The Postcard Race - Round 8: Barcelona: Interesting, Arty and Elegant

Thanks to Megan and Abi, our guest mailers (and new friends), who kindly and enthusiastically, dropped the Round 8 postcards in one of the the short, BUT bright, yellow, postboxes located all around Barcelona.

Megan and Abi, two lovely Canadian gals; currently living in Barcelona; are on a similar year long hiatus from their life in Toronto. Sadly they will be returning home in January ; after a few other stops one in a small village in southern France.

Round 8 is " Barcelona: Interesting, Arty and Elegant" . The first person to notify us (by telling us on the blog or emailing yvonne or rachel) that you have received the postcard and to relate the "Intereting, Arty or Elegant" fact on the back will win "something mailed to you from another country!"

So stay attentive to your mailbox and expect your postcard that will look something like the ones below.

Prizes for the Round 7 winners were mailed from a post office on La Ronda Universitat, where the friendly staff of women advised us and efficiently dealt with all our postal needs.

Good Luck everyone!

Just being in Barcelona

There are endless things to do as a visitor to Barcelona and, unlike many of the places we have been, we don't tire of doing them. We continue to visit sites that Gaudi built. Is Parc Guell ever deserted? His designs are so brilliant; could today's architects bring light into a building, use curves and pleasurable colours? PLEASE. Why the Casa Batillo gift shop even had the long searched for orange watch,BUT still Yvonne won't buy a watch. The watch probably would not have helped when, unknown to us, the time changed and Barcelona "fell back " an hour.

For such a major, trendy European centre, buying groceries, having a coffee or a beer in a cafe and most essentials are reasonably priced so it makes staying here for a long time easy.

My visit to the hairdresser for instance, cut and dye (25 Euros), she also alters clothes; shortening pants, putting in a new zipper, a secret pocket and working on the sleeves of 4 shirts (20 Euros), A whole huge bag of vegetables and fruit from San Antoni market (12 Euros), 10 rides on the subway (7.50 Euros), our rent for a month (13o0 Euros), Two chocolate croissants (not as good as those Greek ones on Amorgos) (2.40 Euros), A baguette, (. 80 Euros), A large bottle of Xibeca "cervesa per compartir" (beer to share), (1 Euro), good wine any shade (3 Euros), great wine any shade (8 Euros), Cava good (4 Euros), Cava great (7 Euros). The best thing is that if you need to take a cab they are all metered, very reasonable and do what is expected!

Our biggest expense is paying fees for entering museums/galleries and, as always, eating at restaurants. Yvonne wanted to try "THE BEST SANDWICH IN THE WORLD" which according to the New York Times was served at The Viena Cafe; an appealing , modernist diner right on La Rambla; with a super cute counter. The sandwich, "La Flauta d'Iberic" consisted of a baguette, a little tomato, flavourful cheese and Iberian ham; basically a ham and cheese sandwich. Yes, good, but the best sandwich in the world; I am unconvinced. Yvonne has recently revealed that, according to another foodie guru, the best sandwich in the world is now to be found in Uruguay. Good thing we are headed there.

By far we have done the best eating in Barcelona. Yvonne bought "Catalan Cuisine" a cookbook and has been making delicious meals. I discovered I love sardines, they are so fresh, not having been inside a can for eons. Anchovies too are more delicious than I ever experienced before. Chick pea and tuna salad improvised for a Canadian palate, has become a staple. The most delicious thing though has to be the famous Paella Negro, a seafood paella that is black because of the squid ink which greatly enhances the flavour.

In the lands of Euros, one does accumulate a lot of small change. I have taken to calling it "musician's change" and keep it in a particular purse so I have it on hand. Musicians play in the subways; actually in the subway cars. To avoid the authorities, because this is strictly guerrilla, they set up, play a song or two between stops, collect change and get off . The first experience we had of these musicians was with, who else "the Ecuadorians". They are everywhere and have been mentioned before, see blogs from Istanbul. They did an amplified pan pipe song and then came around, I was ready with my change purse but he took one look at my offerings, covered his can with his hand and walked away in disgust. I was at once shocked, insulted and humiliated. Since then my "musicians change" purse has been getting heavier and heavier; I am afraid to insult another musician with my offerings.

Perhaps one of the talented sand sculpture engineers would appreciate my change. On weekends down at the city beach you can walk along later in the day and admire the work of expert sand sculptures, the architecture is amazing. I think I need to make a return trip with my change.

