Easter and the Exploding Cart

Was Easter almost two weeks ago?  Forgive us folks, but sometimes life gets in the way of letting you be part of the action.

Holy Week here in Florence was quite an experience.  We were able to choose from a myriad of free concerts almost every night.  One night we went to Santa Croce for Verdi's Requiem.  What a setting!  Good enough to house the remains of Michelangelo, Rossini and Galileo.  Galileo was moved there after it was decided that the earth did, indeed, revolve around the sun about a hundred years after his death.   Unfortunately the acoustics in the church weren't great and the sound didn't carry well.

Santa Croce cloister

Altar of a side chapel

Galileo's tomb in Santa Croce

The next night we attended a smaller concert held in the American Episcopal Church (St James, Diocese of Europe) given by the Duomo Choir which was also very well received.  Afterward they provided a lovely reception with wonderful Italian goodies.  We went back to the American Episcopal Church for Easter Vigil on Saturday night.  It started with the congregation lighting candles from the Baptismal Candle which was "decorated" with nails in the form of a cross.  Baby Emmanuel was christened that night in keeping with Episcopal tradition.  We are happy to report that there was no incense used, so Theresa was able to stay in the service.

After the service conducted by Father Mark Duncan, Dottie Duncan, his wife, had made dinner for all of us.  The Duncans are from Alabama.  Italians often eat a first course (primo piatto) and second course (secondo piatto).  In this case Dottie made a wonderful rice dish with black eyed peas for the first course.  We didn't even know you could find black-eyed peas in Italy!  Second course was roast pork (very common here), chilled pickled onions, turnips, broccoli, and bread.  Of course there's dessert and this time it was cake, cookies and strawberries. 

On Sunday we got up early enough to be in Piazza del Duomo to get a great place to see the Scoppio del Carro......or the exploding cart.   The term "duomo" comes from the Latin "domus deo" or "house of God".

The Piazza is empty when we arrive at 9 AM........

........except for a few press trying to get a story.  The roll of wire to the left is strung from inside the church out to the cart to carry the "dove" that lights the cart.  Since superstition says the year's harvest depends on a good lighting of the cart, they don't leave that to chance anymore!

There are two parades from two sides of the city.  Both have paraders in medieval costumes, flag bearers, trumpets, and drums.  One group is led by white oxen decorated with flowers

pulling a 20 foot high cart that has the fireworks

The cart arrives, covered with plastic due to the threat of rain (it didn't).  You can see that the piazza has filled up rapidly.

while the other has "the flame". The cart is over 500 years old and the ceremony far older.  The flame is supposed to be lit by flint that was stolen from the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem by the Florentines in the First Crusade  (roughly 1100AD).  Eventually, after a lot of flag twirling and parading...

Video of a flag routine in front of the Duomo

costumed paraders

 

 

and musicians

And finally a priest carrying the holy fire arrives

Finally the priest and his entourage come out of the church to bless the cart and the fire and everything else in sight

then an arrow shaped like a dove is shot into the cart causing 20 minutes of fireworks.  This whole ceremony is woven into the Easter service taking place in the Duomo.  The arrow shoots out of the Duomo during the Gloria and the cart starts shooting fireworks from the bottom

 Video of fireworks from the cart

  More video of fireworks, including the bells that rang incessantly

and multi-colored smoke

 and works up until the last thing that happens is 4 flags appear at the top. 

When we arrived around 9AM, there were very few people there.  I thought that maybe we would see a couple of hundred people.  By 11, when the arrow left the church there were thousands in the piazza.  We never saw so many people converge in so little time in our lives.  In America people would have been sleeping outside all night.  Not Florence.  The idea was to come when you want and just push where you want to be.......all very Italian. 

Our Easter in Italy was as memorable as our daughter Laura said it would be.  No Easter baskets (except the one Ken fashioned for me). 

Our Easter basket and the "Colomba" that the Montini's (our landlords) gave us

No big flowery hats or Easter hams.  Just a huge cart that shot fireworks because an arrow was shot out of a church.  Pretty special actually.

