Storytellinginrome.com

The above website is for a tour of The Courtesans of Rome by the gifted storyteller, Massimo.  I took the tour the other day with my friend, Shelecia who was visiting.  This was a three + hour walking tour to see the artwork, architecture, churches associated with Renaissance Courtesans and prostitutes…do you know the difference?   Courtesans were women who were high class ladies of the night who lived in a palace and were under the protection of the high class official, be it Prince or Cardinal of the church…or Pope!  They became very wealthy, often making as much as today’s equivalent of $20,000 a day.  Jewels, silks, property and gifts were bestowed on them by their protectors.  They were highly educated, often very beautiful…altho not always, and were very classy women with independence and riches.  Wives didn’t fare so well!  As protected as Courtesans were, the street Prostitures were not…there were two sets of laws.  Street prostitutes had a night time curfew and they were tormented and tortured if caught at their profession…often with public whippings.  Their life expectancy was about 25 years.  We learned why Carravaggio was often reviled as a painter…he used known prostitutes as the subject for his Religious paintings…of Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary.  We saw the beautiful homes of the Courtesans on this tour with balconies where these women could advertise as pilgrims traveled to the Vatican.  We learned about where the prostitutes could best advertise their services and where the men could best ‘shop’ for services…in one specific church, no less.  And contraception was pretty grim, drinking lead water, eating Mercury or using a lemon!  Why contraception was encouraged by the Church.  This was such an educational and interesting tour…I can’t wait to get home to read all about the Borgias and other high class courtesans, their lives and patrons.  If you are coming to Rome, I highly  recommend this tour with Massimo…and it is only 20€ per person…a huge bargain for three hours that fly by.  I promise you will be entertained!

Please ignore the two weird ‘posts’ on these dates….this operator is having technical difficulties posting. My son is the computer whiz…not The Mom!  

Will try my 4th attempt to send the cooking class post later.  

i was getting emails that people were not hearing from me anymore or the blogs were strange and cut off in mid-sentence.  I have sent the ones in question again.  They all are titled. ” Resending ” with the dates.  One is about our cooking tour….this may have come to you several times as this was when the problems seemed to have started.  Then Thanksgiving.  A post for the Ghost/Torture tour.  Dec post for,Mass at St. Peter’s and Jubilee Door and another one sentence post of the two popes.  Two posts follow….100 Nativity Sets and the Toulouse Lautrec exhibit.  

In the future…what’s left of the year in Rome…I will end a post with ‘That’s all for today’ so you will know you,got…or didn’t get…the entire post.

That’s  it for today!

After the excitement of returning Nancy’s passport, I took a three hour nap…and even slept well last night.  What an ordeal!

Today, Andy’s friends, Cecile and Sandy and I left for Orvieto.  Nice easy train ride and we got to the convent with no problem.  Checked in, dropped off,our bags and went next door to our favorite place to have lunch.  It was delicious, as usual.  Then we walked thru the town and looked at all the shops.  Sandy and I went for a cappuccino in a little garden upstairs at a restaurant.  The weather has turned very cool, and I was glad to have my coat on.  Right after lunch, I went a few doors down to make reservations for dinner at the Zepplin Restaurant.  The owner and chef, Lorenzo said they were fully booked for tonight.  I told him we had tried to get in in June, but they were closed and my friend, Connor said we had to eat there.  Connor is a waiter in Dallas and when he heard that I was moving to Italy, he told me he had studied with Lorenzo for three months here in Orvieto.  So the name dropping did the trick!  He told us to come at 6 and it would be a set menu.  The restaurant was full when we got there, but there was a table for us right up front.  Everyone there had been for a cooking class from about 2-6pm.  We,were eating what they had prepared.  First course was a mixed appetizer plate.  A mozzarella ball, tomato, two toast points with cheese and sausage, a creamy, herbed cheese spread and a candied fruit slice.  The. Came a pasta dish…fresh pasta with a tomato sauce with a bit of sausage in it and chopped parsley.  Then 4 toast squares with a different topping on each.  Then the entree which was a pickled cabbage, pot roast and tomato…then dessert which was a sponge cake with cream filling and sour cherries.  And cappuccino.  What a delicious dinner.  We also had red and white Umbrian wines and water.  Now we are back at the convent and ready for bed.  Tomorrow, we have our cooking class in the countryside.  Will report on that tomorrow evening.  Good night!

Had a bit of excitement today.  Our friend, Nancy was picked up for her trip to the airport to fly home.  I went to the copy place to make a copy of my signature for e-Filing my taxes and sent it in, got back to the apartment and Andy was hanging out the window waiting for my return.  She shouted down that Nancy and I had each other’s passports!  I grabbed a cab and we headed to the airport.  Of course, in town the traffic was terrible, but once we got on the freeway, he floored it.  Got to Terminal 3 and Nancy and the Airline Lady were waiting…airline lady grabbed her passport and ran in to finish checking her in…she had 15 minutes til the desk closed and 45 minutes til flight time…so she made it!  We were both nervous wrecks…trying to look and act cool.  One nice thing, the cab driver and I conversed in Italian the whole way and it seemed to flow for me.  He spoke slowly, so I understood what he was saying.  He said one time he picked up a couple and delivered them to their hotel where the man realized he had left his jacket on the plane, so back to airport to get the jacket and then back to the hotel.  Came back to apartment, had lunch and going to collapse now!  Excitement over.  We leave for Orvieto tomorrow.

