Category Archives: Nature

Il Parco oltre la Brughiera

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Hampstead Heath è il vasto spazio verde con brughiere, prati, laghetti (in certi dei quali si può nuotare), la villa di Kenwood con la sua favolosa collezione di quadri che includono dei Rembrandt e Vermeer, giardini di fiori, viste memorabili, una profusione di fauna, e alberi bellissimi secolari.

Non finisce qui il verde però poiché attorno all’heath, cosi amato da poeti come John Keats , (la sua casa si trova a Hampstead, uno dei villaggi urbani, assieme a Highgate, più caratteristici nella zona del heath – mia descrizione nel post a https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/writ-in-water/  ) ci sono parchi che propongono il suo verde sempre di più. Ho già descritto Primrose Hill nel mio post a https://longoio3.com/2019/07/09/il-prato-fiorito-di-londra/. Poi c’è Parliament hill fields e a nord del heath un parco veramente delizioso, Golders Hill park.

Qui si può trovare un giardino di fiori che sono una meraviglia:

C’è un laghetto e un piccolo zoo con dei lemuri birichini proprio come quello che era beniamino dell’aristocratica Italiana Lady Virginia Courtauld nel suo palazzo di Eltham (descritto nel mio post a https://longoio3.com/2018/08/20/la-storia-di-unaristocratica-italiana-a-londra/).

C’è la casa delle farfalle:

Una parte è dedicata a una caratteristica molto frequente nell’era vittoriana e di nuovo ritornata di moda. Questa è la stumpery, letteralmente la tronconata, una parte del parco costituito da pezzi di alberi e rami morti disposti artisticamente. Il primo stumpery fu a Biddulph Grange nel 1856 e, non solo forma una parte molto particolare di qualsiasi giardino ma attira la fauna come gli scarafaggi, e i rospi e la flora come le felci, i muschi e le lichene. Il principe Carlo nella sua casa di campagna a Highgrove ha creato un stumpery e racconta che quando venne il suo babbo, il principe Filippo, in visita lo chiese. ‘Ma quando farai un falò di tutta questa robaccia?’

Infatti, lo stumpery fa un contributo di grandissimo valore all’ecologia del nostro pianeta ed è un metodo ottimo di usare pezzi di legna che sarebbero troppo costosi per rimuoverli.

Nel parco ci sono anche campi da tennis, un ristorantino, un palco dell’orchestra per i concerti estivi, e terreni di gioco per i bambini.

Il parco contiene anche un bel bosco che finisce in una suggestiva pergola.

Dopo la nostra camminata nel parco ci siamo avviati a un pub tipico che si chiama ‘The old Bull and Bush’ (il vecchio toro e cespuglio’ – c’è anche una canzone dedicata al luogo) dove abbiamo goduto qualche birretta con un compagno che non avevo più incontrato da quando ho lasciato il mio collegio di Cambridge.

Era veramente una conclusione conviviale alla nostra gita nel verde Londinese.

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Parchi polmoni,

memorie d’infanzia:

la vita gioca.

Londra Selvaggia

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No. Qui non parlo delle popolari serate del venerdì quando i Londinesi lasciano le loro inibizioni e si danno al piacere lussurioso di club, spettacoli vari e anche molto – si direbbero certamente bere eccessivo.

No. Qui parlo di un altro aspetto delle vaste aree di verde contenute nella metropoli. Queste non sono parchi ben tenuti con fioriture che sono un gioiello naturale e prati verdissimi e ben curati. No. Sono proprio le misteriose oasi di natura conservate nel loro stato primitivo.

Parecchi di questi luoghi si possono trovare tramite due dei grandi sentieri ben segnalati che penetrano Londra.

Il primo è il ‘Capital ring’, lungo 126 kilometri, che attraversa posti come Horsenden Hill, l’antico tumulo del re anglo-Sassone Horsa (già descritto in un mio post a https://longoio3.com/2018/07/16/i-fiumi-e-i-canali-di-londra/), il palazzo di Eltham, il primo delle dimore reali. Anche qui c’è un mio post sul luogo a

La Storia di un’Aristocratica Italiana a Londra

Si passa per il vasto cimitero di Abney Wood, il parco Olimpico e il più grande dei parchi, quello di Richmond.

