Spelunking he will go

 Today Melanie and I “split up.’  While she took the tour of Akona I took an hour and a half bus ride to go see the caves of the great winds. 

Imagine you’re 16, 19 or 21 year-old and you’re off playing in the hills and you feel a gust of  wind coming out of the mountain. Of course you have to go see what it is. You see  a small opening and you dig it out and your climbing on your belly (Now called the cave of the worms) and after quite some distance you come to a hole.  

Hmm- who goes first. Oh wait, let’s drop a stone and see how deep it is. You drop the stone and count the seconds one, two, three, four, five. My goodness that’s a long way down.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I came back with a rope ladder went down to explore and the rest of his history. 

We had a great tour guide who I swear is Peter Comerford‘s brother from another mother: same sort of irreverent humor, but with an Italian accent. 

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I’m just gonna post pictures and not going to bother you with the history, the chemistry or the other blah blah blah. 

Above called “ lake of candles”

Oh wait, I will tell you one thing which I thought fascinating. You’ll see metal railings, which helps going up and down the stairs and keeps people from stepping off the path.  These actually carry water which is used to rinse down the paths every night and then that water is collected and transported out of the caves and used for the toilets and the every day needs for the tour center. They spend a lot of energy trying to prevent contamination of the site and their care act really shows.

Our tour guide actually changed careers in his mid 20s went back to school and got a masters in biology and in was certified to lead the these tours And has made this his life‘s work. He has befriended two of the discoverers who are now in their 60s and 70s and they continue to do exploration. Currently they’re using drones to explore some of the more than 35 Kilometers of known cave. We explored less than 1.2 Kilometers. 

Time now to channel my inner Guido Brunetti and catch a vaporetto to the Doge’ Palace and St Zechariah’s church.  Arrivederci

More details 

https://www.frasassi.com/GrotteScoperta.aspx?l=en

https://www.frasassi.com/

Ancona

 Ancona 

Before I talk about my, Melanie‘s, trip to Ancona, I have to tell you twice on this trip I saw David so very excited  There is nothing better than seeing David excited. The first time was when we got to hang out with the HR person from Viking. The poor woman! David peppered her with about 100 million questions which she was very polite and answered It was a bit fascinating. The second time is when he came back from the caves, which was today’s trip, and told me all about it. It’s so nice to see him happy.

Today we are in Ancona. David did cave tours and I went on a city tour. For obvious reasons, I was really interested in the fact that Ancona has Museum for the blind. In it is a reproduction of Notre Dame and many famous paintings that the blind can touch. All is written in braille.

Ancona is on the Eastern coast. The mountains already have snow now. 

The Greeks first settled here   They Came from Scilly The Greeks were here until the Romans came in 200 BC. From the 1500s to 1860s Ancona was part of the papal state. I didn’t realize at that time the Popes were the politicians and decided what to fund e.g. hospitals and such. Ancona left the Papal state in 1867 to join the new kingdom of Italy.

We visited at least 6 churches. I’m only writing about one since, to be honest, I lost interest. We visited a 13 th century Greek cathedral we could see underneath this cathedral was another cathedral from the 12 century. Actually, the  Ancona Cathedral's history began as a 4th-century B.C. Greek temple to Aphrodite

We went down to the crypts.  There we saw the grave of the first bishop of Ancona, Saint Cyriacus. He died by torture forced to swallow liquid hot lead. 

Also at this church the painting of the Virgin Mary was said to have cried when Napoleon came to Ancona. 

But I love most about this church was outside the church were two lions guarding the church. It reminded me of the fifth Avenue Library in Manhattan where I spent many happy hours grading papers while my kids were at Camp reunion.

Just a few more points of interest about Ancona. There was a Greek amphitheater built here. It was converted to a monastery. When that closed it became a prison.  The Italians do not waste stone and resources. 

Ancona  is a big shipyard. Two new Viking boats are being built there right now.

Lastly, and most importantly, we also saw the ancient Palace of old people. What is that you ask? Was it a nursing home? No, apparently they had the older people govern because they were the wisest.  I hope our children and our grandchildren are reading this.

Musings

1. From someone from the US, the Mediterranean history is pretty mind-boggling. The thought of civilizations from thousands of years BCE is hard to wrap my mind around

1. Croatia‘s history is so different from the rest of the Mediterranean. Italy and Greece are clearly in their modern period and nobody expects Changes in their borders. Croatia seems to be still in a period of flux with changes happening in borders.  Well, Tito had many flaws ( that’s an understatement ) but he kept Yugoslavia together by sheer charisma. As soon as he died, it all fell apart.

Yugoslavia became Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo.

Under Josip Broz (Titos real name) Yugoslavia was established as a communist state in 1945. He pursued a policy of non-alignment between the Eastern and Western blocs, most notably defying Soviet dominance with the Tito-Stalin split in 1948. During his rule, Yugoslavia developed a unique form of socialism with "workers' self-management," and de-centralized power to the republics to manage ethnic tensions, a system that ultimately weakened after his death in 1980. After Tito died in 1980, the rising ethnic nationalism eventually led to the violent dissolution of the federation in the 1990s, leading to the Yugoslav Wars. 

1. Viking offers a Shabbat setting every Friday. By that I mean, they provide wine and challah and two electric candles.  We went last night. I’m one to never turn down a good challah.  We’ve done this on Viking before and they’re usually is one other couple to join us and it’s quite sociable. This time there were 20 of us. Do I have to explain what it’s like having 20 Jews trying to decide what a Shabbat services? It be it became clear early on that there were two Alpha Jews fighting over how we should proceed.  The more observant person one.  I started to pass out the wine to be useful and Alpha Jew told me I was doing it in the wrong order. I decided to grab some challah and leave. Unfortunately, David didn’t stay that much longer and I felt I ruined it for him. I didn’t mean to He claims I didn’t ruin it but what does he know?

