Geese is the word

So we did get to go to the Palio d'Oca after all. And it turned out to be a raft race on the River Adige. Forty-two teams from the various suburbs of Trento, all dressed up in Medieval gear. The object was to raft down the river and carry out various tasks en route - going through a slalom gate, mooring then getting out and throwing darts at a target and, crucially, putting a metal ring round the neck of the giant papier machee goose hung out over the river (here the tradition also included kissing the goose... maybe they should have just goosed it...). The Adige is actually about as wide at Trento as the Thames is at say Richmond, but very fast flowing. It's also bright green being made up of glacier melt water. This meant that for teams who overshot the goose or any of the other trials there was no going back for a second attempt, and herein lay the skill of the thing. It has to be said that as sporting events I've been to have gone, the Palio was a whole lot of fun. Looks like Romagnano won in the end ...

The Eye on The Highlands

It's becoming the thing to climb a mountain on the last day. Cima Vezzana (aka Pizzo di Levico) is a lot higher than Arthur's Seat, but then I did drive 4/5th of the way up the thing. At 1908m, I've been looking across the valley at the mountain for the last three and a half months. The first evening I was looking at it, in March, I couldn't believe that there was a building at the very point of its perfect pyramidal peak. How the hell had anyone built that? I later found out that the building was an World War 1 Austro-Hungarian Fort, l'occhio degli altipiani - "the Eye on the highlands" aka Spiz Verle. When I finally got up onto the plateau after a couple of weeks, I realised that what looked from Levico to be a phenomenally high ridge is actually a 5000 foot scarp - the land behind is relatively flat. And it was across this high plateau that thousands of Austrian troops and Italian Alpini lost their lives. Strange business war. The Austrians were on the top of the Lagorai Mountains. The Italians were down in the Valsugana and the other valleys. They could have just left the Austrians up there. Eventually the war would have been won or lost somewhere else. But no, it doesn't work like that. The Italians went up and killed and died in their thousands, as testified by monuments put up in the 1930s (by the fascists).

So, what's scarry about Forte Vezzana (along with the lower Forte Spiz Verle a mile or so away down on the plateau) is the way that, although the walls are still standing, the interior has been bombed to f*** and is full of tons of rubble - there would have been no chance for people in there. No, I'm lying. What's scarry about the higher fort is that it's on the edge of oblivion. The path to it runs along the very edge of a completely fuck-off precipice. I don't even want to think about how high this bastard is. The edge is sheer. You'd probably fall straight for at least three hundred feet and then roll for another thousand.

It was possible to get into this fort, unlike Spiz Verle. I climbed up a couple of levels on a spiral staircase with holes in the floor. Blank windows looked out across the void. The view down to the valley was fairly hazy, but all around were mountains, lots with snow cover in late June - the Pale di San Martino to the east and the Brentas to the west, each group a good 40 miles away, and snow covered hills off to the far north west, probably the Parco di Stelvio which is a good 100 miles.

Up on the fort were four or five memorial plaques to people who'd gone over the edge. There was no indication if they'd fallen or jumped, but they were all young men, the oldest 31. There were no memorials later than the 1950s. This didn't help, as what really freaks me about being in such places is not vertigo so much as a terror that I might suffer a momentary weirdness and decide to jump. This is completely irrational, but that's how it is, I felt the same last year on Ben Vorlich and at the Bow Fiddle Rock on the Moray Firth. At the narrowest part of the walk on Cima Vezzana one only had to step literally three feet to the left, or stumble... I know I'm not alone in this, I think everybody has these feelings in high places. This is probably why real climbers are always complete nutters.

But the fort was an amazing place. I could just about make out the house with my flat in Levico about a kilometer away but 6000 feet below. I'd got up and started at 6.30, and it was still only half past eight, so I waved. It took a long time to get back down - an hours' walk down a rough path back to the car, then half an hours drive back down to the valley. It's funny how good you feel after scarring yourself stupid sometimes. Scarred, but strangely invigorated. I'm glad I did it. There's some more fantastic photos on this Italian site.

