Walking down to Amalfi (updating in progress)

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The day after I arrived, Cathy and I walked down the mountain from Ravello to Amalfi--a distance of about 4 miles, give or take a few kilometers. Four miles doesn't sound like much, but tell that to your knees.

If you click on a picture, you'll see a larger version...most wonderful details.

Looking back toward the top of the path...

Back of church...

Passing by homes...

Madonna (the other one)...

Does this say NO PARKING?...


Terrace...

Thanks be for walls...

Hitching a ride? No cars!!...

The sea to our left...

Mountain to our right...

Sun, flowers, sweet grass...

Prickly pear, but not Arizona!...

Hey, kitty!...

Construction zone...

Forget-me-nots...

Olive tree, I think...

Gorvy's house--white speck on cliff...

Looks like rain coming in...

Gorvy's again (he sold it when his knees gave out)...

About half way down...

Old foundation...

Lemon tree...

Looking toward valley of Dragon (river)...

Terraced orchards (with netting), gardens in valley...

Stone wall...

Church on hill...

Getting closer to town (Castigliano?)...

Clothes drying on a line...

St. Somebody's convent...

Amalfi!...

and lunch!!...

Hmm...let's see...

Always more color...

Vinegar and oil...

Swimming after lunch...

Back in Ravello, dinner time at restaurant next door to hotel, multicolored hydrangeas on terrace...

We made it!!...

More about the Piazza

The Duomo, the cathedral, anchors Ravello's central square on the tunnel side. Here's a side altar where I lit a bunch of candles for sinners of my acquaintance (you know who you are...) (and it's not the ones anyone would suspect, either!) Cathy lit hers for Barack Obama and Squeak.



My minor in college was Latin, and one of my great and unexpected pleasures as a traveler has been being able to read not only the books but also the plaques and engravings in various churches--well, two so far: Notre Dame in Paris, which was like the mother lode, and this one in Ravello. Whatever is the patron's name? Hang on...oh! Saint Pantaleone. I don't know much else about him, but he is the patron saint of the LOTTERY!!! Is this fortuitous, or what?



A satisfied if nervous customer searching for a light for her smoke.




On Sunday, the square was full of little kids running around, the older ones kicking a football and a few of the younger ones riding small bikes.

Ravello town square..part 1

In the morning, after more gawking off the balcony at
part of Minori

and the pier and beach at Minori,


we walked through this tunnel, then plastered with posters for the Ravello Festival 2007, to the town square. The little wood and glass structure between the two trees in the center of the photo is the souvenir shop for the Ravello Festival: the sign in the window says something like "Stuff to take home."





The tiny flurry of local-only traffic seen was morning activity in service to the businesses on the left side of the square. There is no through vehicle traffic in the square itself; serious bicyclers walked their bikes if they had to cross it. Only little kids rode around the square on the weekends with their families.







Far side of square looking toward Scala



lamp post with sculpted iron birds


lots more to come....

Ravello

After landing in Naples, I got in line for customs, where I was entertained by an enterprising 3-year-old who insisted on touching everything in sight while his mother patiently called him to come back and stand by her. He was so distracting that I was almost at the customs window before I realized I was in the wrong line--the one for EU citizens only. I looked over at the other line and saw there were lots more non-EU citizens than local folks arriving in Naples.

I was the last person through customs and into the waiting room down the hall. Cathy and Ranieri (son of the hotel owner and designated driver for airport pickups) were overjoyed to see me. It's hard on the nerves to wait for a superannuated friend while she travels mostly out of network for, at that point, 24 hours. "You have to trust" I said, amid all the sighs of relief, and we took off for the hour and a half drive to Ravello.

It was fully dark by the time we got to the hotel, and I pretty much fell into bed. I took this photo the following evening through the balcony glass in the restaurant next door. There are reflections of the room mixed in with the town lights of Minori down on the coast, but this basically is what I saw when I stepped out onto the balcony upon arrival.

An Antidote to Weirdness...

Almost the whole state of Iowa is a disaster area, and when all that water makes its way downstream, there'll be heck to pay elsewhere, too.

And the right wing have loosed their fearsome nonintellects and tabloid journalism on the Obamas.

And the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to take lives daily.

And has anybody read anything about Hillary Clinton since the media wiped her off the globe? (Wonder how she likes that bleeper Rupert Murdoch now?)

So my itty bitty problem is hardly worth mentioning. However, about half a dozen or more Xtreme English posts published from late May through June 11 got their margins whacked. Rather than go through and republish--and lose my tonstant weaders' (thank you, Dorothy Parker) precious comments--I'll just ask your pardon for my total inability to fix this by wading (there's that high water image!) into the html and finding the glitch.

