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Italian style

Help save the Church of Santa Caterina in LUCCA – Italian style
There is still time to record your vote to help save and restore one of Lucca’s most beautiful churches. FAI (the Fondo Ambiente Italiano) is a not-forprofit organisation modelled one the UK’s National Trust. It exists to raise funds to support the restoration and care of Italy’s national heritage, whether it be buildings or areas of natural interest, and to raise awareness and improve access to these sites for the benefit of all.
Every other year, it conducts a major survey among Italian residents of the places they would most like to see restored and preserved for future generations.

This project is called I Luoghi del Cuore (places of heart) and FAI uses its results to raise awareness of deserving projects with local and national organisations, and to lobby for their restoration, with the financial support of the bank.
This year, high on the list of potential restoration projects is the Chiesa di Santa Caterina in Lucca, The church sits at the angle of Via del Crocifisso and Via Vittorio Emanuele II, opposite the former cigar factory, the Manifattura Tabacchi, itself scheduled for development by the Comune di Lucca. The unusually ovalshaped church, which dates from the mid 18th century, is regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of the high baroque style.

Yet for over 20 years it has been closed, and is now in need of considerable repair. FAI was instrumental in having it opened briefly in May so that luchesi could get a glimpse of its extraordinary interior. If you are registered resident in Italy, and wiuld like to record your support for this architectural gem, here’s what you do. The process is slightly laborious, but only to deter dirty tricks, as this one prize worth winning.

. Go to the project website: www.iluoghidelcuore.it
. Hit the button Segnala il tuo luogo del cuore
. In the pop up screen enter your provincia and Comune, and select Chiesa di Santa Caterina from the choices offered to you (yes there are other deserving projects in Lucca, but the Church of Santa Caterina currently has the best chance of wining funds)
. Add additional comments or photographs if you wish but thi is optional.
. Complete the security test ( a simple addition of numbers)
. Finally press the Completa la segnalazione button, which takes you to the registration page, where you will need to enter your name, address, e-mail address etc.
. You will then receive confirmation that an e-mail has ben sent to you from I luoghi del cuore
. Open the e-mail and hit the Attiva button to confirm your vote (satisfyingly, you will then see the total number of votes cast for your choice increase by one on the I Luoghi del cuore website).
It costs nothing, so please do your bit. Final results will be announced by FAI after voting closes on 30 September.

Exceptionally, the church will be open from 5pm to 8 pm each Saturday and Sunday during the month of September. FAI petitions can be signed at the church while visiting.

Learn italiano

Learn italiano: a cat's tale

Learn italiano: a cat’s tale

The cat felloff 3rd floor window still last month so we dashed to the animal hospital at three in the morning. Sitting in the waiting room my mind was assailed by a long forgotten saying “tanto va la gatta al lardo che ci lascia lo zampino” (if you keep tempting danger, you’ll eventually pay for it).
Any thought of curiosity k…the cat was of course immediatly banished. For weeks she’d been making a beeline for that open attic window but her path had been barred just in time. And now here I was paying not a zampino (a paw) but an arm and a leg for her hip operation.

As she plunged to the concrete path below aat the human equivalent age of 65, I wonder if she thought “sono del gatto” ( essere del gatto: to have had it, no way out). And when I discovered her hidden near the frront door, lying in frightened silence, refusing to come in I thought to myself “gatta ci cova” (something’s up). It had in fact taken ages to find her as “al buio tutti i gatti sono bigi” (all cats are grey (alike) in the dark).

After the operaton she stayed ina cage for three weeks. It was a small rabbit compound and she would have been excused for commenting that there was “no room to swing a cat” (and here I admit to being stumped -can any readers supply a good equivalent in Italian? We forced antibiotics down her unwilling throat. Unpleasant pink stuff which could have made her “fare i gattini”. No not have kittens but to vomit, throw up.
In the roasting 35 degree heat of July she went for a check-up. At three in the afternoon the streets of San Concordio were deserted and in the hospital there were suitably enough “quattro gatti” i.e. hardly anybody.

On week four she was finally allowed out, and watching her adjust to semifreedom it was abvious why Italian babies learn to “gattonare” (crawl) before they can walk.
Week five: doctor’s order “leave her free ina room with no furniture (well, we all have one of those…) and no possibility of jumping”. that’s was a real “gatta da pelare” ( literally a cat to skin, in the sense of a really hard task that nobody else wants). The only solution was to trail after her- thank heavens to laptop is wireless-nipping all climbing efforts in the bud. Now I know what it is to be in “gattabuia” (prison).

She’s last improved leaps and bounds (sorry) but outside roaming is till off limits. So to give her some exercise I take her round the garden on a long leash. Any casual passerby must think “quella signora fa ridere i gatti” (some woul d say “polli”) “hat woman would make a cat laugh”. I’m taking no chances, the first weeks were “una vita da cane” ( a dog’s life).

