The beauty of the Mediterranean maquis
The macchia mediterranea protect the seaside from building developments and arise revitalized from the ashes of unavoidable bush fires.
Italy and the fog metaphor
Autumn envelops most of Italy in a thick fog. And quite a few Italian writers seem obsessed with the fog metaphor.
In autumn Italians chew fog. As soon as you cross the Alps and wake up on the Po plain, the world tends to disappear in an unreal milky white haze, taking the top of all the sounds and smells and making pedestrians, bicycles and cars move in slow motion. I suppose, it feels like diving into a glass of Pernod and having to struggle to make it back to the surface.
The phenomenon is beautifully described by Gabriele d’Annunzio, who in ‘Notturno’ describes the fogginess of Venice:
“Usciamo. Mastichiamo la nebbia. La città è piena di fantasmi. Camminano Gli uomini senza rumore, fasciati di caligene. I canali fumigano. … Le lampadine lucono come in fuochi fatui in campo santo …. I fantasmi passano, sfiorano, si dileguano …. [qualcuno] Cammina senza Tacchi, senza Scarpe, senza sandali … Una falda di nebbia mi strischia su la Gota. frotta Una di ubriachi Urla lagiù, in fondo al traghetto.”
[Let’s go out. Let’s chew the fog. The city is full of Phantoms. But walk noiselessly, wrapped in dimness. The Canals smoke …. The lamp bulbs shine like will-o’-the-wisp in a graveyard … The Phantoms are passing, brushing city, melting …. (Someone) is walking without heels, without shoes, without sandals …. A flap of fog grazes my cheek. A gang of drunk is shouting down there, down by the ferry.]
(Translation from Literarywiki.org)
D’Annunzio’s text is used by Umberto Eco in ‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana‘ along with numerous other fog references, that are used to portray modern Italian history, for it is not just meteorologically, the autumn sky sinks to earth.
But in September, October and November, damp weather covers most of the peninsula. Banks of mist and fog wrap the lakes in Lombardy and Piedmont, and the canals of Venice. It lies between the hills of Tuscany, along the coasts and in the foothills of the Abruzzo and Lucania mountains. Even on the flat, hot Salento plain morning air can be so close to water vapor that it is impossible to glimpse the nearest olive tree.
Such an autumn morning in Puglia everything is wet and the silence is broken only by the sound of shotguns. For some inexplicable reason fog does not dampen another seasonal phenomenon, so during hunting season, there will be hunters. Their catch, apart from stray dogs, small birds and lizards, is a mystery, for I have never seen any kind of game in Salento. But surely the hunters take something in exchange for the used green and red cartridges strewn on the ground, when the sun makes the last of the misty water droplets evaporate.
More on the fog metaphor and Italy in writing
Italy literature favourites – classics for Christmas
Visit Aliano: Tourists stop at Eboli too
Visit Aliano: If you have ever visited the small town of Aliano in Basilicata, you will never forget where Carlo Levi wrote his famous book “Cristo Si E Fermato a Eboli“ – about how Christ and Christianity never penetrated il mezzogiorno south of the town Eboli.
Today Alianohas only 1000 inhabitants, but they are ever so proud of their claim on the fictional Gagliano that every house, every square, every wall and even some trees sport a small quote from the book. Midway between the old and the new town, a bronze bust of Levi on a pile of stones from observes town life and the scenery. And even the cemetery is geared for sightseeing.
We walk around between grave walls and wonder why Italians even in the after life prefer to live in high rises before we finally find Levi’s grave between the two cypress trees, he describes in his book. On the grave is a pile of smaller stones.
– Levi was a Jew, and it is a Jewish custom to place stones on the grave, an elderly American couple explained. The four of us seemed to be the only tourists in town on this fine summer day in the high season.
The American had read the book and seen the movie
so many times that he knew the story by heart, and he told us what the cemetery meant for Levi, who to the great disappointment of the villagers never returned to Basilicata after 1936, when he escaped from his exile. He was, nevertheless, buried in Aliano, where people have been expecting a boom in Levi tourism ever since.
They have built a large parking lot in the centre of the town that still hangs perilously on the edge of the abyss, but now they can at least accommodate large air-conditioned coaches that conquer the 28 hairpin bends of the only road to town. Still, the tourists are not exactly queuing to visit the place. Apart from the American couple we see no foreigners. Most tourists apparently follow Christ’s example and stop at Eboli. In this sense Aliano has not changed over the last 70 years. As a Carlo Levi quote on a walls says:
“Gagliano a prima vista non sembrà un paese, ma un piccolo insieme di cassette, bianche, con una pretesa nella loro miseria”
If you visit Aliano, you might also want to see:
Eagles over Basilicata
Reggio Calabria to Taranto: A road trip through south Italy
Driving down Europe Road 90 from Reggio Calabria to Taranto resembles a scene from an American road movie.
From Reggio Calabria to Taranto there is 491 kilometres asphalt connecting lawless truckers with Magna Grecia monuments, Mediterranean scents, old fishing villages and new construction sites.
There is no music score accompanying the drive, but otherwise Europe Road 90 resembles a scene from an American road movie where an endless streak of asphalt stretches out under a blazing sun, while the deep-blue sea, the mountains and deserted yellow plains in the background set a colour scheme to make any Swede happy. Dotted along the way are local workers trying to earn a few euros by selling chili on a string without interference from La Fiamma Gialla; shirtless camionisti with black sunglasses, Christmas light chains in the windshield, Padre Pio dangling under the rear view mirror, and trailers loaded with smuggled goods; and Schumacher clones, flashing their red Ferrari in sleepy holiday villages. A cocktail, that makes Statale 106 one of the most dangerous roads in Italy.
Crashed cars, flower bouquets by the roadside, frequent speed checks and road sections that are blocked by traffic accidents or road works, testify to the latent danger, and turn the 500 kilometres drive into an all-day project. These years the road is being expanded from one lane in each direction to an expressway with four lanes and concrete blocks to separate oncoming cars, but construction takes time, and for the time being long queues is part of the fun. The same goes for the urge to drive faster and wilder when occasional gaps occur in traffic. Mortality on Statale 106 is still above average for Italian roads.
Road works on the Ionian highway can block the traffic for hours.
The road is rich in contrasts other than the contrast between the dense traffic and a depopulated landscape. Electric red plastic palm trees stand right beside the real thing. There is a slot machine for every saint statue. New shopping malls and holiday resorts in bright colours pop up in the neighbourhood of ancient Doric columns. Cultivated agricultural land alternate with forest-clad mountains stretching down to the water’s edge. And the orange groves and eucalyptus trees masks the stench of smelly oil refineries.
Yet conditions have changed radically since the English travel book writer Augustus Hare a hundred years ago warned foreigners against all travel in the South:
“The vastness and ugliness of the districts to be traversed, the bareness and filth of the inns, the roughness of the natives, the torment of zinzare, the terror of earthquakes, the insecurity of the roads from brigands, and the far more serious risk of malaria or typhoid fever from the bad water, are the natural courses which have hitherto frightened strangers away from the south.”
Augustus Hare: Cities Of Southern Italy And Sicily
More on road trips and driving in Italy in addition to Reggio Calabria to Taranto
The Sassi District in Matera
In the Sassi district in Matera there are cave dwellings leading back to the first human settlements in the world.