Here's a happy thought: In Ravello, the Norwegian composer Grieg drew inspiration from the mountain woods and caves for his Peer Gynt suite while he was staying in Hotel Toro (next to ours). To the right is "Morning" from Peer Gynt, and at the top of this post is a photo of the view from our balcony--in the morning. Have a nice day if at all possible....

"Under Water" by Digby

Here's a great post by Digby on the flooding in Iowa:

Under Water

by digby

The media are busy eulogizing one of the their own,* so they don't have time for this, but Jesus Christ:

Rising water from the Cedar River forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital Friday after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 400 city blocks were under water.

In Des Moines, 100 miles to the southwest, officials issued a voluntary evacuation order for much of downtown and other areas bordering the Des Moines River. Mayor Frank Cownie said the evacuations were an attempt "to err on the side of citizens and residents."

Des Moines is Iowa's capital and largest city, with about 190,000 residents. But the hardest-hit was Cedar Rapids, a city of 124,000 people.

Gov. Chet Culver declared 83 of the state's 99 counties to be state disaster areas, and nine rivers were at or above historic flood levels. Elsewhere in the upper Midwest, rivers and streams tipping their banks forced evacuations, closed roads, and even threatened drinking water.



And get a load of this:


Dave Koch, a spokesman for the Cedar Rapids fire department, said the river will crest Friday at about 31.8 feet. It was at 30.9 feet early in the morning. In a 1993 flood, considered the worst flood in recent history, it was at 19.27 feet.

The weather conditions that triggered the floods were the same as those in 1993: hot air from a ridge of high pressure on the East Coast colliding with cooler air from the West Coast, according to Ken Kunkel, interim director of the Illinois Water Survey.



Far be it for me to bring up the Obalglay Armingway, but this seems really bad.

Good luck to all you midwesterners affected out there. Yikes.


*I'm not being flippant. It's really hit the media hard and they all need to talk about it on the air. Other stories will have to wait for another day.

It Never Rains but It Pours - Update 6-15-08

Last night I got this email from Ed, husband of my very dear old friend Martha:

Quick summary:
Tu morning, June 3, at about 5AM, Martha got up to go to the bathroom. Immediately outside the bedroom door is the stairway down to the right. The bathroom door is on the left about a yard farther. I'm quite a light sleeper so I heard her get up and fall the full flight of stairs.
She was in ER by 6. She had some bleeding between skull and brain, an A-C separation of the right shoulder, maybe some cracks in small bones in her left hand, and a handful of bruises on the right side. The A-C is the connection between the collarbone and the tip of the shoulder blade, a tendon connection.
She was released on Mo. Wed afternoon she had a stroke (looking back), couldn't hear and was very incoherent. We had just inspected a white pine we had planted behind the garage and had planned dinner.
Status as of today: Martha had a number of small strokes, probably since Mo in the back of her skull affecting the speech center. She shows no signs of seizure; but does show some signs of bloodvessel inflammation inside the brain which causes speech slur.
Tomorrow: heart scan and spinal tap.

Thankfully, Martha is one tough chica with a huge appetite for life. Get better, Martha!! Dear reader, if you are the praying kind, please keep Martha in your thoughts. Ed, too. That must have been one horrible sound--hearing your best beloved fall down a whole flight of stairs.

UPDATE Sunday, June 15....Ed says Martha's speech is a "lot better," though she still gets a bit confused at times. She's talking about all the cooking she's going to do, planning meals, etc. Fingers crossed. Keep praying.....m.e.

We interrupt the fun....

News of the massive flooding in Iowa is heartbreaking. Downtown Cedar Rapids is under water, with more water flowing in from the northern parts of the state, and the rain still coming down. Watch for the Dairy Queen on the AP video clip to the right....

Tom is fine....so far, he's high and dry in Mt. Vernon, which is 17 miles east of Cedar Rapids and two or three miles north of the Cedar River. (On the banks of which, by the way, Swine Boulevard and Madison Avenue are flooded...what IS the name of that little hamlet? Sutliffe?)

Deb's brother John and family are fine, but the business is not.

In Iowa City:

The buildings in the north part of the campus--the art museum, Hancher, etc.--are closed. All the art has been moved to a safe place.

The buildings in the south part of the campus, including *sob!* the library and English Philosophy Building, have been closed.

The Coralville Reservoir has gone over the top (yesterday or even the day before), and the Coralville Strip is flooded.

The IC DQ is fighting for its life.

On the way to Naples.....part 1

This jewel of the advertiser's art was the first thing to greet me when I walked in the door of London Stansted airport after a comfortable, restful bus ride from Heathrow. Stansted is home to one of the UK's and Ireland's great small airlines, EasyJet, that was to take me to Naples. This billboard absolutely put to rest all my fears about Naples that had been fueled by stories in recent editions of BBC.com: the garbage collection crisis (ongoing since this past Christmas), the thieves on the streets and buses, the sinister presence of the Camorra.

