Ten centuries on…

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Appropriately high for defending from invaders, with the Piacenza Hills in the background, the Castle Vigoleno remains impressive. In wonderful condition, given it was built in the 10th century, it stayed in the one family for five centuries or so.

It is a grand and sprawling ridgetop complex, really a fortified medieval village, with a classy restaurant, San Giorgio, I assume named after St George of dragon-slaying fame, as on the crest. We could not see inside the apparently gorgeously appointed event centre venue and hotel rooms, nor tour the castle.  Wrong day.

But we could wander down the cobbled alleys past occupied houses and admire the views of the valleys far below.

And we could enter the 12th century church, a mere eight centuries old!

This Madonna puzzled us; why is she standing on unhappy heads, and why is the bellringer for lepers beside her? If I find out, I’ll let you know…

The church was dark, but its massive supporting columns loomed large. My arms could not reach around such a solid bulk.

Here I have to confess that en route to this Castello Vigoleno my camera settings dial must have been bumped so all the outside photos were overexposed.  Sorry: mi dispiace! But you can get an idea of its grandeur. This is the main courtyard, with the restaurant and fabulous view beyond.

The distinctive swallow-tailed tops or merlons were for sheltering behind as you fought through the slits. Iron grilles would have been lowered at the entry to the outer walls and to the main castle.

This is prized wine grape growing country, and no matter how steep, the soil of these hills are planted with best loved varieties, like Gutturnio.  These vines are growing beneath the walls of the much more modest Castello Scipione. Also built about ten centuries ago, it has remained in the hands of the one noble family.

Of more homely appearance, Castello Scipione is also in greater need of repairs, with the typical narrow  Italian bricks jostling with stones to shore up damage. As I walk over its rough cobbled lanes, I am somewhat overwhelmed to think of the feet that have walked here before me, so very long ago.

When we owned the old jail and residence at Minmi, I had the same feeling about the hollows worn in its slate steps… and it was less than 200 years old!

Living history

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The walk along the ridge and down to the valleys from my friend Paola’s family home offers seductive views of ancient castles, towers and churches.  We head for the closest.

All three …castle, church and cemetery … have been recommended to me to see.

The sign seems to send us to the right place.

But not one of the three is open. Like so much of Italy’s  built history, the upkeep is too great; some are being repaired by current owners, hopefully to become income earners.

We can hear peacocks, and the dog of which the sign warns.

We pass the totally closed-up church; we can see nothing of the inside.

We could have prayed by the ivy-draped shrine to the Virgin, set in a small garden nearby.

To Paola’s bemusement I am fascinated by any evidence of older ways of building and this barn by the road is both sad and beautiful as its timber lintel rots and the bricks follow its trajectory.

Any walk in this country means chances for foraging. Not as many as in Paola’s youth, but enough to warrant always carrying a bag, just in case some still exist and are ripe.

Wild plums, red and yellow, wild cherries, alpine strawberries, walnuts, wild oregano…

Even if no finds, the intense green of the roadside trees stuns me; it is hard to imagine their winter bareness, with perhaps only the ubiquitous ivy not leafless or snow-covered.

We walk down to Tabbiano Terme, another spa town, full of apartments, some hotels; no shop but a pharmacy… and this one big farmhouse in empty fields. I think of all the food that this farm could grow now, for all the people living here, who include refugees housed by the government. I am told many hotels are only still open due to this funding, but  surely some refugees must be from the country and could grow food?

No; it is all about the money, says my friend.

So what’s new?

On Monday we will be taken to a castle that is open…or so it says… so I hope to share that next.

Trees first

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It is said that, like the Art Nouveau style, the town of Salsomaggiore Terme drew its inspiration from Nature. It certainly favours trees; many parks and broad avenues like this offer more dappled green shade than I am used to in a town or city.

Once-grand hotels like this, now a conference and event centre, are suitably graced and softened with trees and gardens.

Old trees are revered, their arching and bending limbs propped up. As I walk under such trees, or over cracked and lurching pavements that accommodate their roots, I have observed that our fear of litigation, our O H & S paranoia, does not rule here.

Even the cars in car parks must fit around the trees, rather than the whole area cleared for maximum cars. This is not a street, but a dedicated parking block, absolutely full on a Sunday, when it seems most shops and cafés are open and most people are out and enjoying the summer day. Our friend drives round and round seeking a spot. No wonder most cars here are small; the turning spaces would not suit the large SUVs more usual in Australia.

