We took friends on a Lunigiana castle tour this weekend. The weather wasn’t bad. The surprise came at Malgrate Castle, where the normally empty parking lot was full, and a tour bus had parked smack in the middle so that people had to gingerly back out of parking places. The unmarked and as yet untried Ristorante La Torre di Malgrate was animated with voices of coach tourists at 2:45 pm, which happens to correspond to the time we arrived.

The castle opens at three. Well, it’s Italy, so 3:05. The tower, when observed in the right light, looks a bit ominous, as if stained with the blood of those who’d fallen from (near) the top and washed (down) with boiling oil. Perhaps I am reading into the scene. Excuse me.

Malgrate castle, like most of the castles in the Lunigiana, is a Malaspina castle, devised to protect the byways and waterways through the Lunigiana (and extract taxes from travelers, just like the current castle charges you 2 Euros to pass through). The castle in its current configuration was built around 1275, but was certainly built upon older ruins. It’s been recently restored and there is an exhibit inside about the restoration with pictures of the ruins they started with. Impressive.

Inside the tower there are frescoes and some heraldic insignia (you can’t go up to the top, so those of you who suffer palpitations upon thoughts of ascending tiny, internal staircases can, without fear, take your he-man spouses to this castle to poke around). Over on the left is a picture of the best fresco, the one that appears just left of the entrance to the upper story, easily accessed via external stairs.

One of the heraldic arms caught my attention as an Alfisti (that’s someone who has owned and liked an Alfa Romeo so much that he just had to go out and buy an Italian abode to live in and murder the Italian language from).

The snake swallowing a man (child, they say, but it’s not my idea) is the symbol of Milan (and the Visconti who ruled it) and appears on just about every Alfa badge

It costs a mere 2 Euro to go inside Malgrate Castle. You should. A walk around the 16th century village is nice as well.

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Matera hasn’t changed a whole lot since I was last there many years ago to see its most spectacular festival, the Festa della Modonna Bruna.

Hotels are still hidden in the monochromatic landscape. In September, the crowds aren’t so visible, although the restaurant we chose to eat at was fully booked at lunch, Ristorante Nadì. It was so good we booked a table for dinner. And they have the provocatively titled “crapiata”, a soup of grains and beans like ceci, fave, and white beans, drizzled with some spectacular olive oil. I’m now a crapiata fan. I wish we could get “I heart Crapiata” bumper stickers.

The September weather is perfect; you can eat lunch outside and you can still climb the sides of Matera’s “bowl” and not feel the effects of too much heat.

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If you visit Pompeii, you’ll get the idea of how big a city it was. It takes a while to take it all in. Eventually, you’ll get the feel of the place, where the main street was, where the government offices were, that sort of thing.

But the night tour is something else again. It’s called Le Lune di Pompei. We took it in Italian, so we probably didn’t get all of the nuances, but it was interesting to see things you don’t ordinarily get to see.

In the picture above, the ancient graffiti of Pompeii is being projected below the Italian translation—with narration provided by a guide dressed like a resident of Pompeii in its heyday, I’m presuming.

The interesting graffiti aside, it’s a bit of a hokey tour, with big white balloons representing the moon popping out all over while a silver tongued interpreter tells you what’s what. But Pompeii under moonlight is quite interesting, so, if you can afford the 20 euros, go. The tour is a little over an hour, and they do it in English but only occasionally, so make sure you reserve for an English tour if that’s what you want.

All in all though, I preferred the light as the sun set on a perfect (meaning clearing-storm perfect) evening for wandering the ruins.

In other words, like this:

More info & reservations: Le Lune di Pompei

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It was a glorious day, a day for having the most succulent Tagliata de Manzo con Rucola one could ever imagine (@Ristorante Pizzeria Al Pozzo just outside the walls of Filetto). Then heading to Pontremoli for coffee in the very same piazza where the photo was taken. Then to Naturalmente Lunigiana for three kinds of aged, artisan cheeses and some organic yogurt (11 Euro in all). Fine, fine day as you can see from the picture.

Upon returning to the casa of course and saying hi to the neighbors, they each in turn informed us of the rain coming tomorrow.

Oh darn.

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Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve been a little busy with other projects to dedicate time to post writing on Blog from Italy, alas.  I’m going to make up for this a little by writing about what is in the news in Italy at the moment, which is rather a lot, actually.

