Heading home via Rome : the Constanza Mausoleo

We are to emplane at Rome tomorrow Thursday, and to leave room for contingencies took our comfortable 4 hour train trip today. The Frecciarossa is an admirable train and apart from many tunnels the journey is scenic.

We arrived at Termini in time to take in one last item, and after some debate settled on the Costanza Mausoleo which opened for the afternoon at 4.00 pm. A Metro ride got us to the vicinity with time to spare, but as it is unmarked in the neighbourhood we had to ask the citizens the way, though it stands to reason that the only ancient monument group was the way to go. The group included some catacombs, but these did not excite our interest.

There is a recent magnificent detailed description of the Mausleo on TripAdvisor by Vincent M titled "nexus of Pagan and Papal Rome" which is recommended to be read in full before a visit. However here is the readers' digest of what he has to say:

The mausoleum was built on a country estate owned by the family of Constantine the Great, on the north side of the ancient via Nomentana, well outside the Aurelian Walls. The name derives from the traditional belief that the mausoleum was built by Constantine the Great for his eldest daughter, Constantina. "Costanza" and Constance are variants of Constantina, but the imperial daughter, although Christian, was actually about as saintly as Torquemada. Scholars now concur that Constantine's building was an earlier one, long gone, and that the Mausoleo di Santa Costanza was actually built by Julian II, for his wife, Helena, another Christian daughter of Constantine. Upon this mausoleum’s completion, the sarcophagus of Constantina was moved to it, to join that of her younger sister .

A drum supports the dome via 12 Roman arches and the whole is supported by 12 pairs of columns which both may have been intended as allusions to the 12 apostles. If so, they are the most important ORIGINAL Christian elements remaining. The beautiful porphyry sarcophagus of Helena is now in the Vatican museum, (mislabeled as Constantina’s) and a plaster replica has been placed in the niche opposite the mausoleum entrance. There is a circular ambulatory, with a barreled vault, around the pillars. On a sunny day, the 12 windows under the dome provide some bright beams of light slanting down to whatever is directly in line with the sun. Other than that, it's quite somber inside.

The original 4th century mosaics are of enormous interest, but so are two important Christian mosaics in the niches on the north and south sides of the vault. They date from the 5th to 7th centuries, and are two of the earliest extant examples of a "Christ in Majesty," which uses a stylistic composition originally reserved for Roman emperors, but substitutes Christ for Caesar.

If you stand directly in front of the traditio clavius at the south niche (a declaration of Christian dominion), and look immediately above, you’ll see the most astonishing artistic juxtaposition that I’ve ever stumbled across: a thoroughly pagan mosaic of Roman teamsters hauling in cartloads of grapes, and devotees of Bacchus drinking the vino and cavorting about in Dionysian ritual madness in temples, all with an elaborate background of grapevines (see photo). The Christian church has never been shy about moving into pagan digs.

 

 

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Final impressions of Turin

Above is the view from our room window in the hotel: an office building. This is an exemplar of the style of the north side of the city above the lateral Corso Victor Emmanuel II which seems to bisect it. On this north side there are wide straight long avenues almost all of which run at right angles and conclude at each end in a pleasing vista. Below is a view south to the railway station from one of many large piazzas which are another of its distinctive characteristics.

Even the few narrow alleys own a vista.

The buildings are grand in a style reminiscent of 19th century Paris.

The morning market situated at the top of the city is larger than that of Melbourne's Queen Vic as regards fruit and veg and the produce shows how significant the influence of Italian market gardeners has been for Melbourne. These markets are like each other and unlike French markets. The market has extensive meat and deli stalls for whose cuts of meat and small goods similar comparisons and distinctions apply. There was no fresh fish market.
The populace seems substantially moncultural, with only one or two Chinese restaurants and a McDonalds to leaven the North Italian fare. However we saw numerous young black men- presumably not from North Africa- but relatively few people identifiable as muslim by their attire. There is a prominent Waldensian church near the main station:

The tallest building in town dominating the skyline and defining the cityscape in a similar way to the Eiffel Tower of Paris was intended to become a synagogue, but the Jewish community withdrew from the project and built elsewhere. We did not identify any current Jewish community presence in the city.

( Google image)
We found the traffic well behaved and considerate of pedestrians, who also on the whole observed the traffic lights. Likewise the people are polite and helpful. Turin and Piedmont would seem very liveable, especially if you like chocolate.

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Turin Impressions

On Sunday we walked up to the market at porta palazzo which we understood to be on every day but we found it empty. We did see a small one on the way but didn't spend much time there as we were headed for the real deal! We are still hoping to find it.
Instead we headed for the Giardini Reali which is a very pleasant park where the Torinese walk their dogs, talk on their mobiles and generally relax. We had walked through it the day before but that time it was jammed with police who were there to protect us from a student demonstration. Something to with a meeting of European finance ministers or the like.
From there we wandered into the Piazza Reale which hosts two Palaces, one is the Palazza Madama, the home of two regents Maria Cristina and Giovanna Battista and the other is the palace of the royal family. The piazza is enormous and has various fountains and interesting buildings in and surrounding it.

 

In the afternoon we were fortunate enough to get tickets for the opera. We saw a wonderful performance of Otello, one which neither of us have seen before. The opera house in Turin is not big but the acoustics are terrific - no need for discreet microphones here!

Opera performance photos from Google.
Today we spent most of the day wandering around the parco de Valentino and botanical gardens. Another memorial of many Italian wars was at the entrance.
We also saw the medieval village which was built in the 1800's as an authentic reproduction of medieval Piedmont and classified now as a 19th century monument.

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Miscellaneous videos

I have recently discovered that our blog allows videos , so here are some short and stupid clips.

