rundown ’talian towns
Certaldo, Italy
While not wanting to be hasty in passing judgement, the general impression we have of Italy so far is that it is a bit rundown – apart from relatively isolated instances of painted facades, mosaics or painted tiles inlaid into plasterwork, the buildings are mostly shabby, a bit scruffy, unkempt. Paint is peeling and plaster falling in great strips, there are fewer flowers than any other European country so far visited and the towns are bigger, more sprawling, less intimate, somewhat lacking character.
To link the towns and villages, avoiding the autostrada like the plague, we are coming in contact with less than smooth undermaintained often narrow roads.
Looking out from the back of The Bear Cave where I sit typing, I can see an old brick bridge sporting graffiti, a stone wall on the far side of a dry riverbed falling into disrepair, crumbling steps leading up to the road. Across the street is a three-storeyed brick building. Once it was covered with plaster and paint. Now both are tearing themselves away from the walls. With no effort made to disguise them, pipes dissect the building’s face into expressionless rectangles. The roof is almost covered with tiles, but not quite. It is, however, populated with a forest of television aerials. Arched doorways are filled with solid timber doors or pull-down ugly corrugated roller ones, all closed, along with the green shutters at every window. Uninviting, almost threatening – certainly not welcoming.
Up the hill is supposed to be another story. Heralded as the most picturesque medieval town around, we anticipate with some eagerness a sojourn in narrow cobbled streets. Cobbled, yes. Narrow, not so much. This town, already mentioned in written records by 1163, was designed on a grand scale – wide streets, generously proportioned buildings.
Is that what differentiates it from quaint British or cute French villages?
Partly.
As we wander, our eyes pick out other contributing features – a large facade houses only one flowerbox near the door. In either of our previous two countries every one of the twelve windows would have framed an opulent display of colour.
Not only are the buildings bigger, they are also squarer. No spiral staircases encased in curved walls, no rounded edges, no Rapunzel towers.
In contrast, especially to France, here there is also a more uniform colour. Instead of a wide variety of colours and shades mixed together in harmony and contrast, here all shutters are either dark brown or forest green and house walls range merely from cream to terracotta. Additionally, instead of stones hewn in different shapes and sizes, there is even more uniformity poking out from peeling plaster in the form of identical red bricks.
All in all, this adds up to a different experience, not at all unpleasant, but perhaps not as delightful as some of the European countries we have come through thus far.
Maybe rundown is too strong a word – perhaps *ordinary* would be more accurate.
But again we find the food is far from ordinary. The gelato is sweetly, cool-ly, deliciously oooh-la-la, Grandpa finds the best coffee he has had in twenty years, we finally discover gorgonzola cheese (which we have been looking for since we read “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs” over a decade ago), and we feast on a dinner of spaghetti tossed in basil pesto, topped with a kilo of fresh green beans, mozarella cheese, a taste of sausage and toasted pinenuts. Not at all shabby!
Today:
Time on the road: not a minute
Distance covered: 0km
Tags: 2008/09, food, history, housing, postcard: Italy
rayres
Perhaps “rustic” is a good euphemism for run down? 😀
I think the food will more than make up for the environment!!
Enjoy! Yummo!!!
Love the pool!
I wonder what govt policies influence the situations you have mentioned. It would be interesting to note any difference in ‘national and house pride’ (for want of a better term) too. Still, rustic is good 🙂
Thanks for the title of another book to read. I want to know the significance of the cheese now!
Hi there – just managed to catch up with your excellent blogs after our trip to (very wet and windy and often foggy) Scotland via cousin Liz Jackson’s and, yes, Warkworth!
Your unknown fruit is Passion Fruit. The Passion Flower is supposed to represent the Crucifixion. (Three nails, the Cross and the (black) Crown of Thorns). One can eat the fruit.
I won’t go into Mozarella cheese though!
BFN – Mike
Well I still think our pool had more water in it!! Even if the kids did put it there… Had less kids in it if I remembe correctlz….
P.