February 23, 2008
Today, we had our first true Italian travel day on our own. Following a small article in the base newspaper, we decided to make an hour journey by car to a small town named Cava dei Tirreni, and visit the L’Abbazia Benedettina della SS Trinita, as well as the tiny town of Corpo di Cava- built into the cliffs above the church. What an amazing treasure! The façade of the church was 18th century, but inside, the church has portions that date back to the 11th century when it was first founded and a cave was carved into the cliff. There are Etruscan and Roman structures within, as well as medieval and renaissance. In many European old churches, you read of them being built layer upon layer and added to, but here we really got to tour down through the bowels of the church into the parts of the original 11th century monks’ cells and cemetery and see many of the different alters, chapels and cloisters that had been built throughout the centuries, the frescos on the walls, ancient sarcophaguses filled with remains of saints, etc. The main church itself was also breathtakingly beautiful- lots of inlaid stone work in a variety of both Arabic and Roman styles and patterns, beautiful frescos on the ceilings from the 17th century that were still so light and colorful, gold leaf trimmings, etc. In the museum portion, we particularly liked the medieval music manuscripts- written on leather pages. For long periods of history, this church was a major religious center with over 3,000 monks and overseeing 400 other churches in the region. Today, sadly, there are only 10 monks living and working there, and even worse, our guide told us that it is rarely visited by tourists- Italian or foreign. It was wonderful to have our own private tour and visit with absolutely no one else around, but for the sake of the church and any hope of maintaining it, I know that more tourists are needed.
The girls loved the church sanctuary and all its beauty, and thought the first layer or two underneath was cool, but they tired of it before the end. It’s hard for me to fathom how old some of it truly was, and I know that any sense of how ancient it is, and also how rare it is to see something like this completely escapes them. I need lessons in how to keep making some of these sights more meaningful and interesting at their level. Sometime I’d love to be without kids and make the 2-3 hour trek down the adjacent valley and up the hills/mountains to the Amalfi coast on the other side. The path starts out there at the abbey.
Our trek finished with a several kilometer walk up the steep hillside into the town of Corpo di Cava in search of a restaurant. It turns out the only restaurants are at the very top! Evidently you can drive there, but I think having a smaller car than our Prius, along with proficient skills at backing down the narrow winding lane in the event of meeting another car, are prerequisites. We tackled it all on foot. I coaxed and encouraged the girls along with some old Christmas caramel corn and water breaks. Alyssa sat and cried only once, complaining of her feet hurting, and Rachel intermittently whined and kept sitting down. Of course the restaurant recommended to us turned out to be closed for a week’s vacation, so we continued upward to the only other restaurant listed on the signposts. We eventually found a reception hall holding some celebration and a separate rather fancy looking restaurant. It appeared empty, but unlocked. We found someone back by the kitchen and in my best pigeon Italian, asked if they were open as the “bambinas” were so hungry (quite true!). Good fortune was ours as the one woman happily seated and fed us- so we enjoyed not only a private tour of the church, but a private restaurant as well. Thank goodness for having the girls with us and the Italians love of children!
The drive home was uneventful. The day would have been more beautiful with less haze/ smog covering the mountains, but we felt like it had been a fabulous success. This is why we chose to move to a crazy, chaotic, and beautiful part of the world. (Oh wait, the Navy chose for us, but….) I hope I can find a means to easily share some of our photos along with my writing. Of course, it would also be nice to just be able to access the Internet more than once week or so.
Other random thoughts/frustrations: In looking at the challenges of traveling with young kids, we had decided that maybe it’d be great for the girls and I to head home to Colorado for part of the summer, and save more of the European travels for next summer. I have enough frequent flier miles for two tickets, and could pay for the third. Flier miles have to be one of the biggest hoaxes around. It was suggested that I would need to try to arrange flights the 11 months ahead as each flight is opened up. It’s so hard putting a price on love and the desire to spend time with family.
More random thoughts: Except for the haze and smog that seem to hide the mountains more days than not, I do love the sunshine and blue skies that are here. It is much more like Colorado in that respect than CT and it’s gray skies.
It still feels so isolated to not have a phone and internet at the house. Two months feels like a very long time to wait. It is also difficult to create a few minutes at the base with the kids happy in order to get to a computer, so photos will probably have to wait till we have something at home.
