Birmingham is reputed to have more mileage of canals than Venice. London too has its fair share of canals and on my blogs I’ve written several posts describing these former communication arteries and progenitors of Britain’s industrial revolution.
On the second day of my arrival at the great Wen I had to present myself for a Covid-19 test as required by the current authorities. I have subsequently found out that it went well and I remain negative.
Near to the test centre I noticed there was a sign to a canal museum and decided to take a look. Although not very large the museum is very comprehensive and we spent an enjoyable couple of hours there.
Housed in a former Victorian ice storage warehouse the museum presents the following themes.
Background to canals in England
Before the railways came canals provided smoother (though slower) travel than the turnpike roads which were also being constructed. There was canal mania by the end of the eighteenth century with some very successful projects and some less profitable ones. The Grand Union canal linking London with Birmingham was a particular success, the Croydon canal less so although it did provide the route for the subsequent railway.
Life on the canals
People not only worked on the canals; they lived on the narrow boats which were their principal homes. Whole families were brought up in these cramped surroundings of which there is an example we can enter and visit. Even an opera, Puccini’s ‘Il Tabarro’ was inspired by the barge life as was that evocative song ‘La chalande qui passe’.
Canal painting and decorative pottery
A distinctive canal-boat art was developed with special emphasis on flowers and good-luck charms, rather similar to the painting found on gypsy caravans.
Lifting and handling
It was Leonardo da Vinci who invented the modern system of canal locks and projected the first canals in the Lombardy plain under the patronage of the Sforzas. In this respect I am reminded that Milan, too was once a canal city with its navigli. Sadly few of them remain there today since canals’ importance as communication channels came to an end and they were filled in or channelled in concrete tubes to widen roads. (Today, however, there is a plan to reopen several of the submerged Milanese navigli)
Carlo Gatti, the Ice Trade, and Ice Cream production
Gatti, a Swiss-Italian from the Ticino, came to London to seek his fortune which he made by selling Norwegian ice in the days before refrigeration storing them in large ice-holes of which there is an example in the museum. Gatti later, not unsurprisingly branched out into ice-cream production. It is thanks to him that the museum has been able to find housing in his warehouse.
Horse Power
Horses, so often badly exploited and treated, were used to pull the barges along the towpaths although there is an example of a motorised barge tractor later used for the same job in the museum.
The Regent’s Canal (including archive film)
There are some amazing old films about life and work on the canals showing that until the 1960’s canals were still actively used as industrial communication channels,
Boats and Cargoes
There is a good display of models illustrating different types of canal craft some of which derived from the famous Thames barges,
London Waterways Map
It’s a miracle that London still has such an extensive canal network since by the 1970’s so many stretches had become disused succumbed to decay and were used mainly to dump old cars and supermarket trolley into their filthy waters. Of the canals that I remember as a child only the Surrey canal and its Peckham extension have disappeared, filled in to create a park in many areas, This canal, incidentally was supposed to continue as far as west London but funds ran out.
One of the most charming aspects of the museum is its opening to the canal basin on which it is situated, a branch of the Regent’s canal. Here we were able to enjoy elevenses seated by waters inhabited by a friendly coot and by several colourful narrow-boats for now happily the canals have evolved from being channels of thriving industry, through watery wastelands of city debris to their resuscitation as corridors of recreation, wild life habitats and ecological environments.
What is the purpose of a blog? What is its subject? What is the difference between a blog and a diary? What makes an effective blog? What happens to a blog in the end? These are all questions I’ve asked myself from time to time and I can only refer to one of the most famous of blogs, although, in fact, it was written over fifty years before on-line blogs appeared. I refer to Anne Frank’s diary (which I am re-reading in the full version) written in ‘the secret chamber’ during those terrible years in the last world conflict when the Nazis occupied Holland and before the secret of that chamber was revealed by as yet unknown betrayers with its occupants marched off to the concentration camp. Anne’s diary, which she addresses to an imaginary (but true) friend named ‘Kitty’, was at first meant to be a private account of a thirteen year old girl’s opinions and feelings about the straightened environment she was forced to spend her adolescent years in. However, when there was an appeal by the Allied forces for documents, diaries and letters from those living in axis-occupied countries Anne decided to turn her private diary into one to be read by all and began to re-write earlier entries so as to engage a wider audience transforming it into one of the first blogs.
I was thinking about my own private thoughts on the matter and, in particular about my own family, perhaps the most important socio-cultural factor in moulding us into what we are now (or think we are…).
Families come together in important life-events such as births, deaths and marriages. They also celebrate members’ achievements like graduation day or the receiving of awards. I realised that in the case of my family these events did not quite manage to get us together. Clearly I was present at my own christening at Lewisham’s Roman Catholic Saint Saviour’s Church and undoubtedly my parents were there too!
