Spelunking with a Russian bear

Tuesday, March 15
We take a break from trying to be Italian today to visit the Grotta del Vento in the Garfagnana hills. We ride in Steve and Patti’s van and speak English most of the day. The cave is like many things we have seen in Italy—spectacular and intricate columns that look like white marble—only without the added touch of man shaping them into buildings or statues. We take the shortest tour, one hour, of the three itineraries available.

We learn that no bats or animals have lived in the cave because it has two openings and would be very windy inside if it were not for a door that closes the top entrance now. A few bones of large bears have been found in the cave, but it is thought that water washed them inside. Still, we see the skeleton of a large cave bear that has been pieced together inside. We learn that this type of bear did live in this region at one time, but this skeleton has been imported from Russia. He has very low hips, and Lucy comments that he reminds her of teenage boys wearing sagging pants. 

The cave is still very active, with calcium-laden drops of water dripping from the alabaster draperies above onto stalagmites below, not to mention onto our heads. We learn that the limestone was formed by shells, coral formations, fish skeletons, sand and slime found on the bottom of the sea. Then strong thrusts of the earth’s crusts created the mountains, and heavy rainfall created underground rivers that carved out these caves.

While the tour is enjoyable, perhaps the most memorable part of the trip will be the full course dinner we enjoy at a bargain price at a trattoria near Gallicano, still high in the mountains. We and a Spanish couple who also toured the cave are the only diners, and the cook and waiter are gracious and friendly. For some reason, the best dinner prices are in out-of-the-way cities like this. It could go without saying that the food is delicious, because a restaurant in rural Italy would soon be out of business if it wasn’t.

We thought this kind of looks like an alien head peering out from a cavern.

Columns of calcium carbonate.

Buying a pair of boots without losing my shirt

Monday, March 14

Even the dolce vita has a few moments of misery. Okay, I am exaggerating, but I don’t like shopping for clothes. Perhaps more accurately, I don’t like the thought of spending money on clothes. Nevertheless, after our rainy Sunday afternoon in Viareggio, I have to concede that I need boots. I am tired of walking around in wet tennis shoes all day every time it rains.

Steve and Patti Gray, our friends from Padova, have come today for a three-day visit, and since they have a car, Lucy suggests that Patti take me out shopping while Steve does some work on his computer. To find a good shoe store, we stop at Torello Abbigliamento to ask for a recommendation. Lucy and I came here a few weeks ago to buy me a couple of shirts, and the proprietress remembers us. Today, though, we meet the patriarch of the store. Torello Luporini, who looks to be in his eighties, is sitting at the cashier’s counter. Another customer is making a purchase, and the sales lady passes the customer’s money to Torello, who makes the change and passes it to the sales lady, who gives it to the customer.

Naturally, when Torello learns that we are American, he tells us about his cousin who lives in Chicago. Everyone in Italy has relatives in America, and it always makes a good ice breaker. With some help from Patti, we find that he once had a supervisor who was friends with a Spadoni, and that a Spadoni was once the sindaco, mayor, of Montecarlo—more information for me to look into on another day. Torello recommends a shoe shop in Montecarlo, and he gives us a nice calendar and pen with his store’s name on them. I am ready to go, but meanwhile Lucy has been checking out the men’s sweaters and has something she wants me to try on.

I know where this is leading. Everyone will ask me if I like it, and if I do, I will be expected to buy it, and this is what happens. Then comes the painful moment when I find out the price, which is considerably more than I would pay at Macy’s during a sale. However, I remember that I am paying for more than just a finely made Italian wool sweater. I am shopping like an Italian and we are becoming acquainted with this nice family that operates a traditional clothing store in the hometown of my grandparents. On the wall are photos of the San Salvatore of eighty years ago, and Torello is inviting me to stop by again for another chat. So my wallet is opened and I have a new sweater.

Now it’s up the hill to Montecarlo, where we find a small but well-stocked shoe store with a friendly proprietor. I explain that I need boots, not elegant ones, to keep my feet dry in the rain, and I am shown two styles, both reasonably priced but not exactly what I am looking for. The third pair, though, is perfect, simple black leather that covers my ankles and has waffle-like soles. I brace myself for the price and am amazed to find that they are less than half of what I had expected to pay. I am assured by the salesman that they are made in Italy by a well-respected company. Patti is also impressed by the price and quality and says she will tell Steve about this place.

So what started out as an activity that I usually dread has ended pleasantly. I have gone shopping in an Italian way, practiced my language skills and met some charming local shop owners. And as a side benefit, I also have a nice sweater and pair of boots, purchased, on the whole, at decent prices. Even the unpleasant tasks of life here seem sweeter.

This is from the enlarged photo on the wall at Torello Abbigliamento. It does not say when the photo was taken, but I have a picture taken in 1969 which shows a gas station where the family on the left is sitting, and now there is a very popular bar there. The house where Pietro Spadoni and Maria Marchi lived would be just to the right of the viewable area. 

Celebrating a wet Italian Carnevale

Sunday, March 13

We live only thirty-five minutes from Viareggio, the location of one of the most famous Carnevale celebrations in Italy, and as the final Sunday of Carnevale approaches, we cannot resist the lure of the flesh. After going to church, no less, we decide to indulge ourselves and hop on the train to sample the revelry. Okay, that sounds a lot more salacious than it really is meant to be, but it does have some basis in history, at least.

