March 16, 2007 Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and is prone to showing its power from time to time. The first recorded eruption was in 425 BC and the latest was on February 27th of this year, with a dramatic and explosive display of lava. Today, it showed Mankind who really is the boss once again by venting out hot steam, chunks of rock, ice and ash while TV crews and tour groups scattered. The explosive activity occurred when hot lava hit a thick layer of snow and ice. Ten people were injured from falling ash and rock, suffering minor cuts, bruises and burns. Mount Etna had been active for the past two days, creating a visual spectacle as it spewed lava and ash into the air. A new lava flow started from the south-eastern crater on Wednesday and was advancing with a temperature above 1000 degrees Celsius in an area covered by snow. Sicily's Catania airport announced they would reduce arrivals by half to five flights an hour, due to ash clouds. If city planners have their way, this summer, the Leaning Tower of Pisa will have a new neighbor: a 150 foot tall Ferris wheel... nearly as tall as the Tower itself. The plan calls for a temporary three-month testing of the idea, placing the Ferris wheel in the tourist bus parking lot located about 1500 feet from the entrance to the Piazza dei Miracola which contains the Duomo, the Baptistry and the Tower. The tourist buses typically drop off large tour groups from cruise ships docked in the nearby port. Many visitors to Pisa never see the rest of this medieval city, and that's just the point of the Big Wheel. Passengers will get a fantastic view of the Tower complex, but also what lies beyond the city’s medieval buildings, the Arno River, the mountains and the sea. The Culture Minister, Andrea Ferrante, said that the Ferris wheel will show tourists that there’s more to Pisa than the Leaning Tower and inspire them to visit the rest of the city and perhaps spend more time--and money--there. Over two and a half million tourists visit the Piazza dei Miracoli each year, with few exploring the rest of the beautiful town. Of course, not everyone thinks this idea is a good one. Many consider the Big Wheel is going to be an eyesore on the historic cityscape and conflicts with its architectural heritage. Of course, the very successful 442 foot tall London Eye opened 15 years ago and has rotated over 32,000 miles and seen marriage proposals by 5,000 couples. It has 32 capsules, each holding 25 people during its 30 minute revolution. The 540 foot tall Singapore Flyer has 28 air-conditioned passenger capsules, each holding 28 people. The High Roller observation wheel in Las Vegas is the world’s tallest at 550ft and lit with more than 2,000 LED lights. Not everyone is supportive of the plan. The non-profit group Italia Nostra, dedicated to preserving Italy’s heritage, says the amusement park-type attraction would not blend in with the city's medieval architecture. “In the city of the Leaning Tower, a 50-meter-diameter wheel a few steps from Piazza dei Miracoli doesn’t make any sense,” said regional president Mariarita Signorini. I have a different opinion. First, I don't like the location. It's too close to the Tower, but to be honest, it's not close enough to get in any pictures taken of the Tower or any other position from the Piazza dei Miracola. It is also not that tall. In fact, I'm in favor of a much large wheel--saw 400 feet in height--that sits on the banks of the Arno and looks out over the river and both sides of the city, the Tower of Pisa toward the left with the rest of the old city laid out to the right. There is a location that could easily be developed now that contains a large sports field and several other fairly vacant plots of land. To show how it would look, I made a mock-up of the view from a 400 foot wheel in exactly that spot--with the help of Google Earth set at 400 foot elevation, with 3D buildings turned on, and a Photoshop paste of a modern, capsule type of wheel (I used the London Eye). The views would be fantastic, with the benefit of keeping the tourist buses further away from the Piazza dei Miracola. People could stroll from this location after having been oriented to Pisa from the wheel's high viewpoint... through the old city center (on either side of the Arno) and then stroll up toward the Tower as a final reward. Small tourist buses could transport people in Hop-On, Hop-Off loop around the city. In this way, visitors would get a wider appreciation of this wonderful town.