My godmother must have also been there. Her name was Helen and she was also a Roman Catholic in a family which on my father’s side had lapsed from that religion. I have written an account of her (in Italian) at https://longoio3.com/2019/07/19/la-madrina-ritrovata/
One of a godmother’s duties is to see that the child she is protecting is brought up within the family’s religious practices. My father never converted to Roman Catholicism although he dutifully attended Mass, at least in the early years of his marriage, and was aware that there would have been an obligation to have me brought up in the Romish persuasion.
Catechism was inflicted upon me at age seven when I found myself in Milan with my Italian grandparents when our new London home had not yet been completed and when the rest of my family were lodged in a couple of rooms in my English grandparents’ house.
Suor Giuseppina oversaw my religious education at the nearby Salesian college and I was duly confirmed and received my First Communion there from the city’s bishop who would later be elected as Pope Paul VI.
However, neither my parents were present at the ceremony. Of course, this was before the time of cheap flights, even before air travel became common between European countries, and the usual means of travel between London and Milan was a thirty hour train journey from Victoria station to the Dover ferry and from Calais across northern France and Switzerland (no compulsory changing trains in Paris in those days…). Of course, my parents were both working hard, my father for the Prudential insurance company and my mother for St Ebba’s and West Park mental hospitals but perhaps they might have been able to attend. Strangely I do not remember being saddened by their absence at this important milestone in my spiritual development. In time I became a lapsed Catholic like so many others.
The catechistical indoctrination wore off and going to Mass no longer became a family affair since neither of my parents would accompany me to the local Catholic Church dedicated to Saint William of York. My religious meanderings during my adolescent years are too tedious to recount here and, if today, I was asked to state what my religious beliefs were I would say that I still don’t really know!
Entering a public school from an L.C.C. primary thanks to the ‘Dulwich experiment’ was a great springboard for the place eventually offered to me by Oxbridge. Graduation day would have been a fine occasion for my parents to have been present at the university’s senate house but, regrettably, they couldn’t attend and instead sent my younger brother to witness my B.A. (Hons) conferral. I repaid the fraternal compliment by attending my brother’s (first) wedding at the same Forest Hill church. This was a more difficult undertaking than it seems since I had to find my way out of a remote Himalayan valley to get to SE23. My sudden unannounced appearance was meant to be a kind of wedding present. My father, however, did not take it all that well as he felt I had stolen some fire from the occasion. I did not attend my brother’s second wedding but that was for another reason.
Although my wife’s parents attended our own wedding at Caxton Hall my parents did not. It was a romantic, almost secretive wedding; my wife’s family knew about it but I deferred the news of the ceremony from my parents until the day before, my mother being at first against the marriage although she relented somewhat later on. However, at least my brother and his first wife were present at our wedding lunch at San Lorenzo’s, Beauchamp place.
The conferral of a second degree, this time an MSc from City of London University, similarly did not have my parents present and neither my brother.
Not having had any children ourselves removed the possibility of family not turning up for the christening. Or would they?
Which brings me onto the final part of the great trilogy of life: births, marriages and deaths? But this part would require a whole separate section to itself. Or should I even talk about it?
Our districts of Mediavalle and Garfagnana which cover the whole of the upper part of the Serchio River north of Lucca are well provided with swimming facilities. It’s a great area for wild swimming and there are many favoured spots along the Serchio River and its tributary, the Lima. It’s best, of course, to discover these places for oneself and then keep them secret: they must never become too popular! There’s wild swimming also available in the area’s lakes but one must ensure that it’s allowed since several are reservoirs and have strict regulations.
The only snag about wild swimming is that for some mountain waters can be very cold and, increasingly in my case, I worry whether my body can take it anymore! Perhaps I should start wearing a wet suit for the locations can be absolutely spectacular and it would be a real pity to miss out on them.
Recently, one of our own Valle di Lima most popular wild swimming spots, the wittily named ‘Miami Beach’ (actually it’s probably rather nicer than its American seaside counterpart) has suffered grievously at the hands of the river water authorities who have bulldozed the river bed and its shores as part of its ‘hydraulic safety measures’. I don’t think I’d want to go there this year if I want to lose my happy memories of this gorgeous place.
Public swimming pools are, in the main, very satisfactory in our part of the world. Here are some of the ones I’ve visited near to where I live.
Bagni di Lucca. Nestled in the Lima valley at the Villa Ada gardens its setting is quite spectacular. Facilities are good with three pools: main, diving and youngsters. Open from 9 am to 7 pm seven days a week.
Gallicano. It’s a less spectacular setting but just as good and a little less crowded.
Borgo a Mozzano. The pool is beautiful situated although, rather oddly, by the railway track which means that swimming train spotters will be particularly delighted. The usual Covid-19 regulations apply (green pass etc.) and one is directed to two deck-chairs under a sunshade.
