These goats were very friendly and cute. The bells, apparently, cost a fortune and only the rich farmers have all their animals belled.




Some cats of Piaggine.

( Cut for 5 more cats - by no means an exhaustive selection )
A really sweet dog called Piccolo.


A cattle dog.


The same dog with Roseanna the charolais cow.


Another dog with a Podolica cow. The Podolica cows are the traditional variety of the Cilento area. It's their milk that makes the regional Caciocavallo cheese.


The dogs and cows get on very well together. We were told to stay close to the owner of the cows or the dogs would attack us.


Cow bells are even more expensive than goat and sheep bells. G. who owns these cows has spent as much as 5000 euro on a single bell (which is currently $A10,000!). All his cows are belled. Only the bull refuses to wear one. As with N. and his goats, each bell is distinct and the owner can identify all his animals by the bell tone.

Downstream from the old bridge.


The mediaeval bridge and its waterfall.




Sidestream entering the river just below the bridge.


Landscape across the river.

2CV. Want.


Me and you "four" metres above the sky. (I checked with my Italian friends; they didn't know what it means either)


Through an open door.


Christmas lights.


Horse ring at the Palazzo Vairo.

There are three piazzi in Piaggine. This is the largest one at the top of the village. I've forgotten its name, but it is rather pretty with its palazzo, allegedly built with the proceeds of brigandage in the 18th century.


It was a chilly morning and these guys definitely had the warmest spot.


Some streets in the old quarter.








Looking upwards.

Here in Sydney it's wet and gloomy weather. So the weekend ramble will be virtual. Here are some wintry skies from the Cilento area.
Near Bellosguardo.


Near Corleto Monforte.


Dawn at Piaggine. The view from my balcony.


Also from Piaggine.

On the eve of the wedding and the next night the visitors from beyond the locality (i.e., those from Sydney, Dublin, Turin, Baghdad, etc.) stayed in the Villa Vea (pictured). It is run by some people who've returned from the US. The morning after the wedding I set out from here and followed the Via Istmica towards Bellosguardo. (The Via Istmica is designed for hikers and it crosses the Park from Paestum, on the Tyrrhenian sea, in the west to the other side of the mountains in the east. It is paved with bitumen and mostly accessible to cars!)

Looking back to Villa Vea.


The view of Bellosguardo from Villa Vea.

( + 12 )
I didn't go all the way into the village of Bellosguardo - partly because it involved an extra uphill climb, but mainly because it was getting late and nearly time for more feasting!

Whenever the people around me were busy, or else I just became exhausted with trying to speak Italian, I went for a walk. On this occasion it was just an exploration of the village, which is known in the local dialect as Fogna, but officially as Villa Littorio. Basically it consists of two almost parallel streets along the side of a hill, connected by a bunch of narrow alleys. So I walked one way along the main, or lower, street and back along the upper one.

Starting point.

( 11 more under the cut )

On the third day we flew to Naples and the day after that drove down to Cilento National Park, a further 200km to the southeast. It was much warmer in the south. 13 degrees in Naples instead of 3 in Turin. But the blue skies gave way to drizzling rain - though it gradually cleared over the next few days.

Roccadaspide is a largish town - the first one you come to in the highlands after the plain which, although part of the national park, is full of mozzarella factories and cheap tourist developments.


It's only after Rocca that the landscape improves. We also had to take a long detour along the old road because the new, shorter one had been washed away by heavy rains.


This is the river in the valley below out destination - a village known as Fogna by the locals, but named Villa Littorio by Mussolini. The last time I was here it was a mere trickle, but this time it is in full flood. Despite the fact that it's January a lot of the deciduous trees, particularly oaks, are clinging to their leaves making wonderful colours.

What the hell! I can't resist posting this photo of Fiorella, her owners (whose names I never found out) and their dog Germina, even though it's a terrible photo. For city folk like me, it's the equivalent of seeing Aborigines walking down the street in those red underpants... er, loincloths... that they wear for official public dance performances. Not that red underpants are about to become a fashion statement in the way that this woman's smock has become the de rigueur outfit for any would-be artist or professor in London or Paris.

