Stay HOME!

Tags

Covid 19, Health, home, Italy, message, people

This little film is basically saying to all people living in Rome, don’t be stupid tonight just stay home. This way Rome will remain the Rome we know and love and we will all be safe. A simple message for all easy to follow. Italy has been hit very hard. Not all people have been careful. Enjoy this gentle poetic video addressed to us all.

 

Azzurro

Tags

anxiety, Canada., coping, danger, Friends, Italy, Stress, troubles, World

Italy has been hit very badly by COVID 19, the number of sick and dead amongst the elderly population is staggering, 60% of sick people are over the age of 60 and 100% of the dead are over 80 yrs of age. The Government in an effort to control the spread of the virus has ordered people confined to their homes. But those dear Italians are resourceful, people all around Italy organized themselves to sing from their balcony or windows or terraces in the afternoon at 6pm each day in an effort to socialize with neighbours. Italy gave us the Opera more  than 400 years ago and so it is normal to sing in times of joy but also of great stress.

I know that friends living in Italy have told me that they will sing this afternoon Azzurro and on other days Volare will be sung, etc.. The idea is to sing a song that is well known and popular with everyone, Italy has lots of those. Here is Adriano Celentato singing Azzurro.

Porto Azzurro is a comune in the Province of Livorno in the Italian region Tuscany; it is on the island of Elba, located about 130 kilometres southwest of Florence and about 90 kilometres south of Livorno. A beautiful place.

 

As Spring approaches

Tags

Italy, memories, opera, Souvenir

I was listening to Renata Scotto sing Ch’il bel sogno di Doretta from La Rondine by Puccini. It reminded me of the many times we went to the Teatro del Opera in Rome where we had Season tickets.

Listening to the music and looking at the pictures posted here reminds me of our life in Rome. The memory of which is as strong today as it was then.

 

Opening night at the Teatro del’Opera in Rome waiting for the arrival of the President of the Italian Republic. The night Will had a funny conversation with an Italian Princess on too much botox.

On the Belvedere looking towards the Roman Forum

from our terrace, the view at sunset on Via dei Villini

Our terrace with all the plants Will and I planted, I loved those tiles with a greenish blue colour.

One of the more famous cemetery of Rome, it is a city in itself given the thousands of tombs and mausoleums. Many famous Italians are buried here and so are noble families. The Campo Verano is the one cemetery I know where even in death the dead compete with each other for social standing by the monumental graves built to proclaim who they were. A peaceful and beautiful garden cemetery.

Rome in Winter during a rare snowstorm

The Barberini Palace once the family home of Pope Urban VIII now a beautiful museum to classical painting. Setting for the movie Roman Holiday.

The Pontifical Academy of Science in the Vatican gardens, copied from Emperor Nero’s Palace built by the nephew of the Pope Pius IV, Cardinal Charles Borromeo later Saint Charles Borromeo. We were told by the Cardinal guiding us that originally this building was used by Cardinal Borromeo to receive his male friends and to party. It caused a scandal and he was sent to Northern Italy for a period. This area of the Vatican gardens is not open to the public.

Italian cooking classes where I discovered that the Anchovy is a delicate white fish and fresh is simply grilled and served with lemon juice or eaten raw marinated in lemon juice, it is quite good and more a shame we do not have it here in North America.

Our dining room at home set for a Christmas dinner party.

The Borghese Gallery built in 1605 by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and patron of Bernini. He built this gallery to house his art collection. The settings of the immense gardens all around makes for a nice park to walk and relax in the centre of the City.

Gardens of the Residence of the Canadian Ambassador at Villa Grandi in Rome set up for a staff picnique. This is also the site of the Villa of Scipio Africanus which is under the garden. This villa was given to Canada by the Italian Government in 1950 as War reparation, it formerly belonged to Dino Grandi the #2 of the Fascist Government who fled in 1944 to South America.