The African fake bag sellers are here in Barcelona too. They experience the police shake downs, like in Naples and we have seen them on the run a number of times. They have devised and ingenious solution that puts them miles ahead of their colleagues in Naples. They use coloured cloth, tied at each corner to heavy cord that meets and is joined at the triangular peak with a round handle. This cuts down the time needed to bundle before running and also makes a nicer display than the plain white, sheet version.

One Sunday, we visited the Monjuic Cemetary, located on the east slopes of Montjuic it offers a splendid view of the working harbour and a stunning setting. Barcelonians joke that you have to die to get a view of the sea in the city. The cemetery is massive with many memorials and famous graves. The graveyard is full of dramatic sculpture and I have never seen more beautiful angels than here.

The city is peppered with sculpture, some particular pieces we have sought out like the giant Miro "Women and Bird" and others we have just come across in our wanderings. Miro's paintings, those that resembled the "Women with Bird" colours reminded so so much of Inuit Art; but I preferred his sculptures made with found objects. We were at the Fran Daurel Museum where we saw a small version of Dali's "Alice in Wonderland" which spurred me to have a look at his other sculptures on-line. They seem to be in major centres all over the world. On the Rambla of Raval, there is a big, bronze, fat cat. Yvonne and I were lunching there the other day and so many people stop to admire the cat, climb on the cat, have their parents lift them on the cat, get photographed with the cat, run and slide on the cat; very interactive and engaging; people just love that cat. In the Placa Cataluna there is a woman on a horse holding a sailing schooner way above her head,

"myboatin myarmswhileonmypony" I like to call it.

Both Yvonne and I have recently read Iidefonso Falcones, "Cathedral of the Sea", set in 14th century Barcelona centred around the building of the Maria del Mar Cathedral. With that book in mind as well as Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "Shadow of the Wind" (maybe I'll finally finish that book now) we set about searching for traces of old Barcelona wandering the Ciutat Vella (Barri Gothic) and along La Rambla. We discovered a distribution point for those fake bags, and the still magnificent gothic Maria del Mar cathederal. During the civil war, the anarchist's, in an demonstrative anti-clerical period, set a fire that destroyed all he art inside the church. It looks all the finer unadorned; the focus on the sweeping curved arches way above you and the stunning architecture.

Given our current state of perpetual tourists in the world this year; it was very instructive and entertaining to see a brilliant show at the Disseny Hub of Barcelona called "The Souvenir Effect": Travel fetishes, beyond the cliches/ Tourism. Spaces of Fiction. I really appreciated Michael Hughes video: photos illustrated him holding a postcard over the site that the postcard portrayed. Check it out on his Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael_hughes/sets/346406/

Everywhere we go we hear people say "vale", I am not familiar with this word from studying and sometimes speaking Spanish but WOW you can't help but have it burned into your mind from hearing it all the time. Vale means "OK" and "I am following you" and "no problem" and "no worries" and "of course" and "sure" and "I can do that" and "I get you" and "your welcome". It is such a great word expressing "everything is possible", "things are going well" and "lets keep this thing going on". Such a great word for Barcelona and the way we feel about being in Barcelona.

What we are reading:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barberry

Cathedral of the Sea, Falones Ildefonso

The Girl who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson

Knots, Nuruddian Farah

Homage to Barcelona, Colm Toibin

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanisi, Geoff Dryer

Catalan Cuisine, Colman Andrews

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson

Coming soon:

Audio book: The Basque History of the World, Mark Kurlansky

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Touring with Meghna and Lori

Our first week in Barcelona was packed with fun, touristy explorations with Meghna and Lori, perfect, curious companions, whose insights, conversations and humour kept us thoroughly entertained and engaged. Together we explored Gaudi creations Parc Guell and Casa Mila, the Picasso Museum and Dali's Fun House in Figueres. While Y & I were busy at the Brazilian Consulate M & L fit in a trip to the Miro Foundation. (which we visited later).

Gaudi, Picasso, Dali, Miro! All here to see! The incredible volume of work, in many mediums, created by each of these artists is in itself remarkable. They were all larger than life characters whose influence crossed the boundaries of art and, in the case of Gaudi, architecture. Almost everyone knows their names and recognizes at least one of their pieces. Is there a quiz on facebook: Which famous Spanish, (more specifically Catalan) artist are you? Such a quiz could reveal plenty about a person's nature. Maybe the Myers Briggs results of these artists might reveal Picasso as more of a perceiving type while Dali a more judging type certainly they were all hugely imaginative, thinking out of the box types. If I had to choose to have dinner with one of them it would be Joan Miro hands down. Exploring the work and lives of these artists has been thought provoking!