What do you all think? --Jerry Finzi From the Local, by catherine.edwards@thelocal.com
Italy on Thursday passed a law aimed at tackling poverty, with a particular focus on assisting families with young children in particular. The country’s Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti, said it was an “important day” after the Chamber of Deputies gave the bill the go-ahead. Having already received approval from the Italian Senate, the law will come into force in the next few weeks. Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni described the new law as "a step forward to help families in need". But what will it actually entail? READ MORE HERE... on their plan to take "urgent action" in tackling child poverty Today we should honor women... The photo above shows my Mom, Marie (Vetri) Finzi, holding my son when he was a toddler. It shows her joyful, funny and loving side. But, she was a tough lady... just like her mother. Her shouts threatened us into behaving. She was always harsh with Dad, but was his ultimate lifelong companion--they were married 54 years when he passed away in 2000. When I asked Dad once why he put up with all of her yelling, he just said, "What am I going to do? I love her." Yes, Dad... there was something there... Her tough demeanor would fade when little kids were around and when she knew neighbors, co-workers or the public at large were watching. She also would laugh, joke, tease and have a great time during large family dinners when all her grandchildren (18 of them) would visit during the holidays and crowd into her tiny kitchen and dining room. But she was not to be crossed. Her favorite expression was "I don't mad. I get even". She was a provider, but also a fighter... a product from her Italian immigrant family's tough life in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her father was murdered--an act of jealousy when he worked as a manager at a trash hauling company--crushed by a garbage truck. Her mother remarried for financial reasons. Her stepfather was a drunk. Her sister and brother were sent away for years when they were young, simply because there wasn't enough money to provide for all of them. In the end, when her mother passed, she discovered her brother had plotted against her and she was left out of my Grandmother's will. That had to hurt. She worked in a factory most of her life making jewelry boxes... a real sweat shop--no air conditioning, sun beating down from banks of skylights, and the head-aching airplane roar of industrial fans making a poor attempt to keep things a bit cooler. Once a large metal stamping machine crusher her finger and they paid for her getting stitched back up--nothing more. The rest of her life she pointed with a crooked finger. She eventually became a supervisor, but still worked her own machines getting paid by the piece. No wonder that every month or so she would book an evening out with her "lady friends" to unwind with a Tom Collins cocktail and listening to some Italian crooner in a Manhattan night club, or to a countryside dinner theater to enjoy a show. She also was a mother to five kids, her first were twin sisters--born THREE DAYS apart. That's back when twins were natural--and a rarity. The New York Daily News carried that story. Her third child was a boy, so rambunctious that he would be classified ADHD today. Her third daughter was a prize--her cherubic, "fat baby" who could never do wrong. And then there was me--an unwanted pregnancy later in her child-bearing years... the "baby" of the family. I was the odd man out--the quiet, polite, artsy type. I tried to stay out of trouble, listened, learned and painted. She had the foresight to scrape, save and borrow to buy the small six-apartment tenement that I grew up in... just to get the six of them out of the small apartment they rented in Hoboken--just as I came along--a real surprise for this fatigued mother. How the seven of us lived in a two bedroom railroad flat is beyond me. She collected rents, rented seashore apartments for us for one week a year, bought a new family car every 4 years or so, slaved in that factory until she retired... cooked, cleaned, and "kept house" as she called it. As the older kids married and moved out, she and Dad would take more worldly trips: Hawaii, Spain, Morocco, Mexico, and nearly all the Caribbean islands. She had one Jewish friend and one black friend and used the expression "those people" a lot, although she would never label herself racist. She always held her purse tight to her body whenever we went into New York City for the day. Every Sunday she made "Sunday Gravy". She also made a great chicken soup, the occasional pizza ("Grandma" sheet pan style), pot roast (with the help of canned onion soup), fall-off-the-bone roasted chicken, she loved smelt and fried eel, and once a week would offer us a "cold platter" during the hot summer. She was a solid, good family cook... not great, but none of us starved, that's for sure. Because she was a working mother, and because my siblings had all gotten married and left home by the time I turned 13, I learned how to cook early on.