General view of Rome from the Gianicolo Hill in the background the Alban hills South East of the City.  St-Peter’S dome is just out of sight to the left of this photo.

Will making ravioli by hand, he made the dough and then put it through the machine, next he prepared the stuffing which was pumpkin. Cooking the ravioli takes only minutes. I remember they were quite good.

The entrance to Hell or the Underworld according to ancient Romans beliefs situated between the Arch of Septimus Severus and the Temple of Saturn.

The Arch of Titus commemorating his destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Part of this arch in the Roman Forum was damaged during the middle-ages and it was Rachele Guidi, second wife of Mussolini who had it restored around 1930. Walking in the Forum in all Seasons was always pleasant, so much to see and study.

Near Piazza Venezia

Entrance to our home in Rome on Via dei Villini

Italian cheeses, meats and wine shop, a real pleasure to discover the incredible variety of cheeses made all over Italy.

At dinner with our friend Diana in Rome.

The ancient Via Appia in Rome.

 

The parents

Tags

Capena, dogs, Italy, Wire hair

Today 19 February is Nora’s Birthday and I am posting photos of her parents.

Nora’s Mom named Lucy, she still lives at the Farm in Capena and is now 14 yrs old.

Nora’s Dad, named Monet, photo taken in March 2009.

Later this week we will have Nicky’s Birthday, his Father came from Budapest. As part of a breeding program for champion dogs.

The Birthday girl enjoying a bit of sunshine. 

 

Nostalgic for Rome

Tags

Italy, la grande bellezza, life, Nostalgy, Travel

Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty, which is Rome itself the Great Beauty.

Friends are going to Rome in April, a great time to be in the Città. Despite all its problems and degraded infrastructure Rome remains a fantastic city unlike any other city in the world.

I read today a remark by someone who said that we are now in late Winter, 17 February? Really well I suppose that one month from now we will be at the end of Winter still mid-March but at the end nonetheless. By April restaurants will start to re-open in anticipation of the arrival of the first cruise ships. However with the Chinese Flu I wonder what impact it will have on people travelling.

Still April in Rome is a wonderful time.

Rome, the Tiber River on the Tiberina Island.

An Anniversary forgotten

Tags

auschwitz, Birkenau, Death, Fascism, Italy, Nazi, Primo Levi, WWII

This past week was the 75th Anniversary of the arrival of Soviet troops in Poland in their offensive to defeat Nazi Germany and so called liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Camps. Currently I am reading a biography on Primo Levi, the celebrated Italian author from Turin who was interned at Auschwitz from February 1944. In the biography by Ian Thomson written in 2019 on the centennial of Primo Levi birth, we have a very good picture in Levi’s words of what that camp life was like, of the people he knew, of those who died and those who survived. We also read about the Germans at the camp who ran the factories for I.G. Farben and BASF. In order to survive Levi says; you had to find a way to do as little as possible to preserve your energy.

Levi had a long career in Turin as a chemist and he became a celebrated author of poems, short stories for children, science fiction and on his own life experience. His work took him to Germany in the 1950’s to 1970’s and he writes about his view of Germans and Germany and also of his own country Italy and its long period under the Fascist dictatorship which led to Italian Jews like himself being singled out and how after 1945 Italy continued and continues to this day to have in its political life the heirs of Mussolini’s ideals.

Levi’s book If this is a man and his other book Truce speaks of his experience while incarcerated. Levi survived the camps because he had been educated and worked as a Chemist, his skills were in demand. After the Soviets arrival he then recounts how going home was not so simple. The Soviets had their own agenda, a harrowing tale.

During my posting to Warsaw, Poland I was delegated to go to Auschwitz- Birkenau 3 times for official remembrance ceremonies. The camps are near Krakow and a small sign on the highway to Krakow indicates the cut off to the village of Oswiecim. A quiet little village with a railway crossing it the camps are just outside the village limits.

