Oslo and Bergen
These are the two largest cities in Norway. OSLO was founded in 1040 as a trading post mainly for timber exports. They landed here.

And rapidly set up a small town.

The trading post probably peaked around 1300, when a medieval castle was built over the harbor. It was later used as a prison and the headquarters of the Nazis during their occupation of Norway in WWII.

By the 1800s the city had become the capital of Norway (ex Bergen) and notable buildings such as the Palace, the Opera house, etc. were constructed.

The Nobel peace prize is awarded in Oslo. Prizes in other categories are awarded in Sweden.

A little story. When Teddy Roosevelt broke up the American monopolies (Standard oil, US steel, etc.) he broke the DuPont company (which had a monopoly on the manufacture and sale of gunpowder) into three companies: DuPont, Hercules and Atlas. The DuPont company went on the be quite successful while the other two languished. I believe that this was mainly because the DuPont company retained the exclusive license for the manufacture and sale of dynamite which it had obtained from mister Nobel, the inventor.

The downtown is still much the same as the picture above.  Now loaded with tourists.

Today there is a lot of construction activity, with nice new areas along the waterfront.

We travelled by train over to the coast to Bergen.

Bergen is a very nice town with a small compact city center.

But it is completely overrun with tourists. 300+ cruise ships visit Bergen in a year. The city was founded in 1070 as a trading post for fish and timber and was a very important Scandinavian town in the medieval period.

There is a very nice park up over the town center with trails up to overlook the city.

Norway is a very rich country and expensive by US standards. The confluence of decades of oil revenues and high taxes and duties (cars, 100%) have led to high prices. Some examples: Half pint of beer: 10 to 12 dollars. Haircut: 32 dollars. Hamburger: 23 to 31 dollars.

We joined a Hurtigruten cruise at Bergen and travelled up the coast to the far north where Norway, Finland and Russia all meet.

This convinced me that perhaps 98% of all Norwegians live within 300 yards of the sea.

This was a working boat making many stops along the coast.

We had a nice little suite and the food and wine were very good.

The boat stopped at towns big and small and the days were planned with optional tours, lectures, etc.

The towns were quite plain with some old buildings, churches etc. Interesting in the lack of ornateness.

The very best fiord scenery we encountered was on excursions into the fiords especially to old Viking towns.

Along the way we passed the northern tree line, and then the Arctic circle, which designates the area where further north the sun never sets for at least one day a year.

At North Cape we passed into the Arctic ocean.

Cruising is a very interesting life. We have friends who have taken monumental cruises of 90 or 120 days. I am not sure I am ready for that. But we’ll have to see.

Istanbul is a huge city, one of the world’s largest. Entire books have been written about the history of the city. So, I do not expect this little post to add much to the record. Just a few thoughts and photos from my (first) time visiting.

For people who enjoy naming and categorizing, this is the boundary of Europe and Asia. And this bridge across the Bosporus connects the two continents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a thousand years this was Constantinople, the eastern capital of the Roman empire. The city did not fall to the Ottomans until the mid 1400’s. And there are still artefacts from the Roman times. Here is a curiosity: this little Egyptian obelisk, moved to Rome, but then sent here by Constantine as part of the decoration of his new city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the centuries of Ottoman rule overlaid the city with Arabic culture, most notably the Mosques. Two huge ones occupy the most historic area of the downtown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many more in the historic old town.

 

 

 

 

And all over the city. Counting them would be like counting churches in Alabama.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are speakers on the towers of the Mosques, and periodically during the day men with no obvious history of voice training sing out their religious ecstasy to the neighborhood.

The Mosques date from the 16 and 1700’s. Pretty new by the things I have been seeking out on this winter trip. The fancy houses and palaces are mainly from the 1800’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plenty of tourist restaurants are in the lanes of the old town around the historic center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And further downhill toward the golden horn there is a very large market area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The city is difficult to walk. Steep erosion valleys running east and west make the city very hilly. Plus the traffic is chaotic and swarming everywhere.

There is so much water around that ferry are constantly moving around. I would have liked to show the surprising numbers, but the light was always against me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

High rises and nice areas occupy the high ground in a number of places. Poor neighborhoods are in the low areas.

