Padula and the Certosa di Padula · Jul 16, 11:56 AM by James Martin
As a travel writer, I hear a lot of reasons not to get off the beaten track these days. “Oh, I won’t go to Campania because of the garbage thing.” “
“I know I’ll save money by going in the off season, but the weather is cool and some rain clouds might form!”
OK, so here’s the thing. You’ve probably never heard of Padula, yet there’s plenty of reason to visit. Here is a picture of its famous, world heritage Certosa, or charterhouse:
The picture was taken in early spring. Rain threatens. Beautiful, no?
The Certosa has an incredible kitchen. It also sports the biggest cloister in the world. It’s the second largest Charterhouse in Italy after the one in Parma. You still haven’t heard of it, have you?
So we’re driving to Campania from Sicily, and encounter this massive traffic jam in the mountains. It takes three hours to go 30km. We’re going to be late to the hotel we’ve reserved in Padula. I get out the mobile phone and call them to tell them we’re going to be late. Perhaps we’ll arrive at 9 in the evening.
It’s no problem. When we get to Padula we check in, go to our room to clean up, then hit the restaurant. A clay pitcher of house wine awaits us, and the appetizer is laid on the table moments later.
Ahhhh.
The hotel is extraordinary. When you walk over the transom, you’re stepping on a thick Plexiglas sheet, a window onto an exposed Roman drain pipe.
The restaurant is in a medieval hall, stone-built with lots of nooks and crannies to peer into, one of them featuring a nativity scene called a presepe. It’s dramatically lighted.
Hell on the road becomes bliss; the food is simple and wonderful, the essence of Campania cuisine.
There is one other couple in the four star hotel, which sits at the edge of the world heritage Cilento National Park.
We’ve paid 80 Euro for the night. Dinner was 25 each with all the wine we could drink.
You can’t get luxury bargains like this in Rome or Florence. Check out the Hotel Villa Cosilinvm – Padula if you want to experience the bliss of getting off the beaten track. And goodness gracious, go when there are clouds and lower prices around, ya hear?
(Need to see and learn more about this amazing place? see the Padula Map on Mapping Europe.)
Language and Obnoxious Tourists · Jul 7, 05:51 PM by James Martin
Time reports on a survey that was taken by employees in 4,000 hotels in Germany, the U.K., Italy, France, Canada and the U.S. for the French travel website Expedia.fr. The French have moved into the top slot as the Most Obnoxious Tourists, according to hotel employees.
Hidden away is the fact that Americans seem to have come a long way in the language department:
American tourists fared well in some surprising ways. Despite being notoriously language-limited, for example, they top the list of tourists credited with trying to speak local languages the most, with the French, Chinese, Japanese, Italians and Russians coming in last in the local-language rankings.
Timothe de Roux poo-poos the notion by explaining that most hotel staffs speak English, which doesn’t explain the results at all.
In my experience, it’s true that most folks from the US I see on my travels do actually speak a little Italian when in Italy. This contrasts greatly with my experience in the 70s, when speaking English loudly was considered the same as being fluent in any foreign language by the average US tourist. It got so bad for a while that in every country I traveled to I learned the local lingo for “I don’t speak English” and practiced it until it sounded convincing so that these louts wouldn’t be associated with me by the natives, who probably weren’t fooled in the slightest.
So, pat yourselves on the back, American travelers, you’ve come a long way.
Atena Lucana · Jun 24, 01:56 PM by James Martin
Our spring exploration this year, which involved a road trip from the Lunigiana to Sicily, included a stop in Atena Lucana in the Salerno province of Campania. We stayed at the Grand Hotel Osman, which you’ll find (if you’re lucky) on a side road at edge of the Vallo di Diano.
The Osman brought us back to our golden age of travel in Italy, the 70s, the time before the infrastructure could catch up with the tourist demand. There were abundant elements of kitschy baroque in the place. The dining room was more formal than it should have been, complete with a hovering waiter we couldn’t get rid of despite the fact the place was empty on a blustery March evening.