With Lori as our fearless driver and Meghna as navigator extraordinaire, piecing together the road with 3 or maybe 4 inadequate maps; we discovered all roads lead to Girona, sometimes Yvonne's memory is very good, and driving to Paris would not take long. We breakfasted in San Pol de Mar, toured the Costa Brava and arrived in gorgeous Cadaques (or "Every What" as I liked to call it) for a much deserved rest. The next morning we were off to Figueres to see the Teatre-Museu Dali. Bizzare, colourful, full of humour and enthralling, my favorite things were these painting of rock figures, later I discovered, ( postcards can be so educational) that the rock pieces were not Dali's but instead Antoni Pixot , long time friend and Dali collaborator.

We had hoped to make it to Montserrat (jagged mountain) by 1PM to hear the boys choir, "La Escolania de Montserrat", singing in the, by all accounts, extraordinary 16th century Benedictine basilica; home of the black virgin; but we were being over ambitious. At sunset we wound our way up up up to to the striking peak. The catholics really had outdone themselves matching the mountains magnificence with their huge magnificant complex. It is sumptuously decked out ready to receive millions of pilgrims that arrive every year. This site tops "The Camino de Santiago" as Spain's ultimate destination for the faithful flock. Yvonne and I lingered at "The Ladder of Knowledge", a sculpture by Subirachs, inspired by the writings of Ramon Llull, a medieval Catalan mystic. Meanwhile Meghna and Lori had gone into the basilica and the boys choir began rehearsing for the next days show. We had arrived right on time after all.

We commemorated Meghna and Lori's final day in Barcelona with a beautiful lunch at Cinc Sentits, a newly Michelin rated restaurant.

(It's no longer just road trips for Michelin. Still the name of the top foodie rating system doesn't work for me). Michelin's all time #1 restaurant is is in Catalonia in Roses, very near Girona.

Lori and Yvonne chose the wine pairings with each of the eight courses plus extras; while Meghna and I simply drank a bottle of red followed by a bottle of white. I remember the famous, Canadian chef's maple syrup shooter. Delicious! For a full detailed description of every bite please refer your questions to Meghna or Yvonne. I should have photographed every course, but I know my outfit best matched the restaurant's decor.

At home in Barcelona

Our apartment is at Calle Joaquin Costa 56, in El Raval district. There are 50 stairs up to our studio flat on the second (but really third) floor, fortunately there is an elevator, so on those days when encumbered by bottles of cheap wine and Cava, food from the market or when we just can't face the staircase after walking ten miles we can simply take the lift.

There are many reasons we felt immediately at home here. On our arrival, almost three weeks ago now , Meghna and Lori , our excellent friends from Vancouver, had already been in the apartment for two nights. They had it stocked up with snacks and beer and coffee. Meghna had made the acquaintance of her "peeps" as she called them, the mostly Pakistanis and other South Asians who run the many small food stores and restaurants all up and down our street. She had no need for Spanish since they communicated in Urdu or English. Spanish and possibly Catalan are added to the many languages the average immigrant to Barcelona speaks. Meghna and Lori knew where things were, where to shop, had scoped out the best, cheap, street eats and had the metro figured out. It was like visiting friends who have moved to a new town. We were very glad to spend our first week in their company, since we are missing our friends very much, and someone finally (Meghna) to take some excellent pictures of Yvonne and I together. More about our visit with Meghna and Lori in the next blog episode: "Touring with Meghna and Lori".

Inside our new digs, we have a super comfortable, well organized space which felt very familiar since it is all furnished and equipped by IKEA. Even the art on the wall looks like small canvases I have seen on the IKEA shelves. Does IKEA mean feeling at home like McDonald's means, (well what does it mean?) in the global economy.

Our balcony overlooks Calle de Valldonzella, right below us on the corner is The Betty Ford, a very cute bar (happy hour 10-midnight) and just across from us is Manchester another teeny bar. On the warm nights, in the first few weeks we were here, the whole street became the smoking section /bar extension and so from midnight to four it was like sleeping at an all night party where you are invisible. Later about 4:30 comes the sounds of BCNeta! trucks. (Barcelona Ciutat Neta), Barcelona Clean City.

