December 31 Ugh.
December is almost over and the long season of holiday events with it. Suffice to say that the parties were wonderful... populated with interesting folks, laughs and great food. I am tired and if I never see another plate of ravioli, its okay. We had 2 parties for the staff at the vacation houses, a dinner to try a new local chef, a dinner to try a local restaurant, an Xmas eve and Xmas bash, a wine tasting, a Saint Stevens Night party, all between the 14th and the 30th. If it wasn't dinner it was lunch, or touring with visitors.
I was stricken with food poisoning just before the wine tasting. Such a shame, as I really looked forward to enjoying new wines. I went anyway -- clammy and pale -- to hear what had been prepared. A friend of ours who recently passed the first part of his sommelier course brought some unusual Italian wines. He gave the basic spiel about the differences between each and what to look for in certain wines. He did a splendid job. I managed a swallow of one very good Barolo, but generally played it safe and kept all intake to a minimum. At one point, after a few sips of water I had to disappear outside and retch over the wall. But, only Jan knew that I was feeling dire. Melchiorre made cinghiale in a red sauce and his ravioli for dinner not a big eating evening for me.
Now comes New Year's. Jan has already asked people will notice if we leave at 11pm. I am going to wear a simple black dress (short), patterned stockings I bought in Naples (troppo italiano), black heels and a pink silk scarf with large pink sequins on the bottom ¼ of each end. Tres chic. The pink will go well with the purple circles under my eyes. If you don't feel great, look great.
December 16, 17 - Napoli
Elizabeth, Dorothy, Sharon and I took the train to Naples for 2 days and one night. It was a whirlwind trip to explore the prescepe markets and catch a fast look at the city. I do not remember ever being there, though my mother and I did visit the south some years back.
I love Florence, with its air of annoyed superiority (they invented civilization as we know it). The Renaissance was born there. And the unrepentant consumerism is just up my alley. I adore Rome. Ancient history butting up against the modern world. Catholic stronghold and pagan mysticism. Both cities are unique and wonderful.
But for the sheer energy, the joy of living... the grab it by the throat and shake the last drop of life from its jaws... you cannot beat Naples. There is a lust for life, for interaction, for conversation... for scamming. Neapolitans are the gregarious uncles and cousins of Italy. They are Sofia Loren... sexy and accessible. There is nothing controlled or studied about Neapolitans. They exude reality. There are no overwhelming ancient mystical threads or cultural icons able to overshadow the everyday reality of Naples.
Naples has quite a reputation -- dirty, unsafe, full of scary drivers. Plan to be robbed both by thieves and local merchants. This is a town where PT Barnum's quote ("There is a sucker born every minute.") would be true. But the Neapolitans take you with such charm, such verve. Every cabbie is looking for an angle and the city has given them years of trial and error to perfect their patter and approach. No one is safe... But not from a surly man who demands money or threatens to leave you in a dark, lonely place. Here its more likely to be a charming man offering a plethora of added services -- those behind the scenes peeks at the "real Naples" -- while he shills some extra bucks from your wallet. So while you may indeed get rooked, you will not realize it right away and will have had a splendid time until it dawns.
I loved Naples. We arrived mid-morning, checked into a small hotel that was well-situated near the bay, and wandered out for lunch. The rest of the day was spent walking. Our prime focus for what was left of day one was the Christmas markets. The prescepe, crèche or nativity scene -- is a tradition in Italy. In Naples it seemed like more of an obsession. In the US, the nativity seems to consist if the primary players -- the holy family and the various animals, shepherds, kings and angels that we think of being part of the story. In my limited experience of Umbria, it seems to follow suit. In Naples, the prescepe is a telescoping world -- the holy family as the focal point and an entire village in the foreground. Sometimes the two aren't even in the same time period, with a Roman-era holy family in Bethlehem surrounded by a teeming medieval Italian village.
It's a doll's house gone mad. In the prescepe market, there are rows of shops lining the streets selling various sizes of figures, houses and materials you need to build your own prescepe. Some scenes mix the large and small figures to create perspective... a village receding into the distance. It's all minutely detailed, with smiling bakers pulling brown loaves out of ovens that glow red. (Some ovens actually plug in so the fire flickers.) There are wine demijohns and baskets of grapes, scruffy fish mongers with carts and baskets replete with sardines, calamari, whole tuna on palettes.
