Ode to slowness: The villages of Palleggio and San Cassiano

Leave a comment


You would never discover some destinations, it was not for your heart that takes you there. Usually they are not big cities or famous and trendy destinations, they are probably underestimated even by the inhabitants.
Not far away from the walls of the beautiful and (fairly) famous Lucca the river Serchio flows toward the legendary Ponte del Diavolo, that has always looked so familiar to me but also so scary, when I was a child. It was on the way to go and visit my grandparents, we used to drive there every weekend. I have heard so many mysterious and frightening stories about the bridge, that I have to say I waited many years before crossing it. From there on the road is more winding and brings you to Bagni di Lucca, one of the main European centres for thermal tourism in the 19th century. Since I was a child, proud and melancholy stories used to push my imagination to look for the signs of the ancient and important past coming from the Casino and Circolo dei Forestieri, Ponte delle Catene, Villa Ada, the thermal baths. Continue to drive along the road that runs beside the Lima torrent, well known to the lovers of the paths and ski slopes of nearby Abetone and by the motor-bikers bending in tunnels of green or yellow leaves, depending on the season. The mountains begin to rise all around, the villages get smaller and more distant from each other, little groups of houses around a bell tower nestled among the nature.
Palleggio is the village where the stories of my dad’s childhood are set, where I used to discover treasures in my grandparents’ cellar and attic during sunday afternoons, celebrate the Befana, take part in the grape harvest, visit the rabbit barn and the henhouse in the garden, eat my grandmother’s homemade jams and cialde. They are mostly memories today, but I love remembering sitting together with family and freinds under the belltower during the summer evenings.
Just a few kilometers away San Cassiano di Controne is the village where the other branch of my family comes from. Holding my little boy’s hand and expecting his little brother I have just recently walked along the old mule tracks where our (great) grandparents used to walk. In this way I had the opportunity to discover many little pretty churches, besides the beautiful Church of San Cassiano with its indisputble artistic value, its Romanesque beauty and its interesting history. The memories I have about this village are less domestic and more festive: card games at the bar, village festivals, dancing nights, the big celebration every three years. They are all occasions to get well dresses and get together with family and friends, come back from the near and distant cities where the families have moved and settled, see, recognise and find each other. Yes, these are places where you can find the family, the people of the village, the origins, yourself.
I am talking about these two villages because they belong to my story, but there are many little pieces in this puzzle made up of villages, woods, characters, stories, History, legends, customs, recipes you should discover. These are places where you can come into contact with nature walking in the canyon of Orrido di Botri, canyoning, kayaking, rafting, diving in the river. And if you prefer calmness, having a walk in the woods or doing yoga floating on the water will restore body and mind. These are places where you can rediscover traditional activities, meet the sheperds and taste their cheese, eat fresh eggs, fruit and vegetables, experience the effort and the satisfaction of picking and gathering precious products like mushrooms and chestnuts, learn how to cook and conserve them, listen to the silence, learn the call of animals, look at the sky at night and see thousands of stars. These are invitations to slowness.
Nowadays many people choose these villages to escape the stress, great enemy of everyday life. But some decades ago the enemy was much more terrible. The World War reached these mountains, the villages and their inhabitants. Elderly people have a lot to tell you, they often repeat their stories, as if they wanted to be sure their memories are not lost. But my favourite stories are those about the people who left these villages in last century and went to work abroad, relying on letters and odd photographs to keep their emotional bond with the family. Some of these are happy stories, others not so happy, most of them are melancholy, some of them finish with the so much desired returned to the native village, others are about people that continue to travel between two countries, some others tell about new lives in distant cities. You can travel all around the world listening to these stories. In our generation of new European travellers I may feel a bit like one of the heirs of these lives. There is no dubts: for us it is much easier to travel and easy communication makes us feel less distant. But together wit us there are travellers who were born elsewhere, leaving their countries is much more complicated for them. There is no personal credit if you were born here or there, it is just destiny. Thinking about it, we should not feel particularly superior, we have just been more fortunate and we should feel fearfully thankfull for this.