Today, we had our first true Italian travel day on our own. Following a small article in the base newspaper, we decided to make an hour journey by car to a small town named Cava dei Tirreni, and visit the L’Abbazia Benedettina della SS Trinita, as well as the tiny town of Corpo di Cava- built into the cliffs above the church. What an amazing treasure! The façade of the church was 18th century, but inside, the church has portions that date back to the 11th century when it was first founded and a cave was carved into the cliff. There are Etruscan and Roman structures within, as well as medieval and renaissance. In many European old churches, you read of them being built layer upon layer and added to, but here we really got to tour down through the bowels of the church into the parts of the original 11th century monks’ cells and cemetery and see many of the different alters, chapels and cloisters that had been built throughout the centuries, the frescos on the walls, ancient sarcophaguses filled with remains of saints, etc. The main church itself was also breathtakingly beautiful- lots of inlaid stone work in a variety of both Arabic and Roman styles and patterns, beautiful frescos on the ceilings from the 17th century that were still so light and colorful, gold leaf trimmings, etc. In the museum portion, we particularly liked the medieval music manuscripts- written on leather pages. For long periods of history, this church was a major religious center with over 3,000 monks and overseeing 400 other churches in the region. Today, sadly, there are only 10 monks living and working there, and even worse, our guide told us that it is rarely visited by tourists- Italian or foreign. It was wonderful to have our own private tour and visit with absolutely no one else around, but for the sake of the church and any hope of maintaining it, I know that more tourists are needed.
The girls loved the church sanctuary and all its beauty, and thought the first layer or two underneath was cool, but they tired of it before the end. It’s hard for me to fathom how old some of it truly was, and I know that any sense of how ancient it is, and also how rare it is to see something like this completely escapes them. I need lessons in how to keep making some of these sights more meaningful and interesting at their level. Sometime I’d love to be without kids and make the 2-3 hour trek down the adjacent valley and up the hills/mountains to the Amalfi coast on the other side. The path starts out there at the abbey.
Our trek finished with a several kilometer walk up the steep hillside into the town of Corpo di Cava in search of a restaurant. It turns out the only restaurants are at the very top! Evidently you can drive there, but I think having a smaller car than our Prius, along with proficient skills at backing down the narrow winding lane in the event of meeting another car, are prerequisites. We tackled it all on foot. I coaxed and encouraged the girls along with some old Christmas caramel corn and water breaks. Alyssa sat and cried only once, complaining of her feet hurting, and Rachel intermittently whined and kept sitting down. Of course the restaurant recommended to us turned out to be closed for a week’s vacation, so we continued upward to the only other restaurant listed on the signposts. We eventually found a reception hall holding some celebration and a separate rather fancy looking restaurant. It appeared empty, but unlocked. We found someone back by the kitchen and in my best pigeon Italian, asked if they were open as the “bambinas” were so hungry (quite true!). Good fortune was ours as the one woman happily seated and fed us- so we enjoyed not only a private tour of the church, but a private restaurant as well. Thank goodness for having the girls with us and the Italians love of children!
The drive home was uneventful. The day would have been more beautiful with less haze/ smog covering the mountains, but we felt like it had been a fabulous success. This is why we chose to move to a crazy, chaotic, and beautiful part of the world. (Oh wait, the Navy chose for us, but….) I hope I can find a means to easily share some of our photos along with my writing. Of course, it would also be nice to just be able to access the Internet more than once week or so.
Other random thoughts/frustrations: In looking at the challenges of traveling with young kids, we had decided that maybe it’d be great for the girls and I to head home to Colorado for part of the summer, and save more of the European travels for next summer. I have enough frequent flier miles for two tickets, and could pay for the third. Flier miles have to be one of the biggest hoaxes around. It was suggested that I would need to try to arrange flights the 11 months ahead as each flight is opened up. It’s so hard putting a price on love and the desire to spend time with family.
More random thoughts: Except for the haze and smog that seem to hide the mountains more days than not, I do love the sunshine and blue skies that are here. It is much more like Colorado in that respect than CT and it’s gray skies.
It still feels so isolated to not have a phone and internet at the house. Two months feels like a very long time to wait. It is also difficult to create a few minutes at the base with the kids happy in order to get to a computer, so photos will probably have to wait till we have something at home.
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