Carnevale, or carnival in English, is celebrated in countries with Roman Catholic traditions and the “carne” part of the name does mean flesh or meat. During Lent, 40 days before Easter, Catholics traditionally abstained from eating rich foods such as meat, sweets, fats and dairy foods. So just before Lent, all rich foods had to be disposed of in some way, so why not have a big community party to get rid of them? This is thought to be how Carnevale originated, and the one in Venice was once the most famous, although now there is a bigger one in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. Venice is still number one in Italy, at least by reputation, but some say Viareggio has surpassed it with a fantastic corso mascherato, or parade with masks. The floats are of immense size, three or four stories tall, and they are masterpieces of creative splendor befitting a country that is already famous for its art. Floats depict notable current or historic personalities and events, and they are animated both with sophisticated internal technology and live actors aboard in costume.

Unfortunately for us, we know this only by watching online videos, because after walking around in the rain for an hour and a half, we hear an announcement on the loudspeakers: Because of bad weather, il corso mascherato e annulato, canceled. We go back to the ticket booth and get our 30 euro refunded, and we do manage to snap some nice pictures of some of the carnevale celebrants, who are singing and marching in their own mini-parade.

Now we are faced with a difficult choice for our return trip. We have spent most of our time under our umbrellas and so we are mildly damp. We could wait an extra two hours and catch a train all the way to San Salvatore, or we could take a train right now that only goes as far as Altopascio, which would require a twenty-five-minute bike ride home. It has been raining off and on all day, so we could be in for a wet ride, but even if we wait for the San Salvatore train, we will still have an eight-minute bike ride home from that station. At the moment, it is not raining, and we decide to head out now and ride back from Altopascio. Alas, the closer we get, the harder it is raining, and we arrive home quite soaked, but one of the benefits of staying in a modern agriturismo is a shower with abundant hot water, so we are quickly revived. I suppose one could say that this is our worst day since we have been here, but we enjoyed watching the people, both the masked and unmasked, and we are still quite contented. Besides, this gives us something new to look forward to next year.

Here is where you can watch a nice video of last year’s Carnevale in Viareggio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYKcR5SHzww

Abudius and the feather fertilizer

Friday, March 11
From San Salvatore we can see several small hilltop cities, and today we set out to explore one of the most prominent, Buggiano Castello. We can ride the train to Borgo a Buggiano and then take a 20-minute salita up the hill. There are other cities around here based on the name Buggiano—Ponte Buggianese, Buggiano, Colle di Buggiano. Buggiano sounds similar to the word bugiardo, liar. How did such a name get attached to this region? A bit of Internet research shows three possible solutions, two of which are rather boring and have to do with words that came from other languages.

One theory is that it came from the Gallic tribe of “Booj.” Another is that it derived from “Bovianum,” Latin for ox. The best story is about a Roman soldier, Abudius. He had fought a valiant battle, and his commanding officer wanted to reward him with a piece of property on the hill to live a life of peace. The officer gave Abudius an ox skin and said he must mark out the property with it, thinking that Abudius could get a piece of property only big enough to make his grave.  Abudius took the skin away and secretly cut it into many thin strings with which he was able to circumscribe a large plot of land. The officer had to concede to the cleverness of Abudius, and Buggiano grew from this land.

So none of these solutions are related to bugia, the word for “lie,” or bugiardo, “liar.” But then these stories all come from the Comune di Buggiano website, and perhaps these Buggianese are just master fibbers who made up some good stories to hide their true nature.

We chain our bikes up at the base of Buggiano Castello and climb a broad road that winds through fields of ancient twisted olive trees. Halfway up, we see what looks like snow on the grass between the trees. On closer examination, it turns out to be white chicken feathers, spread out evenly about three inches thick. We also see under a shed some tightly packed bales of feathers that have yet to be spread out. We guess that somebody has found out that chicken feathers make good mulch and fertilizer, and later I look this up on the web and find that to be true.

Castello Buggiano turns out to be entirely a bedroom community. It has many more houses and apartments than Montecarlo, but we don’t see a single restaurant or store. We get some great views from the top, because we can see both west to Montecarlo and east to Montecatini Terme and Montecatini Alto. During the entire half hour we spend exploring, we see only a handful of people. If we had to chose a hilltop city on which to live, we’d much prefer our own Montecarlo, which has a healthy mix of businesses and residences and is alive and active both day and night.

We walk back down and ride our bikes for ten minutes to Uzzano, where we stop in to say hello to Alberto Spadoni at his real estate agency. I recently sent Alberto an email asking him to help us look at some houses here so we can get an idea about the market. We are not in a position to buy anything now, but it might help us plan for the future, and besides, we love to dream. He will be glad to help us and we will call him back when our schedule clears up a bit more.

Then it is back to the bikes for another ten-minute ride, this time to Pescia, where we stop to see Francesca Seghieri at her bicycle shop. We have not seen her since she sold us our bikes five weeks ago. She is about to get in her car and take off, but she stays to chat for a while. I tell her that I have spoken to her Uncle Mario and found that we are truly cousins, she and I. We have the same trisavolo, great-great grandfather. She seems to take this in stride. She is friendly and helpful but probably not nearly as excited about this as I am, though I can’t read her expression. Her husband makes a few minor adjustments on Lucy’s bike, gratis, and we also talk to Francesca’s mother, Dosolina, who comments that our Italian has improved.