 

 

The hidden face of Namibia: the Himba

Leave a comment

The Himba are a nomad tribe who have avoided contamination with European colonists in the last centuries. They live in Kaokoland, one of the less inviting and visited regions of Africa, in the North of Namibia. It may sound like the beginning of a fantasy story but Himba villages actually exist and some of them can be visited from the town of Opuwo, but only by taking part at excursions organised by local guides.
I am afraid that a guided tour can not guarantee a real meeting with the Himba, but in the end the curiosity for the tribe that seems to have managed to stop the time is too strong to resist. We decide to include Opuwo in our Namibian tour, even if we are not sure yet if we will actually book a visit to one of the villages or we will just drive around and hope to meet them. Due to our doubts of the possibility to meet the Himba and the great distances we need to cover in a short time, in the end we decide to stop more South. In our hut with no elecricity I feel part of the majestic and quiet landscape that surrounds us: layers of stone with brown-red shades show the signs of the past eras, instill respect for their old age, they remind me of the tiny nature of the human being, confused inhabitant of a world, where he is convinced to be invincible, eternal and king of the nature.
After a nice evening entertained by the students of the local school, we have definitely given up the idea of meeting the Himba. But here we get the chance to join a group leaving for a guided tour to a Himba village not far away. I am still hesitant but our final decision is to join them, it is our only opportunity.
A low dune defends a circle of a few small huts looking onto the pen of the precious goats. In front of the doors little fires of stones and logs burn, precious for cooking the meals and keeping warm. A dozen of young men and women welcome us, a few children are running around. The adults wear a skirt with a belt around the hips, the women’s skirts are longer on the back and have brown ruches of goat leather. Obviously I had read about Himba and their costumes, but I am still amazed by them all. We have only just arrived, that our guide begins to point out with his little and quite embaressing stick different hairstyles, jewels and clothing, symbols of the roles the person have in the society and in the family.
Sitting on a blanket outside one of the huts, a young woman is mixing some fat with a red dust she has just made mashing some ochre. In this way she gets a cream that she puts on her body. It gets the typical red colour, in the meanwhile the incense smoke fills the air and perfumes the body of the woman. This private ritual is for Himba like our bath that is why we spontaneously keep a slight distance. But our guide invites us to come closer, even to enter the hut, making us feel uncomfortable again, like nosy people careless of the inhabitants of the village. I am not the only one in the group to think that we are rushed and to suffer the impossibility to communicate with Himba, at least to say excuse me and thank you.
Before leaving the guide invites everybody to perform in a clearly forced dance and we stand in front of them as uncomfortable spectators. Only the children jumping and running around, looking at us with curious eyes give to the Himba village a touch of spontaneity.
On our return from the excursion I don’t feel I can really say to have met the Himba. We have always had doubts about guided tours to the Himba village, but our curiosity was too strong and we didn’t want to miss out on this. I don’t think I know the Himba any better then what I did before or you could do reading a good book. For sure I know more about my sixth continent: when you start a journey you plan it in your mind and rely on your legs to reach the destinations you have planned, but the real journey – that may change you – is led by your emotions and told with your heart.

June 2015

From Berlin to Bethlehem: the history written on the walls

Leave a comment

When I was born Europe was divided in two. Germany, where I now live and where many people hope to find better opportunities, did not exist as it is today. An almost four meters high wall used to divide Berlin in two, separating families and friends. You couldn’t choose on which side you wanted to live. When the wall was demolished I was still to young to understand what was going on in my continent, to share the happiness of those young people at last sitting with one leg East and one leg West, riding that wall like a bull finally tamed.
I have seen what remains of the Berlin Wall more than twenty years after its fall: large murales celebrating the demolition of that hated border, slogan and quotes about freedom and union that artists from around the world painted in the so called East Side Gallery. Walking around Berlin I put my feet where the concrete blocks used to stand, I freely crossed the streets where the check points (today unfortunately remembered in an extremely touristy way) used to be, I read in one city the signs of two different stories that time still cannot cancel. These signs remain as a warning not to forget the meaning of freedom and to enjoy the multicultural, open-minded and artistic atmosphere that has replaced the wall in Berlin.
Some years later I crossed a real check point in the West Bank. That day the traditional Christmas setting for the grotto with the ox and the donkey, the rural and desert but peaceful landscapes where the Holy Child came to the world with his message of peace, has been replaced by a city surrounded by soldiers and a wall that in some points rises up to eight meters, more or less twice in comparison to the one in Berlin. The barrier continues for kilometers and you are not able to locate its end: new parts are under construction and the following ones are being designed.
I listened to the story of people, that have been made prisoners in their own home while the wall was being built outside to isolate them, separate them from the town they used to live in and from the life they used to live so far. I followed the desire to see with my own eyes, I experienced that kind of enchantment that comes from incredulity, I wished I could understand the contradictions around me and know which side to take, I felt the urge and the great difficulty to do it, I felt relieved and guilty at the same time because I knew I was free among people that were not.
“Those who have someone on the other side have invented bridges” wrote the Italian author Erri De Luca. In the increasingly small and interconnected world we live in today, I wonder who has invented walls. “Build bridges, not walls”, “less walls more bridges” are the answers I found on the murals in Berlin and Bethlehem. There you can also read: “I painted over the wall of shame so freedom is a shame no more”, “No more wars. No more walls. A united world”, “we are a sole community”, “when the sun rises, it rises for everyone”, “aggression must never be camouflaged as peace”, “make hummus not walls”.
Projects of new walls are a current matter today, whether they are made of concrete, barbed wire or even just the sea water. Despite the works of famous or unknown artists that can hide its grey colour, a wall erected to separate will never be expression of the man’s creativity but rather of his limitations.

