On Thursday we were picked up by Maretta and driven up into the Apennine mountain range that runs down the middle of the country.  This is her favorite area of the country and much of her research comes from here. 

We left Rome on one of the main highways (Autostrade) and headed east.  The views were beautiful, with small towns sitting on the tops and sides of huge hills.  Most of the buildings were painted white or light colors and would sparkle when the sun hit them.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get photos easily because we were traveling at 70+ miles per hour, but they were beautiful.

As we moved further east, the mountains became more rugged and exciting.

We entered the National Park of Abrezza and spent the rest of the day inside the park area.  Our first stop was to the town where Maretta’s father was from…..I think that it was called Pescaciroli.  We enjoyed driving thru the small town and ended up at the top of a hill where there were beautiful vistas…

Directly behind us was the local cemetery and Maretta had brought flowers to place at her Mother and Father’s grave so we entered to wait for her.  The cemetery was very different from any at home.  It was filled with all types of crypts, sepulchers and graves. Each had a photo of the person who was buried there and many of them had lit candles and fresh flowers placed on the graves.  It was a quite and quaint place…..

] We next drove into a campground area that was mostly deserted since it is no longer vacation time in Italy.  We walked for about 1.5 miles down a blacktop road, enjoying the beautiful mountains and other scenery….

 

There was a small stream running parallel to the road…..

Once we crossed the stream, we climbed up a path that was strewn with gnarled roots and rocks…..

We came to a small waterfall and then hiked a bit further until we came to another larger fall….

We enjoyed the walk back down to the car park.  Here I am with Maretta…

We drove to the town of Villa Barrea where we had another of their  “light” lunches at a wonderful cafe.  Michael and I each ordered a pasta, planning for that to be our entire meal, but unknown to us, Maretta added a few other items to the meal.  So, the first thing to arrive was Bruschetta , 3 slices of bread covered with herbed tomatoes and 3 slices covered with a fresh Ricotta cheese….we are talking REALLY fresh….like made that morning!!!!   It was so light and creamy.

The first course was pasta….Michael had Ravioli filled with Mozzarella and spinach.  Differently from our version, it did not have a heavy sauce on it, but was simply drizzled with a light olive oil and garnished with sage leaves. 

My first course was Gnocchi (pronounced “Yonkee”) which are a potato based pasta.  This one had a very light meat sauce on it.  They were very dense in texture, but light in taste.

Maretta had two first courses….the first was a flat pasta with chopped Truffles and the second was a tomato sauce with basil.

Then came another surprise……Maretta had ordered a lamb main course for us.  Now, lamb is not a favorite of mine, but this was so mild and tender and was wonderful.  It was cut into tiny, tiny cubes and put onto skewers and then grilled.  It was excellent.

Final course was coffee, tea and cookies.  One was a cake type cookie that had a fig filling.  The other was a very light almond based cookie.  Maretta called these “Good and ugly” cookies, so named because they are ugly (dropped dough rather than something formed) and the are so GOOD!!!!

Our next stop of the day was to the town of “Civizella de Alfedna” which is a wonderful lake town up in the mountains.  The lake was formed many years ago to provide electric power to the town and apparently you can sometimes see the old church bell tower in the middle of the lake.   It was a beautiful area…..

  

We finally returned to the original town that we started from and walked around a local botanical area.  There were some beautiful plants and trees and even a small zoo….

This small church was in the middle of the town square…..

The final stop was to the church where Maretta was  baptized.  The church was dominated by a statue of a Black Madonna.  Apparently women from Africa were brought to this area and this particular one did various miracles that brought her to sainthood.  It was a great day and a wonderful opportunity to see a part of Italy that I didn’t know existed!!!!

On Wednesday morning I went out to the airport to pick up Roy and Diane as they arrived from the US.  Michael was giving another talk at the University that morning so he couldn’t go with me.

As I said in an earlier post, I think that 6:00 am is the only time that the city of Rome sleeps….well not really sleeps….more like naps!!   There were few people on the street and I was amazed to arrive at the Metro platform to see that it was completely empty…..

The reverie didn’t last long as three people walked in right after I took the shot.

Roy and Diane arrived looking fresh and ready to see Rome…..

We spent the day doing the usual “arrived on Rome” schedule….walking to the Trevi Fountain, continuing to the Pantheon and another close church and then wandering back to the apartment.