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L’altro sentiero è il green chain walk, circa settanta kilometri di lunghezza e tutto concentrato nella parte sud-est di Londra.  Quest’ultimo l’ho fatta a piedi e anche in bici e ci porta in luoghi veramente magici come la foresta di Oxleas con le sue campanule, Bostall woods con le rovine dell’antica abbazia di Lesnes e piena di narcissi selvatici a marzo e molte altre belle cose.

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Mi sono trovato su parte del green chain walk la settimana scorsa.

Prima ho attraversato il parco di Maryon-Wilson con il suo ruscello, il suo recinto di animali e i suoi alberi secolari.

 

Mi sono poi diretto verso una zona di affascinante geologia: il cosiddetto ‘Gilbert’s pit’ protetto come sito di grande interesse scientifico. Questo posto lo conoscevo da anni quando era ancora possibile fare una bella scalata sulle pareti paleogeniche.

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Ora però si può solo entrare in quella parte con un addetto poiché le pareti non sono solo pericolose, ma possono essere facilmente danneggiate da quelli in ricerca dei denti di squali di era cretacea, cioè di cinquantacinque milioni di anni fa quando questa zona era in fondo ad un antico oceano. Si possono trovare anche fossili di molluschi, spugne piante e rettili. Infatti, l’intera parete descrive una delle più complete dimostrazioni dei vari strati, sedimentari che compongono il bacino di Londra.

 

Storicamente qui ci fu un forte romano per sorvegliare l’entrare di navi ostili dalla Scandinavia lungo il Tamigi.

Più recentemente fu la tana di banditi che derubavano viaggiatori, insospetti. Infatti, parte di questa zona oscura e misteriosa si chiama ‘hanging wood’, cioè bosco dell’impiccagione poiché ogni tanto venivano i soldati dalle vicine caserme a catturare e poi impiccare i malviventi.

Ci sono begli esempi di bianco spino, betulle e querce in questa zona e sembra di essere proprio chissà dove, forse in qualche luogo dell’antico bosco che al tempo neolitico copriva tutta questa zona.

 

Pero’ ricordiamoci…siamo in una citta’ di dieci milioni di abitanti e uscendo in una radura si rivedono i grattacieli della city, e il Thames barrier, quella grande diga-a-volontà che protegge Londra dall’allagamento del Tamigi, che qui è un fiume soggetto a maree altissime quando le condizioni meteorologiche lo permettono.

 

 

Infatti, le situazioni quando si deve rialzare la diga stanno diventando sempre più frequenti a causa del riscaldamento globale. Chissà quando si deciderà di costruire una diga ancora più alta?

Uscendo dal bosco degli impiccati entro in un parco ben curato ma che conoscevo già, non perché ci sono già stato ma perché l’ho visto per la prima volta in un capolavoro di film di un grande registra italiano. Aspettate la prossima per dirvi di più pero!

Le selve oscure

rivelano la luce

del grande fiume.

 

 

Via col Vento

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Londra possiede tra le più belle oasi di pace che si possa mai incontrare in una delle grandi metropoli mondiali. In queste oasi si possono trovare flora e fauna incontaminate; si può perdersi in riflessioni sulla mutabilita’  della vita, sulla fragilità del filo che ci lega si nostri cari, sulla futilità delle nostre ambizioni e sul minimo tempo che abbiamo per riflettere sui grandi temi che ci dovrebbero avvolgere, come l’edera gli alberi, con quel infinità che è l’amore vero e proprio, donato senza prezzo, senza premio terrestre, in tutta la sua purezza candida.

Dove si possono trovare queste oasi di suprema gioia, di melanconia trascendentale?

