Magic Carpet
God, I miss Italy! There, I said it, but is this any way to
begin? When you talk to God, it’s
usually referred to as prayer. Well, I
guess I missed the boat here because in this case, mine are not
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| Forest Deck Setting |
words of reverent
praise, a request for forgiveness, some utterance of gratitude, or an appeal for
some favor. Are there any other reasons
for prayer? Self-assertive, even arrogant
as it may be, I’m simply letting God know how I feel. But He already must know how I, along with
the rest of the world, feel on this subject.
We were
sitting outside last night. It
had been a perfect day, approaching heatwave status, in the 60s mind you. For the first time this year, I’d fired-up
the gas barbecue. Let me describe the
scene. We were not on our terrazzo in
Calitri, no, that was off thousands of impossible miles away, far out of reach.
How’s that for social distancing? As a consequence, we were not looking off
toward that pleat of mountain ridges that envelope us there, filled with
terracotta roofs and the occasional podolica cow. No, we were on our deck looking off into a
forest thick with lofty pines, to a chorus of peeper frogs, and most recently a
roaming rafter
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| Leader of the Pack |
of wild turkeys. We were also
enjoying margaritas, rather large ones I’ll confess, because the evening was so
right, I didn’t want to have to break away to make another round later. Yes, I think that way.
In jest, I’d called our daughter and in
a counterfeit rage scolded her for not reminding us it was Friday. This caught her by surprise considering we’d
never established such a standing request and it was after all, Saturday. She was right to point this out, it was Saturday
evening, which was the senior moment point I was amusingly trying to make. She’d failed to remind us of the day, seeing
they blurred so effortlessly while in Wu Flu confinement, because Margaritas
were always on Friday night and here, we were in makeup mode on a Saturday realized
only moments earlier. Such are our days
in corona lockdown. I won’t dignify it
with capitalization.
Maybe it was the tequila that
put us in this lighthearted mood. I’d prefer
to think it was the music playing inside.
I’d replaced our frog symphony, and had Pavarotti singing Nessun
Dorma at 70 dB or more, more than enough to guarantee we’d hear him
outside. Sitting there, harking back to
certainly more sociable times, a gainful pastime seeing that the thousand piece
jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table was now finished, I asked Maria Elena in
an attempt to flip time over, “If you could be anywhere, anywhere in the world,
right now, where would that be?” Without
any perceptible
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| Four Seasons Florence Resort |
hesitation, her quick as a flash reply was “Ortigia.” Not some quiet Parisian arrondissement cafe, mind you, or the dream of another
stroll through the statues and fountains in the garden of Florence’s swank Four
Seasons Hotel and its constellation of 5-Stars, no none of that, simply the
little island of Ortigia in Sicily. Still
so much to learn about her, I was surprised.
Ortigia is a rather small place. In
times past, it was the historical center of the better known city
of Syracuse or Siracusa (sear-a ku sa) as they pronounce it. This historical center happens to be
accessible from any of the three bridges from the Syracuse mainland. Being about
1000 meters long by 600 meters wide, it without a doubt, fits the
definition of small. Nevertheless,
it has all you’ll need for a
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| Isola di Ortigia |
pleasant stay.
Maria Elena’s recollection was going back a ways to
2016 to be precise. Even that far past,
it still held some sort of territorial attachment to her. I thought I knew what she was thinking. Everything you’d want was right there along
with a quick friendliness. If you are
into sightseeing there is plenty about, beginning with a walk along the seawall
that surrounds the island. It won’t take
long and serves to quickly get you oriented.
Turning inward from just about anywhere along this perimeter, her mind’s
eye would once
again see her wandering around picturesque alleys and tight knit
lanes where she could probe, window shop, and sometimes dart into some appealing
doorway to inquire about some particularly interesting window item. From the
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| In the Labyrinth of Ortigia's Streets |
majestic ruins of the Greek Temple of
Apollo to clothes and shoe shops along Corso Matteotti or simply people
watching in Piazza Archimede, a focal point in the center of Ortigia, where a
fountain depicts the nymph, Aretusa, it can all be had on this postage stamp of
an island. But what she related, what Mare’s
thoughts still clung to most, especially by night, was Piazza Duomo, an
elliptically shaped, baroque plaza dominated by the Cathedral located there and
lined with more shops and sprinklings here and there of appealing outdoor
cafes.
The Duomo is one of the town's most celebrated sights and
represents a classic example of building on the foundations of earlier religions.
