Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Galeria Borghese and the Gardens at Tivoli

On Tuedsay we visited the Galeria Borghese.  Like the Vatican Museum, reservations are needed to visit the galleryand must be booked well in advance.  But unlike the Vatican Museum they do not let a hoard of visitors in at the same time.  Napoleon bought at fire sale prices part of the Borghese family art collection which is now at the Louvre in Paris.  What remains is still most impressive, particularly the sculptures by Bernini and the paintings by Caravaggio.  Below, Daphne is saved from being ravished by Apollo when her father turns her into a tree.


Below is a painting by Caravaggio of his young friend and good drinking buddy.


Today we drove to Tivoli to visit the gardens at Villa D'Este, the country home of the son of Lucrezia Borgia.  These are probably the most grandiose of all renaissance gardens and are over the top in every way.  Bob and Nancy Hunt cuddle next to la Fontana dell'Ovato.


Below is a view of the garden taken from above the Fontana di Nettuno



We lunched in Tivoli at Ristorante Sibilla di la Mura Luigia where the outdoor seating area is adjacent to the ruins of two Roman temples.  The antepasta trays also are spectacular.


Two outside walls are festooned with plaques commemorating the visits to the restaurant of just about every member of European, Asian and Middle Eastern royalty.  In spite of this, the place is good value for the money.

Monday, April 28, 2014

The City of Saints


With a million and a half pilgrims in town for the beatification of two ex popes, we decided to mainly stay out of town and when we did go into town on Saturday we visited the ghetto which was pretty well a pilgrim free zone.  


We had gone to the airport on Friday night to pick up our guests, Bob and Nancy Hunt from Arlington, Va.  I had set the airport desk for National Rentacar, which is located in a tower across a bridge from the airport, as our meeting point.  As we had arrived early, I ignored Lynne's advice, and decided to be cute and meet them as they exited the baggage hall.  Somehow we missed them among the mob of arriving pilgrims and I had pocket dialed my phone to shut off the ringer, so I didn't receive their call from the National's parking garage where they had gone after they couldn't find us at the desk.  We went back to the desk where I saw I had missed a call and we finally sorted things out.  This morning sitting at the same table Bob and I could not get our phones, with their Italian SIM cards, to ring when we called each other but my phone rang when Nancy with her USA SIM card called me.  Only in Italy.

On Sunday we watched the ceremony at St. Peter's on Italian TV and were surprised to find out that we missed the actual moment when sainthood was bestowed on the two ex popes.  In the afternoon we visited a huge plant and flower sale at an agro Turismo near our appartment.



Today, all the museums were closed except one good one that we had already visited.  So, Bob and Nancy headed into town to visit that museum and Lynne and I headed out to a golf course where we finished playing just before the heavens opened up.  We had the weather in mid March that we expected to have at the beginning of May and now we are having the weather we expected to have in mid March.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Where have those Etruscans gone?

Since the last post on Monday, it has been a fairly quiet week.  On Tuesday we had our language exchange with Crisitiana and her friend Giulia, a delightful 84 year old resident of Trastevere who worked for 20 years as the secretary of Crisitiana's boy friend.  As Giulia does not speak English it was a one way exchange, pretty much all in Italian.  In the evening we celebrated Lynn's birthday for which Bob McConnell cooked up a feast which featured artichokes alla Romana and a spaghetti with scampi.


Wednesday was a down day and except for a session at the golf practice facility we spent the day here catching up on our reading.  Today, after dropping off Bob and Isa at the airport, we headed to Cerveteri to find out what happened to all the Etruscans who used to live there. It turns out that tens of thousands of them were buried in the nearby necropolis.


We spent the morning walking through this incredible city of the dead, taking in a video at the presentation center followed by a tour of three of the more important tombs, including the one where the Euphronius Krater, a marvelous Greek vase was found.



Until recently this was a prized possession of the  Metropolitan Museum of Art, but has now been returned to Italy where it is on display at the Villa Giulia in Rome.  The circular tombs of the necropolis are not built up.  Instead, the tufa around them was carved out to leave a tufa cylinder into which a tomb was hollowed out and then a sodded dome of soil was placed on the top of the cylinder.  An exception was the Rilievi tomb which was dug deeply into the tufa and accessed by a stairway.