In fact, I could feel my U.S.-bred paranoia slipping away the longer I was exposed to the Londoners with their cheerful outlook despite having to pay about ten bucks a gallon for gas. The British humor has always cracked me up. Need a drink of soda? How about a can of Pret's "Yoga Bunny Detox, Balanced with Ginseng & Echinacea, Liquid Psychiatry, No Nasties?"



Need a cheap fare? How about one of these?



And see all those folks in the yellow vests? The British employ a small army of helpers in their airports, and they were so friendly and sweet, I wanted to bring some home with me.

"You want the Central Bus Station? Just keep on going this way, and you'll be right there. Can't miss it. What time do you have to be there? Half an hour? You've plenty of time. Have a wonderful holiday."

I get choked up just thinking about them. (Have I been in D.C. too long?)

But what's better than all that? Peggy flew all the way down from Glasgow to hang out in the airport with me until late afternoon, when my flight left for Naples. (I asked her to pose like this because it's one of her very favorites.)



She has the helpful Brit spirit, too. She asked the security people if I could take a can of Yoga Bunny Detox on the plane to give to Cathy.



Alas, this is where the soda and I parted.



More to come....next stop: Ravello!!

I share your resentments!

The first line of Andrew Solomon's 1995 NY Times interview of Gore Vidal in his villa at Ravello, Gore Vidal Receives a Visitor, goes like this:

Gore Vidal's villa in Ravello, though not particularly big or grand, is as enchanting as he makes it sound: white stucco anchored miraculously into the sheer face of the cliff, 12 acres of vertical stone and terraced gardens, a pool that commands the same panorama as the house, an extra balcony for cocktails just along the rock face.

The villa in its setting does sound impressive, and I'm going to see it, at least from afar, this week.

Vidal lets fly with his rapier wit in the interview as he comments on writers and writing, politicians and politics. It's very funny, but one part especially caught my attention. Asked to comment on the modern gay movement, Vidal said:

"The resentments! 'I share your resentments' should be a greeting. As you enter a queer bar: 'I share your resentments, good evening, I share them. May all your resentments be mine.' My God! 'We had a wonderful day at the beach resenting consenting adults of the other sex.' "

"I share your resentments." What a perfect entree to any conversation about any movement, not just gay pride. Deaf pride? "I share your resentments toward any deaf person who a) can read, write, and speak well and b) does all three."

Goin' to Naples

Well, holy Toledo! I'm flying out on June 3 to London, arriving about 7 a.m. in Heathrow. Then I have to get myself to London Stansted airport in time to meet Peggy, who is flying in from Glasgow on ezJet, arriving about 11 a.m. It's easier said than done, I'll say that. There's no direct train, and the bus....well, they warn you that the traffic is very heavy and to plan for about 3-4 hours to make the trip. Heh.

After Peggy and I convene, we can hang out in Stansted (not much to hang out in--it looks like the Dubuque, IA, airport--or, more charitably, the one in Cedar Rapids) until she goes back to Glasgow, and I board ezJet to fly over the freakin' Alps to Naples.

My plane arrives in Naples, please goddess, about 8:15 p.m. Because of the relatively late hour, Cathy (who is already IN Italy) has suggested we stay in Naples for a couple of nights while I rest up. (I'm very old, you know....) We made reservations in Naples at what seems like a decent hotel, and Bob's your uncle!

Problem is, we have subsequently found out that Naples is beset by a humongous GARBAGE problem. The trash has not been picked up in Naples since DECEMBER!!!! There are rats and roaches and that ilk swarming all around, and the place stinks to high heaven. Some angry Neapolitans have been setting fire to the mounds of trash on the streets and blaming the mafia, especially, for the situation. Seems the mafia have been "handling" the trash for years and taken the opportunity to import tons of trash from up north and deposit it in Naples. This is why the Naples landfills are overflowing. The president of Italy has ordered the Italian soldiers to guard the landfills and has assigned other places to deposit the garbage once they haul it out of the streets of Naples.

Wouldn't you know, the citizenry are complaining about putting any new landfills or incinerators for the garbage in THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS. Plus, some cardinal of the R.C. church has intoned that it's not right to put garbage right where people live, etc. (Are you wondering whose pockets the mafia are lining?) (I am.)

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I am flying into Naples, no way around that, and Cathy is meeting me there with a driver who will take us to Ravello. Ravello is home to the famous festival (later this year) and sporadic concerts now. It is an hour and a half from the airport. I'm wondering when I'll wake up! Maybe with the first cock crow in Ravello, which happens every morning, I'm told. Chickens! Swell.

