Bongiorno Cinque Terre

Unbelievable weekend. I left early Friday morning for Cinque Terre (five gorgeous fishing villages connected by footpath along the northwestern coast of Italy just south of Genova. This was another trip with Kelvin Bates from Lakeside and a couple of his friends – we realized that we seem to have a tendency to go to Italian speaking places together! Although with Italy itself and Ticino, Switzerland we may have already exhausted our options…

I would like to THANK MY MOM for encouraging to go on this jaunt. I have the research paper about the legacy of Calvinism due on Monday and a big test later this week. I was going to have out and study in Geneva but when I talked to my mom on the phone she said – and I quote – “work shmerk!”. I was quite diligent last week getting all my interviews and research done before I left and I’m SO GLAD that I minded my mother and made it to Italy!

Making friends with an Italian Magician

First off, I love trains. They’re pricey, but part of the joy! I did work all during the Geneva-Milano train but on the train from Milano to Cinque Terre I had an unbelievable time making friends with Italians. Have I mentioned how much I love random encounters of people? Well this certainly qualified.

Kelvin and my other friends were in a different compartment because we made our reservations separately, but I didn’t mind at all because I find that trains can be a really fun way to make friends. (Note – the border crossing into Italy was literally just two Italian policemen glancing at our passports. They saw I was American and hardly even opened it but they examined every page of the passports of the two Russian ladies next to me…). Anywho – my Italian train compartment was me, a middle aged lady, and a guy in his mid/late twenties. We got to talking because I ordered a little espresso from the train man and they looked really worried. After a moment he blurted out – “Please do not judge the Italian coffee from this coffee! This is the train coffee!” From there I saw that the guy was reading an English book so I asked him about it…. turns out he’s trying to learn English for – wait for it – his Magic career.

Yes, I shared my train compartment with the official magician for the Italian branch of the Kinder Chocolate company. He does magic shows for kids all over Italy and even on TV sometimes! He was incredibly warm and kind and basically facilitated a conversation between the three of us because the lady didn’t speak any English. I could follow the gist of very basica conversation because it’s so similar to Spanish. They wanted to tell me all about the right foods to eat in Cinque Terre (seafood of course, a special kind of noodle made with pounded chestnuts, a pizza that involves chickpeas, ficcacia bread – this is where it comes from, and pesto – this is the homeland of pesto!!!). They also explained that though both of them live in the north now, they have “Southern Italy in their hearts”. The young guy, Scizzo, went, “I am from Sicilia, bang-bang Mafia, you know?” Yes… I have heard of the Mafia. In the 1940s many Southern Italians moved north for jobs and remain to this day but still maintain their separate identity. They explained to me that the reason they wanted to make friends with me is because they have Southern Italy in their hearts so they are warm and loving (yay stereotypes!). The lady told us all about her life – she was really amazing. She lost her husband when she was fairly young with a small daughter who is about my age now but has some health problems.... but she has a very warm view on life. In just a three hour train ride she gained quite a fondness for me – she wanted my address in Geneva to send me postcards from her hometown. Then she gave me a bracelet that she had in her purse – so I gave her a pair of earrings that I made last year at Whitman. This is really my favorite bit of traveling – meeting people, exchanging ideas. The other favorite travel experience would be seeing beautiful things…. which is basically all of Cinque Terre so I was in luck!

Cinque Terre!

You never thought I’d get to the five seaside villages, did you? We got to Riomaggiore in the mid afternoon – time enough to check into an AWESOME private apartment for the five of us that was cheaper than communal hostels in Switzerland….oh Switzerland and your devilishly strong currency. The villages are built into little valleys leading to the sea, so the houses are all jumbled on top of each other which makes an artistic array of angles. An artisit must have designed these villages – the building are all painted warm shades of yellow, pink, and orange and the occasional purple with green or amber or some other lovely color windows…. then there are the sandstone or peach churches, bright blue water, lush green hills, and sheer cliffs into the Sea. SO ugly. We wandered into a church service and around the beautiful town, had an Italian coffee overlooking the Sea, and later a divine meal. That night we went down to the beach and Kelvin and I swam in the Mediterranean Sea! It wasn’t too cold but apparently only the Pacific North Westerners could muster it J. Beautiful moonlight, gentle rocking Sea….wow.

On Saturday we hiked between the towns and took in some more beauty, and of course, local cuisine. Gelato! Ficcacia bread! Interesting spinach-egg – pizza-like thing! At points it felt like the jungle… there are palm trees and cacti all over the place. An extremely mercurial climate. Pictures are really the only way to describe it, so:

It started to rain in the afternoon….and rain HARD. But even that gave a different kind of beauty to the landscape. So we were soaked and had to get another Italian Cappucino to recoup. That night after we’d finally warmed up and the rain had let up we took a jaunt down the pathway that connects Riomaggiore (where we stayed) with Manarola. It’s called “Via delle Amore” – pathway of love – because it was the first path between any of the villages – built just before WW1. It opened up all sorts of social and romantic possibilities for the young people of the two towns. Before that everyone had only ever married people from their tiny villages. A tradition began of meeting along the pathway and fastening a lock with you sweetheart in, as Rick Steves describes it in his guidebook, “a lovey-dovey spot”. People still do it so the path looks like a modern-art display in spots.

I’m not in Levanto waiting for my train to Milano. It’s almost an hour late…that’s fine. I’m not in Switzerland anymore! The entire time I’ve been writing this two older men have been playing the slots in this little Train Station café. Something I would NEVER see in Switzerland. The Swiss like their stability. It’s pretty incredible how different two nations that share a huge border like this can be. And I’m in Northern Italy!

