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September 18, 2006

Assisi

Arrived at the same time as an enormous international, interfaith (Catholic to Shinto to Protestant to Muslim and more) meeting was held to further world peace. This is widely, cynically, and quite likely truthfully suspected to be more for the food, wine and scenery than the religious history of the town. The buildings have been rigged with temporary loudspeakers, with cables slung across streets, so all can enjoy the pontifications. Sitting in Francesca's shop, we find Pipo. is not one of these, and, to his utter digust, has had a loudspeaker rigged below his bedroom window. He interjects often with "Imbecile!". The Teutonic bishop is lecturing in Italian, and I somewhat ashamedly, keep expecting the word 'Wehrmacht' to creep in. Something about a german speaking italian. Aparently he was saying "For world peace, all we need to do is get rid of 'granatina'". We think he meant grenades (grenate), as a granatina is one of those slushy ice drinks. We think he also wanted to abolish "missiles", but pronounced it in such a way as to actually want to ban "monthly magazines" - specifically those sold in brown paper bags in dingy shops where no one wants to make eye contact. The Church of England representative simply had a voice that made Steven Wright sound enthused. Followed by two hours of dirgeful music in minor keys.

One thing of note is that certain people can get away with many things ordinary mortals cannot. This exclusive group includes the priests, monks, nuns and beautiful women.

(Pedestrian crossings are there for solely decorative reasons. Do not expect anyone with any sort of motorized transport to stop)

Many things, however, does not mean all things. Two days later we learn one priest was arrested for having eight kilograms of cocaine and pitiful excuses - "It's not mine, someone asked me to carry this package for them" and "I'm an unsure priest!". We had always assumed an unsure priest was one that couldn't decide between nuns or alter boys. The day after that, a sure priest was arrested for kiddie diddling.

The food is excellent. There are a few notable differences between America and Italy in with regards to restaurants. There is no tipping. You can trust the waiter to recommend an excellent wine (often the house wine - more on that later) and a supurb dish. The one he recommends will be one of the best on the menu and not simply food with the highest margin or that needs to be shifted.

A meal at "Antonello's" restaurant brings out some more interesting local facts. The father of St Francis, being a trader of spices, brough many herbs from the orient here centuries ago. Curries, surprisingly, are not new here. They are delicious. As with every other place, the house wine is not simply the cheapest lot the wholesaler has, but a wine produced this year. They are wines for drinking young and are excellent. There is no need for an extensive wine list. In fact, the wine, cured meats and olive oil are all from his farm.

Mild torment of religious figures is somewhat of a pass-time here. One particularly corpulent monk entered, asking if the restaurant would, perhaps, if they were so kind, telephone taxi service for fifty important ecclesiastical persons needing transport later this evening. This was greeted with mild disbelief, though the phone book was produced. While the monk's story spilled on, aiming at the top shelf, Antonello paged, straight faced and lazily, through the phone book as the monk eyed the bottles on the shelf reverently. After some time, the phone number was found. Before the number was dialled, the embelishments had begun, with the monk bringing fifty tourists to the restaurant tomorrow. "I should offer you a grappino [small glass of rocket fuel], then". Fervent nodding, large pour. The number was never dialled.Hearing him stutter through ever grander lies is apparently satisfing enough to deserve the occasional free glass.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 02:48 PM

Airports, plane, busses.

Airport security is much improved, with several layout changes. Creams, balms, salves and assorted liquids are banned on flights, though it is still possible to get duty free (delivered as you board). The waiting area is now almost completely devoid of eateries and bars, which is unfortunate.

Sitting and waiting, there was a small commotion at the x-ray machine, with several TSA officials playing 'stacks on the mill' (similar to a grid iron tackle, with more people piling on top) with someone trying to get through. Several delays and hours later, we clambered aboard the Airbus, swathed with decals of the Italian world cup team. Settling into the seats, discover that they collapse readily, making the reclining mechanism entirely superfluous. For the sake of those behind, hoping this does not occur during meals.

And extraordinarily long taxi later and we're in the air, praying the rest of the plane is rather more mechanically sound than the seats. Happily it is - and there's an excellent tail wind pushing us along. Meals, insofar as airline food goes, are excellent, and we shall be recommending them for inclusion in AbeBook's 'Best Loved Airline Meals' next edition.

The Bologna airport is still under some construction and after descending the steps wheeled up to the plane (which always feels particularly Presidential), we board the waiting bus to be ferried to the main terminal. The bus ride is rapid, though rather scenic, taking five minutes or so. Debarking, notice that we've actually taken the long way around and the plane we recently departed is, in fact, parked a scant twenty meters (sixty feet) away.

