Friday, February 15, 2008
Update.
So. After finishing up exams a few weeks ago I had a couple of choices. First choice was to go on a skiing trip organised by the architecture school up to Orcieres in the Southern French Alps to ski for a week. This wasn"t really a difficult decision to make, and with the price of the trip more or less halved thanks to partial payment by the school, myself and 90 other Archi students headed off to the snow. After a 10 hour bus trip and a couple of stops at the French equivalent of roadhouses, we were in the alps. And they were amazing. Brilliant panoramic views of jagged white peaks and rocky ridges, blue skies and sunshine, escalators which took you directly from chalet to chair lifts, open air markets selling locally produced cheeses (beaufort is a winner) and saucisson (porc / poivre a standout), heated indoor, glass roofed, olympic size swimming pool and ice skating rink, even a nightclub that began in the early 1980"s, but rather than being altered with changing fashions, has remained the same since its inception, and now draws the crowds keen to see what a club was actually like all those years ago. --- And then there"s the skiing!!! - All in all a great trip with some very funny crew.
A few days after getting back to Pris from the ski trip came the second decision. The plan had been to head over to Spain and have a look around Barcellona or Madrid, but a good mate Alessandro was heading back to his home in Naples for the week and offered to be a guide there if I was interested. - So off to Naples I went. Naples is actually a great place. Right now its getting a lot of bad publicity in Europe for its problems with rubbish disposal and political upheavals; and its clear that a bit of an effort needs to be made to rectify these issues, but by staying with a great Italian family while in Naples I wasn"t just subjected to the media hype, but got to see Naples from another point of view. - and the view was fine. ha.
Alessandro"s dad picked us up from the airport, and dropped us off in the centre of Naples near A."s Archi school so that he could get some admin stuff organised with someone that wasn"t returning his emails. Here in the centro historico (ignore poor italian) narrow cobbled streets wound off in various directions, some cut short, twisting off in another direction after a few meters, others stretching on for kilometers. But at street level, they could all boast tiny stores selling everything from red wines and colorful pastas, to touristy efigies of Puccinella or strings of deep red glazed ceramic chllies; both bringing good luck to their owners. -- (I might add here that the red ceramic chilli I bought in Naples is now broken, because the little string used to hang it got caught on my passport in customs at Naples airport on the way home, causing the chilli to fall and break into 3 pieces on the floor/ not such a lucky chilli after all. )
Above these shops, and at every level, strung from one side of the street to the other or just lazily flicking in the afternoon breeze while hanging from narrow balconies; was the washing of hundreds of Italian citizens. Bed sheets and towels, bras and boxer shorts, shirts and socks, all forming a loose and haphazard canopy over the small streets below. - But despite their size, even these tiny alleyways and roads were deceptively busy. The sound of a high pitched, beeping scooter horn was never out of earshot, and with each seeming to follow their own list of unwritten road rules, - weaving and speeding, stopping abruptly and then zooming on -- being a pedestrian on that first day in Naples was definately an eye-opening experience.
But Naples wasn't restricted to this generally cliched image of Italian life. While I was staying with the Formissano family I was lucky enough to get accross to Pompei for the day. Pompei is another kind of eye opening experience. Here you're blown away by the silence and enormity of the place. Having only realy spent one year studying Latin in year 7 - and most of that time was actually spent drawing cerberus the dog or reading Asterix magazines; my idea of Pompei was maybe a dozen buildings, largely demolished by the volcanic eruption of Versuvius, and a couple of tortured looking, mumified corpses of some of the inhabitants that had decided to stay in town rather than flee after the innitail eruption. - The latter part was more or less correct, but as for the town -- it's immense, and realy - incredibly well preserved.
The reason so many buildings still exist here is that Mount Versuvias covered Pompei in some 25 foot of ash in the eruption some 90 years before the birth of Christ. (B.C for those not keen on God-bothering) -This solidified over time, and everything underneath was more or less preserved; bar those bits and pieces taken by people through history wanting to build other things with the old materials. So now, with all that solidified ash having been cleared away by archeologists, you can walk through ancient public baths which could boast centrally heated bathing and changing rooms, marketplaces and restaurants, ancient market places and villas, even public funded and private brothels with intricately painted frescoes of positions on offer to pqtrons still cleqrly visible. While our guide in Pompei knew a lot and spoke 7 languages fluently, we suspected that his loitering in this part of town was a favourite part of the tour. He was a bit too reluctant to move on. Group decision : Bad Man.
