and a tragic anniversary...

This is the 33rd anniversary of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, the Italian Prime Minister, who was on the point of achieving a major shift towards potential political stability in Italy, bringing in the communist party to a government with his own Christian Democratic Party. His subsequent death fractured Italian politics, at the end of a violent decade.

There continues to be speculation about who, apart from or in encouragement of the Red Brigades, may have been involved. The film Il Divo explores the right wing of the Christian Democratic Party (CDP) through the life of Giulio Andreotti, many times prime minister and still at the top when the CDP disintegrated under the weight of corruption and disaffection, in the early 1990s, when Andreotti acted (one matter of lasting consequence) in ways that enables Silvio Berlusconi to secure dominance of the media in Italy, a situation which today means only one newspaper group and the public radio-tv network RAI carry reports on the legal cases facing Berlusconi.

The Italian Communist Party also dissolved in the wake of the collapse of Eastern European communism, at about the same time as the CDP. The search for sane political balance continues. The party principally heir to the PCI is the Democratic Party (PD) and other left wing parties. The old balance of the 1960s had been that the PCI had nationally 30% of the vote, the Christian Democrats 40%... the Christian Democrats, unlike the DLP in Australia, being a party whose members had a complete range of political views from right to left, though the Vatican has always tugged towards the right.

The PCI previously governed a number of Italy's regions, especially in the centre of the country (Florence, Bologna). This page shows which provinces are controlled by the PD. Polling this month showed, in opinion of how to secure succession to Berlusconi, that no more than 12% wanted a coalition of the centre or the centre-right, over 20% favoured a centre left coalition led by the PD. Near 60% either were undecided or not wishing to vote. The problem at the heart is that such a high proportion of political process is ego driven and reluctant to come to terms with practical things needing to be done to sustain government. Berlusconi stays there because he has $10 billion personal wealth and the money keeps pouring in; because he favours the kind of regionalism desired by parts of the north and wealthier groups generally, that want to keep money where it is; because there has never been a government able to bring more than 40% of business out of the black economy; and because he leads the kind of louche lifestyle many Italians dream of having.... while the other half is heavily unionised and has through political process secured many public assets we dream of, including good public transport. Italy alone of large western European countries remains nuclear power free.

to be noted also that there is a great force for balance in the political system, a restraint on Berlusconi in President Giorgio Napolitano, a member of the PCI till its dissolution, demonstrating in a speech this evening at the 150th anniversary ceremony a wonderfully clear capacity to argue for inclusion and universal community values, withut notes, at age 85.

The Ides of March

Today being the Ides of March...

...we will proceed to the bus stop outside the Senate, 100 metres from the site of Pompey's theatre (ironically sort of under the present parliament's lower house which is desperately seeking new leadership) where Caesar was murdered on this day, take the bus to the station and the train to Tivoli.

Here, another historical note, is a photo panorama from the Janiculine Hill, where the Roman Republic of 1849 held out for months against French forces invited by the Pope to reclaim the city. Yesterday someone was holding a press conference at Garibaldi's feet to claim some political mileage.

Big things tomorrow to celebrate 150 years from the completion of Savoy's occupation of Italy and beginning of the Italian kingdom.

Glorious statue of Anita Garibaldi (dark weather yesterday)

'Conferenza Stampa' - press conference - at the feet of Garibaldi yesterday

and panorama - St Peters out of sight to the left, this view first over Trastevere (trans-Tiber) then the Tiber (Tevere) - a line of wintering trees, then largely of the Field of Mars - Campo Marzo, where we have our apartment, with Rome's original seven hills beyond (not as far away as this stitched image from iPhone pictures suggests)

Rome - our bar (cafe), our street, our place

We have settled into a little routine. It's nice to have a place where we become regulars and are treated with warmth on return. 'Cantina e Cucina' is the name of the bar.

The price of this mid-morning delight: for two Illy coffees, minimal water, wonderful coffee, Helen's small croissant with chocolate [cornettino con cioccolato], Dennis's 'girella' - and served with complimentary mineral water.

Coffee 80c x2
Eats: 60 and 70
Total; Euros 2.90, say $Aust 4.40.

Down below also photo of our street, coming from that direction, last night. There is a wildly busy (Friday night especially) section of the street coming from Piazza Navona, then 50 metres before our place, quiet.

Then photos of our entrance. Andrea Marchi, our bright young landlord, has made two delightful little apartments from two old workshops*** inside the courtyard of this 'palazzo'. (A palazzo is not a grand thing, just a big building. This one maybe 600 years old.)