Later in the afternoon we all (Michael included) walked up to Trajan’s forum and enjoyed the views….

I love how the new buildings mix so well with the old ruins!!!!

We went into the church that is just by Trajan’s Column, expecting it to be yet  another huge church.  Instead, we found a lovely, small chapel…..

 

I love to look in the very tops of the Cupolas and see what has been painted there.  In this case, there were angels looking down at us…..

We are glad that Roy and Diane have arrived as it has helped to energize us again. It is good to see the city thru their new eyes!!!

The past few days have been fairly quiet and we are realizing that we have finally hit the wall….you can only go SO many days without rest!!!

Anyway, on Monday morning, I decided to walk to the Modern Arts Museum which is about 1.5 miles away.  I started out walking down the Via Venito…one of the more expensive streets in town.  I knew that I was out of my league when I came across the Versace and Mont Blanc store and passed all of the fancy hotels with the doormen.  Also, the street cafes are completely enclosed in glass….no auto fumes with their wine!!! 

As I approached the  Museum I could see that the doors were closed which is NOT a good sign.  Sure enough, it was closed on Monday so my walk had been in vain.  Instead I wandered (you cant go anywhere in a straight line)  around the Borghese Park, seeing a couple of interesting sculptures on the way…..

 

I dropped down into the Piazza del Popolo……

which is dominated by the church, Santa Maria del Popolo. 

The church was similar to others, but this one had two impressive Carvaggio paintings.  The first was “The Crucifixion of St. Peter”…..

and “The Conversion on the Way to Damascus”…..

Both of these were on side walls in a small  chapel and were  very hard to see.

I left the church and continued to wander, ending up on the other side of the Arno River.  This area was mostly government buildings so I saw a LOT of taxis and men in suits, however, I did see a couple of fun things.  First of all is this wonderful doorstop…..

and the second was this very exciting bead shop…..

The shop keeper was very disappointed that I didn’t want him to use my beads to make a necklace.  I could never get the point across that I was going to use them for embellishments on fiber art projects!!!

I ended the day at Piazza Navona, spending about 30 minutes just sitting and watching people.  It was interesting to watch the hawkers selling their products, the people walking around eating gelato, others jockeying for a position to take a  photo of the fountain and the potential pick-pockets circling the edge of the plaza looking for targets!!

I like the fountain, but especially this horse…..

On Tuesday morning I did make the trip to the Museum of Modern Art of Rome.  As I entered I wondered exactly WHAT constituted modern art and was pleased to find that they had a wide variety of art. 

I especially enjoyed the large open rooms with little adornment….I have had TOO much glitz lately!!!  My favorite room was one with monochromatic paintings and mixed media projects.  In particular there was a cross done by Alberto Burri that I really liked.  The entire piece was black metal, with the cross image burnished on the metal…..it was very striking.    Another was several layers of thick plastic sheeting with splotches of paint on them.  The dimension that was created was amazing.

Many of the sculptures were more modern.  My favorite was a black marble man who was sitting on a marble slab and chiseling words on it.   The sculptures were of everyday things, one with a Boy holding a sandwich with a dog trying to jump up and get it.

There was one area that was designed for Blind and/or  Deaf persons.  It had the painting on the wall, but had a relief drawing of the same painting and a video of someone doing sign language telling about the painting.  It was a great idea!!

My favorite abstracts were done by Giacomo Balla.  The gallery also had  2 VanGogh paintings, both portraits,  one Degas and one Cezanne.  The one Monet painting looked like an enlargement of one of his lily paintings.

The afternoons of both days were spent relaxing at the apartment and working on my underwater embroidery scene.  I have now added a jelly fish and am planning to add a few more…..

I also decided that I needed some small fish and didn’t have any fabric to cut them out of, so I took my “Inktense” water color pencils and drew lines on some PFD fabric.  I brushed it with a bit of water and then cut the fish out.  I am fairly pleased with the result!!

On Saturday and Sunday, Michael wasn’t feeling very well, so we took it fairly easy.  On Saturday morning we took the Metro to St. Peters Basilica again because Michael really wanted to climb to the top of the cupola. 

His biggest remembrance of this when we were here before were the slanting walls, so we had to get a photo there….

 

That is about all he had energy to do, so we took a quick swing thru the church and then started to head  back home again.   Instead we decided to find a coffee shop and have a bite to eat.  We were SO excited to find the exact same place that we ate with the kids back in 1998 AND we had the exact same HUGE donuts….

