Surf 'n Turf

     Our North Carolina mountains are beautiful, fuzzy old mountains that we love.  And we have some of the best beaches on the east coast.  But it’s a luxury to be able to visit the shore and the mountains all in less than a day.  And be back in time for a sunset and dinner.

Today we visited Il Porto di Agropoli, Agropoli’s scenic little port facility, now mostly for yachts and smaller pleasure craft but still the home of a healthy fishing fleet as well.  The shutterbug was intent on visiting the fleet when it docked for some good pictures and I knew I’d have my work cut out for me since that involved waking her at seven and being able to communicate in something more than grunts before 7:30.

In the event our trusty canine cadre came to my rescue.  Promptly at 7 am, spurred by who-knows-what crisis in the neighborhood, all three dogs ran down the Astones’ stairs and around the corner in front of the house, barking maniacally, and off they went on a mission.  Where they continued to bark for the next ten minutes.  I was in the kitchen trying to generate some caffeine from the trusty Moki when I heard stirrings in the bedroom.  I have to say, for someone so abruptly awakened, Ms. Sandy was remarkably cheerful, and we had breakfast and were dressed and out the door by 7:30, pretty good for two old duffers.

We took the lazy man’s route to the Port, around the Centro along the shore of Trentova and by the little Tower of San Francesco, where St. Francis preached to the fishes.  Five minutes longer but without the hair-raising labyrinth that takes you through the Centro by way of tiny one-way streets and countless doglegs.  We arrived by 7:45 and there was the whole fleet, neatly docked from their early-morning trawls.  Along the quay boat crews were patiently unraveling nets and carefully freeing their catch before plunking little fish and crustaceans into plastic buckets of sea water.  We made a quick inspection of the whole fleet and found plastic cartons of beautiful little fish already out for sale.  We settled in and watched two fishermen as they slowly inspected the nets, occasionally throwing some small fry into the bay where a seagull eventually did cleanup duty, more often saving the catch to a bucket.  Out on the quay came a fascinating array of seafood.  In one container were pretty little triglia, rock mullet, with their orange stripes and eyes.  Elsewhere cartons of alici, the anchovies for which this stretch of the coast is famous, flashed silver in the sun.  Another container held scombro, Mediterranean mackerel, beautifully opalescent, and one of our favorites, little cicale di mare, ‘cicadas of the sea’, little mantis shrimp with the two large spots on their tails which deceive predators into believing they’re monsters.  These guys are the devil to pearl out of their shells when cooked but have a unique, sweet flavor that’s worth the effort.  Then there were the assortments:  sole and scorpionfish and skates and sea bass and monkfish, a huge octopus, tiny little murex.  We were so tempted to buy, but we’re so ignorant of prices and of course haggling is obligatory at the docks, so we contented ourselves with listening to several retailers, perhaps restaurateurs, perhaps owners of local pescatorie, fish shops.  I’m happy to say I never heard any actual insults of mamas, though there was some obviously good-natured banter and the deal was sealed with a few extra small fry or perhaps a fish or two of some less expensive variety.  Altogether a very successful trawl for us as well:  wonderful images and memories and a huge wave and “Arrivederci!” as we drove away from a nice old gentleman whom we had befriended at the dock.

Back home we had enough time for a cup of tea and some sad news.  It seems that gentle Rolando’s brother has died in Torino and he will be taking the train northward tomorrow to pay his respects.  Shortly afterwards Fernando arrived for a piccolo giro.  Now when Fernando says ‘short trip’ we have learned to prepare for at least five hours, so we made it clear in advance that the Americani had eaten an early breakfast and would be expecting lunch before 3 pm, Fernando’s usual lunchtime.  And off we went to Monte Gelbison, one of the highest mountains in the Cilento at 1,705 meters (5,594’).  And a very special place, since at the peak is located the Sanctuary of the Madonna of the Sacred Mountain, a place of pilgrimage for at least a thousand years.  I’m cribbing shamelessly here from my friend Roberto Pelecchia’s wonderful book, One Hundred Marvels of the Cilento and the Vallo di Diano.  Sadly, unlike Roberto’s other fine book on the beaches of this area, not available in English.  The mountain had been a religious retreat probably since the early days of Christianity, but the first records we have are from the Saracen era, when these fearsome invaders held the mountain because of its strategic  position and gave the mountain its Arabic name, Gebel-al Sanam, ‘Mountain of the Idol’, apparently in reference to a Christian icon.  Ergo, Gelbison.  Probably there had been a Basilian monastery on the mountain from the tenth century.  In the 1100’s, with the arrival of the Normans, the mountain was abandoned, but in 1323 placed under the aegis of the Bishop of Cappacio who donated the sanctuary to the Order of the Celestini, another order of monks.  The complex was lovingly restored in the last century and even today thousands of pilgrims from all over the Mezzogiorno make pilgrimage to the site in August.  Many follow the age-old footpath, paved with slabs of local limestone, from the foot of the mountain at Novi Velia all the way to the top. 

Sadly, our little pilgrimage was not so devoted.  We made the trip in Fernando’s trusty car.  But first a stop (Fernando couldn’t resist asking whether we wanted lunch before or after the pilgrimage) to the Ristorante La Montanara.  Where they specialize in porcini mushrooms.  Now, Pilgrim, if you are one of those benighted souls who has never converted to funghi, it’s time to sit on the mourner’s bench and make your peace with the culinary gods.  And forget your darned morels, the absolute king of mushrooms is the Porcino, the ‘Little Piggy’, fat, squat boletes with an incredible depth of flavor.  Which grow in profusion on Monte Gelbison.  And not really anywhere else to speak of in the Cilento.  It seems that Monte Gelbison is richly blessed with the cooler temperatures and humidity which porcini crave.  And, Praise Pellegrino Artusi, patron saint of Italian cooks (sorry, I couldn’t resist; his name means ‘pilgrim’), this restaurant did porcini with incredible flair!  We ordered a bottle of local white wine (which turned out to be nothing of the sort, it was from Salerno, some 50 miles away, harrumph!), Sandy ordered a Lasagnetta with scamorza, the wonderful smoked cows’ milk mozzarella that they make in the area, combined with our piggies.  Fernando ordered Fusilli with mushrooms and I Tagliatelli ai porcini.  Pure heaven.  Fernando tells us the restaurant specializes in grilled porcini and they would be happy to grill one up for Sandy, whose eyes were glazing over with bliss, right there on the spot, indicating with his hands a mushroom cap the size of a saucer.  She looked tempted but declined.  And, by the way, no need for Americans to suffer deprivation, porcini are available dried in almost all specialty food stores and their taste is incredible, one of the few times when you lose nothing by not having access to the fresh product.

