Rome - Capitoline and Pamphili Museums

Weather wise, today was a miserable day! We decided to try to stay inside as much as possible and see some museums we had never visited before: the Capitoline Hill museums and the Doria Pamphili Gallery. We borrowed an umbrella from our host and set off across the Tiber early this morning. Our first stop was the Capitoline Hill museums, containing artifacts from ancient Rome: the bronze statue of the nursing she-wolf, symbol of Rome; fragments from a huge statue of Constantine; a gilded bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, etc. From there, we walked to the Doria Pamphili Gallery, which was the private home of the Doria Pamphili family, descendents of Pope Innocent X. While viewing all the beautiful paintings this family acquired (most of them during Pope Innocent's reign), one wonders how a priest of the church (who took vows of poverty) accumulated all this personal wealth.

After our museum tour, we had lunch at a small, typical Roman restaurant and then braved the weather again in the hopes of doing some shopping. All we did was get wetter and wetter as we tried to maneuver the narrow Roman sidewalks with thousands of other umbrella-clad people. Rich refused to use the umbrella's shelter, claiming that I was going to poke out his eye (honestly!!) and, in the process, got thoroughly wet. We finally decided to give it up and walked back to our hotel, keeping to the path along the tree-lined Tiber to escape the rain and the crowds. By the time we reached our destination we were both soaked through to the skin. Let's hope the weather tomorrow is a little better, as it will be our last day in Rome. Hope your Halloween was drier than ours.

Fragments from the Statue of Constantine

View of the Roman Forum

Rome - Vatican City

We woke this morning to such clear blue skies it's hard to believe we had such a downpour yesterday. Hope the weather holds for the next few days at least.

We caught an early morning train to Salerno and from there took an express train to Rome. I never realized how fast these trains really are. At one point, we were going 180 miles/hour. The trip was uneventful (although I'm glad this is the last time we have to schlep bags on/off trains and up/down stairs) and we arrived at our bed & breakfast @ 11:30. We're staying in the Trastevere neighborhood, which is on the Vatican side of the Tiber, so we decided to visit the Vatican museum and St. Peter's Basilica this afternoon. We've been to the museum on two previous trips, but this was the busiest it's ever been. It was exasperating trying to maneuver around all the tour groups. Two and a half hours later we exited the Sistine Chapel (as awe-inspiring as ever) into St. Peter's Square and made our way into the basilica, which wasn't near as crowded as the museum.

By the time we exited the church it was almost 6:00 PM (quite dark already as Italy changed to standard time last weekend) and we were able to get the following nighttime pictures of St. Peter's.

 



From St. Peter's we took the metro to the Spanish Steps and then wandered from there to the Trevi Fountain and back across the Tiber to our hotel. Rich's Garmin clocked 6 miles, but I'm guessing that doesn't include our time in the museum. By the time we got back to our hotel at 9:00, our feet and backs were tired and it felt so good to kick back and relax.

Salerno

Well, today was an interesting day; not what we had planned and not one I would care to repeat any time soon. As we left Cava de Tirreni this morning to drop our car off in Salerno, it was raining on and off, but was nothing to a couple of Portlanders used to rain. We did borrow an umbrella from the hotel and planned to stick to our original plan to do some sightseeing and shopping in Salerno followed by a visit to the Greek ruins in Paestum. If we had to do a little sightseeing in the rain, so be it. By the time we got to Salerno, it was raining heavily but, intrepid travelers that we are, we set off to see the city and the old town. We wandered through the old town a bit, but there weren't that many sights to see so we decided to make our way back to the train station and head to Paestum. Also, a majority of the shops were still closed, either because of the rain or because it was a holiday or because this is Italy and no one keeps to a set schedule.

When we tried to buy our train ticket to Paestum, we were told there was a strike and the ruins weren't open (this was the main reason we had decided to stay in the Salerno area, so we were a bit disappointed). Again, intrepid travellers that we are, we decided to head up the Amalfi coast to see the town of Ravello and perhaps visit Amalfi/Positano again. Well, to get to Ravello we had to first go to Amalfi and transfer buses. We stopped in Amalfi for some lunch and to do a little shopping. By the time we decided to head to Ravello, we were in the middle of a MAJOR downpour. We stood out in the rain for more than 30 minutes waiting for our bus, trying to stay somewhat dry under our borrowed umbrella (by this time we had scrapped the idea of visiting Ravello and just wanted to head back to the hotel and some dry clothes).