June 2011 – April 2014

Bula, Fiji!

Leave a comment

All around is blue, the sky blends in with the sea, only a few strips of white clouds help you to distinguish the top and the bottom. A piece of land emerges out of the shining expanse, the plane descends and the island becomes big enough to let it land. From here we will go on by boat: here and there big rocks or tiny islands with rocks and palms rise out of the water, a foamy wake behind the boat marks our ride on the shiny ripply expanse. Finally a very small mountain appears on the horizon, a green oasis surrounded by a bright white beach is floating on the emerald ocean. The boat stops some distance from the beach. You have to reach the island on foot, with crystal clear water around your legs and light sand under your feet. The pleasant sound of the waves, the notes of a guitar and joyful songs are in the air, a little group of people with colourful sarongs is welcoming the newcomers with seashell necklaces and fresh drinks. On the door of the bure – the typical Fijian bungalow – our names are engraved on a piece of wood: this place becomes ours, as if it would had been prepared just for us and nobody had been there before. Welcome, or as they say, bula!
Mamanucas Islands are so small that often they don’t even appear on maps, as if they didn’t belong to the planet. Maybe that is why people say “remote paradise”. But talking about distance has no sense here, where you just need a few steps to go anywhere. The waves stretch onto the soft sandy shore and erase the footprints, so that everyone has the opportunity to take a stroll on an uncontaminated beach. Some short paths go through the palms up to the rocky heart of the island, a lookout point on the infinity of the turquoise sea, the brilliant green of the little paradises floating on the water and the bright blue of the sky. It is a landscape made of few colours and lots of shades. Living here means learning how to open a coconut perfectly, weaving baskets with palm fronds, eating sweet fruit and fresh fish, lying in the sun, swimming in wonderful warm water, breathing in the sea breeze and listening to its sound, learning dozens of ways to tie a sarong, walking barefoot with a frangipani in your hair.
With fins and diving tanks on your shoulders jump into the water: you will open a hole in the sun reflection and descend under the waves, where the movements of arms and legs are as slow as the deep breaths in the mouthpiece. Beyond the mask a multitude of soft sponges, elaborated coral bushes, sinuous seaweeds appear in a faint blue light and milions of big, flat, long, small, tiny, silver, colourful fishes swim lonely or in schools in a lively quiet world. At sunset even the sun can’t resist these warm and clear waters and dives into it, it melts in the waves turning the sky orange. The silence with scents of the sea cradles a hammock.
The Fijians, cheerful inhabitants of this paradise, tell stories, accompany you, entertain and play with you. They know everyone’s name and everyone knows their names: no one feels a stranger. It may be because of the narrow spaces or because of the manners of the inhabitants, but in a few days you feel among friends. Just as friends, the people working on our island invite us to visit the island where they live with their families. A small boat takes us from one beach to the other. As we disembark, our local guide takes us to the village chief’s house, we need his permission to visit the village. There are no fruity cocktails, just cups of tea offered by the local women, the houses are small and everyday objects are rare, there is a school and a church. Children are running everywhere, the men let down wide nets, the women set up a little market with their products. Nature is much richer than the people who live here, however they are never without smile.
There is no clock to measure the famous “Fijian time”. It is the time you can measure looking at the movement of the sun and the colours of the sea: it is deep blue and shiny during the day, crossed by a thin strip of seafoam when the tide is low and the waves pass over the reef, transparent in the afternoon when the sun becomes weaker and its rays just occasionally filter through the emerald waves, blue-grey with a golden strip at sunset, dark blue but shining at night. It is a time to rest, free your mind, relax, have fun, it is time to forget time.
It is our last night here and we are swinging on the hammock for the last time, as the sun is going to wake up who is still sleeping in our real world. The notes of a guitar and the voices of our Fijian friends cause me to shed a tear, I will let it fall in the sea like a coin into a fountain. A drum roll advises it is time to leave, to go back to the real world. It will be impossible to forget the experience of leaving knowing that maybe we will never return but feeling as we were saying goodbye to friends, those on the shore waving their hands and playing a farewell song.

