Pitigliano

Answer Key

Frascati: A small town seated in the hills outside of Rome. Fifty minutes away by train. Known for its white wine

The Vatican: The Vatican

Castel Gandolfo: A small town on a lake, which used to be a volcano. The Pope makes his summer residence here, in a modest villa over looking the steep cliffs that slope down to black sand.

Pisa: The city with that one tower. The same street vendor will try to sell the same watch to you atleast four times in ten minutes.

Florence: Bellisima. Birth place of the Renaissance which straddles the River Arno. There is sure a lot of art here.

Hemingway: Farewell to Arms, and the collected short stories.

'The Wasteland': T.S. Eliot. Inspiration.

Nastro Azzuro: "Blue Ribbon". The Italian Pabst.

Open: Bar of choice. Italian Micro brews and chips, with a good vibe.

The Eight Line: The tram that runs from Centro Historico to my Apartment. Atleast an hour and a half is spent everyday on these tracks.

'Writ in Water': Excerpt from John Keats' epitaph. Also inspiration.

Rewind

Three weeks in eleven titles/places.

Frascati

The Vatican

Castel Gandolfo

Pisa

Florence

Hemingway

'The Wasteland'

Nastro Azurro

Open

The Eight Line

'Writ in Water'

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Jabberwocky

Bomarzo sits in the Italian hills. Another town with winding roads that offer blind turns on the edge of cliffs. Follow these curves down long enough, and you are led to a wooded valley called Sacro Bosco. In Sacro Bosco lay monolithic carvings in stone; statues of gods, dragons, nymphs, and elephants that rise covered in moss. This is Parco dei Mostri, born from the mind of a wealthy Italian hunchback. It is quiet, it is fantastic, and it is ancient. Cryptic quotes guide the walker along crooked paths. This is where the rabbit hole leads, this is wonderland.

She Wolves in the City of the Dead

The inexorable link between the Etruscans and the Romans is seen in the Statue of the She Wolf who took in the founding brother of Rome, Romulus and Remus and as we wound up winding hill side roads we met her. Her teets hanging down as she led us to the Necropolis. Not the original but close enough, it was a yellow lab, that had just had a litter. Down the cypress lined road she ran, craning her neck back periodically to see if we were still following intently to the city of the dead.

Here, we walked down streets past homes that housed the dead, through a town carved out of Tufa rock sitting in the between the hills of Lazio and Tuscany. This Necropolis is where the Etruscans buried their dead. Large circular mounds, called Tumuli, dot the landscape rising from volcanic rock monolithically. Dating back to the sixth century, these are the remnants of the original Italians.

Though it was not the tombs, but the Bitch that reminded of the beginnings of Rome. As always, is it not what you go to see, but what caught your eye along the way.

Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.

Behind the Piramide are bodies, lying in plots of Il Cimitero Accatolico Di Roma. Here there is a population of cats that move silently among the stones. These tailed wraiths keep watch over the remains while Cypress trees rise conically above the surrounding Roman walls. Since 1730, this cemetery has been in use as the burial ground for non-catholics living in Papal Rome. Here lies John Keats and Percy Shelley. They rest under headstones, modest in comparison to their neighbors. Their epitaphs, the epitaphs of Romantics.

Shelley:

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Cor Cor Dium

Natus IV Aug MDCCXCII

OBIT VIII Jul MDCCCXXII

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea=change

Into something rich and strange

Keats:

This Grave

contains all that was Mortal,

of a

YOUNG ENGLISH POET

Who

on his death bed

in the bitterness of his heart

at the malicious power of his enemies

desired

these words to be engraven on his tomb stone

"Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water"

Feb 23rd 1821

Io sono senza parole come loro sono.