The interior of this tomb was by far the most spectacular.





Monday, April 21, 2014

The Ragein Trajan

The emperor Trajan owes his column and his fame to the two wars he waged against the Dacians who were a primitive barbarian tribe who lived in the forests of Transylvania.  He also left his mark on downtown Rome with his forum and with his market that we visited today. Trajan's market has all of the characteristics of a multi level shopping mall. 


The best thing about the place is the spectacular view that visitors have of the Romn forum area.


Back at the appartment, Lynne is studying Italian on Duo Lingo


Sunday, April 20, 2014

Easter Weekend

Good Friday was not just good, it was excellent as it included a game of golf and lunch at Terre dei Consoli.  We were welcomed by the golf pro who is from Montreal and the General Manger came around to our table at lunch to present us each with a bag of golf tees.


Friday night, Bob cooked up a Spaghetti with a Scoglia (from the reef) sauce which was equal to the one Lynne and I had eaten the day before at Trattoria Buoni Amici.





Saturday was cool and wet and Lynne and I stayed in doors most of the day.  In the late afternoon Lynne, Isa and I started watching an Italian film which turned out to be a over 5 hours long and must have originally been a TV series.

On Easter Sunday we drove out into the country to the medieval village of Calcata, a place Lynne and I had visited several years ago.



The village is now full of small restaurants and boutiques but nothing too chic or over the top. Today it was popular Sunday destination for families.  See New York Times article. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/travel/28dayout.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


The highlight of the visit was when Lynne spotted an apparition of the Virgin.  Until 1983 the village church was home to a unique relic, the foreskin of Jesus.  The locals claim it was stolen by the Vatican.




The visit to Calacata was followed by a picnic in an olive grove.  After lunch we drove over to Anguilera on Lake Bracciano for a promenade and geletos.  On the way home Bob picked up fava beans and artichokes for a pasta tonight.




Thursday, April 17, 2014

The Mother of all Roman Baths and a Really Big Church



This mornIng we all headed off to visit the Terme di Caracalla which was built by the emperor Caracalla and could accommodate 10,000 bathers (eat your heart out Diocletian with your little 3,000 bather bath).


The Romans were able to erect enormous structures using unreinforced concrete which they faced with brick.  They used concrete to cover large areas with domes or barreled vaults.  Their three groin barreled vault was not duplicated again until the age of the gothic cathedrals, some 700 years later.

After the visit to the baths, Bob and Isa went to visit the Colisseum which they found to be much more crowded and much less impressive than the baths.  Lynne and I walked over to Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano which is the site of Rome's main cathedral. Before visiting the cathedral we found the Trattoria di Buoni Amici where we both had the outstanding seafood pasta.

 

The cathedral was mildly interesting and notable mainly for its size.  It houses relics of both St. Peter and St. Paul.


Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The French Embassy and the Pickpockets

The notorious no. 64 bus claimed another victim today when Bob McConnell lost his wallet from the secret pocket of his Tilley travel pants.  While he was being distracted by a rather large man who kept trying to keep him from following Isa onto a crowded bus, an accomplice deftly picked the secret pocket.  Fortunately, he cancelled his credit and bank cards before they were used by the thieves.  Here are Bob and Isa shortly after the theft and looking no worse for wear.



Last night we feasted on Bob's artichoke risotto. This seems to be the month of artichokes.  The stores, markets and roadside stands have piles of them.



This morning was bright and sunny but also cool and so windy that Lynne changed her mind about playing golf immediately after getting out of the car at the golf course.  We can play for free in such conditions at home in Victoria.  This limited our activity for the day to a 3 PM tour of the French Embassy which occupies the Palazzo Farnese.  We arrived there after gelatos in the Piazza Navona and a visit to the market at Campo dei Fiori which was in the process of closing for the day.


The tour of the embassy, as advertised, was to have been in English.  However, as it appeared that about half the assembled group were Italians, the guide decided to stiff the foreigners and give the tour in Italian.  Fortunately she spoke slowly and clearly enough for Lynne and I to understand everything.  Unfortunately the star attraction, the hall of the Caracci frescoes was closed for restoration work. We settled for looking at them on Google when we got home.