Our next stop is the EsseLunga in Pescia, where we stock up on heavy items such as potatoes, dish soap and laundry detergent. Everything has to fit in two backpacks and the cestino on Lucy’s bike, an amount that would fill two or three paper grocery sacks in the states. It is a short distance from here to the Pescia station, so we take the train home, where I get to spend a relaxing afternoon and evening.

Lucy, instead, takes a short rest and then is off again, this time to Lucca for a cooking lesson with our language school. In my opinion, she doesn’t need this, but I’m all in favor of anything that involves her practicing her culinary skills, so I feel it is tuition money well spent. I know that I will be the one to benefit in the long run.

At home in an ancient museum

Wednesday, March 9

If one didn’t know any better, a visit to the Museum of the Chestnut Tree, castagno, might sound pretty boring, but it turns out to be my favorite activity of any that our language school has taken us on so far. The museum is significant because castagne, chestnuts, were not just something that one roasted on the fire at Christmas here. They were the most important life-sustaining force for many of the hillside communities in the Garfagnana valley and many other places in Italy.

Homer mentions chestnuts, and the naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century about which kinds of chestnuts were grown in Southern Italy. Chestnuts were one of the few food crops that could be grown on steep mountain slopes, and they were ground into flour and used as a staple in many recipes to provide sustenance through the long winter months. Much of the economy revolved around the chestnut, which people harvested in the fall and worked long into the winter to process, package and sell. The wood from chestnut trees was used to make beams and doors for houses and all kinds of furniture, including barrels for wine and oil. Dead branches were harvested for firewood for cold winter nights. Old stumps and logs were burned slowly under cover to make charcoal for cooking.

With so many uses for chestnuts, the Museo del Castagno has quite an extensive collection of ancient tools. First, of course, are all the tools used to process the chestnuts into food. There are specialized hand tools but also shoes with large metal spikes on the bottom to crush the chestnuts in tubs, kind of like the peasants used to do with grapes, except the grapes were smashed with bare feet. Later there were machines with hand cranks, and then devices powered by water wheels. We also see round paddle-like devices for roasting chestnut cakes over the fires.

Seeing all the tools for wood-working make me think of my dad and uncles. Growing up in the 1950s and 60s, I remember seeing them working in their company shop using similar tools, but the ones we see here are hundreds of years older. We see saws, grinders and lathes that are driven by hand power, foot pedals and cranks, using leather straps as belts. Some take two people to operate, and there is a picture of a young boy providing the power while his father operates the grinder. How I wish my dad and his brothers Roy, Claude and Rudy—masters of 20^th century machines and fabrication—could be here to see these simple yet ingenious devices. We also see a small model wooden chainsaw, and I think of cousin Al Spadoni, who could work wonders with woodworking tools, and who once made us a whimsical chain saw, literally a large chain made out of interlinked pieces of wood, fastened on to a handle shaped like that of a handsaw.

It feels like we have truly stepped back in time, because the buildings we are in and the tools that fill them seem simply to be pieces that were left where the artisans last used them. There are no glass display cases or roped-off areas. We are free to pick up objects and even try them out, something that would not be possible in most American museums. But this museum is high on the hillside of an isolated village, Colognora di Pescaglia, north of Lucca. It is open today only for our small school group, and it is unlikely that it is visited often by foreigners. The people who know this museum exists are most likely to be respectful of the colorful history and culture that these precious artifacts represent.

The connection to the past I feel here is even stronger that I have felt when viewing ruins of Roman, Etruscan or medieval times, or when I see the amazing art of the Renaissance. I think it is because even though I can fantasize about my ancestors being noblemen, sword makers, sculptors or cavaliers, I think that here we are much closer to the truth. My ancestors were most likely hard-working craftsmen who eked out their livelihood through sweat, determination and the use of tools which they sought to improve whenever possible. I feel very much at home in this museum.

This chestnut mill was more modern, using water power.

A drill press

This was part of a blacksmith's forge, with a bellows powered by a foot pedal. Charcoal from chestnut stumps and logs was used to make fire to heat the metal.

This tool took one person to turn the crank and another to use the grinder.

Hand-made nails made by the blacksmith.

A foot-powered lathe used to shape furniture dowels.

Another lathe.

Before power sawmills, this is how planks were made. A saw in Italian is a sega. The person who used this was called a seghiere. Plural would be seghieri. Heard that name before?

Firewood was brought home on horseback using one of these special wood saddles.

Cittadinanza si! Passaporto no!

Monday, April 7

Ari takes us both to the comune in Pescia today, where I receive a certificate of residence all’estero, officially “an Italian citizen who lives abroad.” We are sent to the tabaccaio next door, where for 14.62 euros I buy a marca da bollo, an official tax stamp, which must be affixed to the certificate, and then I pay an additional .80 euros at the comune. We also receive copies of my birth and marriage certificates in Italian. All of this takes place fairly swiftly, because Ari inquired here on my behalf more than two weeks ago, and they told him to come back in ten days and my documents would be ready.

We ask about the possibility of Lucy applying for citizenship. The Italian Consulate in San Francisco said she is eligible to apply immediately for citizenship because we have been married more than three years. For that, we are told, we must also apply in San Francisco.