Friday we were planning a tour to Sicily for the day to Taormina, one of my favorite towns.  There is an old  Roman amphitheater there that has remaining upright columns that one can get a wonderful photo of Mt. Etna framed between them.  The seas are very rough and our boat trip was cancelled.  Probably saved me a bit of money as one of my favorite artists is there and I buy a piece of art from him every time I go.  Since our tour was cancelled, we went into town to have our money reimbursed.  The girls went back to the hotel to vegetate and I wandered the town.  Found a wonderful art store with handmade art – very quality work.  Found a wonderful ‘lamp’.  About two feet tall and rounded, a village scene of houses, windows, doors and all kinds of people inhabiting this town that has interior lighting.  A baker, women doing laundry and hangingit out the windows, ladies of the night in doorways, curtains blowing out, neighbors gossiping, even a Nativity scene with a cow and donkey looking out the windows.  I am sure it was a fortune, didn’t even ask as had no way to get it home.   I had lunch at a favorite spot and had delicious mussels and toast to soak in the juice.  Hope I can find good mussels in Dallas to fix when I get home.  They sure are good.  

Saturday morning, we left Tropea on the Little Engine that Could and went to another town to change trains for Naples.  There were two young women on the train with 4 dogs – each about four months old – that they had rescued and we’re taking to a shelter in Naples.   Hope these little critters can get adopted into a good forever home.  I held one for awhile and killed fleas on it.  Poor thing was scared and cried most of the time.  When we got to Naples, we took the little train to Pompeii.  When we got to Pompeii, it was pouring rain so we took a cab to our Bed & Breakfast that I had booked on line. It was very close to the ruins. When we pulled up in front of it, I was pretty nervous…it looked pretty sketchy.  Turned down a driveway and our fellow, Massimo, was right there to greet us.  Quiet a character.  Took us into a little cabin type apartment and it was wonderful!  Large, clean and comfortable.  The living room has a kitchenette with breakfast bar and stools, a breakfast table and chairs and a large leater sofa that made into a big comfortable bed.  TV on the wall.  Large bath, with a big wonderful shower.  A bedroom with another TV, a double bed and a twin bed.  Another hidden jewel.  We skipped the ruins because of the rain and went to dinner at a local place in town.  I had a delicious grilled sea bass and the girls had pasta.  Very pleased with out dinner.  Our driver picked us up and took us back and we were in bed very early!  Slept well until the storm of storms hit.  Haven’t heard that much rain coming down since I don’t know when…it was actually scary.  After awhile it stopped, but showers continued thru the night.  I do not feel well, might be a cold or allergies or just exhaustion, so I am staying at the hotel while the girls tour the Ruins of Pompeii.  We had thought about taking a tour to walk up Mt. Vesuvius, but think it will be a mass of mud after all the rain…so when they get back, we will probably grab a bite to eat and head back to Naples and Rome.  Our week in Tropea was just wonderful and so relaxing and I really appreciate Nancy for sharing it with us.  

Yesterday we went into Tropea town and had lunch.  Grilled fish plate and it was mouthwatering.  Having fresh fish every day is such a treat.  After lunch, the girls shopped a bit and I had our shuttle driver drop me off at the cemetery.  It is like New Orleans with all the graves above ground.  There are many huge crypts that are little chapels with altars.  I imagine when a new body is interred along the walls, a funeral mass is said right there.  There are gates and doors on the fronts that are quite ornate, as are the chapels. I spent an interesting hour wandering thru the rows of chapels, crypts and graves.  Then caught the shuttle and came back to the compound…just reading and writing until dinner time.  Had a bowl of cream of pumpkin soup for dinner…sufficient after the huge fish lunch.  We went to bed during a big rain downpour…glad we missed it while we were out and about.  

