The Padre, And Cathedrals

A very important figure in the south of Italy is the holy Padre Pino. You will find his image all over the place and in every house there is a picture of him on the wall.A resemblance above, perhaps.Being a very Catholic country, the churches and cathedrals are true pieces of art and richness.Old graves of important priests can be found with the most impressive sizes and decorations.

Making Do With What You Have

You can tell the houses are small by the way the Napolitanos dry their laundry.Here is another example of how people know how to take advantage of the limited space they have. Those living in this home grew their grapes in their courtyard, but the sun hit the front of the house, so they made a hole in the wall for the vines; the vines thus grew toward the light.

A Matter Of Convenience

Another way of transportation (in Naples) is the basket on a rope.When people live on the top floor and somebody comes along for a delivery, they let down the basket to avoid having to go up and down all the narrow stairs.

Italian Streets, Italian Alleys, Part II

Yet, Italy is the place for motorcycles.
You will stumble upon them all over, especially in the cities.You’ll find they’re also used for all transportation needs.

Italian Streets, Italian Alleys, Part I

Many cities are built on top of mountains and hills. It means that there is limited space. Streets are therefore very often very narrow and cannot be taken by car or motorcycle.

Matera

We visited Matera.

Matera is a very old town where the people used to live in caves. Matera is built on top of the ridge now, but in the old days the people lived below the city inside the mountain. They had a complete city including churches, shops, houses and water containers, all dug out of the rocks.We went in with someone who was involved with the restoration of the caves.

Years ago a politician came by to visit the place and he was shocked by the sight of people still living there. He passed a law that forbade people to live in the caves any longer. Soon the caves were abandoned. They even disposed of the water that had filled the containers for centuries.

After they realized that they also had something very valuable in their midst, they went back to restore the caves. When they tried to fill up the fresh water containers again, they found out that the water was disappearing into the stone as quickly as it was poured in. After a study they found out that the people who had built the caves used some kind of egg-white with which they treated the walls of the water containers, so they would be watertight. Now they are trying to restore even that.

Some people even went back into the caves because they didn’t like living in houses on top of the ridge.

During the period in which the caves were abandoned, thieves came along to chop out the faces of centuries-old frescos. Now they are behind bars.In the lower picture you can see how they have been carving off the surface in order to take out the entire face of this fresco.

This place was also the setting for the last scene of the Mel Gibson movie The Passion Of The Christ.

A Man And His Horse

At the end of this leg of the trip, we even met a farmer who lived in the same space as his horse did. The farmhouse was just one big space and in the back there was a second level where the man slept and the stable for the horse was underneath his bed.

Free Range

Another thing that struck me was the fact that farmers here would still have all their animals walking free and amongst each other. On the premises you would find cows, pigs, chickens, geese, dogs and cats all walking loose. Even in Portugal and Spain you would not find such circumstances. European rules strictly forbid this because of fear for diseases.
I wonder why this is still the case here in the south of Italy. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the “Slow Food” organization finds its roots in Italy. I don’t know. Italians are the people that value true taste more than any other European and they try to hold on to their “appellation” as no one else.

Bare Sand

The countryside of Italy is something special. We have traveled through tracts of land that were totally abandoned. I’m talking miles and miles. There was one part that used to be the biggest grain producing area of Italy that now lies fallow.All villages had been abandoned and the fields were bare sand.

Fishermen, And A Statue By The Sea

In the fishing town local fishermen were working on their nets and a nearby statue reminds of the ones that were taken by the sea.

Like in Spain where I tried to find authentic fishermen’s houses, here too they were gone. The seaside always generates more money than the countryside. Therefore the people on the coast have more money; they renovate their houses well before the farmers do.

Italian Marble

Marble is extracted from nearby quarries; the road that went past them had all these marble pyramids by the side.These little mountains were built from the pieces of rock that would have to be dug out before reaching the actual marble. In Belgium and Germany (even in the far south of Holland) you will find similar heaps of earth where they used to dig for coal. They are the remains of years of work underground.The marble is a typical Italian product and you will find it back all over the country in houses, castles and churches and cathedrals. Like in Naples:

Shopping Cars

We didn’t stay in Apricena, but we went to a small hotel in a nearby village.