*** I later realised we were in the stalle – the stables – of the old offices of the government of Rome, before it moved out, in 1755, just 180 years after they built the Chiesa Nuova - the new church, around the corner, main big door just along the street a bit. And behind Borromini's Oratorio, it's a crowded place. 

the constant queue is outside the Baffetta pizzeria, which must get a mention in the Rough Guide, etc

entrance photo below: separated garbage, compost, recycling collected every day

catching up - the Naples apartment.

I thought I'd offer:

- a photo to show how comfortable our apartment in Naples was

- a photo of our skyline and the amazing ways electricity gets added to old buildings in Naples

- a photo of our own hang-out clothes line above the street; it was wet much of the week so we did not get to use it. Mixed with it appears to be someone's coaxial (satellite TV) cable.

A film from last week - catching up

Oh, we have photos from Monreale, outside Palermo, two weeks ago, not yet posted, etc... but here, catching up, is a little film from Friday last week, which shows a rather tame section of the bus ride to Positano, when the bus is arriving in Positano. Well, the bus is able to drop us at the top of some hundreds of steps and sloping road, on the edge of Positano. Mercifully we only had day packs on our backs.

At the end of our movie, YouTube will offer you other films of the Amalfi coast...

in Rome

Here since Sunday, now Wednesday, we simply feel at home, for various positive reasons to be set out sometime.

Enjoying walking and riding public transport (month of March bus/metro pass Euros 30 = $45) and photography. I am embarking on a substantial project of photos of the Fountain of the Naiads, see these examples of effects using 1/2000 second exposure, to capture water drops, 1pm late winter. Learning lots about the S3 on the way.

The Amalfi coast

To scoot around Naples with free transport and visit excavations and museums we had used a three day ArteCard. An essential for the visitor to Naples.

Friday, that card having expired, we set out for the Amalfi coast using a Unico Campania all day 'Fascia 5' card, the Fascia Cinque, referring to the distance covered by the ticket. This allowed us to take the Circumvesuviana train from Naples to Sorrento, then SITA buses to Positano, Amalfi (lunch) and Salerno, before coming home on the Trenitalia train from Salerno. At the end of a wearying day we payed about E6.50 for two booking fees to travel swiftly non-stop and comfortably on that leg on the Palermo-Rome Intercity Train.

The use of public transport meant that we doubled or trebled the value of travel compared with using some tour bus. We were among ordinary travellers, albeit that the buses we took between Sorrento and Positano and Amalfi was mainly inhabited by tourists - a new world of budget travellers, though, in which a young Chinese couple could leap from the bus at an isolated part of the journey to climb stairs down the cliff to the Green Grotto. And where two young women from Taiwan would rely on us a couple of times for advice on which bus to take.

The last bus section, from Amalfi to Salerno, was different, astounding, the coast more precipitate, the traffic on the narrow road quite heavy, the spaces between heavy vehicles passing each other in some places in millimeters, or with gentle brushings of soft edge bits... and a full load of locals, standing room taken, crowded.

A white haired woman in her seventies at least, gets on in one village with a massive bunch of flowers, then gets off soon after at an isolated bend, vanishing up a steep stairway in vegetation.

Above and below, the way the land has been worked for thousands of years, with lemon orchards banked steeply on terraces; caves and workshops; houses and sheds and pathways. Look at the history of Amalfi and wonder at what generations ago what types of people would come to work the hardest land imaginable in the margins of this tiny port rival to Genoa and Venice, proud enough to have refused the keys of the city to Roger II, Norman king of Sicily, 900 years ago, sacked for its temerity.

This last section of the coast (Amalfi to Salerno, alas no photos here) is less travelled, has more integrity and is less a site for the beautiful people than Amalfi-Positano where prices have gone mad, building on the steep coast more improbable, and though with some of its old charm, the cultural value of Positano is descended into the depths of, of... Who magazine.

Photo above: early morning in one of the many busy towns along the Naples-Salerno rail. We had descended from one train, caught the next, to take coffee in a bar — and use the toilet in the bar. Everyone relies on bars for toilets — but of course if you have a coffee every time you go, the cycle can get vicious!

Below: glimpses of the sea as this suburban train approaches Sorrento.

and a glimpse of the narrow gauge track from our seat in the back of the train

and here photos of Positano, from up near the bus stop, down below and back up again

— a climb reminiscent of Modica in Sicily

Views from the bus window on the road from Positano to Amalfi