A Small Aside: You cannot walk out the door or go anywhere without seeing the white BCNeta! vehicles, operated by energy efficient means. There are the regular garbage trucks that pick up from the numerous garbage and recycling bins at least once a day. There are the little trucks with the big rotating, brussels ,brush bottoms that scrub the streets. There are the small trucks that are accompanied by street sweepers with medieval looking brooms sweeping up debris. Finally the power washer trucks. Yvonne and I were almost eliminated by a power washer hosing down the streets of Barcelonetta the other afternoon. There is literally an army of city workers making sure that Barcelona is all neat, clean and tidy. I really admire their commitment to clean.

Now back to our story: Once the BCNeta! trucks have passed there is a glorious one or maybe two hours of silence, perhaps a couple walking by in quiet conversation, a dog barking , the sound of rolling luggage, someone catching an early morning plane? Then the workers to work and children to school and the echoing of tons of metal shutters rolling up letting daylight into apartments and opening shops and bakeries and restaurants. It is time to get up to the sound of a street vendors shouting "Helio" announcing gas canisters re-filling. BUT My all time favorite sound happens later in the day, about 7PM, when a young man un-self-consciously passes by the balcony clapping out a flamenco rhythm all the way down the street, on his way home from music school I imagine, the rhythm echoes excellently against the old stone buildings and sometimes people come out on their balconies and join him clapping out the particular rhythm.

It was great to arrive somewhere and finally be able to speak the language. To make myself understood, ask for what I wanted, eavesdrop efficiently and generally have some nuance in my language life... Ahh but this was not to be. In Catalonia they speak Catalan. The signs are in Catalan, the writing on the wall is Catalan, it is the first language on the lips of passers by and apparently of some seven million speakers in this neighbourhood as well as the official government language. Its use was banned by the fascist Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) but Catalan has seen an amazing resurgence since Franco's death, both by recovering works from the past and by stimulating the creation of new works. Many shadows of Quebec.

All ready to communicate, I am sometimes stymied by a complete mis-understanding of this sometimes Spanish words- sometimes French words- sometimes Italian words- Catalan language which when spoken I don't understand at all. No, it is not Dutch or Turkish or Greek or Italian but we are in Spain and I still don't completely understand which has been making me feel quite at home and really takes the pressure off the get up to speed on Spanish motivation. I don't understand? Why they must be speaking Catalan, since I speak Spanish, don't I......??????

I have been so happy to eat curry and falafel's and shwarmas, the flavors I have been missing and are now available, very economically ,right outside my door. Yvonne has been cooking Catalan recipes and is so inspired by the restaurants and the available food. We live in-between two fantastic food markets.We shop for food (and clothes too) at the Mercat de San Antoni housed in temporary tents while the old market building from 1888 grand exhibition is under -restoration ( The market stall owners tell me it may be under renovations for ten years, though the authorities tell us five. The famous Boqueria Market , just off La Ramble, is where we go to snack on fried cod pieces, and other delicious snacks. We now have our favorite stall owners who are happy to talk about the various products, engage in some translation, recommend and let us taste the best cheeses, sausages olives etc.

Barcelona is so beautiful, so modern and styli, everything seems new, while at the same time old and elegant. The golden age in this city was in the 1300 for god's sake. The buildings are beautiful. The sculpture is beautiful, the respect for art and books and culture, the wide boulevards the modernist lampposts the fantastic public transit, the shoes and museums the designs, everything is accessible or in the process of being made accessible. The population is multicultural and people from all over the world seem to have landed here. Like New York, it seems to be a city of its own making not part of any country, but unto its own, and playing by its own rules.

Now the rainy season has begun in earnest and we could be in Vancouver....

And these are some reasons why I feel so at home in Barcelona.

Sapri and CApri and the changing of names...

It did not seem too complicated to finally go to Sapri and find the graves of some long dead Rocco's. Information from the family said that our ancestors immigrated from Sapri to Rio in the late 1800. So,early one Saturday, we took the bus down to Positano, the fast ferry to Salerno and boarded the train heading for Sapri. A direct train with only two stops between Salerno and Sapri, about 100 kilometer journey, was cancelled and so we slowly wound our way south from the coast to the mountains to the coast to the mountains and though tunnels and to the coast again and then up into the mountains and finally after about 25 stops and close to 4 hours we arrived.

Sapri sits right on the Tyrranhean Sea and is a super cute, beach town untouched by international tourism. We arrived in the dead of siesta, starving BUT thought we had better get to the graveyard before dusk or closing time. The cab driver was surprised at foreigners, right off the train, wanting to go to a graveyard, he was, for some reason, unsure about taking us. It did not take long to realize that we would be spending the night in Sapri, since the graveyard closed at 4PM.

