Cinquecento!

Time for an Italian Job - this one's for Greg & Eileen.


Inspired by Eileen's neat painting of the iconic original FIAT Cinquecento (above) on her blog Easelarts (go have a look, it's neat, and an impressive run of artwork) I've dug out some shots we took of the original FIAT 500 in Italy and the modern pastiche supermini.

Original in Rome.

An Italian Job set, with a trio being used as pace cars in the Giro d'Italia bicycle race we ran into the Italian hill-towns.

And parked up with another retro-pastiche, seen in a typical street, this time in Arezzo.

Tragically, according to the Wiki page, this modern car "is available with four different trim levels: Naked, Pop, Lounge, and Sport". Meh.

James

James 'Wabbit' Hare's Italian 'holiday'

Just another classic Venice photo? But look closer. It's not what it seems at first glance. This is the mid '40s, and the photographer, James Hare, is a serving US Air Army Force Thunderbolt pilot on his days off from fighting World War II.

A few months ago, a Swiss contact of mine, Martin Kyburz, put me onto a website featuring the snapshots of a certain James 'Wabbit' Hare. They are, on the one hand, the same old shots of famous Italian scenes that are familiar to us today. On the other hand they are a remarkable and rare record, being colour photographs from the mid- 1940s, as Italy was starting to recover from World War II and the Fascist era.

Mark O'Boyle, the webmaster of the 57th Fighter Group Website, where these photos are, filled in a bit of the background for us:

James Hare told me they went down to Africa in their liason B-25 to pick up booze, and some supply guy gave him the only roll of color film around. Lucky us!

I talk to him on the phone occasionally, he is in remarkably good health, is going to Italy and Corsica in May with several of the 57th FG pilots.

Having crossed his path ourselves recently by visiting Venice and Rome over 60 years later, it was interesting to see what had changed and what hadn't. Given that the photographs were mostly taken while the war was still going on, it's remarkable how much hasn't changed since, and how much Venice and Rome were clearly still in the tourist business.

Venice:

James Hare's caption reads: 'Our Gondolier appears about ready for retirement'.

Rialto bridge. Above, 2008, by me, below, 1944, by James Hare.

I'd expect that in 1944-45 gondolas would have come back into their own, as any mechanically powered watercraft would have been impressed for war duties, and fuels were at a premium. Was this the last time Venice was essentially gondola supported?

The Doge's Palace with St Mark's lion, 2008 (above by Bev) and 1944 (below by James Hare).

Pisa

Made famous around the world by a certain tower. August 9th is (probably, roughly) the anniversary of the start of work on this building, in 1173.

One of those poses,adopted by many tourists visiting Pisa (including yours truly as a young man in the early 70s). Above James Hare shows the stance, while below, me. I didn't smile in pictures.


Intriguingly, we nearly lost it in 1944. According to Nicholas Shrady's Tilt: a skewed history of the Tower of Pisa. "During World War II, the Allies discovered that the Nazis were using it as an observation post. A U.S. Army sergeant was briefly entrusted with the fate of the tower. His decision not to call in an artillery strike saved the edifice."

Rome:

The Colosseum. 'A stadium to top all others'. Again, it's is notable how much seems unchanged to today.

'Victor Emmmanuel Monument with film from Egypt.' Apart from more colourful pedestrians and traffic, it doesn't look that different today.

It wasn't all sightseeing. The reason I was put onto this website was my researches into the Supermarine Walrus aircraft. Wartime colour photographs of it are ultra-rare, so I was delighted to see this:

James Hare's caption reads: 'RAF "Walrus" on the Pisa Airfield. The type plane that fished me out of the Adriatic in March 1945'

Through the website owner, Mark O'Boyle, I was able to get James' permission to use a photo in a feature I wrote on Walrus Air-Sea Rescue operations in Aeroplane magazine. I was delighted to hear that James is still hale and hearty, and it was great to catch a sight of Italy from a different world. Apparently he was delighted the picture was of use, too. Mark added:

I know very little of the Walrus other than the very brief statements about pilots rescued from certain death or capture when they were picked up by the life-saving amphibs.... What a joy it must of been to see one while pondering the inevitable, and be plucked out of the sea by a friend.