To make a long story short, our bus finally came, but broke down along the way so we had to wait for a second bus. By the time we got back to Salerno, it was @ 4:00 and we wanted to catch a 4:07 train to Cava de Tirreni. We got out to the track, but the train that was there wasn't going anywhere and no one knew where the 4:07 train was (again, you gotta love Italy!). One minute it was on the schedule on track 3T, the next it was gone with no indication that it had been cancelled or anything. The next train wasn't for another hour, so we bagged it and took a taxi back to the hotel. Needless to say, we didn't take a lot of pictures today, but here's a few (most from the window of the bus).

Hope you're all having better weather than we are here!

Cava de Tirreni

Today was another travel as we made our way from Matera to the town of Cava de Tirreni, about 5 miles west of Salerno. The day started out rainy and cold in Matera and continued that way during our entire drive. We arrived in Cava de Tirreni at @ 1:00 PM, checked into our hotel, left the car in the parking lot and set out to explore the town and have some lunch. By this time the rain had stopped, but the day was still quite cold. The weather has definitely turned and my short sleeved shirts and capris aren't going to cut it any longer. Everyone here is wearing wool coats, sweaters, scarves, skinny jeans and boots. I did finally break down and buy a pair of long pants, but it's not going to be enough. Hopefully, we'll have time to do some shopping tomorrow in Salerno. Thank goodness I bought a warm Patagonia jacket before we left Portland and Rich brought his fleece vest. They're the only things that are keeping us halfway warm.

We didn't do much sightseeing today, but here are a few pictures from our wanders this evening. Tomorrow we're off to the Greek ruins in Paestum and shopping in Salerno.

Matera

After breakfast this morning we set off, bags in tow, for the car rental agency so we could get an early start to Matera, a 2.5 - 3 hour drive away. The weather report had been predicting rain and the clouds were threatening, but we didn't hit the deluge until Taranto, about 2/3 of the way to Matera. To add insult to injury, there was a lot of road construction and detours and we somehow found ourselves going around in circles, as if Taranto was that infamous Boston MTA train in the Kingston Trio song... we wondered if we would "ever return". We finally did figure our way out of the maze and as soon as we left Taranto, the rains stopped. From there it was smooth sailing to Matera.

Matera is an incredibly unique city filled with sassi, cave and stone houses built into the side of a ravine. These homes have been inhabited since the Paleolithic age and, until the early 1950's had no running water or bathroom facilities, so the sanitary conditions were abominable. Italy passed a law in 1952 condemning the sassi as unsanitary and forcibly moved its inhabitants to government built housing outside of town.

We toured one of the sassi districts and viewed underground churches, cisternas (cisterns for holding water), cantinas (wine cellars), and a refurbished cave dwelling depicting what life was like living in a sassi. Typically, a sassi housed a family unit with 6-7 children all living in a small 4 room cave: the kitchen/children's bedroom area, the parent's bedroom/eating area, the stable for the animals, and the wine cellar/food storage area. The pictures below don't do the area justice, but will give you an idea of what the sassi looks like.

Panoramic view of the Sassi

Altar fresco in one of the underground churches

Kitchen cooking area

 

Stairs up from the wine/food cellar

Stable  area (parents' bed at top of stairs)

Lecce

This morning we shuttled from our masseria in Otranto to Lecce, considered by some to be the most beautiful city in Italy and by others to be grotesquely ugly. I'll let you draw your own conclusions once you see the pictures below. Although our bike tour is over and we're sad to leave some of the new friends we've made, we're excited to visit other areas of Italy we've never seen and to revisit some of our favorite places in Rome.

We narrowly avoided disaster this morning, however! As we were getting ready to board the bus for Lecce, I happened to check outside our room (where we had left our luggage for pickup) and noticed that the hotel staff hadn't brought our luggage to the bus! I would not have been happy if we had reached Lecce and discovered we were without our luggage.

We spent the afternoon and evening wandering through Lecce's baroque "old town". There seems to be a church on every street corner, and a highly decorated one at that as you can see from the pictures below.

Campanile (Belltower) in the Piazza del Duomo

Basilica di Santa Croce, the most famous example of Lecce's baroque style

Another view of Santa Croce, a little over the top for my tastes

Sant'Oronzo, Lecce's patron saint

Tomorrow we're off to Matera, where the majority of inhabitants lived in one-room caves until the mid-1950's. It's now a Unesco world heritage site. Wish us safe travels as we venture out onto Italy's highways again.

