The first Elizabeth awakened Britain into a new world power with imperial ambitions. The second ended those aspirations and drew the curtain on faded pretensions. True, the Empire had metamorphosed into something else and it was different from that in which an Armada and gunboat diplomacy had significant say. It was now a place where countries like Mozambique, never part of the original global map’s red-coloured spread where the sun never set, now had a place,  and where other countries, once part of that map, no longer wished association. How this altered entity will develop has now become the responsibility of a late-comer to the throne, a quirky character, and my contemporary at Cambridge, with candid ideas about how to rescue the world from climatological doom, and whose previous holder of the name lost his head condemning England to stern republicanism and years of theatre-deprived austerity. It is such a pity that the United Kingdom has again shuttered itself against its continental neighbours…

I first saw Her Majesty when, released from Royston House, my infant school in Lewisham park, I joined with my class to greet her as she proceeded in an open-topped limousine down the London borough’s high street. I remember joining my uncle and aunt in Bromley whose high street had been closed to traffic for the special occasion of the Coronation. Everyone seemed to be there. No huddling all day around a TV set; fewer than two million citizens had one then anyway!  I’m sure candy floss, brass bands and Punch and Judy shows were there but I can’t recollect them. Just the joy of walking in the middle on a usually traffic-filled road was enough to satisfy and make me feel that this was a truly important day for the nation.

Elizabeth, that name with its several permutations: Bess, Lilibet, Beth, Eliza, Lisbeth, Betsy, Liz, Bettina but always with the root of the Hebrew root Elisheva meaning ‘my God is my oath’ so apt for someone who was a firm believer in her maker as a human, in her duty as a monarch. Elizabeth, whose spring-time beauty then marked by a youthful waist-line that Norman Hartnell’s dresses for her were keen to emphasise. Elizabeth whose girlishly dulcet high-pitched voice my Italian-born mother liked to mock. Elizabeth, whose significance in the upholding of decency and freedom the country was keen to uphold after years of blood, sweat and tears had brought victory and a return to a more hopeful life among the capital’s bomb-sites, decrepit housing, smell of boiled cabbage and ration books.

Many years later, at the start of my newly married life when I was working for a recycling company by the Thames at Woolwich I was able to view my monarch again and hear her too as she opened the Thames Barrier built to safeguard the metropolis from tidal surges. It seemed, watching her against the river’s sempiternal flow, that this seemingly diminutive, gallantly graceful figure was another defence against the planet’s catalogue of natural and social calamities.

The oddest thing for me will be to remember that the words of the National Anthem are now changed to ‘God save the King’. Born towards the end of the reign of her father George VI practically all of my life has been as a subject of the Queen. More than any other person (parents and family excluding) she has represented a constant reference point in my life, a sign to mark the passing of the years, to sense the ever-changing landscape, to signify the fleeting of the seasons, the deaths and births of loved ones around me, the whole absurdly short tenure of our own little lives.

The Queen is dead. Long live the King!

Lucca is always full of great things to see, hear and eat! Yesterday we were at the walled city encircled by an avenue of trees visiting Giusy Ferrari Cielo’s heavenly paper-cut flowers at San Micheletto:

Pablo Atchugarry’s wood, marble and metal sculptures, ‘awakening nature’ around town:

and Valentina Ciardelli’s brilliant concert at Real Collegio with the premiere of her own Quintet, Schubert’s ‘Trout’ and some Bernstein too:

all digested with the best pizzas in town at ‘Sud’. It truly made for an enjoyable late summer afternoon and evening.

Whenever I pass by ‘Fresco’ supermarket in Pian di Coreglia I recollect the different ways the word ‘fresco’ (meaning fresh, new, cool or a type of mural painting technique) is handled in Italian as part of an expression.

Dante in the XXXII canto of the Inferno where the damned are buried and imprisoned forever in the frozen lake of Cocìto writes «Là dove i peccatori stanno freschi», (There where sinners remain cool) alluding, with mockery, to those sinners condemned to be immured in the eternal ice of the ninth circle. Today if one is in a dodgy situation or worried about something that may be happening and someone tells you ‘stai fresco’ then it’s a way of saying that that something is not going to occur. In other words, don’t worry!

The same phase can also be used to refer to an untrustworthy person or someone who takes us on a path that is not at all straightforward – in other words ‘you’ll be lucky!’ or even ‘fat chance, dream on!’

So ‘stai fresco’ can be quite an ambivalent Italian expression. Whether it’s meant in an honest or ironic way depends on the situation one finds oneself and clearly the tone of the person uttering that expression.

Anyway there was little ambivalence in our shopping trip to the Fresco supermarket. It was a Tuesday and over 65s were allowed to 10% off discount on display of their loyalty cards. Fresco supermarket is OK and happily its produce is ‘fresco’ too. What attracts me most of all about it, however, apart from the bacon is the wide range of alcoholic beverages which range from fine Morellino wines to Sapphire gins.

We took advantage of our route to make a detour on a minor road from nearby Calavorno to the village of Vitiana perched high up in the Val Fegana. We were discouraged from taking this particular route as a local said it was a bad road. Certainly the rollercoaster-like steepness of the little bridge we crossed was somewhat dissuading. But apart from its narrowness there were no major problems encountered with the road and we only met one vehicle coming the opposite way.

Vitiana is first mentioned in a document from 994, The ancient castle of Vitiana, (of which only a few scattered stones remain) together with the castle of Tereglio (located a little higher), was placed to guard an ancient pass road,  which later was engineered to become the Via Ducale. Only a month ago we enjoyed a festa commemorating this stratospheric road described in my posts at:

1. The Grand Duke’s Stratospheric Road – From London to Longoio (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Three (wordpress.com)
2. Foce a Giovo | From London to Longoio (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Two (wordpress.com)
3. Festa della Montagna a Pian d’Albero | From London to Longoio (and Lucca and beyond) Part One (wordpress.com)

Vitiana, after having been a fief of the Rolandinghi counts, in 1272 was placed by the Lucchesi under the jurisdiction of the Vicariate of Coreglia and since then it has followed the fate of Coreglia itself for better or for worse. Another trace of the town can be found in a document dated 1668, where the Alessi di Vitiana family is indicated as the beneficiary of the ancient hospital (12th century) of San Regolo di Montefegatesi.

Vitiana is divided by its main square with its moving war memorial into a higher and a lower part. The higher part contains the parish church of San Silvestro and must have been the site of the castle. As usual the church was closed.

The lower part of Vitiana joins with the road leading up the Val Fegana.

The village square has a bar (which was closed). It also contains perhaps one of the most elegant shrines (or ‘Maestine’) I have witnessed in our area. Its fine renaissance proportions encloses a beautifully frescoed chapel in the naïve but effective rural style of the sixteenth century. These frescoes are miraculously preserved;  it’s just a pity that I could not get any decent pictures of the six saints, three on each side, decorating the interior as the iron grill was locked.

Strolling through Vitiana we came across no sign of life apart from a little yappy dog. The whole attractive place seemed like an abandoned film-set awaiting a director to shoot some mediaeval love story in its picturesque streets.

What is also wonderful about Vitiana is its situation affording some of the finest views of any village and ranging from the Serchio valley, up the Val Fegana to the villages of Tereglio and Monti di Villa to the Orrido di Botri and the Monte Rondinaio and the main Apennine chain.

So again we were able to combine business and pleasure; the most mundane shopping tasks with the adventure of strolling around an undiscovered mountain village and its charming streetscape. Let us enjoy these brilliant pre-autumnal days to the full!