OK, so I'm slow

Oh, right, right. Chocolate biscuits.

Just got back

It's 1081 miles by road from Via del Masieron to Mottram Road.

God, this place is dark.

Cat alive and well though thinner (this is no bad thing).

Reflections follow...

Gelato di oggi

is green apple and anise. Weird, but wonderful.

Art, innit?

To Venice again yesterday and the Biennale. Amazing stuff. It all happens in a park at the bottom of the city with a view over the lido. Each country exhibiting has a paviliion which varies from the GB one (neo-palladian villa. Fantastic art by Chris Ofile. No air conditioning) to the Korean one (ultra high tech. Crap nothing in particular art - mainly featuring a motorcycle delivery pick-up wedged in a door. Fantastic air conditioning, however, and windows with view over lagoon). Chris Ofile's stuff was magical - fantasy images of an art deco African couple romancing amongst jungle ferns, dots of hard paint giving a feel of mosaic, the whole space bathed in Green Red and Black, hints of Rosseau in the jungle lushness.

Ofile's signiture Elephant shit wasn't too in your face either. His exhibit was infinitely better that the US one to which it has been compared, whch appeared be simply a record of the depiction of black people in Venetian art and commerce (none of which appeared particularly racist - although one felt that that was the point being made. Even the packet of 'Moor of Venice' chocolate biscuits is surely commemorating rather than denigrating a fictional character). Chris Ofile's work was brilliant, exciting and celebratory, the American guy's snivveling and failing to make any coherant point. And Ofile comes from Manchester.

Shame about the ventilation though. Given that the UK pavillion actually was hot enough to be in the jungle, of the two it was the Korean one we spent more time in. The best (of about forty we saw), was definately the Danish pavillion - all coloured glass, tricks of light, kalidascopes to peer down. Should be some good piccys if the ones we took come out. The Spanish pavillion was blocked off at the front and you were only allowed in by going round the back and if you had a Spanish passport. Hmm. Australian pavillion full of humanoid meerkats from hell (so a naturalistic approach to Australia presumably). Interesting stuff, all in all.

Burnout

It’s been pigging hot the last couple of weeks. I went into Trento by train this morning to find the school’s bank. The accountant has some sort of scheme to save tax which involves being paid part of one’s salary by cheque, so off I went with my passport to cash it at this particular branch. It turned out to be in a posh part of the City Centre I hadn’t visited before. Strangely enough in this weather it’s more pleasant to be in the city than out. Trento is very well treed with lots of shady squares and cool streets between high medieval buildings, so it was v pleasant wandering round.

The school were less than chuffed when I told them I’d be finishing on Saturday. However, it sounds as though although I’d said I was in need of a break they were setting me up for another bastard week next week, including an extra six hours with the (admittedly amiable) Feds. The fact is, of all things you can do for a living, teaching is one that’s impossible to sustain at a constant level indefinitely, hence why its only one of the things in my portfolio. In the last week or so, I’ve got to the stage of hating the sound of my own voice droning on in the classroom. In Business ESP you have to take an interest in people’s jobs, so there I was at Scania Trucks last week, asking intelligent questions about refrigerated trucks and semi trailers... and asking myself how badly I really wanted to know this stuff. Burnout is why state school teachers need the long summer holidays, despite the fact that they get a lot of stick for them. Course, if you’re an EFL Teacher you may tend to feel inclined to wield that stick as you end up in jobs where the only way to get a long break is to take unpaid time off. What I need is a proper job in a University… maybe in a handsome northern capital city… wa guid chippies… an’ pints a heavy… an a braw huge festival… I’ve just finished another Ian Rankin today, roll on Edinborgo.

Roll on deodorant.

Photos

I’ve been attempting to use Yahoo Photos as a host for photos on this page, but without success as Yahoo are probably wise to the idea. I’ll put up some good Italian pics here when we get home, meantime follow this link to see what we’ve been up to.