And so, on to our other pilgrimage, some nine miles to the top of Gelbison through increasingly fresh air, wonderful mountain smells, the sounds of cascading water and mountain birds, and stands of beech, linden, oak, chestnut.  The last 600 meters was on foot up a ramp with switchbacks, a Via Crucis with Stations of the Cross, enough at least to make us feel as if we had made some proper effort to reach this incredible place perched on the highest crag of Gelbison.

The sanctuary is actually a complex of buildings around a large piazza.  There is the lovely Church of the Madonna of the Sacred Mountain, of course, with its nave and side aisles graced with stained-glass windows.  There is a much smaller Chapel of Saint Bartholomew.  Plus a large dormitory, I presume on the site of the original monastery, where modern pilgrims can find rooms during the Feast Days.  The piazza itself is walled and everywhere the drops on the other side are precipitous and the views spectacular.  I’m not talented enough to describe them adequately nor stupid enough to try, so I’ll let Sandy’s pictures tell the story here.  But I’m told on a really clear day you can see the Aeolic Islands off the northern coast of Sicily to the south and the Amalfi Coast and the whole Bay of Salerno to the north, a range of 120 miles.  A bit too misty for such views for us, but we did have incredible views of a huge swath of the Cilento as well as of three of the other high peaks, Monte Stella, Monte Cervati and Monte Bulgheria.  Breathtaking.  The complex is topped by a huge metal frame cross, some 105 feet tall and 45 wide, which is illuminated at night.  Such things don’t really appeal to me, not here or in the states where they seem to be common in the South, but I suppose they make a statement of some sort. 

To me the far more profound statement is the sheer devotion it has taken over these many centuries to create this complex on such an untenable rock in such a remote and inaccessible location.  Just the logistics of hauling the building materials up this mountain boggle the mind.  It is impossible not to admire such piety, even for a skeptical old Protestant like me.

Two Lost Cities

Over the course of the last week we’ve headed out twice in opposite directions to explore the histories of two lost cities.  If you don’t want to wade through a raft of academic prose I’ll save you the trouble and give you my serious, semi-informed professional opinion:  WOW!

Our first trip was to the north some 30 miles to the modern town of Pontecagnano.  A modern town which sits atop a very ancient city whose name, sadly, we do not know.  It deserves better.  The area, we now know, was inhabited from at least the Eneolithic (Copper) Age, some 2,000-3,000 years BCE.  The Archaeological Museum that we visited was beautifully arranged in galleries which depicted in chronological order the development of the town.  From this early period come stone tools and artifacts, as well as weapons and tools in copper.   I grew up in West Tennessee and just across the Tennessee River in western Middle Tennessee were some of the most skillful flint nappers anywhere in the New World.  But these Old World implements would have made them cry.  Narrow, delicately wrought celts some 10” long, as well as a huge assortment of spearpoints, arrowheads, drills.  And the knives and swords in copper were not just technically sophisticated but gorgeously decorated.  This was already a very sophisticated culture.  

Little surprise, then, that the Bronze-Age Etruscan settlement which came later (ca. 900 BCE) was a happening place as well.  The settlement itself, sadly, we do not have, probably because it sits squarely under the modern town.  But from several necropoleis (‘cities of the dead’) in the vicinity have been located some 9,000 tombs.  Nope, that’s not a typo, I said nine thousand.  Located, but sadly not all excavated.  My friend Fernando says that the Italian attitude is, “OK, we’ve done 10, that’s enough for government work, let’s go have some pizza.”  Now Fernando is a bit of a cynic, so I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I can’t help bemoaning the tombs that haven’t been explored based on the incredible hoard which has come from the few that have.  You’ve probably read a bit about the Etruscans, enough to know they had a highly developed urban society already from the ninth century BCE.  But you probably associate them with Tuscany, the area of Italy which derives its name from them.  And rightly so, that was doubtless the Etruscan heartland.  But these restless people created colonies in the Po Valley to the north as well as all along the Tyrhennian coastland.  And they had a huge presence in Campania as well, at cities like Capua,Fratte, Eboli, even Paestum.   And Pontecagnono, based just on the evidence we have, was their most important outpost in the south and easily one of their most thriving cities in all Italy.  Why?  Because this town was what we call an entrepôt, a center for the exchange of goods, specifically Etruscan goods for Greek goods, located along the Campanian shore (again, bradyseism has moved the sea several miles to the west).  We now know that Mycenaean Greeks had extensive trade contacts with people in southern Italy at least 400 years before the first Iron Age Greek colonies were founded in Italy.  And the Etruscans had something that gave the age its name: iron, iron in huge quantities, mined from the coastal regions of the Colline Metallifere and the island of Elba.  Iron was the hardest metal known to man at the time.  Imagine the huge technological advantage that proffered for tools and armament.

The forerunners of our Pontecagnanesi had lived in simple wattle-and-daub huts; the Etruscans lived in proper stone houses, often with running water and drains.  They dressed in the latest fashions and ate and banqueted lavishly.  And their women were notorious for their high spirits and liberated status, so much so that later Greek and Roman historians were scandalized (and doubtless titillated).

Of course the real treat for me is that the Etruscans had adopted and adapted the Greek habit of wine banqueting, right along with Greek and Greek-style wine vessels.  In fact, we have more ceramics of Greek manufacture from Etruscan sites than from Greek ones!  And gorgeous stuff, to judge by the displays at Pontecagnano.  Imagine yourself as part of an Etruscan couple here, all decked out in your finery, comfortably settled on a dining couch (rich Etruscans, like the Romans later, ate reclining on couches and let their slaves do all the carving and serving; finger foods were de rigeur among the Etruscans).  Meanwhile, an especially beautiful slave boy (and you will find him attractive whether you are male or female) has mixed with water the local wine, an excellent vintage, in a huge krater (mixing pot) of local or imported Greek manufacture, has poured some of this mixture into a beautifully decorated oenochoe (wine flagon) and is pouring some thence into your kantharos (two-handled drinking cup).  A gorgeous young couple rather scantily clad dances for your pleasure to the accompaniment of flute and tambourine.  If, under the influence of wine and song, you and your spouse feel the urge for some connubial bliss, why just excuse yourself to the other guests and have at it!  And no, I’m not making that up, at least according to the report of one incensed Greek historian.  And the best news of all?  The party continues in the afterlife!  The reason we know so much about Etruscan daily life (sadly, their literary records are scant and difficult to interpret) is that they decked out their tombs for the eternal banquets they expected in the hereafter. Death at the door?  Invite him in and party on, dudes!

