Celebrating Your Inner Italian
By Walter Sanders
At first I balked at paying 5 Euro for a ticket to see what … a marionette museum? But Sharon said, “We have to experience this. UNESCO lists the Sicilian puppet theater on its Intangible Heritage site.”
Now I think that the ticket is a bargain.
Located in the ancient Moorish La Kalsa district of Palermo, the Museum is housed on a narrow side street between Piazza Marina and Via Butera. If you miss the modest signage, you may very well miss the museum.
By Walter Sanders
Sardinia tour guide Paola Loi connected us with the mayor of Milis Sergio Vacca.
In 2018, when Sharon was studying Italian in Bergamo, and I caught up with her in Cremona, we met up with old pals James Martin and Martha Bakerjian.
These renowned Italy bloggers split their time between northern California and a small town in the wild and wooly Lunigiana section of Tuscany near Massa Carrarra.
The pair met in the mid-1980s when they both worked on an archeological dig in Sardinia. They share an avid interest in Italy and blog at Martha’s Italy, Wandering Sardinia, and Wandering Italy
Over lunch we decided to meet again in 2019 to explore Sardinia together. In April, 2019 we boarded a Corsica Ferries boat in Livorno for an overnight crossing to Porto Aranci in Sardinia. [Read more…]
The banks of the Temo River in Bosa, Sardinia. The Malaspina Castle is on the hill (above left).
Driving south from Alghero on the northwest coast of Sardinia, it’s a scenic hour-long drive south to the ancient town of Bosa. On a fine sunny April morning, with tapestries of wildflowers cascading down the mountains to the Mediterranean Sea, you might think you were in Paradise.
The old town of Bosa has two water outlets: the sea port and the Temo River which is said to be the only navigable river on the island.
“Nel caso di Lucca ci si fierisce quasi sempre, anzi sempre, alla citta definita dall’ambito delle Mura. Perche di essa apprezziao non solo la forma, gli aspetti storici e urbanistici, l’esistenza di monumenti, di beni ed eventi culturali, ma anche la presenza di negozi, di attivita varie, commerciali, degli uffic pubblici e privati; della gente che va e che viene.”
“In the case of Lucca we almost always, indeed always, get to the city defined by the area of the Walls. Because of this it appreciates not only the shape, the historical and urbanistic aspects, the existence of monuments, cultural assets and events, but also the presence of shops, various commercial activities, public and private offices; of the people who come and go.
–Gilberto Bedini, renowned Lucchese architect and urban planner
By Sharon Sanders
Today I am one of the people who come to Lucca and after some days, I’ll depart from Lucca. But the walls encircling the ancient city will remain.
The first defensive walls were built by the Romans. Then came a medieval rendition. The current iteration to protect the city from invaders began construction in the early 1500s and took about a century and a half to complete.
By Walter Sanders
They Say Genova. We Say Genoa.
Piazza Caricamento fronts the Porto Antico.
My previous experience in Genoa was in the airport in 1999 to attend a Financial Services Congresso (Conference) in nearby Portofino.
I recall the view from the car window upon leaving the airport as uninspiring: a mixed bag of grungy industrial sites, grim housing, busy highways.
So, upon an 8:15 a.m. arrival at Genoa’s Porto Principe railroad station to meet our guide Filippo Zamparelli [fzampare@fastwebnet.it] for a walking tour of the city, I am a blank canvas.
Filippo (right) captained our little group through the old port of Genoa.
Filippo is a delight. Bookish, fine command of English, a sharp sense of humor, a deep and abiding interest in history (his major field of study at the University of Genova) and a lifelong resident of the city.
We get to know each other informally over a caffé. He loves history of all types … including US history. Turns out that he follows the Chicago Cubs who until 2016, share a lovable losing history akin to the Genoa soccer club, which Filippo also closely follows.
From the get-go of the tour, Filippo emphasizes how the city is changing itself. Long a port of global importance, and a major industrial city of Italy, Genoa found itself falling behind other port and industrial cities. The competition was killing the city and it was unable or unwilling to react.
Journalist David Chim Seymour captured this poignant image of two young girls who could be Elena and Lina in Naples 1948.
As fate would have it, I finished The Story of the Lost Child on a recent stay in Naples.
The last pages resonated with me as I don’t believe they could have anywhere else.
The Story of the Lost Child, is the final book in the Neapolitan quartet by Elena Ferrante. The protagonists are Elena Greco (also called Lenuccia or Lenù) and Raffaella Cerullo (also called Lina or Lila).Elena and Lila were born into a shattered world in August 1944–in a dismal neighborhood in a neglected city that had endured massive bombing during World War II.
In the narrative, the girls grow into women and then into old women. Their personas are inseparable even when they are physically apart. For those who have read the novels, nothing I could write would enhance your experience of them. For those who have not read the novels, I can say: If you read the Neapolitan novels you will enter a world you will never forget.
Fans are anticipating the November 2016 release of Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey, a nonfiction collection of the author’s writings, to glean insights into the life and work of the fiercely anonymous novelist.
Ferrante elaborated on the word frantumaglia in a May 2016 interview with Nicola Lagioia published in The New Yorker:
“We are, as you say, interconnected. And we should teach ourselves to look deeply at this interconnection—I call it a tangle, or, rather, frantumaglia—to give ourselves adequate tools to describe it. In the most absolute tranquility or in the midst of tumultuous events, in safety or danger, in innocence or corruption, we are a crowd of others. And this crowd is certainly a blessing for literature.”
She mentioned the word also in a Paris Review interview conducted by Europa publishers. “My mother liked to use the word frantumaglia—bits and pieces of uncertain origin which rattle around in your head, not always comfortably.”
While Ferrante would no doubt disapprove, journalists and travel writers are descending upon Naples sleuthing for locations to pin to the narrative. Here are a few interesting reads: The New York Times, NPR, The Irish Times.
I myself followed Ferrante’s footsteps to Piazza dei Martiri in the chic Chiaia shopping district. In the books, this piazza represents a place of aspiration, but never quite assimilation, for some of the characters.
Along the lungomare on a Sunday twilight, I spotted two teens who could be Elena and Lina in 2016. I wondered how different, or maybe in some ways similar, their lives are compared to the Neapolitan novels.