Dad didn't live long enough to meet the 19th of his grandchildren--my son Lucas--but Mom did. She was aging pretty fast while he was a toddler and he has vague memories of her... but he does remember his "Angel Grandma" as we came to call her after her passing. She lived to be 92 years old, passing away in 2009... her longevity, a gift from he mother who lived to be 96. Since she has been gone, I rarely think of her on any daily basis, but I do cook a lot of the things she taught me how to cook--especially soups and stews. And I see her dimples in my son's dimples. I think of her whenever I come across an old cooking show that we used to watch together. And I hear her voice when I catch myself yelling at my son for some indiscretion or act of disrespect. I don't like yelling. But I suppose that's the way it is with what we inherit from our parents. We accept them into ourselves--both the good and the bad. You were a hell of a woman and a mother, Marie. On April 2nd, she would have been 100 years old. Happy birthday, Mom. --Jerry Finzi Young women, casalinghe (housewives), Nonne... in fact, all women across Italy will be abstaining not only from work, but also from household chores tomorrow. Wednesday, March 8th is International Women's Day, the day chosen to protest a range of women's rights issues throughout the world. The Day Without Women protest is expected to affect taxis, airline schedules, schools, public transportation and other service and manufacturing industries. Nearly all of Italy's trade unions have announced their participation in the protest.
Organizers said, "Women - and not just women - will take to the streets to show that male violence against women is a structural issue in society," they explained. "It pervades every location, from the home to the workplace, from hospitals to university, from the media to the borders, and in every location it will be fought." The Italian event is organized by women's rights organization Non una di meno. The organization reported that some employers are "giving false information" to workers about their right to strike in an illegal attempt to quash the effects on their industries. Trenitalia, Italy's main railway line, has already announced cancellations and delays on all its lines, except on high-speed routes. First, I want to thank all of our loyal GVI followers for coming back, again and again, but I also want to thank the more recent people who have discovered that our Grand Voyage is a trip worth taking together. Mille grazie a tutti! Together, we are on a Voyage of Italian history, lifestyle, art, music, heritage, architecture, and cuisine. Whether you've ever been to Italy, are planning a trip soon or just want to live the simple, beautiful life as they enjoy in la Bel Paese, we are so happy you've chosen to take this Voyage with us. I want you all to know that this is has also been a wonderful learning experience for our little famiglia... learning about the technology of running a successful blog is daunting at times. Even our son, Lucas has learned so much that he has even started blogs of his own and in reality, when I have a tech problem, he is my little troubleshooter, often knowing commands that I haven't used yet. He edited his first newsletter starting in kindergarten and I still consider him as our "contributing editor". Lisa is also involved, and even though she has a demanding full time corporate job, she is heavily devoted to the recipes and story ideas we come up with. We are still learning the Italian language and are already considering our options for yet another Voyage to Italy... Christmas in Florence... to Corleone, Sicily to discover Lisa's roots? It's strange that since I've researched so much about Italy, at times it feels like I've already been somewhere that I haven't. There is so much to learn about Italy and la Bella Vita. I feel blessed to have discovered so much about Italy--and myself. There has been tremendous growth for GVI... going from a few hundred views a week when we first started planing our own Voyage throughout Italy in 2014, to hovering around a million page views a year. Between 15-20,000 people read our blog each and every month! We now have thousands of posts of a wide variety of subjects posted on GVI, and every week we post more and more.