Bari and Matera

The third and last leg of our swing through southern Italy was to Bari, an area on the Adriatic (east) coast of Italy, in the region of Puglia.  Actually, we stayed in a small town about 10 miles south of Bari on the coast called Torre a Mare.  We drove over from Castelmezzano and had lunch in the town of Matera in Basilicata.  All we could find open was a sweet shop.  Tough choice!  We were tired enough that we didn't do any sightseeing there, but we drove back two days later.

The hotel in Torre a Mare was close to the beach (you could see it from there...) but it was on the landward side of the highway with no easy walking route.  Furthermore, it was surrounded by high metal fences with gates that had to be opened by the hotel desk staff.  So each time you entered or exited you felt like you were in prison.  The hotel itself was nice enough, a well appointed convention hotel, not really for tourists.  Most of the staff were quite friendly and coped through our language limitations.  Unfortunately, the woman at the desk when we checked in had an attitude about our lack of Italian so along with the gates it left a bad first impression.

The next day (Saturday) we drove into Bari itself and went to the old part of the city.  It was absolutely deserted and we couldn't even find a place open for lunch, so we had to walk out of the old part into the newer part to find a restaurant.  We did find some great gelato.

It was a rather chilly, gray day, much cooler than we had experienced in Rome or Florence farther north.  After lunch we walked back through the old city and actually saw a few people.  They were playing "calcio" (soccer) in a tiny enclosed court in a park along the harbor.

Bari harbor

Calcio

 This was about as many people at one time that we saw.  A lot different from crowded Florence and Rome!  Maybe the fact that they have a serious gang crime problem here has something to do with it.

We also found the Basilica of San Nicola.  That's right - Jolly Old Saint Nicolas resides in Bari, Italy, not the North Pole. Seems that in 1087 some Bari fishermen went off to Turkey and stole his remains and brought them back to much celebration and joy.  The Pope even came to Bari shortly after to honor the event.  Bone-stealing seems to have been very much in vogue back then since the Venetians did a similar thing to St Mark's remains.  These saints' remains were felt to be very powerful; a number of healing miracles were attributed to them.

When we got to the church a limousine pulled up.  First a well dressed man got out and surveyed the square.  Then the driver got out.  The back doors of the car were opened and an elderly man and woman got out.  The driver took the woman's purse so she wouldn't have to carry it.  The other man went into the church, obviously looked around and came down and got "the Don" and his wife.  It looked like a scene right out of "Godfathers."  

It was quite beautiful inside, though in a simpler way than most churches in Florence.

The ceiling was exquisitely painted.

On our daily jail-break the next day we drove back to Matera, about 1-1/2 hr away, to see the "sassi" or cave structures there.  Matera is built over limestone through which deep canyons have been cut by the rivers.  The town dates from at least the pre-Roman Greek period, but most of the unique features are medieval, when monks from the East moved in (presumably fleeing Moslem advances) and built cave dwellings and even cave churches into the steep canyon sides below the original town.  As the population increased, ordinary people began doing the same thing, until by the 1950's nearly half of the town (15,000 people!) lived in such caves.

Life in caves was not a picnic; sanitation was very bad, farm animals often lived in the same caves as their owners, and the high humidity led to lots of mold.  As a result, the infant death rate in Matera was around 50%, and the conditions grew to be a national scandal.  So the Italian government built high rise apartment buildings nearby and ordered all the people out of their sassi.  Now the area is being tourist-ificated and gentrified, and some quite nice B&B's and restaurants are in sassi.  We ate a delicious lunch in one, though the moment we walked in we could tell we were in a cave - the mildewy smell was there despite all the cleaning chemicals.

The sassi area is wonderfully photogenic and I have dozens of great pictures, but here are a few:

Unfortunately, all of the churches in sassi were closed up tight, which seemed odd to me since it was Palm Sunday.  In the process of walking around the town a couple of women came up to Tre and gave her an olive branch, which they tend to use instead of palm branches here.

The rest of the Bari area was flat and heavily industrialized or packed with plant nurseries or orchids.

The coast line here was rather rocky - reminiscent of many Hawaiian shorelines - and since it was cold it wasn't at all attractive for swimming.

On our train ride home, we saw many nice sandy beaches further north that were deserted - now.  In summer, they are packed.