Nei cimiteri di Londra…

Non parlo di quei edifici, palazzine per i defunti che si trovano in Italia, vere necropoli per gli scomparsi. Invece, riferisco ai genuini ‘campi santi’, pieni di foreste, di uccellini cinguettanti, di gatti randaggi, di volpi e di tassi, di bacche di rosa che respirano vita attorno le tombe muschiose che sorgono tra i fiori selvatici e le erbe alte.

Ho già scritto sui sette monumentali cimiteri di Londra nel mio post a

https://longoio3.com/2017/12/26/i-magnifici-sette/a

Con le loro catacombe, il loro tempietti, i loro archi trionfanti del potere della morte, le loro vie alberate questi ‘magnifici sette’ sono sicuramente impressionanti. Esistono, però, altri cimiteri più piccoli e meno noti in tutte le altre parti di Londra.

Visitai una di queste ieri. Si chiama Brockwell and Ladywell cemetery e si trova in una parte di Londra ben nota a me perché ivi nacqui, crebbi e fui educato: il sud-est.

Il cimitero aprì le sue porte ai morti nel 1858 e occupa uno spazio di 150,000 metri quadrati.   Tra le sue tombe si trova quella del grande editore del famoso dizionario della musica noto in tutto il mondo, Sir George Grove, e il tragico poeta crepuscolare inglese Ernest Dowson.

 

In più ci sono le tombe dedicate ai caduti delle guerre e, solo qualche anno fa, ne fu inaugurato uno ai civili uccisi dai bombardamenti. Ero sorpreso di capire che anche nella prima guerra ci furono vittime dei bombardamenti, questa volta dai dirigibili zeppelin.

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Forse il poeta italiano che si avvicina di più alla vita e ai sentimenti di Ernest Dowson è Guido Gozzano. Ambedue morirono giovani, Gozzano nel 1916 all’età di 32 e Dowson, anch’esso al la stessa età nel 1900. Furono poeti di salute fragile, di pensiero pessimista, di relazioni amorose mai compiute, Gozzano con Amalia Guglielminetti e Dowson con Adelaide Foltinowicz.

Oscar Wilde, sapendo della morte di Dowson in estrema povertà a Catford, scrisse ‘povero, ferito, meraviglioso poeta. Fu la rappresentazione di tutta la poesia tragica, un suo simbolo. Poiché sapeva veramente cosa fosse l’amore.’

Anche se non conoscete questo delicatissimo poeta avrete tutti sulle labbra una sua frase ‘gone with the wind’, ‘via col vento’; la stessa frase, tratta dal suo poema ‘Cynara’, e usata dall’autrice Margaret Mitchell per il titolo del suo meraviglioso libro e dell’omonimo film.

Ricordiamo altre poesie di Dowson (che non è ancora stato tradotto in Italiano), con queste sue strofe (mia traduzione).

 

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,

Love and desire and hate:

I think they have no portion in us after

We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.

***

Non durano a lungo, il pianto e le risate,

L’amore, il desiderio e l’odio:

Penso che non abbiano alcuna parte in noi

Dopo che si ha passato il cancello.

Non durano a lungo i giorni del vino e delle rose:

Fuori da un sogno nebbioso

Il nostro sentiero emerge per un po ‘, e poi si chiude

In un sogno.

***

Ecco qualche scorcio del cimitero con la tomba di Dowson e molti altri cari dimenticati, se non dalle foglie, e ricordati solamente dal canto dei merli.

 

Where Leonardo Da Vinci was Born

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For Italy, and for much of the world, this is Leonardo da Vinci’s year – the five hundredth anniversary of the death, as treasured guest of King Francis I at the castle of Amboise, of perhaps the greatest polymath genius the world has known.

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We had already visited an exhibition on Leonardo’s first teacher, Verrocchio, at Florence’s Strozzi palace, described at https://longoio3.com/2019/05/14/leonardo-da-vincis-first-teacher/ and were keen to revisit his birthplace among the lovely hills of Monte Albano.