We stop outside the office to take a quick celebratory photo of Ari, me and my certificates. Now we go again to the questura to ask about getting a passaporto. I found out when I had dinner with Enrico’s family that I can’t use somebody else’s address to get an Italian ID card instead of a passaporto, because it would add to that person's property taxes to have an additional person listed as an occupant. This leaves the passaporto as the best option for photographic identification as an Italian citizen.

The police officer is reluctant. It will be difficult to get a passaporto because we don’t have an address here. My citizenship paper says I am a resident all’estero. We could perhaps find a way to get around this, he says, but it would be less expensive and more legal to do it in the U.S. Here we would also have to buy another marco da bollo of 40 or 50 euros in addition to the 100 euros that the passaporto costs, he says, so why would we want to do that anyway?

“Va bene,” I say. I will do it in the states. We already know we have to go to the Italian Consulate for Lucy, so we will wait. There is no pressing need for Italian photo ID, and at least I now have a certificate in hand to prove my citizenship, in the unlikely event the need should arise.

We also go to the finance ministry to get my codice fiscale, roughly the equivalent of a social security number.  I am denied this as well. While I don’t have to actually be a resident for the codice fiscale, I have to list an Italian address to receive it. We can’t use the agriturismo address, because it is in the province of Lucca, and Pescia, though only five miles away, is in Pistoia.

“What about your cousin’s address,” Ari asks me. “We can use that.”

“I don’t have his address with me,” I answer.

Ari explains this to the clerk, who gives us a form that I can have Enrico fill out, stating that he is providing hospitality to us, and this won’t affect his taxes for the purposes of the codice fiscale. As I walk out the door, I remember that I do have Enrico’s address with me. It is in my backpack, but it is too late. The clerk already knows that I don’t live there. If I had just pulled out the address when he asked for it, he probably would have accepted it without any further questions. Che stupido! I’m not sure when I will see Enrico again, so the codice fiscale will have to wait. We thank Ari profusely and he takes us home.

Maybe next fall, when my summer work slows down, we can take a family trip to San Francisco—with all our children and maybe even sister Linda and her family—to get passaporti per tutti.

The doorways of Lucca

Sunday, March 6
Today is a primarily a photographic entry. If the door to my house in Gig Harbor got weathered looking and old, I might be embarrassed and replace it. In Lucca, I might feel self conscious if I had a new looking door. I’d definitely want one of these cool doorknobs or knockers. These pictures were taken Saturday and Sunday while site-seeing with Stefano and Nancy in Lucca and Prato.

The cost of being Italian

Saturday, March 5
Today we spend an English-speaking day with Stefano and Nancy Mammi. Perhaps we should try to practice our Italian with them, but that would limit our conversations too much, and we relish the chance to enjoy their company to the fullest. We drive to Lucca and spend much of the day looking at art and architecture, while I ask them questions about living in Italy.

They are happy they chose to live in Italy instead of America. They preferred raising children here because of the strong positive influence of Stefano’s family, and they also think Italian schools are stronger.

“Stefano’s mother has been an incredible influence on my children,” Nancy says. “In school, Italian students are ahead of American students. The classes stay together year after year, and the campus is more controlled. If a student misses a class, somebody definitely notices.”

They pay a price for living here, though. Stefano could earn twice as much teaching at an American university, and housing here is much more expensive. He is also frustrated by the Italian bureaucracy. Ordering chemicals for his laboratories has become a nightmare. First, he was required to get three prices for every order and had to chose the lowest, which sounds logical, but this creates a problem for research. As any science student from middle school on knows, every experiment must be repeated using exactly the same conditions. Chemicals from different companies could have slightly different properties.

The bureaucracy further complicated things by declaring that university buyers must rotate their purchases among sellers so that no favoritism is shown. Recently a new requirement was added: Stefano must obtain a statement that each company he buys from has paid its retirement benefits. The statement is only good for one month, so every month, he has to request another.

“It’s a way for the government to save money,” Stefano says, “by not letting us spend the money in our budgets.

Nancy still hasn’t been paid for contract work she did for the university in 2009 and 2010 because red tape has delayed the payments. One problem is that her doctorate degree from the U.S. does not transfer directly to Italy. To have her degree recognized here, she must provide a prospectus from every class she took in the states for her eight years of university study, with translations into Italian.

It is also very costly to get a drivers’ license here, thanks to a new requirement that driving tests can only be taken in cars that have dual controls—that is, brakes, clutch and steering for the driving examiner as well as the driver. Only the driving schools have these, so first one must take driving lessons, and then students can only take the exam when the instructor says the student has had enough lessons to be ready. It can easily cost $1000 to get a license.

Nancy thought it would be easier to apply to get her American license transferred, which was possible at the time she did it. However, it took her six months to finish the process, and she says she literally had an inch-thick stack of paperwork at the end. A simple process like a vision check takes a trip to the post office to pay an examination fee, and then a trip to an eye doctor. Her process was complicated by the fact that she had to get a certificate of residence first (this was before she became a citizen), and this process in itself is time-consuming.

We are familiar with these hurdles and face more of our own. In a couple of days, I will try again to apply for my Italian passport, so I will probably have another story about the Italian bureaucracy to add.