 

 

 

 

 

There are a lot of police and security. Lots of pedestrians. Lots of smoking. Very few Americanisms, but here are two familiar ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some random photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One disappointment visiting here was the number of attempted scams. The women, one with a baby who are so excited to meet you and must show you something on a cell phone but it is hard to pull up and then you are being squeezed between two pickpockets who saddled up. The classic “oh I dropped my shoebrush and you alerted me to that and so now I must give you a free shoeshine”. Plenty of helpful travel guides on offer, plus great shopping experiences, just come with me. Every taxi ride (I know this from walking) was padded by intentional driving off route and into congested areas.

Luckily I never go out for “nightlife”, when the real professional scammers are active.

But what I decided is that I have been on the road too long. These petty things should just be sport. And so, I will return to the USA and Bemidji tomorrow.

Thanks for coming along on this European fall travel. I expect to be on the road again in the spring. See you then.

Lew

Turkey. Land of the Ottomans.

I didn’t know what to expect coming here. But what I found in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, was a clean, modern place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The city sounds like San Francisco when I describe it:  300 days of sunshine a year, stretches for miles in both directions around a large beautiful bay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Destroyed by disaster (here fire in the 20’s) and rebuilt.

You can walk the bay shore for miles.

 

 

 

 

 

There are a truly incredible number of restaurants here, side by side over acres in the “pedestrian only” area downtown at the bay shore. Squint at some of the nicer areas and you could be in Paris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a very clean city. Little vacuum trucks trundle around sweeping and snorkeling. And, virtually no graffiti. I wonder how they control graffiti? Draconian policing? Ban on spray paints? Anyway it really makes a difference compared to cities that are ruined by graffiti, like Athens or Prague.

The symbol of the city is this little clock tower, dating from the early 1800’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Otherwise there are really no historic buildings here except for a tiny bit of the old city of Smyrna. Some walls looking more rebuilt roman than anything (huge stones equals Greek. Smaller stones with horizontal layers of tiles are always Roman). And some interesting “basements” with the old springs that Alexander the Great mentioned, still running.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was surprised to never see a burka here. Some head scarves, especially in the older market lanes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But this is not Cincinnati. Almost no English, especially written. Except for the shoe shine guy, a born-again Christian who told me his whole life story in 6 minutes.

Ephesus

This was probably a Neolithic site and home of various early peoples, but it became Greek from the 11th century BC. And later the Roman capital of Asia Minor. By around 400 AD the city had a population of perhaps 400,000, second only to Rome in the empire. Hadrain, the globe trotting Emperor visited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Paul lived here for a while. And oral tradition says that St. John came here and brought along Mary (mum of Jesus).

The city fell on hard times. It was sacked by the Goths, the Ottomans.The harbor silted up. Later the Christians tore all the temples down.

The ruins cover a very large area. Mostly Roman, with some Greek preserved. This was a city with wide streets, public baths, extensive water and sewer systems. And a theater that would seat 25,000 people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took a week long look-around trip in the Greek Islands. Here is a little graphic to put the trip into perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here the full moon greets me as I arrive in Naxos.

 

 

 

 

 

All of my travel was on the Blue Star Ferries. When the taxi first dropped me alongside one of their ships in the port of Athens, I was amazed. They are huge. 5 or 6 stories high. Very stable. Very clean. And very comfortable with numerous seating options, tables, food, bars, electricity, wi-fi, etc. This is good because the inter-island trips can take many hours.
The ships were built by the Koreans (based partially upon formula discovered by Archimedes). Only getting off is tedious, when you exit through the parking garage and the safety horns are blowing as they lower the gangplanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I visited Paros, Naxos, and Santorini. Santorini is a spectacular geographical place, the rim of an exploded volcano. It is great for photographers, but is being over-run with tourists, particularly mainland Chinese. I posted a separate blog about Santorini a few days ago.

Your humble correspondent on Santorini:

 

 

 

 

 

Naxos and Paros are quiet by comparison. And thinly populated. The main towns in each are very small.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each island has only a few small villages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• There are a lot of vacation homes on Paros. But the islands are surprisingly empty.  If a lot of tourists really come I do not know where they would put them.