The very first morning when I woke up I heard the voice through a loudspeaker in the streets. I went out to have a look and I saw this car driving around with all his merchandise on top of the car. It was a driving fashion shop.

Like I had seen in France here too most of the shops had disappeared from the villages and traveling salesmen were appearing in the streets to sell their merchandise. Soon after this one there came a fisherman, a butcher, a greengrocer, and a car that sold all kinds of stuff you might need—a small grocery car.
Soon after, we had to change hotels, and ended up on the coast. Here we found one of the few hotels still open (it was late in the season). The place was packed with hunters who partied until late and woke up way before the sun would rise. The hotel was of the kind that had all stone and marble walls and floors that make for tremendous noise; you would hear literally every noise that was produced. You could hear your neighbor snore, wheeze, and cough.

Italy

I toured Italy with Frederique, a young radio journalist who had studied there for two years. She had her way of dealing with the Italians and her way worked just fine for me. We flew to Naples and rode off for a two-week journey; that was all the time she could make free for me. I thought that could be enough and Frederique set her mind to find me at least 30 good places.

Cribyn, Part IV

Here you can see some modern conveniences coexisting with such an ancient shell.

Cribyn, Part III

Another photo from Cribyn; here you can begin to see how simply constructed the roof and walls are--again, just tree trunks and heather, loam and straw.

Cribyn, Part II

Another photo from the home in Cribyn.

Cribyn, Part I

One great household in particular was one we were shown in Cribyn. Here we found a father and son living in a house more than four centuries old, built out of loam and straw. The roof was made of tree trunks, the holes filled up with heather. It was completely authentic.

They slept together on the upper floor and they allowed me to go up there and take some pictures. It was amazing to see how such a house still served its purpose. Everything was still functioning as it was always meant to be, despite the extreme old age. The son told me that the year before they wanted to tear down a piece of a wall that no longer served a purpose. We are talking about a simple loam and straw wall, but it still took him the whole day to get it down.

It was as hard as a rock.

Over the week, more photographs of this cabin will be posted. Next week a series on my visit to Italy will begin.

Good Men And True

In Wales, we found a shepherd named Erwyd Howells. He seemed to be the right guy to takes us around and point out the interesting places. He knew all about the region's history, and actually even wrote a book about it which was due to be published, titled Good Men and True.

At first, he didn't understand what we wanted and he brought us to the wrong places. You could tell that he felt uncomfortable but nevertheless he managed to show us a few good sites.

The very next day he was busy and couldn't do anything for us. He had to slaughter two lambs for another shepherd. But the following day he called us up and told us that he had figured it out. Suddenly, he had a whole lot of other places that he wanted to show to us. This is something that happens often. Once someone starts thinking about the whole subject, thoughts keep coming. In the end, you will have seen everything that could be of interest for you.

Erwyd enjoyed the ride through the Welsh countryside next to me and the talks with all his acquaintances. In the end we managed to collect a great series of Welsh households.

Achaglachgach

The names of the villages and families are difficult to understand and to pronounce.

In Wales, we found ourselves in a completely different country. Once we were there, we went to see our first contact, an old lady who lived in a lovely place in one of the valleys east of Aberystwyth. We were talking to her in English as she got a phone call. It clearly was from somebody in the neighborhood, and they spoke in their native language: the old Gaelic.

Nothing to understand here. But absolutely nothing.

I have also experienced this in parts of France, where there are still people who speak this same language. It is one of the oldest European languages and it was common all along the coast, from Galicia in Spain’s northwest, all the way up to Normandy; across the North Sea to the south of England around the corner to Wales; again across the Irish Sea to the South of Ireland. This land was part of the mainland before the last Ice Age.

Largs, Arran, Kyntire

The skyline of Largs, on the coast across the Isle of Arran. We spent the night there before taking a boat to Arran, and from there to Kyntire.

On Kyntire we spent some time on the estate of Dunmore with friends of my companions. It was a very old big traditional Scottish manor where, when in full glory, there used to live some twenty-plus people. Now, only the owner lives there with his wife and daughter. The house is far too big for them. You could see the decay; the house is too big to be made sufficiently warm, and so moisture takes its toll.The place is like nothing else on this earth; it is the end of the world facing the sea, surrounded by the most beautiful old trees. It really has this haunted feeling. I was reminded of the old Sherlock Holmes movies.