My first visit was a commemoration for the Sinti people and the mass extermination of 2 August 1944 in the sector of the camp housing them. The Sinti and Roma imprisoned in the camp came primarily from Germany, Austria, the Protectorate of Bavaria and Moravia, and Poland, with smaller groups arriving from France, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia/Croatia, Belgium, the USSR, Lithuania, and Hungary. There is also mention of Sinti and Roma citizens of Norway and Spain.

It is estimated that about 23 thousand men, women, and children were imprisoned in the camp. About 21 thousand were registered in the camp (including the more than 370 children estimated to have been born there). A group of about 1,700 Polish Sinti and Roma was murdered immediately after arriving at the camp, without being entered in the records.

Of the approximately 23 thousand Sinti and Roma deported to Auschwitz, some 21 thousand died or were murdered in the gas chambers. There was one man at the ceremony who had missed being gassed simply because the night before he was transferred to a labour camp and survived. It was very strange to see one survivor out  of many thousand who perished being present to bear witness. His survival depended on Fate.

The terrible thing about those camps was how they had been set up as of 1933 to exterminate all enemies of Nazi Germany at first all German Opposition political figures were targeted, intellectuals and artists. Then the long list of enemies of the Reich, people from all walks of life, from criminals to political prisoners, to activists, people belonging to groups declared to be sub-humans like the Sinti and Roma people, Jews, priests, nuns, any religious denomination, resistance fighters, POW who were marginally better treated, homosexuals, and anyone who simply did not fit into the Nazis book for a perfect society. This also included members of Royal families of Europe who worked against Nazi occupation of their respective country.  Everyone had a badge to wear to identify the group they belonged to and the number tattoo on their arm. Since the usual life expectation was 3 months, the number on one’s arm could show if you had lived beyond the usual 90 day period, some like Levi did. The memory of Auschwitz-Birkenau is that of a large industrial death factory whose sole purpose was to exterminate quickly those the Nazi had identified as undesirable.

Today some 75 years later, Auschwitz has become a name in history books. Far too many docu-drama have in my opinion cheapened the memory of the atrocities to the point of trivializing them. During my visits to Auschwitz I did hear comments from visitors which illustrated the depth of ignorance and indifference to what they were seeing, I could not help thinking that these same people could probably have been inmates if we went back in time.  In the biography of Primo Levi, a quote from him illustrates how to think of this horrible episode in history, Levi says: We must master the past otherwise the past will master us.

Primo Levi (174517) 1919-1987, born and died in Turin, Italy in the same house at Corso Re Umberto 75. 

Singers and Palaces

Tags

Alexander Palace, Architecture, Europe, Italy, Nicholas II, Revolution, Romanov

We went to the Pour House / Old Triangle which is a pub on Great George street in Charlottetown for the first night of Winter Jazz. The band featured well known professional musicians and singer Dylan Menzie of Belle River, PEI. Dylan has a great voice and an easy way with the audience.  I did not know about Winter Jazz, year round we go to Island Jazz but this is different, the calibre of the artists seems better. We are going again on 15 November to hear another artist, Erin Costello from Halifax.

Both Menzie and Costello have won awards for their work and are successful. Again the music scene in PEI is great.

Now on a completely different topic, I have been interested all my life by history and archeology of sites around the world. I really enjoyed our time in Rome and travelling in Italy for all the ancient site one could explore and try to understand. Near Rome next to Fiumicino Airport is the original site of the ancient Port of Ostia with its great basins and warehouses, you can see how ships arriving from Egypt with their cargo where un-loaded and re-loaded on flat bottom barges to be floated down 35 Km on the Tiber river to the City of Rome. A site few people know because it is in a isolate and wild area once part of a Princely Estate, though it is next door literally from the Airport terminal. There are many other sites, in Jordan I visited many times the Graeco-Roman city of Gerasa or Jerash as it is know today. Built by the Romans it is fascinating to see, it is said to be one of the best preserved city of the Decapolis, it is mentioned in Mark 5.1  and Luke 8.26.

