Italy 2014 Day Nine

Amicis: Michelle, me, Lea of NZ, Pam, Ingrid, Francesca, Amy, Alisa, Paige, Susan

 

 We leave behind Orvieto and our classmates.

 

We take the train to Florence and hope to feel better than we did the first pass through this lovely crowded city.

We didn't.

But we pushed forward and made plans and scaled walls...

 

Straight to the flea market.

Picked up some mail.

 

The always visible massive Duomo.

 

An art show in the Piazza SS Annunziata.

So much pottery, would love to have bought some.

It was a thrill to eat gelato and people watch.

The great Synagogue of Florence.

This was a hard stretch of the trip.

Alisa and I had bought been sick with coughs the duration and these final days challenged us most.

 

We were good travel companions. We are curious about the same things and need to the same amount of sleep and food. It was a lucky combination that began to fall apart, but we both knew that it was circumstances and not flaws in our relationship.  What a blessing to have that in a friend...

I needed a nap.

Alisa covered me in her shawl...

 

to be continued...

 

Italy 2014 Day Eight

 

Oh Day 8, the last one in Orvieto. Sunny. Bird calls echoing past the ancient stones worked into building blocks, through open windows and shutters. Real shutters. Working shutters. Not like here...

 

The beauty, the great beauty of being from Oklahoma is that we are one of the last settled places with moderate temperature on the earth. Certainly one of the last in America. Statehood established in 1907, we really have few buildings older than 125 years. No mountains. No ocean view.

People are our landscape and we have honed a lovely smiling populace.

But...when you travel, everything has texture and age. It is a most fortunate perspective...

Last day in the studio, we took it outside to the convent garden for sketching.

I tried. Of course I took on way too much. 

Next time I will just focus on a single urn.

Its just fine, photography is my sketchbook...

 

Alisa and I were determined to take in the last quarter of Orvieto.

We walked again to the east end near the train station and veered north.

 

At the Fortezza Albornoz, looking northward. Pozza Di San Patrizio is a well dug as part of the rebuild of the fortress in 1527. Oh how I wish we had attempted to go in to see the spiral staircase that descends its 173 foot depth. This is one of the things you want to 'go back' for. But I know how rarely I travel, 23 years since I had been to Europe, so will I pass this way again?

One must assume not.

One must get all you can while you are there.

I wish I had gone in a few more buildings...

Walking back toward city center we passed this lovely church, Chiesa Di S. Domenico, a 13th century church built by Dominican friars, later made into a female academy by Mussolini.

Italy makes historical dead guys come alive...

Just another lovely residence in Orvieto...

A pastry shop. Meringues.  Meringues....

And then, then we decided we had to watch the last Orvietan sunset from a terrace at the convent.

We sneak our bottle of wine from the refrigerator

narrowly escaping the sensible shoe steps of Sister Giovanna.

A destroyed cork does still access wine...

We take chairs from my room up the hallway and staircase,

though a door and find ourselves on the terrace. 

 

The sunset,

the Grek wine,

the smell of burning olive branches remaining from harvest.

Divinity...

Photo courtesy of Kristi and Beel Steiner...

 

Then we are caught, that terrace was on full display of the hallway.

 

A best moment, stolen, giggling, wobbly wine and dusk...

 

to be continued...

Italy 2014 Day Seven

The Rock on which Orvieto sits is approx. 1 mile long by one half mile wide. Its surface is filled with structures more than one thousand years old. Alisa and I were desperate to see as much of it as we could, and gaze over its edge to the Umbrian countryside, an island among the verdant Italian landscape..

One must pass through the Piazza Repubblica to get to the main street extending the length of the city. This campanile or bell tower is unique and original to the Sant'Andrea church built in 12th century. 

We started the day at the market, threat of rain...

The market sold mostly new things and foods.

 I di buy some beads from an Asian guy...

Instead of studio time, we chose to explore the east end of Orvieto near the train station to the Fortezza Albornoz..

Originally constructed in 1359 it was rebuilt in the 15th century to protect Pope Clement I who lived in Orvieto after the sack of Rome.

 It has been rare for a pope to live outside Rome, a claim to fame still for Orvieto.

 

We raced up the Corso Cavour back to the convent to get transport to a vineyard. 

 

We tasted wines and snacked on breads admiring this view.

 

No,

this view back to Orvieto,

 the mosaic façade of the Duomo gleaming.

 

The Palazone vineyard has a bed and breakfast in a restored building, with a most deliciously designed interior...

The vineyard before sunset.

 

A perfectly warm fall day.

 

We purchased a bottle of Grek white wine from Palazone,

which was put to most good use the next and last day in Orvieto...

Italy 2014 Day Six

Pam Garrison's book constructed in Italy.

 

This day was largely spent in the studio.

 

Binding the book and embellishing pages....

 

Painting a bag used to collect journal fodder.

 

 

Making a map of Orvieto in a little booklet. 

Pam's above...

Ingrid Petrini from Sweden was preparing love notes for her son's upcoming wedding.

Ingrid...sigh...fresh, funny, talented, lovely...

Completed books...

 

It began to rain late that day.

It was funny to discover the California girls were excited to hear thunder...

It set the mood for a trip down into Etruscan caves.

The Etruscan community lived in Orvieto and central Italy

hand digging caves in the 200-400 BC dates.

The Etruscans were largely absorbed by Roman Italians in time,

 leaving their highly efficient caves systems for us to get to know them.

 

In Orvieto if you own property, you also own and are responsible for the caves which you may find under your dwelling. This is one of 100s of caves mostly not available to the public.

 

The highlight of Pozzo della Cava is the well, 100 feet deep, with fresh water at its depth.

The caves were utilized and renovated in the middle ages.

The history of this city is layered most visibly in these underground labyrinths.

 

We laughed through dinner with young Francesca of Brooklyn living in LA. 

The many days of mucus production ended in straight up wheezing through dinner.

You can buy half bottles of wine in Italy.

So we did.

Photo courtesy of Alisa Noble

 

to be continued...

Italy 2014 Day Five



Amy Hanna's book and Pam and Amy's paper bag projects

 

Morning in the studio with Amy and Pam and the students.

The book covers were part of a kit we had received while in the US that traveled with us to Italy.

 

After lunch in the convent courtyard in the bright perfect fall air,
we walked to Il Papiro, one of the shops of Lamberto Bernadini.
He is a lithographer, artist, historian and paper marbler. 
And more than a bit of a doll...

 

 

We received a history lesson on paper that wowed all of us. 
This is his personal parchment paper book that is hundreds of years old.
Each page of parchment takes one sheep and a couple of months to produce,
then is painstakingly lettered.

 

 

Paper production more familiar to us started in the Middle Ages.
 His early example of a hand lettered paper book.

Then the magic of true Italian paper marbling...

There was swooning and gasping...

A piece I bought of the Duomo.

 That night a full on multi-course cooking lesson bountiful of Orveito wine and ending with dinner service at Zeppelin Ristorante by James Beard chef Lorenzo Polegri.

Amy had a few questions for him.
He did answer her that he had never been to the US and she encouraged him to come sometime. 

He has been invited to guest chef at the White House and was being humble and patient!

 He is fun and vibrant and we laughed so much.

 

A day spent in the company of Italian men masters of their craft...

a girl could do worse.

 

What was really nice was the time to get to know the other women in attendance.

That was as much a part of the trip as the art or tours.

 The stories that bring people to a once in a life time art retreat in Italy is varied

 and the same at once.

 

to be continued...