Yesterday we got up early and caught a shuttle to the docks for our all day boat adventure among the volcanic islands near Tropea and Sicily.  The first island was Stromboli.  We were there long enough to,walk around a bit and have a bruschetta…the biggest I’ve ever seen…could have fed four people.  It is a small fishing village with a black sand beach from the lava from the volcano.  Flowers and cactus browning in profusion.  We left there and went to the next island Lipia where we took a two hour bus trip around the island…also another volcano.  The island is covered with vegetation, altho it has no water supply of its own.  When it rains, the water is soaked into the pumice stone like a sponge and holds the water to hydrate the plants.  Flowers are everywhere, olive trees and huge masses of cactus.  There is a huge castle in ruins over the town and is supposed to be part of a six thousand year old structure.  There are big obsidian stones all over the island and obsidian is considered good luck here.  The beaches are black sand and the water is turquoise and clear…you can see small stones on the bottom.  On one side of the island is a former pumice quarry that was in full force until the 90’s when UNESCO shut it down.  Over 2000 workers had died from lung disease caused by breathing the pumice.  As we were leaving, I popped into a small church near the dock.  What a treat inside!  One one side a small town had been made in miniature with a canal in front of it.  The water moved and boats floated.  There were towns people going about their daily lives in the small buildings that were three to four feet high.  Women washing and hanging out laundry, a lace maker, a butcher cutting meat, a fisherman cleaning fish, a fish net maker, pushing a cart down the sidewalk, a pizza oven with a ‘fire’ going inside, a fat bellied fisherman, an old woman spinning wool.  You could even see inside the houses with tables set for meals.  The detail was incredible.  And there was the inevitable Nativity Scene.  I’m so glad I took the time to go inside.  While on this island we stopped for a snack.  It is the typical food ofthis island.  A large, thin slice of the bottom of a bagel it looks like.  Then stacked with tomatoes, olives, mozzarella cheese, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, capers and ricotta cheese.  Tuna could be added or salami.  Piled high…and all it was lacking were anchovies…in my opinion!  Our next island was another volcano with hot mud baths, and sulfur.  You could smell it upon docking.  Some of the people availed themselves of the mud…especially the children.  Fortunately, there were showers to wash the mud off after the mud bath.  We got back to our compound just in time for dinner.  I had a pasta with pumpkin sauce and bacon…very tasty.  Showered and hit the bed for a good night sleep.

Saturday we left for Tropea…way south of Rome and Naples.  Our 6 hour train ride to Rosaria was uneventful and really passed quickly.  We had a 30 minute wait there to change trains to Tropea.  A man and wife I sat next to on the train were so nice and the man ran into the station to check on which train track we needed to wait by.  People have been so nice to go the extra mile to help us.  The ‘train’ to Tropea arrived.  Three cars and it chugged like it had a lawn mower motor.  The Little Train that Could!  Our driver was waiting for us and took us to the hotel or whatever we should call it.  It is a timeshare place.  A compound of lovely apartments, a beautiful swimming pool, restaurant and bar with a mini market.  The grounds are spectacular and immaculately groomed.  Bougainvillea, lantana, cactus, hibiscus, roses, vines and olive trees that are hundreds of years old..loaded with olives.  There are date palms loaded with dates. And hundreds of geckos, scurrying everywhere.  One lives in the olive tree outside the restaurant and we have named him Steve…after the Geico’s gecko’s cousin, Steve.  When we arrived at the compound, we were hungry, so ran to the restaurant and each had a plate of grilled shrimp.  We have to de head them and peel, but they are delicious.  They gave us packets of hand wipes that we still can’t get open.  Need scissors.  Nice offer but useless!  Our apartment is very nice.  Nancy has a room with a double bed.  We have a kitchen and dining room.  Andy has a cot next to the big patio.  I have a tiny room with bunk beds…I took the bottom bunk!  It has a small armoire and is cute and cozy…just like I like it.  The patio overlooks the compound and the sea in the distance.  Slept well.   Yesterday after breakfast and coffee, we took the shuttle to the town of Tropea which is way below us.  We walked thru the town, did a bit of shopping and had a wonderful lunch.  Nancy and I both had an eggplant Parmesan dish…altho I thought we only ordered one for her…but because I asked about it, I got one too.  She got a grilled tuna that looked delicious, and I got a fish soup.  It came in a broth the waiter called ‘soap’ maybe meaning soup…with two grilled fish with heads, a giant shrimp with a head, mussels, and two little calamaris that didn’t look appetizing in their natural state.  The soup was wonderful.  Andy got melon with prosciutto.  Both restaurants that had been recommended were closed.  I guess because it was a Sunday.  We went to a tiny piazza that overlooks the sea-absolutely clear and a beautiful light green water with a long white, sandy beach.  Walked around the town, then caught the shuttle back to the compound.  After picking us up, the driver picked up the group down at the beach.  We passed a wonderful old cemetery on the way to the beach, so either Wednesday or Thursday, I’m going to ask him to drop us off there for an hour and pick us up on his next pass.  It looks fascinating.  Might need two hours.  Will take crackers and peanut butter just in case!  A picnic among the dearly departed.  We rested a bit and then went to dinner.  All of us ordered a grilled salmon.  A huge piece that was perfectly cooked with whole black peppercorns.  Having a peppercorn with each bite was divine!  Then we went to bed and a good night’s sleep.  Today is a down day.  The girls are sunbathing and going to swim and I’m planning to read, sew bunnies and play with the computer.  Tomorrow we are taking a boat to Isola Eiola and sightseeing.  There must be tennis courts here;  just saw two walking by with their rackets and balls.  

That’s it for today.