from the sole of Italy: from sea, to other shining sea, to table

[cautionary note: it's long, to make up for yesterday. and on dial-up, no less!]

In Italy, between Puglia (the heel) and Calabria (the toe), there is Basilicata – a stretch of sole.

When I moved to the States to finish my studies there, I took the language (so impractical!) of the country I loved from afar – Italy. In my last semester, the teacher gave us Carlo Levi’s Christ stopped at Eboli (the point being, he neglected the south), to read in Italian. It describes the once greatly impoverished (and still significantly more so than elsewhere in Italy), the distant and forgotten land. It describes Basilicata.

This is the region that I have wanted to travel to for a long time. This is where I am right now.

The Wednesday flight, leaving Warsaw, through Paris, through Milan to Bari gets us here after dark. I have good directions on how to find the Agriturismo, the farm stay that I have chosen, but an email explains that Maria (the owner?) is out for the evening. Her dogs will greet us when we arrive, I’m told.

We get out of the car in front of a massive, flower covered building. No fewer than five dogs come bounding toward us, barking wildly. I say hi? rather tentatively. That is enough to put them into fits of ecstasy. They are all over me, they are a welcoming committee on speed, they are insanely friendly.

All fine. Dogs greeted. Now what? On the front door, there is Maria’s cell number in case I have forgotten it. Maria assumes, correctly, that civilized beings will have a cell. Ed’s not a cell person, but I am. My cell works well in the States. My cell is not intended for human use in Europe.

Ed takes out the flashlight and we explore. The dogs follow us. We are the hunters and gatherers with our pack of hounds, in search of…bedrooms. We speculate how long an evening out might be for a Maria from southern Italy.

We hear a car. A man comes forth (who is he? don’t know…), says many things in rapid fire Italian, takes out his cell and now we know we will be taken care of. We will not be abandoned to camp on the doorstep. A Basilicata soul is looking out for us.

Within minutes a young woman – the maid and cook and general keep-us-agriturismo-guests-happy person comes to show us to our room.

The room with a view toward the orange grove…



…and grape vines






(I have yet to find the farm’s olive trees.)


We ask about eating places. You will find something five kilometers down there road, in the small town of Marconia.

It is their cold spell now. Temperatures are dipping to the forties at night. Daytime highs are in the upper fifties. People are bundled up as if fierce arctic winds were blowing through. But they do not give up on their evening on the Square.



It’s a guy thing at this hour. The women are fussing with food. Later on, gender balance will be restored.

Up the street there is a small pizzeria. We sit down to bowls of salad and a mushroom-artichoke-wonder pie. For it is magnificent. Best pizza ever, says Ed. His first reflection on southern Italy. I’m all smiles.

We are incredibly fussed over. The cook brings us a calendar to take home, with huge photos of the pizzas he is tossing in his fists then shoving into the oven. The waiter presents us with a pen with the name of the place and as we leave, he puts down a drink, on the house – a regional herby liquor that warms your entire digestive tract for five hours at least.


the calendar image


the real thing

Welcome to Basilicata.


The next morning we are driving, driving, trying to cover the land between the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic – Puglia, the big fat heel of the shoe that is Italy.

We make too many stops. I know it, but I cannot help it.

In some insignificant town, a market draws a huge crowd. It’s not the cheeses, the shoes, the rugs that make me reach for my camera again and again, it’s the people. Italian animation cannot be photographed well. But I never stop trying. And no one minds. For once, I get the smiles and encouraging shouts.













There isn’t much for the foreign tourist here, in Italy’s heel, at first blush. The land is rocky, dotted with olive trees and nondescript towns built vaguely along Greek lines. The beaches on the western coast are a draw for the locals in the summer season. Now, they are empty of people, not so empty of the litter they left behind.

We stop for a walk in Gallipoli – an ancient city whose old town was once an island.




The timelessness of fishermen mending nets during the lunch hour! I'm hooked. So to speak.






The maze of streets confuses me. I think I am heading one way, but no, I am not. It’s the kind of place where around the corner you are always surprised. Not infrequently, with holiday trimmings.



At two, we understand that we have only a couple of hours of daylight left. When you are rushed, you get lost and so we get lost. It is almost dusk when we reach Finibus Terrae (Land’s End), the very tip of the Italian heel.


Santa Maria di Leuca, the port

There is a monastery, offering terrific views of the water on both sides. We cannot pause for long. I am determined to drive along the reputedly splendid Adriatic coast before you lose sight of all but twinkley lights. But still, will I ever not pause for a cappuccino when the urge strikes?



Outside, the priest shouts a greeting, then turns to chat with a workman. A nun hurries into the church building. The feeling of remoteness is exacerbated by the presence of these three individuals in an open piazza.



At the end there is a single column, with, I am guessing, Santa Maria di Leuca looking as if she cares about this tip of Italy after all.



