tourism – Mysterium Coniunctionis

Our Brief Italian Adventure

We moved to France in June 2022. I figured “hey, living in Europe we can really see Europe!” But we’d started a small business. Then, my wife added a non-profit organization. We hired a contractor to do some work, we did some work. The garden in itself is a full-time job.

After a year and half, we hadn’t really seen Europe. We saw some really spectacular France (all within a couple hours’ drive of out place): the Correze of course, Lot, the Dordogne… But we’d had little opportunity to get out and explore new places beyond France. Our three trips since arriving here had been to Tunisia when Patricia got a teaching gig for a week, and two trips back home to the USA.

Then, friends from the International School of Panama got in touch. They were teaching in Croatia and Italy and planned to meet up in Civezzano in the Dolomites. It gave us the excuse we needed to shut down operations for 10 days and hit the road.

First Stop: Turin

Statues of Augustus and his uncle/step dad Julius bookend the Palatine Gate.

I’d heard about Turin as a small child watching the old “In Search of…” TV series with Leonard Nimoy. They did an episode about the Shroud of Turin, and showed monks dutifully tending it in its glass case high up on an altar. There was even a re-enactment of a monk saving it from fire in the 14th century. We went to see the Shroud, but because it is old AF and fragile (and likely also because it has been conclusively proven a fiendishly clever medieval fraud designed to milk cash out of pilgrims and wealthy donors alike), it is not on display any more, but is stored in an enclosed box visible through a glass window with a replica on foam core mounted for the curious. The faithful still come in droves and genuflect, and though I did not actually see the Shroud I did score a truly tacky holographic post card.

Just next to the cathedral housing the Shroud were some fab Roman ruins. Also nearby was an excellent outdoor market and an indoor multi-vendor restaurant space. Turin has many grand plazas and exquisite architecture spanning centuries and styles. It also has one of the greatest Egyptian museums outside Cairo.

We spent four hours exploring the magnificent Egyptian Museum in Turin.

Stop Two: Milan

We headed over to Milan where we were promptly stopped by the local police. They were very polite about detaining us by the side of the road for twenty minutes and carefully checking our French residence visa cards and passports.

Nobody does outdoor public spaces like the Italians, with their marble paving stones and extraordinary buildings. Walking into the Piazzo del Duomo is quite an experience.

Piazza del Duomo, Milano

I’ve been visiting Europe since the early ’90s. Many things about travel there are far superior and more efficient than in the past. But one truly hateful change is the fact that access to these magnificent old structures is often via paid appointment. Gone are the days when tourists could wander into the Duomo and other nearby monuments with a Bedaeker’s in hand. Now you have to wait in a queue to purchase a ticket, or pre-book online, and travel guides have been replaced by Rick Steves videos and TripAdvisor.

But, totally worth it. I’m more of a Romanesque/Gothique guy, and the Duomo has been Baroqued to death. But it is spectacular and overwhelming. And you can ride a lift to the various roofs. Get up close and personal with those gargoyles!

Spectacular views of Milan and every square meter of the exterior of the Duomo is packed with luscious art. What’s not to like?

Milan is a bustling and vibrant modern city with all the restaurants. Because we live in remote rural France we often crave international foods we can no longer order for delivery–Indian, Thai, Mexican, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, etc. But you can get anything in Milan, and often a lot of food for under 12 euros. We had perhaps the best pizzas we ever tasted for lunch our second day and paid less than 23 euros.

Stop Three: Verona

I was a bit suspicious of Verona because of the whole Juliet’s House thing. Tourists waiting in line to touch the breast of a statue of a teenage girl who exists only in literature? Yeah, whatever. But we managed two days here without Romeo or Juliet interfering at all (I was curious about the museum in Juliet’s house–but we saw plenty of remarkable art in the Castelvecchio, the GAM, and at the Maffei Palace).

And, like Milan and Turin, the city Verona is itself a work of art. Every street and plaza in the old city is lovely. Check out the Roman Arena, stroll Piazza Bra, and head off in any direction at random. There are a handful of remarkable churches to see, in particular the Basilica of Zeno with its bronze doors and crypt to the African saint. I was terribly amused by the centuries of graffiti carved into the 13th century murals: “Hugo was here, 1453,” etc.

If you visit Trento, go to the Tourist Office by the Arena and immediately buy the Verona card, it is TOTALLY worth it if you plan to visit more than a couple museums or sites. We paid 35 euros each for the two-day card and it paid for itself and then some.

Ride the funicula up to Castel San Pietro for those money-shot pics. Even on a smoggy hazy global warming 70-degree February day it’s a great view of the city.

Stop Four: Trento/Civezzano

We toured a bit of Trento with friends from ISP in Panama. I said to Chris, who currently lives and teaches in Rome, “no one does public space like the Italians.” He said “it’s true–but good luck finding a park with trees!”

Civezzano, where we met friends and stayed for a couple nights, is a cute little town which functions as a base for skiers, but there was no snow on the surrounding peaks because of draughts and far warmer than typical winters. It has some nice old homes but not much else going on. On our way there we found the MART museum, which is a magnificent facility. And, we had the great luck to see an exhibition centered on melancholy featuring several engravings by Durer and Rembrandt, as well as more modern masters. There was also a massive show of current Chinese painting. The permanent holdings are substantial and definitely worth a stroll, even on aching 20,000 steps a day tourist feet.

Bonus: The MART museum accepts the Verona card for free admission!

Civezzano has a tiny pizza joint which produces gigantic pizzas. Here is Harper wondering what the rest of us would eat.

