Friday, March 27, 2015

Graffiti on street signs: Clet Abraham makes us smile

Clet Abraham is a street artist whose work we have stumbled across and now watch for wherever we go.  For us, a pleasure of slow travel is finding the first and then other items by this artist.  He makes us smile.

His work speaks for itself.  Follow his links  (here) or (here) if you want to find out more about him.

One source indicates that he has done some of his work in NYC.  Anyone seen any?  We only know his work in Italy.



In Florence
Near Spanish Steps, Rome

Near St. Andrea, Rome

Also near St. Andrea, Rome

Near Sta Maria in Trastevere, Rome

Near St. Prassede, Rome

Near Trajan's Market, Rome
Naples-historic center

Naples

Naples

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Carciofi Giudia. Artichokes Jewish style. WARNING. DO NOT TRY THIS RECIPE AT HOME.

Artichokes, or carciofi, The small ones at the bottom are trimmed, ready to cook.

Artichokes are in season, beautiful and abundant.  The area around Rome is known for growing good ones. Romans love them; us too.  We are especially fond of  the Jewish preparation which is deep-fried, salted.  Some wonderful restaurants in the Jewish Ghetto specialize in the dish.  It is offered elsewhere too, either "alla Guidia" or "alla Romana," which is steamed with olive oil and lemon.

Carciofi Guidia served at Ba Ghetto restaurant in Rome.
So, we could not resist giving it a try.  The tourist info point had recipes; it seemed clear what to do.  The man who sells us our produce trimmed them carefully, gave instructions.  What could go wrong?  Ha!  The recipe should have had a warning across the top: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

Well, Italians could probably do it.  It seems that every single one of them over the age of 3 is an excellent cook; they have a natural feel for the process.  We--well we are trying.

We have eaten these delights in several places.  First time, we did not know what to do but it was a slow Monday in winter and the waiter was helpful.  It turns out to be easy--you just pull off each artichoke petal and crunch it like a potato chip.  Great with local white wine for lunch.

At Home
To prepare the carciofi, start with purchasing.  They are abundant, spilling out of vendor's stalls, beautifully arranged.  Our vendor helped us choose good ones and trimmed them ready for cooking.  We recommend starting with a glass of good wine.










 OK--the recipe is in Italian.  We are fine.  We have been studying.  We have Google translate.  What could go wrong?  Ha!

Survival strategy

















Wash the artichokes in lemon water.  Beat them against each other and swing them around to dry them. Drink more wine.









Read recipe while pouring in oil.  Lots of oil.  Do personal kitchens have this much oil around?  Doubt creeps in; can we do this?
Doubt allayed.










 Spread the artichoke petals after partial cooking.  The book makes it sound easy.  Ha!


More oil



Yikes.  More wine needed for more courage.

More oil.  Cover the flower part of the artichoke, keeping the stems on so you can lift them out. Fry at high heat until done. (How will we know? Not covered in the instructions.)


End of wine, end of cooking


Our artichokes, ready to eat.  We did our best in the absence of a deep fryer and gallons of oil.  In fact they tasted good.

 





Did we really use every pan in the kitchen?  Did we remember that we have to clean up by ourselves?  Another reason not to try this at home.  What were we thinking?




Story in words and pictures by Julianne.  Cooking by Nancy, who says, "Too much wine is just enough." 

The Waters of Rome: Parco degli Acquedotti, fountains and more


Aqueduct Marcia, with Acqueduct Felice riding on top, still carries water northward into Rome

Water may be the defining characteristic of Rome.  Clean, delicious water runs out of "nozzi" street drinking fountains all over Rome.  Some of the most beautiful sculptures of the Renaissance are the mostra or "show" fountains where each aqueduct pours its water into Rome from the distant hills.  Rome defined its empire by creating water systems wherever they extended their reach.  The Western Roman Empire and the city of Rome fell when the attacking Goths severed the aqueducts and cut off the water.  Rome's population quickly declined from more than a million to about 20,000.

Moses hands down the law at the point of entry for water from the Acqua Felice. This is a detail of a major fountain in Rome. The lion was brought from Egypt after Rome conquered and was later incorporated into the Renaissance sculpture.

A thousand years later the plans of the aqueducts were discovered in the Vatican Library and the popes were able to reconnect the fresh clean water supply. Acqua Felice was the first of the Renaissance acqueducts. Many of the original Roman ones were rebuilt and other new ones followed.

21st Century Rome still has fresh, clean, delicious water from the distant hills, still carried in part by the aqueducts that carried it during the Empire and Renaissance.  A major initiative of the newly formed Italian government from the 1870's to now is to provide clean running water for everyone through street drinking fountains throughout the city. Fans like myself have an app on our phones so we can find the nearest nozzi when we are ready for a drink.

