7 May 2016: Paestum and Maratea

Three of the best ancient Greek temples in the Doric order, dating from about 600BC to 450BC are located at Paestum (modern day Italy). The 3 Temples depict a sequence of development of the Doric order. The location subsequently became a Roman city through the Republician and Imperial eras, with many additional facilities added.

The onsite Museum is not worth a visit except to use the toilets. Walking around the site is very pleasant, mainly using the Roman roads, and there are plenty of shade trees for the summer.

Temple 2, or "the one in the middle" (furthest from camera in the pix to the left) Is the largest and best preserved, built in honour of Appollo in the role of physician.

 

T2 had a series of internal columns defining the interior.

The small circular forum dates from the Greek period, and is where political discussions occurred. There was not an equivalent role in the Roman town so it fell into disuse.

South from Paestum we need to cut through the mountainous spine of Italy. At first the road was quite good, a 2 lane freeway, but progressively we noted deformations in the surface and not of recent vintage. Finally the road was closed and we were deviated off. But where do we go now to get to our destination? There was no sign posting so we made an 'intelligent guess'! That cost us over an hour and we had to back track and make a 'more intelligent guess'!

The final picture is the view from our motel balcony at Maratea (southern Italy).

 

6 May 2016: Maiori and the Lemon Path.

After a lengthy detour via the Post Office, we took the steep steps up to Santa Maria a Mare Collegiate Church, whose name comes from the stature found on the beach in Maiori in 1200. It has pride of place behind the altar, and many miracles are attributed to it.

But the lemons here are huge putting my little backyard shrub to shame. This variety displayed in the street is bigger than a softball.

From the church we commenced the Lemon Path walk over the hill to Minori.

The towns of Maiori and Minori have been exporting lemons for over a thousand years and they are the historic home of Italy's lemon industry.The only access to the higher terraces is by foot and donkeys. It's amazing to watch them scale and come down the stone steps.

The down hill section of path into Minori came as a relief and was a steeper gradient; mostly steps. We met another mule train and learnt what getting on the wrong side of an ass on a corner means.

Soon we were sitting down at a sea front cafe (just out of shot) enjoying a cool drink and sweet. I tried a baba with the local limoncello; lemon liquor!

Then we took our lives in our hands acting like locals, walking on the edge of the narrow road back to Manori past their small fishing harbour. I'll look for fish on the menu tonight.

 

 

 

 

Copyright Noel.moore@gmail.com

 

Day 3: Rome - Ostia 29 April 2016

Copyright Noel.moore@gmail.com

The fabulous site of Ostia Antica was once the hub for Rome's trade links with the rest of the world. We have seen it presented in a number of documentaries with many favourable comparisons of its importance with Pompeii!

It was certainly a very different town to Pompeii; no luxury villas for the rich and "holiday homes" here. Ostia Antica was very much a working town and an essential one. With over a million inhabitants in Rome the social contract between rich and poor required free food from Rome's warehouses. That required vast quantities of grain, olive oil, wine etc imported from Rome's provinces; Egypt, Tunisia, Crete, Spain.

The day started with a taxi ride to Porta San Paolo regional rail station now co-site with Piramide Metro. On the edge of Centro, commuters can now come off the regional train and take the metro to a limited number of locations. So Rome's transport is definitely on the improve.

The pyramid was built about 12 BC as a tomb for Gaius Cestius, and straddles ancient fortifications. It has recently been cleaned and looks pristine. We soon met our guide and headed for the regional train; graffiti covered! Well, it is an Itialian word.

Ostia started life as a fortification at the mouth of the Tiber, protecting Rome. It's first major expansion as a port was under Emperor Claudius. I well remember the scenes from the BBC's 'I Claudius' of the crippled emperor outsmarting the gain importers!

Naturally a theatre is essential for a Roman town, but plays only. No gladiators and animals here. On the three sides of the plazza behind the theatre were 'kiosk areas' (my words) with black and white mosaic floors (example above) indicating the various guilds that controlled the work in the town; e.g. Ship repair, wagon cartage etc.

Two religious sites. Ostia was a pagan town through its history but our guide pointed out two sites related to other religions.

A sarcophagus was uncovered at this location, inscribed:

"Quiriacus dormit in pace" (Quiriacus sleeps in peace). He was a bishop of Ostia who was martyred in the town with 17 converted soldiers in the year 269.

Mithras-worship in the Roman Empire was characterized by images of the god slaughtering a bull as depicted in the photo below! It's peak was between the 1st and 4th centuries. Our guide, like some academics, described some similarities with Christanity. I say many more conflicts including their grotesque initiatation ceremonies.

Our wonderful guide, Fransesca, brought her lucky umbrella! And it worked. No rain. She was also a wealth of knowledge and fielded every question we threw at her.

To the left is a photo of one of the 6 or more grain grinders in a 'factory'. The top section is concave and was turned by blindfolded donkeys (note key-way for wood pole). The top piece rotates on the cone base stone. Grain is poured in the top and falls out the bottom!

The bottom photo is a large terra cotta container for oil or wine sunk into the floor for temperature stability.

The Trevi Fountain is still a Mecca for tourists. Again we threw a coin into the fountain; it has worked every time to date! Gelato shops continue to do a great trade, so again we did not 'break the trend'! Similar to Paris' Sacre Coeur, it is a favourite place for staged wedding photos! In contrast to the above, the popularity for horse carriage rides appears to have fallen.