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Vinci is easily reached from either Florence or Lucca and makes a truly pleasant break on one’s journey between the two cities. The old town is built around the eleventh century castle of the Guidi Counts which contains an excellent collection of models based on the master’s drawings and shows the multiplicity of his interests whether they be directed towards communications (canals, bridges, helicopters and other flying machines) defence (machine guns, tanks, or mechanics (pulleys, gears.)

 

Of items actually by Leonardo’s hand we came across this beautiful sketch.

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It’s the earliest known drawing by him, dated August 5, 1473 and is on loan from Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. It shows the valley of the Arno and Montelupo Castle so well-known to the artist as the scene of his childhood walks and explorations. It also happens to be the first purely landscape drawing of any western artist.

During these walks Leonardo collected a profusion of items from flowers, leaves, fossils, oddly-shaped pieces of wood and animals. One case presents items Leonardo had picked up and which he drew.

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The castle’s courtyard has a garden in which a wood sculpture by Mario Ceroli of Leonardo’s celebrated take on Vitruvian man is displayed.

 

Incidentally, there is another sculpture of Leonardo’s Vitruvian man displayed in London’s Belgrave Square near the Italian Institute of Culture where my wife’s father was Secretary-General.

And here is Leonardo’s original drawing:

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Our museum ticket included admission to the farm-house where Leonardo, an illegitimate child, was brought up by his wet-nurse. It’s a short distance uphill from the town. Here we met the man himself in holographic form reminiscing, at the end of his life at Amboise, on his life and thoughts. Leonardo’s last words were about how much he missed his native hills and his beloved Florence which he would never see again.

 

For it was in Vinci that Leonardo was baptised at the font of Santa Croce parish church.

 

Also comprised in our ticket was an exhibition in a nearby aristocratic villa on Leonardo’s paintings. Although no actual pictures from the artist’s hand were on show the reproductions, particularly of his masterpiece of the Last Supper, painted for Milan’s convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, were very well done.

 

It was truly lovely to be once more enfolded by the beautiful landscape of the Monte Albano hills which were dramatically enhanced by the magnificent clouds these days of tormented meteorological conditions have given us.

 

 

 

Tree-Climbing with Cats

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Our two cats, Carlotta and Cheekie, love to accompany us on our woodland walks. They truly enjoy exploring the wild scents, stalking each other and….climbing up trees.

It’s a well-known fact that cats are rather better at going up trees than coming down. Their retractable claws act like hooks in the ascent but the descents another matter. Our cats have realized that the best way to come down is often backwards.

Our meadow is stunningly full of flowers which include wild carnations and field orchids.

The long grasses are truly a pleasure-ground for our felines.

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It would be a real pity to have to cut these meadows, which in the UK would even receive protected status. I wonder when I’ll have the courage to use a strimmer on them?

 

Snowy May?

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This year the seasons have gone really crazy in Italy, especially in our area of Media Valle, just north of Lucca. For much of the first three months of this year temperatures were often well into their twenties and for weeks we had no precipitation at all. Camellias, which normally blossom at the end of March, were already budding in January and are still blossoming now over three months later, the longest time I have known our own camellia to come into flower.

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Then in April things changed; temperatures actually went down and we had days of often precipitous rain. We hoped that things would brighten up in May yet worse was to come; our mountains, so long without their hoary blankets, were covered by snowfalls, clearly welcome to skiers but not so longed-for by farmers and gardeners.

A couple of days ago we went on one of our favourite trips: to the highest village in the Italian Apennines, San Pellegrino, nestling on the side of the main ridge at a height of  5003 feet. Our route became marked by extensive snowfalls; it truly seemed that we were just emerging from winter instead of being at the start of the merry month of May!

San Pellegrino strides between the regions of Tuscany and that of Emilia Romagna. Indeed, one of the bars has its counter divided between the two very different parts of the peninsula…

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The village grew around a refuge for pilgrims crossing the mountains on the via Francigena in their way to Rome. The views we have enjoyed from this spot are truly wonderful but on this day everything was enveloped in mist.