Dante, Ivo and vinegar for the Germans

Friday, March 4
I have mentioned previously that with cousin Enrico and family, we are able to communicate fairly well. On the opposite end of the scale is Dante Seghieri, who lives in the long Seghieri house just a couple of houses away from us. We first met him last spring, and he talked to us about five minutes then about how he lost his daughter in an auto accident. Or was it his son? Or maybe he lost both daughter and son in the same accident, or in two different accidents? We have talked to him three or four times in the last month, and each time he talks about his children, who aren’t here, and sometimes he mentions his late wife. We can’t seem to understand exactly what happened to everyone.

I don’t know why we have such trouble understanding him. I keep thinking that the next time we will do better, but each time I leave as confused as the time before. What makes it worse is that he doesn’t seem to grasp that we don’t follow him. He continues to talk despite the looks of utter confusion on our faces that the other Italians seem to pick up very well. We ask questions to try to understand better, and we tell him, “Non abbiamo capito,” but he just continues on.

What if he has invited us to come in for a cup of coffee and we unintentionally ignored his invitation? We can tell that his is not a particularly happy life, and we don’t want to add to his sorrow, but it seems that the most we can do is provide an opportunity for him to voice his sadness. He is obviously deeply affected by the things that life has dealt him, because it is not usual for someone to tell virtual strangers one’s problems over and over again.

Today, Stefano and Nancy Mammi arrive from Padova to visit us for the weekend. Both have doctorate degrees in chemistry and teach at the famous university there. When Stefano was studying abroad in America, he met Nancy, a beautiful and intelligent americana. They married and moved to Padova. Nancy has since become an Italian citizen, and both are completely bi-lingual. I tell them about my problems understanding Dante in case we see him this weekend, so that Stefano and Nancy can serve as interpreters and we can finally get his story straight.

An opportunity comes when we take a walk and come across not Dante but Ivo. Perhaps he will be able to shed some light on Dante. Usually I can understand Ivo okay. He has a tendency to talk too quickly, but he usually slows down and repeats himself when he sees us look bewildered. Today, though, he is in rare form once he discovers that Stefano and Nancy can keep up with him. Ivo talks rapidly and nonstop for a good ten minutes before Stefano can even get in a question about Dante, and then Ivo is off for another ten minutes. Lucy and I are lost for 80 percent of this, but we will wait until later to get Stefano’s summary.

The conversation ends with Ivo talking about his vigna, his vineyard, and his wine-making. He bottled 800 liters of wine last year. Would we like a bottle? This I understand very well, and I accept enthusiastically a large bottle of unlabeled vino rosso.  Afterwards, Stefano is not surprised that we had trouble following the conversation, because Ivo has covered a lot of ground and jumped quickly from one subject to the next.

Ivo told Stefano and Nancy that Dante is 87 and doesn’t speak clearly, and it is sometimes hard for Ivo to understand him as well. Dante once had two daughters, and both are dead, but the one he talks about the most died when she was only 20. Her fiancé was driving a car and something happened to him and he went off the road, and the daughter was killed. Dante took this hard, and his wife took it even harder, remaining in her house and in bed much of the time for a couple of years. The other daughter died when she was in her 40s. We are not sure when his wife died, but his son is still alive and he has a son of his own. They live elsewhere in the region, and Ivo seems to feel that the son and the grandson should be doing more to look after Dante’s well being. There is a possibility that the grandson may come to live with Dante in the future.

As for Ivo, we learn that he has no children, but he has had two wives, both from Russia. The first one left him after only a few months to go to Rome to continue her university studies. The second is currently visiting family in Russia. She has a son there from a previous marriage. Ivo misses her and hopes she will return soon.

As he hands me a large bottle of wine, he tells me if it is not good, give it back. He also adds with a smile that during the war, when a batch of wine went bad and turned to vinegar, his father would keep these bottles in the front of the cantina. Then when the German soldiers demanded wine, his father had something appropriate to give them. Even better, the Germans didn't want any more of his father's wine.

And the winner is . . .

Thursday, March 3
The top ten reasons I come to Italy, continued

Number 2: Amazing works of architecture and art. It is crazy how much time and energy Italians have spent on making beautiful buildings, mostly churches, but also castles, bridges, aqueducts and theaters. One would think the italophile that I am, I must be an art connoisseur, but it is not so. The city of Lucca once had ninety-some churches, and each one probably had its own artistic claim to fame. You can’t walk down a street in any city center for very long without finding something amazing. A work of art that gets little attention in a small city here would be a big deal if it were in the middle of Gig Harbor. Art and architecture are so commonplace that one gets accustomed to seeing them all the time, but if I stop for just a minute, I am still amazed.

It’s actually not the art that impresses me the most, and it is not even the architecture. Perhaps if I had any skills as an artist or architect, I would be more impressed by the subtle variations in techniques, the use of chiaroscuro and perspective, but what actually astounds me the most is the thought of how these buildings were made. While other people go inside a church to admire the frescos and mosaics, I often find myself standing outside looking at the stone work. Each slab of marble or other stone has been cut into a smooth rectangular shape by a craftsman who had no power saw with diamond tipped blades, no gas engines or electricity. I imagine myself using hand tools and trying to take a stone and form a perfect 12” x 12” x 24” stone, with each side perfectly flat and smooth, and all angles a perfect 90 degrees. It seems like that in itself would be a lifetime’s work, but then I try to imagine making thousands of identical stones. Some of them have to be rounded for archways, and the rounded portion must be perfectly symmetrical.