Three days later we journeyed southward to the little hill town of Roccagloriosa, “Glorious Rock,” just above the Bay of Policastro and facing, across a river valley, the imposing mass of Monte Bulgheria.  The mountain derives its name from the Bulgars who showed up in the sixth century AD and scared the pants off the locals, giving us by way of a tortuous history, the word ‘booger’, as in ‘scary person’.  Roccagloriosa sprawls out along a ridge almost at the top of Monte Capitenali, with spectacular views of the Mingardo River valley to the west and the Bussento River valley to the east, not to speak of that hulking giant to the south.  The little town itself is a charmer, with three beautiful Medieval churches and two piazzas that provide  spectacular panoramas.  But again it is the nameless ancient town which is especially impressive, in this case a Lucanian town of the fifth century BCE.  Again, habitation here goes way back, in this case all the way to the Neolithic.  But it is the later Lucanians who developed a real city.  We don’t know exactly who the Lucanians were, though we’re relatively sure they were a native Italic group of Samnitic ethnic type and language who probably began to migrate from the mountains of the central Apennines into the lower reaches about this time in search of fame and fortune.  They were a bellicose people but they also had a developed agriculture, proto-urban society, a delicate esthetic sense, a love of Greek culture, and a passion for wine.  In this case archaeology has given us both the town itself and a number of richly furnished tombs.  The town is located at a strategic position ideally situated to control the rich farmlands below.  There was a monumental city wall around three sides (the fourth was naturally fortified by the terrain), a public square, well built stone houses, some with enclosed courtyards, several sanctuaries, including one which evidently attracted pilgrims from all over Lucania to worship Mephitis, goddess of fertility, of the underworld, of earthquakes and other ‘mephitic’ phenomena.

Archaeological artifacts from the town and the necropolis are housed in a small museum as well as an antiquarium.  Here the vessels are lavish (one tomb alone held more than 30 pots) but of local manufacture imitating Greek prototypes.  One tomb held a complete wine service in bronze, beautifully wrought.  One especially wealthy aristocratic lady was buried with a gorgeous necklace with alternating pendants of godheads and lions, not to speak of silver, gold and bronze broaches and the little decorative pins we call fibulae.  And one of the snake bracelets the Romans would later make famous, in this case solid gold and exquisitely wrought with details of the scales and a delicate little serpentine head at each end.  Obviously the Lucanian afterlife was not too shabby either.

But sadly, these two important towns are still largely lost, despite extensive excavation.  How?  For one thing, their artifacts are housed in places that no one visits.  The museum at Pontecagnano is state-of-the-art, splayed out in a modern facility on three floors and six different galleries.  The displays are as well designed and expertly executed as anything you will see in the Met or the Louvre.  And on the day we were there we three were the only visitors they had had all day and the first in three days!  It is easy to blame the Italian government for shortsighted inefficiency, but what else can they do in this case?  The fact is that Pontecagnano is a nondescript, largely Fascist-era town which will never be a tourist destination, and the only people ever likely to visit this wonderful museum are therefore academics.  Meanwhile Roccagloriosa has the opposite problem, a gorgeous milieu which should attract tourists by the hundreds, but a tiny museum (three rooms) with essentially only two displays, plus a slightly larger antiquarium housed in a medieval church.  And no visitors.  On the day we were there I had called and was told the two were open from 10 am to 7 pm.  When we arrived we discovered they were actually only supposed to be open from 5:30 pm till 8.  When 5:30 rolled around the docent showed up but of course she could not be trusted with the key to the museum, that was the job of some otiose political hack who phoned to say he would arrive in 10 minutes and showed up in 45.  The antiquarium had some beautiful displays and a very pleasant if overmatched young lady to give us the tour.  But again I suspect we were the first visitors they had seen in many a day.
      The solution to this problem is obvious:  artifacts need to be recorded digitally and made available on the internet.  The upside of this process is that materials from museum depositories can be digitized and made available at the same time, and material in depositories represents probably 90% of the material extant.  And much of this is painfully difficult to access even for legitimate researchers, much less the enthusiastic layman.

The two towns are also lost in academic politics, sadly.  In my studies I have found a consistent tendency among academics to see all things native in southern Italy as primitive and backward until the Greeks and Romans showed up.  There is a mountain of evidence to the contrary and it grows higher by the year, but far too many scholars are content to parrot the standard paradigm instead of examining for themselves how sophisticated these southerners were and from a very early time.  The Greeks themselves called this part of the south Oenotria, Land of Wine, and everything I have seen suggests that they knew whereof they spoke.  Almost surely viticulture and viniculture were prevalent in this area from the late Bronze Age if not before. And wine has always been, and I hope always will be, both a catalyst and hallmark of culture.

Pranzo

It’s a rainy morning in Agropoli,  the dark clouds rolling over the ridges, even a few rumbles of thunder farther to the north over Paestum.  But it’s a good rain, gentle, slow, nourishing for the riot of plants around here, promising a bit of relief for the hours of work Rolando and Filo often have to expend to water their crops from the well.  It’s one of those maritime showers that rolls in off the sea and erupts when it hits the thermals from these mountains and quickly dissipates.  Even now there is far more than enough blue sky showing to the south to make cat’s pajamas, so it won’t be long before it’s sunny again.  And is it really possible that the Cilento is even more beautiful in the rain?

Yesterday was memorable for an invitation to pranzo (lunch) from the Astones, and Filo was promising Spaghetti alla vongole, Spaghetti with clams, one of our favorites.  And Filo is an incredible cook, even by Italian standards.  

As often with all things Italian, the time for lunch was a bit nebulous.  We’ve just learned to chill out and wait for the signal.  But as the hour approached 3 pm our appetites were raging.  The delay was well worth the grumbling stomachs, for Fabio had gone to town to retrieve Katiuscea, and this lively, intelligent, funny young woman is the best sauce for any dish.  We entered the house upstairs to find lunch service laid out beautifully in the living room next to the terazza, the doors open to admit that ravishing brezza we’ve had lately.  Hugs and kisses all around and then we settled in for a feast.

The first course was not, in fact, alla vongole, but Spaghetti con frutte di mare, spaghetti with a mixture of seafood.  But not just seafood.  The freshest possible seafood, bought less than three hours earlier at the Astones’ favorite local seafood market and pulled from the sea less than 24 hours before that.  I hear lots of people say they don’t like seafood, but I have to believe that if they ever tasted seafood this fresh they would be converted.  Not the slightest hint of ‘fishiness’, just the pure, sweet essence of shrimp or crab or whatever plus a subtle soupçon of the sea.  I once had a waiter in Rome advise me not to order a seafood dish there because the sea was too far away and the fish could not possibly be fresh.  You understand that Rome is all of 18 miles from the sea!  But he may have been right; here we are less than a mile from the port as the crow flies and the seafood is impossibly fresh.  It should be possible, thanks to processing at sea and flash freezing, for North Carolinians to have seafood almost as fresh, but again and again at my local grocery I am appalled at the fetid mush that is proffered.  All it takes is a modicum of care and love for one’s product, but it seems many American purveyors can’t even muster that.  