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What was still visible, however, were the two saints, San Pellegrino and San Bianco, in all their mummified glory. Pilgrims still come today and write their prayer wishes on a slip of paper which is deposited by the graceful shrine.

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Meanwhile our own garden is showing defying colours against the louring greyness of the skies.

 

 

Of Waterfalls

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April showers, yes. Here in the Lucchesia, however, it’s more like April deluges: we’ve had more rain in the past few days than in all the time since the start of 2019.

It may be an interval to stay indoors and play a game of cards or the piano. However, stepping outside there are refreshing benefits: the smell of the damp earth, the thirst-quenching of the parched soil, the more vivid colours of the flowers and, near us the sound of rushing waters, amplified by the newly fallen drops.

As Wordsworth would have it:

 Unfathom’d dells and undiscover’d woods;                        

 Where rocks and groves the power of waters shakes

 In cataracts, or sleeps in quiet lakes.

 

Here is our local waterfall, just ten minutes away from our house, yesterday.

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Approaching the falls we were surprized by the huge bushes of white heather. Our cats, Carlotta and Cheekie were very curious about the water cascading into the hidden canyon. Fortunately, they were sensible enough not to fall down. We, however, would not have ventured so close to the edge.

 

Talking of waterfalls, here is a poem on the subject by my late uncle, Giuseppe Brunelli who died in 2016. The original is followed by my English translation:

 

LE CASCATE

12 Agosto 1943

 

Per balzi strapiombanti fra le rocce

dal fianco aperto del monte boscoso

si disserra il torrente, sparsi massi

scavalcando con gioco di gigante

che scordare non sa la sua potenza.

 

Figlio d’alti ghiacciai, le tetre forre

illumina in candore di scalee

nevose, vive qual frementi groppe

di cavalli selvaggi, archi iridati

tracciando fragili al piegare del vento.

 

Davanti alla cascata lo stupore

sacro ritrovo dell’antico uomo,

riapparso con la spoglia d’una fiera

a ripararsi i forti òmeri ignudi

nell’ebbrezza del gelido pulviscolo.

 

Fra l’inquieto agitarsi delle fronde

stillano i soliloqui di Tristano,

d’Amleto, la demenza di Chisciotte,

di Margherita, il pianto d’Ermengarda:

e si mesce nel vento un nuovo affanno.

 

Come ciottolo in fondo alla cascata

sotto il getto precipite fa gorgo

di se stesso, e sé rode, e a sé discava

nella roccia una nicchia senza pace,

così il mio cuor nel suo carcere inquieto

in un perenne turbine si volge.

 

Sopra il dosso insidioso, sull’abisso,

tu posi immota fisa sorridendo

alle acquatiche luci, che sul viso

tranquille si riflettono

 

Io miro

le alte masse che irrompono verdastre

infrangersi nel volo in bianchi nimbi

e in un tuono dibattersi sul fondo

con lotta irosa sempre risorgente.

 

Sui tuoi sciolti capelli un ramo muove

un aleggiare d’ombre e il verde piove

con ali lievi sopra il volto bruno,

su gli occhi chiari e il bianco tuo sorriso.

 

Alta sul gorgo col pensier ti libri

com’aquila impetuosa? A questa roccia

roccia io mi sento a frangere quell’urto,

urto io stesso, immoto nel tumulto.

 

Né più so di me stesso e invano un grido

levo a tratti al fragore dell’ignoto:

sento ed esito, e ancora faccio miei

sogni e presagi e brividi e terrori.

 

Prometeo incatenato un rostro invoco

a dilaniarmi in cuore quest’angoscia.

 

 

WATERFALLS

12 August 1943

 

Leaping precipitately among rocks

the torrent releases itself

from the wooded mountain’s riven side,

bounding over scattered boulders like a playful giant

unable to forget his own power.

 

Child of the high glaciers, lighting dark ravines

with a flare of snowy steps:

iridescent rainbows delicately traced by the wind,

like the shuddering backs of wild horses.

 

By the waterfall I re-live

the primal wonder of ancient men

returning clad in bearskins

protecting their nakedness

in a wild and freezing wasteland.