Truly a pleasure to get up close and personal with several Durer etchings at MART outside Trento

Stop 5: Bergamo Alto

Perhaps the most walkable and warmest of the cities we visited. Magnificent shops and restaurants in centuries-old buildings, public art, more museums, more towers and churches.

Every corner of Bergamo Alto is a treat. Catch it in the late afternoon for that remarkable golden light.

clever marketing to put the Hello Kitty and other cartoon shaped treats at child’s height

Le Croix en Haute

This morning I had a To Do list, which I’ve been working through this week. I glanced at it around 9am, and looked at the weather forecast, and thought: “I’m not going to get most of this done before it rains anyway.” I did a bit of gite prepping for guests arriving tomorrow, I put a first coat of paint on my antique window greenhouse, and I hopped in the car to do a bit of site-seeing.

Just around Treignac and throughout the Correze are multiple layers of history: neolithic sites, Druid/Celt sites, Gallo-Roman sites, medieval ruins, Romanesque and Gothic churches and abbeys, painted caves, etc. We’ve lived here a year and have done some exploration, but it’s easy to get into a rut of “I’m working in the garden” and to forget one of the primary reasons we chose to live here: to see cool shit.

Today I drove 10 minutes over to the small village of Lestards. Sprinkled about Lestards in the forested hills are several medieval crosses–some dating back to immediately after the fall of Rome. I’d passed a small sign next to the main road several times which read “Le Croix en Haute.” Today I parked alongside the entrance to the trail and hiked up.

“En Haute” is an apt description. The hike was short–perhaps ten minutes, but it was steep. The path is an old rocky lumber road mostly overgrown and it runs directly uphill between pastures dappled in the typical French wildflower display.

There is on the left hand side a forest after a bit of a climb, and at the edge of the forest is a grove which feels different somehow from the rest of the landscape. One gets the sense immediately that this is a sacred spot, and likely was long before the Croix itself was placed, probably by monks desperate to convert the local pagans to Christianity by decorating their holy sites and sacred wells with crosses and saint’s names. The air is fresher and cooler in the grove, the loamy moss-covered earth invites one to move slowly and thoughtfully. The birds sing but they are less raucous than elsewhere. Whatever spirit or deity was originally evoked in long-forgot rites at this place still whispers around the trunks and amongst the grasses and flowers.

But there is room here for the early Christian sentiment as well, and it pervades the spot with a more dense and contemplative mood in counterpoint to the brisk and playful fay. I spent a good 40 minutes at the site, examining the cross and its surroundings, then doing my daily Qi Gong routine at the grove’s edge. As I moved through the sequence of slow movements, village church bells rung 10 am–the first sounding deep and bronzy from Lestards, then a moment later from Veix somewhat tinny and a bit further down the valley. The long-stemmed flower varietals swayed in a strong steady wind up the slope from below, indicating an approaching storm. Somewhere above and behind a woodpecker did his tapping devotions .

Christ on the cross is pretty clear in this rough carving, as are the faces of two others beneath his arms. Are they those crucified alongside him that day? Or witnesses to his execution? The two Marys perhaps, or Roman centurians? Were I to scrape away the lichen and moss on its base would I find any markings? Or spots worn smooth by the touch of generations of genuflecting seekers?

Definitely a mystical aura to this place

I imagine I’ll come here often over the years we spend in Treignac. It’s a very evocative place, and Lestards with its small thatched-roof eglise and spring water fountain is a favorite regular destination for us. I might later this summer or fall have to tackle the trail which hits several of these crosses around the village.

An Adorabe Infestation

We figured along with all the upsides of living in France and running a tourist rental biz that there would inevitably be problems. Our apartments are functional and comfy but they are not fancy, and we expect that at some point there will be plumbing and electrical problems, or leaky roofs, etc.

But our first major problem has been a spring insect infestation. Of course in a rural area one expects lots of bugs, and we’ve had in our apartment: flies, bees, beetles, spiders, and ants. But until this spring there hasn’t been a problem with bugs in the rentals. Since April, one of our rental apartments has been over-run with lady bugs (lady birds to our friends from the UK).

We’ve had several guests who stayed in the gite with the lady bugs running rampant–all of them have been super polite and understanding. I’ve been warning incoming guests that sometimes lady bugs enter the apartment and no one has backed out. One fisherman said they only bothered him when they landed on his tablet screen or his shoulders.

In early April there were HUNDREDS of lady bugs on the ceiling. It happened in our apartment as well. I really don’t mind–I sweep them up into a dustpan and release them outside whenever I see them. But my wife is the only human being in history who is terrified of ladybugs. She can’t abide them, and refuses to touch them, and tries to capture them with long-handled spoons, which is hilarious to watch. Whenever she sees one she becomes ferociously angry, despite having lived in the tropics for four years where insects all up in your grill is simply a fact of life.

So far our guests have been understanding. I told them I am reluctant to use chemicals or to call a professional because we are trying to be eco, and all our clients have been in accord with this, and one woman actually swept them herself and put them in our garden. “J’aime beaucoup les coccinelles!” she said.

I’ve tried several online folk remedies, but nothing works (vinegar, BTW, is always a remedy for everything–it does not, however, cover the pheromone trail which attracts lady bugs back inside). Now that the weather is warmer at night they seem to have stopped coming in–I hope that remains the case, because eventually someone is going to object to lady bugs all over the place on their vacation.

I suppose if one must endure an infestation in France, that having it be swarms of lady bugs is perhaps the best option. After all, at every local market there is some craftsperson selling ceramic lady bugs, hand-painted lady bug tiles, or embroidered lady bug pillows, or lady-bug t-shirts. They are black, red, orange, yellow, they eat aphids, and they are adorable!