The drive up along the Adriatic is worth the trip. No beaches here, just rocks and more rocks. The villages are better tended than those on the side of the Ionian. Still, they are off season, empty. The only people we see are the occasional olive grove workers, shaking out the last olives of the season.




The scent of burning twigs and olive leaves is powerful.



But as the sun sets, we turn away from the coast…




Our dinner is at a remote restaurant a few kilometers away from our farm. We are there before nine. Only two other tables are occupied. Is this a bad sign? So many restaurants here are empty. Is it a seasonal thing?

Cassimo, our waiter, takes charge. He puts three bottles of regional wine and asks us to choose one. That is the last choice we are asked to make. We never see a menu or a price. Cassimo just brings food. Small plates of antipasti, a dozen of them, come in from the kitchen, one by one. We cannot finish even half.

A sample:













Next, a tray of raw vegetables with a spiced olive oil and Balsamic for dipping.



Ed asks me to intervene, to suggest mildly that we are full, but I cannot. Cassimo is on a roll. Out comes a huge bowl of spaghetti with clams and prawn. Absolutely delicious.


Cossimo, loading it on

Ed is insistent. If I wont tell Cossimo basta! he will.

Fine. Cossimo, we are full, we cannot eat another course. He nods his head. Americans must not eat much, he is thinking. But when I mention that we will entertain a little sweet something, he perks up. And it begins again:

A bottle of sweet sparkling wine, a plate of fruit…



A plate of cookies…



Napoleons…



Cossimo, enough!

I have offered to pick up the tab for this meal and I am slightly concerned. The wines, the foods, the bad rate of exchange, debtors’ prison, what am I in for?

I look at the bill. Two fixed price meals, it reads. 35 Euros each. The beauty of Basilicata.


the chef


We head back to Agriturismo San Teodoro Nuovo.

from the sole of Italy: rosy news but dial-up blues

Driving this morning from the arching sole of Italy's boot, it struck me that winter daylight is so limited that you should never squander a second of it. And we didn't. From markets to shores and fishing town, to the very tip of Italy's heel on her boot -- we covered it all.

But, computer issues are such that posting about it will have to be done tomorrow. In spite of the graciousness of the owners of the farm where we are staying (and such a farm it is!), there isn't a way for me to load this up until then.

A domani!

from outside of Warsaw: over the river, through the woods

I know I am being deliberately teased by the weather. The first day had me convinced that I would have eternal sunshine and a spotless sky for the duration of my Poland visit. The second day it rained. The third day, gentle wisps of cloud made room for periods of sunshine. The fourth day, Tuesday, buckets of wet stuff came down. Depending on where you stood, it fell as rain or snow.

Most would not view this as an opportunity to drive out into the countryside. But most had not been entranced, seeing out the train window endless possibilites of country walks. So it was a little wet outside. So what.

It was not just a little wet. It was hugely wet, foggy, gray. The landscape looked like someone had forgotten to add color to the paintbox. And the traffic moving out of the city was enough to erase any thoughts that this venture would be a breeze.

Oh, we did leave behind the city scapes eventually. Still, was it worth it, for this?



The one splash of color did make me pull over and take out the camera. A reminder of years when many houses in this region bore traces of folk art. But now, this one stands alone.



Two and a half hours into our drive, I had the idea that we should find the house my grandparents once inhabited. It is in a village, north east of Warsaw. A dirt road off the main road takes you there. It’s where I spent the first three years of my life and returned to more summers than I can remember.

I turned off the road tentatively. It felt so familiar, there in that forest of red-bark pines. The snow was holding on in pretty clumps of white, as if to let me know that this was not folly, this drive was worth the bother.



The village looked empty now, but I know it was for weather reasons. That farm house is new! That one was there fifty years ago. My grandfather helped build this meeting hall! My grandmother bought milk and cheese from this farmer.

Ed listened patiently. I know that the details of milk and cheese acquisition could not inspire the same excitement in him, but he’s a tolerant soul and so I continued.

This house was once used as a boy’s orphanage. I hear it’s now a place to send abused or neglected children. And see that store? Oh, it used to be a store. No more store.

One last kilometer and we are in front of it. The one room house that my grandfather bought when my sister and I were born. He added a sunporch. Then an attic. And so it grew and we did too.



…and that used to be the outhouse, and the cherry tree grew there and the apple orchard was to the side.

You cannot go back, not really. The inside of the house is different, the garden has changed. But you can stand in front of a place and put yourself in the images of your childhood and for a minute, you are taht little, that unknowing.

We looked for a while and then turned back to the city.

No country walk on this day, no city walk either. Not many photos, not much sightseeing. Just one sight, that of a childhood village house, standing there under the flakes of wet snow.


Our last evening in Poland. Ed, my sister and I eat dinner with my oldest friends in Warsaw. It is always like that. I come, they cook, I leave. With a sweet sweet taste of cakes to finish my visit home.




NOTE: I am traveling today to the southern most part of Italy's big boot. Internet for the next four days will be a challenge. Patience! I will try.

from Warsaw: the beasts and the children

We take the morning train back to Warsaw. It is a quiet ride, a pensive time. Outside, the countryside is gentle, the colors -- a hazy gold.



My sister, who has lived in Warsaw all the years that I have been away, is waiting at the train station. She is protective of my movements here, in the city of my childhood. I know she thinks that I am too trusting, still stuck in the safer world of post-war Poland, when street crime was something we associated with America. Poland was tame then. Adults worried, but children felt safe.

I am stuck, alright, in seeing Warsaw as she was then. She is constant, she is a rock.

In the early afternoon, Ed and I set off for a walk. It is colder now, but the sun is still there, darting out just when I need it most. It is Ed’s first walk through Warsaw.




My first Warsaw walk took place when I was maybe one, or two. There was still the smell of rubble then. Ed, in New York, was exploring Central Park and exchanging baseball cards. Or, knowing him – reading comic books on the floor of his room. I was staring at candles burning on street corners, commemorating the losses of the past decade.

We walk to Lazienki, the most beautiful urban park in the world. Bias again? No. Really, not.



It is almost empty – unusual, at any time of the year. On a week-end, there is hardly an alley that is not taken up by the lovers, the children, the old friends walking arm in arm. Every bench is well worn, much used. But on this afternoon, it is too cold to sit. The few of us that are here walk briskly.

Though of course, we are not really alone. My sister has stuffed our pockets with stale bread and nuts for the inhabitants of Lazienki and these lovely creatures run to us, searching our coats, asking for a winter treat.


bird and Ocean author



bird and Ed

We are utterly charmed by this. I tell Ed that nothing has changed. I fed these same squirrels and birds when I was five years old. I am feeding them now, still grinning at their brazenness.


squirrel reaches for a nut



peacock jumps for bread



may we please have more?



and what about me?



...while others look on

And suddenly the light fades. The trees, towering and bare, no longer throw shadows. We are in the larger shadow of the night.


evening: empty benches, empty park


...almost empty

I steer Ed toward the streets and squares that were my childhood paths. Look Ed, this is a planned housing development that went up after the war. With courtyards for children to play in. Nice, isn’t it?




And here, see this square? Another housing development. People refer to this as Stalinist architecture – but we kind of learned to like it. And it still has appeal to us, in a retro sort of way.





I was born the year Stalin died. I have read enough since to know that there is nothing pretty about the politics of that era. But my childhood memories are not about politics. They are about neighborhoods and parks and feeding squirrels and getting an ice cream cone under the arcades of these buildings.

It is cold enough to take a pause. I guide Ed to one of the many many bakeries, so familiar, still putting out the pastries that I grew up with. A vanilla babka, a poppyseed cake, and the more ornate tortes that women and men stood in line for. There were shortages then – not enough meat, not enough toilet paper, too few cars, not many washers, no clothes you would be proud to wash or wear. But I never recall a shortage of cakes. Let them eat cakes, there would always be cakes.




At night, I eat dinner with my family. Poland is, to me, a country with baggage that is over the limit. If airlines charge $50 for too much weight in your bags, then Poland, were she traveling, would owe the equivalent of a small country’s GNP. And my family fits in here. Maybe it is a given that a nation of baggage would have individuals pulling in their share and then some.
But we eat together anyway. The younger ones keep looking forward, the older ones keep looking back, some of us no longer eat meat, some of us grew up without meat in stores, some of us push for organic meat. The wheels of change.

It is so late that I cannot write when I finally come back to the hotel and sit down at my computer. I’m in Warsaw, and incapable of saying a sensible word about her. Even though I feel I must. Someone once wrote that we are the generation of story tellers. Being post-war children, we did not write the history, yet we are burdened now with recording it.

And so I will. I do. But not until the next morning.

six hours

If I, here at Ocean, could only have six hours (for sleep), I would come back swinging so hard afterwards! Okay? Thank you. See you in about six.

from Rynias, Poland: hiking the muddy paths

I am in Krakow. Most anyone would find this a destination in and of itself. And it is. But after a day, I say:
I want to go to the mountains.
And how is it that we get from here to there?

Ed and I are reviewing Sunday options. I know what I want. What I do not know is how to explain to an American that what I want is entirely reasonable.

Well, you can take the bus, then a cab, really not too bad… One hundred kilometers (60 miles) and you are there.
How long is the travel time? Ed is beginning to understand that with me, you need to ask the right question.
Seven hours. Round trip!
It is dark for 23 hours of the day here (an exaggeration, but I get the point). Is this a reasonable plan?
Yes.