We saw a few specialty stores that sold tiny terracotta roof tiles and miniature bricks. You could build walls and houses to fit your own design. There are figures in ancient desert dress, figures in Renaissance clothing and figures in more turn of the century dress. The holy family always appeared dressed in the ancient timeframe. Sometimes, when the village figures wore Renaissance or more recent dress, you seemed to travel back in time the closer you got to the manger.
We saw a gorgeous old prescepe in a cloister that featured an elaborate flock of angels showering tiny flowers (on a filament?) toward the babe in the manger. Some scenes were lit very simply from above. Others had elaborate multiple light sources -- from behind, the sides, above and below -- designed to enhance specific interactions between characters. In the Church of Santa Chiara, there was a very simple prescepe that looked like a biblical illustration... all white washed domes, deep blue sky, sand and camels. Very evocative, very effective.
In the market we saw all the possible pieces, in terracotta or plastic. They were jam packed with action - fruit sellers crying out, animals milling, children playing, angels hovering, food of all types in tiny baskets, cartons, bags and crates. It was wonderful sorting through the wares, but overload came on fast. We shifted from excitedly calling to each other over new finds, to dutifully checking each shop to see if there was anything out of the norm. Every shop sold the same types of figures, with some focusing on high-end, expensive versions. Every square inch of space was full of shoppers. A few times I saw lines of school-aged kids filing up and down the aisles, like a crazy class trip.
Can you imagine putting something as elaborate as these prescepes up every year... taking each figure, each house, each basket of grapes/bread/fish/vegetables out of its careful wrapping and setting things in order, only to take it all down 4 weeks later, re-wrapping everything carefully for 11 month's storage. Maybe some people create a year round room devoted to the prescepe?
We wandered the market and the surrounding shops well into the evening. I found a man who sold religious clocks that were soooo over the top, I had to have one. I am now the proud owner of a Sacred Heart of the Virgin Mother clock. Mary is holding the sacred heart, and when you flip the switch, its surrounded by red pulsing lights. The clock is small and superfluous. Who even cares if it keeps time?
We walked all the way back to our hotel, packages in hand, through rush hour Neapolitan traffic. What might have been a 20 minute cab ride, became a roundabout march ever onward toward the hope of food. At one point, we knew our hotel was just around the bend, but there was a 10 lane road (3-2-3 configuration) and a hill between us. We forged across the first three lanes, paused at the next two to wait for the break. What a couple of us failed to realize was that this was the two-way commuter vehicle section. We were watching for traffic in the wrong direction and almost got decapitated by a bus. I saw it just in time and thank heavens Dorothy was keying her moves to me. If she had not been, we would have had a bad time very fast. We made it across the avenue of death and then trudged the long way around the hill, collapsing finally in our lobby and ordering a round of beers. A day in Naples conquered soundly.
Dinner was an average affair. We forgot that you never ask your hotel where to eat. They are all getting kick-backs from some local tourist trap. Ours was called Song of Naples. There was nothing notable or memorable... not even for kitsch value.
Day two, we opted to give our feet a needed break. Our destination sites were spread around town, so we found a cab driver to drive us around all day for a flat rate of $100. Between four people, that is nothing. Antonio was a character... a handsome, expressive Neapolitan lothario with a wife and two kids. At one point, he took a phone call from an irate boyfriend demanding that Antonio stop calling his girlfriend. Antonio insisted it was all a mistake, that she kept calling him. To us, he explained that he never got involved with young women because they are dangerous. They get obsessed.
Our first stop was the archeological museum. All the guide books said they would be open. The hotel said they would be open. Antonio said they would be open. They were closed. There was some sort of a strike going on out front. In the middle of the road, there was a bed with two men in pajamas laying across it and placards about living wage, etc. Although the guards at the museum said they were closed due to winter hours, Antonio decided that they were really closed because of the strike, but would not tell us the truth because that would create a bad impression (brutta figura). What to do? Head for to Museo Capodimonte.