We also saw a large number of wind turbines and some solar "farms".

 

The trip South was a totally different experience than being in the North.  Far less crowded and less developed, it was an interesting contrast to what we had seen and experienced in the North.  Far fewer people spoke English.....probably a good thing in keeping cultural identity.  

Castelmezzano---Grandpa's Home In Italy

My grandfather came to America in the early part of the 20th Century after serving in the Italian Army.  As a boy he lived in Castelmezzano, a village that looks like it's suspended from cliffs....and indeed it is. He tended goats.

Castelmezzano is in the province of Basilica,and it's waaaaaay down the boot and for many years had been off the beaten path.  Our family friend, Joe Campagna, had roots in this area, too, and was able to give us both directions and courage to go there.  So we rented a Hertz car in Potenza (lots of fun with our limited language skills; thank God for online reservations!), the nearest city about 45 minutes away, and off we went.  Little did we or Joe know that Castelmezzano is no longer hidden from the general path.  The Italian government is trying to make southern Italy more accessible.  There is now a tunnel where winding roads use to be, well marked signs, paved roads and even bus service....all fairly new in the life of Castelmezzano.  The weirdest thing about the area is that it now boasts a zip line from the town to another town over on the next mountain.  You can don a rubber suit, get attached to a zip line and fly across the valley just like Superman.  I was afraid that with my girth the line would act as a bungy cord and I would go sailing and bouncing across the valley.......NO ZIP LINE FOR ME!

Here's the sign at the entrance to Castelmezzano from the parking lot welcoming tourists.

The patron saint of the town, Padre Pio, at the top of the staircase into the town.

A typical winding path up the side of the hill to the homes and shops of Castelmezzano.

The valley and where some brave soul can take the zip line across to the town across the way.

The town is really trying to promote tourism, but they are very suspicious when tourists show up.  After all, for years no one came or left the area.  The younger folks seem willing to talk, but the older ones, especially the women, just look like you're there to collect the rent.  Castelmezzano now boasts of two souvenir shops with all sorts of post cards, ash trays, plagues and what-nots to carry home.  The streets are newly paved and have pictures of the area set into the pavement.  There's a welcome sign for visitors.  The church plays a wonderful little recorded tune sung by children that can be heard all over the village at noon every day.  Houses now have signs in front of them if anyone who lived there has distinguished himself anywhere in the world.  There's plenty of parking and a couple of restaurants to serve you.

The church in Castelmezzano is a very significant part of daily life.  Almost every woman who passed the church crossed herself and kissed her hands in tribute. The church has some large beautiful paintings in it, is bright with sunlight and very well maintained.  It was obvious that this is the center of life for the village.

Like all the churches we have visited in Italy, there are movable pews.  The one in Castelmezzano was no different.

We didn't spend the night in Castelmezzano because one of the things they don't have yet is computer access to their hotel.  We didn't know if we could get a room and decided that since this was so far from Florence we better make sure we had a place to rest our heads at night.  So Ken made a reservation at an agritourismo outside the town of Trivigno, across the valley from Castelmezzano.  Agritourismi are places way out in the country, nominally working farms, that act as B&B's.  The one he found was fabulous.  Run by Peppino and Maria Giovanna, our B&B not only served us breakfast, but dinner, too.  What a dinner it was!  Peppino, a Frenchman, could not have been more welcoming with both graciousness and hand kissing (mine, not Ken's), and Maria Giovanna (Italian) making us the best decaf cappuccino and serving us little sandwich cookies.  The place was on the top of a hill with wonderful views.  Being high up in the craggy mountains meant sweaters and coats again, something we didn't need in Florence where the weather has finally shown signs of Spring. 

Maria Giovanna, Theresa, and Peppino on their veranda

Ken climbed up to the old Norman fort above the town and took some photos overlooking it.  Yes, as remote as this town is, the Normans got there, as well as the Saracens, the Turks, the Spanish, and the French, over the course of the thousand years or so the town has existed.  The story is that the town was put there up high to be inaccessible to these invaders, but apparently to no avail.  Even the Wrights found it.