But the bus and train schedules will not permit this and so, like helpless tourists that do not know which way is north or south, we turn to the sweet young women at the hotel front desk. Help us, help us…
We can offer you a car, with driver.
How can a car with driver be cheaper than a rental car, without driver? Please, do not ask me to unravel the deep mysteries of Polish life. Reality is a confusing thing.

We accept the offer.

It’s Sunday morning and the weather has turned…awful. Rain, mist, dark clouds, sharp winds. Ahhhh, central Europe in December. Hi there, I am home again.

Ed waffles (oh how the mighty crumble when the weather turns bad).
Maybe we could pay our driver not to take us to the mountains.
I say nothing, which says a lot.

We climb into the car and head south.

It gets worse the closer we get to the village from which I want to hike to Rynias.

Rynias… A longtime reader of Ocean would know this place.

In the middle of an Alpine valley, three homesteads cluster together. It is a place of unexpected quiet. The nearest paved road is nearly an hour by foot. Okay, it is not a total silence. The mad stream pounding the rocks just to the south is loud as anything. Cross the waters and you are in Slovakia. The high peaks of the Tatra mountains frame the entire meadow. There is no place like Rynias. I say this because, of course, I am biased.

I had first gone to Rynias, with friends, as a young university student. We stayed in the home of highlanders, who farmed the land and grazed their sheep in that pristine valley in the middle of nowhere. Soon after, I became a statistic: one of those who moved to the States and was never heard from again. Except, some five years ago, I came back to Poland and again made my way back to the mountains and the hidden cluster of homes by the Slovakian border.


The driver, a young Krakovian whose motto has to be “I speed because I am” follows my directions to the village nearest Rynias.
Leave us here and come back in several hours.
Really? Thank you!
He tells us we are a very undemanding pair of Americans.

Am I an American? I speak Polish to him. Still, he calls it as he sees it. I am a Pole who has neglected her roots. Worse, I am a Pole who is traveling with an American. One of those. A Polish woman seeking a way out. A Polish woman who (bingo!) has found her entry card to the great America. God, I hate the inscriptions and attributions that come with being seen around town with an American.

Ed and I leave the warm, dry shelter of the car and set out deep into the forest. I use an umbrella. Ed gets wet (he does not believe in umbrellas). But we persevere.



The clouds hide the mountains. There are no jagged peaks framing the Alpine valley this time. There is the forest, there are meadows and there are the fat drops that so want to be snow flakes, but for the one degree that keeps them in the state of rain.



And then, magically, there is Rynias.



Pan Stas (83) and Pani Anna (75), the highlanders who are happier to see me than my own mother would be...



... usher us into their tiny kitchen hut. They had been setting out to church, but are now insistant that we come in and sit for a while on small stools, warming up with glasses of tea.

This glass of Lipton is as familiar to me as the cup that I make for myself back at the Law School, thousands of miles away, every day before class. And now Pani Anna is boiling water. [Ed smiles as she places the pot of water on top of her wood burning stove, still hot from the morning fire and sticks an electrical coil into it to speed up the boil.] She cuts wafer bars to eat and she searches for strings of dried mushrooms to stuff into an old plastic bag for me to take back home. Think of us when you cook with them, she tells me.






We talk, intensely. About my daughters, about their nephew. Never about the son they lost in a motorcycle accident. Never about all that can go wrong between now and the next time that I will see them. But when I leave, the strength of the kisses says it all. Good bye. Who knows what stories will be laid down the next time we meet. Good bye.




Ed and I take the short cut back to the village: we follow the steep path up the mountain, through the forest, until it crests…



... then shoots down, on the other side, into the village of Brzegi.




Brzegi has two tiny grocers, one volunteer fire station, an elementary school and a church. Half the village is at a mass right now. The church bells peel. What does that mean? I don’t know. I am ignorant in the ways of my home country.



Ed and I hike down to find our driver. Where to now? --he asks. I shrug. Me, I am finished. My day is done.

Still, we have one or two daylight hours left. You do not throw away daylight hours when there are so few and far between. And so we head higher up, toward the mountains that have yet to reveal themselves from behind the dense clouds.

But the further up we go, the foggier it gets. Only here, the rain is changing to snow. Wet and cold snow. Hiding reality, soothing the agitated girl, no, woman now, here from Wisconsin, here only for a minute, before her face turns back to what is now home, so far, so far, from this place.







Enough. I ache from the cold, from the fullness of the day. We drive to Krakow, the road terror boy at the wheel, passing six, seven cars at a stretch, because maybe if he gets us there, to the main square before too long, his woman will take him into her arms again?

Good bye peculiar Americans, he is thinking. Good bye mad but ultimately sympathetic driver.

I find comfort in the grilled sheep’s milk cheese at the holiday bazaar.



Children are singing Polish Christmas carols and I sing with them, even without the aid of hot spiced wine.