Strange to say, however, Filo herself doesn’t eat seafood!  How does she cook it so masterfully and yet not eat it?  Obviously the instincts of a naturally talented cook.  The spaghetti was perfectly cooked thanks to the ministrations of Fabio.  About two minutes before Filo anticipated the pasta would be al dente, Katiuscea began bringing strands of pasta from the kitchen for Fabio to sample and he rendered his verdict.  Finally I heard, “twenty seconds!” and out came the spaghetti and into the sauté pan with the seafood to ‘marry’.  The seafood itself was a rich mix of tiny shrimps, beautiful little pearly orange mussels, oysters, strips of calamari, and tiny little tails of the cicale, 'cicadas' (actually a type of mantis shrimp) which yield very little meat but impart a rich flavor.  All dressed with exquisite simplicity with parsley, a few bits of cherry tomato, and Rolando’s priceless olive oil.  With it we drank a crisp, dry white from Puglia which Fabio explained was made on the estate of a daughter of the American actor Tyrone Power.

As usual, the primi piatti would have been a feast for most American meals, but we knew we had only begun so we were canny enough not to ask for seconds.  And predictably, for the entree out came a platter of fittura di merluzzi, beautiful little whole hake battered so lightly you hardly realized a batter was there and perfectly fried so that there was not the slightest hint of oiliness.  These little beauties had backbones that were almost fused so that they could be filleted with ease.  The flesh was beautiful, white, firm but yielding and absolutely delicious.  I ate two and was trying to be abstemious but Katiuscea cheekily put two more on my plate.  My protest was very perfunctory.  Those little guys disappeared in a hurry.  With these we had a simple salad, perfectly dressed with oil and the juice of the wonderful lemons that grow here on the estate.  Fabio  brought out some thin-skinned lemons he had procured while in Sicily recently, ones which looked like the ones we have in the states, and we compared the taste of these to our knobbly local ones.  The taste was identical.  But Fabio explained that it was the oils in the skins of Campanian lemons which are used in making the local specialty, limoncello, a powerful, sweet liqueur, and the larger the lemon the more oils can be extracted.  Ergo lemons the size of grapefruit.

The best part of the meal, of course, was the banter that enlivened the room.  When I compare how awkward and shy we all were that first year to how comfortable we all now are I am amazed.  Much of that, of course, is simply the ease of communication.  Sandy’s Italian is still rudimentary but she is making steady progress and uses her pictures as a way of bridging the gap.  My Italian is far from good, but it is coming along nicely and there are times when I would swear I was having an actual conversation.  And it’s so easy to feel comfortable with these gracious folks.  

We talked about Fabio’s trip to Sicily in May to deliver a talk on the subject of his dissertation, soon to be completed.  We have longed to see that beautiful island and Fabio explained that the train, when it reaches Reggio-Calabria at the toe of the boot, is simply driven onto tracks mounted on a ferry and then ferried across the Straits of Messina to the island, where it proceeds to Syracuse and beyond!  The whole trip to Catania, where he gave the talk, was a matter of four hours and 30 euros.  Tempting.  Very tempting.

At another point the conversation turned to matters of gravest import, namely, where to find the best pizza in the area.  Ah, but nothing so simple as the best purveyor.  It seems that this issue is a seasonal one.  In the winter there is a local pizzeria where the forno à legno (wood-fired oven, de rigeur in every Italian pizzeria) is cheek-by-jowl with a raised hearth where a roaring fire heats the stones of a huge fireplace.  Great pizza in a cozy, warm environment.  In sprIng the Astones prefer a pizzeria south of Agropoli up on the flank of Monte Tresino.  Here you have great pizza with a spectacular view of Agropoli, the Bay of Salerno, and on a clear, spring day, the Amalfi coast.  In summer, no contest, Pizzeria Galleone, where we have eaten twice.  It’s down at the port on a large terrace overlooking the sea and if you wait till the appropriate summer dinner hour (somewhere between 10 and 12 pm) you will enjoy the cool sea breezes, the twinkling lights of the port, and a view of the Rocca where the Centro of Agropoli is situated, the stones of the cliffs lit up suggestively in red, white and green, the colors of the Italian flag.  In autumn, Fabio insists, one buys one’s pizza at a great pizzeria in Paestum, home of the fabulous Greek ruins, and then has a picnic out among the temples of Hera and Athena.  Not too shabby, eating pizza with the gods.

The next course was the fruit course, in this case slices of fresh, sweet watermelon.  Fabio experimented with a syrup of Limoncello over the top, but I think we all agreed it was gilding the lily.  A fine, simple dessert, right?  Wrong!  Just another course. Out came a tray of dolci brought by Katiuscea, similar to the one we had brought two days before.  With these Rolando served one of his masterpieces, a mandarinetto, similar to a limoncello  but in this case made with tangerine skins instead of lemons.  I can tolerate limoncello if it is served ice-cold as it so often is here to blunt some of the excessive sweetness, but I can’t say I really like it.  But Rolando’s magic elixir is something else indeed, subtle, wonderfully perfumed and perfectly balanced.  The peak of citrus season here is December and by May the fruit itself is past its prime, but the skins are still good, so that is when Rolando makes his liqueur.  He explained that he had experimented for years to perfect the formula and technique and would write down the recipe for me.  I will definitely try my hand, this stuff is nectar of the gods.  And before we left he offered me one of his precious bottles, a gift so generous I almost teared up. Rolando is a quiet, reserved man who is such a sweet, sensitive soul underneath.  Still waters really do run deep.

Finally we had little cups of good, strong Italian espresso, a great deal more laughter and loud, affectionate banter, and finally we were off to our downstairs snuggery for a nice, long riposo.  It was a meal we will always remember; the food was almost as delicious as the company.

GOOD MEDICINE

Our first full day in Agropoli has been filled with logistics and lolligagging, both equally delightful.  There are those practical matters which must be attended to, especially after a ten-day whirlwind of action, but in repose they take on a sort of pleasant, comfortable familiarity. Good medicine for tired souls and bodies. Groceries, laundry, personal grooming—all those mundane matters which can be huge hurdles when one is in a foreign country with limited language skills.  But, I have to say, we’re becoming old pros.  

