Gubbio, 15th May, The Race of the Ceri

I loved Gubbio the first time I visited 28 years ago on Good Friday for “The Procession of the Dead”. This centuries old tradition is a representation of Christ’s Passion where effigies of the dead Christ, Our Lady of Sorrow and a skull that symbolises Golgotha are carried (more like run) through the streets at night by men dressed in hooded sackcloth (think KKK), playing strange instruments that rattle and carry flaming torches. Bonfires are lit along the path. It was a strange and moving event especially for a young atheist from Brisbane and something I have never forgotten.

Gubbio is the kind of town where their Basilica on the top of Mount Ingino has the bones of their founding Saint U’baldo entombed in a glass neo gothic coffin for all to see. He died in 1160. I loved Gubbio the first time for it strange ceremony, its ancient buildings set against a stunning Mount Ingino (rising 400m from the town). It is for this reason we came to this part of Italy first, to be near Gubbio.

Gubbio has trebled in size since 1980 and is surrounded by carparks. The new development isn’t too bad with the red tile roofs helping to keep the character of the town. I must say I was a little disappointed though. It wasn’t the ancient town I remembered.

The new and the old Gubbio

Gubbio now has the world’s largest Christmas tree illumination on the side of Monte Ingino. We obviously missed that, but did see Saint U’baldo’s bones. While we failed to see the other dozen or so churches we were there for the most significant event in the Gubbian calendar, the Race of the Ceri.

This all day event is basically a race of three statues of Saints U’baldo, Giorgio, and Antonio carried on Ceri a strange heavy wooden structure to the top of Mount Ingino. The local people are all dressed as one of the Saint’s supporters, with shirts of

*yellow for U’baldo proctector of masons,

*blue for Giorgio protector of merchants,

*and black for Antonio protector of farmers,

They all wear white pants, red waist sashes and red neck scarves, all ages, both male and female.

The ceremony begins

Saint Giorgio

St Antonio


St U'baldo

The Blue team carrying the Ceri.

There were thousands of people, wine flowing in the streets, bands, chanting, and singing, and much running through the streets carrying the ceri. We were admonished by a local for not dressing up in traditional costume. He lamented that he was stuck living in Gubbio because it was the best place in the world to be born with a warm close community and he needed visitors like us to tell him what is going on in the outside world. He’d had a few wines by then, but I could see his point. I still love Gubbio.

Crowd Scene, we nearly were squashed at one point, Ron kept saying things like, keep you arms in front of your chest and don't fall over, and he wonders why I don't want to go to the soccer with him!

The Grande Piazza, Gubbio

The Roman Theatre dated 1st century

We also walked the Roman aqueduct, if you look carefully you can see it winding its way around the hillside. It is now used to carry water pipes. Some things never change.

Umbria, Italy

In our mission to avoid the crowds we arrived at a camping ground 4 km outside of a tiny village called Costacciaro. This village is on the eastern side of Umbria near the Monte Cucco National Park and is about a 20 min drive from Gubbio. We were the only people here, in fact we were not sure the place was even open. We decided to set camp as we had driven the 450km from Switzerland and had no intentions of going another meter. We have now been here for 4 nights. It is a beautiful campground and since our first night a few other tourists have turned up.

The Monte Cucco National Park is fantastic, apparently the home to wolves and wild boars. Part of the Apennines, Monte Cucco is 1500 m and the snow has just gone. We have done several walks and not seen another person. The wildflowers are superb, better than I have ever seen with an enormous variety. Wild jonquils, cyclamens, pansies, primrose, violets, daisies, buttercups, and a hundred others I don’t recognise. We have also been fossil hunting on the mountain with some success.

Walking around Mt Cucco

Looking for our campsite

Yesterday we did the Hermits tour walking between an Abbey and a Monastery and then driving to 2 other abbeys. This area is famous for it monastic traditions. All these buildings were built around 900’s and have been restored numerous times since. These are the 4 we visited.

Look carefully to see the abbey here.

My favourite Italian road sign. What do you imagine they want you to do, drive faster to avoid collapsing road or all breath in??

My first European snake.

Cademario, Ticino, Switzerland

Living in a small village halfway up the side of a Swiss mountain has been great fun. We have done some wonderful walks.

Today we have done a 4 hour walk in a beautiful valley with historic mining and milling sites and the remains of an ancient Roman castle. After going up and down many steep hills we finally came to an old forge powered by a water wheel which produced spades, scythes, sickles and shovel up until 1940s. Here in the middle of nowhere we had lunch. See below.

Ron running towards the Heineken at the forge

Our (on the trail) lunch

View fom cademario

Walking trail

This is how you build a shed Swiss style. Ron looks on in wonder and envy.

There are literally hundreds of walks nearby which are well signposted

Another great walk Sentiero di Gandria along Lake Lugano, wound through small laneways and old olive groves. The climate by the lake is quiet mild with palm tress growing and even a few bananas. David describes this area as like being in Italy but without the tourists. Very nice.

Shadow of palm leavesView on the Sentiero di Gandria




A good trout stream, maybe???

Also we met up with David’s good friend Joanna. She works for WWF specialising in bears particularly in Alaska. Marco she knows everything there is to know about the new invasion of bears into Switzerland from Italy. There is a core population of about 25 in Italy and 2 of these have wandered over the border into the Valbella region. Apparently one of these was shot in April as the mayor from Lenzerheide (I think) was not very cooperative. Joanna said a new strategy for garbage disposal was needed to discourage the bears from the urban areas and the shooting could have been avoided.

