Bagpiping mystery solved

Thanks to Italian Notebook, the bagpiping mystery has been solved. Apparently the players were Zampognari.

As they say in Italy at this time of year, "Tanti auguri" to all 3 of our readers.

Bagpipe "music"

Last night after work, I was peacefully doing yoga at home when all of a sudden, I heard this horrible cacophony. I went to the window to see what it could be. It turned out to be two people with bagpipes standing right outside my apartment building. Is this the equivalent of Christmas caroling here? I don't know. No one was gathering around to enjoy the concert.

Anyway, although these people were technically playing the bagpipes, I wouldn't call them musicians. In fact, it was as if two people who had never seen or heard bagpipes before had picked them up on the street and randomly started poking at them and blowing into them. There was no discernable melody or harmony, and they were not in unison. It was just loud noise. What was that about?

Eventually they went away. (Actually, they were there for a mercifully short amount of time.) Maybe people tipped them to stop playing.

Fashion consciousness starts early

Today, on my way home from work, I saw a mother pushing her approximately 18- to 24-month old daughter in a stroller. The little girl had a pacifier in her mouth. She was also wearing fashionable and beautiful knee-high leather boots.

Italian women begin their fashion consciousness training early in life, I guess.

Montepulciano, Tuscany

Want to see a great view? Head to the Tuscan hill town of Montepulciano.



You may have heard of Montepulciano's famous wines. The grapes are grown in the vineyards around the area. Maybe that's one in the view below.



The town is made up of neighborhoods called contrade, each of which is represented by its own flag.



You know when you've crossed into a different contrada when you notice the change in flags.



The contrade compete each year in a bizarre uphill wine barrel-rolling contest called the Bravìo delle Botti. Afterwards there is a procession in 13th-century dress. We weren't there on race day, though. We enjoyed the sight of the flags anyway.

Pienza, Tuscany

Haven't had the chance to blog for a while. Will try to post photos taken over this past stretch of time.

Pienza is a picturesque town in Tuscany. We went there on a day trip this summer with friends. Here's a corner of the main piazza.



Like many medieval and renaissance-era towns, it has a surrounding wall. This wall has a pleasant walkway alongside.


Another viewpoint of the wall:



This couple seems to be enjoying the view.

It's getting chilly

Got back from Milan on Monday evening, and it had turned cold in Rome. This will be the first week that I haven't worn sandals every day since we arrived in June.

It's not freezing or anything. Supposedly it's 61 degrees Farenheit (16 C) now and will go down to 44 (6.7 C) tonight. It's cold enough in the office to require wearing a jacket. See, one cannot turn on the heat in Italy until the government says so. In Rome, that date is November 1, and the heat can only remain on for 12 hours per day. Even in your own private home.

An Italian told me that they have to conserve energy because they import so much oil and gas from Russia (rather than produce their own energy supply, I guess).

Good thing we brought sweaters and mittens!

Sutri

About an hour from Rome is a town called Sutri, which is chock full o' Etruscan archaeological sites. There are also some Roman ones about, such as this amphitheater, which dates from 53 BC.



The Etruscans, as you might already know, predated the Romans. They built a Necropolis (cemetery) in Sutri. Sarcophagi and urn niches are carved into tufa rock.



Horses grazed in the field we passed by. That's the modern (medieval) town in the background.



Inside a cave is a church called Madonna del Parto. Some believe it was originally an Etruscan tomb, then converted into a mithraeum, a temple to the Persian god Mithras (commonly worshipped in Roman times).



One of the town squares features a fountain and a clock tower.

Ostia Antica

There's a town just outside of Rome called Ostia Antica. It was a village sometime in between 1000 and 700 BC, but then later grew to be a city. Now it is a large complex, a whole town's worth, of archaeological ruins. We visited there in on a beautiful day in July.



As we walked through the grass and wildflowers that grow around the ruins, our feet crushed wild mint, releasing its fragrance into the air. I wish there was a way to post that pleasant smell on the internet to share it with you! Oh well, guess we'll just have to share photos instead.

The amphitheater is still in use. Concerts are held there during the summer.



Walls of many buildings are still standing, 2000+ years after they were built. There are also still floor mosaics, although most have been reconstructed.



This one depicts Neptune and his team of seahorses, as well as other sea creatures.



We happened to come across the secret room where they store their spare capitals.



The public latrine featured rows of seats. The hole beneath each seat was to allow space for the user to insert a sponge-on-a-stick for wiping. Apparently these were reused by all -- ick. However, it is impressive to know that the toilets did flush. Water from an aqueduct flowed continuously through to wash away waste.

The sounds of Mali in Rome

Last night I went to a concert at Parco della Musica with two Italian coworkers. The artist was Malian singer Oumou Sangaré. What a voice! She can really sing, and her physical presence is also powerful. She's quite tall and striking. Her band, too, was fantastic: a kora (African stringed instrument for which the body is a gourd), flute, drum (Western-style drum kit), djembe (African drum), bass, and two female backup singers/dancers. The dancers brought such joyful energy to the stage! It made me think of my African dance class in Ghana.