There was one minor tragedy. Sunday evening I had run out to the grocery store for enough supplies to get us through breakfast Monday and had bought a small Bialetti Moki, one of those little biconical coffee pots that make remarkably good espresso.  Plus some Illy espresso grind, my favorite.  My favorite grocery store, Carrefour, was closed on Sunday so I was forced to resort to the Maxxi Futura Ipermercato, one of those huge superstores that carry items in bulk.  I hate them in the states as well, they’re just so darned big that you waste way too much time just finding what you want.  But I have to admit the quality of food we’ve found there is not bad.  Not great either, of course.  Our first year here a closed store would have been a minor catastrophe as I tried to wrack my brain how to find another store.  This time little Franco whipped us around two roundabouts, out the diversorio and into the Maxxi parking lot in less than five minutes.  In and out in another ten and home from there in five.

          But when I took out the Illy can to put it in the cabinet I heard a strange rattling sound.  What the—?  Espresso grani, ‘espresso granules’ not espresso powder.  And what, pray tell, are espresso granules, a patent contradiction in terms?  Surely not INSTANT espresso?  In Italy?  An abomination before GOD!  Fortunately I told Fernando about the situation and at the pizzeria where we ate he asked Mr. Borrelli’s beautiful daughter for a small loan and she smiled in bemusement and obliged.  So the next morning, in my fog, imagine my shock when I discovered the gas had not been turned on.  Sunday closings, remember?  No cooking.  But I’m pleased to report that Sandy and I have discovered we can function, barely, without that first blast of caffeine in the morning.  For a while.  By nine we were both as into our ‘jones’ as many of my students are when that dismissal bell rings and they immediately start frantically texting, I swear, mostly for the pure rush of moving those twitching thumbs for the first time in hours.

So we headed for a bar on the road up to the Centro in town.  In Italy a ‘bar’ will not serve alcoholic drinks, or at least not primarily, but the many permutations of caffé, plus a small selection of pastries.  We stopped at such a bar with typical sidewalk seating, got an espresso, a cappuccino and a cornetto pastry and complimentary bottled water (total cost 3 euros, about $4.00), sat on the sidewalk and just basked in the sights, sounds and air of Agropoli.  I know this sounds like an exaggeration, but even the air here has a special, sensuous charm.  Yesterday the temp reached all of 75°F and there was a constant, luscious breeze and in the air floated all the scents of a riot of flowering plants plus the subtle saline funk of the sea.  Absolutely delicious.  A quick detour to a farmacia for cough medicine for Dave,  The Augmentin is doing its magic but at night I have such coughing jags that sleep is difficult, and sleep is the best medicine of all.

Back home I did some writing and Sandy some pictures, we tidied the apartment, the man from the gas company came, turned on the gas and lit the pilots for hot water so we could shower our grimy bodies (A sign of Sandy’s desperate need for caffeine:  she actually went out in public without her usual toilette!  If any of her friends are reading this, I swear it’s absolutely true!) and start some laundry.  Rolando and Filomena stopped by and took us out into the orchard where they collected for us and other friends a stunning assortment of fresh, organic fruits.  I had feared that the first crop of figs was now gone, but, no, the trees were positively laden.  I should explain that figs fruit twice a season, one crop maturing in June, the other in late July and into August.  The first crop, what the Italians call the ‘Fior de Fichi, “Flower of the fig” are huge monsters.  And we both adore figs.  Added to them were gorgeous, tiny little tawny pears blushed with pink, tawny and purple plums, cherries, the exquisite little kumquats that you pop in your mouth and eat whole, skin, pips and all.  Tons of lemons, some as big as a softball.  And one long, wrinkled monster that I took for a citron but which is in fact what I think Filomena called ‘Lemon Bread’ because you slice it and eat the whole thing here, too.  Cooks will recall how bitter the pith of most citrus fruits is, so much so that you must be careful not to include it when you zest a lemon, for example.  But here the skin and pith actually had a soft, subtle sweetness for which the tanginess of the juice acted as counterpoint.  Filomena explained that there had only been a few of these gems and we were receiving the last one  Grazie mille, Carissima!  

After that excursion, lunch was a forgone conclusion.  I zipped down to the local alimentari (mom and pop grocery) and bought an etto (eighth kilo) of prosciutto crudo, some boconcini, the tiny little ‘mouthful’ balls of mozzarella di bufala, and some good crusty bread.  Halve a fig, drape it with prosciutto, put some boconcini on the plate with an assortment of fruit, and you have a lunch fit for royalty.  And a struggling digestive system.  Look, I don’t want to be graphic here, but after eight days of almost constant movement, climbing mountains and walking anywhere from 8-10 miles per day, try sitting still in a car or chair for one solid day and see what the inevitable result is.  It’s a problem all travelers face and one for which the solution is obvious:  fruit, fruit, fruit!  What a delicious cure!

A brief nap after lunch and then more practical stuff, especially laundry.  This shirt I’ve been wearing for two days is becoming a bit too fragrant for comfort.  Up to the Centro for cash from an ATM.  My bank had graciously offered to up my limit for a single withdrawal to $500, but I didn’t reckon on Italian conservatism in financial matters, so I’ll have to collect my sum (I have one rather large sum to turn over this week) in smaller increments over several days.  Minor glitch.  At about six the Astones brought down the tray of dolci we had brought plus a bottle of Gancia Grand Reale sparkling dessert wine from their beloved Piemonte.  My words are strictly inadequate to describe how delicious are Italian pastries, especially paired with a sweet sparkler, so I’ll defer to Sandy’s picture.  But I will say I think I love them most because, unlike so many American sweets, they are not too sweet.  Balanced.  And so imaginative!  A thousand ways to combine sugar pastry cream, nuts and fruits.

Back to Maxxi Futura where a bemused assistant manager took pity on the gonzo Americano and allowed an exchange for real coffee and I collected a more substantial supply of groceries and then back home for a quiet evening, interrupted delightfully by visits from Fernando, returning from administering masters’ exams at the University of Salerno where he teaches, and Fabio, back from work as a police sergeant, a huge promotion for a most deserving young man.  We’ve sponged off of Fabio’s Wi-fi upstairs for two years but for some reason the signal is now anemic and sporadic, so we’ll need to tackle that issue tomorrow.  I couldn’t haul 300 pounds of reference materials to Italy, so without access to online sources my academic writing is dead in the water.  That’s a bit concerning.  But all in good time, I’m sure.

A late dinner, not a very good one, I’m afraid, since the pantry is so poorly stocked and at the grocery my feeble brain forgot all those little frivolous items like salt and pepper that make food palatable.  Still, perhaps the bland food was also good medicine; we’ve been eating some pretty elaborate meals lately.  And so to bed for the best medicine of all, eight hours of sleep in a room where the temperature gradually settled into the low 60s and I was ‘compelled’ to seek warmth from my lover and bedmate of 29 years.