July 2013

EXPO 2015: around the world with a return ticket

Leave a comment

In the showcase of a universal exposition Countries from all over the world show their best to promote themselves, to make people interested and surprise them. Visitors walking around the pavillons are world citizens, they meet new cultures, listen to new voices, reflect, discover. In the XIX century the first editions used to present the reality transformed by industrial innovations, later the evolution of transport dominated the XX century, in the last decades world fairs have been dedicated to the newest technologies. In the very latest editions, the exhibitions have called upon nations from all over the world to look beyond the inventor-man, to consider him first of all as inhabitant of the planet and to look after him and the environment he lives in.
With the slogan “feeding the planet, energy for life” Expo 2015 suggested a double reflection about food and energy. This combination should not sound unusual to Italian people, who are used to mixing the two topics in their language, as the verb “alimentare” means in Italian feeding the body as well as charging a battery.
From Milan and from Italy invitations to Expo 2015 have been sent to every Country, to everyone who is dealing every day with food and energy: heads of state, farmers, representatives of food industries and no-profit organisations, researchers, doctors, cooks, old and young people, athletes, housewives, parents. Expo 2015 affirms that the future is now, it doesn’t involve just a group of experts but all of us living here and now. I accepted the invitation and I visited Expo.
I did not come to Expo to calculate how many minutes you have to queue to enter of the pavillons, to check the prices on the menus, to find out what is not working or to underline what could have been done in a better way. I just follow my curiosity, true driving force those who love travelling, going beyond the safety of what is well known, learning, growing. In this way I am free to walk along the main street, the Decumano, and admire the light beehive rising above the green maze of the United Kingdom and shining with thousands of little yellow lights looking like bees, the sinuous red walls of the United Arab Emirates, perfect background for the white elegant figures moving around these Milan dunes, the wooden masterpiece carved by the artisans from Nepal, the sails from Kuwait and their colourful light show. I have enough time to smell the fragrances of the Israeli vertical fields, of the plants in the French and Iranian gardens, the American vertical farm, the Moroccan dates. I think about the importance of nature while taking a cool walk in the Austrian wood and the need of a conscious distribution of resources as I enter the Swiss towers. I learn about properties and uses of new foods such as seaweed and wild plants in the Belgian pavillon, Malaysian spices, the fruit of baobab in the Angola pavillon, new farming technologies such as the hydrophonic and aquaponic systems presented by Belgium, preservation methods as the fermentation in the traditional Korean “moon jar”. I am fascinated by cultures and cultivations from Azerbaijan, China, Morocco. I walk around the “clusters”, collect information about some of the food we eat every day and where they come from, I locate on the map places we may have heard about, but whose location and beauty may still be unclear or absolutely unknown, such as the small African island São Tomé e Príncipe. I am free to seek my little face in the high mirrored roof of the Russian pavillon, go back and forth on the Estonian swings, take my place at the big Vatican table, follow the happy rhythm of traditional Hungarian music while the dancers look like dolls in their costumes and dance holding the arms of their partners.
The trip around the world continues through the flavours: just before closing time, enjoy the informal Palestinian hospitality tasting falafes and hummus, accompany tasty tapas with a glass of sangria in the joyful Spanish garden, sip a fresh Mexican cocktail, taste the flavour of Iran in a dish of rice with saffron and rose water, reach Quatar in a fragrant glass of karkadé.
Night falls as I am walking along the Cardo Avenue, a showcase for Italian regions, beauties, specialities, traditions and excellences. These images and stories are familiar to me, I feel at home. Pallazzo Italia is a white twist, if you are too close you just see a confused tangle, you need a wider view to appreciate its beauty: that’s Italy.
The Tree of Life lights up and says goodbye to the visitors of Expo: after having travelled from one Country to another, here is an invitation to identify our roots and then set off to strive for growth, for knowledge, feeding ourselves with meetings and confrontations with other people. Passing through the exit gates my mind goes back to the slogan that made me feel strongly invited to Expo 2015. If feeding means to give energy, then feeding the planet – in other words giving it energy – means taking care of our body as of the environment we live in and which we are going to leave to the next generation: in this way, feeding the planet means to me energy for life.
I returned home with plenty of ideas to meditate on, satisfied because this time my Country showed its best side to the world, proud to be Italian and happy to be allowed to say it. At the same time I am sad for those who are too caught up in the net of negativity to catch the opportunity to be positive, sorry for those who relied on other people’s opinions and missed the chance to be part of a unique event and learn more about the people they are sharing this planet with, every day closer and more related to each other.