Like other pools the lockers cannot be used because of the pandemic so don’t bring any irreplaceable valuables along. (Although the place is very safe). The bar, which sells pizzas, snacks Valdostane and ice-cream, is somewhat limited but friendly. What I like about Borgo’s pool is that it’s less full of tourists that Bagni, less crowded and certainly more of a family affair. It’s a good place to get away from the demi-monde at Villa.
Today, for a change, it’s grey skies and perhaps another sudden thunderstorm will make a quick entry such as we had the other day. Shall we go swimming or just let the rain fall upon our sun-tanned skin instead?
The porcelain Christ is heavily embraced by rosaries and crucifixes; below his statuette lies a bouquet of plastic flowers.
The two elements of plastic flowers and crosses combine in a series of ‘maestine’, the name given to the characteristic wayside shrines of this region. Each ‘maestina’ is a painted amalgam of flowers and crucifixes within a wooden frame headed by a pediment. The setting for these creative transformations of traditional symbols are the gallery’s walls now painted a sombre but scintillating black. The effect is quite affecting…indeed, overwhelming.
Taking these elements and deepening their significance, the ‘maestina’ literally means ‘little majesty’; the Maestà are portraits of Christ in His Majesty and the finest Italian artists, from Duccio through to Michelangelo and beyond, have all painted truly magnificently powerful representations. In the ‘maestine’ the quality of ‘majesty’ remains but the size is diminished. Although they may be painted maestine are usually relief-sculpted and sadly many maestine have been stolen since they are often in remote mountain locations.
The arrangement of the flowers reminded me uncannily of Dutch seventeenth century painters like Jan Van Huysum. Interestingly a cleric who visited Keane’s exhibition ignored the flowers in the tableaux and remarked on the wonders and proliferation of the crucifixes: ‘‘chacun à son goût’.
Plastic flowers and plastic crucifixes may be regarded as sheer bling in many quarters but behind these items lie a huge part of the people of the world’s concerns and sorrows. In the context of cemeteries plastic flowers give a false impression of eternity lasting so much longer than the real thing, although even they must fade and lose their colours’ original brilliancy. Perhaps not as eternally as their artistic representations, however, for paradoxically Keane has immortalised the remains of the plastic flowers in a three–layered painting where their disintegrated elements are pieced together to blossom anew; their own special reincarnation maybe?
Crucifixes are constantly being offered for various blessings in so many parts of the Christian world. The crosses may plead for consolation in the event of a tragic family loss or clamour for improved luck in a distraught life. Today blessings are increasingly offered with symbols other than crucifixes. Who has not glimpsed at the padlocks of romance impregnating bridges and balconies, symbols of eternally sworn loves, safeguards as much as those crucifixes against the devotee’s disintegration into ashes and dust.
Keene’s is more than an exhibition; it is an experience. The gallery’s ambience wraps around oneself. The extraordinary perspective of black arches leading towards images weirdly infinitesimal, the strange juxtaposition of natural and artificial floral world and those crosses turned from images of devotion into ornaments, that Christ originally triumphing over death as in the earlier Maestà turned into a figure suffering under mortality were all thoughts that entered my mind as I was strangely transformed into yet another devotee of plastic adoration.
There is an old Italian saying that after ‘Ferragosto’ (August 15th) the weather changes. For weeks we have been sweltering under ‘Lucifero’, the hot weather coming from North Africa with day-time temperatures well above thirty degrees centigrade. Looking at our weather forecast the saying still holds good for there will be a fall in temperature this week. I can feel the change already on my skin and soon a furious Vivaldian thunderstorm storm such as is musically depicted in the ‘Summer’ from his ‘Four Seasons’ concerti may well be inflicted upon us.
There are two similar-sounding Italian words describing holidays and work-days but with opposite meanings. The first is ‘feriale’ denoting any working day and distinguished from ‘festivo’ which means a holiday. The second word is ‘ferie’. If a shop is closed for ‘le ferie’ it means that the owner is on holiday. (It’s somewhat inconvenient for summer visitors to Italy that so many shops close down for the summer when their owners take their holidays. Only the other day I was unable to buy cakes from a shop that sells delicious pastries. Good for them! Why shouldn’t they have their summer holidays like everybody else).
Ferragosto is a conflation of two holidays. The first derives from the holiday given to workers and slaves by the Roman emperor Augustus at the start of the month named after him. The second holiday is a religious one for the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven.
Incidentally what is the difference between the Virgin’s Assumption and Jesus’ Ascension? The theological answer is that Jesus raised himself into Heaven through his own power and victory over death. It was an active action. The Virgin, however, was raised into Heaven by the Father. It was a passive action.