First up, there is the ever widening rift between Silvio Berlusconi and his former number two, Gianfranco Fini.

Berlusconi, always one for a fight, has continued to use his control of certain sections of Italy’s media to try to blacken Fini’s good name.  Basically, the mud slinging revolves around a house in Monte Carlo and whether or not Fini owns the house, and whether he used offshore funds to acquire it.  Fini has been stating that documents appearing in Berlusconi friendly press are largely fabricated.  Whether or not anybody in Italy believes this, remains to be seen.  The political war rages on.  Expect more broadsides from both sides, until one or the other is brought down.

Next, there was the Berlusconi politician who responded to allegations from another politician, Angela Napoli, that many of the female members of Berlusconi’s party all but slept themselves to the top – sex for political power.  By the way, Angela Napoli forms part the Fini break-away-group which has recently split away from Berlusconi’s party.

In a response to Napoli’s comments by Giorgio Stracquadani, a member of Berlusconi’s party, Stracquadani said he did not think there is anything wrong with ladies using their natural assets to get ahead in politics in Italy.  In other words, casting couch politics is fine in the eyes of some of Italy’s politicians, or so it would seem.

The Vatican, that champion of moral standards, has kept rather quiet on the issue, possibly because of another little storm which is brewing in its backyard.

Vatican Banker Facing Money Laundering Allegations

Indeed, talking of the Vatican, the Pope’s visit to the UK has been making the news, as always, but there is a little something else which has caught the headlines.

One of the Vatican’s bankers is facing accusations of money laundering, which he denies.  The Vatican is standing behind their banker man and asserts that it is confident that nothing untoward has been going on.  Time will tell as investigations unravel.

And on the subject of banking

Unicredit CEO Resigns

A boardroom battle within Italian banking group, the Europe leaning Unicredit bank, has resulted in the bank’s president, CEO, chairman, or whatever, calling it a day.

This gentleman, Alessandro Profumo, was unhappy with increasing Libyan control of the Unicredit bank, and, it appears that a group of other bankers who hold shares in the listed Unicredit group were unhappy with Profumo, who had transformed Unicredit from a regional bank in Italy to one of the largest players in the banking sector in Europe.

As a result of Profumo’s spending spree, while he was building up Unicredit’s presence in Europe, Unicredit’s profits fell dramatically.  This did not help, and after much tooing and froing, Profumo left.  Some consider the loss of this transparent boss to be worrying, others are happy things can be kept all lovey dovey in Italy, but, there appears to be a risk that control of the Unicredit group may fall into the hands of the Germans. Expect an ad hoc law from the Berlusconi government to prevent this from happening any day now.

Regardless of what happens to Uncredit, Alessandro Profumo, its former chairman, should have no problem finding another job, if he wants one, that is. Profumo laid potentially excellent foundations for Uncredit’s future.

Although Italy tends to like to keep control of things in-house wherever possible, it seems to be happy to allow Libya to lend a helping hand.

Parents Lend a Helping Hand

There was uproar in Italy over a Lega Nord  – Northen League – branded school.

The school had symbols of the Lega Nord all over it.  On the doors, doormats, desks, and even a huge green ‘alpine sun’ motif painted on the roof of the school.  Talk about indoctrination.  Indeed, there was a lot of talk, and pictures of this political academy featured in all of Italy’s newspapers – some thought the Lega Nord were very clever, whereas others thought this branding exercise was outrageous.  For the moment, it looks as if the school will have its Lega Nord branding removed, at heaven knows what cost.

Oh, and Italy’s south hating Lega Nord has been accused of having dealings with one of Italy’s various southern Italy based mafia groups.  And talking of mafia…

Mafia Collusion Allegations Not Enough

Today in Italy’s parliament politicians voted against prosecutors being allowed to use wire-tap records to bolster mafia collusion allegations levelled against a Berlusconi party politician.  The vote was something of a slap in the face for Italy’s anti-mafia bodies and police – who risk their lives daily to try and liberate Italy from the hands of organised crime.  You can read what you want into what this says about Italy’s politicians  – who often seem to be facing allegations of corruption these days – in fact, another case of dodgy goings on surfaced today with regard to trash management in Abruzzo.

Other Stuff

An apartment block in Palermo collapsed, and the collapse may have been caused by structural failure.  A certain Italian multi-national criminal organisation makes millions out of dealing in sub-standard cement, by all accounts.

OK, end of mini-roundup of what’s in the news in Italy.