October 2015

Portovenere, a magical corner with the flavour of the sea

Leave a comment

A small peninsula stretches out into the Ligurian Sea and encloses calm waters and views in a coastal hug, inspiration for those poets who give the name to the gulf.  At the very last end of the peninsula is Portovenere, whose name is enough to recall imaginary, mythical, legendary spaces.
Few meters away from the water the houses line up in a tight row on the seafront: they are high, narrow, rosy, red, yellow, blue and they stay side by side like coloured pencils, some new and long ones next to the lightly consumed ones. Light summer clothes are waving on some balconies, through a window I can see a woman preparing the pasta.
The colourful wall hides the rest of the village and guides your eyes and steps towards the rocky spur, natural pedestal for the Church of Saint Peter.  Inside few pews, a small altar. The space is shaped by arches and it is full of a beautiful, clear, true light that vainly mirrors on the marine water surface and then do penitence forcing itself to seep in through the narrows openings. Next to the church a small portico facing the blue encounter between the sea and the sky. From here the stone wall marks the way back to the centre, occasionally interrupted by small arched windows, sufficient to make you stop and contemplate the view.
Away from the water, narrow streets climb up to the centre where the colourful shadows of the buildings spreads a jolly, happy but not noisy or agitated atmosphere that invite you to browse through the little shops, to enjoy a pesto tasting, to get into the bakeries full of fragrant focaccia. If you want to go further, you can follow the paths and climb up through the green bushy shrub, the flowers, olive and lemon trees, Mediterranean plants, looking for the most fascinating view.
When the evening falls, it turns off the vibrant colours of Portovenere and lights up many little lights along the waterfront and on the boats anchored in front of it. It is time to take the small boat to the Palmaria. A short stretch of water between Portovenere and the small island, as if Palmaria was originally a legendary crumb fallen into the water during the creation of Portovenere and had remained there to keep it company.Sit down a few steps away from the waves and look at the lights of Portovenere is a unique way to meet the delicious flavours and delicate aromas of the typical food and wine of this enchanted corner.
Finally climb a steep and narrow stair, lie down in a tiny room in shade of sky with a roof window shrouded by clouds and close your eyes full of the fragrances, flavours, colours of this small mythical corner.

August 2014

Namibia: not just “big five”

Leave a comment

A trip to southern Africa seems to many people synonymous for “big five”. But I have always thought that visiting these places with a list to tick off once you have seen the elephant, the lion, the buffalo, the rhino and the leopard is not enough. Back from my trip in Namibia I am even more convinced about this. But I thought that holding five points could help me to describe my encounters with the animals in Namibia with a length appropriated for a post. So here is my alternative list of five animals, my “top 5”.
Even if they are included among the “big five”, I inevitably have to place the elephants first, as my passion for these animals is one of the reasons that brought me to Africa. The curiosity to watch them closely and the desire to see them in their natural environment had been growing in me since long before the trip that was going to bring the long wait to an end. But the excitement slowly gave way to the fear of being disappointed by the encounter: the big pachyderms I had seen in funny representations and in spectacular TV documentaries could have turned out to be hairy and aggressive animals covered with mud.
But here they come to the waterhole: their movements are slow, heavy but quite, huge but not ungraceful, majestic. The tusks hold the corners of the mouth in a perpetual and infectious smile, a rolling pin seems to have rolled out the big waving ears so thin that they got broken on the edges. The trunk hangs from the face of the animal and is always moving, it can only occasionally have a rest on a tusk. The broken skin of the older elephants tell the tales of long walks under the burning sun, fights to defend themselves and their herd, strong scratches against trees probably not strong enough to avoid being affected themselves: it makes you feel a respect similar to the one moved by wrinkles. Even if it seem that the calves are not able to keep up with their huge parents, they go on under the safe protection of the herd and especially of the mother, that is always vigilant and ready to send loudly away whoever comes to close to her little one.
There is another unique profile you can see in the unlimited expanses of Namibia: the giraffe’s one. They are elegant with the long, patched necks that you can recognise even from a distance, funny with their long legs going up to the crowns of the trees like thin trunks while the head is peering out on the top and the mouth is chewing non stop, incredible when they perform the unusual split of their front legs and they stretch their necks towards the water to drink. Like elephants, giraffes move slowly, as if they don’t want to disturb the peace of the nature all around with the movements of their big bodies. They half run but it seems they are moving in slow motion. It is hard to believe who tells me how strong and dangerous one of their kicks can be.
Because of their similarity with the horse the aspect of the zebras is more familiar, but their coats with black and white stripes are unique. Observing them close up you will see that only the calves have really white stripes, adults are amber brown, as if they had a nice suntan. The lack of stripes on the belly makes the difference between mountain zebras and common ones. The study on the striped coats could have continued if I hadn’t noticed their faces starring at me and I hadn’t felt examined myself. When zebras feel danger, they stop and stay still: they become their own scale models, like the ones children use to play with and put away in the toy box at night. But here they move again and leave galloping toward the horizon, raising a soft dusty cloud above the yellow grass.
I cannot exclude from my “top 5” the family of all those animals with agile pace and wonderful horns that live in the immense Namibian Savannah and whose name I have never heard before: the sprinboks and the impalas so agile at jumping, the kudus with their elegant posture, the oryxes with the black mask drawn on their light faces, the hartebeests with their heart shaped horns, the sable antelopes with their big horns curved backward. All their coats are painted in the golden, orange and brown tones of the land they live in.
I still have just one place in my “top 5”: the black rhino with its dinosaur features drinking and looking at its cumbersome horn in the water or the white rhino following its calf on its short legs, the ostrich dancing with the sinuous neck on its long legs like an old ballet dancer with a puffy black tutu, the trotting warthogs crossing the road with their tails straight up, the threatening jackals, the wildebeests with their dark blue coats? Or thousands of shiny seals playing in the water, the dolphins jumping with joy around our catamaran, the pelicans with their soft rose-coloured feathers and the big beak of crepe paper, the noisy seagulls, the flamingos with the thin legs supporting their pink cloud above the water, the birds of prey with their majestic fly, the small bright coloured birds that make you think of charming princes under enchantment. And many other little animals whose tracks on the soft sand dunes tell about an unexpected life in this apparently dry and hostile place.
Many of the encouters I talked about happened by chance, travelling on the road around Namibia; some of them have been searched for during walks on the sand dunes between Sossusvlei and the coast, excursions on the catamaran between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay, safaris in the Etosha Park. All of them have been waited for by vigilant, curious, wishful, patient eyes, sometimes tired by such unlimited spaces. A few steps away from the animals the emotion and the excitement exploded as if they had increased during the uncertain wait. But it was a dull explosion: there was no need to remind to keep your voice low so not to disturb the animals, the amazement is silent.

