Fun and Games in Northern Italia
My husband and I made some good friends with a couple from Brescia. I have had a tutor for the last 3 years (Italian language) a young grad student from the university. Through her I got to know her parents, who are my age. Rino, an Italian air force worker with Calabrian roots, and Vanda, with Croatian roots. They spent a couple weeks at our house in June and we gave them the royal treatment. we lent them a car, took them out to dinner, and had a generally good time. Well payback is always tough.
They picked us up on Sunday after we spent about 24 hours with the cousins in Saranno. We were thrilled to see them, we figured we would be a lot more comfortable with them than cousins we'd never met. They immediately took us to Bergamo, a gorgeous little town not that far from Milan. I was still extremely jet lagged, (and little did I know I was going to feel the same way the whole time I was with them) as long as I was moving, I was fine. If I sat down, particularly in the car, I was a goner, I was constantly nodding off. I kept one of those u-shaped neck pillows with me at all times to literally save my neck. We climbed up towers, slipped into churches, and ate very well.
To my surprise, the northern menu is a lot bigger on meats than vegetables. In the south you can be assured of getting a pretty balanced meal, but you must plan a lot better in the north if you want the same thing. Appetizer plates consist solely of meat. Prosciutto, SPECK (smoked ham), and some other cold cuts arranged nicely on a plate. This is followed by your primo piatto, pasta, risotto, gnocchi, and then a secondo piatto, which is always meat or fish. I did order a salad every chance I got. So here I am, it's 9pm, I'm falling asleep and it is time to eat. the standard refrain was, "oh Mimi, eat some more!" I can't I'm full. Sono PIENA!!! BASTA!!!		bergamo
view of Bergamo from Torre
We finally got to Vanda and Rino's house after a long dinner and a nasty drive with lots of traffic and they gave us their bedroom!! I am embarrassed because we didn't give them OUR bedroom but we were on their turf now, so that's where we slept. It was pretty muggy and we left the windows open which of course included all the outside noises of morning. So we were up early and off and running. I can't remember what we did which day, but I have to tell you about the day that we had to deliver Rino to his office (the air base) because of a little car problem he'd had the day before. We were planning on going to Cremona that day, which my husband has absolutely dreamed of doing for years. He wanted to see the museum and hopefully go to a couple violin shops, where, in his fantasies he would negotiate for a nice violin to take home. So we had to get up particularly early because we had to get Rino at work on time. Okay, fine. So as I nodded off in the car again, we waded through nasty traffic to the airbase.
We then had to be processed, documenti, given passes, and finally we get onto the base. What I didn't realize was that Rino is friends with every single soul on the base. So we had to get introduced to everyone. Hey, let's all have a cafe! so then we would meet more people. Young recruits, the oldest man there, it went on and on. This is Salvatore; he went to school with our son. This is Vincenzo; he's going to the same air school as I did. And then they would talk to us, head butting against the language barrier, and we would go on to more people. Finally I got Vanda aside and she said, "yes, we'll cut it short" we had already been at the airbase for 2 hours! So then we went through the process of saying goodbye to everyone Rino could find... Finally we are on the road.

We get to Cremona at about 11:30 am. and go to the museum first. Donald is absolutely agitated because he thinks the museum is closing at noon along with everything else in the town. The museum is actually several museums in one building and Vanda insists that we start at the non-violin end. She leisurely gazed and commented on every painting there; while Donald got more and more impatient. Finally he said "I am going to the violin museum now!" Vanda said, "oh, didn't you hear? they don't close at noon; they are open all day" So he relaxed a bit while we continued gazing at every portrait of every Huguenot aristocrat in the place. We enjoyed the violin museum, (they don't let you play them) and we finally got out on the streets of Cremona. We were starved, but.. everything was closed! Not even Gelato? the wonderful shops with Torrone filling their windows; closed. The gift shops with tiny violins in them. Closed. Heck we never even SAW a violin shop. And we had to be home at 5 to make sure Rino didn't have car problems. We finally found a bar which had some Panini, which we enthusiastically ate since we were famished. Maybe it's a good thing. We saved a lot of money in Cremona!