I was sold on the Piscane Hotel where every floor has gorgeous tiles. Ours was the blue floor and then there was the green floor. The room was fantastic but we wished for a change of clothes. Our host advised us of the best pizza in town at the PizzaHouse, which I doubt we would have ever chosen. It was Saturday night and there was a line up, but locals assured us that it was worth the wait; and sure enough the Calabrese pizza that Yvonne ordered was the best pizza we had in Italy. It was the usual excellent crust with celery, caramelized onions maybe some spicy sausage and cheese. Who knew how good celery could be on pizza.

The next morning we had our host call us a cab to take us to the graveyard. That same old cab driver appeared and took us about 4 km out of town. We engaged the workers assistance in finding any Rocco's grave but the name Rocco did not appear on any gravestones. Well, sometimes as a first name. I can safely say that there are NO Roccos buried in the Sapri graveyard. So where are the Roccos from? As we made our way back to Nocelle that day we pondered possible scenarios:

-We were in the wrong town and the Roccos were really from....?????

- Perhaps the lack of alive Roccos to tend to the grave with flowers and offerings and regular visits allowed for the plot to be sold to a more attentive family.

- Surely my ancestors hail from southern Italy because more people in Naples and Salerno, than I have seen anywhere else in the world, could pass as my relations.

-Rocco is a tough guy and a name that might be very convenient for a new immigrant in a new land; especially if your name happened to be something unpronounceable and unspeakable in Portuguese.

-Rocco is actually NOT a common (or even on the list) of popular Italian surnames. Last names were usually developed by adding Di to your father's first name or else created from a nickname.

-Somewhere along the line our ancestors changed their name. Maybe once they left Sapri.

-Perhaps they just went by their first name Rocco, like Prince or Ferron.

I hope we can get further information on this mystery from the Brazilian Roccos who we are to visit later in our trip.

AND then there is CApri....

The following Tuesday was a superb day with calm seas and so we went with Peter, Genero's son, to CApri.

CApri is a beautiful island community that one can endlessly wander.It is nothing like Sapri. Some very lucrative tourist traps engaged the many visitors. Gondolas filled with about 30 people go in and out of the blue grotto at 10 euros a pop. You can wait hours on land or in your boat for your turn to spend 3 minutes in the blue grotto. We opted against this and instead Peter took our boat to the green grotto, much like the blue grotto except not famous nor overrun with tourists and boats, and we swam into another large grotto which reminded me of the caves we swam to at Mourou Beach on Amorgos. We sailed around the island and then had a stop so we could explore CApri.

We took the funicular up to Capri town and wandered away from the famous square where famous people are supposed to gather, but I had the feeling that the famous people had long ago found greener pastures and we were a couple of decades late if we wanted to spot the idle rich. We found our, out of the way terrace that Yvonne had discovered on-line, lunched and headed back to our boat. There is a beautiful flying horses mural in the funicular station.

About 20 passengers were on our trip. We decided to get acquainted with A and Z two gay men from Israel. They were celebrating their engagement and were very happy. over prosecco and beer, we exchanged life histories and stories and spent a great afternoon in their company. As it turns out A , a Palestinian and Z, a Zionist jew from the USA were both involved in peace and justice work. A's family had recently found out he was gay (it took us about 30 seconds to realize this but seemingly they did not know) and just days earlier had shunned him, burning photos, all his belongings and now consider him dead. We were sad for A, such a lovely guy who wouldn't want him in your family? A had taken this all in stride though deciding it was time to change his name to a very snappy and sexy Italian name. So, Antonio was creating a new identity.

So what is in a name? Do you think anyone has ever arrived in Sapri after thinking the were heading for Capri? One letter can make all the difference. There can be countless reason to change your name.

Nocelle & Positano

September 16 – October 13, 2009

Nocelle and Positano

We live in the clouds in a vertical world. The road leads up from the Amalfi Coast highway, above Positano, snaking along the edge of a cliff and goes up and up and up. The road is wide enough for our red, white and orange bus, with its characteristic, only buses have, type horn much in use. It sounds vaguely, like the trumpeting of an elephant. (Though I don't know any elephants). When drivers meet they negotiate squeezing by each other who knows how. There is a low, green, iron fence along the edge of the cliff. Once you get to the parking lot at the end of the long road you have reached Nocelle. We go down 105 steps and walk along a narrow sidewalk past the only store, (and sometimes pizzeria) all along, just below and just above, are more steps to houses clinging to the cliff. We walk past the church square, the upscale San Croce restaurant, past a little cave grotto up another 30 steps where the sidewalk narrows and then ends. From where the sidewalk ends begins the “Path of the Gods” but we go up another 80 steps to the roof of Villa Pina our new location for a few weeks. We have a bedroom, bathroom a little kitchen and a huge deck to watch the heavens and the tiny world below. The weather has continued to be unsettled with sunny days, thunderstorms, heavy rain and wind so the sky and cloud show has been pretty spectacular.