Then in my mind I become the builder, carrying these stones up five, six, seven stories high and aligning them perfectly. I am not standing on metal scaffolding, though. It must be made of wood, I suppose. There are numerous other details that continue to boggle my weak mind: the pillars and arches inside that are needed to hold up the walls and ceiling (and of course they have to be aesthetically pleasing as well as structurally sound), what materials to use from the ceiling and roof, how to form the windows and doors, and so on. Yes, I am more of a working man than an artist, but Italy has beauty to offer nearly every type of artisan.

Number 1: Scope for the imagination. I borrow this phrase from Anne of Green Gables. Anne said this more than once, but the time I remember the most is on her first trip to Green Gables with Matthew, when she was carrying on a long-winded and one-sided conversation. Below is an abbreviated excerpt:

This Island is the bloomiest place. I've always heard that Prince
Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world, and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected I would. It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it? But those red roads are so funny.When we got into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer what made them red and she said she didn't know and for pity's sakenot to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand already. I suppose I had, too, but how are you going to find out about things if you don't ask questions? And what DOES make the roads red?"

Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about?  It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world.  It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?

Whenever I drive through a city in the United States, I like to imagine what it would be like to live there, and what it would have been like 100 years ago. Especially when we travel through Idaho or Montana, I wonder what made people traveling along the Oregon Trail stop here instead of continuing to Oregon. I also enjoy imagining what it would have been like to be a Native American before the Europeans came. But that is the limit of my ponderings about America.

Here, I wonder what hardships a city must have experienced during the two world wars, when sons were sent away to bloody battles in icy Russia and German soldiers took over Italian cities and farms. Every city has a monument to the lives lost. What was it like to be in Italy during the late 1800s and early 1900s when millions of people were leaving for new countries? What hardships did my great grandfather Pietro Spadoni and his father face as contadini during the 1800s? This was during the time when Italy changed from being a conglomeration of city-states to a unified country. What did Pietro and his family think about this? What were the Spadonis and Seghieris doing during the Renaissance? What would it have been like to know Michelangelo or Leonardo or Cosimo de Medici? Imagine having Galileo as your professor.

I have only covered a short span of history with these imaginings. Italy has been invaded and/or occupied by Goths, Huns, Lombards, Byzantines, Francs, Arabs, Germans, Spanish, Austrians, French, Popes and more. Earlier, of course, were the Romans, and before that the Greeks, and then there were the mysterious Etruscans. Dreaming about what it would have been like during any of these times gives broad scope for the imagination, and there are plenty of historical sites and museums to visit that help the ponderings to be more vivid and accurate.

Above: The Etruscans were at their height of power from the 8th to the 5th centuries BC. Were they already in Italy before then, or did they come from elsewhere? There are many conflicting theories, each with its own batch of evidence. Their language still has not been deciphered.

Still more reasons to come to Italy

Wednesday, March 2
The top ten reasons I come to Italy, continued

Number 5: Lack of “sameness.” Drive into any city in America, and you will see it. There will be the same restaurants, the same motels, the same grocery stores, hardware stores and drug stores. There will be broad roads with left turn lanes and wide sidewalks, with predictable stoplights and crosswalks. Each city looks much the same as the one before and after. While it is comforting to know that you can expect the same food at the Olive Garden in Florida as the one in Washington, what you gain from familiarity you also lose in overall experience. Italian cities also have some features in common, but the cities were built over hundreds or even thousands of years, with little input from city planners. Houses were built of stone and then added onto with bricks or a completely different type of stone. A stone archway might span a narrow stone street, connecting one house to another across the way. Narrow alleyways wind around darkly and end at a broad piazza with a statue in the center. It is rare indeed to find a city laid out with any semblance of a grid. The streets more likely follow the contours of the landscape, but in most places, there seems to be neither rhyme nor reason for the pattern they follow. Imagine taking a square yard of fish net and then stretching it out in a grid. Then take a scissors and cut out about twenty-five holes of various sizes. Then crumple it up in ball and throw it on the ground and spread it out a little with your feet. The result might be your typical Italian city map. The holes might represent an open piazza or a large palazzo that blocks the streets. And, of course, you will get different results each time.

Number 4: Fresh, pure delicious food. You don’t have to dine out every night to enjoy Italian food at its finest. Just stop at a pasticerria and you can buy homemade ravioli, lasagna, gnocchi or any variety of local pasta, along with a choice of sauces. Take it home and heat it up, and you can cook (and eat) like a maestro. At a macelleria, they sell only the very best lean beef, chicken, ham and turkey. Fruit and vegetables are not sold unless they are fresh and tasty. You can’t buy cardboard-tasting strawberries and tomatoes here if you tried.

Then, of course, there is gelato, and I could spend a whole blog entry just on this topic, but I will try to be concise. Any gelato maker will tell you that gelato is NOT ice cream. Gelato is made primarily with milk and egg yolks, with very little cream, so the butterfat content is much lower, but it has much less air whipped in, so it is denser and tastes richer and creamier than ice cream. Flavorings are generally not used, just fresh substances such as fruit, chocolate, nuts and liquors—all of which are not overwhelmed by the cream. Gelato is frozen at a higher temperature than ice cream and must be made daily, as it doesn’t store well. When served, it is usually just on the borderline of melting, soft, smooth and delicious.