One Sunday event is a very long street market, where used goods like clothes and bric-a-brac are offered for sale for charities. This is a rare chance, as op shops… my usual retail choice… don’t exist in Italy. I buy a good coffee maker for using here, hover over a few unsuitable shoes and clothes, wish to be younger to wear them, wish for more space in my bag to take larger and heavier items home… but refrain. 

Because of all the trees, the stallholders and patrons are not in the baking sun as is more usual here, with such markets held in open parks or sports fields.

The cafés lining one side of the street are full of people eating al fresco, sipping coffee or wine. Sundays seem devoted to very civilised leisure.

And of course there are  much narrower paved streets, with no room for trees. Their shops are tiny and varied, with apartments above, the outdoor café spaces are small.

In an incongruously pretty building I spot a cow and horse meat vendor. Now that is a shock for any Australian, let alone a vegetarian one…

A tourist in town

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Salso’s most opulent building is the Berzieri Thermal Spa, unfortunately not operational, nor in fact even open for me to see its reputed wonders. A temple to Art Nouveau, the images of its interiors look wonderful and I would really love to see them.  Built from 1913-1923, it is meant to resemble an oriental palace or a grand casino. Maybe that’s why I find the outside over-the-top — I am not charmed.

I did sit at the café opposite to ponder on its famous facade and attempt my first ordering of a coffee on my own. I did this partly because my friend Paola had warned me that there are no public toilets in Italy but that every bar/café must have one. The ordering was not a success, as I ended up with two cups of coffee: one the cappuccino without froth and the other the double espresso I had meant to be included… must be the wrong accent, the emphasis… or just a most non-Italian coffee wish.

But there was a toilet…

Of more interest to me was the ornate Scotti Well Cage; the well was one of many that once drew the hot mineral laden waters to the surface. Only one spa now operates in Salso but it is intentionally therapeutic, not recreational; not the sort of spa we Australians are used to, either basically coming straight out of the ground as at Pilliga or harnessed for the local pool as at Blackall or Moree.

A building that did have charm for me was the much smaller Warowland. It had been built as an art gallery but became a home. Its functions now include that of the Tourist Information Centre. The graffito plaster walls are highly decorated inside and out with fine painted patterns and I wonder that artisans can still be found to maintain them.

I had been directed to it as ‘the yellow building’. I did know the word ‘giallo’ for yellow, but there are many shades of yellow.

My first wrong call turned out to be the local Council Chambers. I am wondering if the warm colours of the buildings are partly because in the snowy cold winters the town needs the visual warmth.

Next to it was a building of yet another shade of yellow.  A scooter and a pushbike were parked nearby; I have noted that many of the bicycle riders are older women and they do not wear helmets. It is apparently a rarely enforced law.

A murkier shade of yellow adorns a private home in the town, but it is enlivened with the riot of potted flower colour and the gay green curtains.

I am agog at so much here that I am going to do more posts per week than usual to keep up with my fascination. Coming with me?

Stepping to Salso

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My head is finally clear from the 21-hour torture of the plane trip but actually it is still spinning… from the differences in place and culture and language in which I am to be immersed for two months.

I am staying with my friend Paola at her mother’s house in the hills above Salsomaggiore Terme, which is a most beautiful town in the region of Emilio Romagna, so recently flooded in its lower areas. It is a town of leafy trees, parks and plazas, narrow streets and wide avenues, of boutique shops and cafés, of buildings quaint or grand.

My usual readers will not be surprised that the first photo I took here was not of the grand view above, but of a detail: a public rubbish bin. Apparently of ancient beauty, but of modern design, make and function.

The walk down to the town is via steep paved steps, bordered by weeds like the orange papavera poppies I had seen growing wild by the train line from the airport to Milan station. Even the stones in the edging drains here are aesthetically laid, diagonally. 

Naturally the walk back up is more of a strain; I could choose to follow the longer winding road instead. Italians drive on the other side of the road, very fast, and often one-handed, as, if in company, they are usually speaking — also fast — which necessitates gesticulating.

From the train I had also remarked on the many abandoned large farmhouse complexes, old and partly vine covered, in the midst of fields. People prefer to live near services now I am told. Yet on my walk down to Salso I pass quite a few mansions similarly falling into disrepair.