Our bus goes down to Positano every hour from early morning until about 11PM. Positano is a cute, vertical town with more than its share of designer boutiques and stores for the tourists, but there is also a core of people who live in Positano and as we have discovered it is a much nicer place to be than neighboring Amalfi, where all the tour buses go and the tourist frenzy is amped up.

Some days we just spend time looking at the constantly changing skies from our rooftop deck, while reading and playing scrabble. Our local store stocks everything we need, all local produce, cheese and meat and eggs and fruit, pasta, wine and beer. Pina gives us grapes, potatoes and lemons from the garden. Everyone farms long and rectangular plots on the side of the cliff. Pina has rabbits and chickens and a very big garden. These orange melons that resemble a squash are ripe at this very moment neither cantaloupe or green melon they are VERY delicious.

No one blocks anyone else’s view of the great expanse of sea to the west. We venture farther and farther every time we go on the Walk of the Gods, it is a spectacular trail lush with vegetation, trees and grasses we could travel along all the way down to the next town Praiano, but we prefer to stay high.

We did walk all the way down to Positano down 1700 steps, only to arrive on the highway, a no fun walking place, so we reserving our walks for the Path of the Gods and bus up and down to town.

My birthday, San Gennero’s feast day, was a sunny day. We took a boat trip down the Amalfi Coast. Salvatore and his brother Gennaro do boat trips in their small boats. “Lumo e il Mare”. Salvatore was our captain. Coincidently it was his birthday also, he was turning 67. Everyday Gloria, an expat gal from the USA joins the tour. She has been living in Positano for 22 years and is almost eighty. Gloria loves to swim so we would stop periodically, they would lower a little ladder and we could go into the sea. Salvatore would gather various sea life from the rocks and then we would slow boat again. We cruised all the way to Amalfi and then on the way back stopped in at a seaside restaurant where Salvatore’s daughter and a few of his family were waiting to surprise him with oysters from Brittany and prosecco and cake, along with the usual antipasto, primero secundo etc. etc. We lunched and drank and lunched some more and it was all very enjoyable to have lucked into a joint birthday celebration. During lunch Salvatore got a call saying that the blood of San Gennero had liquefied within 55 minutes so it was going to be a good year. Even though Salvatore was born on San Gennero’s feast day it is his older brother that was named after the saint.

This past Thursday we planned to head to Capri (pronounced CA-pri) with Gennero which everyone was telling us was a fun trip, but it was so rough and threatening rain that all boats, even the ferries that go various places were all cancelled. We decided to go up to music city Ravello, way up the mountain above Amalfi. We bought tickets for the SITA buses, which travel up and down the coast and off we went, with many others. There was a lot of waiting in the rain for the buses and elbowing to get on once they come, but Ravello is a beautiful place that hosts many classical musicians all summer who play on a stage hanging off the side of a cliff. The highlight was spending time at a shop called: “Wine and Drugs”, yes the name drew us in, it was nice to sit in the lovely shop eating cheese and chocolate and sampling wine while it rained outside. Even the glasses were special. The Croation shopkeeper was a consummate sales man, so we walked away with a nice bottle of wine and an even nicer bottle of prosecco, which we are saving for a special occasion.

The very exciting, undiscovered thing about Positano is the beach glass. The beach is not a sandy beach but filled with smooth rocks and pebbles. This makes the perfect beach glass-processing environment. I would say that perhaps 1 or 2 percent of the beach is very smooth beach glass. There are also such a variety of broken tile pieces, also very lovely. Sea glass and beach glass lovers should definitely make Positano a place of pilgrimage.

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Our last days in Naples

As part of the annual festival of Neapolitan song “Piedigotta” Elton John, was dong a free concert in the Piazza del Plebiscito: a huge piazza that in the early 1990’s the newly elected, progressive mayor Antonio Bassolino took back from the Camorra who had been using it as a parking lot by one day towing every single car away making it a traffic free zone and restoring it to its former elegance. It was filled with Italians, perhaps 100,000 or more. Elton John played solo and put on a fantastic performance. He prefaced his show by saying it had been the saddest week in his life since Guy Babylon, his keyboard player, had just died very suddenly. The sound was amazing and the scene of the Palazzo Reale, giant statues of kings on horseback, the church of San Francesco de Paola made a stunning surroundings for the performance. Elton John sang some of my favorites; “Benny and the Jets, Rocketman, Holy Moses and did a beautiful medley of Neapolitan song which the Italians sang along to. It was very fun and we wandered home up Via Toledo with many others.