Demonstrating a feature of Rome's nozzi
Nozzi near our house in Piazza Ettore Rolli
Today, we visited a park in southern Rome where some of the aqueducts of the ancient empire and the rebuilt acqueducts of the Renaissance still stand and are still used even now to bring water into the city. (The different spellings are used depending on which period the structure was built.)

I am delighted.  I know they did not set this stuff up just for me but I am that excited anyway.  I love rivers, ferry boats and running water.  Here--just imagine--the water runs into the city through fountains designed by Bernini and other superb sculptors.  Just right.  Only the best for water. Few fountains remain from ancient times since the stone was used for other purposes.

Today's adventure took us by metro nearly to the end of the line.  The station, Guilio Agricola, is a few hundred yards from the area where the Goths camped when besieging Rome. Several aqueducts passed their encampment at this point above ground level, making them vulnerable to intelligent attackers. The destruction of the Roman water supply ensured success in conquering Rome.

What was then the Goth encampment is now just part of suburban Rome, with 6-8 story apartment buildings, a highway, and ordinary life going on around.  Nothing to see, folks. Walking through the neighborhood is pleasant.  Built up in the 1970's as it appears from the architectural style, it's well laid out.  Folks doing their Saturday chores.  Kids playing soccer at the field next to the church.

Parco degli Acquedotti is massive when you walk behind the church and enter.  What hits your eyes is a series of Roman arches as far as you can see in either direction.  Nicely kept, rounded cement on top--definitely NOT ruins.

Aqueduct in its park. There's a toy drone flying above the man in the black coat, directed by the woman in turquoise. Have we mentioned that we want a drone of our own?

Farther into the park, taller arches are silhouetted against the sky, not continuous--definitely ruins.

Aqua Claudia -- its career of carrying water is over

We have been guided here by a great book and blog, which we recommend highly to everyone:
Rome the Second Time  (RST to their friends).

The book tells us that the well-kept arches in the pictures are the still-used Aqueduct Marcia from the time of the Roman Republic--about 140 BC more or less--and on top of the Roman work sits Acqueduct Felice, built during the Renaissance by Pope Sixtus V.  One is on top of the other.  You can see the old style building using blocks of stone called "tuff" on the bottom, and above that, the brick and concrete used by the Renaissance builders to repair the old and build the new.  The very top must be concrete maintained by ATAC, the Roman City Water system.  In town, we find plate covers in sidewalks which say Aqua Marcia. 

Sidewalk plate for fire dept water access

After you cross under the arches-in-good-repair, the broken arches of Aqua Claudia fill the sky.  Much taller.  All large blocks of stone.  In several places you can look up and see where two water systems rode along together, the lower channel for Claudia and the upper for Aqua Novis which joined Claudia for awhile at this point.

This piggybacking of water channels was Roman,
not Renaissance in this case.

The park holds the remains of 7 aqueducts but these are the ones we were able to find.  A stream runs through brick channels and looks to us like it was one of the underground aqueducts, but we could find no information about it.  Similarly, the ruins of some arches and pillars march along at an angle to Claudia but again our information is limited.  This information is known and I have read what I can about the routes of the aqueducts, but on the ground, it remains unclear what bit goes to what.  Building materials are helpful: use of tuff means an early structure, brick means a later one.  More study clearly indicated.

Nancy's watercolor of Aqua Claudia, 5x7

Wandering north, we cross under the train tracks, trying to find the next set of arches which we can see in the distance.  The path is pretty good and we see bicyclists and joggers going along.  We had our picnic above the train tracks where they cross a break in Aqua Claudia.  We get such a kick out of seeing the current and ancient infrastructure coexisting.  The train is the same one from Naples that we used on our return to Rome a few weeks ago--the slow train. We are walking generally north.

Naples train behind fence, ruin behind that
Cactus fence on path toward Torre del Fiscal (right background). A dry field! Maybe they grow artichokes?
This area lies between train tracks with no road in, just a bike path. Little rickety houses. Who lives here?
Our guides in RST would have send us south and back to metro, but we can see a path on the map and can see arches against the sky.  Trust them if you go.  We saw tiny farms and homes in the area between train tracks which are decidedly not on any tourist route.  Never any worry--chickens clucking, children playing.  Almost a pile-up between us and a family of dads and daughters on bikes. Eventually we found ourselves in the next park--Parco Torre del Fiscal.  Here we had all eras in one big structure:  Aqua Claudia and Aqua Marcia crossing each other with a medieval tower built atop.  And a modern farm snugged against one side.

Aqueducts Marcia and Claudia crossing with medieval tower built on top.
Sign says this is an archaeological site but tucked in back is a modern farm.