We have many plans for the future of GVI, one of which is our structure. You might have already noticed that we are reorganizing our pages (check out the menu bar across the top of the page) and are re-publishing, editing and updating all of our posts and moving them to the new categories of pages. Navigating and finding what you need will get easier and easier as we move forward with this task. We are also planning so much more as we grow: additional guest contributors covering various subjects such as moving to and living in Italy, traveling in Italy; posts covering Extreme Italian Adventures; more Off the Tourist Path articles; Speaking of Italy, Italian Language Lessons; Fornello Recipe Videos; and even interviews of famous and influential Italians. And of course, there will always be beautiful photos... But to do this, we need your support. As you might have noticed, we have started placing ads on our pages... we have become a member of Amazon Associates. We will place links to Amazon products either in sidebar ads or as links within the content of our articles. We make a pledge to never promote products that we don't believe in or that don't relate to the interests of Grand Voyage Italy's readers. We will never suggest products that we haven't researched thoroughly, and in many cases we will recommend products that we have actually used or owned. Remember who is our blog mascot: La Bocca della Verità, the Mouth of Truth. We will always strive to live up to this truthful philosophy. We only ask that if you see something that we've recommended that you might consider purchasing, please add it to your Amazon cart directly after clicking on the link. If you do this, you will have 89 days to make your decision on whether to purchase the item or not. In this way, GVI can earn a nominal (small, often very small) commission on any sale we've helped with. The more we grow, the more features we can add to our Voyage. Once again, grazie for supporting us and don't forget to tell all your friends about us. All our love and respect, --Jerry Finzi P.S. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Please... we love comments! Ciao. Check out this fantastic article by Veronica Di Grigoli on The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife blog that I came across. It profiles a wonderful Easter festival in Sicily where a fantasy village is built out of bamboo and artistic panels and decorations all made out of bread. Well worth a look! Loads of great photos... --Jerry Finzi Loafing around in Sicily’s Gingerbread Village
The people of San Biagio Platano, a village in south-western Sicily, have celebrated Easter every year since the 1700’s by decorating their streets with arches and towers made of bread. The entire community spends three months turning the place into a gingerbread village… yet Hansel and Gretel never come! Click HERE to read the entire article... Sister Candida Bellotti was born the third daughter of ten to a humble family on February 1907, in the romantic city of Verona. This gives her the honor of being the oldest nun in Italy, at 110 years old, yet more proof that the Italian lifestyle affords amazing longevity. (Read: Why Are There So Many People in Italy Over 100 Years Old?) She was celebrated by the Vatican this week: "To the Reverend Sister Candida Bellotti, Minister of the Sick, which with gratitude to God, celebrates her one hundred and tenth birthday, the Holy Father, Pope Francis, spiritually participates in the common joy for your happy occasion, and conveys his congratulations and warm wishes."
There is a reason people have flocked to la bel Paese as part of their Grand Tour in the nineteenth century and are still doing it today. Tourists gather en masse in hopes of discovering the romance, history and beauty of Italy. Blame the artists. That's right, the romantic movement in art filled the salons, galleries and the homes of the elite (who could actually afford a "Grand Tour" for a year or more) and in essence promoted the beauty of Italia. Here are a dozen of what I consider the most beautiful and romantic of this type of painting... who wouldn't want to travel to Italy after seeing the grandeur?
I stumbled across the compelling videos of Andrea Giraldo on Facebook this week. Both his Facebook page and You Tube channel share the name, Il Mio Viaggio a New York, and contain many videos of an Italian's look at tourist sites and everyday life in and around the Big Apple. He speaks in Italian, but the visuals tell his story well enough. Here are a couple of my favorites...
The first is when he visits a "Chuck and Cheese" (as he pronounced it), a kid's party and game venue for the "working class"....
The next video is his visit to a street vendor selling hot tins for lunch. As most Italians take 2-3 hours to go home for lunch (their riposa) he must be in shock with the long lines of people getting take out food from a cart and gobbling their lunches down in 10 minutes while sitting on ledges on the sidewalks of Manhattan.
Visit his You Tube channel for many more of his interesting videos:
Il Mio Viaggio a New York. Click the photo above to watch this Italia Slow Tour video on the high mountain plateau of Castelluccio in Umbria. Lentils are considered good luck when eaten on New Year's Day in Italy. This video shows how the plants were harvested in the old manner--with winnowing baskets. The variety of lentil grown in the high altitude of Castelluccio is a PGI product and is very high in iron and protein. Wath this charming older woman as she shows how to seperate the lentils from the chaff.