 

 

 

 

 

I am travelling in the winter when many hotels and restaurants are closed. Some villages seem deserted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Paros and Naxos I rented a car and drove around the islands. The roads are OK, except in the villages where they double park leaving only one lane. Outside the towns the roads were essentially empty and a hoot to drive. For a few hours anyway, after 4 or 5 hours they were exhausting. Some unusual road hazards:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are no gas stations outside of the few biggest villages. I ran low (well out) of gas and the only habitation I could find after a long time of near panic was this little village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the only person I could find was a fisherman working on his boat. He took me to his nearby home and sold me a 4 liter bottle from his personal supply.

His wife , Maria, spoke perfect English. She asked “What are you doing way out here by yourself in the winter”?  I said:  just looking around, and for me this is a fine spring day. They thought that this was hilarious.

Very nice people. They absolutely refused to let me help or to take any more money than the cost of the gas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fishing is one of the few “industries” I can see here. Other major ones are mining marble, and renting cars to tourists.  Apparently the marble from Paros is of the highest quality and was the “brand” preferred by Roman sculpture-ers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so, that brings me to my reluctant conclusion:

The Greek islands are all about the weather.

—————————————————————————

As follows is a medley of practically useless information about the Greek Islands.

Water is an issue. There is none on Paros and practically none on Santorini. The growth of tourism is being allowed by large scale desalination plants. Basically these islands are rocks and volcanic ash.  Naxos, an exception, has water and is comparatively green.

 

 

 

 

 

Noxos is known for its self sufficiency. They produce cheese, wine, olive oil, meat, etc. all locally.

They put these iconic little white churches in the strangest places. I missed many great photos of them (like in the cleft of a mountain) because I was on a bus or on a road where I could not stop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They have the biggest olive trees I have ever seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their grape varieties can apparently grow in dust. The vines are not raised on trellises, but pruned into circles. A field of old vines looks like a field of baskets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The iconic white buildings are build from volcanic stones (what else?), and covered with concrete and/or a (duh:white) plaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fish are getting scarce and are now sold by weight rather than per fish. The chops from their local lambs are worth a return trip.

 

I was going to just lump my observations about my short visit to the Greek islands all into one post, but found that I had so much to say about Santorini that I will post my comments here.

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, initial reaction to t. he Greek islands is that it is all about the weather.

But Santorini is an exception. The geography of the island is spectacular. Plus they have Akrotiri, one of the most important ongoing archeological sites in the western world.
From the east the island rises from the sea in a steady, familiar manner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medieval Greek villages inhabit the washes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main road into the biggest town Fira, is quiet and lined with gum trees and leads to a non-descript central square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are plenty of nice restaurants and tavernas. But it is off season when I am here in November and many hotels and restaurants and shops are closed. The center of Fira is tourist target dead center. Lots of arts and craft galleries and junk souvenir stores and bars. And stupid prices. I learn later that a lot of Asians, including bus-loads of mainland Chinese come here. Which explains the prices.

Anyway, as soon as you head west from the town center, you reach the edge. This is a really startling thing. From thinking you are in a little town, you are hanging on the edge of a cliff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The city stops so abruptly at the cliff edge that approaching from afar I wondered how these mountains could be high enough to collect snow !!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the west of town you are looking out over a blown up volcano. It was enormous, and when it blew it was perhaps the biggest explosion within human history. Some say that the event was the genesis of Plato’s story of Atlantis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Akrotiri.

The time scale of the town being excavated out of the ashes here on Santorini is difficult to comprehend. A Neolithic settlement from 6000 years ago, a settlement from the Minoan civilization centered in Crete. On a clear day you can see Crete from here.
By 4000 years ago having been rebuilt at least twice from volcanic eruptions, the town is a wealthy bronze age era port trading around the Mediterranean. That is about when the island blows up. The city is covered with ash and flooded with mud. The huge explosion brings about the end of the Minoan civilization. The remainder merges with the early Greeks.
I would ask you to look back at those two paragraphs and think about the expanse of time we are talking about. This place is old.
——————————————————————————
Anyway: our forefathers, about 4000 years ago:
The city center, from a model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The excavation. The houses were all two or three stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The town had a water distribution system. And bathtubs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a separate sanitary sewer system. Indoor toilets connected to the latter. If you open the cabinet below your washbasin you can see that the drain pipe has an S shaped bend. The gas trap, keeps odors from coming back up. They had a version built using stones on their toilet drains.