 

Tristan’s and Hamlet’s soliloquies,

Quixote’s madness, Margaret’s folly,

and Ermengarde’s lament

fall among the unquiet rustle of leaves

and a new anguish flows into the wind.

 

My restlessly imprisoned heart turns

on itself in a never-ending whirlpool

like a pebble underneath the waterfall

consumed by eroding a restless hollow

in the rocks below the rushing jet.

 

Motionless and smiling, you consider

the water’s light calmly reflected in your face

above the perilous bank upon the abyss.

 

I see lofty greenish forms breaking through,

shattering into white mists in flight,

thunder-like beating down onto the deep

and ever rising again in violent conflict.

 

A branch casts a soaring of shadows

on your loosened hair and greenness showers down

with light wings upon your olive face,

onto your bright eyes and your pure smile.

 

Will you fly away high above the gorge

like an impatient eagle? Before this rock

I, rock-like, feel like breaking that shock

I, in shock myself, remain unmoved in the turmoil.

 

I no longer know myself and vainly

raise a fleeting cry to the alien tumult;

I feel and exist and my dreams and forebodings,

my fears and terrors come to me again.

 

I call on Prometheus Bound for strength

to tear away this anguish from my heart.

 

Interestingly, I presented a translation of my own poem on the subject of waterfalls – this time a vanished one – for the Bagni di Lucca national poetry competition of 2012 where it won second prize. Here is the original English version written in the form of a villanelle and my Italian translation presented for the competition:

 

THE VANISHED WATERFALL

This tract of world’s eternal round struck proud:

hurled loose from rock into the forest’s void

relentless waters pounded sheer and loud.

 

Like giant’s veilèd scarf or ogre’s shroud

they leaped and sprang unbound and overjoyed:

this tract of world’s eternal round struck proud

 

celebrating descent from haloed cloud.

With shattered pines and dashing rocks destroyed

relentless waters pounded sheer and loud.

 

Precipitous, the waters fell unbowed

and crashed on stones, all energy deployed.

This tract of the eternal round struck proud,

 

aslant drowned hills and on the liquid-ploughed

ravines; with consummation fast-enjoyed

relentless waters pounded sheer and loud

 

while falls rushed past as nature’s force endowed,

their joyful sound not maddened or annoyed;

this tract of world’s eternal round struck proud:

relentless waters pounded sheer and loud.

 

 

 

LA CASCATA SVANITA

 

 

Questo tratto del tondo eterno del mondo colpì orgogliosamente:

lanciate, sciolte dalla pietra nella lacuna della foresta,

le acque implacabili s’infrangevano a picco e fortemente.

 

Come la sciarpa velata di un gigante o il sudario di un orco

saltavano e balzavano, slegate e pazze di gioia:

Questo tratto del tondo eterno del mondo colpì orgogliosamente

 

celebrando la loro discesa dalle nubi aureolate.

Con pini fracassati e pietre audaci distrutte

le acque implacabili s’infrangevano a picco e fortemente.

 

Erte, le acque abbatterono indomite

e crollarono sulle pietre, ogni energia schierata.

Questo tratto del tondo eterno del mondo colpì orgogliosamente

 

attraverso le colline affogate e sugli orridi

arati limpidamente; con una consumazione goduta rapidamente

le acque implacabili s’infrangevano a picco e fortemente

 

mentre le cascate s’affrettavano e la forza della natura dotò,

il loro suono gioioso mai esasperato o importunato;

questo tratto del tondo eterno del mondo colpì orgogliosamente:

le acque implacabili s’infrangevano a picco e fortemente.

 

 

 

 

Our Forests on Fire!

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STOP PRESS FIRE EXTINGUISHED!

 

 

For almost a week now a forest fire has been burning in the Pizzorne, the range of hills that separate the Val di Lima from the plain of Lucca. The main areas affected are above Lugliano, Casabasciana and Benabbio.