The Jordanian Government with the help of international archeological experts have preserved and enhanced Jerash. You can walk its streets and understand what a great city it was in its time.

In Poland which was devastated by the Second World War, cities like Warsaw were rebuilt to recreate the buildings lost thus reviving national history. Many other countries have done the same.

With the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union,  Russia has rediscovered its past, it is no longer taboo to talk about Imperial Russia or the Tsars. In the last 30 years much has been done to restore history to its rightful place. Vladimir Putin who is from St-Petersburg has invested enormous amounts of money to restore the former Imperial Capital. We visited the city a few years ago and I would love to go back to see more of it.

It is a city of Palaces and its suburb Tsarkoye Selo (Tsar’s Village) was the private residence of the Romanovs since Peter the Great built it. It is a collection of Palaces and great Orthodox churches more splendid one from the other. The Second World War saw St-Petersburg endure a brutal siege of 900 days and more than 1 million city residents died, mostly of starvation. Much of the Palaces and gardens of Tsarkoye Selo where savagely vandalise, looted and destroyed. What you see today when you visit is extensively re-built and restored. Historical photos show the extent of the damage and it is a miracle to see it all re-born.  Some of it was rebuilt in the 1950’s but most of it has been restored in the last 25 years and some is still on-going at great expense and it involves a great deal of expert artistry. Russia appears to have an army of incredible artists who toil at recreating the past.

 

Peterhof a baroque palace built for the wife of Peter the Great by Domenico Trezzini 1714-28. The top photo shows the palace in 1944 the bottom photo shows the palace today. A miracle of restoration. We visited it and it is impressive. 

Currently the Alexander Palace built in 1792 by Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi is being refurbished. This palace was built by Catherine the Great as a gift to her grandson Alexander who would become Tsar and fight Napoleon. He is the Tsar in the novel Tolstoy, War and Peace.

Later in 1905 this palace would become a residence for the last Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their 5 children. The family lived there and not at the Winter Palace in town for security reasons. The Winter Palace was used only for Official matters, the Alexander Palace was a private residence. After the Tsar abdicated in March 1917, they lived for a time in the Palace until their arrest and deportation to Siberia, they were murdered by the Bolcheviks in July 1918 on the orders of Lenin. It was President Boris Yeltsin who gave the late Imperial Family a State Funeral and invited the senior Romanovs and others to come to St-Petersburg for the funeral in 1998. The Russian Orthodox church declared them Holy Martyrs.

After the abolition of the monarchy the Palace is then turned into a museum, but little by little all the personal artifacts belonging to the Tsar’s family is either looted by the Bolcheviks, sold off in international art markets. Some will end up in other palaces like Pavlovsk where it remains to this day.

During the Second World War the Alexander Palace is destroyed by fire and looted by the German Army. It will remain largely a ruin until the 1990’s when efforts are made to renovate and rebuild. In the last 10 years, enormous efforts have been underway to bring the Palace back to its former glory, in 2020 eight rooms will be re-opened to the public and by 2022 it is hoped that the entire palace can be completed. It will be a permanent Memorial to the Family of Nicholas II since it was their family home.

The left side of the Palace were the apartments of the Tsarina and her 5 children, the right side of the building was reserved for the Tsar. The palace itself is surrounded by enormous gardens with all manner of features, like a play house for the children, bridges over ponds, a hunting lodge for the Tsar and fantastical constructions to amuse and decorate the gardens.

The Romanovs employed both Italian architects and French garden designers, Charles Cameron a Scot was hired by Catherine the Great as her personal architect. She loved Roman antiquities and the neo-classical style.

Needless to say the restoration of these palaces is a great asset in promoting tourism and the Russian State and the regional authorities in St-Petersburg have done a lot to ensure that the memory of the Romanov are kept alive.

Here are some photos of the work done so far. Remember that the Alexander Palace was in a very poor state.