Despite our trusty smart phone mapping systems we were unable to figure out how to get back to the metro although we could find drinking fountains.  We finally found a bus stop.  Yay!  Even, after some searching. a bus stop that buses come to.  More yay!  A bus came, took us to metro. Home.

One great day in the country.

Words by Julianne, mostly.
Photos by Nancy, mostly.
Watercolor by Nancy, delightfully, says Julianne.



Friday, March 13, 2015

Orvieto on a Cold Day

Funny how we don't quite feel like tourists any more. After 4-1/2 months, it's almost like we (gasp!) live here. When we take jaunts now it's often because someone's visiting and we're going together to see the sights. This past 10 days it's been our dear friend Olivia.

We went on Sunday morning (March 9, 2015) to visit Orvieto, a classic hill town, less than an hour and a half from our place in Rome if connections are brisk, which they were. Here we are at the super-modern transportation hub, Tiburtina (Rome).

Olivia on left, Julianne on right, and me behind the lens.
Building by Paolo Desideri, 2011
see also Rome the Second Time

It was sunny but cold in Orvieto. We complained just a little - well, some - oh all right, we complained a lot. Why was it so cold? With wind? Sunny with a bright blue sky, but frozen fingers and toes, earlobes, noses. The churches inside were colder than outside. The coffee shops were unheated. Silly us, to be fooled by the mild Roman weather! Orvieto is a thousand feet higher than Rome, and very exposed on its high mesa. We could have thought of that.

So we did the best we could in the circumstances. Once we took the funicular to the top, we split up. Julianne went to a museum, I didn't - I was focused on painting. Olivia was sightseeing and looking for gifts. 

I was looking for something to paint that I could actually paint, that I could sensibly simplify. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find a good subject, in the sun, out of the wind, where I could sit and spread out paper, palette, water. Just forget it. I settled for wonderful subject, sun, and spreading out, and just put up with the standing, and the wind. 



After considering any number of alleys with mysterious doorways and shafts of sunlight, and house facades with interesting windows, and so on, I found myself in a children's playground (Piazzale Carducci) overlooking the spectacular view, still scanning for my subject. 

There it was, definitely - the buildings perched on the edge, the fallen-away cliff, the trees rooted in scree, and the far-away hills. This little watercolor sketch needs a few things, but I like it best of the ones I did. 

5"x7" -- it's not easy getting the whole world down into such a tiny space! There's a level of frustration in trying, too. Besides, children were running around noisily, English-speaking parents were yelling, and I was slowly turning into an icicle, so I finally packed up. 

I found a sunny bollard to sit on where I could paint a century plant in front of someone's doorway. That was OK, and I got a little warmer, but a century plant doesn't say 'Orvieto.' Happily, then it was lunch time, the time we all look forward to in Italy, 2 pm.

The restaurant warmed us up, and we recommend it to anyone going to Orvieto, the Trattoria del Moro Aronne. Olivia had a particularly beautiful meal, pasta rolled around spinach and ricotta:





Over lunch I got to hear what the others had been doing. Julianne, a ceramist in an earlier life, had searched out the Museo Archaeologica Nazionale. 

People have been making pottery in Orvieto since before the Etruscans arrived. In the museum she found what she thinks of as real pottery, honest, functional, simple, well-designed. Here are two pictures, one of a range of Etruscan pots found in burials, and one a fragment of a pre-Etruscan pot, just the handle, which she praises as beautifully designed.




Olivia had walked all around the town, and bought some majolica plates that were so well wrapped we didn't see them, so taped and ready for packing they were. She was able to tell me the building in my painting was the Church of San Giovenale. Now the closest I can get to information about San Giovenale is a Wiki article about St. Juvenal of Narnia, and that's not too close, or it's right on the mark, I don't know which.

After lunch I took a tourist-type picture of the cathedral, a huge landmark in a small town. A bit of history: Begun 1290 and finished in 1451 or so. The cathedral marks the town's importance at that time, when Thomas Aquinas taught in the local seminary and popes used the town as a retreat from danger. 



Note its stripey sides of two stones, tufa and basalt. It's got some interesting details:


Bronze door, detail, by Emilio Greco, 1970

Far end of the facade, Creation story, I decided

A wealthy place, to include such details!

And, a couple shots of the town, which is rather stark and full of interesting shapes and angles. Merchants put out lots of colorful flowers, lights, potted plants, and wares to brighten the place up. 


Orvieto is almost all plain or plastered stone with beautiful and odd details


Can we have some good cheer? The economy of Orvieto is tourist-directed,
and the district also produces a very nice white wine, also red.

So that was our day in Orvieto, cut a bit short by the cold, but warmed considerably by the wine. We came back on a crowded train to a milder climate and, though happy that we went, we were just as happy when we got home.

by Nancy, photos by Nancy except the ceramics photos by Julianne