The gent in the picture next to the Walrus is Captain Maxwell P. Fonda, or "Doc Fonda" or as Dwight here says, his nickname was Foxwell P. Monda.... Little known facts. My oh my...

All the photos are shown on the 57th Fighter Group website. Well worth a look for a view of the day to day life of these crews and their friends.

James

A date with the belle velloce donne rossi

This is just a quick post for our loyal viewers (that's you) before we hit the road from Rome and head to Orvieto. Bev keeps talking of Cathedrals, but I'm thinking of a certain type of very palatable chilled white wine, with the label misting over, maybe at a cafe in front of the Cathedral...

Wednesday (yesterday) was always down as the day we were to go to Vigna di Valle, where I had a date with a group of classy fast Italian ladies in red. This was one of the centrepieces in a magnificent museum of the Italian Air Force, and is one of the reasons were were in Rome.

Italy was one of the few countries to compete in the Schneider Cup races for seaplanes from the 1910s to the thirties, and as one would expect, the Italian entrants were effective, beautiful, classy, original and RED. (The others were Britain, France, and America - Britain won the required three times for a permanent victory, and the Cup is now in the Science Museum in London.)

Three of the racers are on show in the Museum (a forth is on show in town, and that's another story) and this picture (by Bev) shows them looking like they are ready to go again. The Macchi Mc-72 on the far end of the line took the world seaplane speed record at 709kmh (440mph) on 23rd October 1934 - a record for a piston engine seaplane that stands to this day. After taking the ribbon, she never flew again. Well, anything afterwards was going to be anticlimactic, wasn't it?

We had a great time in the museum, and we'd taken the train to a beautiful town called Bracciano on the lake (of the same name) where we were to get a taxi to the museum. We had to wait an hour in town, and a better hour would be hard to spend. It contained proper newsagent's kiosk, a castle, a town square with people on passagata, a good Italian traffic jam (we decided the town was a bit like Windermere, but Italian ~ sort of) amazing medieval streets that were all too much like a Verdi opera set, a museum, two gelati, some strolling, and a number of amazing views. The picture above isn't a set, they just made it like that...

We got back to Rome for the evening where we managed to meet up with one of my aviation writing opposite numbers, Gregory Alegi, who took us to a great restaurant off Via Nazionalle and were we had a most enjoyable Roman meal, much talk of art, aviation, food history and all good things. Only our sudden poleaxing by jetlag and a taxi back to our hotel prevented the evening going much later, and we didn't get any of the Rome by night photos I'd hoped for. But hey, it's the Eternal City right? It'll be here, we'll be back.

More soon... and if you are good, I'll tell you what the Orvieto Classico was like. Travel writing, it's a tough gig.

James

The city awakes

5:30 in the morning is not known for its charms. However, sitting on a terracotta rooftop terrace looking to the river and watching the city emerge would have to be one of the few.


I have been watching the sunlight creeping down the walls of the church and building next door. Despite the fact that we are near the centre of one of the largest cities in Europe, there’s surprisingly little noise, and now, almost 7AM, there’s not that much going on yet. Some vespas, lots of birds, and the clattering of opening shutters. Someone is shouting down to someone else in the piazza.

Yesterday the art historian filled up her art corpuscles. First up, the Villa Farnesina for that fresco feeling, with a spot-the-gods ceiling and of course, Raphaels and more Raphaels. Arriving fairly early, we had the place to ourselves for the first few rooms – definitely a bonus, and a little place I will always want to revisit.

Then, a quick coffee standing at the bar and down to the Pantheon plus a market, in the rain. This followed by an exhibition of Quattrocento art and its effect on Rome – yes, please thank you says the art historian – followed by more walking, and San Pietro in Vincoli, the church where Michelangelo’s Moses sculpture broods at tourists in a muscular Vulcan-like way. I can’t remember why he’s got horns: can anyone recall why he’s got horns? My art books are two continents away….

Finally, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, where we explored an exhibition on speed and Italian design (motorbikes, cars, futurist art, and an airplane right in the middle of one of the rooms). Running around making vroom vroom noises would have been nice, but they already had them on the stereo. To finish: the best damn art and design bookshop I have seen in a long time, if ever – we escaped without too much damage: it’s amazing what the threat of carrying all your belongings will do. Back to Trastevere in the rain.