Then there are near hits. The straight translation would be understood. “When the cat’s away, the mice will pay”, well in Italy they dance. “Quando il gatto non c’è i topi ballano!” Pity that “to let the cat out of the bag” can’t be “far sfuggire il gatto dal sacco” instead of “far sfuggire il segreto”. Far too tame. And lastly there’s the so near but too far category. in the very first Italian “Big Brother” a quiet, well spoken but sinously beautiful girl had the abit of feigning total disinterest in any unavailable male contestant only to pounce when his guard was down. The other girls nicknamed her “la gattamorta”. Very catty! But dead cat? Did she wear a tatty old fur collar? Those two sharp english syllables convey some of the name’s meaning but lose the sensuous danger of the long drawn out italian syllables which take full advantage of the female use of the world. Trust the italians to distinguish between “il gatto e la gatta”.

Now did I hear somebody say cat’s cradle?

Yacht rental Italy

Yacht rental Italy

Allow yourself the luxury.
Beautiful dream yachts: renting Versilia’s best
A life of luxury and the chance to chenge looks at will. This is the dream that inspired Noleggio Versilia Rent Luxury, specialized in rentals of high-end vehicles and vessels.

For an “escape” to Sardinia on a splendid yacht or vacation in Versilia behind the wheel of a gleaming Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley or Lamborghini.
The agency takes care of every detail, including theft, fire damage, comprehensive, and UM/UIM coverage, a broad spectrum of short-and long-term rental formulas, and contracts of up to one year’s duration.

Noleggio Versilia Rent Luxury
Via Verdi 17 Ronchi – Phone: +39 338 9042127
Info@noleggioversilia.com
Web-site: www.noleggioversilia.com

Tuscany gardens

Tuscany garden

Spring all year round.
Tuscany’s largest garden center is just outside of Pietrasanta, Giardini della Versilia, a gigantic greenhouse just outside the gates of Pietrasanta, is one of Italy’s top garden centers in terms of size, selection, and quality.

Inaugurated on March 20th to bloom with the spring season, Giardini della Versilia’s 6500 square meters of covered space, filled with plants of all kinds, gardening tools and materials, patio furniture, and much more, are bounded by the nursery: one enormous “flowerbed” bursting with essences and colors.
The garden center proposes a unique assortment, from “prefab” solutions ready for installation to consulting and delivery services but above all, ideas for new forms and atmospheres for the garden, parks, and any other open space.

The Giovanneli family’s new center expresses their love for nature, with an eye to wellbeing. Nature, because after parking in the center’s ample lot, visitors leave “human time” behind and embark on a path that follows natural rhythms, pervaded by stimulating natural fragrances, illuminated by Nature’s colors.

Wellbeing, because Giardini della Versilia is a wonderful spot for just passing time with family and friends and strolling in a green garden world, breathing in the scents of spring all year round. And for a restful pause in the relaxation/refreshment area that welcomes visitors on the upper floor.

Web-site: www.giardinia.mobi

Tuscan books

Australian author Lisa Clifford’s Death in the Mountains is a true story about the murder of a peasant farmer in the mountains of Casentino in north eastern Tuscany. The murder took place in the winter of 1907, it happened to the great-grandfather of Lisa’s Italian husband and it was never solved – until now.
Detailing the crime, Death in the Mountains also looks at what life was like a hundred years ago. The story paints a very real picture of the struggles, the poverty and the mezzadria farming system that engulfed seventy percent of the Tuscan farming community. Back then, families had to give half of everything they produced to the land’s owners.

The other half was barely enough food for survival. Only one or two generations ago, peasants lived in grinding poverty.
Clifford describes the stark living conditions, snow blowing through roof tiles into bedrooms, the backbreaking nature of the daily work, the lottery of good or bad weather for crop and ultimately family survival. Only one or two generations ago, peasants lived in grinding poverty.
Clifford describes the stark living conditions, snow blowing through roof tiles into bedrooms, the back breaking nature of the daily work, the lottery of good or bad weather for crop and ultimately family survival. The reader feels the cold, the damp and grimness of everyday existence, but also the determination and spirit of that generation.
The quest to solve this murder opens Lisa’s eyes and ultimately our eyes to how people thought back then. A murder was something to be ashmed of not for the murder but for the family of the person murdered. There is much insight into the culture, superstitions, religion and taboos of the times.

After three years of research Lisa solves the murder. She discovers a cousin who holds the key to the mistery and reveals the killer and why it happened. he gives his permission to write the book on the proviso that all the names be changed.
About writing the book, Clifford says, “In an emotional sense, writing Death in the Mountains gave more than I had bargained for. The killing of Grandpa Artemio was a big event in the family village… When I talked to the old people, cousins, and the ederly farmer folk who still live nearby, they recalled with great clarity what their past relatives had said about the famous murder of Artemio Bruni.
In 1907, almost everyone who worked the land was illiterate, so there was a lot of gossip, but no letters or journals to refer to. It was only by talking with people that I could figure out what happened in the onths leading up the murder”.

Death in the Mountains (2009) is published by Pan Macmillin Australia.
It’s available in Florence at the Paperback Exchange for 15,00 euro – www.papex.it, on www.amazon.com