Long Weekend = Supper with Lida

Here we are at some Greek restaurant in Rockville. Not pictured were the MOUNTAINS of food on our plates. Zowie! We should have been forewarned when the waiter delivered a monster pizza to the table next to ours. Seated around the table were grandma and grandpa, mom & dad, three young boys, and a baby girl. All except grandma, who was a very bright blonde, had curly brown hair. Anyway, they tied into the pizza, then the waiter brought them DINNER--the pizza was just an appetizer.



Lida had a huge plate of greek-style green beans (with some kind of tomato stuff), and what could have passed for lasagne, but the pasta part was macaroni. I had three bites of salad...maybe four...two bites of potato, and a chicken leg. Plus half of a nice little dish of rice pudding with cinnamon on it. Lida had flan, and we each had a glass of wine and a cup of chewy greek coffee (lots of grounds!!)



Lida was pretty tired because she had made a one-day trip up to northern PA yesterday for her cousin's son's bar mitzvah. She doesn't like sleeping in hotel beds, so she found a friend to drive her up and back. She said it was the most wonderful bar mitzvah she's ever been to. There were four generations of her family present, and the rabbi worked them all into the ceremony. Lida loved that, especially because she got to sit pretty high at the table. Anyway, she'd gotten up at 4:30 to leave at 6:30 a.m. and didn't get home until almost 11 pm.

I forget what I did yesterday aside from biking and marching around for blocks to buy a nother camera like the one I lost this past winter. This one is even better. It has 8 megapixels instead of 6, and I can take movies with it, too. Very BRIEF movies, but with sound! Who knew?

Maybe I can take a wee movie of Cathy and I butchering the Italian language next month when we visit the Amalfi coast. She wants me to bring my good summer clothes, but I reminded her that my summer wardrobe is exactly the same as my winter one, except I leave off the sweaters and roll my shirt sleeves UP. I mentioned, too, that my cargo shorts are thief-repellent....the pockets button. I don't think this is what she has in mind.



Here I am in my brand new Penn State Tennis t-shirt. Very tasteful and hardly faded at all. I bought it because my nephew Jim's son James plays tennis for Penn State, and his son Marc plays tennis for Northwestern. Or is the other way around? Northwestern does not sell tennis t-shirts, or I'd have gotten one. Is this good enough for the former stomping grounds of Virginia Woolf and Gorvy Dahl (that's how Don says it)? Hmph.

Long Weekend = What are the kids watching?

Echidne of the Snakes has a great post today...about the preponderance of male characters even in children's cartoons and other programs. She cites a post by Ammu Joseph on WIMN's Voices blog.

Lots of people don't even notice this--or see anything wrong with it. It just happens to be way out of sync with reality, is all.

New Links to Enjoy

Welcome to Whoopee, Vetmommy, and the Iceland Traffic Webcams. Feel free to visit these unique blogs, which I found in my travels online.

I discovered Whoopee when I clicked "Funniest Blog" on some listing and got connected to (yes, it is) a very funny blog by a young woman in London. It helps that she has a toddler and a great eye for photography.

Vetmommy is the creation of another young woman who is a mommy--and also a veterinarian. I forwarded it to my niece Lu, who is very much into dogs, dog care, and care dogs (which she trains). I love "Puppy See, Puppy Do," a recent post on Lu's blog. It shows a photo Lu took of one of her pupils....after two days of simply watching an older dog go through the paces of getting fed (fetching one's own bowl may be a part of a care dog's routine), the puppy caught on just like that. Smart little mutt.

And the Iceland Traffic Webcams? Well, this past week I saw another list of U.S. cities with the most congested traffic, and guess which town was at the top? You're right....Washington, D.C., home of traffic scofflaws supreme. These Iceland traffic webcam sights are very restful if not exactly side-splitting.

Truth in Weighing

Well, for anyone who is paying attention, the little frog on my weight loss tracker is back in view, thanks to a week in which I pretty much crashed and burned on my diet. Even HE looks fatter. Maybe I'll get rid of him, the smug little....(I was going to call him a reptile, but I caught myself just in time) amphibian. Ha. I can't remember whether amphibians are also reptiles, but more to the point, I don't care. So much for belonging to Beta Beta Beta. Which, btw, has changed their insignia to a stupid shield. Before it was a gold snake with a ruby eye.

And in honor of El Busho's taking the occasion of Israel's 60th birthday party to suggest that the Democratic party's candidate for president is like a Nazi appeaser, Charlie is back, biting his brother's finger. Ouch, Charlie! That really hurts!!

Pigging Out....

Peggy's blog has a great post today on a barbeque in Budapest, where she was visiting last week. The main course was chunks of bacon fat from the superbly delectable Mangalica (mang a LEET za) pig, a native of Hungary. I was curious about this pig, so I looked it up.

Say, hey! SOME PIG! It's long-haired, and just about the cutest pig I have ever seen. What should we call this one? Zsa Zsa? Or...hm...Zoltan?