 

2nd May 2016: Maranello and Modena

A particularly wet day to walk back via the station (2.1kM) to pick up our hire car; a nice little Lancia with less than 400kM on the clock. An easy enough drive out to Maranello, the home of Ferrari. The Museum has a comprehensive collection of it F1 and road cars, and is located close to the factory and test track.The 1958 winning car is front engine, rear drive, foot clutch and manual gear change, disc brakes with the petrol tank nicely squeezed next to the drive!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favourite car was the majestic FF.The company has 3000 employees; 600 are directly involved in the F1 team! Enzio Ferrari's home is in the middle of the test track, and the top floor has private suites for the current two F1 drivers. No photographs were allowed in the factory and track areas!All cars off the production line undergo 50kM test on public roads; max of 30 a day. On the road out of Maranello one blasted past me.

 

 

Lenore did like the 'California'; we could order today for delivery in 12 to15 months. And you do get a choice of colours and to personalise everything except engine and chassis: yes you can change the body shape! With the GP drivers yet to return from racing in Russia, the opportunity to jump into an F1 car was too great. I must admit I required help to get out!

 

 

We learnt a new term today; Dog Parking. When you take your dog to a museum you can park it outside. The regional capital is Modena. It has an impressive but very dark cathedral, that suffered some sinking of foundations at the chapel end; c.f. Winchesterr Cathedral. Copyright noel.moore@gmail.com

 

Day 1: Rome 27 April 2016

We boarded our Qantas A380 in Sydney in the colours left over from the Rugby World Cup. There were the most empty seats I have ever seen on the 14.5 hour to Dubai. As we settled into our favourite seats we noticed that there were 2 empty ones next to Lenore. Shame to let them go to waste. We had a reasonable transit in Dubai (much texting to Au, and a quick glass of Moët) and then the 8 hours on Emirates to Rome. Lenore had one empty seat next to her.
The only formal part of our arrival was the passport control officer finding a blank spot in our passports to place her stamp! Then the train to Roma termini.

As the day was still young (way before hotel check in time) we decided to walk the 2kM; stopping briefly at a cafe along the way.















After settling in we took the short walk to the Forum. Having recently been reading of some of the exploits of Trajan (the second of "five good emperors"), I wished to revisit his Market and Column.
Having done the Forum many times we hurried on past the Colosseum and Circus Maximus, to cross the Tiber.




















I have only recently read of this area as having authentic Roma cuisine. We soon found a small family restaurant (mother and daughter waitresses) with half a dozen tables spilling onto the narrow street. The view of washing hanging above added to the atmosphere.

Then it was time to cross the Tiber again, a turn to Victor Emmanuel and then the walk up the hill to our hotel. A 16,000+ step day. The objective of a sound nights sleep had been achieved!


Copyright noel.moore@gmail.com

Day 2: Rome 28 April 2016

Today we headed out into the country to see two things we had not visited before. Both are near the hill top town of Tivoli; 30kM from Rome. So it was down the hill, the walk around the forum and Colosseum. The tour then started with a walk up Palatine Hill to our bus. The Rome city authorities are now taking decisive action to keep traffic out of the centre.

 

Hadrian's Villa is a 100ha area of land with many pools, baths, fountains and classical architectures. The complex contains 30 buildings, with much awaiting excavation. I was soon marvelling at the hugh brick structures and their ability to stand for 2000 years; circa the Roma Forum. It brought back memories of the stories of how Italian brickees were so reviled when the immigrated to Australia after WW2. They could lay 1500 bricks a day with high quality. They were soon taught that in Australia you lay less than a 1000 a day! The villa shows echoes of many different architectural orders, mostly Greek and Egyptian. Hadrian was a very well traveled emperor and he borrowed these designs.

Many guest rooms and common areas are decorated with black and white mosaics; the Villa predates coloured Mosaics becoming fashionable. Villa d'Este, in the town of Tivoli east of Rome, is a beautiful garden and palace complex that's listed on UNESCO's World Heritage List. The villa was built in 1560 as the vision of Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este who narrowly failed to become a pope. The villa is famous for its magnificent garden of grottoes, fountains, nymphs and water sculpture.Over the centuries the Villa d'Este and its gardens have been remodelled, left to decay, renovated, bombed (during World War II) and finally put into the hands of the Italian government, which opened the complex to the public.

Being on a hill, Tivoli receives more rain than Rome, and as we entered the gardens, the intensity increased. The garden has many steps and many of our tour group decided not to risk slipping.

 

Norway in review (2)

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Norway is a grandly scenic country! It is a modern, efficient, clean country with high levels of services. It is possible to draw similarities to Australia as well as contrasts.

Similaries include high levels of tourism, and economy that is resourse oriented. Both Norway and Australia are big exporters of resources; Norway being ranked just above Australia (6 and 7 respectively; WTO Report 2010). Norway's popularion is 5.1 million compared to Australia's 23.1 million. So their resource income per person is over 5 times Australia's, and probably second only to Saudi Arabia.

Being a top exporter is not a new thing. As far back as the 19th century Norway was a top exporter of fish, ice and timber, helped by they fjords that gave them all season access to much of the country. In the 1890's Norway was exporting 340,000 tons of ice each year. (In the same time frame Australia was a top exporter of wheat and wool.)

A few years ago now we visited the London Canal Museum and peered down into a huge Victorian ice well used to store ice imported from Norway and brought by ship and canal into the suburbs of London. It was a physically demanding trade, but fortunes were made.

 

 

 

Our ability to see so many highlights in a relatively short time is no doubt due to their efficient public transport, good linkages with private transport providers, and world class roads and accommodation.

Our take away was not to be overly deterred by the high prices, but proceed well prepared so that you can maximise your experience in a relatively short time.



 

The mainline trains have restaurant cars and catering in keeping with the length of trip. Similarly railways stations have facilities in keeping with their size.