Black Madonnas
About a year ago I started reading up on black Madonnas. Black Madonnas can be found all over Europe, the pope himself has a favorite church in Poland that has a black Madonna. There are many of them all over Italy specifically. Many black Madonnas are said to be found on ancient holy sites, where temples stood long before Christ walked the earth. They were naturally converted to Christian churches with the advent of the church, and many of them eventually lost their dark skinned ladies, who were replaced with blue eyed blonde Mary's or pure white statues. For whatever reason, the church has been uncomfortable with dark skinned ladies. A few of them are still present, still dark. I got to see two of them during this trip. The first one we saw was in Rome. I knew it was a church in Trastevere, and I thought it was the same one called "the mouth of truth" There are actually 3 churches that we saw on the map in Trastevere who are called "Mary" and we were searching for the wrong one. My husband kind of knew where it was, but we were not very successful in finding it when a distinguished older gentleman, with great English stopped us and asked what we were looking for. I told him and he laughed, because I said it wrong. He said, the church you are looking for is on the other side of the river. he explained where it was, but then said "But first, before you leave, you must visit OUR church dedicated to Mary" and he pointed us in the direction. to the church I actually wanted to see. Was he an angel ? who knows. It is a church that tradition tells was built where a spring of oil, started up in BC 38, a sign of the coming of Christ. The name of the church is "Basilica di S Maria in Trastevere" Ironically the flyer that the church hands out does not even mention the beautiful 6th century painting that sits at the right side of the altar, showing a brown skinned Mary and child. It was a beautiful church, stunning with mosaics and floors and in the entry way curious stone carvings,which were mostly words, we couldn't decide if they were gravestones or what, affixed upon the walls.
on the walls outside of church
The next Black Madonna is a very famous one, a place where pilgrims all over the world flock to. It is called "Incoronata" which means crowned. It is in Foggia, not very many miles outside of the city of Foggia. Here's the story. A hunter looked into a tree, where a lady appeared. She said, do not be afraid I am the mother of God. I want a church built here on this very spot. This was in April, 1001. A statue was then carved and the church was built. So we drive up to the well marked site. It is a big church, with what appears to be a fair going on outside of it. The booths were full of candy, music, toys, salami, bread, and holy items like paintings, rosaries, and the like. It was very festive. As I walked back to the very lovely church, I could not help noticing nuns and priests with all different kinds of garb EVERYWHERE. I went into the church, where high mass was being celebrated (it was full) and followed the signs leading me to the statue. There she was, as dark as she could be, carved in wood, dressed in beautiful robes embroidered with gold thread . Both she and the child were crowned with crowns that would give ME a headache. After the viewing, we went underneath the altar where I got to see the original Oak tree, a miserable stump about 10" in diameter.

I then went out and visited the store that seemed to be connected to the church. The guy asked me where I was from. "Guess" I told him. Austria? Denmark? Poland? Sweden? England? Australia? what fun. I finally had to tell him.
The atmosphere of the place I can only describe as being similar to the feasts of Saint Gerardo that I remember from my childhood. I can't wait to go see my next black Madonna!
Exploring Calabria
Il Cattolico
This time we finally had time to explore Calabria. The places we wanted to go to in 2001 we finally got to see. Noteworthy towns: Squillace, for its ceramics, Stilo for its ancient buildings and it IS an old hill town in good condition, with the beautiful narrow streets and ancient buildings, and Serrastretta. We went to Stilo, where they have this Byzantine church. It is called "Il Cattolico" There are photos of it but you have to see it in person, because it is LITTLE!!!! the size of a small house. There are also ruins above it of older castles, Norman, I imagine. It was quite nice. Then there is Serrastretta. Many of the original settlers of my grandfather's home town came from Serrastretta in the 1500's so I was kind of curious about this town. It is another little hill town, if you can find it on the map you will notice it is at the end of a series of switchbacks. we knew it would be an adventure. It took forever to get there, and we went directly! we finally got there and it was a very clean pretty place. The plaza was small and it led to a fairly wide street lined with trees. We noticed, like most of these towns that everything went straight up. So we parked the car and picked a flight of stairs, and went up and up and up. The place was filled with nice modern homes juxtaposed with ancient ancient rotting buildings, some of which were still inhabited. After a nice walk, we figured we'd had enough, and this sweet faced white haired lady comes out of her house and says "parenti?" (relatives?) so we started to talk. then a guy from across the street comes out, he has a brother in Philadelphia, who he just called because of the hurricane. Sersale and Serrastretta are "twin cities" so they knew all about Sersale and we compared surnames, and they each knew people who had my surname, and other family surnames. They were so sweet and friendly we did not want to leave. Unlike a lot of my own relatives, they could actually talk without dialect fairly well. Serrastretta was a gem I am glad we did not miss.
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