#59: Italy and Prague, July – December 2005
Anniversary in Calabria, Thanksgiving with the French, Christmas in Prague

July

What a terrible homecoming, learning that London had been bombed in four locations only days after we’d left England. Most Italians now feel that it’s only a matter of time until Italy, too, is hit by terrorists. The equanimity with which Italians discuss possible targets is one measure, I think, of their attitudes toward terrorism. They’ve lived with bombings and kidnappings perpetrated by both the Red Brigade and the Mafia long enough to keep things in perspective. They’re prudent, but they don’t let terrorism unduly disrupt their lives.

On a happier note, we went to a performance of Tosca only a few days after our return. The beautifully mounted production was in the remains of the ancient Roman amphitheater in Terni. What a pleasure to sit under the stars and watch the Italians being wildly dramatic. 

Having “graduated” Valentina from weekly English conversation, I’ve started working with the daughter of another friend. Deborah is twelve and will start 7th grade this year, studying classical Greek, Latin, Italian, English and French. In addition, she’ll have algebra, plane geometry and intro to trigonometry, as well as a science course. No wonder European kids always score higher on international tests than Americans do. Already, a large part of the world is ahead of us in math and science.

The hard work of Graziano and Russell clearing the telephone right-of-way after last month’s storm paid off. Not long after they finished, a crew came and strung all-new, upgraded wire. (As I may have mentioned before, most telephone and power lines along main roads — as opposed to our private lane — are underground throughout Italy and so not prey to storms, etc.)

August

Our terrible heat-wave broke on the third, the cooler weather inspiring us to get started again on our weekly Magical Mystery Tours. We visited Tarquinia and Vulci, two Etruscan sites near the West coast; L’Aquila up in the Apennine Mountains; and Visso in the Valnerina, a long, narrow valley with rocky cliffs and mountains towering high overheard. 

The only thing wrong with growing your own is the abundant harvest. We’re inundated with pears, apples and tomatoes. We’ve made several pints of pear chutney and frozen them. Now we’ve started on the apples — apple pie, applesauce, fried apples. We tried a new recipe for tomato sauce, but it ended up being clearly more work and time than it was worth. So I stewed the rest of the batch with basil, onion and paprika, consigning them to the freezer. Can hardly wait to get those little plastic containers out mid-winter when tomatoes, even here in Italy, leave a lot to be desired.

On the renovation front, we finally got a new cupboard built into a niche in the living room. When we first moved here, there was a door between the living room and the cantina (traditional storeroom for oil, etc., now our laundry room plus various cupboards and armoires). After a year or so of not using the door, we closed it up and turned the platform on the living room side into a seating area with bookcases and floor pillows. But the only folks who ever used it were the cats. I started thinking about converting that wasted space into a floor-to-ceiling closet for all the impedimenta that’s cluttering up the rest of the house. All done and looks good too.

September

For me, the Katrina hurricane was more shocking than 9/11. And the rest of the world watched in disbelief as America botched the management of the hurricane before, during and after its arrival. No doubt the effects will continue for years.

Turning to brighter topics, we were graced this month with visits from friends living in Hawaii and in West Virginia. Always a pleasure to see folks from other life-chapters, and these visits were also an impetus to do the autumn cleaning — washing windows and floors, cleaning under and behind furniture, washing and ironing curtains, etc. The house hasn’t been this clean in ages, and we’re grateful to our guests for the inspiration.

October

We started our anniversary celebration with happy news — my previously hanging-on respiratory infection seemed to start mending in time for our departure to the Maratea Coast, AND we were bumped up to a five-star hotel because our converted convent in the hill town had structural problems. So we ended up in a room-with-balcony-and-view — cascading mountains into a silvery sea. If you can’t find it on a map, Maratea and environs are around the bump south of the Amalfi Coast. Several friends had recommended this area near the border of Calabria, and it was just as advertised. 

But my cough had grown worse on the drive down. When we checked in, we asked for some hot water and honey. I added the fruit tea I’d brought and soon felt the congestion lessen. R recommended room service, and we feasted on fresh seafood risotto and a local white wine. 

After a good night’s sleep, I felt refreshed, so we first explored the nearby seaside town of Fiumicello on foot, then drove into Maratea and walked around. The original settlement was built by the Greeks 1000 feet or so above the sea on a bluff. When the Romans came along, they converted the temple of Athena to the temple of Minerva. Then came the Christians, who built their church on the foundations of Minerva’s temple. Somewhere in the Middle Ages, the town on the bluff was abandoned and reconstructed lower down, in the fold of the hill. So it was the medieval town that we explored, up hill and down dale, through narrow lanes and across wide piazzas.