Much like the Basilica San Clemente in
Rome, only streets away from the Colosseum, this is another example of layered religious property repurposed by a theology in
ascendance. Here, it is not the pagan
god Mithras as in Rome, but a former Greek temple today co-opted by the
Catholic Church. Beginning
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| The Duomo Steps in Piazza Duomo |
somewhere between 800 and 701 BC, and I’ve no
idea how this is determined, some unknown cult worshipped here. This was followed in the 5th
century BC by a Greek temple to the Goddess Athena that hosted a giant gold
statue of the deity on its roof. Massive
Doric style columns, leftovers of the original temple structure, are still
visible inside. The wall above the
columns along Via Minerva, running down the left side of the cathedral, topped with
toothy battlements called merlons, is Norman in origin, while the fancy facade at
the front door is a Baroque replacement following an earthquake in 1693. Many architectural hands,
philosophies, intentions, and belief systems have been involved; There doesn’t
appear to be any reason to believe it is ended either. For all these reasons and I’m sure more, it
was included as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.
It was in Piazza Duomo
where I believe Mare best enjoyed her Ortigia evenings. This was but one of her highlighted memories of
the place and as she explained, accounted for half her reasoning for declaring
for Ortigia as she had. We’d set out toward
the piazza after dinner each evening for a digestivo of crystal clear, love-it
or hate-it grappa, or another of her favorites, licorice flavored Sambuca. These are not single shooter spirits consumed
quickly in a single gulp like Italians inhaletheir espresso. Both often take a degree of “breeding” to
acclimate to their tastes. Once acquired,
a patience for sipping is in order, so nursing them through to completion can
take some time, which it did to our heart’s content. Escaped from the sultry heat of day into the
cool of night, we sat across from the front of the Cathedral, bathed in the dim
wash of streetlamps and a scattering of stars.
The not so hidden lives of normal people, indisposed to making history,
otherwise known as average Joes and Janes, leisurely walked by. Much like us, there was no haste to be
anywhere but right here.
There on the limestone squares polished smooth by millions of footfalls,
we’d happened on a rather enjoyable spot to sit and sag and for quite a while
at that. Sitting there in the stillness,
we could rob that trickster time. In the
incomparable allure of the moment, we forged a memory of
the place absent the flurry of midday sightseers. This nightly ritual allowed Mare to enjoy the ambiance
of the plaza like the sips of her cicchetto (shot), just a little at a
time, well into early morning when the waiters began their own well practiced ritual
of closing down while never intimating they were. They’d never allow you to sense the rush of their
closing. Arranging chairs, removing
tablecloths, or collapsing an umbrella was as far as they might go. They would certainly not bring you your conto
(bill) and announce they were closing. That
would be rude. No, checks do not arrive
until asked for, “Il conto, per favore.”
In the meantime, the table in this lovely location before centuries of
godheads was all ours.
In addition to Piazza Duomo, the other half of Maria’s Ortigia reverie centers on Palazzo Gilistro, an ancient residence turned
boutique B&B where we were staying.
It is located on the corner of via
Cavour and via
Amalfitania. It so happens that this
corner hosted a recently restored Egyptian
granite column that according to oral tradition was used from
1400 as the “Pillory of Syracuse”. Pillory was an unfamiliar word to me. I discovered that like “stocks” of colonial
times, a pillory was used as a means of
punishment of an offender, often exposing them to public abuse. We didn’t know current practices, but it seemed
wise to be on our best behavior rather than get to appreciate Egyptian hieroglyphs
up close. There was still more we didn’t
know. Before we arrived, we had no idea our room would have a balcony, two in
fact, and that would make all the difference to Maria Elena. We had to get there first, however. Navigation aside, we had help getting
there. Ortigia is a maze, many of its hallway-like,
single lane streets, impassible and forget about parking. Finding our destination, we hesitated only long
enough for the duty staff to help with our luggage. Being just off a flight from the States, we had
more than we’d normally travel about Italy with from home base Calitri. It was then that I made my first swing around
the entire island to arrive at the Talete Car Park and then hustled back to the
hotel.
A 1700-century black stone Baroque
staircase led us into the heart of the building. The “palace” is divided into four floors arrayed
with different types of rooms,
each with distinctive
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| Our Corner Room |
features and color schemes but all showcasing a well-balanced
mix of furnishings. You could feel the quality
as soon as you entered. The combination of ancient
with modern styles
created a charming atmosphere to this once family palace. An elevator made for a quick work-around of
the stairs and we were soon in our modern third floor room that featured
tall ceilings, a squeaky-clean bathroom, a large “matrimoniale” bed but most
of all, French doors opening onto those balconies with views of the winding
lanes below. Not only was the room airy and bright but these panoramic galleries overlooking
the Ortigian streets were convenient as well. Maria Elena was ecstatic. Being in a corner room had made the
difference. With our room having
a presence on both streets, the need outside for architectural symmetry had made
it necessary for a balcony facing each street. All together our Sicilian retreat with its
quaint neighborhood feel in the heart of the ancient quarter made for an
absolutely perfect stay.