Both pre-Christian and Christian ‘ferragosto’ festivals are combined in several well-known Italian events. Siena’s Palio with its famed horse race celebrates the Virgin Mary’s Assumption . Horse races were also held in ancient Roman times on the ‘Feriae Augusti’, the emperor’s festive day when the winner would receive a precious cloth called ‘pallium’ . Today in Siena ‘il palio’, a banner, painted anew each year, is similarly given to the winner of the race.
Regrettably, because of the Pandemic the Palio has again been cancelled. Unlike the recently ended Tokyo Olympics it would be unimaginable to run the Palio without having any spectators!
At the Palio a few years ago
Like British Autumn Bank Holiday, Ferragosto is a time of considerable movement of people and if one wants to travel anywhere on that day one is likely to encounter crowded trains and traffic jams everywhere. I was to meet some friends at Bagni di Lucca and go with them to Barga for lunch but they were somewhat delayed not just because of the long road queues but because the Brennero road they took is still one-way for a short stretch near the Ponte della Maddalena, more commonly known as the Devil’s bridge, because of reparations to the landslide.
We reached Barga not only in time for lunch at the Capretz restaurant but also to see one of our lunch partners’, Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna, exhibition.
First we visited Nick’s’ studio nearby where he developed the multi-plate colour etching process which has attracted so many students to his workshops He is a supremely distinguished artist; no wonder his work is included in the Uffizi’s prints and drawings collection.
The way Nick’s art also reflects ancient mythological themes was fully evident in his exhibition which takes its inspiration from a poem by Cesare Pavese.
Here is my translation of that poem:
*
In the clear sky the hill is like night.
It frames your head which scarcely moves
and accompanies that sky. You are like a cloud
glimpsed among the branches. The strangeness of a sky
that is not yours smiles in your eyes.
*
The hill of earth and leaves encloses
your animated gazing with its dusky mass,
your mouth has the fold of a sweet hollow
between distant slopes. You seem to play
with the big hill and in the sky’s clarity:
to please me you reprise the ancient setting
and render it purer.
*
But you live elsewhere.
Your tender blood was formed elsewhere.
The words you say have no comparison
with the harsh sadness of this sky.
You are only a very sweet, white cloud
entwined one night amongst ancient branches.
*
This is the original for those of you who know the Italian language and would like to compare:
*
La collina è notturna, nel cielo chiaro. Vi s’inquadra il tuo capo, che muove appena e accompagna quel cielo. Sei come una nube intravista fra i rami. Ti ride negli occhi la stranezza di un cielo che non è il tuo.
La collina di terra e di foglie chiude con la massa nera il tuo vivo guardare, la tua bocca ha la piega di un dolce incavo tra le coste lontane. Sembri giocare alla grande collina e al chiarore del cielo: per piacermi ripeti lo sfondo antico e lo rendi piú puro.
Ma vivi altrove. Il tuo tenero sangue si è fatto altrove. Le parole che dici non hanno riscontro con la scabra tristezza di questo cielo. Tu non sei che una nube dolcissima, bianca impigliata una notte fra i rami antichi.
Her is one of Nick’s set of variants/variations inspired by Pavese’s poem:
In addition to Pavese’s evocative poem I was reminded of the legends about tree-goddesses, nymphs and dryads in so many of the world’s cultures. Are trees masculine or feminine? They can be both, of course. Daphne was turned into a laurel tree to escape the amorous advances of Apollo, Yakshinis are the enticing feminine inhabitants of India’s sacred trees and anyone who has listened to Tapiola, that haunting orchestral work by Sibelius, knows that Tapio is a god of the Finnish forests.
Dendrologically speaking trees can be both sexes. Male trees have male flowers, which produce pollen. Female trees have female flowers that produce fruit. Kraczyna’s trees are all feminine – not a male among them. So in the artist’s psyche trees appear essentially to be associated with women. Indeed, it was the world’s first female, Eve, who presented the fruit of the tree of knowledge to Adam.
I was very much taken by ‘Nick’s series of etchings which he called variants on a theme. I don’t like the term ‘variant’ too much at the present time as it reminds me of things like Delta variants. But Nick is correct in calling the etchings belonging to one series by that name since strictly speaking, variation is change, and a variant is one of the forms resulting from the change. There are in this respect variations on the theme of woman and tree but clearly the primal design in each series does not change.
The exhibition is on until the end of August.
Our Ferragosto lunch with artist Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna (front second left),.
There is a fascinating exhibition for anyone who is interested in architecture and social history at Barga’s Fondazione Ricci (20 Via Roma).
In 1929 the town’s local newspaper wrote “Barga after a period of inertia has shaken off its medieval dust to rise to fresh importance in our century. The opening of new roads favoured new development. The panorama of magnificent villas in the Piangrande, and the Piano di Canteo is lovely. These are imposing and engaging villas that our wealthy emigrants built in their birthplace. They are dreams of their busy life abroad: dreams of returning one day to pass the remainder of their lives in blissful family tranquility and to leave the deep imprint of an industrious, dignified people who loved their homeland.”
