Border towns

The local tourist information brochure helpfully reminds us that, ‘The chilly days of winter are just around the corner. It’s time for the Dolomite folk to ready their homes for the arrival of the harshest of seasons: time to chop, clean and stack up the logs for fireplaces and stoves; to prepare jams and preserves (such as that unforgettable quince jam our mothers used to make); to check the equipment for clearing the snow.’

Quince jam??!! Anyway, the good Dolomite folk have taken this advice to heart (at least the Cadore Dolomiti have) and everywhere there are neatly stacked piles of wood, usually beneath shuttered windowsills harbouring pots of geraniums for perfect photo opportunities!

Cortina d’Ampezzo is Italy’s most fashionable and expensive ski resort, which means it must be pretty damn flash! It is, with Ferraris and designer gear very much in evidence.

It is surrounded by stunning scenery and hosted a Winter Olympics – the wooden ski jump still stands looking like some weird hangover from a medieval jousting tournament.

While Him Outdoors goes for a run I get to explore Pieve di Cadore at my leisure. I have a cappuccino in a cheerful café on the square. I think everybody comes in to say hello to the owner and grab a quick coffee. Those who don’t, she nabs outside as she stands in the doorway for her frequent cigarette breaks.

The town is full of Titian memorabilia. He was born in Pieve di Cadore sometime between 1488 and 1490, but moved to Venice at the age of nine to become one of the most famous artists of his time. He still returned to his house in Pieve during the summer as it got too hot in Venice. His house is now a museum with copies of his works and lots of information in Italian.

As a true Renaissance man, Titian was also a timber merchant and the craftsmanship is evident in the house. Downstairs, the wooden floor is made from hexagonal slices of tree trunk.

An exterior staircase leads up the side of the house to the top floor where the furniture is displayed: high chairs; low stools; chests; shelves; sideboards and a dining table. A floor plan illustrates how level the house was – even without modern measuring equipment – but every crooked angle or wonky wall is accounted for, with cupboards built into every spare space.

The uneven floors and beams and heavy furniture make the house seem very dark, but I am impressed by the cornices on the ceilings and the fancy woodwork on the lintels and architraves – even when the basics weren’t in place, decoration was considered necessary.

Little saucers of ground-up pigment that Titian used in his paintings are displayed in a cabinet. The bright colours and evocative names (lapislazzuli; verde vescia; giallorino; lacca di cocciniglia; terra d’ombra; nerofumo) remind me of spices; although you wouldn’t want to cook with these powders, I guess painters mix them up to their own particular recipe.

The Archdiaconal Church of Saint Mary Nascent in Pieve is a gem – despite the long-winded name. The fresco on the choir was painted by Titian (or Tiziano Vecellio to give him his full name) and pupils.

The Last Supper above the altar also has parts painted by Titian, and he has created a self-portrait in the nativity scene where Mary is breast-feeding, which I imagine was quite a shocking subject for a painting, flanked by a bishop (with the face of Titian’s son) and St. Andrew (with his brother’s face). Mary herself is modelled on Titian’s daughter, Lavinia – keeping it all in the family.

I was admiring the 1450s pieta – a painted terracotta group reportedly by Egidio d’Alemagna – when I was startled by a grinning skull in a glass case underneath it. This is apparently a relic of St Fedele, brought (and doubtless bought) from Rome in 1767. Is this penchant for collecting bones a particularly Catholic thing? It seems quite macabre and unnecessarily idolatrous.

Lorenzago (or Popetown as we call it) is where Pope John Paul chose to spend his summer breaks – six of them – and his successor, Benedict XVI, followed his example in summer 2007. It is peaceful and the air is pure; old men sit at cafes and cats stretch in the morning sun.

The bells ring out loud and clear. They are electronically rung now and as you see them swinging in the rafters, they look like big kids on swings – competing to see who can go the highest and you are always worried one of them might spin right round and fall off.

We gather the glorious glossy fruit from the horse chestnut tree (terra d’ombra perhaps?) and play hacky conker with them. The trees and little villages are punctuated by the spires and (decreasingly as we move away from the border) onion-shaped domes.

At Calderada di Reno, our Best Western Meeting Hotel is like any airport hotel anywhere – soulless and functional. It is a place to sleep, although there is a demolition site next door. We can’t work out if Calderada is up and coming or down and going. A brief stroll through the town reveals that the house prices are still around the 200,000 Euro mark, so I would guess it’s the former, not that I’m planning on making an investment.

Travels and tribulations 3

Meanwhile, back to Italy...

We leave Florence behind and head north on the autostrada. Cars hurtle past at ferocious speeds and the weather conditions are appalling. The rain pelts down, the mist and fog rise to shroud us in our own invisibility cloak, and the temperatures plummet. The road snakes into the mountains over viaducts and through numerous tunnels. Apparently the surrounding lakes and villages are extremely picturesque, but we can’t see a thing.

At the end of the autostrada we call into Longereno for a coffee – they don’t do Americano and the bloke behind the counter tells me I am having an espresso, which I do – wow, that wakes me up! Apparently they have a marathon here every year to commemorate a slip that washed away a large part of the village and several people. Today they are having not a lot, except a crowd of folk in the café laughing and joking as they knock back several glasses of vino tavola – fair play to them; there’s not much else to do in this weather.

We continue to Pieve di Cadore, which Him Outdoors has picked as a point to stay from where we can explore the nearby mountains. It is siesta time and everything is closed which of course upsets Him Outdoors, although it happens every day. We drive to a lagola to wait for opening hours. Later I discover the lagola is a natural spa with spring water bubbling up from beneath, but with torrents of rain cascading from above, it is hard to spot.

We wait until a tourist information is open and we book a hotel through them. It is dark and dingy – the heavy wooden furniture and solemn chintz furniture don’t help. The girl at the desk (the owner’s daughter I presume) is extremely surly, the hot water is reluctant, the shower poky, and the bedside light broken. Unsurprisingly, we are the only guests there and I feel like a character in a John Irving novel.

Him Outdoors buys some maps from the local tabacci and he pours over them, plotting and scheming routes which cheers him up until he realises he hasn’t got enough time to mount all the assaults he plans. Out in the little town we find a birreria where they serve glasses of vino rosso for 1.50 Euro with a bowl of crisps. A group of old men play cards in a back room where frescoes of jolly monks look down from the walls, beer in hand.

We then stumble across a pizzeria which is packed – so this is where the good folk of Pieve hang out. Our pizzas are delicious along with our demi-carafe (mezzo) of red wine. The flames leap and twist in the pizza oven keeping everyone warm, which is a good job as it is cold outside. I am wearing four layers, two of them wool, and shivering when still.

Back at the hotel the owner has returned. He speaks Italian (obviously) and German but no English or French. We manage to establish that he wants to see our passports. It transpires it is not so unusual for people to speak German in this region. Just north of here is Sappada, a German-dialect-speaking (Bavarian/Tyrolean) island, founded about 1,000 years ago by refugees from the Tyrol, perhaps attracted by the rich mineral deposits there. This might also explain why we keep thinking these villages look Austrian.