I emailed Jenny and asked if she remember them and her answer “ Of course I remember them.  I’m pretty sure they were my favorite part of Italy at the age of 10. Haha.”

Later that afternoon we ventured out to the Spanish Steps.  As before, they were covered with people…..

We hurried back to the apartment as it started to rain.  The rest of the day was spent relaxing with a quick jaunt down to our local restaurant for take out pizza…..gotta love being able to walk 20 feet out your door and pick up fresh pizza!!!!!

On Sunday Michael still wasn’t feeling well,so to get out of the apartment for a bit, I visited the National Museum of Rome.  It is a great museum that basically chronicles the rise and fall of Rome.  There are not many paintings but mostly statues.  Apparently, you were not supposed to use a flash, but I didn’t see a sign indicating that until I was over half way thru the museum so I ended up with some decent photos.

These were my favorites…..

This is “The Boxer” and was made with a wax form process.  His eye sockets would have originally held balls of ivory or glass.  There was a photo on the wall of the excavation process of this piece.  It looked like it was just a man sitting on a pile of rocks.

This is the classic “Discus Thrower” and is a copy of one of the original Greek statues. 

I was quite take with this woman….especially her hair. 

This was a HUGE display of Roman coins from the beginning to the present.   There were probably 40 cases like this one.  In itself the display was fairly boring, however each case had a lighted magnifying glass that you could move over the coin to be able to see it better.

These last two shots were displays of things found in some of the digs.  These are just typical things found around the Roman home…..

In the afternoon, Michael and I took a short walk to see the church of Santa Maria Degli Angeli.  It was a pretty church….

that was built on the ruins of a Roman bath.  The original design was done by  Michelangelo and he used the bases from the bath columns as the bases for the church columns.  

The church had an (unknown to us) connection with Galileo and there were numerous posters and other information about him posted through out the church.  There was a Meridian laid down the middle of the church floor and a tiny hole in one of the walls.  As the sun shines in the hole each day at noon, it shines on the floor indicating the time of year.  I would love to visit there at the correct time, but dont know exactly how to factor daylight savings in!!

I LOVED the statue of this angel….I figure that is how I will look when I get my wings…..

 

While returning to our apartment, we passed this church which is the inspiration for the title of my quilt “Bells, Baths and Bidets”.   For the complete story, click here.

Last week the Director of the Department at the University came in and asked Michael if we would like tickets to the opening of a new art gallery.  There were actually 3 venues for the evening, with the first being at the Palazzo  Barberini which happened to be about 100 yards from our apartment.    Michael said “yes” and was handed two large envelopes each bearing beautiful invitations to attend the opening. 

SO, we dressed up in our finest and walked down the street to the Palazzo.  As we walked, I said “wow….there seem to be a lot of people there”.  As we approached the gate we realized that comment was a HUGE understatement.  There were hundreds…..even thousands of people standing at the fence, crowding the sidewalks and standing in the street……  

We thought….”OK…if all of these people have been invited as well, then maybe this isn’t such a big deal to be invited to.”   As we walked toward the crowd and the gate, a guard saw our tickets and ushered us straight thru the gate.  We felt REALLY important!!!!

When we arrived in the courtyard there was another line of people and we dutifully joined at the end.   After a few minutes, we realized that some people were skipping the line and going straight into the building so we flashed our tickets and once again were ushered into the building.   The guard actually said….”You are late!”…..what did we know!!!!

When we got into the building we were able to observe beautiful art by the most famous of Italy’s painters and sculptors.  The show piece was by Raffello Sanzio and was called “La Fornaria”…..

It was displayed in a HUGE room and was the only piece in the room.

We saw people in suits in another room drinking champagne and we figure that we were supposed to be there, but didn’t know exactly how to get there and didn’t have ANY instructions in English, so we simply enjoyed the art.

As we were leaving the gallery, there were dancers performing in the courtyard….

So, after we returned to the apartment, we decided to do some research and see if we could find out EXACTLY what we just attended.  We found out that tonight is “La Notte Bianca a Roma” or “White Night” in Rome.  On this night, all of the attractions and museums are open until dawn, with concerts and events happening in many of the piazzas. 

Unfortunately, Michael is still sick with his cold and has to give one of his seminars in the morning, so we are going to skip the festivities, but we will never forget our night of being treated like Italian royalty.