Furniture (plaster injected into a cavity in the ash where the wood hade vacated over the centuries)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their trading brought goods from all over the region.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The walls of their homes were covered with paintings and designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, being a chef, I am enamored with their cooking tools.
They had the ancient method of clay pots that set directly into the fire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But also a wide range of modern looking bronze tools.

 

 

 

 

 

They had wine, and cups we would recognize today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neat little fire dogs to cook skewers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And small ovens for baking flat breads. What an intetesting dedign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You have probably bailed by now, but the continuity of our lives, with people living recognizable lives so long ago is a special thing to think about for me.

I am glad I decided to stop over in Athens again this winter.

Since I wrote about the town last year in these blog posts I am not trying to describe Athens more. Just some comments about living here this week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This place was pretty shocking when I arrived one year ago. Now the city has improved a lot with a year of Economic recovery. This is still a poor country and it shows. But the graffiti is down by half, the streets and the sidewalks are being swept and the trash hauled. There are new shops and a great deal of new lipsticking of existing ones. And the taxis are clean. All good signs.

The weather has been very fine until the last days when after a rain it plunged into the 50s. (smile)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This makes the visit even better because the town has an endless number of nice restaurants for al fresco dining.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Athens has many nice areas. I do not live in one.

I live (you guessed it) just beside the fish market!!

 

 

 

 

 

In an OK but overpriced hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have the impression that all hotels in Athens are overpriced. But prices are wanky here. A taxi from the airport costs 48 dollars. But I can buy a good dinner with wine anywhere for 20 dollars. Pay 5 dollars for a huge, absolutely fresh fish and pay 3 dollars to have someone charcoal grill it.

 

 

 

 

 

Actually I like the area of my hotel because from here I can walk every day up through the ancient historic area, around the hill of the forum, and back through a maze of nice quiet streets.  Almost traffic free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along side the fish marker there just happens to be a meat market, and if one were to jig instead of jog.. well .. what the hell (??!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

This happened to me. But I was rewarded by learning a valuable life lesson.

The system of buying critters and then taking them into a restaurant (I learned this in Hong Kong where it is very popular) and paying someone to cook them .. opens one to the risk of error.

And so, I learned the probably valuable but nonetheless disappointing lesson that there actually certainly is a mistake size serving of lamb chops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have decided to spend next week checking out a few Greek islands. Mr. Theodoros Consolas has advised me on how to use the ferry system and upon where go in a week, and I am excited to be off at o-dark-thirty tomorrow.

As you see from this map, since leaving Catania and Syracuse on the east coast I have been circumnavigating the island in a clockwise manner: Ragusa, Agrigento, Marsala, Segesta, Cefalu, Taorminia.

 

 

 

 

 

Agrigento The current town sits above a very large area of ruins that was once the ancient city of Akragas. Founded by the Greeks in the 500’s BC it was a very successful colony having at one time a population estimated in the hundreds of thousands. But this was ground zero in the Punic wars when the two superpowers, Carthage and Rome struggled for dominance of the Mediterranean. The city exchanged hands several times. At one point the Romans besieged the city, sacked it, and sold the entire population into slavery.
Some photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marsala. I wanted to make it to the west coast, but probably chose Marsala just because the name strikes such a happy chord with me, like Veal Marsala or Chicken Marsala. The town is small. It was founded by the Carthagenians, but for some reason the Romans spared it in the Punic wars. It has a very nice little old town. It also has a lot of newish buildings mainly because the Americans bombed the poop out of it in WWII.
Some photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cefalu. A picture perfect tourist town. With an absolutely gorgeous medieval old town. I came here to visit the Cathedral which was originally Norman but modified by the Arabs. Along with a number of similar buildings in the area, collectively a World Heritage site.
Some photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taormina. This is a pretty and prosperous town, hundreds of hotels and restaurants. I guess a lot of tourists come here since it is very close to the ferry terminal across from the boot.

The land rises high and very steeply out of the sea here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main attraction is the large Greek theater right on the edge of town. Actually only the foundations date from the earliest Greeks 2500 years or so ago. What is standing is the remains of the theater from the Romans rebuilding it 500 years later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some misc. notes on travelling in Sicily.

Truly fine fish, olive oil and wines. Good restaurant food, but best away from the popular tourist sites. A repeat picture but I love it.