Croatia. 3.5 million population at home - 5 million living abroad.

 

So Croatia wasn’t on our bucket list, but it certainly should have been. We spent today in Dubrovnik - just within the walls of the old city and that was  more than I could absorb in one day. 

Croatia has a population of 3.8 million living in the country but with some 5 million Croatians living abroad. The city of Dubrovnik has 30k with about 49k in the area.  Tourism has become big with more than 2 million visitors last year.  New measures to control crowds and over tourism have had to be implemented.   I guess if I had ever watched Game of Thrones I might have known.  The show had a huge impact on the economy. 

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Kids start English in 1st grade so communication was not an issue. And we are here during the off season so there were no crowds although that also meant very few store and cafes were open in the old city.  There is a population of about 1000 that live within the walls.  We were not going to complain about the lack of crowds!  It was nice to see a real community - including seeing the laundry hanging from the windows. 

“Dubrovnik is a medieval city with a medieval infrastructure, street network and – most important – the medieval city walls. On the other hand, most of its public spaces and public buildings are examples of the Baroque. The reason is that most of the buildings that we see today in Dubrovnik were built after the great earthquake of 1667. The earthquake destroyed almost everything, only the walls remaining almost untouched, being of such massive and solid construction. After the great earthquake almost the entire town was rebuilt and Dubrovnik is not one of those cities with a particular unified style.  style. In some Italian cities you will find more perfect examples of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, but not the whole package. In Dubrovnik, the whole package is more important than its parts”

from:  https://www.godubrovnik.com/bloggers/majestic-architecture-of-dubrovnik-when-old-

 To expand on Melanie’s musings with the help of wickapedia:

The city probably dates to the 7th century, when the town known as Ragusa was founded by refugees from Epidaurum (Ragusa Vecchia). It was under protectorate of the Byzantine Empire and later the sovereignty of the Republic of Venice. Between the 14th and 19th centuries, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state. Its prosperity was historically based on maritime trade; as the capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa, it achieved a high level of development, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries, as it became notable for its wealth and skilled diplomacy.

                                                                                                                                                        The city was almost destroyed in a devastating earthquake in 1667. During the Napoleonic Wars, Dubrovnik was occupied by the French Empire forces, and then the Republic of Ragusa was abolished and incorporated into the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and later into the Illyrian Provinces of France. In the early 19th to early 20th century, Dubrovnik was part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia within the Austrian Empire. Dubrovnik became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia immediately upon its creation, and it was incorporated into its Zeta Banovina in 1929, before becoming part of the Banovina of Croatia upon its creation in 1939. During World War II, it was part of the Axis puppet state Independent State of Croatia, before being reincorporated into Socialist Republic of Croatia in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. 

 Confused yet?

Enough with the history lesson. We arrive at the gates:

The old city had two gates. East and West with a monastery at each.  Each night and morning with great pomp  the doors were locked and the key was given to the governor for safe keeping overnight. Oh, and the governor served for only one month, could not leave the palace other than to receive the keys.  The thinking was that didn’t give anyone opportunities  to be bribed. 

To the west were the Franciscans who provided medical care and there we visited Europes oldest continuously open pharmacy  from the 1300’s.   

Scenes from the monastery.  The ancient well provided water for the community during droughts.  The little depressions in the right top quarter are courtesy of the Nepoleonic soldiers who made them to water their horses while they used part of the monastery for a stable.  The setting made us feel like we walked onto Dylan’s campus at Scripps.  

This was clearly a walled city and David paid extra for the honor of walking the 2 kilometers and 1300 steep steps to circumnavigate it.They began to build the walls around these walls around the year  1200.  By the 15th century the walls were 6 meters (~20 ft) thick.  They did survive that earthquake.  

But as I said there were only two gates. That changed when Napoleon’s French arrived. Besides alterations to stable their horses they cut a gate to the north at the end of this street.

This is the street to the North gate. You can see how narrow the side streets are. Also look at the roof line. There was a strict building code on these streets - no matter what your wealth. The ground floor was considered commercial space, the next two floors up were where you lived and the top floor (because of fire risk) was for the kitchen.  They built this gate so the mucky mucks could go out to play tennis

 (yes seriously) 

If we were in hi season you’d only see bodies of tourists:

On the west were the Dominicans whose building actual became the western part of the wall for the western gate. 

Dominican church above survived earthquake and is currently being restored. 

There are number of bell towers. This Venetian style bell tower was by the Dominican Monastery.  You can see two bells, and the hand only shows the hour. Below that is a black and white globe that shows the phase of the moon. The two black squares below that a a 32st century addition.  

So the bells would ring in the hour. But they had to ring them  again 5 minutes later to get people to actually move. (finish their conversation, put down their coffee etc..  This is still done . Melanie likes this system. 

We found the Jewish street and the second oldest Sephardic synagogue in Europe (after Prague) The Jews came from Spain and Portugal during the inquisition. There was a Jewish Street- a defacto ghetto but the tradespeople interacted with the town. 

Unfortunately the synagogue museum was closed ( although the gift shop was open)

Enough already with the history. Here are some pictures from up on the wall. 

Check out this railing and the details on the little columns above.  Most important detail is the height above the floor where the column starts.  The needed that ‘barrier” to hide the ankles of woman walking down the stairs  

Began to feel like was walking an Escher painting  

Notice the channel on the left of the picture. Part of ancient aqueduct system bringing water into the town. 

Ok, enough already.  David is worn out 🥱