Learned not to take taxis, as they are considered a luxury transport and priced accordingly. The bus is five euros per person, and stops at the main train station in Bologna, quite close to the hotel.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 02:10 PM

Bologna

Bologna is the second most complete medieval city in Italy, behind only Venice (Assisi is too small to be counted). The history predates Roman arrival, originally a villanovian farming settlement, it was progressively inhabited by Etruscans, Gauls, Romans, Lombardi and finally the current inhabitants reshaped it. Most of the buildings have medieval porticoes, and indeed, the city, with 37km of them, has earned the distinction of being the most porticoed city in the world.

The main produce of the region is cured pork (a legacy of the Gauls) and amazing machines (Ducati, Lamborghini and Maserati all come from here). There are many old eateries, and some proudly displayed bans and documents from 1472 onwards licensing it as a seller of comestibles. The food, though excellent does lean heavily to pork produce and has led to clothing stores offering "taglie accomode" - "comfortable sizes". Bologna also has the oldest University, founded in 1088.

An interesting fact: All coffee shops are bars in Italy. This happy accident is a result of the licensing, enabling them to sell liquids in cup, whether coffee, tea, wine, spirits or beer.

Footpath dining is an absolute delight, as opposed to New York. Whilst the idea is the same, the noticeable difference is that they occur in alleyways with no traffic other than pedestrians and the occasional cheeky Vespa - not four lane thoroughfares.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 02:05 PM

Assisi - a short history

The city of Assisi has a very chequered history. The brief version runs as follows:
The area of has relics dating back to 1900 BC, though it wasn't really permanently settled until long after that. It became part of the roman empire if 89 BC, though by that time the inhabitants had assembled a 2.5km (1 2/3 mile) defensive stone wall around the town two centuries prior to that - interhilltop relations with the Perugians (four hills and a plain over) and Gubbians (three hills back) were never good (bloody skirmishes being a regular feature until quite recently). It became a christian city around the 3rd century AD after a slow start (its first bishop was apparently not popular, and was drowned in the Chiascio river in 238). After the fall of the Empire, there was incursions by Barbarians until Charlemagne waltzed through and razed the city walls (which were subsequently rebuilt) and declared it part of the Byzantine empire, which it remained until 568 when the Lombards took over. There is very little recorded from there until the 11th century, however somewhere between the 6th and 8th century, a mudslide from the Subasio mountains buried the city (some locations were dug out, others partially excavated and some simply built over. Under the main piazza, there is the previous roman town square, which is accessible through a tunnel from one of the shops).

The city's most famous inhabitant was born shortly after 1280 to a cloth and spice trader, who is reputed to have named him Francis in honour of the excellent living he made from french clothing. In 1202, Francis signed up with the military for a bit of crusading. After becoming ill and having visions of peace whilst on a tour of duty, he returned and became a doer of good deeds and founder of the order that bears his name.

The next six centuries are largely interchangeable and best summed up as: The upper and lower parts of the town beat the bejesus out of each other, occasionally interposed with someone from out of town conquering the lot of them. The foreign conquerors and rulers include the Papacy, Perugia (several times each) and Caesar Borgia. Napoleon also sacked the city in 1808 as part of his conquest of Italy, removing many treasures and artworks from the Bascillica. Assisi was finally annexed by Italy in 1860 (odd, but true - Italy became a country after forcefully dissolving the city-states and finally assembling them under one banner in 1861).

Being an old, old city, there are many a quaint and curious volume of local law. There are no lights allowed for several miles below the Bascillica (causing some consternation when building traffic islands on the road below). If you are a foreigner and purchase a house (a foreigner being someone who's family moved there anytime after the 10th century), you must plaster and paint the outer walls of your house. There are no new dwellings allowed for an even greater distance - unless you can find an ancient foundation. And even then, you must find, in the area, cut stones of the same antiquity and build only on the old foundations - and with a design suited to whatever period the foundation is from. One of the other results of these restrictive policies are the covered bridges between buildings. These are the arches above with windows connecting two edifices. Not being allowed to put any more bricks on the ground, and wanting to sell further dwellings, the medieval Assisians got creative and created and sold these houses in the air. This law was not always upheld, and there was some remodelling done by overkeen overlords, in 1860s, demolishing ancient buildings and temples to rework the streets and again in the 20s, with the construction of a neo-gothic post office (now the tourism information centre) in the Piazza. The most recent building is the institute for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, built in 1940 in the lower part of town.

For all that, it remains largely a medieval city, where, walking around, you can spot the occasional Giotto fresco on the outer wall of a house. And the roman aqueduct is still used for the water supply.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 02:03 PM

September 12, 2006

Meandering about

Back from Italy and, for fear of having a blank page and an abandoned blog, I'm putting in some filler whilst I busy myself penning something semi-decent.

For those who requested a beautiful italian man as a souvineer, feel free to click on through. He's even naked.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 11:25 AM