Atena Lucana might be seen to have absolutely nothing for the tourist, save the fact that the old town sits high on a hill, overlooking the vallo di Diano and the National Park of Cilento. Yes, the views are pretty nice.
Still, there was something wonderful to be said about walking down the deserted cobblestone lanes of Atena Lucana in early evening as the cold settled in. Muffled voices of children arguing vociferously in the little houses brought back memories of old black-and-white movies about the south. Smells of fragrant sauces bubbling on the back burner edged out of cracks around windows.
Then, as we walked up, down and around the town we stopped under the lights of Hotel Villa Torre Antica, a hotel built inside a renovated tower in a fabulous position overlooking the valley on the edge of Atena Lucana. We peeked inside at the elegantly set tables stuck in nooks, crannies, and private little rooms.
It is then, you realize, that you must see a menu.
Here in this place you can eat the best of the Cilento at a reasonable cost. Our short stay prevented us from taking part, but it was an invitation to come back.
That’s why I’ll always be the perpetual traveler.
Dante Alighieri, Come on Home! · Jun 17, 10:45 AM by James Martin
(Picture: Dante’s Tomb in Ravenna.)
In a rather nonsensical political move, the city council of Florence has approved a motion calling on the mayor to organize ‘‘a public rehabilitation’‘ of the author of the Divine Comedy, according to Anza.
So, what are they gonna do, drag ol’ Dante out of his tomb in Ravenna (shown above) and cane his sorry, wrinkled ass? Are they going to make him write nice things about rich politicians and how they’re bound to end up in the third level of Paradiso where all the expired and bodacious-boobed porn stars are known to hang out without aging?
Presenting the motion, centre-right politicians called it ‘‘a decisive step towards Dante’s complete rehabilitation’‘.
So, what do you think these guys are on, anyway?
Of course, there may be a method to their madness. You’ve heard that residents of a Romanian village recently voted in a dead man as their mayor, since the live one wasn’t much to talk about. Wouldn’t it be nice to have Dante as your mayor? The tourists would go nuts trying to get an 85 Euro visitation ticket to see the guy. The city could use the money for a Dante Alighieri Amusement Park with death-defying rides to the various levels of hell, each featuring a fast-food restaurant and free “food”. Winner is the one that doesn’t need the Dante Alighieri Barf Bag of Paradise.
Yes, ladies and gents, Florence could be a fun destination once again.
Wandering Italy urges a yes vote on this proposition.
Scala dei Turchi: Extraordinary Moonlighting · Jun 16, 01:11 PM by James Martin
Scala dei Turchi, the Turkish steps shown on the left, are a chalky rock formation near the village of Realmonte in Sicily. I took this picture as the sun set behind us and the full moon came into the picture.
Scala dei Turchi is also the name of a quite inexpensive bed and breakfast in Realmonte run by Angela and Simone Modica, although Angela is the driving force behind the venture. She prepares the wonderful local-foods breakfast and cleans the rooms, activities that help keep the B&B a reasonable alternative to more expensive hotels for the budget traveler, especially those with kids in tow. (See a review of Bed and Breakfast Scala dei Turchi.)
Last night we listened to a CD Simone had given us. You see, when he gets time off from his IT job for the city of Agrigento, he’s traveled the world with his traditional Sicilian music group. Simone is not only second voice for the group, he plays chitarra, mandolino, and mandola contrabasso. Along with Nene Sciortino he arranges, directs and mixes the audio.
One day when we were in his car he leaned over to me and revealed the thing he does that he likes best. “Muratore,” he said.
Now, I have a muratore tan, or you might say, a bricklayer’s tan. You see, Simone likes best building walls of stone houses. Right now he has some property that he’s renovating into a vacation house. It used to be a place where they could feed animals away from the sun. He’s turning it into a compact little house ideal for a short getaway. You can see it to the right, under moonlight. It has a view of the sea.
And he’s doing all this construction by himself. On weekends.
It’s hard to imagine a single person having all the energy to do these things. But that’s one of the benefits of travel: meeting and being allowed to reside in the world of extraordinary people for a short while, perhaps to transform their world into your own dreams.