The Maple room in 1945 used by the Tsarina as a living room.

The Mountain Hall in 1946 with Soviet Officials posing.

Another room in 1946, the tiles around the ruins of the fireplace are a deep greenish blue glaze.

Second floor rooms waiting restoration. Structural work has already been done.

The Maple room in 1920 some decorative elements have already disappeared, most of the large plants are gone. Much worse was to come. This room is under complete re-construction now since the war devastated the palace.

Some elements were saved by the Communist Curators of the Palace before the arrival of the German army in 1941.

Some pieces of furniture did survive, because they were taken away before the war. This lapis-lazuli console table has been returned to the Palace.

Original furniture and tiger skin rug which also survived, easier to move smaller objects in an evacuation. Now returned to the Palace.

The Turkish Bath of the Tsar just completed with a large pool. This room had to be totally re-built and the tiles recreated from fragments found on the premises. Many photos of the era also helped.

The study of the Tsar another room just completed in the renovations.

The Maple room undergoing a complete reconstruction, this included recreating the delicate plaster work of guirlandes of flowers in an art nouveau style.

The great library getting a new floor which will be an exact copy of the original.

Ornate ceiling recreated.

This work at the Alexander Palace has been on-going for 8 years now. I cannot help thinking that once it is completed it will remain a very sad place knowing the fate of this inhabitants in 1917. Somewhat like the Miramar Palace in Trieste, once the home of Maximilian of Hapsburg and his wife Charlotte, before they accepted to move to Mexico at the invitation of Napoleon III to rule that country until Maximilian was executed by Mexican revolutionaries in 1867. His wife Empress Charlotte of Belgium returned to Europe but suffered a life of mental illness, living in seclusion and dying in 1927, quickly forgotten by her royal relatives in Austria, Belgium and Britain.

 

 

 

 

Ferragosto

Tags

Ferragosto, Italy, Le Marche, Old Home Week, PEI, Pesaro

Ferragosto 2019 is upon us, in Charlottetown it’s Old Home Week with harness racing and parades, my neighbour already reminded us to not forget to come over for a stiff drink usually a Bloody Cesar, Canada’s Official Cocktail and food at 10am an old island tradition, no one misses the parade. It will be our fourth, yes 4 years already on the Island, time flies. This is also the peak or height of tourist season and signals also the end of the Season, after 16 August suddenly tourists vanish.

In Italy Ferragosto is the beginning of the Summer vacation for everyone, I mean everyone. It is pretty much the same in other European countries. Time to pack up and leave the cities for the beach, the mountains, the countryside. Leave the towns to the tourists. Everything shuts down and if you decide to stay in town better plan ahead because shopping is restricted and difficult to manage. ATMs machines run out of cash and gas stations are only open for a few hours if at all.

For us it was the best of time of the year, we would travel to Le Marche region on the Adriatic for spectacular towns, food, wine and festivals. A relax quiet time by the seaside and evenings at the opera.

We would stay in Pesaro, visit Rimini and Urbino a few minutes away.

Since Seafood is important on PEI, it is equally important in Pesaro and our favorite restaurant was Ristorante Bristolino “Lorenzo e Bibo” which use to be on the sea front at the Bristol hotel. However in 2015 it closed and just re-opened to the delight of its many fans on Via Mazzolari 54 in the centre of the city. Incredible quality of seafood and dishes so well prepared and presented with flair. So happy to see them back in action. Will wrote about this restaurant and so did I in my blog.

We came of course to Pesaro for the yearly Opera Festival to its most famous son, Gioachino  Rossini. We would drive from Rome on excellent Italian roads through scenic and dramatic at times, mountain views.

City centre park, Piazzale della Liberta, the Italian artist Arnaldo Pomodoro has left his golden sphere monuments all over the world. One of them has become the symbol of Pesaro in Le Marche. Tell any person from Pesaro that you’ll meet them at ‘la palla di Pomodoro’, and they instantly know where to go.