I was first made aware of a major forest fire on the morning of March 31st when, looking out of our bedroom window at Longoio, I saw this:

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No, it was not a volcanic eruption, just an arsonist near Lugliano. Why should someone do this? I suggest one of the following reasons:

  1. A bonfire of brushwood and leaves got out of hand and started spreading through the nearby forest
  2. Someone wanted a quick way of clearing part of the forest so as to create new areas of pasture for his cattle, sheep and goats.
  3. A mad person / vandal decided to have ‘fun’ with nature. Some people are afflicted by a disease called pyromania in which they enjoy setting fire to things. Also, it could be a person who might have had a grudge against the forestry commission or a neighbour.

The fire was aggravated by two factors:

  1. The extreme dryness of our woodland which has hardly received any rainfall since the start of the year.
  2. The strong winds which have been afflicting our area over the past week. March here is particularly windy month.

On March 31st the papers reported that there was clearly a pyromaniac behind the fires devastating the mountains around Bagni di Lucca. As in last Wednesday’s fires, the flames started in the late afternoon, making it impossible to use airplanes and helicopters until the morning. There were three main fires affecting the whole valley between Benabbio and Lugliano.

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The flames, extended for over five hundred acres, are inaccessible and difficult to reach. Two helicopters from the regional forest firefighting service were also used. In the early morning operations were made difficult by the heavy accumulation of smoke, but visibility improved in the early afternoon, allowing the use of Canadair and helicopters.

This is the photo I took of the flames from our bedroom window. They are, clearly, more visible by night:

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On the ground three teams of fire fighters, three teams from the Tuscan Volunteer body and a fire brigade team were fighting the flames. Some motorbike riders were also employed in firefighting.

For two days there seemed to be no sign of the flames abating. The smell of smoke really got up my nostrils. I thought what a way to wake up to springtime for all the poor wild forest animals being burnt alive at this moment…to say nothing of the little birds in their tree nests….tragic, truly tragic!

Meanwhile, the sad rumble of water bombers continues to haunts the horizon. A third one has been called in today. The fires, though diminished, still burn our hills.

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PS In Italy water bombers are called Canadair. This is because the aircrafts used are Canadair CL-415s, amphibious aircraft  designed specifically for aerial firefighting and built by Canadair.

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Rain is forecast today. Let’s hope it goes some way to finally extinguish the fire, the likes of which I have never seen before. And it’s just gone March! Is the fire the result of global warming or just more mad people on the loose? Perhaps it’s a combination of both…

Anyway, full marks for the courage of the fire-fighting services and volunteers in attacking the flames. I truly hope the rest of this year will be quieter for them but somehow I doubt it. Look what happened last year near Pisa in my post here:

Hell on Earth near Pisa

Incidentally Sandra reminded me that we spent a night in that same forest way back in 2005. She writes: “What worries me is that early on on our Italian adventure we got thoroughly lost in the Pizzorne, even had to sleep there ‘au plen air’, was scary but safer than continuing in the dark with huge boulders everywhere due to a heavy storm. But reason for saying this is that along the way we saw very many abandoned houses some of which seemed lived in so I am wondering if this fire has affected these places too. Seems really a very sick person if this is truly arson I cannot believe this is really horrible.”

PS Apparently I have invented a new word in the English language: ‘brexiting fire’. My logic was thus: the fire is damaging our natural environment. Brexit is damaging our social environment. Verb ‘to brexit’=’to damage social environments’. By analogy, ‘to damage natural environments’. Gerundive phrase: ‘brexiting away’.

 

 

A Missile Base Turns into a Peace Park

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The Pizzoc is a mountain in the Treviso Pre-Alps. It is 1,565 metres high (5134 feet), one of the highest points in Treviso Province in the Veneto Region of northern Italy.

It’s what I would call a mountain for the lazy (useful if one has an aged parent in tow) as its top can be reached by a hair-raising but stunningly beautiful road.

 

 

We visited the Pizzoc earlier this month when Autumn tints were beginning to show their full beauty. The majesty of leaf colours was a wonder to behold.