 

 

 

 

 

The island is not pretty but has its own scenic beauty. The North is more scenic than the south, particularly the areas around Trapani and Cefalu. This is an old land. Barren denuded hills. Not so many trees. Although plenty of Olive trees.

Lots of smoking, trash, dog poop.

A fair amount of English. Curiously ALL restaurants are playing English popular music/songs.

The motor-ways are tricky, the secondary roads difficult, the towns really scary. 30% of the drivers on the roads are maniacal. All drivers of German cars are suicidal. The speed limits go up and down in very short distances, but everyone ignores them, they also ignore no passing signs, lane markers, etc. etc. Driving here was very stressful.

Breakfast in the hotels are long on sweets.

Advance your normal daily schedule by 3 and a half hours to get onto their time.

They like this primitive characteristic pottery.

 

 

 

 

 

In the mornings all the open places are full of heavily dressed old men sitting around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For me there were many small and fun surprises, like the technology this travelling vegetable salesman is using:

 

 

 

 

 

There are ruins everywhere. This little Norman church is a curiosity. About 900 years old, it was built on an island. But is now connected to the shore by lava flowing from Mount Etna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And speaking of her. I am leaving tomorrow, but shouldn’t someone be concerned that the volcano is smoking ????

The car I hired a few days ago is one with a newfangled navigation system that talks to me. And I will never drive in a foreign country again without one. It is great. Even with it I keep getting off course. But there are aggressive drivers here and narrow streets through the towns and it allows me to watch the road. I would never in 3 hours have found my hotel in Ragusa without it.

Anyway, I have driven over into the area called Val di Noto and visited Modica and the twin cities of Ragusa. These hill towns date from the Neolithic era and were inhabited when the Greeks arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

The 1693 eruption of Mount Etna was so huge that it devastated the entire east of the island of Sicily. And the towns that were rebuilt were all done in the “Baroque Sicily” style. Here in the Val di Noto, Eight towns are together designated a UNESCO World Heritage site “representing the culmination and final flowering of Baroque art in Europe”.

Baroque Sicily, a little gallery from these towns:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Except for the few major through streets these are quiet towns. I wonder about their future. Probably only tourist attractions. The narrow streets, all the stone, the endless up and down steps seem to me to be serious barriers to modernization. Speaking to this I looked into it and the population of Ragusa today is roughly the same as in 1911.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking about Art, how about this:

 

 

 

 

And regarding food, it is difficult to have a real dinner here. The restaurants open at 7:30 or 8PM, and if you have dinner then you have it in an empty restaurant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plus if you go out and have a drink to wait for the restaurants to open, then you are faced with the array of free food the bar offers, which is almost impossible (for me) to resist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heading west tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Syracuse.   What a famous name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the equal of Athens in population, prestige and power.

There must be some lesson here in how the great fall. Syracuse today is a medium sized/small city on the coast of Sicily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An island juts into the sea with a fine natural harbor. The island, Ortygia. was surely settled when the Greeks came here 2700 years ago. But many also settled against these limestone cliffs just inland.

 

 

 

 

 

Building in the valleys and boring into the cliffs themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later the settlement spread across the adjacent high limestone plateau.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They carved the altar for the temple directly out of the stone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And best of all the grand theater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly there is a lot of water running through fissures in the limestone. Here, at the very top of the theater one of the springs still flows robustly.

 

 

 

 

 

There was also a Roman city here for centuries, but there are few remains. In the 1200’s the stones were mined to build fortifications for the city.  And so ancient Syracuse is gone. Except for the rock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The island of Ortygia is interesting, but very small. It has a few ancient places, like the temple of Apollo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has some historic sites and plenty of Baroque buildings dating from the rebuilding after the great Mount Etna eruption in the 1600’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some medieval areas that look like Siena might have before it became beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I stayed in a grand old hotel dating from 1862, which some of my friends found interesting, and so I include a few pictures here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Honoring Genius
Sometimes I think about how we humans throughout history have on rare occasions produced super intelligent children, only to have them die quickly from war or disease or starvation. Or to live in some remote place only to do superior craft work and think a lot about things.

---

But every once in a great while one is in the right place and time to give us a giant boost in our knowledge and subsequently our prosperity.

Newton

Leonardo
Einstein
Tesla
Mendeleev

And perhaps the greatest of them all:   Archimedes.