And the best part of being a travel writer is that extraordinary people often seek you out and offer their vast experience in the world as an open book.
For me, travel isn’t expensive. It’s a necessity. The world, to a traveler with an open mind and open heart, can be an uplifting place.
(Here’s a picture of Simone. If you click the download link, you can hear some mp3s of traditional Sicilian music.)
Mantagnana - Walled City in the Veneto · Jun 12, 10:17 AM by James Martin
Just when you think you’ve been everywhere in Italy worth visiting, another walled city pops up.
We were driving to Chioggia when the road veered suddenly right. After gawking a bit, we realized that we were being taken around a walled city, rectangular in shape, on a road just outside the dried-up moat, now green with grass. We had to stop of course; it was lunch time.
We had a filling and inexpensive lunch just outside the walls—nothing to write home about. Then we went into Mantagnana through a medieval gate.
There was a wonderful market square with a Gothic Cathedral (1431-1502) and a guard tower that had been made into a youth hostel. You could walk to the top and see the city from about 7 stories up. There was some medieval siege machinery lying about. In the market square sat a gelato joint that was rocking, even though the spring day wasn’t that hot.
Montagnana evidently hosts a traditional “Palio” (horse-race and costumed procession) on the first Sunday in September, although the web site isn’t updated for 2008 yet.
Wandering Italy—sometimes just driving or walking around is the best way to find interesting stuff.
Is Venice Too Crowded? Is Venice a Hotel? · Jun 9, 04:25 PM by James Martin
I made the mistake of taking my mother to Venice on May Day. Folks, do not try this on your vacation. San Marco was a mass of people so solid you could have walked on top of the carpet of humanity milling about and they’d have hardly felt it. There weren’t even room for the unfed pigeons to land on terra firma, enless you’re thinking testa firma. Over in the canals, Gondolas lined up like cars in one of those insipid stock car roundy-round races, everyone follows the leader until the flag comes out or someone crashes. “Hey, meester, wanna 80 Euro carousel ride?”
Some of you don’t like the things I like, but I’ll go on my little rant anyway. I like cities populated with people, the stranger the better. I like those people to have inhabited the city long enough to develop the prejudices that long-term habitation creates. Thus, there will be food different from what the neighboring tribes stick their forks into—and different architecture, language habits, and so on. All of this is grist for the tourists milling about—or at least for me.
The bad thing is that residents have been leaving Venice for years, leaving it to the folks with the big steamer trunks evidently full of shorts and ratty tee shirts with smarmy sayings on them.
So, if there’s a problem…how is it solved?
By creating more hotel space! Obviously! How could I have been so stupid?
Honest to god, that’s what the Veneto regional council is gonna do. They’ve proposed some laws that seem to say, “You got a building? You got a shack on a canal? Well, it’s ok with us if you turn it into a hotel!”
Living Venice blog has the goods on the whole deal with the proposal all put into English for you. If you are of the mind that this proposal is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard of regarding Venice, there’s even a petition to sign: Venice is not a hotel
Yes, even with a dollar falling being pushed by the idiots in power into worthlessness, there is an “omnivorous tourist market” on the loose out there.
Stop them before they eat the arsenale.
Naples or Positano? · Jun 5, 10:09 AM by James Martin
Campania is an amazing place. It’s got some of the most desirable real estate in the world along the Amalfi coast. Mention Positano and normally erect people swoon drunkenly.
And then there’s Naples and its garbage. You see, Umberto I doesn’t swoon. He just stands there in his bronzeness, the symbol of Naples’ “problems” scattered at his back as he looks out to sea.
So which place would I prefer to spend some time? The answer may surprise you. It’s Naples, hands down.
You see, I’ve been to Positano. I’ve taken lots of Positano pictures.
But once the shutter had calmed down, it was time to go. Positano is pretty as a model in sandals, a symbol of modern style and grace and perfection. You kiss her on the powdered cheek and then go, feeling just a tad empty. Where are the hardware stores? Where do the old men get their coffee?