It being our anniversary on the 7th, we got gussied up and ate in the hotel restaurant. Food was absolutely excellent, and we even had our own semi-private dining room, because there was a congress of radiologists enjoying a gala dinner on the terrace. They were so gala themselves that I felt positively dowdy in comparison. There were enough precious and semi-precious stones in evidence to tempt a pirate.

The next day, we drove south to visit two coastal Calabrian towns — Diamonte, famous for its modern murals painted on the outside of ancient houses and Belvedere, known for an excellent family-run restaurant. A cloudy day, but Diamante’s seaside promenade was as tempting as the winding alleyways of the old town. We had a truly splendid lunch — fresh lobster with a side of home-made pasta, served in this tiny hole-in-the-wall bistro. If we hadn’t had the recommendation, we’d never have stopped by.

Sunday morning, we explored the hotel’s pathways down to the sea. We’d heard that the Maratea Marina was the best place to eat in the vicinity, so we decided to take Sunday lunch with the locals. Great idea! We sat on a protected balcony overlooking the harbor, munching spaghetti with clams.

We left for home early the following day, driving back up the beautiful canyon that leads down from the southern freeway to the Maratea Coast. That drive alone, down and back, would have made the trip worthwhile. We agreed that, despite my cough and fatigue preventing full-day excursions, we’d had a wonderful anniversary celebration.

Back home, the cough kept increasing in intensity and frequency, so a trip to the doctor with X-rays and blood tests resulted in a diagnosis of not pneumonia, thank goodness, but severe bronchitis. Three types of medicine and a prescribed five-day rest ended with me feeling nearly my old self.

On the 18th, word came of the discovery of avian flu in Macedonia. Many of our neighbors and friends, including Graziano, have decided to slaughter all of their poultry now and freeze it, in lieu of their birds being infected later and the government ordering them destroyed and burned. There’s also discussion that hunting will be banned for the rest of the year to prevent hunters from handling migratory fowl (a big loss in our rural province, where hunting contributes to winter-protein). There’s no poultry for sale in our local supermarket, and the one in Terni has a prominent sign: “All our poultry comes from national sources, carefully inspected and controlled.” Will we have turkey for Thanksgiving?

November

If there was one word to describe this month, “rain” was it. Europe has had serious storm after serious storm. The Tiber is the highest it’s been in 50 years, and we’ve seen the effects closer to home, with our lane rutted almost to impassability, two hill-slides within 400 yards of our house, and the living room flooded. Again. After so many months of not having this problem, thanks to Graziani’s hard work, it was a shock to open the living room door one morning and find two inches of water covering the floor.

Three oriental rugs got the brunt of it, and we had to mop for hours to get the water up and out. The furniture seems not to have suffered too much, but the rugs came back from the specialist cleaners today, all colors run. We can live with this slurred look, but now those rugs will never keep us in our old age.

The month has been full of socializing, both entertaining here and being entertained all over by local friends. The main event was Thanksgiving, with two days of cooking for six French folk. The husbands had studied in the States, so they’d experienced the holiday. I didn’t subject them to the traditional meal but instead served curried pumpkin soup, turkey breast stuffed with ham and herbs, mixed long-grain and wild rice, red cabbage with apple, green salad and dried figs poached in wine and brandy with raisins, walnuts and candied orange peel. One lady came back for thirds on dessert, so I must have done something right.

December

More heavy rains produced a landslide in the olive grove above our entrance lane. A football-field of turf, 100 x 50 yards, slid down the hillside, taking large, old olive trees still upright with it. The bottom of the slip is now about 50 yards from the gate to our property, and we’re keeping an eye on it. The enclosed photo of RBS, Graziano and Zack helps define the scale. Later, while we were in Prague, a series of mid-sized earthquakes caused the giant landslide to come down even more, but it was all over by the time we returned.

Map courtesy of Nations Online

We were in Prague for a pre-Christmas visit similar to ones we’ve taken to Vienna, etc. We had an absolutely wonderful time in this city of such beauty and charm. Their annual Christmas Fair fills all the city squares.  The biggest is in the main town square, near the famous clock tower and opposite the Tyn Church.