There are industrial creations that become iconic images in our minds and in history... the VW Beetle, the iPod, the Moka coffee pot, the Coca Cola bottle, the Fiat 500 (Cinquecento). Many have become inspiration for artists worldwide. One more comes to mind: The Vespa motor scooter. The classic shape of the Vespa has been around since 1946, evolving in design over the years by its parent company, Piaggio, but keeping its basic elements: a unibody with covered engine and wheels, a two-person boat-shaped seat, a flat floorboard with cyclops headlight and a fairing to protect legs from the weather. Many use the bodies of their scooters as their canvases, while others prefer to interpret the iconic shape of the Vespa in other mediums. They have been painted, bejeweled, sculpted, photographed and made into jewelry. Right now we will take a look at the art of mosaic, where cut pieces of tiles or stone used--some mosaics created on the vehicles themselves. Finally, there is this amazing mosaic illustration by Chris Sumka, an amazing mosaic artist from Edmundton, Alberta, Canada. Chris uses ceramic tiles and natural stone in his pieces. He often has existing creations for sale but also works on commissioned assignments.
--Jerry Finzi In a land ravaged by earthquakes, floods and volcanoes from time to time, it's no wonder that in Italy, one will occasionally discover one of the many Ghost Towns... Perched high on a rocky outcrop, with buildings precariously built under overhanging cliffs, is the beautiful remains of Pentedattilo, a village in southern Calabria. (The look of this village--tucked under dolomite cliffs--reminds me of the twin villages of Pietrapertosa and Castellmezzano we visited in Basilicata.) The village is a 45 minute drive from Reggio-Calabria. It got its name from the Byzantine word Pentedáktilos, which means five fingers, a reference to the five deep valleys surrounding the mountainous village. First inhabited in "Magna Graecia" period and then the Romans, Pentedattilo offers a wonderful view of the sea. Being one of the oldest Ghost Towns of Italy, the town was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1783, which led to large parts of the population moving to the nearby seaside port town of Melito Porto Salvo. Today a modern-day with the same name of Pentedattilo was built on another hilltop a bit closer to the sea. The residents still attend Catholic services in the restored Chiesa dei Pietro e Paolo (Church of Saints Peter and Paul) standing proudly against the threat of Nature under the cliffs in the old town. After some restoration in the 1980s, the old village today has a few new residents, although many ruins still sit without roofs, windows or doors just waiting for the Voyager with camera to capture its haunting beauty and solitude. Oddly enough, the village becomes the site of the International Pentedattilo Film Festival... with appropriate their motto, "Don't be a Ghost". Only in Italy! --Jerry Finzi It's simple, really. My Mother grew up in a poor immigrant Italian family in Hoboken. I'm sure her Neapolitan parents passed on this tradition. When you're poor in Italy, you are superstitious about money so you tend to push luck on your side with certain traditions. You would eat coin shaped lentils on New Year's Day, for instance. My Mother taught me that putting a pile of coins--whatever you happen to be carrying in your pocket at the end of the year--on the windowsill will guarantee that you have money all year long.
One rule: Put the coins out before midnight. Felice Anno Nuovo! Postscript: Years ago when I lived in my loft/studio in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, I used to have my windows washed by professional window-washers. You know the kind... they clip their safety belts on to lugs outside of the commercial building windows, then lean back over the void to soap up, clean and then squeegie the windows clean. I had a 50 foot long wall of 10 foot tall windows running along the front of my sixth floor loft. Once a month, they would clean the city grime off the windows and suddenly the front of the studio would seem a lot brighter. One year, in a cold January, I noticed that the years of accumulated nickels, dimes, pennies and quarters were gone! There must have been $20-30 in coins out there. I figured one of my window-washers must have needed it more than I did... ...unless it was those notorious, thieving Flying Rats of New York--the pigeons! --Jerry Finzi |
Categories
All
Archive
January 2021
|