And now for the other half of Mare’s
smitten fascination with Ortigia … by night, after we’d returned from Piazza
Duomo, even as late as it
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| Window Ledge Across from Our Room |
was, Maria Elena loved to sit on her fairy-tale perch
together with a few neighboring pigeons with a glass of wine and keep company
with people strolling by on the street below.
There was something about it, something about the lure of the location,
the overheard voices, and the darkened panorama that would keep her there as if
symbolically tied to the pillory below. For
my part, the guy who couldn’t keep his eyes open, bed was more inviting than
sitting on a balcony into the wee hours of the morning. “The spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak” now comes to mind. Funny how little things stay with us and gain a
comforting hold on our minds to fall back
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View from Maria
Elena's Perch |
on years later while out on a deck.
When it was my turn to cross my fingers and
make a return wish to some Shangri-La, it was not to go to the circus to see
the elephants but to experience Ischia again, right then and there. Listening to Mare recount her fascination
with Ortigia that evening pinched a memory in me as well, enough to spawn a
thousand images. If I could instantly appear anywhere, poof, like
magic, I’d materialize on the poor man’s Capri, Ischia. Mare and I must have been channeling for in
our magic carpet rides, we both chose islands. Isola d’Ischia is a resort but in a
larger sense the entire island is a resort.
I simply love this place that lies in the Bay of Naples, making it a
convenient get-away destination from Calitri.
Falling back to one of my movie recollections, which I’m easily prone to
do, one filmed on Ischia immediately comes
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| "Avanti" Filmed on Ischia |
to mind. It is a light-hearted quirky comedy entitled Avanti,
staring Jack Lemon. We’ve been to Ischia
now often enough that I easily recognize places depicted in this 1972 madcap flirtation
with Italy. From the nature of the
Italian characters, run-ins with the Italian bureaucracy, to a love affair imbedded
in an imbroglio of complications piled on top of complications, ever so gradually Lemon falls in love and slows down
enough to begin to enjoy life. Just like the charm of this movie,
Ischia exudes a charm of its own.
And when
I think about Ischia, having been there so often,
an avalanche of thoughts comes rushing in.
I still picture the scene we must have made, like hermit crabs,
carefully tiptoeing through crevices and over boulders making our way to the
sea, then to our painful surprise experiencing the heat of volcanic fired water. Until we found the right mix of cold and hot
currents, using our bodies to position ourselves just right, like adjusting
faucets in a sink, we were like crabs in a boiling pot. Though from in my description it may not appear
to be a welcomed memory, it is. I can
only surmise that as with childbirth, with time, the unpleasantness is soon
forgotten. In this case, however, time
would have seen us poached. What
mattered here was positioning and being quick about it. Once we adjusted our positions … a little to
the left, no, no, more to the right, then maybe farther out a smidge, all was
fine. There was also the time we watched
as a fisherman hoisted his simple treble-hooked throwline up onto the pier with
his catch, a massive octopus. That, and
then there was the time we took a bus
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The Islet Connected to Sant'Angelo by Causeway
and at its Base, Hotel Conte |
ride to see other parts of the island. About three-quarters of the way around the
island from Ischia Porto, the main city on Ischia, at the last stop of one of
the bus routes, lies the resort town of Sant’Angelo. The drop-off point, I recall, was short of the town. We exited the bus on a high bluff overlooking
the town below on the shore. There were
at least a couple of reasons for this.
If we’d gone any farther, down into town, I speculate there would have
been insufficient room to turn around. There
was also a good chance that a full bus with extra passengers packed-in as they
were, many standing in the aisle, couldn’t have made the return climb. The bus park did afford a great spot to snap
pictures though. Sant’Angelo is
small. The view afforded the ability to appreciate
how its restaurants, touristy shops, and hotels clung to the rocky
headland. Just offshore in the Bay of Sant'Angelo was an islet, connected to the mainland by a causeway. Each side of the causeway served as a beach
with a flotilla of small pleasure craft bobbing at anchor nearby. The islet itself is an imposing mountain of
rock whose shape reminded me of a Hershey’s Chocolate Kiss and if not, then for
sure a Chocolate Covered Cherry. It allowed
little room for development anywhere else along its craggy edges other than right
where we were, where this small island joined with the connecting causeway. It was there that we stopped at Hotel
Conte. After the hot bus ride and our
walk through town to that point, we looked forward to a brief relaxing
break. Over beers
inside, we met Pieri Luigi who worked there.
He was serving us excellently chilled Nastro Azzurro beers when
he mentioned his hometown. He described it
as a beautiful “white village” named Sperlonga.