I leave it to you to read about all of his work. But I will say: He worked with exponents, derived square roots. Told us the formula for simple geometric figures: circles, the surface and volume of a sphere, a cylinder. Sections of parabolas. Used a system anticipating the invention of calculus to quantify key numbers with great accuracy. Improved simple tools such as the compound pulley. And on and on. Some even say he built a model of the sun, earth and moon that rotated correctly using differential gearing.

I spent a lot of time trying to find his tomb to pay my homage. Cicero came here for the same reason. He reported that he did find the tomb and that it was adorned with the sphere and the cylinder just as Archimedes had requested. But that was a long time ago.
Here I am within 50 meters of it, but the area is no longer open for visiting. Maybe here. Or here. A disappointment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Anyway, a BIG FISH STORY.

I am only eating one meal today and it was lunch. Here is my little story.

For two days at lunch I sat at the plastic table-clothed tables down in the fish market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was not really a hardship. They grill vegetables, sausages and whole fish on charcoal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And since they have been doing it for thousands of years I thought I could learn some things. Such as, they salt the peppers heavily and repeatedly and burn them black but when they come to the table they are not salty, but sweet and delicious.

On the third day, just for the absolute hell of it I took the head waiter across the square and we bought a giant fish. It had to be marched back across the square for the chef to decide if it would fit on the grill. This is not a grand procession. This is a fish market and the characters are dressed in sweatshirts.

After the chef blesses the fish we go back for it to be cleaned. They ask a ridiculous price which I immediately agree to. I can see from their eyes that they think that I am a silly tourist who does not know how to bargain. But they do not know that I will never be in this time and place again and that my time is now.

Usually they cut three cuts across the thickest part of the fish. On each side. To the bone. For this guy they also cut a long cut down the backbone.

 

 

 

 

 

On the grill they salt heavily and then as the fish cooks they nurse the cuts with olive oil. Near the end of the cooking they have a pan of oil, lemon, vinegar and they apply this to the fish with a brush made of oregano sprigs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fish reaches the plate totally charcoal black, but absolutely delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

Various passerbyers commented as the fish was on the grill and later the plate. They seemed to enjoy the spectacle.  The fish was great.

 

Catania sits under brooding Mount Etna, the biggest volcano in Europe. The volcano has buried the city 17 times in recorded history.

 

 

 

 

 

The Greeks were here 2700 years ago, attracted by the fine harbor. Then the Romans, Ottomans, Normans, etc. But not much remains. There is a ruined Roman Greek theater, and the remains of other Roman works.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the attraction of Catania comes from its destruction in 1693, when it was rebuilt in an opulent Baroque style. The entire downtown is a World Heritage Site. Here are some views of the buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This grand 1700’s Cathedral was built on the ruins of an old Norman church.

 

 

 

 

 

It, and other Cathedrals here enclose huge spaces but are curiously stark and simple inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having just arrived here from London, where the Norman “William the Conqueror” is still big news, I was puzzled as to the presence of the Normans way down here in the middle of the Mediterranean. And interested to learn that starting from around 1060 or so they began to take over areas of Sicily and within a few hundred years controlled all of the island and the lower third of the Italian peninsula. This was not a big land grab like William’s. Apparently different bands of mercenaries were fighting for pay in the area and decided that this was not only easy pickings, but a nice place and set themselves up with fiefdoms. Which eventually united.

The entire town seems to be constructed from blocks of lava.

The symbol of the city is this little Elephant. Sculpted in lava.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The elephant symbol even carries on down to the manhole covers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why an elephant is unclear. But curiously Sicily in prehistory had pigmy elephants, and it is believed that this is the source of the tale of the Cyclops. When the Greeks found pigmy elephant skulls, about twice the size of a human head, and mistook the hole for the trunk for a central eye.

The city is very gritty. Literally since the lava stone erodes easily, shedding plaster and paint coatings. And figuratively. The city is poor and some areas not so clean.

The markets cover city blocks, with shoes, clothing, household goods, and fresh vegetables and fruits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And seafood by the acre. (seriously).

 

 

 

 

 

There are seafood restaurants all over the city, and of course it is the confluence of a World Heritage Site and great food that always attracts your humble correspondent.

 

 

 

 

 

Ok Ok. And good local wine. Here, the sands of Etna.