Food would have to top the list of favourite things to do while in Naples. (Obviously you dont "do" food, you eat it. But the point is, it is awesome). While I'm busily giving history lessons I should also add, that it was in Naples, in 1781 that the Margherita Pizza was invented. A good date to know. .. And the pizza here is still amazing. On my last night in Naples, myself, Alessandro and a couple of his mates took a drive into one of the more seedy, notoriously Camora (mafia) influenced suburbs, on a mission. ( To get an idea of how seedy, as we entered the suburb we were hunting, the Italian mate of Alessandros who was driving - a solid, dark haired guy who spoke very good english - centrally locked all the doors and twisted around in his seat to tell me to undo my seatbelt -- apparently a clear and inviting sign to those interested that I was a tourist... ) After a short drive along yellow-lit streets and some very "shady looking characters" we made it to the destination. A pizza restaurant. But not just any - arguably the best Pizza place in all of Naples. This is not the place to go if you think the service is the most important part of a meal out. On arrival, our group name was taken by a clearly stressed and balding waiter, who then pointed at a couple standing in the crowd outside the restaurant, indicating it was their turn to come in and sit down to eat.
Outside the restaurant, hands in pockets shuffling from one foot to the other in the cold night air, the suburb's generally low status was emphasised by 3 scruffy stray dogs outside on the footpath. Sometimes gnawing on each others ears and muzzles, but mostly just waiting. At first it seemed they were waiting for food scraps, but even when these were thrown in their direction by generous customers on their way home with take away, the food was ignored, and they just went on waiting, their eyes following the headlights of the passing cars.
(well there's a depressing little interlude if ever you needed one) -- now. Back to the pizza :)
After a little while it was our turn to head inside to a waiting table, which, with one seat too many for our group, became the seat of a well dressed, over-weight stranger from the crowd, here to eat a quick pizza on his own.
Not knowing which pizza to choose, the Italian guys ordered me the "old faithful" equivalent of the chicken parmigiana with chips in an Australian pub - here in Naples; The Calzone.
And it was incredible; Essentially just an extra large pizza folded in half then wood-oven baked, the Calzone was full of melted mozarella, ricotta, ham, bacon, basil, pepper and a tomato base. While there was never a hope in hell of finishing it, this was undoubtedly the best pizza I have, or may well ever eat. -- But it did sort of highlight the difference in food culture between France, Italy and I guess even Australia. - Generally in Australia and France, when you have finished the meal you"ve pretty much eaten enough to sate the appetite, but in Italy, it was like eating was considered living. Here you were only finished when you had seriously pushed the limits of what you could physically fit into your stomach at one time. Not easy when you're not used to it, but damn impressive to see how much some people could eat in one sitting, most likely having practiced most of their lives. very impressive indeed...
Anyway, Thats enough from me. Hope it hasn't been too much of a ramble, but I could easily go on and on and on -- the Amalfi Coast, the island of Capri, The castles in Naples etc. etc.
Hope everyone is well. Cheers.
Tim.
A few days after getting back to Pris from the ski trip came the second decision. The plan had been to head over to Spain and have a look around Barcellona or Madrid, but a good mate Alessandro was heading back to his home in Naples for the week and offered to be a guide there if I was interested. - So off to Naples I went. Naples is actually a great place. Right now its getting a lot of bad publicity in Europe for its problems with rubbish disposal and political upheavals; and its clear that a bit of an effort needs to be made to rectify these issues, but by staying with a great Italian family while in Naples I wasn"t just subjected to the media hype, but got to see Naples from another point of view. - and the view was fine. ha.
Alessandro"s dad picked us up from the airport, and dropped us off in the centre of Naples near A."s Archi school so that he could get some admin stuff organised with someone that wasn"t returning his emails. Here in the centro historico (ignore poor italian) narrow cobbled streets wound off in various directions, some cut short, twisting off in another direction after a few meters, others stretching on for kilometers. But at street level, they could all boast tiny stores selling everything from red wines and colorful pastas, to touristy efigies of Puccinella or strings of deep red glazed ceramic chllies; both bringing good luck to their owners. -- (I might add here that the red ceramic chilli I bought in Naples is now broken, because the little string used to hang it got caught on my passport in customs at Naples airport on the way home, causing the chilli to fall and break into 3 pieces on the floor/ not such a lucky chilli after all. )
Above these shops, and at every level, strung from one side of the street to the other or just lazily flicking in the afternoon breeze while hanging from narrow balconies; was the washing of hundreds of Italian citizens. Bed sheets and towels, bras and boxer shorts, shirts and socks, all forming a loose and haphazard canopy over the small streets below. - But despite their size, even these tiny alleyways and roads were deceptively busy. The sound of a high pitched, beeping scooter horn was never out of earshot, and with each seeming to follow their own list of unwritten road rules, - weaving and speeding, stopping abruptly and then zooming on -- being a pedestrian on that first day in Naples was definately an eye-opening experience.