We returned to the hurry up and eat trattoria near our, place where we could get antipasti primo, secundo, contorno, and dulce along with wine, water and espresso for 10 Euro each. They were definitely NOT with the slow food movement but the food was delicious. When you gave a tip the maitre d would yell out congratulations to the embarrassed waiters. We also returned to Gino Sorbillo for what really seemed to be the best pizza ever, double the price of the 3-euro pizza near our house but well worth it. The crusts are so good. The food in Naples is well plain, uncomplicated flavors and simple sauces but it is all very fresh. We finally ate the very tasty lemon cake at the famous Gambrinus Café, accompanied for me by lemoncillo liquor.

We had been watching Italian news on TV and reading quite a lot into it. After a number of newscasts we were convinced that the H1N1 virus was now centred in Naples. The schools may not open? 40% of the population was to be vaccinated. So on Sunday, when I was feeling poorly we were certain that I had contracted the virus. All I wanted was hot and sour soup. Here must be a Chinese restaurant in Naples. Though nearly everything is closed on Sunday, our South Asian local internet point was open and we located “China Town” our restaurant a short walk away, just down from the post office, also open. We were really happy to be eating some delicious Asian food…so much so we returned the next evening to try some of the other dishes.

Our last Monday in Naples we had planned to take the train and visit Sapri the town where the Rocco’s are said to hail from. I wanted to visit the graves of my ancestors. I was feeling so poorly though that we decided to cancel that trip and spend the day relaxing at home. By 10 am the sky had turned black, thunder and lightening and ran pouring down. That was the first of many thunder and lightening storms that lasted over the next few days. The thunder and rain seem to silence the noises of the city. After the storm, lying in bed with all the window open if I could only speak Italian I could eavesdrop on a hundred conversations and hear the household clink and clatter of the whole neighbourhood, punctuated by those scooters roaring by. Naples is very noisy!

On the appointed day, we wheeled or luggage out of the Quartieri Spanoli, on a previously scouted route free of stairs to the Piazza Carita where our driver was waiting to delver us to Nocelle, our home in the clouds, way, way up on the side of a cliff looking over the Amalfi Coast. It is so quiet in Nocelle, the rooster, the wind and maybe a dog now and then. We slept so very well.

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The Postcard Race Round 7 and winner announced ALL in one…

Round #7: Notes from Napoli and thereabouts…The Italy round

Images of Vesuvius, saints and the Naples of ye olden ‘Grand Tour’ times along with some compelling notes on Napoli and thereabouts make up our Italy round. Postcards were mailed from about four different locations in the city on September 12. We first approached the foreboding main post office building right near our apartment, on September 11 thinking naturally that we could; buy stamps, mail our postcards and send some packages from there.

The huge semicircular fascist façade Palazzo delle Poste, was completely unable to meet our needs. What do they do in that huge building that all roads in our neighbourhood seemed to lead to? Staff is behind glass where there is air conditioning while clients take a number and wait in the UN air-conditioned area. Tiny slots allow papers to pass from customers to staff, but packages must be passed through a cupboard door that opens on the customer side and does not open on the staff side until the customer has firmly closed their door. Well, our packages were wrapped incorrectly so the clerk told us, you cannot wrap a package with newsprint, it is apparently seen as advertising. The packages were passed back through the secret door and it was kind of like being in an episode of ‘Get Smart’. We did manage to get stamps and made our way to the post office store where we bought official mailing boxes for our packages. Not to be deterred, we returned the next day with our now properly wrapped packages betraying no sign of advertising, our number was next, but the woman who was free to take us eyed our packages suspiciously and waited and waited until some other poor worker was finished with their customer and would have to take us. Finally she had no choice but to deal with us. Back through the secret door, oh well one of our packages was just too big….limits to package size had not been communicated on our first visit. The other she calculated would cost a fortune to send…things were not going well. She was telling us about another post office near the train station (not our favorite place) where they seemingly could mail packages. Back through the secret door again we took our packages away and vowed never to return again. We boarded the R2 (that’s the name of the bus to the train station) and after seeking directions from both a janitor and a policeman and very long walk we located the very super efficient happy post office where packages had their own window the staff thought that prices should be lowered for our packages and everyone is in air-conditioning; staff and customers alike.