Returnings

RETURNINGS

Yesterday was our day for returnings, the tour group back to Stati Uniti, Sandy and I to our sentimental second home.

As often, the return to the states began uncomfortably early.  Wake-up call was 2 am.  But my troopers were up and ready to go by 3.  This has been without a doubt one of my favorite groups to lead in the 17 years we’ve been doing this, partly because the students are so bright and cooperative and fun, partly due to the fact they were so dependable at a time when I was least able, due to sickness, to ride herd on cats.  We were taken by a charter bus to Fiumicino, formally, Leonardo da Vinci Airport.  The nickname derives from the canal the Romans constructed from the Tiber River to the artificial harbor they had constructed at Portus; flumen is Latin for ‘river’ and the diminutive suffix makes it the ‘rivulet’.  With our wonderful tour guide Reena’s invaluable help we fought the total incompetence of the Alitalia staff and and computerized boarding system and finally were forced to wait for more ticketing desks to open so that we could be ticketed the old fashioned way.  Every female there (and they were all female) under the age of 30 was a total bimbo.  We had two who directly contradicted each other, standing less than ten feet apart! But at last a quiet, competent woman in her fifties had us checked in in less than five minutes. At 5:30 or so, the group, minus the Fussels whose adventure now continues in Switzerland, bade Reena a fond farewell and Sandy and I put them in the capable hands of Darlene Adams, Sandy’s colleague and my new friend, to shepherd through Paris and Georgia and back to RDU.

Sandy and I had a bite to eat and some coffee while we waited for the rental car agency to open at 7.  Mirabile dictu, the Hertz Rome office unlike the one in Florence actually sets hours to accommodate travelers and opens on time!  And no more than 10 minutes after we began the process a pleasant, competent young man names Steffano had us booked and keyed and ready to roll.  I suppose anyone too lunkheaded to make it as a Hertz counter agent simply strolls on over to Alitalia to find a job.

Our car is a cute little black Fiat Panda hatchback, named Franco in honor of the world’s best little American truck, now in semiretirement.  Franco is worthy of his namesake, I’m happy to report.  Wonderful driveability, an efficient little motor which is still powerful enough to pull the hills and mountains around here, a state-of-the-art stereo system to keep Sandy happy, and best of all, a bangin’ air conditioner.  Accessing the road system from the car lot was a dream, and after toodling east for about 15 km we accessed the Gran Rolantare, the Grand Ringroad.  Think outer beltline on steroids.  We zipped around to the southwest of Rome and entered the A-1 autostrada, known as the Strada del Sole, ‘Highway of the Sun’.  And then, something totally shocking, we were driving the A-1 autostrada, Italy’s busiest intersate, with no traffic!  At least none by Italian standards.  And wall-to-wall gorgeous scenery from the thigh of the boot all the way down to the shin.  There are advantages to traveling on Sunday in Italy, especially if you start out early.

The disadvantage became apparent later.  After all the stress of seeing everyone off and the cumulative stress of a rigorous if wonderful tour, I could relax a bit and just enjoy the experience.  But that’s deadly for a guy who’s had only 3 hours sleep.  Twice I almost nodded off.  Nope, no way I’m going to just ‘soldier on’ and kill us both.  We pulled into the Autogrille (the Italian Howard Johnson’s for you oldsters), I parked in the shade, put back the seat and snoozed for 10 minutes while Ms Sandy fiddled with her photography files.  Then into the Autogrille for a quick espresso.  Where we confronted a scene straight from Dante’s Inferno.  It seems that all the locally owned rest areas were closed for Sunday, so by default it was here or nowhere. The place was jam-packed with tour bus groups of every description, all yelling at the tops of their lungs, pushing and shoving through the crowds, the Japanese tourists in their typical fashion often shoving their way to the front of the line or at least attempting to do so until someone screamed at them to maintain their place in line (at which, by the way, they simply smile blandly and stare blankly into space with never a word of apology).  Why is it that these people believe with absolute certainty that they are entitled to first position in any line simply because of their ethnicity?  Isn’t it unspeakably sad that the two nationalities whose racism caused incalculable suffering in the 20th century are once again reverting to type in the 21st?  Or am I being paranoid?

In any case, the brave Sandy fought her way to the front of the biglietto (ticket) line and again to the front of the service counter while I battled my way to the toilets.   We drank our coffee, ate our snacks, and scooted out of that place ASAP.  The good news was that my poor nerves were so shattered from the trauma that I wasn’t the least bit sleepy for the rest of the drive.

Meanwhile, around 10:30 we received a text from Darlene that the group had arrived in Paris but that the flight out had been delayed to wait for the Delta flight bringing the Georgia group we had toured with.  I should explain that the Air France flight and the Delta flight carrying our two groups to Paris departed and arrived 10 minutes apart.  Now, Delta and Air France are partnered airlines, and if someone can explain how that sort of scheduling makes any sense at all I’d be most grateful.  But thank God on behalf of our Suwannee friends it was Delta flying from Paris to Atlanta; had it been Air France they would have left those kids stranded just for spite.

Sandy and I motored southward, past Cassino, Capua, the western flanks of Vesuvius, through the series of tunnels that takes you through the Monti Lattari and from the Bay of Naples area to the Bay of Salerno area, exited the autostrada onto the SS18 and meandered through several towns before stopping for lunch at a small town.  Lunch at a local trattoria specializing in sea food.  Sandy’s farfalle con salmone was excellent, as was my scialiatelli con frutte di mare. Thank God I can actually begin to taste food again!  We called Fernando to tell him our ETA, then began to search for a florist or nursery for presents for our Agropoli buddies.  No luck.  So we decided to ditch the susperstrada, a sort of hybrid between an interstate and a state highway, and travel the local roads for the rest of the way to look for presents for our friends.  Meanwhile, the text I most wanted to see from Darlene, the group had boarded at Charles de Gaulle and was awaiting departure.  I don’t know whether it’s just me or if every American feels this way, but I always feel like the airlines are conspiring to delay my return home to America but if I can just get airborne they will have reached that point of no return and will have to deliver me to my homeland despite all their nefarious schemes to the contrary.  Delays once we hit American soil?  I can handle it.  Just get me to my country.

Not much luck in our search for potted plants and we were becoming a bit alarmed as we passed through Cappaccio Scalo and Paestum and approached Agropoli. Gifts to a host are pretty much de rigeur in Italy, not necessarily expensive ones, but sentimental, and of course this was no ordinary visit so it would have been positively rude to show up empty-handed.  But it was Sunday and most places were closed.  We remembered a local florist in Agropoli and were headed there when we turned a corner and saw our favorite pasticceria (pastry shop).  And, could it be?  The beads in the doorway used here to discourage flies while maintaining airflow were gently beckoning us in.  A quick check by Sandy and a motion to come on in, and there before us were two huge display cases filled with an incredible assortment of dolci.  Not just a gift but a perfect gift for these dear friends!  Hardly expensive, but from the heart, a special little treat.  The gods were smiling on us.