I can't believe that I only spent 10 days in Italy. On the Friday afternoon I.'s father drove me to the railway station in Salerno. We did a very short detour via Paestum to have a quick look at the Greek ruins, but mainly to buy a souvenir for my mother. Salerno seems very different from Naples. Even if it is a major port city it seems much more orderly, more properly European - but that may be because I didn't see much. We only had time for a quick coffee at the seafront (which, unlike Naples has trees) and then an information-free wait for my train to Rome. On the train I sat next to a guy who was reading academic papers about cultural evolution and genetics, and opposite a man who used his index finger to punch numbers on his mobile phone! I slept at the Hotel Aphrodite next to the railway station in Rome and caught my flight the next morning.

I think I forgot to mention earlier that we had wild boar for dinner one night in Fornia. The father of a friend had shot one, and according to the rules of the village, meat was available for those who wanted it. We were actually invited for dinner the night before, but I's mother had planned chicken and porcini so we couldn't go. Instead she produced it the next night. I have to say it was quite delicious.

I'm already formulating plans to get back to Cilento. It would be a fabulous place to go hiking. In the meantime, not sure how I'll keep on filling up this blog.

After our walk in the woods we had a beer in the lovely, shady piazza in the lower part of town and then walked further up to look at the village sights. There's a second, more bustling (if that's an appropriate word) piazza with the Commune building, housed in an old palazzo. It has lovely frescoes on some of the outer walls.


At the very top is the ducal palace, right next to the old castle ruins. The entrance is through a tunnel under one side of the building.


From the terrace there are wonderful views down to the chapel we'd just visited and across to the mountains where we'd had our picnic by the other chapel (which is not really discernible in the picture, by the trees near the top of the ridge running down in front of the bald rock face).


The ducal palace was owned for many centuries by the Duke of Longobardo (is that Lombardy?), but was purchased in the 19th century by the Spinelli family of Naples. Now it belongs to the Commune which has recently restored it but hasn't decided what to do with it. It has a very impressive kitchen...

... and beautiful, huge rooms with wood-panelled ceilings.

I also loved the doorknockers.




In the evening we all went for another walk, from Fogna around the spur of the mountain that it sits on to a block of land that L and I. are thinking of buying. On the road we met an ancient couple with their mule or donkey, named Fiorella, and their dog Germina. Neither of them was taller than the mule and they were both dressed in what my modern companions described as "peasant costume". I took three photos, but due to the fading light they are all horribly blurred.

By the time we reached the block of land it was almost dark, though still with just enough light to see the olive trees, the patch of natural woodland, a few grape vines and the big oak by the house. From the upper storey I'm sure you can see the sea, but we couldn't because the house was locked.




I hope they can buy it. It is quite stunning and incredibly cheap for 2.5 hectares. But there are something like 50 titles on it and so far they've only been able to verify that the seller really owns about 2/3 of them.

While I. was working (on a chapter he is submitting for publication) L and I drove over to Laurino to have a look around (and feed the cats). This is the view from near their old house and we decided to walk up to the small chapel in the centre of the picture. Actually we drove down to the bottom of the valley first since the day was hot and then followed the track up to where it forks. The road is the old salt route across Italy from Brindisi to Salerno, which probably explains why Laurino had a castle from the 12th century.


At the fork we followed the right-hand track down to the stream.


On the other side of the stream is a picnic ground, covered in pretty pink flowers.


We followed a rough track upstream until we came to a beautiful clear (and cold!) pool. It's deep enough to be a good swimming hole and the green colour in the photo is really true. We recrossed the stream and sat on a low wall dabbling our feet for a bit...


... watched by a tiny frog.


Then we climbed up to the chapel of Sant' Elena, Santa Lena (local dialect name) or Saint Helena. The story is that the locals built the chapel because Santa Lena saved Laurino from attack, either by the briganti or the government authorities, I'm not sure. There's a painting on the back wall of the chapel showing troops in blue uniforms gathered below the village. The briganti were endemic in this area during the period before unification and divided the loyalties of the population. They were both political rebels against feudal oppression and plain brigands (not of the Robin Hood type either). At least one village in the region was completely destroyed by the authorities - presumably in order "to save it" - and huge tracts of forest were burned in order to flush them out. In any case their activities were one of the catalysts for the republican movement and the unification of Italy.


View of Laurino from the chapel.

Roscigno Vecchia is a village that was abandoned at some stage after an earthquake during the 20th century due to fear that it was going to slide down the hillside. One woman, Dorina, refused to move, but she died last year and, on the day we visited, it was full of Americans. We met a guy from Philadelphia who said his parents had been married in the church...