‘New Barga’ testifies to the remarkable urban development that the town pursued during the first thirty years of the last century and which was favored by the economic contribution of returning emigrants. They introduced art nouveau (called ‘stile liberty’ in Italy) and new international architectural trends to Barga’s urban landscape…
The exhibition at the Ricci Foundation, itself a good example of the ‘New Barga’ architecture, focuses on those buildings built between 1900 and 1935 in Art Nouveau, Liberty and neo-eclectic style.
The research that has gone into presenting the exhibition is prodigious. There is extensive documentation of the buildings, on their architects, designers and the Barga citizens who commissioned them and created Barga’s New Town or “Nuova Barga”. Permission to visit private houses has enabled an extensive photographic survey to be compiled and I was astonished at how the exteriors of supposedly sober villas hid the most luscious interiors.
The exhibition also presents through newspapers, publications and photographs of the time, the age’s cultural climate and its economic and social conditions. To date over one hundred houses have been listed. Architectural styles range from simple early twentieth century cottages, to the Moorish influence seen in Villa Canteo to Art Nouveau in the Villa Moorings to the neo-colonial style of Villa Buenos Aires.
The exhibition offers a marvelous opportunity to discover the architects of these buildings, the exterior decorators who adorned them with ceramics and the artists who ornamented the interiors with frescoes and created stained glass windows, furniture, iron objects such as railings and balustrades that represent the best examples of these styles.
What is particularly fascinating is the way the houses of Barga’s new town developed from late nineteenth century eclecticism, to Art Nouveau, to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, to Art Deco and Streamline-Modernism. It’s not just places like Lucca (see my post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/art-nouveau-lucca-style/) and Viareggio which hold fine examples of twentieth century architecture: Barga now has to be added to that list!
This exhibition s opening times are as follows:
Thursday and Friday 4 pm – 7 pm
Saturday and Sunday 10 am – 12 am and 4 pm to 7 pm.
It was just as well that I opted to hear the first of the two performances given of this year’s Barga Opera Festival main item, Vivaldi’s serenata “Mio cor, povero cor,” in Lucca’s San Francesco church rather than Barga’s Fosso. Not only was the 6 p.m. starting time more congenial to me, not only were the acoustics more hospitable to the music but Sardelli, who has done so much to bring Vivaldi’s operas back to life, was suddenly taken ill and could not conduct the Barga performance. (I gather he is now well on the way to recovery).
I can do no better than to translate Sardelli’s note to the serenata into English as it is full of useful insights.
“Among the seven surviving serenate by Vivaldi, RV 690 is undoubtedly the most singular, the least performed, the most interesting and the most problematic from the historical point of view. But what was a serenata in Vivaldi’s time? It was music to be performed outdoors in the evening. Serenate were songs or madrigals sung by the suitor under the beloved’s window and were usually accompanied by plucked instruments. In aristocratic courts, however, the serenata became a type of mini-opera. It was a pastoral, Arcadian or heroic drama performed under moonlight in the gardens of noble residences on the occasion of weddings, birthdays and name days. A serenata was thus a theatrical experience outside of the theatre, one that was smaller in size, with fewer characters and usually divided into two parts, instead of the normal three acts of an opera.
Vivaldi’s surviving serenate testify to the splendour and richness of that age’s dramatic tastes. RV 690, however, gives musicologists a hard time. We do not know who the client was or the date and place of its premiere. A horrible event underlines the innocent pastoral intertwining of the amorous skirmishes of the two nymphs Eurilla and Nice and the shepherd Alcindo: the persecution of the Jansenist abbot Jean de Tourrei, exiled from France and at first welcomed in Rome and Florence, only to be betrayed by his guests, imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo and subjected to the tortures of the Inquisition from 1711 to 17I5. The serenata, usually a happy and carefree genre, in fact ends with the final demand of the two nymphs for an inquisition (aria “Punish, tear, kill”) for poor Alcindo, alias de TourreiI. It’s still unclear who the libretto’s author was. Perhaps the serenata was performed in Rome in the entourage of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, patron of Vivaldi (as well as of Corelli, Scarlatti, Handel and many others). But since documents date the serenata between 1716 and 1719 (when Vivaldi had not yet arrived in Rome), the possibility remains that the opera was written and performed in Mantua or Venice. Apart from these puzzles, Vivaldi’s music stays clear, fresh and full of ideas and instrumental colours. The arias with oboes, bassoon obbligato and hunting horns witness the great richness of ideas in the composer’s maturity. This little known and performed beautiful and unique serenata does not even have a title! The manuscript opens with the first aria, beginning “Mio cor, povero cor,” which is perhaps the best name we can give to Vivaldi’s serenata.”