June 2015

Agra and the charm of Taj Mahal

Leave a comment

The name of the city may recall a picture whose coordinates and profile are out of focus, but mentioning Taj Mahal is enough to make the picture of Agra clearer: the white outline of the four minarets and the big dome in the middle is unique and famous all around the world. For many people Taj Mahal has become synonymous of Agra, for most people it has replaced the name of the city itself.
The Taj Mahal was built as an act of love and because of that it has earned the title of “temple of love”. Actually the love story between the Emperor Shah Jahan and his beloved Mumtaz Mahal is not the classic happy ending story: the Emperor requests the construction of a building whose beauty should equal Mumtaz’s, to commemorate his venerated wife, who died too young and left him in despair. Soon after the construction is finished, Shah Jahan is deposed by his son and imprisoned in the Agra Fort, where he lives as a prisoner until his death. His only consolation is the view of Taj Mahal through a small window.
On the riverbank of the sacred Yumana the massive red walls of the Agra Fort had been originally built as a military fortress, then transformed into a palace by Shah Jahan and in the end, in a cruel twist of fate, became his prison. On the other side of what used to be a moat with crocodiles, today as in the past a sort of city in the city is kept out of sight: majestic gates, narrow streets, stairways, halls adorned with semiprecious stones and mosaics, arches and windows that remind one of fairytale architecture, big mosques, wide gardens. Regardless of history, of the military grandeur of the fortress, of the embroidered sandstone and of the tourists with cameras, dozens of monkeys run and jump along the walls.
On the opposite bank of the Yumana the grave of Mizra Giyas Beg, Mumtaz Mahal’s grandfather. Built by his daughter, the mausoleum is known as Baby Taj: the square shaped plan with central body and four towers in the corners is actually not too different from the plan of Taj Mahal, even if on a smaller scale. The whiteness of marble, the excellence of the fretworks and the precious inlay works enchant and are absolutely worth a visit, before your eyes are filled with the perfection of Taj Mahal.
The garden of Mehtab Bagh reaches the dry river-bed of the Yuman, the Taj Mahal is on the opposite bank: at sunset the whiteness of marble takes the warm colour of the sun, the people in the distance are dark miniatures, four elegant white minarets stretch their shadows around the mausoleum. All framed with the hearty red sandstone of the big mosque on the west side, the twin building on the opposite side and the embankment running below the three buildings. The sun sets down, a holy column of smoke rises to the sky.
Before the sun rises a fearless tuk-tuk drives through a tangle of winding and already crowded streets and reaches the Taj Mahal following what used to be the everyday run for thousands of workers and artisans who took part on its construction.
It is dawn. The Taj Mahal wakes up wrapped in a pink veil, slowly disposes of it and reveals its whiteness. In the background the sky lights up in a more and more intense blue. A carpet of water runs at the foot of the Taj Mahal, which is portrayed there in the manner of the Impressionist paintings and then framed in the green of the cut grass. Spread around benches of white marble attended by sad princesses and tourists posing for a photo to bring home.
Barefoot you can walk up to the mausoleum: on the four identical facades skillful hands chiseled the marble and set thousands of semiprecious stones to form inscriptions and floral motifs. In the basement Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan rest sheltered from visitors’ eyes while their cenotaphs receive the tributes of the people looking through the screen of pierced marble under the big central dome. Here the white stone becomes precious lace, the multitude of stones makes it almost impossible to believe in a human hand and make you think they embedded there during a magical rainfall.
Being enchanted in front of the harmonious and perfect beauty of the Taj Mahal and feeling a strong emotion, that goes from the eyes to the stomach and to the heart and it seems too big to be contained. The sweet charm of the lover’s gaze… That could actually be Shah Jahan’ feeling admiring his Mumtaz.

