Southern Italy, July 2008. ~mike gradziel. to the index page Hover captions are here! The rest of the story is coming ...eventually. Click photos for enlargements.
Dawn came over northern Canada but the windows were shut and my luxurious business-class seat (thanks, frequent flyer miles!) was a comfortable bed courtesy of the half-dozen electric motors and drive mechanisms that Lufthansa installed complete with a controller sporting as many buttons as a television remote. Rested, I awoke over Germany where the late afternoon sun cast a warm glow over rolling green hills and neat canals. For some reason I couldn't help but imagine I was on a bombing run in a WWII airplane. This notion persisted as I gazed down on the serene landscape and munched elegant plates of food brought by attentive waitstaff.. my first venture into mainland Europe was informed mainly by history studies. In Munich people were drinking beer and eating sausages and potatoes - for breakfast? No, it was evening - and a new plane was about to whisk Joy and me over the alps, away from peaceful green country and into parched dry Italian chaos. Our taxi in Naples raced through red lights and passed passing cars and careened down an alley in reverse. Our room was bare and poor. We fled south at first light, going by train to a seaside paradise complete with an old stone castle and bright turquoise water; next we arrived in the southernmost part of Italy to celebrate the marriage of friends Ivan and Domenica in the fine Italian tradition of a nice ceremony in a church by the sea, followed by an extravagant dinner lasting five hours through countless courses of food no person could eat complete. Across the straits in Sicily, lava poured from Mount Etna glowing red in the night like a distant forest fire. Our travels then took us into rural hill towns little changed since medieval architects laid out narrow streets two donkeys wide. Olive trees blanketed the hills and restaurants and shops were few. Wonderful aromas of cooking food tempted us through open windows; tomatoes and peppers straight from the tilled land were being prepared just out of our reach. Days later while drowning in the commerce of Italy's popular Amalfi Coast I longed for an empty mountain hamlet. The beaches were nice, though, and in Pompeii I learned from the 2000 year old ruins how I should build my domed brick oven when some day I have a back yard of my own. My favorite pizza in Naples was basically a tomato-sauce topping covered with a caprese salad after baking. Back home after two weeks, I'm craving rice but anxious to try out some new pasta sauces when the rice phase passes. to the index page