*
I was indeed astonished by the variety of arias in the serenata. Everything from sweet triple-time pastorals to energetic calls-to-action with magnificently rasping horn playing to an embedded violin concerto was performed. It’s as if Vivaldi wanted to show off as many of the musical qualities that he was able to create. It’s sad that this fine Venetian composer, who influenced J. S. Bach so much in his concerti, should have died destitute in a Viennese slum. But then, as a friend who was also present at the concert explained to me, when one’s patron (in this case Emperor Charles VI) suddenly dies then one’s remuneration usually dies with him.
The serenata is still very much with us. By Mozart’s time it had become a largely instrumental composition and was called a serenade. In the nineteenth century great composers like Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Elgar wrote delightful serenades and the term, used to describe music of a more laid-back nature, survives to the present times.
All players and singers performed quite magnificently. (It was the leader of the ‘Modo Antiquo’ orchestra, Frederico Guglielmo, who had to take over from the indisposed Sardelli for the work’s second presentation.) I especially liked the expressive way soprano Sonia Tedla sang her part as the nymph Eurilla.
It seems astonishing that less than forty years ago Italian H(istorically) I(nformed) P(erformances) on authentic instruments were virtually non-existent. (There were fine Vivaldi performances by such groups as ‘I Musici’ but they didn’t use cat-gut strings for example). The shadow of the’ melodramma’ was still strong and I remember baroque arie being sung like nineteenth century bel canto. Today, of course, Italians have fully espoused H.I.Ps. After all, so much of the finest baroque music is Italian! That’s why it is so important to support institutions like Barga Opera in this especial year of need when so many cultural events appear tottering on the brink of annihilation. Let’s hope that before not too long we shall again see a fully staged Vivaldian opera gracing Barga’s Teatro dei Differenti.
I am so troubled by what is happening to Afghanistan during these days that memories of this amazing country have returned to haunt me. I have only a few photographs I took all those years ago to remind me of what I saw as I cast my mind’s eye back to Sergeant Pepper’s Year…..
The journey from Teheran to the Caspian sea across the Elburz mountains was on a Land Rover driven by an English guy who was wearing a thick woollen polo neck sweater despite the above forty degree temperatures we were experiencing. For days we had been travelling through the largely arid and dusty Iranian landscape broken only by patches of green encircling settlements. However, within a short time we were exchanging the grey tones for increasingly green ones until it seemed that just by driving past a couple of bends we were immersed into lush pine forests and emerald fields. It was a truly refreshing experience to be plunged suddenly into this verdant foliage after the austere landscapes of central Iran.
And then there it was: the Caspian, the world’s largest inland sea shimmering with silvery hues and spreading vastly towards northern horizons where it embraced the Russian Steppes.
We didn’t stay long in Mashhad; perhaps Iran’s most sacred city and the country’s centre of Islamic learning with clerics to this day dogmatising its religious policy. We’d already made a somewhat unwise decision in the city of Qom when we chose to hide ourselves under cloaks and enter the Fatima Masoumeh Shrine dedicated to the sister of the eight ImamReza , daughter of the seventh Imam Musa al-Kadhim and regarded as a saint by Shia Muslims. Qom is considered Iran’s second most holy city but we could only get so far in admiring its shrine’s superb ceramic work as our disguises were soon discovered and we were advised for our own safety to remove ourselves from this sacred area.
Disappointed we did, however, comfort ourselves by buying Qom’s famous sweet ‘Sohan’, a sort of hard brittle biscuit made from sprouted wheat , flour, egg yolks, rose water, sugar, butter, saffron, cardamom, almond and pistachio. There’s a good recipe for it at http://www.ahueats.com/2016/06/sohan-e-qom-persian-saffron-brittle.html but I’m not going to try it out unless I want cracked teeth or a bulging waistline!
After Mashhad we headed for Afghanistan and Herat. Leaving the leafy Caspian coast we found ourselves once more in arid surroundings tinged with tawny desert sands.
Crossing the border we spent the night in this (or then?) beautiful city. Next morning we were proudly shown around the stunning great Friday mosque by a religious aide and were pleasantly surprised by the friendliness shown to us non-Muslim visitors. It made a change from the rather hostile treatment towards us in Qom. (The majority of Afghanis are Sunni) When the area was under the Taliban between 1998 and 2001 and, sadly, again now, Herat’s mosque and all its religious buildings have been closed to non-Muslims.
Herat: Great Mosque
The long journey to Kabul took us across interminable desert landscapes with few signs of life in it. The first part of the concrete road had been built by the Russians and led to Kandahar.
At one particularly desolate point we came across a hotel but found it was unfinished and had been so for several years.