Bears and Goats

It was at the Levico spring fair that we first encountered Lunelli’s Bear Root Sauce. We’ve no idea what Bear Root Ciberbis Alpina is (but it might be chicory…), but there’s 15% of it in Mr Lunelli’s wonderful sauce, along with sun dried tomatoes and Extra Virgin Olive Oil (but not Vergine di Pergine) and other goodies, and it tastes scrummy as a pasta sauce or on crackers with Goat Cheese.

One wonders if the fearless flying Lunelli brothers scour the hillsides for wild bear root before one of the 15 wild Brown Bears still about in these hills gets it. Or gets them.

They do a mean Strawberry Jam too.


Go stick your head in a Goose

Trento is still full of posters advertising the Feste di Vigiliana and carrying a picture which appears to show teams of men in medieval costumes attempting to penetrate a six foot high plastic goose - follow the link to see what I mean. This seems to be the Palio d’Oca and it looks like we’re going to miss it, but there’s more info here.

Italian supermarkets, like Greek ones, have large departments selling school exercise books, many of which feature the eternally cheerful Mosky Cat (whose link needs checking sadly). Meanwhile it seems my own Cheshire Cat, Django, has moved in with Brenda next door in Broadbottom.

Keith don't go to the town of Te-rento (Nils Lofgren whinges)

It may have been that accidentally putting 20euros worth of diesel in the car and then continuing 200 miles to Brescia Airport to get Mandi Terry and Tom to their flight last Sunday may have been a bad move. It may be the blown head gasket that occured last night, some five days later was a coincidence. However, all in all, its been a bit of a shitty week. It seems that the breakdown cover on the car runs out next Saturday and the insurers won't extend it - apparently they won't do this from outside the UK, though frankly if you rang them on a mobile and used your credit card how would they ever know? Anyway, its definately time to go home. Fixing the car is going to cost 1200euro, but then it has done 146,000 miles, something was going to happen eventually, though for that money at home I'd probably have scrapped it. I'd agreed to work the last three weeks of June (and cancelled a much better paid block in Edinburgh) on condition it would have been quiet and I could have had two long weekends; in the three months I've been here I've worked four nights a week till 10 PM, had Fridays off, then worked Saturday mornings. Apart from Bank Holidays I haven't had two consequtive days off, so haven't got to see a lot of Italy. The school promised the quiet weeks but then dropped me with a compleltly shitty one last week - including a 10PM finish followed by a 8AM one the following day, and it looked like next week was going to be the same, so I didn't feel too bad about ringing today and saying I would finish on Saturday. I think I probably needed to do this job though - it's been a long time since I've worked abroad, and I needed to remind myself that its not the same as being on holiday. All in all, with not knowing the language, it's been a struggle, and I'll be glad to get home. And we've got completion of the new house on Monday!!! Then back to Edinburgh at the end of the month! Yo!

Another phonological moment

The lady in the cafe/refuge on the top of the Manghen Pass greeted us in German - not unreasonable seeing her main clientele seemed to be millions of passing Gay German Bikers, obviously relishing the challenge of taking their enormous BMW Roadsters up the hairpins in top gear. I said "we don't speak German" in Italian, and instantly regretted it. It came out really snooty, and its not even entrely true, it's just I usually feel I can only cope with one language at a time and the few times I've attempted to speak German to people on this trip I've ended up regretting it. I really must ake some lessons in German when I get back. And French. And Spanish...

So I was surprised when I came back from the loo and Tom said "anyway, she speaks English". "Really?" I said. "Yes", he said, "she put the drinks down and said 'there you go'". I pointed out that if the lady's English was sophisticated enough to say something colloquial like "there you go" we'd have had her life story by this time, but Mandi confirmed that's what had been said. A few minutes later the lady put down some more scoff, and said it again: but what she acutally said was "Prego" (you're welcome); but pronounced "pray ya go". One phomeme different. Makes ya think. Or not.

Was that beer Forst?

No, it went down very easily.