Sausage making in Bra

Ravioli Making 2 from Antony Greenwood on Vimeo.

Chocolate making

Swinging in

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Taking it easy in Turin

You have heard of Slow Food. We have 5 nights to sleep and 4 days to relax in Turin, so we are experimenting with Slow (enjoyable) Life.

We had heard that a number of bars offer an evening buffet and drink, so we searched for and found one nearby on Friday evening. For a total of €12 we had a Campari and prosecco and as much of the admittedly ordinary focaccia, eggplant, olives, sausage etc as we were inclined to consume.

On Saturday we had a Slow Walk and a Slow Nap, and a hot chocolate made solely of melted chocolate.

 

We watched an organ grinder and trumpet player

 

Tried unsuccessfully to work out how this man sat suspended

And studied numerous monuments in numerous piazzas.

In the evening we walked 2 km to dine at a restaurant we had identified in TripAdvisor, "Insider" and had a very good repast focused on scallops, whole squid, and prawns.

 

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Reflections on Martin Randall

We booked our gastronomic tour of Piedmont with Martin Randall, an English tour firm, after seeing a number of beautiful black print advertisements in the Weekend Australian Review. The advertisement for this tour clinched the deal. We were impressed with every aspect of the preliminary steps for signing on, some of which were handled by their Australian agent. The documentation is extensive and minutely timed and, since eating was an important part of the tour, an advance complete set of menus was supplied as we set out. There were only 11 tourists, the tour manager and tour expert (the maximum party could have been 22).
The thought and research for the week's experience was extensive, and showed both in the total flow and room for spontaneous and serendipitous extras.
Much can be said about the contribution of two escorts. Charlotte has a degree in French and Italian and writes for the Dorset branch of Slow Food. Her CV says "she enjoys cooking, eating, running and cycling and suffers from an incurable addiction to costume jewellery." We could add that General Monash might have been pleased to have her on his battle planning staff. Marc is a wine food and travel writer who studied English Literature at the University of Exeter. He has co- authored three food and wine books with his wife, and owns a wine importing company. They are an ideal team but won't be going to Piedmont next year. I think at least one of them will be with the Martin Randall 2015 Sicily Gastromic Tour.
Martin Randall runs many international cultural tours and its annual prospectus is eagerly awaited by a large readership. Since booking we have met several friends who have toured with the company and they are uniformly extravagant in their praise.

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On to Rivoli and Turin

For our final tour outing we were taken to Castello de Rivoli, about 17 km outside Turin. On the way Marc gave us an extended summary of all that the expedition had sought and achieved. The Castello is a renovated group of buildings housing a permanent and temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. The renovation is a work of art itself, shown in a miniature model

There are lots of architectural dazzles

The art itself was explained by a very professional young museum guide and is either too large or too complex to illustrate. We were particularly drawn to a series of 4 long public screen size videos shown simultaneously as 4 individuals, who were otherwise too poor, were shown the ocean for the first time and filmed from behind while contemplating it, and each turns round so we can study each face in detail with their reaction etched in their expression. W's immediate reaction was that while the exercise was fascinating there seemed to be an element of cruelty in taking people into a world which they had no way of experiencing other than through the artist's desire to film their reactions.
After the viewing we walked across the courtyard to restaurant Combal Zero for lunch, listed as one of the 50 best restaurants in the world.

And indeed everything was perfect, from the view of the Mountains, the spaciousness of table arrangement, and the acoustics that enabled everyone at each table to speak quietly and be heard,- partly due to Charlotte asking the management to turn the music off. Of course the perfection of the food and wine cannot receive justice from listing or photography, so discreetly we pass on.
At the end of lunch the group broke up. We and one companion planned to take a taxi to our Turin hotels. This taxi had been arranged by our trusty tour manager Charlotte, and ordered by the restaurant at a fixed price of €30. Sadly not even the combination of the efficiency of Charlotte and the reputation of the restaurant saved us from being ripped off by the taxi driver. When we were about to board he said he could not take us into Turin because a demonstration was in progress and he would take us to a Metro instead. It was a short drive away from the restaurant to the Metro terminus Fermi, a mere 7 km, where he deposited us after demanding his €30. There was a police battle in town but nowhere near our hotel, or in the way of our route. Since our hotel was near the Metro we only had 100 metres to walk, but our lady companion with suitcases was not so lucky and had to drag them several blocks.

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A Day in the Mountains

Our start time today was very early from Cuneo as we had a long drive to the town of Pradlèves which is situated at the base of the Alps. There we were given a tour of a cheese co-operative La Poiana so were taken on a tour of the storage rooms and had extensive explanations of where the cheeses come from. All of it is unpasteurised and most of it is made by small farmers in the hills after which they bring it to the co-op for aging. Only three of these farmers still take their cattle up to the high alpine country in the summer to feed on the pristine pastures found there. The rest remain on the lower slopes and supplement with hay. The cheese is called Castelmagno and comes in various ages up to 4 years and includes some blue cheese. We were also given a demonstration of cheese making. Samples were consumed.

 

 

From there we started the climb to the restaurant at 1850 metres where we were to have lunch at Ristorante Rifurgio, run by a young chef Uri who left his Michelin star restaurant in Cuneo to set up this endeavour dedicated to local mountain food in his home mountains.

He began with a demonstration of traditional ravioli making, but the show was almost stolen first by his kitten and then by one of tour members who insisted on having a go.

On return to Cuneo a chestnut fair was in full swing (literally). We watched the dancers and surveyed the stalls before adjourning for dinner at a nearby hotel, San Michele, where the centrepiece was an intriguing painting of the said angel.

 

Here is the handsome portal of our hotel. Art Deco I think.

 

 

 

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