Opposite the hotel were the ruins of one of Afghanistan’s many abandoned ancient cities:
The second part of the highway, built by the Americans, led to our destination, Kabul. Even then we could see that, as part of a kiplingesque ‘great game’, the two main players which would be involved in the devastation of a country with such a prodigious past and such proud traditions were lining up their forces and influence in the forlorn hope that they would drag Afghanistan into the twentieth (as it was then) century rather than push it back to the dark ages, as it has done now.
Kabul, the country’s capital, is situated on a plateau at the height of almost six thousand feet. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains it proved to be a most equitable city climatically. We found two good places to eat. One restaurant was attached to the hostel dormitory where we slept and served an excellent rice dish cooked with carrots and raisins. We had discovered Kabul pilao, Afghanistan’s national dish!
I have since managed to cook this delicious plate myself and this is the recipe I use for serving around four persons. Vegetarians may, of course, omit the meat ingredient.
Dissolve the saffron in a few tbsp of freshly boiled water.
Peel the onion, cut it in half and slice it. Peel the garlic cloves and slice them as well.
Peel and chop the carrots and chop them in slivers (julienne size)
Rinse the raisins and set them aside to dry.
Cooking the meat
Heat 3 tbsp sesame oil in a frying pan and fry the lamb shanks for about 10 minutes until golden brown from all sides.
Remove the meat from the pan and gently fry the onions in the same oil. After 5 minutes add the garlic and fry both together for another 5 min.
Then add the tomato paste to the onions and season with turmeric, black pepper, 1 tsp of the cumin and salt. Combine everything well and let the tomato paste fry gently for 5 minutes, then add 470ml freshly boiled water.
Stir the mixture well and return the meat to the pan. Put on the lid and let it simmer over low heat for 1h 45min.
After about one hour cooking time add half of the saffron water.
Frying the carrots
Melt the butter in a small pan. Add the carrots and fry them over low heat for about 5 minutes. Then sprinkle the sugar over them and put on the lid. Let them caramelise for about 10 minutes.
Remove the carrots from the pan. Gently fry the raisins in the same pan for a few minutes, stirring constantly. Set both aside for later.
Parboiling the rice
Start preparing the rice 15 minutes toward the end of the cooking time for the meat.
Wash the rice.
Bring 1.2l of water to boil in a large pan. Add 1 tbsp of salt and let it dissolve.
Once the water is boiling add the rice to it and briefly stir to make sure it does not stick together.
Drain the rice in a colander and rinse it thoroughly with cold water.
Finishing the sauce
Once the meat is cooked, remove it from the pan. Sieve the sauce through a strainer to filter out the onion and garlic.
Layer the rice
Set some of the carrots and raisins aside for later as garnish. Add 3 tbsp of vegetable oil and 2 tbsp of hot water to the pan you want to finish cooking your rice .
Now add a little rice to the pan, enough to cover the bottom of it. Then add a little sauce, a little meat, some carrots and raisins and sprinkle with some of the remaining cumin and cardamom powder. Repeat these steps until all the ingredients are used up. Pour the remaining saffron water over the rice at the end.
Poke 3 holes through the rice with the back of a wooden spoon. Heat the pan over medium temperature. Line the lid with a clean kitchen towel. As soon as steam rises from the rice, put the lid on.
Reduce the temperature to low and let the Kabuli Pulao steam for 45 mins.
Serving
Serve your Kabuli Pulao on a large plate. Garnish with the carrots and raisins, you set aside earlier and sprinkle with slivered pistachios. Eat and enjoy!
This is what we had for lunch most days we were in Kabul. For a change we would indulge in the western-style intercontinental hotel facing a square with a fountain in its centre. There we would even find burgers and chips!
We were astounded by the ethnic variety of Kabul’s inhabitants. Skin colours ranged from almost Nordic fairness (descendants of Alexander the great?) to darker tints. Hair hues too ranged from black to red to blonde. What was particularly noticeable was the range of clothes worn. At one end were those women enclosed within the walking tents which are basically what burkhas are, their eyes not even visible behind its woven grill. At the other end were local university girls in miniskirts and bare arms. The inhabitants all seemed to mix well with each other and they did not find it in any way surprising. I have rarely seen more stupendous women than those I met in Afghanistan (and indeed out of Afghanistan). They seem to have preserved the most classical features and many of them are stunningly beautiful. God knows what will happen to women (or indeed what is already happening to them now).
I did not recall visiting any historic sites in Kabul and regret not having even looked into the National Museum. I just wonder what has happened to it since. The most memorable trip, however, was up the mountain road leading to the Salang pass.
A little group of us had managed to get a lift on a minibus and we stopped by a fast-flowing, rocky river and enjoyed a very cooling dip.
