Week 5 – Reportage 3

Buying groceries in Spoleto starts with choosing a buggy.  Wire buggies are few and far between.  Plastic baskets with handles or just small baskets are the most available.  The handle has a tendency to fall back down every time one lets go to examine a possible purchase.  Eggs are kept at the end of the aisle, unrefrigerated, sold in half-dozens.  They are very large eggs with bright orange yolks and are very good boiled.  Olives come fresh, un-pickled, in a variety of sizes and containers.  The potato chips taste better for some reason; I surmise it is the lack of preservatives.  The vegetables are organic, no paying extra for healthier veggies.  Everything is fresh and local.  Name brands are sparse; the store weighs it and places their sticker on it.  The bacon is in clear plastic with the same price label.  There is a whole row of wine with some liqueurs at the end of the shelves.  When it’s checkout time, you purchase plastic bags estimating how many you will need.  Many shoppers bring canvas bags or those light weight mesh bags that can be used over and over again.   There seems to be an emphasis on recycling and reusing that is very wide spread, at least in Spoleto. 

Week 5 – Image 4

Emmanuelle came up behind me on our last night at Bar Duella and put her arms around me.  I grabbed her arms and held on with a life grip.  Leaving our home away from home was bittersweet at best.  I leaned my head into hers and said, “thank you so much.   I don’t know if I can leave you.”a

Week 5 – Image 3

Dancing with Jenna, Megan, Sydney, Mackenzie, Taylor and Shaunna, at Café Artisti on the last Saturday night in Spoleto made me homesick for my dancing buddies in Maryland.  American pop blaring through the speakers thrummed its beat into my body.  Bouncing and swaying I wished my knees would let me dance like nobody’s watching.  No sleep tonight, might as well dance.

Week 5 – Image 2

American pop music alternates with Classic Rock at Café Artisti.  The steep trek up from the hotel takes my breath for a moment.  Loud drunken roars tinge the music.  Saturday night out the same in every language.  People being people meeting, greeting and sharing release, dancing to familiar beats. 

Week 5 – Image 1

Vincenzo’s with Umbrian blanco on a Saturday night is a perfect place to people watch.  Groups and couples pass by dressed up like Sunday morning.  A bride and groom pass by, he lending his jacket to warm her shoulders from the fresh, cool breeze.  Families, children swarming around their ankles, lick gelato in waffle cones.  Couples walk hand in hand leaning into each other in private conversation.  Suits in all shapes and sizes strut with confidence up the steep concrete sidewalks littered with cobblestones.  Waves of banter and laughter flow past my chair as I savor one last evening in Spoleto.  The need to remember the warm glow of the wine, the air cooling my neck, the rapid fire Italian sing songing around me brings a tear to wash the images stored in my psyche, blending beautiful vistas with loving smiles that will be with me forever.

Week 5 – Reportage 2

 

Sets of three elements spire skyward supporting mosaics of Mary, baby Jesus and saints haloed in the afternoon sun.  Bleachers assembled for the celebration of the miracle that occurred in 1263.   A priest who was unsure of the truth about the host turning into the body of Christ, found his Host to be bleeding so profusely that it stained the altar cloth and his vestments.  The Cathedral of Orvieto is the suitable home for the Corporal of Bolsena and is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary.  It took three centuries to complete construction.  Starting in the late 1200’s, the original design was Romanesque like the cathedral in Florence, but later was formed into Siennese Gothic.  Reliefs on the left bottom depict the Book of Genesis and work through the Old and New Testaments ending with The Last Judgment of Revelations on the right.  A rose window holds center stage on the front façade.  In the mid to late 1300’s, statues of twelve apostles stand in niches above the rose.  The frame surrounding the rose with the head of Jesus Christ in the center, holds 52 carved heads.  The sides of the church are horizontal stripes of white travertine and blue-grey basalt stone.  Cruciform construction overall, the cathedral is a majestic work of art.  Gothic sculptures, colorful mosaics, and bass relief are all combined with spires pointing heavenward.

Week 5 – Reportage

 

The road to Orvieto is called Sagrantino Road after the wonderful red wine produced only here in Umbria.  Vineyards and olive groves compete for sunshine.  Sage points hide bulbs of green that grow on trees pruned like apple trees to stay low to the ground.  Farms stack rectangles of hay in pyramids to dry.  Buildings with vulnerable roofs held down by strategically placed rocks house animals and equipment. The villas, attached to the hillside, overlook the rows of grapes growing up the beautiful rolling hills.  As we travel higher, the view changes to water ways, a lake formed by a dam with winding roads covered in arched tunnels.  The water, the color of my coffee is high and muddy, kept in check by large cement retaining walls.  Higher still, fog mists the green mountain tops erasing details and occasional houses close to the road surprise me awake.  I’m grateful to not miss the stunning vistas yet my head bobs longing for sleep only to be bashed against the window each time the road, filled with potholes, turns back on itself.  In the melting fog, the city of Orvieto hangs on the side of the mountaintop, a cliff growing out and up with a massive system of tunnels underneath in which olive oil was processed and water wells dug deep into the volcanic remains.  Continually reinforced, the cliffs of Orvieto protect its citizens from rivals on their way to or from Rome.  In WWII the wounded had quick access to hospitals through the underground passages.  The cathedral built at the height of the Gothic period is another story entirely.