Number 3: People watching. I am not into clothing and fashion by any stretch of the imagination. Lucy has to practically drag me along when I need to go shopping for clothes, and I rely on her judgment more than my own. Nonetheless, even the most fashion-challenged person in the world can’t help but appreciate the daily fashion shows that take place on the streets of

Italian cities. People here like to look good, and even as I walk around in my blue jeans and sweatshirt, I can’t help but appreciate these well-dressed and coiffed italiani.

But it goes far beyond simple fashions. Old people are always out and about, walking slowly, faces lined with character and experience, and I love watching them. I can imagine that the old man I see might have been, one hundred years earlier, my own great grandfather, walking along with hands behind his back, or playing checkers with another old timer on a park bench. The old woman could have been my great grandmother, and the middle-aged woman walking with her, arms linked, my grandmother. Watching the teenagers interact during the evening passeggiata is another fascinating experience. Groups meet, mix and split into different groups. Rarely is anyone walking alone, and if they are, they are probably on a cell phone, planning a rendezvous.
Next: The top 2 reasons to come to Italy.

The countdown continues, reasons 8-6

Tuesday, March 1
The top ten reasons I come to Italy, continued.

Number 8: Learning a new language. “The mind can be compared to a plant, says the BHIA health advice website. “If you ‘water’ it through mental activity and challenges, it will grow. Although a brain may get old, it still produces new cells . . . that aid in communications between different parts of the brain and in the retrieval of information.”

I hope this is true, because my mind is getting a good workout every day here. Sometimes I question whether my brain is still producing new cells, because it seems I learn so slowly. It’s particularly frustrating because I can speak and write English so easily, and you’d think that would help me learn Italian more quickly, but there is no magic ticket. I struggle along slowly, not being able to tell from week to week if I am really improving. Nonetheless, it is a challenge that overall I enjoy facing, and though I have a long way to go, I have come a long way as well.

Number 7: Emphasis on family. The importance of family here is something I observe more than experience. I see families strolling together in the evenings, sometimes with arms linked together. I see grandfathers and grandmothers playing in parks with their grandchildren. Here at the Agriturismo, Enzo minds the flower farm, while his wife is in charge of cooking the large meals they host for groups they cater to. Meanwhile, their children Luca and Roberta take part in every aspect of the operation, as does Roberta’s husband Paolo, so they are all together every day.

I know that the closeness of my family in the United States is a carry-over from my Italian heritage, because my dad worked with and kept very strong ties with his brothers and sisters. He gave property to all three of his children and helped us build houses in his neighborhood, and we hope to be able to do similarly with our own children. Of course this family unity is not solely an Italian trait, but it is unquestionably strong here, and it is a pleasure to observe.

Number 6: Learning a new culture. It is fascinating to me to observe and learn even simple cultural differences. Just going to a supermarket here is an example. To use a shopping cart, you must put a euro into a slot to free the cart. When you are done, your euro is returned; thus every cart is returned to the proper location. To pick out fruit and vegetables, you first put on plastic gloves. Then you put the produce in a plastic bag and weigh it, and then you push a button on the front of the scale which has the name and a picture of the product. At the end, the scale spits out a sticker that you fasten to the bag with a price and USB code, so the checkout clerk doesn’t have to weigh the produce. And speaking of the checkout clerks, they are seated on stools instead of standing the way American cashiers must do. There are hundreds of small differences like these that add interest to my days.

Click here to continue to reasons 5 through 3.

Top 10 reasons to come to Italy

Because this week is going to be mainly routine, I will use my blog entries to list my top ten favorite reasons for coming to Italy. I will not include in the list the fact that my dad was an FBI man (full blooded Italian) and so I have built-in Italian pride. The reasons I have chosen could apply to any person of any ethnic background. We’ll start at the bottom and add addition reasons throughout the week.

Number 10: Markets. You walk through nearly any medium to large Italian cities and find a traveling market set up in a piazza. It might be for vegetables and fruit, house wares, clothing, antiques, flowers, CDs and DVDs, books, artwork, or any combination of the above. One time we saw a man selling live chickens. Prices are decent, and people who live in the city know when the

markets are coming and can plan their shopping. We are learning when and where the markets are here, but we may visit another city or a different section of Lucca and be surprised to find a market spread out in some piazza. Even if we are not looking to buy anything, markets are colorful and entertaining. I like to buy comic books in Italian to improve my reading skills, and we recently bought some used movies that we can watch with Italian dialog and English or Italian subtitles.

Number 9: Public transportation. We live in a city about the size of Purdy, but we can catch a train that will take us to most medium-sized or large cities in Europe. Italian cities that aren’t on the train line can all be reached by blue bus. Once inside a city, there are bus stops all around the town and out into the suburbs. You can take your bike on the train, which extends your range even further. And you can get off the train in a city along the way, grab some food or do some exploring, and then hop on the next train to continue to your destination.

Click here to continue to reasons 8 through 6 . . .

Well in spirit, heart and body

Sunday, February 27
Yesterday we watched a movie and didn’t understand much of the dialog at all. Today, however, is a good language day. First, we are off to church, where we seem to understand more of the sermon than usual. It is a big help that we have our English Bibles and can read the passage in Romans 8 that forms the foundation for the message. Once we know the context, we can, to some extent, anticipate what the pastor is going to say. Pastor Maselli teaches Sunday School to the young people today, so a man we have not met gives the sermon. He speaks slowly and clearly, and we feel encouraged that we are able to get the general drift of the message.