On the top of the Pizzoc (etymologically “Spizt Hoch”, “high peak” in the Cymbric language spoken by the teutonically descended forresters who still live locally in their own villages there) is the Piazza della Pace (peace square), used as a viewpoint and marked by a cross and an altar.

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Here, from 1962, during the period of the Cold War, a missile radar base was established in connection with the launch base located nearby. Operationally closed in July 1977, it was definitively abandoned on August 21st, 1979.

The ex-base site is an excellent vantage point from which to view the Alpago mountains, the lakes of Revine and Santa Croce and the dolomitic Col Visentin-Monte Cesen ridge.

On clear days the view ranges from the Gulf of Trieste to the Euganean Hills and the Venetian Lagoon.

Although a bright blue day our view was not of the clearest. It was still wonderful to be there, however. Even at this height it was hot enough to be wearing a T-shirt.

It’s sad how many beautiful places in the world are disfigured by military establishments. I think of Salisbury plain, for example, and certain areas of the Dorset coast.

Paradoxically, however, the exclusion of the public has preserved nature in these places meant for defence and destruction.

I think also of another missile-tracking radar station, that established on Britain’s remotest island, St Kilda, now belonging to the National Trust for Scotland and unpopulated on a permanent basis since 1930. We were fortunate enough to be on a SNT work party last century and it was truly difficult to believe that this wildest and loneliest of places was used for a weapon that, in the wrong hands, could spell the end of life as we know it on our blue planet.

Here are some photos from that unforgettable time of our lives.

Peace replaces war,

the land returns to its birth:

primaeval nature.

Antella: a Picturesque town in the Florentine Hinterland

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The little town of Antella has already cropped up in some of my posts. In particular, its fabulous chapel, almost entirely frescoed by Spinello Aretino, is mentioned at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/do-you-know-granacci-or-larciani/

Antella is also the last resting place of Claire Clairmont, who needs no introduction to Shelley lovers. For more information on this essential nuisance in the poet’s life do read my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/claire-claremont-the-epilogue/

A few days ago we stopped in Antella’s main square for an ice-cream.

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It was a welcomed stop during an afternoon visiting the delightful countryside surrounding Florence festooned with matured vines, glittering with silvery olive groves and cooled by mysterious pine forests.

It’s a real pity that visitors to the cradle of the renaissance fail to visit the beautiful landscape surrounding the city except, at the most, to reach Fiesole, over-crowded during the season and with by no means the best views over the City of the Lily.

Antella’s main square epitomizes all that’s most liveable about Italy. Just a few miles away from the tourist-crowded streets of Firenze, Antella is another world. In the square different generations mix, play, relax and rarely collide. Old boys play briscola by the local bar. Women meet up for the local gossip. Children play hide-and-seek using the the massive parish church doors, opened out for the evening prayers, as a useful place of concealment.

In the centre stands the statue of a worthy from the town. (Italy’s first prime minister, in fact.)

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The church itself contains a mixture of exquisite pre-renaissance pictures, skeletons of unremembered saints, massive oak beams spanning walls that have endured centuries of wars, floods and earthquakes.

A majestic crucifix of ancient date overlooks the nave.

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Beyond the apse an even older chapel opens out with a handful of the devout reciting the joyous mysteries of the Rosary.

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What I love in particular is the absence of the social divides that plague the provincial English town at this hour. In that ever more fractured land of Brexitania children separate themselves from parents at an ever-earlier age; the old are moved out-of-sight into geriatric institutions or, if lucky and still in their own homes, suffer loneliness and the fear of being mugged if they step outside after 8 pm.

Meanwhile, the young ready themselves to get hyped up for a night of artificial highs of binge drinking and vomiting on pavements while police sirens uselessly try to wake them up, and hospitals become arenas for the victims of fighting and knife attacks. 

However, in places like Antella, such ghastly thoughts and memories of a country, soon to be torn apart from the mainstream of Europe by a ‘will of the people’ fed by lies, ignorance and small-mindedness, seem, thankfully, far away.

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