Magna Greca

    Southern Italy was a colony of ancient Greece in the 4th century BC. The exports of grain, olives and wine contributed to the wealth of Athens. The native people were called the Lacanians. They were a friendly people that seemed to get along with everyone. They had some interactions with the Etruscans who lived in what is now Tuscany. There was some intermarriage and some exchange of ideas, including similar burial rituals. When the Greeks arrived there was also peaceful interaction. The best preserved Greek ruins outside Athens exist in Paestum, located on the west coast of Italy, south of Salerno. Another important settlement existed at Aschea, further south.  Here they found remnants of the first theater and first medical school in Italy. The Romans destroyed the Greek colonies and the Lacanian settlements. Paestum fell in 332 BC.
     The area is still known for its agricultural produce, especially olives. It is amazing how this mountainous land is so well cultivated. Most of these small towns were only connected by the sea. Most roads were finally built after WWII. The towns themselves were originally built on mountaintops because they were more easily defended from the Saracens who started invading around the 8th century. Signal towers were built up and down the coast to warn of incoming ships. Some of these were restored and turned into houses others remain in ruins. If you buy one you may not tear it down. You must restore it.

Luci di Salerno (Lights of Salerno)

Salerno, a city on the Mediterranean south of Naples, is one of 2 Italian cities (the other is in the north) to create a walk through fairyland of holiday lights. "Yes, everybody has Christmas lights "' you say, but these involve extensive plastic recycling programs and the design talents of local artists and craftspeople. Many of the plastic items used are the ubiquitous plastic water bottles. These are collected, washed, dyed and cut to form the desired shapes. Then they are mounted on wire frameworks. Fabricators wire on the lights and they are installed throughout the town. Everyone is paid for their labor, the local shopkeepers get a big boost to their sales and the city draws tourists from all over the region. Here are some examples

The Forum of the Cats

I've taken a short holiday in Italy and greatly enjoyed some wandering around Rome. One of the places of note is the Piazza di Pigna. This piazza is a street level piazza surrounding an excavation of some ancient ruins that include a few columns and numerous blocks of marble all numbered and ready to be reassembled if funds should ever be available. Sometime ago somebody decided this would be a good place to abandon some unwanted kittens. They were cute so people started to bring them food. Other strays came for dinner and the population started to grow. Tom cats decided it was a good place to meet available females. They fathered more kittens, those kittens grew up and had more offspring and people continued to abandon unwanted cats there. As the population increased more and more people brought food and soon it was estimated there were around 1000 cats there. The city decided something must be done before cats from the countryside started to move in too, so heavy fines were levied on anyone found abandoning cats there and a cat hotel was set up at one end of the piazza. Cats were caught, fed, given medical attention if necessary and altered. People were advised to contribute money rather than food. A cat adoption agency was set up and now the population is greatly diminished. Those remaining enjoy sun bathing and cat gymnastics on the marble blocks and there are definately no mice in Piazza di Pigna..

Pawel Althamer

Pawel Athamer has set up a sculpture factory named Almech in The Deutsch e Guggenheim. He plans to complete at least 100 sculptures while he is there. Almech is the name of his father's plastic manufacturing plant in the Czech Republic.  His father's factory is now renamed the Deutsche Guggenheim. In the Deutsch Guggenheim, a gallery a little smaller than the Crayola Gallery, he set up a plastic extrusion machine which forces out 2 1/2 inch diameter strands of plastic, just like a giant toothpaste tube. He has prepared life sized welded rebar armatures, and life masks of Deutsche Bank and museum staff volunteers. To create a sculpture he attaches a mask to an armature and drapes the hot strands on the armatures to create a figure. He says in the beginning his father's plant supported his art. He is now a well known artist, but he says now the plant is not doing so well so his art is supporting his father's plant.
This is the Deutsche Guggenheim's 17th funded site-specific art project and it continues into early 2012.

Ka De We (Kaufhaus des Westerns)

    Saturday is a good day for shopping here in Berlin since many stores are closed on Sundays. Ka De We is a must for any Berlin visitor since it's the biggest store in all of Europe and probably has been since its' founding in 1907. When Berlin was divided it became the "poster child" for the economic prosperity of West Berlin.

    Many department stores in the larger cities in Europe have "Food Halls". Ka De We not only has a whole floor dedicated to a huge selection of foods from around the world, it also has a restaurant on the floor above.

Everything is done with precise perfection, Note the white coated team of expert "technicians" restocking the canned goods. 

    The fish counters are superb, note the "Ice School" of fish and the other with a mouth big enough to swallow your arm. Fortunately he has no teeth. At the meat counter you will fing a whole display case filled with the "best of the wurst". There are over 100 varieties of tea and even more choices of coffee and if you'r looking for wine they have over 2400 varieties available. 

    if your not sure what to get, or you're hungry right now they'll cook it up for you and you can eat it there. When I asked for help choosing a coffee they offered to make a sample for me, and when I checked out the the mind boggling assortment of cheeses they also freely offered samples.

    At Ka De We, even though they don't have a king any more, they kept the same motto since they began:

"... where the customer is king and the king is a customer

Berlin Remembers

    The day before I arrived they told me there were flowers all over the streets because it was the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, Thursday was still a day of remembrance for me. I am staying temporarily in the Wilmersdorf section of town, which is a beautiful, timeless, upscale residential neighborhood. This was the neighborhood where well-to-do Jews, doctors, scholars, business owners, etc. lived, but Kristallnacht changed all that. There are many remembrance markers here. Here is a photo of 4 of them stating the names of the people who lived there and what happened to them, They say there are 120,000 throughout Berlin. Most of the buildings damaged in the war have either been rebuilt or torn down  but here is a ruin not far from where I'm staying, with a picture of what was apparently there originally.
    Remembrance continued into the evening. I went to an opening at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien by a group of Roma and Sinti about their experiences during the war. There were several videos of survivors relating their experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, during the war with drawings and paintings by one. What they lacked in skill was compensated for by the strength of her vision. She had one titled "Even the Devil is Afraid of Auschwitz"

Christmas Markets

I spent the winter in Berlin in 2008 and one of the things I enjoyed the most were the Christmas Markets.
(They are only called Chriskindlemarkts in certain areas of Germany.) They are all over the city and each one has its own special features and character. One of my favorites is in Gendarmenmarkt. So named because the French Gen d'Armes had their stables here in the 17th century and later the Hugenots fleeing France established their church here. Here is a picture of some of the market angels who tower over us on stilts, bestow the joys of the season with their magic wands, and encourage us to sing Christmas carols.

An Adventure in Blogging ... My First Post

Welcome

 Today I begin my new blogging adventure.  This comes just days before my departure to Germany and Italy.