On our way home we realized that there are many of these smaller REAL post offices and in fact there was one in the Gallerie Umberto right by our house. Just outside of there we ran into Lara, she was all dressed in gold. She aims to resemble, a lady of some monarch’s court and had just arrived from spending the summer working in Rome, where she was an extra in the film that Julia Roberts has just finished filming there. Lara and her companion in his gold suit, not pictured here are available for parties, confirmations, films or any events that you might require people dressed in gold at….Lara agreed to mail the rest of our postcards for us. Finally round 7 was done! Sometimes one’s hobby can be overwhelming…..

AND THE WINNER IS:

Linda and Jody from Surrey BC IMAGINE THAT reported receiving their postcard September 18^th before anyone else!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS Linda and Jody and the excellent postal workers of Surrey BC! Linda and Jody will be receiving something we choose especially for them in the markets of Barcelona.

The Postcard Race Round #7

September in Italy

"Funiculì, Funiculà" is a famous song written by Neapolitan journalist Peppino Turco and set to music by Italian composer Luigi Denza in 1880. It was composed to commemorate the opening of the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius, which was destroyed by the eruption of 1944. The song became a huge international success and sold over one million copies, representing for many the birth of the modern Neapolitan song.

Positano was a relatively poor fishing village during the first half of the 20th century. It began to attract large numbers of tourists in the 1950s, especially after John Steinbeck published his essay about Positano in Harper's Bazaar in May, 1953: "Positano bites deep", Steinbeck wrote. "It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone."

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards: The Rolling Stones wrote the song "Midnight Rambler" in the cafes of Positano while on vacation in 1968.

Belying the typical portrayal of the beautiful actress as vacuous and empty headed, Sophia Loren, darling of Naples, was known for her sharp wit and insight. One of her most frequently quoted sayings is her quip about her famously voluptuous figure: "Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti. She also said “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”

The most intriguing local musical form around Naples in the 1600s was the tarantella, name after a spider known as the tarantula. The only cure of the spider bit was to perform the frenzied dance the tarantella. During harvest time enterprising fiddlers roamed the fields in expectation of being hired by those that were stung.

A fun loving Bourbon King established the lottery in Naples in the 1700, the only viable way for the poor to escape from destitution. The authoritative text for understanding the mythical significance of lottery numbers was the Nuova Smorfia del Giuoco del lotto, by Giuleo Rume. A series of numbers, from 1-99, are chosen based on the association of each umber with a specific image, thereby allowing dreams to be interpreted as numbers and played upon awakening.

The first writer to ever describe a volcanic eruption in evocative and terrifying detail was Pliny the younger on the occasion in AD 79, when Vesuvius buried the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. To this day, vulcanologists use the scientific term ‘plinian’ to refer to Vesuvius like explosions.

The poet Virgil’s best-known quote: “carpe diem”, or “seize the day” is the unofficial motto of the Neapolitans, who live in the shadow of Vesuvius. The quote continues: “ trusting as little as possible in the future”.

In 1985, the Capodimonte Museum held an exhibition entitled “Vesuvius by Warhol”. His 16 paintings of the volcano are a testament to his passion for Naples. Warhol understood that Vesuvius was to Naples what the empire State Building was to New York- a potent combination of myth and reality.

The volcanoes of Southern Italy: Etna, Stromboli, Ischia and Vesuvius were created, myth tell us, by Demeter who created light sources to help the sirens, (who she had turned into birds) fly over land and water and find her missing daughter Persephone, who it turns out had been carried away by a besotted Pluto, king of the underworld.

The sirens lived on an island off the Amalfi Coast. The best know siren Parthenope, threw herself to the sea after failing to attract Ulysses. She has come to symbolize the legendary combination of beauty and danger, attraction and repulsion, which defines the essence of Naples. The Italians still refer to Naples as the city of Parthenope, and the adjectives ‘Neapolitan’ and ‘Parthenopean’ can be used interchangeably.

It is impossible to predict when Vesuvius will erupt again and in what manner. The last eruption was in 1944 and the longer the volcano rests the stronger the eventual explosion. Over 3 million people now live in the sprawling Neapolitan suburbs built along the slopes of Vesuvius. Evacuation plans do exist, BUT a large eruption could destroy everything within 7 kilometres in 15 minutes.