Life, life, you are fascinating. So once again, a thanks to my marvelous mommy who encouraged me to go on this jaunt. And a shout out to Mae Rice who LOVES Italy. I can’t wait for you to explore here, you will love it in person as much as in concept.

Things about me that I contemplated a lot this weekend:

1. I need to live near the ocean

2. I need to have a dog in my life

3. I love chaos and adventure but above all I prefer the comfort of home

I hade a couple hours layover between trains in Milano so I jaunted through town. Mostly wandered around the Duomo for a very long time. Duomo is the fourth largest Cathedral in Europe (after the Cathedrals in Rome, Seville, and London). The Milanese started building it in the 1400s…and completed construction in 1810. They wanted to get some respect from the Italians down South in the Vatican….they certainly put in the time! And it shows. The Cathedral just keeps going. It was built to hold 40,000 people – the population of Milan when construction started. Breathtaking. I then wandered around the Galleria where there are a bunch of incredibly famous Milanese fashion stores like Prada…. for a mall it’s gorgeous. For anything it’s gorgeous, actually. I thought I was headed for a museum but I was going the exact wrong direction so instead I bought a cheap street snack that tasted sort of like a nut but also seemed like a fruit…. and talked to the old men hanging out at the stand in Italian for a while. Communication was minimal but good intentions were maximal.

Love! Arreviderci!

~Alice

Reveling in the Random!

Hello friends. As you likely know I'm a fairly open and outgoing person. This often results in me making friends in the most unlikely places. Switzerland is SUCH a fantastic place for this because it's so, so SAFE here. Don't worry, "je fais attention!" - I'm careful - but I've got to recount some recent friends I've made.

Last Thursday I took the tram across town to visit the Cathedral Saint-Pierre (the church where Jean Calvin preached). I was also visiting the fantastic International Museum of the Reformation which is right next door. I highly recommend this museum to anyone visiting Geneva - not only are there some fascinating artifacts, but every guest gets the recorded guide - in English or almost any other language as you please - and they do a fantastic job of tying the whole history together. THere are two interactive audiovisual performances. I think I've said this before - the Swiss are DOWN for interactive audiovisuals... it's pretty hilarious. ANYWAY! As I believe I mentioned before I met an elderly lady on the bus on the way there and we chattered away in French for ten fifteen minutes. She gave me her name and number and insisted I call her for a tour of the area at some point. Well I did, of course, and it was unbelievable!

This lady is a kook in the best way. She's from Bretagne but has lived in Geneva for 50 years. She collects all sorts of little "truks" - things - and is pleasantly disorganized. After hanging out with unbelievably regimented Swiss people for a month and a half it was really fun to laugh with her about how we both find them absurd. She made me a magnificent chicken dish, vegetable pure, great red wine and an apple tart. She wanted to hear ALL about my family and studies etcetera. Then she took me to Le Chateau de Madame Staul in Coppet - near her home. Madame Staul was a revolutionary thinker of her time - she was completely opposed to Napoleon's tyrannical philosophy and managed to keep her Barony out of his control. The tour was just us two and another older lady.

So of course I made friends with her too. I'm doing a project on the legacy of John Calvin in Geneva... and I struck up a conversation with her about Protestantism - she's Calvinist. So we shared a coffee and talked Calvinism for an hour! I love older people. They are so rich with life.

The final older person that I have befriended lately was a Pastor... I called him because I found a course online about Protestantism that I thought I could sit in on.... Turns out it's a two year cycle. And spealing a foreign language on the phone is much more difficult than in person so it was quite awkward. After all that I just straight up asked him for an interview and he's like, "Oh! Okay!" Before we hung up he said, "So for you can know to me I am an old, fat man. Actually I am very huge." He was such a sweet person. And he had some fantastic insights - about the origins of Geneva as an international city stemming from it's history of welcoming Protestant refugees from all over Europe - particularly France (Hugenots), Spain, Italy, the Balkans. It was the ONLY place in Latin Europe where people could freely worship and study Protestantism. Even John Knox, founder of Presbyterianism, came to Geneva to study! It was THE center of learning. That's also in part because Calvin insisted on universal primary education. Truly universal - for girls too! THAT was a step ahead of the times. His motivation was that he believed all people should be able to read so they could study the Bible and thus have a direct relationship with God and not rely on others to translate God's message. The result was that Geneva grew and grew as an intellectual powerhouse. Voltaire came here when he was expelled from Paris and of course Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a native Genevois.

Geneva was a nothing town before Calvin - fewer than 10,000 people lived here and it was very, very poor. With the unifying influence of Calvin and Reform Christianity people flocked to the city - it more than doubled in population in ten of Jean Calvin's first years here. Additionally because Geneva is located in the heart of Europe - at the Cross-roads both of north and south and east/central and west - almost all flows of religious refugees naturally stopped through Geneva for a time even if they continued on because there wasn't room for them. Thus the influence of Calvinism spread north through the Swiss cities of Lausanne, Neuchatel, Biel, Berne, Basel and into Germany all the way to Berlin! Geneva obviously remains an international city to this day! Like I know I've said before nearly half of the citizens of Geneva proper are not Swiss. It is still a city of compromise, thought, and multiculturalism...

Of course the migration patterns how changed considerably... but that's something to talk about another time. We also talked quite a bit about how the actual religious doctrine preached by the Reform Church has changed over the centuries. I think I'll hold off on talking about that until I know more. It was particularly intriguing to me because my family is Presbyterian and Lutheran so the Reformation is a part of my history - it's always exciting to feel such a connection to a place, to know that a place shaped your family's history and culture.

A tout a l'heure! Must do some homework now. Love to you all,

~Alice