At that point we had relinquished all skepticism as to his honesty and put ourselves entirely in Antonio's hands. It was all part of the charm. Antonio gave suggestions, we embraced them or made counter suggestions. We were on our way up to the museum at San Martino. We asked about local artisans and workshops, so he suggested that we stop to see a very famous family of cameo artisans. This was perhaps the most blatant back scratching move we experienced. Even so, he did not force us to go nor to buy. I was completely charmed by the owner, a professionally attired older gentleman who had the shop patter down. He showed us his work bench (which I suspect no one really works at), pictures of him with Bill Clinton, and other famous people. We saw letters from both the Nixon and Ford White Houses thanking him for his beautiful gifts. And for the first time in my life I saw truly exquisite cameos. We lingered for quite some time "oohing and aahing", dithered over the questions "to buy or what to buy?" We managed to keep the poor man from his lunch and Italians are not patient about that.
Mr. Corciano told me all about his family history. Four or five generations of cameo carvers and how his children are not interested in the craft nor the business. How most of the new craftsman use modern techniques like lasers, no longer hand carving. We talked about the different media...shell, agate, lava rock, etc. I learned what differentiates an exceptional cameo from a merely good one. Or at least I think I did. He offered us glasses of very strong homemade limoncello -- guaranteed to break down the last shred of sales resistance. Through it all, Antonio hovered, probably gauging our wallet strength to see how far he could push our reserves. I held some beautiful cameos that Mr. Corciano's grandfather made 60 or 70 years ago -- large pieces that are meant to be displayed, not worn. If not a connoisseur, I am appreciative. He showed me pictures of his family, including "his best cameo and favorite work", his granddaughter. He asked about Umbertide and life in Italy for an American. Then he made me promise to send him a postcard from Umbertide. My never strong resolve was broken. I bought a gorgeous "Saint George and the Dragon" cameo made about 40 or 50 years ago. Exhausted and truly frightened by my high ticket purchase, I stumbled from the shop and into the museum at San Martino.
San Martino was by far the loveliest place I saw. Perched on a hill overlooking the Bay of Naples, it is a old palazzo full of beautiful things... old black and white marble floors, two huge old carriages that looked like something drawn by fairytale mice, delicate swooping arched doorways, and intricate altarpieces. It was the kind of place that makes you remember the North African architectural influence in this area. I kept thinking that it would have been a spectacular house "and how can I find this in the Philadelphia environs?"
Lunch offered a bit of controversy. Naples is known for pizza. In fact, it is the home of pizza. Our cab driver wanted us to experience pizza in a truly local lunch spot where not a tourist could be heard. Dorothy was suspicious that this would end up like our prior dinner experience... a cheap rip-off. She had done some research and identified another area of town known for pizza restaurants. We had a bit of a push-pull over it all, but ended up following where Antonio led. This place sold regular pizza and pizza frito. Antonio felt strongly that we should try the latter. Pizza frito was basically pizza dough, fried, with the pizza toppings on the inside. It was reminiscent of the Panzarottis I used to get at the bowling alley in Riverside, NJ. We washed it all down with beer and a few questions to Antonio about himself and his life in Naples. We continued with our search for artisans, but thankfully, never found any more. We did look in an antiquarian bookstore and a few antique shops, but we would have been far more susceptible to woodcarvers, basketmakers and rustic crafts. This brought us back into the Christmas market area and with the light waning quickly, we dashed to get a peek at the cloister of Santa Chiara. Elizabeth recommended it highly... an enclosed courtyard of tiled walls and columns, enveloping a lovely garden of citrus and jasmine. It would be a delight on warm, spring days. We all vowed right there to return in spring.
Our attention and energy was flagging. We had an 8:30pm train to catch northward. Antonio took us to a boutique area so we could walk around, window shop, and maybe catch some of the Christmas buzz. It was interesting, but we were done in at that point. We hied it back into the car and faithful Antonio dropped us at the train. We owed him $50 additional bucks for the lunch and the coffee shop. Possibly the price was a little marked up, but there were 4 of us, so it could not have been by much. We tipped him an additional $50 or so. He was as exhausted as we were... had traded in contacts for glasses. We took his number (on the safe line his wife does not use) in case we return and need a faithful guide.
Collapsing into our train seats, we slept until Terontola and a cold, rainy Umbria. This change from our balmy southern vacation foreshadowed a weather trend that persisted through the month.
December 3
There is a persimmon tree on the riverbank across from my bedroom window. All the leaves have fallen, leaving these orange persimmons suspended on the black branches. It looks like an old iron tree decorated with bright glass balls. My own personal Christmas tree...
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2002