The picture of kids playing soccer on the marble floors of Galleria Umberto I screams “Naples” to me. It’s about people going about their daily lives, just stressed enough to get clever, just wary enough to be interesting.
Garbage? Garbage is the flaw, like Marilyn Monroe’s birthmark, that give us permission to peer closer, to be unafraid of the immense beauty that lies below the surface.
Naples is wealth and poverty side by side. It’s a city with problems times 2, which raises the bar for everything else. Pizza times 2, seafood times 2. Opera times 2. The elegance of an overpriced coffee (times 2) at Caffe Gambrinus, where the Lonely Planet tells us, “Mussolini had some of the rooms shut down to keep out left-wing intellectuals.”
(Damn those intellectuals. How you gonna have a totalitarian state with those bums, anyway? Everyone knows knowledge is dangerous.)
Take Naples’ tourist heart, Via San Gregorio Armeno. That’s where the nativity workshops are. It’s where you buy stuff for your presepe. Yes, at this time of year the streets are full of tourists. But go into some of the sunlit courtyards where all manner of little figures and miniature huts are displayed and if you aren’t transported back in time when craftsmanship was the norm and the little workshops were situated below the little apartments where the artisans lived, then your radar is off.
To me, that’s what a vacation is for. To be transported. To have life wash over you like tidal wave. To know that people live differently but not better or worse. To know that someone crafted a figurine out of sticks, or even an open-air shopping mall out of a marine power and fishing port.
Yes, even the curmudgeon in me knows that Positano has its place in the world.
Maureen Fant and Eating Like Romans · Jun 2, 04:30 PM by James Martin
Eternally Cool has a good interview with Maureen Fant, author of both cookbooks and books on how women lived in ancient Greece and Rome.
I (sadly) have to admit that this is the first I’ve heard of Ms. Fant, in spite of the fact that we seem to lead somewhat parallel lives, moving from archaeology to writing about food and culture in current times.
I went to her web page and found that we also share some of the same pet peeves. One is a proper disgust for the socialized mispronunciation of Italian words—as if saying them correctly in the US was some sort of punishable subversion of national pride. She (reluctantly, it seems) gives cooking classes:
The “lesson” that follows the shopping is thus an improvisational tour de force, not so much a class as a bunch of friends rolling up their sleeves and getting lunch together. But with me bossing everybody around. This makes for an intense encounter, during the course of which I berate them for mispronouncing bruschetta (it’s broosketta, puh-leez)
Hurray for her. And this makes me want to sign up for a consultation, pronto:
I can also offer private tutorials in Roman food ways (i.e., all theory, not cooking and eating, maybe a little drinking, though).
I’ll drink to that.
Oh, and her food blog tells you what’s fresh at the Testaccio market. Don’t you wish you were there? I do.
Bologna - Neptune's Abs and His Putti · May 19, 09:13 AM by James Martin
There are a couple of things that make me think fondly of Bologna. One is that it is a city of communists who work together to make Bologna one of Italy’s best functioning and wealthiest cities. Take that you supply-siders.
The other things I think fondly of are Bologna’s major fountains—often featuring protagonists who’d get 20 to life for the scenes they’re acting out if they were flesh and bones instead of carefully sculpted lumps of bronze. Just look at Neptune over there, cavorting with the putti, hips cocked like a 50’s porn star who’s forgotten his obligatory socks.
Its odd that putti, the plural of putto are young and pudgy boys, often with wings. They are not cupids or cherubs though. Wikipedia says that putti have “associations with Aphrodite, and so with romantic – or erotic – love.” Alas, one never mentions the female version, putta because it’s short for “slut.” Hence pasta alla puttanesca becomes “the whore’s (or slut’s) pasta.”
And what does that say for old Nettuno? I have no idea. He’s certainly striking a confident pose for a guy without underwear and surrounded by a gaggle of putty-fleshed putti.
But it’s what’s below that makes the scene at Bologna’s favorite meeting place odder still. There are lactating nereids down there. But those will have to wait for another time. I gotta go.