Puglia Bike Tour - Otranto to the Tip of the Boot

Today was the most beautiful ride yet as we rode along the coast to the southern tip of  Italy's heel. It was a little warmer than it has been and our route took us up hills and then down into small coastal towns, then back up hills again, and so the day went. This wasn't a flat ride, but the hills weren't "rollers" either with their fairly short ups and downs. Instead, these were realtively long hill climbs and descents, the shortest being a mile, the longest closer to 3 miles. Our legs were tired by the time we got to the tip of the boot, although we had only ridden 30 miles. We had lunch in the small town of Santa Maria di Leuca; Rich had Spaghetti alla Vongole (with clams) while I had a Caprese Salad (the tomatoes and fresh mozzarella taste so good here, I'm having a hard time resisting). After lunch, the majority of our group shuttled back to our hotel. Only two brave souls decided to bike back in the afternoon heat.

Tonight is our last meal together as a group, and usually it's pretty festive. The week has flown by but, unlike many others who are flying home tomorrow, Rich and I have another week to enjoy southern Italy. Bon apetito!

Ready to go, although the jacket definitely wasn't needed

The "Tip of the Boot"

Puglia Bike Tour - Coast to Coast

Another lovely day with fantastic riding!

This morning we shuttled from our masseria, which is on Italy's eastern coast (Adriatic Sea) to the western coast (Ionian Sea) of Italy's heel and then rode our bikes back across, ending our ride today near the town of Otranto. Rich dipped his toes in both bodies of water. The route was fairly flat, which was nice because this was our longest ride yet on this trip, 50 miles, and is the longest distance Rich has ever ridden. I think he perservered only to be able to say he rode from coast to coast. I think he would have thrown in the towel around mid-afternoon if it wasn't for the lure of the Adriatic! Our route today took us mainly through olive groves and farmlands, on country roads where we didn't see a car for miles on end.

The first picture below is of Rich and Paolo, one of our guides, as they wade in the Ionian Sea and the next picture is of Rich in the Adriatic Sea. The same thing is true of the two landscape pictures: the first one is of the town of Santa Maria al Bagno on the west coast and the last picture is of Otranto on the east coast.

Puglia Bike Tour - Cisternino and Ostuni

The initial part of our ride today took us from our masseria to the small town of Cisternino, a small hilltop town. The ride itself was only 10.5 kilometers (6+ miles), of which 7 kilometers (@ 4.2 miles) was uphill, on some of the steepest grade I've ever ridden. At some points Rich clocked a 19% grade on his Garmin! After Cisternino we had some nice downhills followed by rolling hills that felt like a roller coaster ride (again, more 19% grades, but at least we had the speed from the downhill to propel us part way up the uphill). At this point, the road was so narrow that there was no way a cyclist AND a car could be on the road at the same time. On one of the "rollers" I encountered a truck wanting to come down the hill as I was riding up. He was nice enough to wait until I got almost to the top and could find a place to pull over before he started downhill (there was no room beside him at the top of the hill). I noticed as he drove down, the sides of his truck were scraping the vegetation on each side of the road. I wonder what they do when they meet a car head on???

We also rode on some VERY out of the way, potholed roads. One of our fellow riders said he saw a sign saying that the road was originally part of the Roman Via Appia or Appian Way. I don't know about that, but I do know that we saw a 4,000 year old structure called a dolmen, which looked like a miniature Stonehedge.

Lunch was in the town of Ostuni, another very pretty hilltop town and from there the rest of the ride was mostly downhill. All in all, we rode @ 38 miles today, but after those hills, it felt more like 60!

 



Dolmen of Montalbano

Puglia Bike Tour - Conversano to San Marino

Today was an absolutely perfect riding day, with temperatures hovering around 72 degrees. Our pre-lunch ride was @ 24 miles (1,350' elevation gain) through beautiful agricultural fields and olive groves. We stopped in Alberobello for lunch, a Unesco Heritage site where there are more than 1,000 trulli, unique cone-shaped homes. Our local guide, Mimmo, explained the history and the construction of the trulli, which originated in Turkey. When Turkish invaders came to the southern Italian shores, they brought this style of stone construction with them. The first homes were built without mortar, but later homes added cement and mortar to keep out bugs and insects.