We leave quickly after the service because we have to take the train to Montecatini Centro, where we are met by my Enrico Spadoni, my second cousin. We have been invited for pranzo, and he drives us to his house, where wife Enza has been preparing a masterpiece of culinary art. We begin with varied selection of antipasti, and then there are at least two delicious choices for every course, right down to the end, when we are served generous slices of mouthwatering panna cotta drenched, not drizzled, with rich chocolate, followed by a second dolce, torta.

Enrico, Enza and their children, Alessandra and Simone, are the cousins with whom we are the most familiar. We have visited them several times in previous years, and Enrico, Enza and Simone spent a couple of weeks in Gig Harbor last summer. Alessandra visited 15 years earlier with Enza’s mom, Ines, who also lives here and joins us for dinner.

We get to meet for the first time Alessandra’s husband Raffaelo and son Matteo, who had his first birthday last week. He is a happy boy and reminds us of nine-month-old Micah, one of our grandsons. It’s a strange thing that we can understand some Italians well and some hardly at all. With Enrico and his family, for reasons unknown, we communicate fairly well. Enrico, Enza, Ines and Raffaelo speak no English, which is good for us, because when Lucy and I converse with bilingual Italians, we find it altogether too easy to lapse into English to make ourselves understood.

We talk about our families, travel, houses and jobs, all subjects that make the most of our limited vocabulary. Enrico and Raffaelo launch into an animated side discussion, and I struggle to understand. It is something about buying, selling and trading, with lots of names thrown in. Ah, they are talking about soccer teams, a favorite male pastime here. Enrico is a fan of Juventus F.C., and Raffaelo prefers A.C. Milan, assuredly a cause for animated discussion. These are perennially among the top teams in the country, and it seems everyone roots for either one or the other. Even if you are fan of a local team, you still must choose sides among the squads that will ultimately end up in the championship playoffs.

Even though I don’t understand what Enrico and Raffaelo are saying, I take solace in the knowledge that I have at least understood the topic, which is a step beyond my usual comprehension of rapid Italian conversation.

After dinner, Enrico goes through some family photos and gives me a pile to take home and scan for my research on family history. Lucy takes a tour of the house and comes back pleased with the tour and that she managed to converse with Enza and Ines fairly well. We return home encouraged, satisfied in heart and stomach.

The cinema, Italian style

Saturday, February 26
This afternoon we head to Lucca to see an American movie dubbed into Italian, Il Grinta, True Grit. Lucca’s four or five theaters show movies only at night, usually starting a little after 8 p.m., and the last train back to San Salvatore leaves at 8:39 p.m., so it is nearly impossible for us to go to evening events in Lucca.

Someday I will buy a Vespa and we will be able to venture out on our own, but for now we are at the mercy of the train schedule, and we feel fortunate that the train runs as often as it does, since we are among a small minority of Montecarlese who use the local train. We get on and off at our station five or six days a week, at least twice a day, and we only see other locals using our little station once or twice a week. We are in a farming area, and everybody else uses cars or motorbikes to get around.

On Saturdays, the theaters do have earlier showings, at 3:45 and 6, so we opt to go at 3:45 p.m. This is definitely not the time Italians like to go to movies, and we are among a grand tota

l of five people in the audience. This is not the smallest movie crowd we have experienced here, though.

During my 2005 spring vacation in Italy, Lucy and I hopped on a train to Arezzo. While exploring the city, we stumbled on a modern new theater and decided to see an afternoon showing of Son of the Mask. We were the only two people at the showing. The movie was pretty bad, and when it was only two thirds done, the film stopped and all the lights went on. We waited for about ten minutes, and then someone came in and told us it was over. We argued for a bit, because even though we couldn’t understand all the film’s dubbed Italian dialogue, it was obvious that the plot hadn’t reached the climax. But then we considered how awful this movie was (later I found out it received eight nominations for Golden Raspberry Awards, including worst sequel, worst actor and worst director), and we decided to go. On the way out, we mentioned that the film wasn’t over, but we didn’t mind leaving anyway. Again we were told that it really had finished. No, we said, it didn’t, but it was OK. Just as we got to the door, the manager came hurrying up to us and said, yes, we were correct, the film wasn’t over. He was sorry, please, we must go back and watch the rest. We didn’t want him to think we were upset, so we returned to watch the rest. After all, how could the theater personnel live with themselves if they thought that they had offended 100% of their afternoon customers?

Il Grinta is a much better movie, though despite our three weeks of lessons here, we find most of the complex dialogue incomprehensible. Previously, this might have disappointed me, but I have lowered my expectations of myself after having seen a dozen or more movies now in Italian. I have become accustomed to not understanding the dialogue. We pick up words here and there, but by the time our minds translate the meanings, another ten words have passed by, some of which we might have understood, but we were too busy processing the previous words. We really like short sentences, like, “Ho scelto l’uomo sbagliato.” I chose the wrong man.

Before taking the return train, we join the passaggiata around the city for a couple of hours. On another day, I’ll try to describe an Italian passagiata, but it really has be seen to be appreciated.