Did we make it to the colossal Buddhist statues at Bamiyan? It’s so tragic what happened to them since our stay. I can’t say anything more about it…it breaks my heart.
Shortly after this we caught a bus that took us to Pakistan’s Peshawar and carried on not so much up but down the Khyber – the film with the peerless Kenneth Williams came the year following our journey. What magnificent panoramas we encountered. What terrifying ravines. What snowy mountain tops and crystal-clear lakes. What an epic country! And we had not even touched the central core of the country the Hindu Kush – not even done any bit of that short walk described by the inimitable travel writer Eric Newby.
We re-entered Afghanistan on our way back to the western world. It was a quick dash in-and-out except for one incident when the expeditionary truck we’d cadged a lift off overturned in a deep rut caused by an earthquake and I found myself suffocating under piles of tents and climbing equipment. The expedition group had not been too successful either. They’d lost one of their members in an avalanche near K2 in the Pakistan Himalayas.
Could we ever return to Afghanistan within our lifetime? I very much doubt it. If the US army is bringing in soldiers to help thousands evacuate an impending national collapse such a thought veers towards impossibility. Was the Taliban already present when we visited Afghanistan? No. But the seeds must have been sown and waiting, like the sudden rainfall in a desert, to sprout but producing sadly no flowers but death itself.
I am reminded of what happened to South Vietnam in 1975. There also a massive evacuation occurred of western personnel. Look at the reunified Vietnam of today however. I visited this beautiful country in 2014 (and again with my wife in 2015) and my posts on it start at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/a-solution-to-miserable-weather/
Could the same hope ever befall Afghanistan? Could this stunning, tortured and martyred country ever return to the essential place it once occupied in central Asia and, indeed, the world? God only knows whether there will ever be a recipe for success like that Kabul Pilao.
Two very different artists continue their exhibition at Bagni di Lucca Ponte a Seraglio’s Corona Hotel until August 13. See it while you can…it’s the last day today!
Morena Guarnaschelli, well-known for her evocative water colours of African life, has branched from her realist approach to something more symbolic. Traces of art-deco, Victorian silhouette and mandala patterns find their place in her stylistic change of pace. The linear style, the seductive curves and those esoteric hints draw one into inner reflection and supernal elegance.
My own little ciclamino mat now seems to have taken added significance…
Deenagh Miller, particularly noted for her drawings which for me suggest those studies which Italian renaissance masters would draw in preparation for their canvases, expands her impressionist-like phase with some large scale landscapes of Bagni’s stunning scenery.
Hints of Bonnard and a touch of Renoirian social world enter into such canvases as this one reminding one of typical scenes at that conversationalist hub of Bar Italia,
Could there be any more different recreation of our socio-natural world by these painters? Yet the two magisterially fluent artists come together in a celebration of life and freedom in this age so distraught by ecological and epidemiologic issues and which finds healing difficult.
Soul liberation through mandala meditation, landscape contemplation, reconnection with the human world through social intercourse, remodelling of inner consciousness, and transfiguration of conventionalities all so expertly rendered in the finest draughtsmanship and in an ecstatic blaze of colour are primal themes which unite these two creative forces which Bagnioli are privileged to host and which buoyantly help mend our own fractured universe in these strange semi-alien times.
It contains hundreds of photographs of (you guessed it) abandoned places. These may range from palatial residences to humble cottage. What is so extraordinary is that so many of these places appear to be tinged with the spectre of the ‘Marie Celeste’: they seem to have been left in the midst of their family life as if the inhabitants had vanished in the twinkling of an eye. There seems to have been very little foraging of what was left and even less of vandalism. Of course, nature has taken over: rotting floorboards, piles of decayed plasterwork, and a maze of cobwebs characterise them.
The contributors to the Facebook page are requested not to disclose where they found their abandoned place. This is for obvious reasons; so many of these places contain very collectable items and there may be also those dastardly beings around, the arsonists.
It’s, however, tantalizing that one is unable to visit some of these places for they are truly amazing – time-warps set in a swiftly changing world.
If one wishes to climb higher up the mountains then there are several abandoned summer grazing settlements, some of which still have a church or chapel standing where once a year Mass is celebrated.
One doesn’t have to go far to discover these abandoned places. They can be found in any of our villages in the Media Valle and the Garfagnana.
I’m not sure whether I should give the name of one village quite near where I live. Anyway, this is what I found.
Here is the village shop, derelict for years and a victim of chain supermarkets:
The shop-owner must have been quite prosperous judging from the remaining fitments of his capacious twelve-roomed house. I just wonder where he/she fled to. America perhaps?
Sometimes a family tragedy may have caused the owners to leave their residence: a child who died in the house. Memory is, indeed, a strong force.
Anyway, whatever the reasons – and the major ones are economic – these abandoned places bear witness to the past in an almost unbearable degree.
