Southern Italy 2012: Part 2

The Strait of Messina

Today we cross the Strait of Messina like Ulysses did in the Odyssey. We drive north along the Ionian Sea coast to Messina. The air is so clear we can see several of the Aeolian Islands: Stromboli and Vulcano (a volcano named volcano!!). The Aeolian Islands are a string of 8 volcanic islands in the Tyrolean Sea north of Sicily. They are named after the god of the winds. (I remember an italian pastry named Stromboli, but Gaetano says that the Italian immigrants to the US used many of the names from home to name things - there are no counterparts in Italy!)

As we approach Messina, Gaetano talks about the monsters in the Odyssey: Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla is a giant whirlpool at the junction of the Ionian Sea and the Tyrolean Sea. Each sea is a different depth and the movement of water between them causes a constant whirlpool. Today there is a turbine there producing electricity. A larger turbine could produce enough to power all of Sicily. Charybdis is a cliff wall full of caves where the wind whistled just across the straits from the whirlpool. Sailors had to carefully steer their ships between them. this part of the Odyssey could be read as a navigation manual for ancient sailors.

The ferry ride across the strait is uneventful - we avoid both Scylla and Charybdis.

On the drive through Calabria we pass groves of bergamot. Bergamot is a citrus fruit with a terrible flavor but it contains chemicals that act as a fixative for fragrences. This fact was first discovered by a Calabrian named Farina who was living in Cologne, Germany in the 1700s. He became rich (eau de Cologne!) - and Calabria found a valuable new export. In 1830, Earl Grey visited Calabria and started flavoring his tea with bergamot.

The land is turning green here. In the summer everything is dry and brown. By November, the rains have started and everything turns green. We are VERY lucky that for these 2 weeks, the rain has only fallen at convenient times.

We stop for lunch at a rest stop on the highway - and the food is excellent!! I had a salad with good italian tuna, wine and very good bread. We should import whoever does the food here to the I95 corridor!!!

Since we will be driving most of the afternoon it is time for another of Gaetano's history lessons. Unlike most countries, Italy had a common language, a common literature, before it became one country. The unification of Italy was a disaster. Garibaldi made promises of land ownership to southern Italians that were not fulfilled. Hence the growth of the Mafia - bandits who became 'men of honor'. Fascism kept them down, but after WWII, they were the only ones who could organize. they got lots of money from the Marshall Plan and became powerful.

Now, there is an attempt to root out the Mafia. Any company with connections to the 'bandits' loses their contracts. But now the highways being constructed cannot be finished because everyone has some connections. We drove through highway worksites on weekdays and no one was working.

The real unification of the Italians happened on Ellis Island. In Italy they saw just their differences. In America, surrounded by Russians, Germans, Irish,... they see their commonalities, their kinship. America made 'the Italians'!

Matera

We are driving to the region of Bassilicata - the poorest region of Italy - the 'shame' of Italy. Many anti-fascists were sent here in exile. One of them, Carlo Levi, wrote a book of his experience called 'Christ Stopped at Eboli'.

We are going to Matera - the town he wrote about. Geographically this area has deep chasms running down to streams.

From prehistoric times until the 1950s, people in this area lived in caverns along the sides of these chasms. The town of Matera grew up on the land surface and was relatively prosperous, while an entire civilization of desperately poor people lived beneath Matera in these caves. There was very little interaction between the two worlds. In the 1950s the Italian government forcibly moved dwellers of the caves, known as The Sassi (The Rocks) , mainly because of the attention the area was getting from Levi's book.

The Sassi is now a UNESCO site and the dwellings seem to have become a trendy place to live, with restaurants and hotels using the same system of caves that once were the shame of Italy. We are going to stay in one of these hotels, Locanda di San Martino.

The bus leaves us in a parking lot in Matera and we walk to the town's center plaza. It is beautiful at night - looks very prosperous, lots of people walking around. At a sign that says 'The Sassi', we start going down 2 flights of marble stairs, walk a few paces and descend more stairs. The buildings line the faces of the cliff walls on either side - a vertical city. Lots of lights are on lighting the facades of the buildings which are all a soft yellow stone. The whole place just glows. This place has been used as a stand-in for ancient Jerusalem in more than one film - and I can see why it was chosen. There is a large church up on the surface in Matera and the church bells ring every 15 minutes. We are in a different place and I'm not sure it is still the 21st century.

We sleep that night in a cave - large for 2 people, but not large for a family of many children and all of their livestock!

The hotel has all the modern conveniences. Our room is up 4 levels and has a small patio outside the door with a table and 2 chairs. The Sassi glows below us.