Otherwise the tour was quite interesting.  The palazzo, in part designed by Michaelangelo, was another example of the landed aristocracy making out like bandits when one of the family became Pope and his son became a Cardinal.  In one room of the palace were frescoed landscapes of five of the cities which were part of their fiefdom. 






Monday, April 14, 2014

Augusta Distraction

The blogging abruptly ceased last week as any spare time I had was spent watching the Masters on my Slingbox.  Also our one trip into town late last week was devoted to Lynne's shopping which makes for pretty dull blogging.




We did play a new golf course which was pretty good value for money because the owners are trying to promote their real estate development and with the poor state of the economy they have not had the money to maintain the course in a condition comparable to other courses in the area and certainly not like Augusta National. 

On Sunday Bob and Isa McConnell arrived after visiting Poland and Prague. We picked them up at the airport as the regional trains had been shut down by a 24 hour strike. Their arrival definitely improves the standard of cooking here as Bob is a master chef and last night's pasta with a fresh fish marinara sauce was superb.  Yesterday, Monday, Lynne and I visited the palazzo Doria Pamphili and its museum in the heart of Rome.  It was another example of how the landed aristocratic families who claimed the papal throne made out like bandits with the tithes of the peasants helping to pay for sumptuous palaces and staggering art collections.  This collection included a who's who of Italian and Flemish  masters. One of the corridors in the palace called the Hall of Mirrors is shown in the photo.



And one of the bandits, a Pope painted by Velazquez, was the uncle of Count Carmelo Pamphili who built the place.  On seeing the portrait, the Pope was reported to have been quite upset because it was far too perfect a likeness for his taste.



Monday, April 7, 2014

Castles and Eels

The weather has suddenly warmed up here to what at home would be summer temperatures.  However, many Italians remain sceptical and continue to wear their quilted winter jackets called puffers.  Lynne and I have spent the last couple of days taking it easy as we try to shake off colds.  Lynne blames me for hers and calls it the gift that keeps on giving.  Sunday's only activity was a walk in the nearby country side where we found that the paths and tractor roads we had walked the previous week end were now closed by gates.  So, we found alternatives.  Yesterday, after a long session at the golf practice facility and lunch on our deck we headed off to Lake Bracciano where our first glimpse of the lake included the town of Braccaino and it's imposing castle, another major building project of the Orsini family. 


We decided to save the visit to the town and it's castle for a later date and headed along the lake side road to Anguillara, presumably named after the eels that support a local fishery, and where we stopped for a walk and gelatos.  On our first attempt to leave this village we chose the wrong road and found found our selves travelling at slow pace behind locals who were walking to the cemetery following a funeral service.  A U turn and some fancy maneuvering brought us back to the lake shore drive and we headed home.


Alena, the daughter of the owner of the appartment we are renting, had kindly rounded up a flat screen TV with HDMI ports for our stay, to which I have been alble to connect my Ipad and stream programs from the internet. Thus, we have been able to spend the short interval between a late Italian dinner and an early Canadian bedtime watching Italian movies with English subtitles on Netflix and the Inspector Deluca series, also in Italian, on the BBC.  This morning we learn that Canada will spared another referendum on Quebec sovereignty.  For my delayed viewing pleasure, I will be programming our cable box at home to record the Masters so that I can watch it on the Sling Box as all the sports channels here are devoted to soccer. 

Saturday, April 5, 2014

The gardens at Ninfa

Yesterday, Friday, we paid a visit to Casale Sonnino, near Porzio Monte Catone in the Colli Albani south of Rome. We have stayed there on three occasions, often with old friends. George Sonnino, who is the manager and half owner of the estate has become a good friend.  He had kept our visit a secret from the two women who work there and of whom we are very fond.  One of them, Tizianna, who spotted us from an upstairs window was so excited to see us that she literally jumped up and down. Dillon, a one year old once stray and near starving dog, who adopted the household last December, was so excited to see me that he tried to bite my finger off. George assures me he has had his shots for rabies.