Now I can see that the café down in the piazza is opening up, so I must leave you and we will post more later. For now, a photo.

Bev

Rome

I sit here writing this on our spiffy new matt-black Macbook laptop, on the private rooftop balcony in our central Rome hotel, as the late evening sun paints a golden glow on the lemon and strawberry-colour plastered palazzi-buildings opposite. (Adjectives, donchca just love ’em? Me and all them great authors; it’s really just about location, location, location.) The gulls wheel and circle over the private rooftop gardens, which are skewered and adorned with a random and bizarre collection of pot-plants, ivy, washing, cigarette stubs and TV aerials (have you seen Italian TV? It would be improved by poor reception…). The traffic passes by just between us and the Tiber, and below, is a rather useful Gelato Café; we have checked out the Gelateria’s wares, including their coffee to keep us awake, on this rather endless day. Yes, sometime too recent and literally a world away we boarded our aircraft at Melbourne Tullamarine, and set off for (another) major trip. Where else to start ones’ holiday than Rome, where all roads are said to lead?

On this occasion our road led, by Thai Airlines via Bangkok, and a nine hour flight and a second one we are disputing between us of either ten and a half or nigh-on twelve; either way, we have had quite enough freeze-dried air. It was better than marching back from the edge of the empire, but not that much, yr honour. In the middle of this, Bangkok airport was bizarre; full of people from all over south-east Asia, and Australia’s selection seeming to be wall to wall bogans from Queensland – we were made to walk about one mile from aircraft ‘a’ and ascend an escalator which led us to a mile (I’m sure it was the same journey in reverse, only a level higher) of really scary brand-name shops, being grazed by herds of the aforementioned people. It was rather like a cross between a Kevin Smith film and Night of the Living Shoppers. Luckily it was soon over, the brand able to ensnare either Bev or James having yet to be seen in such a zone.

It may be better to travel hopefully than to arrive, but we are both much keener on Rome than somewhere mid-airways, and we managed to sort-of-sleep most of the latter flight with the benefit we were able to wander central Rome on arrival for several hours without the eyes that revolved (too much). It was interesting that we both kind of enjoyed the people watching around the Colosseum as much as the ‘my word, it’s the Colosseum, it looks just like the postcards…’ moment, and we both really enjoyed accidentally wandering through the filming of a Italian (TV?) police procedural, and the back streets of Trastevere.

The TV police procedural was most intriguing. As I pointed out to Bev, one comes to Rome, one expects to see Romans, ancient. This film crew included the usual CID type handsome plainclothes hero cop, the older sidekick, various uniformed police standing around the ‘crime scene’ and four Centurions. Filming was in the arcades and rubble of Teatro Marchello, an ancient Roman amphitheatre, and someone decided that some more plaster pillar-feet were needed to dress the already adequately variegated marble scatterings. We want to know what happens next. We want to know whose series it is. We can see a (younger, more dapper) Italian Morse equivalent, but maybe we are just jetlagged. It’s probably just Inspector Rex with Centurions.

Give me the back streets with the odd details, stolen Roman pillars and built from Roman era bricks, rather than the relentless tourist site route-march, following the lofted brolly. The sites are OK, but they always are just like they’re supposed to be (only with scaffolding on…) What makes arriving (and the travelling) are the details that you don’t get in the guides – the birdsong (it’s so different here to Australia) the smells (Mmmm Italian city… not a smell you could sell.) the sound of the (ever so frequent) cop cars ‘de le de dah’, and, of course, the tastes. I won’t start, because I would go on. So much is in the details; how the people just are. As Bev said, there’s an awful lot of people from Melbourne here, but those Melburnians we are thinking of are just those who emigrated down under in 1954, and brought their coffee and ice-cream to the antipodes (thank you, thank you, and again…) and these are their brothers and sisters who never left.

It’s now 6.50pm (local) or 2.50 am Melbourne time, so we reckon we are dong well. The church bells are ringing out, another detail that makes the travelling .

And tomorrow? As was badly dubbed over the ending of a movie; ‘Domani e un altro giorno.’ I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore, either.

James