To Pontremoli and Lucca!

 

Ciao!

Wow!  We have certainly had a busy day, and I think we’re both about ready for nap time.  The problem is that it’s already almost 4 pm on Sunday, and I’ve got a load of laundry churning away in the laundry room.  (Hopefully all will be well – yet again, another appliance with very little instruction … I’m just hopeful I can get things laid out on the terrace as once again, there is a fabulous breeze!)

Stream through Pontremoli - white rocks are MARBLE!

Pontremoli is a very old town!

Notice knife; means it's male

Female (no knife)

Statues found together

Love his hands!

All male statues have swords of knives

Wonderful exhibiting!

This one has legs!

Also note sword at the side

This one also has an AX!

Lovely street in town!

Entering Lucca through the wall

Excellent Prosecco!

R's ravioli

My bresaola

Trees growing on top of tower!

Up this morning about 7, actually – late night last night, I suppose, and ready to go about 8:30 am. Our plan for today is to head to Pontremoli, which is either an hour and minutes or two hours and a half away to see their wonderful stone stele!  (The reason we have two times is that when I google “Pisa to Pontremoli driving” I get about 1 hour and 8 minutes.  But when Robert does the same thing on Emmy, our GPS, it comes up with 2 ½ hours. Strange!)  Headed north from, and as we were driving on an A road, paralleling the autostrada, Robert realized that he had “toll ways” turned off, so that Emmy wouldn’t use them.  This was not his intention, and once he reconfigured her program, Emmy got us on the autostrada and away we went!  Definitely the 1 hour 8 minutes was about right.

Pontremoli is in the foothills of the Apennine mountains in a beautiful wooded area.  It is Tuscany’s northern most city, and is the legendary Apua, the ancient capital of the Ligurian Apennines region.  We are here to see the Stele Statues of Lunigiana which are now housed in the Piagnaro Castle.  

We have long been interested in really ancient things – ruins, artifacts and especially anything done in stone like Gobeckli Tepe in Turkey and the Nuraghe civilization in Sardenia.  (Which is also why we’re going to Corsica on this trip.)  We were also fascinated by Otzi, the Chalcolithic (copper age) iceman, who was discovered frozen in the ice in 1991 and now lives comfortably in frozen surroundings in Bolzano, Italy (just across the border from Austria).  So, when Robert was reading the new Etruscan Places book that we picked up at Cerveteri at the beginning of our trip, and discovered carved stone stele, we both knew we had to see them.  Hence, on to Pontremoli!

Wow!  (Oh, I said that already….How about DOUBLE wow!!)  Even though the museum didn’t open until 10 am, and of course we were the first people there, they very kindly let us inside. Seems there had been a big wedding in the Palace last night, and the catering people were cleaning up and breaking down their set-up.  We were given head phones that automatically went off in certain places, translating the Italian language presentation into English for us.

Seriously, the museum was incredibly well done and beautifully lighted.  It turns out that a Chalcolithic civilization located in the area had carved and placed numerous stele (stones) in many different areas, but mostly crossing points where transportation routes from north to south had crossed some of the rivers in the area.  The stele, sculpted in sandstone, are divided into Types A, B and C, and are grouped together, some as they were actually found.  Type A stele have the head directly connected to the body, whereas Type B are slightly more realistic in having the head and body separated by the neck.  Both types are said to be from the 4^thmillennium BC (4000 to 3001 BC), with Type A being somewhat older than Type B.  By the end of the Bronze Age, production of these stele had come to an end but then Type C, more elaborately carved, appear from the 7^thand 6^thcenturies BC.  

For the most part, though, the stele were relocated from their original positions, which makes it very difficult for scholars to try and put them in context with anything else. They have turned up in ancient quarry sites, in rubbish dumps and by farmers ploughing their fields.  They have also turned up as stones used in building churches and religions sites.  One hypothesis is that when Christianity became the official religion of the area, and all “pagan” reliefs were banned, that ancient Ligurians dug trenches and buried the stele in order to protect them.  At any rate, they are still being discovered over a large range of territory at least 100 km across the foothills.  But they have definitely found a beautiful home!

The carving, especially the hands in front or on the sides of the stele really remind me of some of the Gobeckli Tepe carved pillars.  It is a truly fascinating subject, and gives us, of course, more to learn and track down!  Another trip to this area is clearly indicated!

For more information, check out the Museum’s fantastic web site at http://www.statuestele.org/en/

By the time we left the museum and walked through town – Pontremoli, by the way, is really quite lovely – it was after 11:30 am, so we thought we would head directly to Lucca for lunch.

We were able to find a parking place inside the walls, which was nice.  It is a stunning day in Lucca, with lots of sunshine and white fluffy clouds, but it really wasn’t overcrowded at all.  Just building up to tourist season, I’m sure.  We stopped at a small café that looked good, and had a very nice lunch. I had a bresaola salad with parmesan cheese, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and a radish on top.  Robert had their ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach, with a butter and sage sauce; it was great!  We both had wonderful glasses of Prosecco as well as a large bottle of water.  Walked around the city and recognized some places from our last visit here, and then headed back to the car.

Stopped at a Conad supermarket for water, fresh cherries and peaches, and back to the apartment about 3:30 pm.  Wash is still going around … European washers take truly forever! Hope there are a few strands of fabric left to hang out to dry!  

More later!

m

xxx

Editor’s note:  Wash FINALLY stopped moving, and is now out on the sunny patio!  Looks like our clothes may have made it through the incredibly long wash cycle!