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Monterotondo and the Tyrrhenian Coast |
A visit with Cornelius, Ulysse, and Anne-Cecile in Monterotondo
September 10 to 14, 2003
A happy Cornelius and Anne-Cecile on the roof-top terrace of Cornelius' apartment in Monterotondo. Anne Cecile had arrived with Ulysse from Ivrea on the previous night. They celibrated the three birthdays, mine on the 10th, Ulysses's first on the 13th, and Cornelius' on the 15th with a party among all of their and Ulysse's friends. Ulysse the blond, Teutonic darling of the Italian women who took care of him in Monterotondo was hugged and kissed.
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Fortunately, inside and out Ulysse is the sturdiest character I have ever seen at this age. He survives his parents' turbulent and crazy life without a whimper. The foot is mine.
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Barbara was most happy to care of for her youngest grandchild, and I had never seen him before...
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Viva Roma! The three of them in an exultant mood waiting for the party guests to arrive. Ulysse had discovered that he could lift the plastic stool with one hand and patiently worked on this new feat for more than an hour.
Sorrento and onwards to Paestum
On the 15th we rented a small Ford Fiesta and left for a four-week tour of Sicily. Sircumventing Naples — one doesn't want to be burdened with a car in Naples — we drove directly to Sorrento, where I found us a cheap Pensione on the western end of town.
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We stayed in Sorrento for three nights. This is the view from our room — blue water to the distant horizon, just like in Greece.
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From the roof terrace one overlooked the entire bay including Mount Vesuvio — without smoke...
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Even in off-season Sorrento was swamped with tourist. We only noticed them when we went into town, where one could watch them sunning themselves in the roof-top swimming pools of the expensive hotels...
Pompeii
One day we took the Circum-Vesuviana train to Pompeii, where I and Gerhard had last been in 1952 and Barbara never..
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City gate at the Forum
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The Forum — and tourists....
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A quiet side street of Pompeii with stepping stones to cross the always muddy cart tracks.
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A plaster cast of a dead man found under the ashes which covered the town in August of 62 AD.
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Atrium of a villa. As usual all of the most interesting villas with their extensive frescoes were closed to the public. One could look into this one from the street.
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The mural (Orpheus singing to the animals?) in the background.
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The dance of the tourists in one of the baths.
The Amalfi Peninsula
On the second day we took the public bus to Amalfi on the southern side of the Sorrento Peninsula. The very narrow road snakes along the steep coastline, and the traffic is horrendous: one million tourists in buses and cars which pass each other often with only inches to spare. No place to drive by yourself. However, the Sorrento Peninsula is even more beautiful than imagined!
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Coastline west of Positano.
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Main Piazza and the Romanesque Duomo of Amalfi.
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After our return, at sunset, we hiked down to Sorrento point, where the foundations of a Roman villa overlook the Bay.
Paestum
Paestum is a Greek settlement (before 600 BC) on the coast about 100 km south of Salerno.
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We discovered a short-cut to Amalfi across the mountains south of Castellamare di Stabia: a stunning descent through small villages hanging in tiers on the steep escarpment above Amalfi — and hardly a car in sight. One of the most beautiful rides of our trip. After this pleasure the packed short road from Amalfi to Salerno took Barbara an hour to drive! So we were in no mood to explore the old city of Salerno, we settled on the beach for a picknick, and then drove on. I don't like fixed dated hotel reservations. We arrived at our destinations of the day, this time in Paestum, in the late afternoon, and were always able to find a room in this off-season.
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Hotel Villa Rita just outside the walls of the archeological district of Paestum proved a splendid upgrade from the idyllic Sorrento hovel. It is run by a most congenial gentleman — highly recommended.
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The "Temple of Poseidon" (460 BC, it was actually dedicated to Hera) from the east. I had been in Paestum with Gerhard in October 1953. A series of spectacular photographs from that visit almost preempted the place from the photographic point of view. I now tried to fill in aspects I had missed then, in addition many new excavations have taken place in the interim 50 years.. For the Paestum Photogaphs of 1953 click on this link.
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Three rather complete temples have survived the centuries. This shows the east side of the Temple of Poseidon from the entrance to the archeological area.
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Older (6th century) than the Poseidon/Hera temple is the Temple of Ceres (Demeter) at the northern end of the Via Sacra cutting through the old town.
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New excavations in the agora. The Poseidon/Hera Temple in the background.
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The Agora. A companion photo to one of 1953
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The Poseidon/Hera Temple (Tempio di Nettuno in Italian) from the west. It seems possible that the archeological service has cleaned the columns, they have lost nothing of their heaviness, but were darker in the light of that magic afternoon in 1953.