Joanna and me in her vineyard tasting her first ever salami. It was good.

Joanna's village Breno

Joanna gave us a bottle of her 2006 Grappa, the bit that survived the hail storm.

We also found a Ramsar site near Lacarno at the delta of the Ticino and Vereasca rivers as they flow into Lake Maggiore. This area is one of the few remaining continental deltaic ecosystems as most rivers in Switzerland are channelled and their deltas have been destroyed. These deltas once provided an important resting place for migratory birds before they crossed the Alps. This site Bolle di Magadino is being recovered as part of the international Ramsar agreement.

If you look closely you can see the head of a baby grebe which is sitting on the back of its mother a Great Grebe.

Trioddity have you ever been cycling in Switzerland? (I bet you have) You would not be alone, there are numerous packs of well kitted out (lots of lycra) cyclists climbing the most ridiculous hills. They have calf muscles like iron blocks. There are cycle lanes on nearly all of the roads and there is much more respect given to cyclists by motorists here than in England or Australia. I wonder what the collective term for a group of cyclists is? A peddle, a muddle, a lycra or as Ron suggests an obstruction. Any better ones??

And finally one for the boys, we found this van just up the road. I think they are heating and or pluming specialists - maybe not as good a name as Manyana Plumbing.

Flamingos in The Camargue, France

The Camargue is a region of wetlands at the delta of the Rhone River as it drains into the Mediterranean Sea. You could be mistaken for thinking that you had arrived in Spain as the Camargue is famous for bull fighting, Spanish style houses, paella, flamenco, and has a different language. It was where the novel “Chocolat” began. Wild white horses roam the salt marshes as well as many birds. We are staying in the small town of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer named after the 2 saints who brought Catholicism to France.

As well The Camargue is the Spring / Summer home to 20,000 flamingos who raise young before returning to Africa. I haven’t seen them all but have seen plenty. There are also many other migratory and sedentary birds in this area (e.g. stilts, red shanks, knots, little egret, gulls and terns of numerous varieties, grey herons, storks, cattle egrets, avocets, ducks, bee eaters, kingfishers etc) The canals also provide a home for otters, European beavers and the coypu. We saw one coypu.

The following video (14 sec long) shows flamingos feeding. (Charlie Z requested some video).

The next is of flamingos flying (9 sec long).

Ron says I need to liven my blog up a bit and suggested adding some sex, drug or rock n roll. Also, after the great excitement shown by some of you boys at the mention of great tits and blue tits, I have included the following picture.

Again showing great restraint I have just a few more photos. All my twitcher friends should come here.

Rose Flamigo

Gravity defying

Pied stilt

Little egret



Avocet

Ron says if I ever dress in camouflage, acquire a foot long lens and tripod then there will be a divorce. I said I would need him as a caddy and it wouldn't be a good time to divorce me. Check dude below, he even has camouflage on his lens. His white arms are enough to startle all the birds. What do you reckon Charlie Z we could get some gear like that. I have already outgrown my camera!!

For those of you who think that maybe this blog is too focused on flora and flora I suggest you try to imagine what Ron may do. (Think old machinery, roads, geomorphology etc) A bridge on the way to Nice.

A bridge on the way to Nice

Travelling in Europe in 21^st Century.

The Camargue was busy with many tourists mostly Italians. I’m not sure what the attraction was for them, probably not the birds or horses, as they are not known to be great wildlife enthusiasts, nor the beaches or climate as they have better at home, and probably not the food. I suspect they may find France to be cheaper and no doubt we will find out as we head in the Italian direction.

Europeans have taken to the mobile home (campercar) like the Aussies have become grey nomads but there are a lot more of them. In The Camargue numerous large car parks were set aside for them to stay for about $12 and these had no facilities. There were row after row of these feral campers going on for kilometres in some places. We are not sure if this was because of the May Day holiday or if it is always like this. Whilst we may be cursed for towing a caravan at least most of the time we travel without it in just a car, but these mobile homes are everywhere congregating at the smallest lay bys, more numerous than the flamingos. The following video gives you some idea. (1min 24 secs)

Everyone keeps telling us that Northern Italy is too crowded with tourists. After our Camargue experience our new strategies are:

* look for places not mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide

*get lost and hope we find something off the beaten track

*avoid large towns, instead of Florence, Rome, Venice try Gubbio, St Egidio, Montecorice and other such unknown places.

*maybe go to Croatia instead.

Aigues Mortes ( means dead water)

This little town is surrounded by a town wall that was built in 1200’s by Louis 9^th. The wall is still totally intact and preserved beautifully. You can walk the whole way around. The words of Dylan song “All along the Watchtower” kept springing to mind, - a truly gorgeous place. We had no idea of how nice it would be until we got there. Our new travel motto is “you never know until you go” .

Ron walking on the wall

Aigues Mortes the wall town

A Lolly shop in Aigues Mortes

Into Italy and then Cademario Switzerland

Following one our new strategies for travelling ie getting lost, we found the quaintest, quietest and more importantly cheap caravan camping ground in a totally unheard of place near Milano. Real Italian countryside and no one there and no mobile homes, not one. The shower block was not too pretty but the people were nice. (think Macca’s camping ground Italian style but with a great bar). We ditched the caravan there for the next week or so at a very cheap rate. We are so pleased we didn’t bring the caravan into the Swiss alps as we head off stay in David’s (Ron’s brother) totally gorgeous renovated ancient home with the best views in the world.

The front door at Davids