Some of these olive trees are over 500 years old!
Could this be one?

Alberobello Trulli

 One of our guides, Simone, prepared a picnic lunch that we ate in the trulli home of one of the local cheesemakers, Pasquale. During our visit to his home, Pasquale showed us how mozzarella was made and even demonstrated how to make burrata mozzarella. After lunch we finished our 39 mile bike ride, with an easy, mainly flat 15 miles to Masseria San Martino, where we'll be staying for the next two nights.

Our Picnic Lunch

Pasquale making Mozzarella

Dinner tonight was at Masseria Brigantino, where we toured the grounds and learned the history of this 6th century masseria, made orrechiette pasta (sadly, Rich was much better at shaping these little "ears" than I was), and had a wonderful dinner finished off with a ricotta cake, which was amazing. I'm going to try to find a recipe and see if I can duplicate this delicious cake for Christmas.



Puglia Bike Tour - Polignano Conversano Loop

Today was the first day of our bike tour through Puglia. We met our Backroads group at the Bari train station at 11:00 this morning and, after a short shuttle ride to Masseria Torre Catena, had a wonderful lunch of bruschetta, cheeses, farro, roasted vegetables and potatoes, salad, pizza, and a number of other things that I can't recall the name of. No matter its name, it was all delicious, however! After getting fitted for our bikes and reviewing the day's route, we set out on our short afternoon ride from Torre Catena to Polignano and then on to Conversano, a total of 21.5 km (13.3 miles) of fairly flat terrain. I can tell already this countryside is going to be so much prettier than Sicily, as you can see from some of the pictures below.

Fields of Lettuce and Radichio

Entrance to Masseria Torre Catena

Polignano is a small seaside town where we stopped for a gelato (as if we were hungry after that delicious lunch!) and made a quick tour of the Old Town. From there we rode about 3.5 km along the sea to the next town, San Vito. Once we left San Vito we headed inland to Conversano. It looks like our routes for the next two days will be all inland country and then we should be riding along the seaside again.

Two Views of Polignano a Mare

Travel Day - Sorrento to Bari, October 20, 2012

Today found us once more on the road, this time in a little Ford Fiesta, as we drove from the western end of southern Italy (Sorrento) to the eastern shore (Bari). Along the way we stopped at the small seaside town of Trani to visit their picturesque cathedral and castle. It was amazing how white the stone walls of both the church and castle were, as you can see from the pictures below.

Castle of Frederick II



We got to Bari @ 4:00 PM, dropped off the car at the airport and caught the shuttle into town. After checking into the hotel, we rested for a bit and then headed out for a walk up to the old town section of Bari. Along the way, we joined what must have been 90% of Bari's population in the evening passegiata, where everyone goes to see and be seen. We also caught some nighttime glimpses of Bari's version of the ever-popular medieval castle.

 

Positano and Amalfi, October 19, 2012

We spent today traveling the Amalfi coast, from Sorrento to Positano to Amalfi back to Positano and then on to Sorrento. All in all, it was about 4 hours total in a bus traveling on one of the most narrow, winding roads you can imagine. There are times, when 2 buses meet, each going the opposite direction, that you're sure they're going to rip each other's side views mirrors off, at the very least. Fortunately, we had no such mishaps. Apart from some of the heart-in-your-throat hairpin turns and near misses with other cars/trucks/buses, this is one of the most beautiful drives in the world. The road winds around the mountain, with the sea far below and the only thing in between jagged cliffs. It's like traversing the Columbia River from the vantage point of Crown Point, only far more majestic.

                                                                View from the Bus

Other than our bus ride, we spent the majority of the day shopping in Positano, Amalfi and Sorrento. When we last visited the Amalfi Coast in 2004, Rich and I saw some painted ceramic tables that we fell in love with but, for one reason or another, didn't end up buying. This year, we decided we were going to purchase one for our outdoor patio and have it shipped home. So , that's what we spent a good part of our day doing, shlepping from shop to shop comparing designs, materials, workmanship, and pricing. We ended up buying a brightly colored yellow, blue and green table in a traditional Italian design. The saleswoman assured us it was indestructible (it's made from lava stone), but it must weigh a ton. We're going to need some strong able bodies to help us carry it to the back yard (volunteers, anyone???)

Although we don't have a picture of our new table, we did take some pictures of Positano and the Cathedral in Amalfi.