After we left Castelmezzano we headed for Matera and Bari.  We know it's taking a long time for us to give you the particulars of this trip south, but bear with us.  We'll get to the rest and even give you some pictures of the coast going back to Florence.  Then......it's Holy Week and all the grandeur one Italian city can muster. 

                                        

Rome - The Eternal City (in two days!)

The first leg of our journey South (Rome/Castelmezzano/Bari) last week was to Rome.  Ken hadn't been to Rome since 1970, so it was probably time.  We were lucky to find a very nice and inexpensive hotel in the center of the historic district that was close to the Pantheon and a lot of other sites.

Rome is only about 2 hours train ride from Florence with the high speed trains they have, so we got to spend the afternoon visiting St Peter's Basilica.  The crowds of people were much enormous and we had to stand in line for about 40 minutes in the hot sun just to get into the Basilica (still free).  The line to get tickets for the Vatican and museums was even longer, so we passed on that.  No Sistine Chapel this time.  But St. Peter's is still as spectacular as ever.

Inside St Peter's with the tomb of St Peter under the canopy

The dome, looking up

Michelangelo's Pieta is now behind glass, so you can't go up and touch it.

....but it's still one of the most spectacular pieces of artwork ever constructed.
The guards made no pretense of stopping people from taking photos, so everybody snapped away to their heart's content.

The floors, as we noted in other churches here in Italy, are magnificent.

As we exited, we were lucky enough to catch the changing of the Swiss Guards (they get younger all the time!).  Their costumes were created by Michelangelo and have never changed. 

The most disturbing part of the visit was that we think Theresa got her money belt pick-pocketed on a crowded bus ride over from the hotel.  We say think, because when we got back to the hotel we did a money count and very little, if anything, was missing,  But the money belt was clearly open and not how she had put it on.  This gave us not so nice a feeling about Rome, even if little damage was done.

The next day we spent most of the day in the ancient Roman ruins - the Colosseum, the Forum, the temples.  It just went on and on, and we could have seen more if our stamina hadn't given out.  Here are some samples of the sights:

Of course, THE Colosseum, where as we're now told, NO Christians ever died - just animals.

Some of the beautiful open green space around the park

One of at least three triumphal arches.  This one is by Constantine, to celebrate his victory over a rival general (in his pre-Christian days)

A close-up of a scene on Titus' arch.  Note the Roman troops carrying the minorah.  This was to celebrate his destruction and pillaging of Jerusalem around 70AD.  An eerie meeting of biblical and secular histories.

Lilac were in bloom then.  I couldn't resist.

This unimpressive looking hut was to mark where Julius Caesar was cremated after being murdered.  People were still putting flowers there!

An overall view of the crowds and the welter of temples and ruins

The Temple of Saturn and miscellaneous rock pillars.  Many of the old temples had been converted to Christian churches and, while preserved, the original features were buried under later construction or renovation.

Later that afternoon after re-energizing we walked around the neighborhood around the hotel.  Here's the Piazza Navona, very nearby, a nice picnic and people-watching place.

As we left the piazza, we passed this most Italian of events - the "sciopero" (strike).  Not sure what this one was all about, but everything was peaceful and the carabinieri were chatting with these old guys having their sitdown strike.   Actually (knock on wood) we've had no problems with strikes here and things move quite smoothly.

As I mentioned, the Pantheon was nearby.  While obviously a beautiful Roman temple, it got converted to a Christian church early on, and so was spared the worst treatment.  Since this was Roman Cultural Week, we were surprised to find out that all state owned historic sites were free to the public.  Of course this made them crowded, but the crowds were well behaved and didn't create too much of a problem for us.

While not so beautiful on the weathered outside, this video gives you a better impression of its inside size and shape than still photos.  You can also get a sense for the noise level there.  This is with signs and guards all around saying "Silenzio"!

The Trevi Fountain was a bit further on, still as beautiful as ever.  Tre remembers that when she was here around 1990 they were told not to go there at night, that the area was dirty and dangerous.  Well, now it's just full of tourists, day and night, all having a good time (with the usual hassle by vendors trying to sell stuff - watches, leather goods, glowing necklaces, and little glowing gyros that fly into the air at night).

And finally, looking off into the sunset... St Peter's. in the distance.