For future reference, I made a note of it not realizing just how near
that future would be. Now revitalized
and by this point definitely at the limit of our meandering strolling, we
headed back toward the bus stop but not before purchasing some ceramic alphabet
tiles, enough to spell “Casa Monico” from one of the many gift shops.
From these
simple memories of Ischia, my reminiscing cascaded at the recollection of
Sperlonga to that very same “white village” positioned up the coast north of
Naples, about halfway to Rome. It was on
a weekend getaway from Calitri in 2013 that we visited Sperlonga to experience
for ourselves the magic Pieri Luigi had described (see 2013 Blog entitled Plan
B). I knew I was jumping
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| Old Sperlonga and Saracen Lookout Tower |
around
quickly, but there on our deck, Maria Elena was right there, keeping up with me. Pieri hadn’t mentioned it but Sperlonga had
once been home to none other than Emperor Tiberius, who reluctantly followed
Emperor Augustus. Beyond the world of
colorful lanes we walked within the Sperlonga borgo and the glorious views across
miles of expansive beaches, a definite highlight of our outing was a visit to
the nearby “Archaeological Museum of Sperlonga” and the Grotta di Tiberio, both
closely related to the Emperor.
Impressive as these were in their displays, displays such as the monstrous Scylla snakelike sea goddess and Odysseus’ nemesis, the one-eyed
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| Grotta di Tiberio with sperlonga in the Distance |
giant Cyclops, Polyphemus,
there was one other memorable stop.
Though nowhere nearly as famous, it too
ranked as a visit highlight. Its
beginning rested in a simple request made to our hotel’s desk clerk. There was a soccer game, “football” if you
are Italian, that night on TV that we wanted to watch - Naples was playing its
archrival, Rome. It gets so heated that
when in Naples, the Roman team’s hotel must be guarded. We’d watched a similar game in TiberoIschia once where
the intensity of the game was matched by the enthusiasm of a room full of
Italian fans around us. Altogether, it
was an experience not to be missed. We
asked if he could recommend a nearby place where we might enjoy the game on a
large screen. “Nessun problema” (No
problem) was his only reply as he proceeded to direct us to a place called the Tropical
Ristorante in the northern, more modern part of Sperlonga. That and the address were all we needed. Later that night, we made our way there,
parked and went inside. During the
interlude between learning of the place and our arrival, the thought occurred
to us that we might be in “enemy territory”.
Being Naples fans, as far north as we were, God forbid, we may have
crossed some imaginary border and blundered into the fandom of Roma. Could Sperlonga be a latent Roman team
stronghold? We cringed at the thought
and wondered how we should play it. It
might be best to remain quiet, check out the lay of the land until loyalties
became clear and we were certain about which camp we’d walked into. After all, if we did blunder and happen to moan
or show some sort of disappointment over a blocked Neapolitan kick, not react
to some especially effective Roma team maneuver, or cheer on a Naples’ score,
any cover we might have had would have been blown. Our only protective fallback position would
be the mercy we might receive, for after all, we were stranieri
(strangers), obviously foreigners, and what could we possibly know about
football!
A lot has been said about
worry. It’s alleged that worrying is a
waste of time for the majority of our worries never
materialize. That was exactly the case
here. All the what-ifs we’d been able to
imagine in a matter of only a few hours dissolved when we walked in and there to
our relief, dangling on the wall behind the bar, was the familiar triangular
Naples team pennant. To put it mildly,
while still strangers and foreigners, deficient in our understanding of the nuances
of Italian football, we were thankful that we were at least among allied, like-minded
football fans. Together, we watched as a
projection TV system, in living color, depicted a crushing 2-0 defeat of
beloved Naples, kick by kick. Pieri’s tip
about Sperlonga, the clerk’s choice of the Tropical, the favoritism of the fans
we’d found, the outcome of the game, it had all been a toss-up and such is life
wherever lived.
During
this pandemic travel dry spell as we continue to age in
place, memories serve as gap fillers between our past and the
present. I’m thankful memories work that
way. Without moving an inch, other than
possibly going inside to lower the volume of Pavarotti’s voice pumping onto the
deck or, after all to freshen those Margaritas, we had
followed a trail of yesterdays, up the shin of the Italian boot from Sicily to
Ischia and arrived at Sperlonga. Maria
Elena had started by wishing to return to Ortegia, the pull of the place anchored
in a quiet nighttime square and a peaceful balcony. My wish, fueled by a flood of recollections, had
drawn us once again to the island of Ischia and from there, on the basis of a
chance conversation, to lovely Sperlonga.
Places and events can change us, and in their declension, even their deck-bound
memories move us. Such is the magic
carpet nature of unbridled thoughts.
From That
Rogue Tourist
Paolo