We went for lunch with George and were joined by Liliana and her 94 year old mother, Vera, who are old friends of George.  I had a bean soup which is one of the best things I have ever eaten.  Also for an ante pasta we had for the first time artichokes alla Giudea which means in the Roman Jewish style. Lunch was followed by a visit to the retail section of a nearby winery where Lynne purchased four bottles of the wine she had been served at lunch.

Today we visited the gardens at Ninfa. Ninfa was an important medieval town on the road from Napoli to Roma and was part of the fiefdom of the Caetani family.  Before it was destroyed in the mid fourteenth century during a war between two Caetani cousins it was a substantial town, protected by a wall with fourteen towers and containing a castle, seven churches, 150 houses, a town hall, mills and around 2000 inhabitants.  The garden, began in 1900, covers the area within the original walls and is layed out amoung the ruins.



It is described as an orderly disorderly English garden and people who are familiar with more gardens than I will ever see claim it is the most romantic garden in the world.  It is certainly one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited.  Here is a link for an excellent video visit to the garden.  http://youtu.be/UGEjoVlCj6A

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Domus Romane

This morning we toured the underground ruins of a Roman Villa which had been destroyed by an earthquake around the year 500 AD and then had laid buried under a renaissance palazzo until it was recently excavated and then opened for tours only last year.  The audio and visual effects were stunning. For example when we looked at the baths and the indoor swimming pool the light effects gave the impression that we were seeing the shimmering surface of the water.  Also the sound and simulated rain falling in the courtyard were eerily realistic.  Visual images of the rooms of the villa as they originally were, were briefly projected on the walls of the renaissance cellar that had been built on top of the ruins.  Also the missing parts of mosaic flooring were also projected to show what the original entire pavement would have looked like. It would seem that the last supper was being eaten by the occupants when the villa came down on them. Their meal included fish and pork.  At the end of tour we passed thorough a Mussolini era air raid bunker which had an exit adjacent to Trajan's column.

Following the villa tour we headed off to the Pantheon to meet Cristiana and discovered that the meeting was not scheduled for 11:30 as I had thought but was in fact to be at 3:30 as Lynne had tried to tell me.  After spending some time in a very crowded Pantheon we set out to find the Enoteca Corsi one of the best places we have ever eaten and also one of the most reasonable. At the end of our meal we were offered a complimentary Limoncello with the bottle pluncked right down on the table.  We then spent the time until our meeting first looking for spectacle frames for Lynne and then in a book store with wifi.  We had coffee with Cristiana in a cafe on the piazza Minerva across from the Pantheon.  Our meeting was a short one as something had come up involving her daughter.




Tuesday, April 1, 2014

From Raphael to Filippo Lippi, an artful day

On Sunday March 31, Martin and Anna flew back to Stockholm and we had a quiet day in the hood punctuated only by a long walk in the nearby countryside and a session at our local driving range and practice putting green.  On Monday we set off to visit the Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola, having checked the web site for opening and closing days, and found it closed.  Following a stroll around Caprarola and a morning coffee we decided to check out the nearby Golf Club Nazionale. Jane, who lives in our GPS, performed brilliantly and instead directing us to the proper entrance to the club she took us off the main road onto some kind of service road the width of a golf cart path which wound through the golf course including right in front of many tees where incredulous golfers stared at us in disbelief.  The path ended up at a golf school where they directed us to the proper entrance to the club.


Today, we visited the Palazzo Barberini which houses a fine collection of masterpieces by the likes of Lippi, Raphael, Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto El Greco and Caravaggio, shown below with Judith taking the butcher knife to Holofernes.


Lunch was at restaurant whose name suggested food from the hills of Emilia around Bolgona.  Lynne got worked up when, half way through our pasta dishes, one of the staff took the Parmesan cheese off the table.  In my best Italian, I asked another waiter, who appeared to be a Bengali, why the cheese had been lifted.  He just smiled a me and walked away.

After lunch we walked past the Palazzo Quirinale, where Obama met the President of Italy last week, and arrived at the Scuderia (the stables) to visit an exhibition of the work of the Mexican artist, Freda Kahlo.  She was an amazing woman and a superb artist.  She was twice married to Diego Rivera and her other aquaintances included  Leon Trotsky and Andre Breton. She is shown here with Diego.