As were they when we hit the roundabout and accessed the Fuonte highway.  A left at the Via Ludovico Ariosto, up the side of the ridge, progressively steeper, a quick dogleg right-left and hell-for-leather up that last ultra-steep slope to the driveway.  But brave little Franco couldn’t quite make it.  So down we go, backing slowly down the ridge to the bend where the ground is flattest, then, air-conditioner off, hell-for-leather again in second gear and, twenty feet from the driveway a lightning quick shift into first so as not to lose momentum, and up the driveway we go!

And there are our dear ones on the terazza, making last-minute preparations.  And then nothing but excited shouts and laughter, and this time none of that kssie-kissie semiformal stuff (which I adore, by the way) but good old tight embraces and kisses.  Home.  Frost famously says that “Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.”  Perhaps in some sad regions of the heart, but not in this place.  Home here is being with some of your nearest and dearest and knowing with certainty that they feel the same way.

After much excited exchange of news and some practical matters, Fabio is off to work and Fernando promises a trip at 8:30 to a wonderful new pizzeria tradionale he has discovered in the Centro and he is off too.  Sandy and I settle in a bit and then I’m off to the bedroom for a short snooze which turns into three comatose hours.  After I’m at least half conscious I take a stroll along the terazza to look at the fruit trees and out into the orchard and vineyard to the north to see the tiny little olives destined to make Rolando’s magic elixir this fall and full clusters of Nebbiolo grapes he has naturalized in a new southern home and I look out over this gorgeous little farm and across to the ridge beyond the highway.  Villas nestle in clefts in the hillsides.  On the lower slopes, serried ranks of olive trees create glaucous little puffballs.  On the upper slopes of the ridge, forests of chestnut and rowan and holm oak cloak the earth in a green mantle.  Down further south in the distance I see the imposing mountains of the Cilento.

I’ll never make a fortune from my writing.  I remember after the book on Roman foodways was published, one of my students, all wide-eyed innocence, asked if I would be rich and famous.  From an academic book!  But the book has brought me other riches, far greater to me: the chance to mingle with others who value good, natural, healthful food as much as I, the chance  to travel to this formerly blighted, now blessed part of Italy where it is still made largely in traditional ways, sometimes dating back more than 2,500 years.  The chance to live in this beautiful place, not once but three times, and to be with some of the dearest people in the world.  There is no price for such things.  As I looked across to that ridge I don’t mind confessing that tears started to my eyes and I stood happily crying like the doddering old fool I probably am, and I kept repeating to myself, “Dave, Dave, did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine....”  

Before we  left North Carolina, a bank clerk called our sojourn a once-in-a-lifetime trip.  When Steffano saw our return date for the rental car his response was also a bit shocked and as we left his response, obviously based on a preconception that there was a nonno some generations back in our history who had crossed the big water, said so much about the best of Italy:  “Enjoy your family!”  Perfect.  Not strictly true but absolutely correct.

Puny in Paradise

I haven’t blogged lately, mostly because we’ve maintained such a frenetic pace over the last two days or else I was so dead-dog tired when I did have time that I couldn’t write without nodding off.  But I’m also nursing a sinus infection which has me at about 60% at the very time I most want to be 120%.  I suspect it was the airline air on dear old Air France.  But the air in Athens may have contributed as well.  Athens is a gorgeous city but it is down in a bowl, a plain defined on the east by Mt. Pentele, on the west by Mt. Helikon, and on the north by Mt. Hymettus.  All storied places, Pentele (ancient Pentelikon) as the source of some of the most beautiful marble in the world, Mt. Helikon as the home of the Muses, those nine lovely damsels who attended Apollo, god of music, and each of whom was patron goddess of some branch of the arts, and Mt. Hymettus for less felicitous reasons, namely, as the site where bees feasted on hemlock nectar and produced a delicious honey which contained a powerful neurotoxin which would put you under in less than an hour if you were so gullible as to buy it without checking the provenance.  When the Greek philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death by the Greek version of the Tea Party he chose to drink hemlock poison and we have a gripping description of his last moments.  The south side of Athens opens to the sea by way of the famous port of Piraeus, but onshore breezes often trap the smog in the rest of the bowl creating a different form of toxic stew.  

This sinus infection is not that big a deal, the main symptoms are constant drainage that has made my throat so raw it feels scalded, and the necessity of hacking and constantly clearing my throat, a habit which I’m sure has endeared me to no end to my fellow travelers.  And as luck would have it, we’re now on the ferry headed out of the Greek port of Patras to the Italian port of Brindisi, down on the heel of the boot, where another bus will pick us up and take us, via a delightfully circuitous route in order to see parts of gorgeous Puglia, to Sorrento.  On the Bay of Naples.  Which is down in a basin.  Defined by mountains on three sides.  Where an onshore breeze often traps the smog and turns the air smutty.  Don’t misunderstand, the Bay is absolutely gorgeous and the Sorrentine Peninsula that defines its southern limit is one of my favorite places on the planet.  But almost every time I’ve stayed there I’ve developed an eye or sinus infection.  Not the most therapeutic locale for me right now, in short.

Mind you, the air in Naples is considerably worse than it need be, especially considering that Italy has some of the most stringent environmental laws in Europe.  But once again our friends from the Mafia (called Camorra in this area) make sure that the laws are flouted on a regular basis.  These sleazebags know that when life is chaotic and dysfunctional, people who feel helpless instinctively turn to the biggest bully on the block for protection or validation.  So our friends make sure that the goons have job security by creating as much chaos and dysfunction as possible and then offering to protect the weak from the very mess they created

In any case, my first stop in Sorrento will be to a local farmacia.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the health-care professional of first choice for any Italian is his local pharmacist.  These guys are highly trained and they can diagnose probably 80% of the ills that come their way, and have tremendous leeway to prescribe many drugs that could only be obtained in the US with an expensive trip to a doctor and an equally overpriced prescription.  They are easy to find, you simply stroll down a commercial street until you see a flashing neon green cross, the Greek-style cross à la American Red Cross.  Only green.  Go in and ask if the pharmacists speak English and they will protest that they speak only a little and proceed to speak almost flawlessly.