The first was Poggio Diana, once a sort of resort, a nightclub, a place of hospitality, of dancing and fun, with a pool and overgrown tennis courts below. I fall in love with the windows, the shapes, the shutters, and begin to feel the sadness of history’s changes. I think of the Hydro Majestic at Katoomba…

The road runs below the large tree-filled grounds of half-hidden, once grand villas. I think I see the one I want to rescue most. I am told many were built by owners of vineyards elsewhere in the region to take advantage of the higher air and the thermal spas, as the latter were the reason for Salsomaggiore Terme’s establishment.

Armies of gardeners would be needed for any of these, like this imposing rare one clearly still used by its wealthy owners.

Of course most Italians do not live in grand villas, or even separate houses, but in apartments, and I love that so many beautify them with flowers, roses and geraniums especially.

Most of the houses I do see are tall and narrow; colour abounds, particularly yellow. The house where I am staying is of three levels; I am in the attic.

I am getting used to tiles, and stairs, and even Italian TV. The latter is overly glamorous, bright and lively and I now better understand why the Eurovision Song Contest is so glitzy. But it is a good way to learn Italian…

Farewell flashes

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As I am about to head off for two months in Italy, I visited my nearest home nature spots to refresh my mind and memory.

First a walk to the long beach, often wild, today deceptively gentle and brilliantly blue. 

Only one other person is here, a mere speck a long way up the beach; fishing, I assume.

I doubt I will see such an empty beach in Italy.

Next, to the river, where a small group of pelicans have been checking out the low tide mudflats. Two take off, but the rest stay.

And what a treat to see my special solo seagull there as well; did he come to say ‘Arrivederci?’

He looks very small next to his big-beaked Big Bird mates. I missed him at the beach…

And at my actual home, my about-to-be-abandoned garden has exploded with prolific and beautiful farewell flowers on the various Schlumbergera truncata succulents. I had feared I’d miss them, and was about to ask my house minders to send me photos.

The next posts will be from Italy; I will be staying in the Emilia-Romagna region, although in the hills above the flood-ravaged area.

It does feel rather like going to visit the Northern Rivers after the Lismore etc. floods, but Nature’s payback has no concern for my travel timetable.

Tia up close

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From the little bridge across Tia Creek above the Falls, you can see the water weeds waving gently with the current of the mysteriously cloudy water.

Slightly above that the water is more calm, the banks higher. I keep an eye out for platypus, as they have been seen here, but I have no luck.

Like the slopes of the Gorge itself, the scattered creekside rocks are aslant, rough and layered.

Several sorts of lichen choose to adorn a few, softening them visually at least.

On the longer Tiara Walk, the post-fire tree regeneration is the main feature, apart from the views over the Gorge, of course.

Such glimpses never fail to astonish me; so close, so extreme, and here I am meandering along the top beside it, as if the land extended safely forever.

But in between, my attention keeps being drawn to the bright new growth of some of the young trees, glowing like firelight amidst all the black and grey.

Others are purple and magenta on the backs of the new leaves, commanding attention with their colours before the mature sage green.

Hard to keep watching where I walk, to avoid tripping, amidst so much to see. \

But I do; a fall when bushwalking, especially when on your own, is no fun… as I learnt at Gibraltar National Park!

Beyond trees

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The woodland edging Tia Gorge is scrawny, still struggling to regrow after the fires.The top branches of most remain twiggy claws.

Yet one subzero morning those bare claws were transformed, silver-coated, sparkling like crystals as the sun hit them.

At first I was unsure what I was seeing. Frost to the treetops? On the tin roof of the one structure at the camping ground, the longdrop toilet, the melting frost did not sound like raindrops, but small hail. Then shards of ice began skidding onto the cement floor as they were loosened by the sun from their high perches.

Grwing up in a coastal hinterland valley, I had seen plenty of hard ground frosts, but not tree-high ones, so this was a new experience for me.

How lucky to be here for such an event; common for locals no doubt, but like magic for me. A wave of the wand and …  filigree silver above me!

The many dead trees had other ways of making themselves beautiful, like bedecking themselves with fluffy lichen, dainty as pear blossom.

Even the now defunct epicormic tufts of shoots that had appeared from under the blackened bark after the fires were decorative. This was one tree that they did not manage to save.