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Poseidon/Hera Temple from the east next morning
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Inside of the Tempio di Nettuno showing the rare double tiers of columns of its cella. In 1953 a similar photo had not panned out well.
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Next to the 4th-century Poseidon/Hera temple stands the third and oldest temple in Paestum (early 6th century BC) dedicated to Hera. At first it comes as a surprise that modern archeology has shown that all temples in Paestum were dedicated to female goddesses and two to Hera, but the large number of Hera votive statuettes in the Paestum Museum support this contention.
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This early Doric building has, for me, always been the most beautiful of the Paestum temples, if not of all Italy. Its dense arrangement of sturdy columns, growing from the earth seem most appropriate for a sanctuary.of the Argive Goddess..— To remove the disturbing fence, I took the liberty (in this picture only) of sowing some digital grass....
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View of the younger Hera Temple through the columns of the older one.
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Hard to reproduce meaningfully in a photo, the weathered surfaces of the columns and supports have been and still are one of my challenges. The high definition of the digital camera turned out to be of great help.
The New Museum in Paestum
Since the late 1960s Paestum has a new museum — immediately recognizable as a building of the Mussolini era, designed in fact in 1938, it was not built until 1969. Nothing demonstrative or grandiose, its simple, clear lines do well in this place. This museum houses a wealth of spectacular finds from 800 Lucanian tombs of the 4th century from around the city. Superbly painted, these tombs are a complete surprise. There appear to be connections to northern, Etruscan grave paintings, but these frescoes are more colorful and better preserved.
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The most astonishing piece is the "Tomb of the Diver" unearthed in 1968, a unique example of 5th-century painting. The dead man was surrounded by two slabs showing his friends assembled for the funeral banquet (the photo of the front wall is inadvertedly missing). On the small sides a flute player arrives with two more friends, on the other the urn with the ashes of the dead is placed on an altar table by an additional friend. The lid shows a naked diver jumping into the sea next to a sprouting tree. This scene has surly a transcendental meaning and is not just a reflection on the dead man's profession — he is diving into the next world ! — and how could the sea be a better symbol for that? — The box is a computer reconstruction, in the museum the five slabs are exhibited separately....
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The lid.
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A flute player followed by the dead man's mentor or father.
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The funeral urn
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A rider on a black stallion from a Lucanian tomb.
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Tomb of a young woman — or is it that of the man who encounters her, a specter in the nether world. Does he play a double flute? Orpheus and Euridice? May that be as it is, notice the oversized pomgranate and its blossoms! They appear in almost every Lucanian tomb painting. Pluto presented Persephone with a pomgranate when he brought her to Hades. — And to this day pomgranates are an accompaniment at funeral banquets in Greece.... What symbol is the pomgranate in this connection?
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An intriguing tomb painting, the meaning of which eludes me.
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Two women pulling their hair in grief and two supersized pomgranates
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The photographer spying on a clay statuette of Hera or Demeter — with a pomgranate in her left hand....
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Three classical votive statuettes of Hera
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One of several metopes from the old Hera temple — all show women!
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Barbara on Paestum Beach on our last evening.
Along the Tyrrhenian Coast to Sicily
From Paestum Barbara drove along the coastal route to Reggio Calabria for almost the entire distance of 500 km. I had wanted to find the beauty spots along that coast. There are very few, too much is overbuilt with honestly speaken ugly and tacky tourist towns, only where the national parks reach the coast one finds beautiful stretches: around Accioli, Pioppi to Paliurno (Campania), the short stretch of coast below Maratea in Basilicata, north of Paolo (Calabria) and the peninsula of Tropea (where we stayed 2 nights). You need a good map to find these places. All seen and said, this is no State Route 1 along the Californian coast: The magnificent inland autostrada through the mountains of Calabria and Basilicata is much more spectacular than the coast. We took it on our way back.
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Coastline near Paliurno looking south...
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...and from the same spot looking north.
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The Tyrrhenian sea is always beautiful even in this early night-shot (a real test for the camera) from a cheap hotel trouvé (Hotel “Sud” in Fuscaldo) north of Paolo. Every half-hour a train hooted past below our window....
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Reggio Calabria, "Ulisse," the ferry to Messina. Driving on sight Barbara steered us into the port area of Reggio. After a long search we found and boarded this ferry. On our return from Sicily traffic in Messina directed us to a different ferry that crosses to Villa, Calabria — faster, more frequent runs, and easier to get back to the autostrada — it charged almost twice the price of the Ulisse...!
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Sicily and Messina at last.
