2004 Europe

Ravello Cathedral, c1086



May 23 – It’s raining today. We had a string of beautiful days and now we’re paying for them. It’s only raining off and on so we decided to take the car and drive to Ravello. It’s an old city up on the hill above Amalfi. Mira tried to talk me out of driving; he said the road going up is unusually narrow and winding. Around here that’s saying something. He seemed surprised when I said I didn’t think it would bother me. I guess he just doesn’t understand the Longenberger love for driving challenges. After playing Chinese checkers getting out of the hotel’s small parking lot we were off like a herd of turtles. Mira was right, the road was just as he described, which made it all the more fun to drive. A couple of times we had to inch past other cars going the opposite direction and at a few places one of us just plain had to stop while the other tried to get past without touching. The major challenge is keeping the rearview mirrors from hitting each other. At one place I had to back up into a niche in the rock wall to let a bus going down get through. It was great!!



Ravello has been a town since the 9th century. It was the last hold out of the Duchy of Amalfi until the Norman conquests. When the Pisan (people from the City-State of Pisa) attacked the Ravellans were able to hold out until Norman reinforcements arrived. The second Pisan attack however was successful vanquishing the French forever from the coast of Italy. In the 18th and 19th centuries it became a Mecca for writers and artists. Richard Wagner found Ravello inspirational and wrote part of his opera ‘Parsifal’ while staying in the Villa Rufolo. Fortunately the public parking area had space because parking on the street is nonexistent.



Just as we walked up the stairs from the parking that lead directly to the Piazza Duomo, mass at the cathedral (above) was getting out. The scene in the Piazza was amazing. Locals and tourists mixing together. There was a man sitting on a bench with his family. He had a great mustache. I pointed at my upper lip and said, ‘Magnifico’. He smiled but seemed a little unsure of what I meant. So I took off my hat and pointed to my bald head and my lip again and said, ‘Impossible’, giving it a little Italian accent (Im-poe-see’-blay). Then he and his whole family laughed and said, Si, si!! At that point I was sure we had communicated. I love mixing it up with the non-English speaking locals. Creative communication is great fun.



We walked across the piazza and headed for the Villa Rufolo (below). The Rufolo family has been influental in the village since it’s beginnings. The villa holds a Wagner concert every year to celebrate its connection to the composer. In the 13th century the Pope lived in the villa. It has it’s own cloisters and a two tier garden that is still well maintained and absolutely beautiful. The vistas up and down the coast from the garden are fantastic. It was a little limited by the weather today but still gorgeous. The large tree on the left is an umbrella pine. Unusual shape for a pine tree.



When we returned to the piazza the cathedral was empty and the doors were still open so we went in. The first structures were built in 1086 and it has been added to and upgraded over the years. The pulpit is among the largest and most elaborate I’ve ever seen. It’s entirely covered in mosaic tiles and has an eagle at its center. Clutched in the eagle’s talons is a book inscribed with the first words of John’s gospel, ‘IN PRINCIPO ERAT VERBUM’, ’In the beginning was the Word’. To the right of the main altar is a small chapel with an altar dedicated to St. Pantaleone (below). He was martyred and some of his blood is in a reliquary in a niche just below the painting over the altar. It’s the golden screen in the center of the picture with the light glowing in the middle. There are stairs behind the altar so you can climb up to get a better look at the blood. It is a dark mass most of the year, and that’s how it looked when we climbed up for a peek, but they say that on the anniversary of his martyrdom it liquefies and becomes a bright ruby red. From the stairs you can get within a foot of it behind an iron grating. I guess I’ll have to come back on July 27 to see for myself.



From here we walked up the hill to see another church, San Giovanni del Toro, a classic medieval design apparently built before the 12th century. It was not open. The city of Minore (below) is south of Ravello directly on the rugged Amalfi coast. Then it was down the hill to the church of St. Maria a Gradillo. They have set some glass tiles in the current floor of the church so you can see the mosaic designs of an earlier structure underneath. No way to get a picture but I did get some video. I’ll have to find out what period they are from as there was no explanation at the site.



We strolled the rest of the way down the hill to the main piazza again and sat outside under an awning to have lunch. I had a ham, lettuce, tomato, and mozzarella sandwich on a roll and Diana had a ham and cheese panini. They were ok but we make much better sandwiches in the US. The Italian versions just don’t have enough meat in them for me, although they seem very happy with them. After that it started raining in earnest, so we decided to head to the car and drive back to the hotel. This was a wise decision because it really poured shortly thereafter. It’s now 6:45, and we’ve been at the hotel for 2 hours and it is still raining very hard every 10 minutes or so.



(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger