the local historical group. There was, of course, abundant food and crafts. I liked the food better.
Here are some of the boys who went down by the river and risked their limbs in medieval combat. The late evening light was perfect.
I have some video of the “war” to show you later. I flinched when the cannon went off. I mean, wouldn’t you?
Ferrara People and the Boredom of a Balanced Place · May 19, 08:56 AM by James Martin
I like Ferrara. More people should go there. It’s a people town.
Maybe it’s a people town because there’s really “nothing” to do there.
But that’s what makes Ferrara fun, in a way. My friend Kyle thought of it as a boring place when he was younger, but now thinks of it as relaxing. His exact words on twitter: “What else is there to do in Ferrara, other than swat mosquitoes? I’ve always thought of it as a relaxed place (now).” I got the same idea, as well as some mosquito bites.
In the evening—especially on Wednesdays, I’m told—folks gather around the duomo, or cathedral—the big thing with the abundance of columns you see on the right. They talk, usually with their hands, perhaps holding a beer from a stand set up right there to dispense draft beer on the street in front of the church. So instead of waiting for all the people to get out of my pictures of medieval monuments (Ferrara has some doozies from the Renaissance), I started photographing them. It was a fun diversion.
Below is a picture of people just out enjoying the day on their bikes. Everyone has a bike. Maybe they have several in case one is stolen. Rich and poor, old and young have bicycles. You feel naked if you’re walking the streets without a tangle of tubes and wheels between your legs.
What’s not so obvious about this picture is that the kids who are too young for bikes, like those in the left background, love to climb on the many stone lions incorporated around the front of the cathedral. You see a kid maybe half a mile from the cathedral and invariably he will start running for the lions, his parents panting along behind. Then it’s time to crawl all over their polished surfaces. They’re wearing down, these lions. But they’re shiny on top. So am I.
There was a medieval festival going on when we were there, with a whole lot of that medieval flag throwing to music provided by marching bands consisting of drummers and people fingering those long heraldic trumpets. But these weren’t the Tonight Show marching bands. These guys showed personality that they probably weren’t supposed to show. Look at the drummer on the left. He seems to be saying, “Geez those flag babes get this wrong every goddam time!” There’s always one in every crowd.
And the last thing I want to add is that Ferrara has lots of kids running around hugging stone lions compared to other places in Italy I’ve been. Lots. And, the ratio of smooching lovers to non-smoochers is darn high, too. I think these two things might be related. I’m making this picture a thumbnail which you can click to see bigger (you can do the same thing with the duomo picture if you like). It looks like an ad for perfume, but I didn’t plan it that way. Still, if you don’t like to see people smooching, don’t go to Ferrara. I’m warning you.
See a Ferrara map and guide to those monuments, if you’re thinking of going and don’t mind the smooching.
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Flag Throwing Contest in Ferrara · May 17, 07:46 AM by James Martin
We’ve just spent a day watching individuals and teams throw flags in the air and catch them in artistic manners aided by the use of all available limbs. This was a preliminary event before the Palio of Ferrara, claimed to be the oldest Palio recorded. Here are just 2 of 300 pictures of the gare degli sbandieratori del Palio di Ferrara.
Here is what I learned yesterday, after standing at the rail for two hours waiting for the Sbandieratori to begin, then taking pictures while analyzing the action in the campo.
This is OK
This is not OK
Simple, eh?
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How is the Giro d'Italia Like Sex? · Apr 26, 12:57 AM by James Martin
The venerable Lord Chesterfield never saw a Giro d’Italia, of course—it’s likely he never saw a bicycle—but if he had, he might have seen the parallels between sex and a bicycle stage race. Remember, he’s pegged as saying:
“Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.”
Let me get the unpleasantness of viewing the Giro out of the way at the start. No matter what position you choose to plant yourself in along the route, you’re only going to see the racers once. If you choose a position at the start of a stage—snapping to attention when the crowd around you starts to buzz—you will likely see your hero and the other laggards packed together in a bicycle jam, looking ever so much like a multicolored serpent slithering its way down Italy’s narrow little mountain roads. Quickly they pass, the whine of the chain and the clatter of gears waxes and wanes. It’s all over except the twittering of the birds who haven’t yet made it as the pivotal ingredient in uccelli e polenta.
The pleasure is momentary.
During this time, you are planted on a hillside or alongside a street. If you are in a village, you might be pressed up against a rail (you are in Italy, so the railing is likely not where the authorities placed it, but don’t worry, it’s not your problem). In the countryside you are freer to stand where you wish, even right in the road. They, meaning the authorities, do not like this—nor do the racers. It’s often you see that little dance we know so well from our own sidewalk encounters; a man in crazy dress walks into the path of his favorite racer, waving his arms like a lunatic while fully intending to jump to the right at just the last moment, the same exact moment his hero decides to go to his left to avoid said lunatic and—wham!—it’s a bashing and a tangle of legs, arms and bicycle parts.
