Cilento Day 3 - Part 2

A good hour later and a several hundred meters higher there it was: the church of San Biagio with its bell tower and the statue of the white Jesus.
Later I learned that they keep a relic there in this church, whatever that means.
Not sure if this is the holy San Biagio, but I think so...
Eventually we stood in front of Him, 20 meters high and 850 meters above the sea, facing and blessing the countryside.With a little help from the new lens we looked us right into the eyes :-)No wonder that He chose to look this way, it's a breathtaking view from above:
Maratea downtown and the Gulf of Policastro...
...southwards along the coast (to Sicily, though not visible)....and along the valley eastwards. This way leads to the highway (autostrada) to Naples where we had come from the airport.It was funny to look into the old part of Maratea from above, it looked still medieval somehow. I can imagine they felt safe from vagabonds inside their castle made of houses.
It looked even tighter the nearer I got with the camera..like a beehive.
Farther downhill are the newer parts of Maratea, this is the Piazza de'l Europa (Europe Place) with the school. This is also the place where the people come together for some social activities in the evening, like stand next to their car and shout and gesture to someone else on the very opposite side of the place :-)
And this place, too, has certainly a rich history, even if it looks pretty modern: the yacht harbour of Maratea (Maratea Porto).

Cilento Day 3 - Part 1

On the way to find Jesus:
Today, which started cloudy and chilly, we decided to hike uphill to the touristical highlight of the valley, a white Jesus statue on the summit of Monte S. Biagio, overlooking the valley and spending spiritual support.
After following the rather short descritpion of a rather short guidebook we found the small path right through the woods.
This small but quick rising path made us feel like pilgrims.

A more religious writer than me would probably describe the allegory of this demanding and angled small path uphill to the human life, both with the destination to stand in front of the holyness eventually :-)

Besides the physical effort the way way simply beatiful and relief to a stressed city man. Every couple of stepps the trees parted and gave way to an amazing view over the valley and the hillsides.

Then, suddenly, Jesus was visible from a distance. (Klick for a bigger picture).

To be continued....

Cilento Day 2 - Part 2

This time an introduction of the roof terrace, accessible from the rooms of the upper level, including the bedroom. Although the house is located a couple of kilometers from the shore the sea is in sight. This part of the Mediterranean sea is called Gulf of Policastro (Golfo di Policastro).

To the right and to the left are mountains with heights of about 1200 meters.
Please take note of the washing on the clothesline. This is soooo typical in Italy. Even the oldest and finest house in every Italian city is "improved" by hanging out a clothesline in front of it, showing freshly laundered underwear. We tried to take part in this tradition :-)

Right behind the house looms the steep rock of Monte Crivo with a cross on the summit of it. A funny thing about this rock is that in very silent moments I always had the impression to hear faint cowbells from it, but never saw a cow. I'll come back later to that issue :-)

With a good telezoom lens (which happened to be in my camera bag ;-) one was able to see the tight and angled streets of the old city center of Maratea on the slope of the Monte S. Biagio. The following pictures were taken from there...

A rather not so good attribute of the steep Monte Crivo was its habit to stop every cloud drifting in from the sea, which caused a weather change every other hour. When we arrived at Maratea this day the valley was already thickly clouded.
Our house is located almost exactly in the center of this picture.

So this one of the several parts of Maratea laid in the shade.
However, even with clouds the view of the gulf provided exactly the kind of mood to me that was desparately needed after spending to many hours in the office...

Cilento Day 2 - Part 1

I have to break day 1 in parts because I have too many pictures. Next part follows tomorrow...

After a good night we woke up and realized how beautiful it was around us. This part of Italy has an amazing countryside anyway, but in spring it looks and smells even better.
Every day I enjoyed the look of the driveway, perfectly shaded by olive trees, like a painting.
I could have made hundreds of pictures just of the flowers and plants, here are two samples.
Unfortunately I cannot show the scent here, so please believe me it was more than lovely :-)
Since it was a rather rural part of the area wild animals were always present. This was a 4 meters long alligator on the front porch ;-)

After admiring the surroundings the very next thing was to go grocery shopping because the fridge was empty. So after a short journey through the crazy serpentines of the neighborhood we came across a supermarket. Our rule was: strictly typical Italian food.
So these things went into the basket:
- tomatoes
- pasta
- rice (for Risotto)
- olive oil (a litre)
- bread
- bacon
- different kinds of cheese (including very fresh Mozarella, made in this region)
- fresh garlic
- Italian coffee and a strange looking Italian Espresso maker, works great!!!!!
- fig jam, which is another famous product made locally in the Cilento region and is delicious on old cheese....
- Peroni beer (Birra)...naturally ;-)
- a huge bottle of red wine made in the neighborhood...wasn't bad, well, actually not 100 Parker points :-)

The famous Cilento fig jam, a great taste combined with cheese or simply with butter toast.

The fresh tomatoes were probably the tastiest tomatoes I ever had. These were from the supermarket, later we bought veggies at the local produce market as well.

Cilento Day 1

I'm back!!! :-)

Two great weeks in Italy went by like two days. However, I made quite a lot of pictures. To make up for the long time without any news here I decided to post several of the pictures in the form of a diary. That means a post representing a day in Italy on every day of the next two weeks...well, yes, maybe I take a one-day-break during this span :-) Let's start with day one (April 13th):

The day went like this:
- Wakeup
- Hurry to the airport after a small breakfast
- Fly to Naples
- Pick up the rental car
- Drive 3 hours southbound
- Reach Maratea
- Look for the house, with the help of the neighbors
- Hide the disappointment regarding the weather (13 degrees and clouded)
- Show delight regarding the country house
- Search for something to drink and eat, after realizing that EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays in Italy (at least in the rural areas)

Finally we got a couple of ham sandwiches (Panino con Prosciutto) at a highway shop and some drinks at an open bar in the village of Maratea, so it wasn't too bad.
The house exceeded our expectations, the view was amazing. The furniture was simple, country-style, but exactly fitting. Almost every room had a porch, roof-terrace or balcony outside its door or window.

The neighborhood was remarkably tranquil, which was a special experience to me. I spent much time of the first days just listening the silence. A occasional bird was the only "disturbance".

A quick check of the tv revealed only Italian channels, so it was the first and the last time it was switched on during the stay. Of course there was no internet access. In total: the perfect environment for somebody who seeks relief from suffering a burnout :-)

I didn't use the camera a lot that day, so here are just two pics.
The first is a sunset seen from the terrace in front of the upper level. Actually this was also the view I had lying on my bed, the bedroom windows reached from floor to ceiling and looked right in this direction...
And even on the very first day I already started to indulge myself in Italian foodstuffs, I started with the most famous Italian brands of beer...just to clean the throat from the highway dust :-)