And, never least, fungi! A whole colony, white to cream to amber, studded this single rough-barked elder.

Diversity and beauty in survival, despite clearly devastating bushfires, in this tablelands woodland.

Might and majesty

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To stand at the top of this gorge and look out across its deep and sharply plunging core is to marvel at the power of Nature.

In fact, I found the Tia Falls Gorge intimidating. Not just the vertiginous drop, certainly the subject of nightmares for the height-fearing like me, but the scale of it, tipped and eroded over millennia.

It’s in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, along the Great Escarpment, 35 km towards the coast from Walcha. This Park also has a small and basic camping area, a calm domestic oasis not far from the edge of all that drama. It seems incongruous to be sleeping and cooking while that is going on behind me.

Yet the tablelands graziers of yore have cleared almost to the edge of this gorge. I wonder how many cattle or sheep mistook their footing at the edge and went over to their deaths. Or cattlemen on horseback, for that matter…

I stay well back from the edges where there are no fences, feeling the pull, imagining the crumbling rocky edges hidden beneath the clumps of grass.

The Falls drop and drop and drop, not wide, but fast and far.

So this small Tia Creek winds its way through the cleared paddocks, steady, not rushing, until it begins to feel the momentum. A few mini rapids occur.

And then a final pool, still up here on our level.

And over it goes: Tia Creek becomes Tia Falls. No turning back from the abyss.

Birds of a feather

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One windy autumn morning I was called to the river by an odd sight. But when I got to the ramp, this magnificent solo Pelican took all my attention.

I love Pelicans and I love reflections and this one was offering both.

We looked at each other for some time, me admiring, him noncommittal, before I realised he wasn’t gong anywhere, just standing in the shallows, rocking slightly in the wind.

I turned to look at the original attraction.

What from a distance had looked like a dragon boat being rowed by a black-clad crew was actually a flock of Cormorants on an oyster rack.

There were about a dozen of them, busily preening, or holding out wings to dry those feathers.

Some looked rather fluffy, as if they were still young, but it was quite a cool wind, so maybe that was simply a warming tactic.

At that distance I couldn’t tell if they were Little Black Cormorants, or the bigger Cormorants.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

But why had they chosen such an exposed ‘raft’ in the middle of the river?

Anyway, they had intrigued me enough to bring me (in my slippers) racing down to investigate before they took off.

But, like the Pelican, they clearly had no intention of doing that.

Water based

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With the rain we have had on the coast, the paperbark swamps are filling again and the reeds are extremely vigorous. Their grey-green clumps make fabulous vertical contrasts against the less constrained shapes and paler colours of the trees.

So unconstrained are the paperbarks that these two appear to be dancing with each other, hands almost touching, bodies bent as if inclined to do so too.

Some of the older trees have gone full out for individuality of shape, declining verticality and choosing the horizontal.

Beside one swamp on the Coast walk I could see a different reed, feathery, more free form.

I realise it is one I have seen in Kattang, but it confused me by growing taller here.  Baloskian tetraphyllum, Tassel cord reed.

As I remember by impressions rather than botanical details, I am easy to fool!

Autumn bush blooms

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Not expecting to see many flowering plants on my latest Coast walk, these beauties surprised me: Epacris pulchella, or Coral Heath.

Unsurprisingly, ‘pulchella‘ means ‘beautiful’.

It’s a sandy walk where Flannel Flowers are massed like guards of honour in their season, but right now their greyish foliage is mere backdrop for this elegant Epacris.

And there were quite a few shrubs of this spiky-leaved wattle, Acacia ulicifolia, Prickly Moses or Juniper Wattle. Notably, it carried blooms  at all stages and colours, rather like the Banksias do.

However, the dominant flowers were not at eye or ground level, but high up, as these Melaleuca trees (quinquenervia, I think) are in massed bloom everywhere on the coast here.

Their scent is powerful and pervasive, although to me it smells like some deep-fried battered takeaway food! The Rainbow Lorikeets are going noisily crazy over the feasts on offer.

Not flowers, but the strikingly bright fruit on this small tree caught my eye. There were only a few bunches like this, so not really obvious.

The knowledgeable folk on the NSW Native Plants Identification Facebook group, who identified the first two flowers here for me, also tell me this is Elaeodendron australe, or Red olive berry.

It’s a group well worth joining if native plants are your passion!