Photos were not allowed at the concert, otherwise I'd post one of the eye-catching group.

Sangaré sings about the rights of women and laments their lack of freedom, especially in her country. One of her songs deplores the practice of marrying off little girls, which apparently is not so uncommon in Mali.

In addition to being a talented singer, Sangaré is a spokesperson for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which is headquartered here in Rome. In the space between songs, she talked about the fight against hunger and poverty. She spoke in French, which I think most of the audience could not understand, unfortunately. I had to translate for my Italian colleagues.

Sangaré and the band brought the audience to their feet with the catchy tune "Wele Wele Wintou" and even had us singing during the call-and-response refrain.

This was my 5th Malian music concert (after Baaba Maal at the late Kilimanjaro club in DC, Amadou et Mariam in Dakar, Habib Koité in Accra, and this past spring, Habib Koité and Dobet Gnahoré in DC). Malian music rocks! Its rhythms and melodies are uplifting -- they make you smile and dance.

Alas, Dan could not accompany us to the concert. He had to work. He was at the same music complex, but at a different concert, commemorating the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He had to accompany the delegation of a certain high profile visitor from the US. I guess that was probably almost as fun as the Sangaré concert.

Villa d'Este

In the heat of a Roman summer, a visit to Villa d'Este is a cooling treat. (It's in the town of Tivoli, not too far away.)



This 16th century estate was the home of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este. Nice place for someone who took a vow of poverty!



The gardens of the estate are filled and surrounded by water -- pools and fountains everywhere. Gorgeous views, too.



The model of the city of Rome, called Rometta, is a fountain, too.



The walkway lined with animal-faced spouts is called Viale delle Cento Fontane (avenue of the 100 fountains).



At the end is an open mouth swallowing all that water.



This view looks down on the water-organ, an organ that supposedly makes music from the force of water pumping air through pipes.



We didn't get a photo of the strolling vocal group singing madrigals. They were good!

Hadrian's Villa

The emperor Hadrian had a summer estate in Tivoli, not far from Rome. Today it is an open-air museum.

This area is known as the Maritime Theater. It features a small island in a turtle-filled pond. The island is thought to have been Hadrian's painting and architecture studio.



Hadrian had many replicas of classic ancient structures built. The Canopus is a replica of a sanctuary to the god Serapis near Alexandria, Egypt.



There are many buildings visitors can walk through. Some contain floor mosaics. Here is some detail from one of them.



There are other decorative touches still visible.



Looking out from a rooftop, the view is pastoral.

Piazza del Popolo and Monte Mario

There is a big square not too far from where we live called Piazza del Popolo. One doesn't know where to look first. At the sphinxes?



At the angry fish?



Or perhaps at the obelisk?



Across the Tevere river is a park called Monte Mario, from which one sees views like this



and this



(That's the dome of St. Peter's.)

A walk in June

Back in June, we went for a stroll and snapped some photos. Here are a few.

In the first picture, you can see the sculpture atop the Vittorio Emanuele II monument in between two church towers. (Vittorio Emanuele II was the king of Italy. We heard that he destroyed a medieval neighborhood to create this monument to himself.)



You may have seen other photos similar to the one below, because it's a famous place in Rome. It's the Trinità dei Monti church at the very top of the Spanish Steps. (We stood on some of the mid-level steps to take the picture. There are a few more flights of steps below the spot where we're standing.)



Then we turned around, descended a bit, and took a photo of Piazza Spagna at the bottom of the steps. This is a wildly popular gathering spot, frequently crowded with tourists.



Here's another view you might've seen before: the Fontana del Tritone in Piazza Barberini. I see this fountain just about every day. Bernini was commissioned to sculpt it in 1642. I read that the fish-looking creatures at the base are supposedly dolphins. I've never seen dolphins that look like that, but I give Bernini credit for a fine fountain.

Orvieto

Orvieto is a beautiful town perched atop a hill in Umbria. We visited there on the day of the Cronoscalata della Castellana (see previous blog post).

The central piazza has a design in the cobblestones.

If you climb up many stairs to the top of the Moor's Tower, you see a pretty view of the town...

... as well as the bell tower.

It's a long walk down the stairs.

The duomo, or cathedral, is quite colorful compared to the others we've seen around Rome these past couple of months.

Cronoscalata della Castellana

Italy's got Dan's kinda people. We can tell because they have such events as the Cronoscalata della Castellana, an uphill race of vintage cars in Umbria.

The cars warmed up by zooming up a stretch of road one after the other. There were various makes and models from different countries, but Fiat was well represented.

When the drivers took a break, we could get an up-close look at their rides.

The actual race was against the clock, each car being timed separately rather than driving side by side.

They were loud and fast!