Febraury 2012

The red heart of Australia

Leave a comment

The first step to discover the Australian outback is to be equipped with a car and to think about all you may need traveling for many kilometres in places where there is practically no traffic and petrol stations are very rare – as people would have been repeating hundreds of times before your departure. Those recommendations may have made the thought of this journey even more fascinating and increased the sense of adventure. Everything becomes real in Alice Springs: travellers buy water in tanks, not in bottles and the car is actually a 4×4 SUV with bull bars, exhaust stack, beacon and radio to communicate. Only the sat-nav is missing because – as they explain – there are very few forks along the road and you just need to follow the signs.
MacDonnel Rangers Mountains guide you out of the town and lead you on the road that penetrates into the Australian desert. The mountains have flat and rounded tops, dark brown sides sculpted by the time and come up from a reddish soil that only occasionally lets trees or green and yellow bush sprout. Discreetly, without intrusive boundaries, the terrain gives space to the road, a ribbon of asphalt that unfolds rising and falling as far as the eye can see.
Short detours along the road bring you to discover wonderful gorges. Rock paths penetrate into narrow canyons. Bright red-orange stone walls rise steeply for metres and metres until they meet the deep blue of the sky. Along a dry riverbed the Ochre Pits, pit of brown, red, yellow and white ochre, used to provide natural dyes to Aborigines. In every direction the space is full of bright and dusty colours.
Going on for kilometres without meeting anyone, losing the sense of time and the mobile phone signal. Feeling the strange sensation of having a break from the world, of being far away and out of reach: for a moment it is confusing, then pleasantly relaxing.
Suddenly the road comes to an end, as to say that you are now ready to approach the real heart of the continent, the most intact part of it. Continuing this way means entering into a reality where there is no space for asphalt, just a strip of dirt road. Here people feel a new connection with the earth and their souls bounce, as the cars they are sitting in: these are the Aboriginal Territories.
After many kilometres of endless reddish expanse dotted with shy greenish shrubbery, the Red Centre Way comes to the end close to the Kings Canyon. Its spectacular gorges split the rock like enormous cracks: you can’t help thinking about the activity of the time, impossible to measure but has patiently piled up rocky layers with different shades, as if it wanted to leave a visible sign of its work. At the bottom some brave gum trees succeeded to pass its roots through the stones on the ground and show an unlikely green crown on top of a thin white trunk. Walking on the rocks, sometimes climbing on them and feeling with the hands the heat of the sun imprisoned inside them, stumbling on the irregular soil, getting dusty. I hadn’t felt so close to the earth before for a long time, this strong, concrete, solid element – that is why we are scared when it trembles and shakes.
South of the canyon the road turns grey again, all around the orange tones of the earth triumph in soft sandy dunes, which give the landscape a gentler appearance. Walking on the untouched sand, feeling your feet sinking into it, looking at the footprints you left behind: if you grew up on the beach, these feelings are very familiar. They say that people born close to the sea always look for stretch of water in the distance: just for a moment there it is, a rippled and clearer surface surrounded by green spots of vegetation on the horizon. But if you look better they are actually waves and reflections of earth and sand, there is no water – at least no longer.
It is a picture dominated by the orange, sometimes turning to the shades of yellow-earth, sometimes becoming dark brown; it is a picture where distances are so big that everything looks like a small dot. Here the aboriginal inhabitants wander, absent from our eyes but present all around thanks to stories, legends, places considered sacred and thanks to their paintings, also made of warm colours and small dots.
Among the places sacred to the Anangu population Uluru (Ayers Rock in English) is for sure the most famous in the world. In the middle of the Australian continent, kilometres away from cities, the enormous rock stands out majestically on the flat skyline and exerts a magnetic attraction over the travellers. It is impossible to turn away while its sides take on different shades and its shadows get longer at sunset, until the darkness comes to hide it for a few hours. A real, deep, silent night, in which millions and millions of stars make the heads of those looking up spin. The queen of the southern skies, the unmistakable Southern Cross, guides the disoriented people. The first ray of sunshine brings back the call of Uluru that rises from the shadow and wears the tones of sunrise together with the rocks of Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) nearby.
Getting closer to the rock and feeling smaller and smaller as it becomes more and more gigantic, feeling the majesty and the sacredness of its shadow, walking around it reading Aboriginal myths and identify in the folds of the rock signs of ancestral creatures, who used to live in the Dreamtime, the time of creation. An inexplicable, irrational, magic suggestion is all around.
From the plane one last look at the red Australian earth, whose wrinkles prove the passage of time and its patient and millennial activity on this young continent: signs of wind, of waters that are no more here but that once must have filled those ponds and what today, seen from up here, appear like windy sandy streets.