... and who has created a Foundation for the restoration of the village, in which task they are joined by his cousin the mayor of the Commune (just to show what a small world it is, I also spoke to his son who had lived just up the road from me in North Sydney for 10 years). The Americans were having a party to celebrate Dorina's first death anniversary. They invited us for a drink which, for reasons that shall be explained, we politely declined, and showed us which buildings they had so far "restored".
Dorina. I bet she never imagined her career as a PR tool. But she wasn't totally averse to modernity - note the shoes.


Then we met Giuseppe Spagnola, a local volunteer dressed in a red shirt and a black shepherd's hat (you can see him on the far right of the church photo) who runs the little museum. Spagnola said that for years there had been a group of local volunteers working on the restoration of the village, but they have now been pushed out of the way by the Commune and the Foundation - i.e., pushed out by the money. The restoration work is now being done by a construction firm from Naples (read 'Camorra connections') and they don't know the old building technique. The houses are being rebuilt as modern stone houses. He showed us one that his group had restored "exactly as it was when the people left". Even down to the caciocavallo cheese and chillies hanging on the kitchen wall (Spagnola often camps there, sleeping on the big table in the next room).


This house is the first one in this lovely row lining one side of the piazza. The last one in the row has been "restored" by the Foundation and really ruins the whole effect.


In front of this terrace row there is a fountain fed by a spring. It runs constantly without a tap and, as I discovered in other parts of this area, there is a long-established system whereby the springwater from one fountain or cattle trough is fed by gravity into one somewhere below, the water eventually joining the river in the valley.


( More details of Roscigno Vecchia )
Finally, so you can make up your own mind, the two houses that have been restored so far by the Foundation. The main complaint seems to be about the mortar. Most of the old houses don't have any at all. And the new roof guttering seems to overwhelm the cornice. I suppose that they might mellow to the original colour with age.

On the Tuesday we had a slow-food lunch at a tiny bar that specializes in traditional recipes with two of L's friends who are musicians. Afterwards they took us to their studio and played some music they're working on for a movie. They previously did the score for a movie by Nina di Maio and now she has commissioned more music from them. I thought their music was good and I've brought home a couple of CDs.

After lunch we packed up all our gear and headed for the railway station. We got stuck in the traffic and missed two trains, so we didn't get to Battipaglia until about 7.30. There we were picked up by I's parents who drove us the remaining 60 km to their home in Fogna (officially known as Villa Littoria) in the middle of the Cilento National Park. The park was created in 1991 and is a world heritage site, listed not only for its tracts of wild country, but also for its representation of the "traditional" way of life. The latter aspect is really interesting because since the park was declared many of the locals are switching back to traditional crops and livestock and away from the new commercial varieties. In Fogna, although many people have quite ordinary jobs, there's also a system of village barter whereby somebody who has just made a new batch of ricotta will give most of it away to friends, while somebody else who has shot a wild boar will similarly distribute the meat. As far as I could see, there were only 2 shops and one of these only sells tobacco and newspapers. I's mother has a basement absolutely crammed with salamis, preserves, sauces and god-knows-what-else that she has either manufactured herself or received from friends. On our arrival we ate a dinner of ricotta (just delivered by a neighbour), fresh buffalo mozzarella, two types of salami, a basil and tomato salad and crusty brown bread, washed down with I's father's home-made wine! Just antipasto, said I's mother, are you sure it's enough? We also had fresh hand-made pasta for lunch every day - the first of a daily three-course meal. Luckily she was willing to skimp on future dinners - even though they don't start eating until 9.30 or 10 at night, I still couldn't manage more than a nibble.

The area is stunningly beautiful.




In this photo you can see Fogna across the valley.


On the bridge over a gorge on the way to Roscigno.


One afternoon we drove up a one-track road to a 16th century chapel on a mountainside for a picnic (at 1500 metres). The chapel was commissioned by a traveller who had nearly lost his life in a snowstorm. It was closed, but the views are spectacular.




Later the same day we drove up another one-track road towards Pruno, a village that is still completely cut off from the outside world in winter. Unlike the mountain of the chapel, this one is covered in forest. We saw deer - a doe and a stag - close to the road, and further up in the beech forest, horses. They belong to someone, as the lead horse has a bell, but they're not used to humans and did a circle around us through the trees. Here, we also tramped through dead leaves a foot deep to visit La Grava, a cave that drops vertically for hundreds of metres into the next valley. The cave makes faint noises (presumably wind in the depths) which add to its spooky quality. I much preferred being back on the track with the horses.