Wishing everyone a Felice Ferragosto!

 

Ten years ago in Rome

Tags

Capena, Dr Massimo Buzzanca, Italy, Rome, Wire hair

Today on FB I had a reminder of 10 yrs ago, showing a photo of two little puppies about 6 weeks old.

The 26 April 2009 we drove to Capena which is 30 minutes North of Rome. It is pretty straight forward taking Via Nomentana going North from our house on Via Dei Villini and then joining the SS-4 which is the ancient Via Salaria (Salt Road) on the way we will past some interesting site like the old Rome Airport of the 1920’s Roma-Urbe and then joining the old Via Tiberina at Prima Porta and going North still until the round about second exit and Capena is just further down the road. At this point we are in the countryside and it is green and dotted with nice houses.  Our destination was the farm of Dr Massimo Buzzanca and his wife Tiziana.

Via Tiberina is a very ancient Roman road from 396 BC and don’t be surprise to see around Settebagni and Capena a lot of prostitutes all decked out sitting on a sofa by the side of the road. We would learn later that a lot of those prostitutes were in fact nuns trying to make ends meet. Many came to Italy from far away impoverished countries and the Cardinal who runs the convents for his National congregations often don’t have the money to supplement all the needs of their priests and nuns, so they get a night job. Pretty amazing because the Vatican does not help them financially. Prostitution is illegal in cities but not on the highway between towns. But I digress…

We had met them some months prior when Nicky and Nora were just a few days old. In Italy when you buy a pet they are microchipped by Law at the point of purchase and this being Italy, the government department responsible for the registration of all animals has forms to fill out and a few months down the road, you will have to go collect the formal registration etc. You cannot name your pet whatever name you choose this is Italy and Style comes into play, by Law letters are assigned to a group of days in the year and so in our case that day the letters were F and E. So Nicky was christened Fantastico Nicky and Nora, Eleonora di Capena.

Nicky and Nora are very different in character, Nicky is a week younger than Nora and he is a show dog by pedigree and family lineage. Nora is a tracking and hunting dog on her family lineage. Meaning that Nora has always been our guard dog and early warning system whereas Nicky is a beach boy loving the sunshine and going through life as if he is on a walkway with lots of paparazzi.

On the drive back, Will sat on the back seat with Nora and Nicky. Nora was nervous about leaving the farm and her relatives whereas Nicky whined non-stop in his little whiny puppy voice. We discovered quickly that we could not take them together to the Vet clinic. We could walk them together in Rome but once in Canada that became impossible.

Imagine 10 years already, how time flies.

This photo was taken in our den at home on Via dei Villini. Nicky is on the left. They do not have their signature collars yet sent to us as a gift by our friend Cecilia H.

 

Rome

Tags

Birthday, Eternal city, Italy, Romulus

The 21 April is the Birthday of Rome, Maggior di Roma is an expression in Italian meaning Rome is greatest. Rome celebrates its 2,772nd birthday on 21 April which this year coincides with Easter Sunday festivities. Known as Natale di Roma, the annual birthday celebration is based on the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus in 753 BC.

Rome is known as the Eternal City even among the ancient Romans themselves. It was so called because the Romans thought that no matter what happened to the world, no matter how many other empires might rise and fall, Rome would go on forever. Romans still think this way today. Tu non vedrai nessuna cosa al mondo maggior di Roma. 

Puccini composed this Hymn to Rome in 1919 to celebrate the victories of Italy in the First World War and its liberation from Austrian dominance. It became in a way its Birthday song. Puccini got his inspiration from an ancient poem, “Carmen Saeculare” (literally, “Secular Hymn”, usually translated as “Song of the Ages”), is a hymn or ode by the Roman lyric poet Horace, commissioned by Emperor Augustus in 17 BC. It is collection of mythological and religious verses encouraging the restoration of the tradition and the glorification of the gods, particularly Apollo, Diana, Jupiter and Venus.