But Naples wasn't restricted to this generally cliched image of Italian life. While I was staying with the Formissano family I was lucky enough to get accross to Pompei for the day. Pompei is another kind of eye opening experience. Here you're blown away by the silence and enormity of the place. Having only realy spent one year studying Latin in year 7 - and most of that time was actually spent drawing cerberus the dog or reading Asterix magazines; my idea of Pompei was maybe a dozen buildings, largely demolished by the volcanic eruption of Versuvius, and a couple of tortured looking, mumified corpses of some of the inhabitants that had decided to stay in town rather than flee after the innitail eruption. - The latter part was more or less correct, but as for the town -- it's immense, and realy - incredibly well preserved.
The reason so many buildings still exist here is that Mount Versuvias covered Pompei in some 25 foot of ash in the eruption some 90 years before the birth of Christ. (B.C for those not keen on God-bothering) -This solidified over time, and everything underneath was more or less preserved; bar those bits and pieces taken by people through history wanting to build other things with the old materials. So now, with all that solidified ash having been cleared away by archeologists, you can walk through ancient public baths which could boast centrally heated bathing and changing rooms, marketplaces and restaurants, ancient market places and villas, even public funded and private brothels with intricately painted frescoes of positions on offer to pqtrons still cleqrly visible. While our guide in Pompei knew a lot and spoke 7 languages fluently, we suspected that his loitering in this part of town was a favourite part of the tour. He was a bit too reluctant to move on. Group decision : Bad Man.
Food would have to top the list of favourite things to do while in Naples. (Obviously you dont "do" food, you eat it. But the point is, it is awesome). While I'm busily giving history lessons I should also add, that it was in Naples, in 1781 that the Margherita Pizza was invented. A good date to know. .. And the pizza here is still amazing. On my last night in Naples, myself, Alessandro and a couple of his mates took a drive into one of the more seedy, notoriously Camora (mafia) influenced suburbs, on a mission. ( To get an idea of how seedy, as we entered the suburb we were hunting, the Italian mate of Alessandros who was driving - a solid, dark haired guy who spoke very good english - centrally locked all the doors and twisted around in his seat to tell me to undo my seatbelt -- apparently a clear and inviting sign to those interested that I was a tourist... ) After a short drive along yellow-lit streets and some very "shady looking characters" we made it to the destination. A pizza restaurant. But not just any - arguably the best Pizza place in all of Naples. This is not the place to go if you think the service is the most important part of a meal out. On arrival, our group name was taken by a clearly stressed and balding waiter, who then pointed at a couple standing in the crowd outside the restaurant, indicating it was their turn to come in and sit down to eat.
Outside the restaurant, hands in pockets shuffling from one foot to the other in the cold night air, the suburb's generally low status was emphasised by 3 scruffy stray dogs outside on the footpath. Sometimes gnawing on each others ears and muzzles, but mostly just waiting. At first it seemed they were waiting for food scraps, but even when these were thrown in their direction by generous customers on their way home with take away, the food was ignored, and they just went on waiting, their eyes following the headlights of the passing cars.
(well there's a depressing little interlude if ever you needed one) -- now. Back to the pizza :)
After a little while it was our turn to head inside to a waiting table, which, with one seat too many for our group, became the seat of a well dressed, over-weight stranger from the crowd, here to eat a quick pizza on his own.
Not knowing which pizza to choose, the Italian guys ordered me the "old faithful" equivalent of the chicken parmigiana with chips in an Australian pub - here in Naples; The Calzone.
And it was incredible; Essentially just an extra large pizza folded in half then wood-oven baked, the Calzone was full of melted mozarella, ricotta, ham, bacon, basil, pepper and a tomato base. While there was never a hope in hell of finishing it, this was undoubtedly the best pizza I have, or may well ever eat. -- But it did sort of highlight the difference in food culture between France, Italy and I guess even Australia. - Generally in Australia and France, when you have finished the meal you"ve pretty much eaten enough to sate the appetite, but in Italy, it was like eating was considered living. Here you were only finished when you had seriously pushed the limits of what you could physically fit into your stomach at one time. Not easy when you're not used to it, but damn impressive to see how much some people could eat in one sitting, most likely having practiced most of their lives. very impressive indeed...
Anyway, Thats enough from me. Hope it hasn't been too much of a ramble, but I could easily go on and on and on -- the Amalfi Coast, the island of Capri, The castles in Naples etc. etc.
Hope everyone is well. Cheers.
Tim.
Better Late Than Never.
Columns from Pompei.
Mucking around. -
Quick sketch of a print by Antoine Van Dyck in the Louvre.
On the boat heading out of port in Naples on the way to the island of Capri.So! - Clearly I"ve missed a huge chunk of this trip blog-wise, and so really, I"ve more or less missed the point of the blog entirely... BUT. As I will probably have as an epitaph; better late than never. So here are a few bits and pieces from Paris, Naples and the Amalfi Coast.
Christmas by the way was also fantastic, ( with the Rougiers in Central France / in the Mountains ) but that report will come later rather than sooner. -Very poorly organised!
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