June 2013

Viareggio, Carnival poetry

Leave a comment

Carnival is by definition the joyous time before Lent and it is for many people the occasion to walk a mile in their favourite heroes’ shoes/footstep. If you are born in Viareggio, Carnival is part of your identity and in your mind and in your heart it even overlaps the name of the town.

With his red and white chequered suit, the black cloak and the red cocked hat, with a big red smile on his white face Burlamacco (the official mascot of the Carnival of Viareggio) comes into the kindergartens and into the schools to teach the children the fun of dressing up, the joy of flying confetti, the wonder that makes us look upwards standing at the foot of the papier-mâché floats. We grow up playing among masks and floats which bring at our side fictional characters, singers, actors, political and powerful people of the word, sometimes even some animals or huge monsters that made us cry.

For a few weeks Carnival brings to Viareggio a feeling of freedom, that even as adults we can’t – and we don’t want to – get rid of. As for an actor, the costume is necessary to step out of the routine and get on the happy stage of Carnival: as soon as Christmas holidays are over, people set to work to find an original idea to be realized individually, in couples or in groups. The following weeks are totally dedicated to clever, creative, often secret preparations until the big debut on the promenade finally arrives.

On Saturday before the first parade the notes of the official Carnival song accompanies the Burlamacca (the Carnival flag) going slowly up the highest flagpole in Piazza Mazzini and reaching its top. A gentle breeze blows from the sea, the flag spreads out and the people looking up recognize Burlamacco’s face, he winks from up there and wishes everybody a happy Carnival. It is an inner explosion of joy, which echoes that of fireworks in the sky. From this moment, for a month in the air of Viareggio confetti will mix with grains of sand, notes of Carnival songs with the sea backwash, the smell of dust where the floats are created with the salty sea smell.

Walking along the promenade on Sunday morning is like visiting a film set before the action strarts: floats have already left their house (Cittadella del Carnevale) and are at their places but still asleep, people dressed up reach their positions and finish their make-up, children start throwing some confetti in the air, as if they want to measure their power before the real battle. It is a great moment to a have a close look at details and enjoy the thrill of a town getting ready for the parade.

Three cannon shots and the floats come to life, they rise above the heads crowding the Passeggiata, pass the balconies, come close to the roofs and moving forward a few steps from the beach, they tell us about the events – or the problems – of the present days in an ironic, grotesque, poetical way. The magic of the Carnival brings colours in the grey heart of winter, hides every sadness behind a mask and gives everybody a moment of happiness: “there is no more sadness in the word” says the official song of the Carnival of Viareggio. On the ground or on the floats we all feel part of the celebration and proud of our town which, at least today, seems to be shining like in old songs.

After one month Carnival is over, the Burlamacca is hauled down, costumes are put away, floats are taken apart and Viareggio returns to everyday life. But the notes of a song or confetti peering on the bottom of a pocket or of a bag are enough to wake up the spirit of the masks and manage to get a smile out of who has been wearing them months before.

Unfortunately in the last few years the street parties that used to bring the festival in different districts of Viareggio during Carnival weekend nights have been missed: every week a street party, each one with its own steamy kitchens and typical fish dishes, all of them animated by hundreds of happy dressed-up people jumping to the sound of music in honour of King Carnival.

Despite its eternally young appearance, in 2015 the Carnival of Viareggio blew out 141 candles and in order to move with the times maybe it is obvious to consider some changes, which so far have fortunately not damaged its magic. But as in every good story, even in Viareggio the good hero is threatened by an evil enemy, who tries to overpower him: the God of money, enemy ridiculed and mocked by Burlamacco since ever, reappears every now and then to threaten Carnival and tries to upset, degenerate, delete it. Allowing all this to happen, would mean giving up the happy ending we all love to read in the last page.

February 2015