That position is certainly ridiculous, doncha think?
And the expense? Well, like many lucky encounters with the fleeting apple of one’s eye, the initial cost is zero. Yes, viewing the Giro d’Italia is free. What follows is the thing. You see, the race is a spectacle. It’s something you want to remember having attended. You need a souvenir. Your kid needs three—plus a gelato or two. By the time he’s 12 he will want a $3500 bicycle, just like his favorite rider.
The expense is indeed damnable. The expense of those Giro bikes and the support crew? Goodness!
There are ways, of course, to make the pleasure of seeing the packs of brilliantly shrouded racers for a longer time. You can choose to see the Giro on a tough mountain stage, where the speeds have come down considerably and the racers grunt with exertion, practically in your ear. It’s a popular endeavor among tifosi, or race fans as they’re called in Italy. Bring a lunch, lounge on the mountainside, take in some sun.
Oh, and see the racers. Here’s how and where to see them in the Lunigiana. Plus, we have a Giro route map with suggested lodging.
The Sport of Pesto · Apr 20, 02:14 AM by James Martin
What galls me is when I sit down to watch ESPN or some such “sports” network in the US, and on comes a beautiful waste of high definition TV showing some jokers playing poker. When did poker become a sport? It’s like ice dancing, only far more boring to watch. You need lots of cheap beer to anesthetize you if you’re going to put in a long session of watching grown men play cards thoughtfully. When there’s a lot at stake, you get to watch some high-def sweating. That’s something you don’t get to stare at in polite company much.
Anyway, along comes word that the 2010 The Pesto World Champion has just been crowned. Honest to god, there’s a DVD out. At least there’s more work involved in cranking out great pesto using a real mortar and pestle—maybe that in itself would qualify it as a sport. But watching a pesto championship on a DVD? Seems a bit much.
Federico Ferro is the champ. He pounded his (pine) nuts with valor, evidently.
In a hall perfumed by basil he has received the Golden Pestle as winner by the journalist Bruno Pizzul, the unforgettable Italian sports voice.
There’s the reference to sport. How long before it gets a serious look by an Olympic committee?
Like other sports, there’s crap to buy. The stuff is called “gadgets.” Don’t expect electric pesto pounders. Get this, they’re selling cans of basel scented air—and evidently “basel flavored sweet tablets to let dissolve on your tongue” is also considered a gadget in the Italian sport of Pesto.
It’s like poker being considered a sport, isn’t it?
(The Genoa Pesto World Championship site is in English.)
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Rome Calling · Jan 17, 09:32 AM by James Martin
After a fine meal with friends and a new acquaintance at Olea Restaurant in San Francisco I was itching to go back to Rome. Yes, we discussed the Eternal City, its secret gardens and some interesting places to view Rome from above.
Rome is one of those cities that divides folks. Orderly folks will hate it as they might hate Naples for some of the same reasons. For those of us who like surprises, cacaphony, and life lived in the midst of surreal oddness, Rome is the motherland of vacations.
Anyway, this occasion, a fine meal presided over by a waiter who understood our desire to communicate unabated while he worked in the background tirelessly, gave me an opportunity to drag out one of my favorite pictures taken last year at the Christmas Market in Piazza Navona. Call it performance art if you wish. It was colorful. Dazzling in its serenity. There was also a little eye candy in it. So shoot me.
Which also reminds me of a page I wove together yesterday on Rome Taxis. It includes a widget that allows you to find what the real fare is to wherever you’re going, just so you don’t get ripped off I mean. There are many sides to Rome.
Who Will Be Gracing the Presepe this year? Surprise! · Dec 15, 09:48 AM by James Martin
For those of you who just have to know which figure the artistic folks of Naples’ Via San Gregorio Armeno have selected for 2009—he’s over there to the right. Michael Jackson.
Yes, we’ve just spent the last few hours walking the streets of Naples, talking with the artists who produce the best of the figurines for your holiday presepe or nativity scene. We’ll have a picture gallery soon. But I know many of you who will want to see a sneak preview of one of the current faves on the famous people shelves of the not-without-a-political-sense-of-humor artisans that line the famous street of nativity scene figurines in Naples, the Via San Gregorio Armeno.
Once the miniature duomos start crashing into skulls, it doesn’t take much longer for the presepe folks to document the act than it does for those newfangled digital news photographers, as you can see by the picture on the left.
Click the presepe figures picture to see them in all their gruesome detail.