Over the years that we’ve taken various tour groups, the Italian medical system has come to our rescue any number of times.  There was Rachel, for example, who had explained before we left that she had certain food allergies.  We had been very careful in alerting the restaurants in advance of her problem and they had been wonderful in accommodating her.  The Italians want you to enjoy their food and it hurts their pride when you don’t.  But one restaurant in Florence slipped up with a paté that had shrimp in it.  Poor Rachel’s lips began to swell after two bites (thank God she had no anaphylactic issues) and within 10 minutes she looked like one of those grotesque women who’ve pumped too much silicone into their poor suffering lips. Think Cher or Joan Rivers on a bad day. No problem, I simply scooted down the street, I swear I think less than a block, found a pharmacist who set us up with some Benedryl and within an hour Rachel was back to normal and her typical happy self.  Let’s see, then there was Chris with pinkeye, Jeannine with, let us say, digestive issues... I could probably sit and think of half a dozen others, including mine and  Sandy’s numerous ailments  All handled quickly, efficiently, relatively cheaply, and with a minimum of fuss.

Doubtless the most serious situation we’ve faced was that of a wonderful young lady named Ella who was scurrying with us through the Termini Station, the main train/subway station in Rome, trying to make the train for the Vatican, and slipped and sat hard on her rumpus. No major problem there, she had adequate though by no means excessive padding, but she reached out to brace her fall and jammed her wrist.  Needless to say the whole group came to a standstill as we tried to minister to Ella, but that left arm was very sensitive.  One of the kids went to find some of the subway personnel, who in turn quickly sent their first-aid specialist who examined the wrist, tried to flex it, watched Ella wince and pronounced it probably broken.  Oy!  What now?  Not to worry, the first-aid specialist summoned an ambulance which arrived in less than 10 minutes (fortunately we were very close to the main hospital in northwest Rome) and Ella and I climbed in and headed to the hospital while the rest of the crew made their way, much more slowly, to the Vatican for the museum tour.  

Once we reached the hospital my job was to try to calm Ella while we waited for the ER physician.  You should understand that Ella has had serious arthritis since she was a preteen, though, like so many quiet heroes I’ve taught over the years, you’ll never hear her complain of it.  Still, it made the situation that much more tenuous.  And Ella was (and is) a champion equestrian who was scheduled to travel to an international equestrian camp in Canada two weeks after our tour.  Tough to contemplate for a sixteen-year-old with a wrist in a cast.  So the usually stoic Ella was understandably a bit sniffly.  All I could do was to encourage her not to borrow trouble, it would probably work out fine in the end.  Which, strangely enough, was exactly the right advice.  Within 10 minutes we saw the physician and he whisked her away for a full panoply of X-rays, and in less than 20 minutes from then the pictures had been developed, the ER doc had read them and announced that it was simply a badly sprained wrist.  Prescription: a sling plus a good dose of an analgesic with codeine in it followed by extra-strength acetaminophen for as long as she needed it.  The look of joy that Ella’s face showed was positively seraphic.  I attended her to the pharmacy and we filled her prescriptions, we walked back to the hotel and Ella went to her room where, after her dose of codeine, she slept like a baby for 8 hours and woke up happy as a clam.

Oh, I forgot a slight detail.  When we asked how we should pay since Ella had excellent insurance and ample cash, we were stunned to hear that she owed not a penny.  Even the dose of codeine was supplied free by the hospital.

I know II may raise some hackles here among some of my more conservative friends, but I have to believe one of the reasons you’re reading this blog is to have the perspective of someone who’s traveled around a bit and observed some of the good and bad.  I hear all the time that America has the best health-care system in the world and that European health care is a disaster.  Neighbor, I’m here to tell you, it just ain’t so!  By any measurable standard Italy has one of the best health care systems in the world.  In fact, in the most recent comprehensive study of world health care Italy came in at number seven.  The much-vaunted system in the US was number 32.  So here’s what I know:  Do the Italians like to complain about their health care system?  Oh heck yeah, Italians’ favorite sport is complaining about anything to do with the government.  Futbol is a distant second.  Here’s another news flash from Dave:  after 40 years of the educational enterprise I’m willing to go out on a limb and say ALL humans love to bitch.  It’s just what we do!  Meanwhile, when people talk about what a great system we have in the States, apparently they mean by that the best for THEM since they are medical or insurance types and we have by far the most expensive health care in the world.  Guys, private hospitals and insurance executives are making out like bandits at our expense! I’m not just blowing smoke here.  Sandy and I have toyed with the notion of retiring part time in Italy and one big consideration is the fact that Medicare is not portable across borders.  But there are several excellent European insurers who will insure each of us with the same or better coverage for about $170 per month.  Compare that to the $420 we and/or the state now pay for coverage which becomes more limited all the time.  Plus the amount we pay to the feds for future coverage. And we are two of the lucky ones who have insurance!  So in effect we are paying three times more and not getting a darned bit better care and in some ways far worse.

Surely it’s obvious to even the most recalcitrant nabob that the current U.S. system is unsustainable.  It is bankrupting our most vulnerable citizens, slowly, insidiously, sucking the lifeblood from our economy and making any attempt at responsible retirement planning a cruel joke.  I don’t have an ax to grind here, my father was a physician who despised the idea of socialized  medicine.  But at the same time he also despised the rampant commercialism he saw among the younger colleagues he brought into his practice.  To him medicine was a true calling; the most withering critique he could pronounce on a doctor was “He’s an entrepreneur.”

Is Obamacare the answer? I don’t have a clue but I admire him for trying to do something, anything about the current morass.  Would European-style single-payer care work in the U.S.?  I suspect it would but we’d have to suck it up  and dispense with some of the frills unless we were willing to pay more out of pocket, as they do in Italy.  But we already have had and continue to have our own ‘mafiosi’ with vested interests in maintaining the chaos and dysfunction in our current system for their own selfish ends.  And a depressing number of our mafia dons sit in the hallowed halls of our legislative bodies, most notably Congress. Spreading chaos and dysfunction.  Nothing will get done until we peons throw these bums out.  In the meantime, surely we can refrain from disrespecting the Italian system.  It’s pure slander and it’s immoral.  And we might even put aside our jingoistic chauvinism and learn a few things from Italy.
      Update:  Finally had to suck it up and go to the local ER for help since not even an Italian pharmacist can prescribe antibiotics without a doctor's prescription,  Sat in the waiting room for 1 hour 15 minutes, was seen by a very nice female physician who spoke some English and between her bad English and my bad Italian we did just fine.  Ten minutes later I walked out with prescriptions for Augmentin and a steroid.  Total cost:  zero.  Walked half a block to a pharmacy where a nice female pharmacist who spoke good English filled both prescriptions for 17 euro.  Best news of all:  took a taxi to the hotel where Fat Boy was just in time for dinner!