Lake Bolsena

This is a short history of a beautiful Italian town. Tales of a hallucinating priest, bibulous popes, missing WW2 bombers, brave soldiers and an idiot traveller (you can guess who) are just part of the story. Once in a while in a landscape dramas of the past capture me. The town of Bolsena and its lake - a tourist destination for many popes - is such a landscape.  For romantics, historians and conspiracy theorists there is plenty to get our teeth into here. Then there’s the food, the wine and fictional murders all over the land. What do I have in common with Pope Pius II? If you are remotely interested read on - in what follows you may find out. From my first visit to the lake in 1993 and on numerous travels since, every time I stand and gaze out over the lake I feel a sense that something is going to happen. Plenty did in the past.

Bolsena is most famous for a miracle alleged to have taken place in 1263. A Bohemian priest “who had doubts about the doctrine of transubstantiation” was persuaded to its veracity when, he claimed, he witnessed blood drip from the Host onto the altar during mass in what is now Bolsena’s most significant church, Santa Cristina. The cloth from that altar is reputed to be on show today in nearby Orvieto. After the miracle Pope Urban IV, living in Orvieto at the time, marked the event by establishing the feast of the Corpus Domini to be celebrated throughout the Christian world. Every year in Bolsena, on the day of Corpus Domini, a solemn procession follows a stunning carpet of flowers (infiorata) forming a kilometre-long design decorated with local inhabitants’ seasonal blooms. It is worth crossing the world to see.

Nearer in time the lake (the largest volcanic lake in Europe) featured in more realistic events. In the autumn of 1943 the English Eighth Army and U.S. Fifth Army crossed to the Italian mainland from Sicily and then progressed northwards via Bolsena. In June 1944 there was a tank battle east of Bolsena. Here over six hundred servicemen, including many South Africans, lost their lives in the patch of land between the lake and the nearby town of Orvieto. Today on the eastern shore of the lake, on the spot where General Alexander set up an advanced field headquarters, is a most beautiful Commonwealth War Graves Commission graveyard, a sanctuary in which we spend time on most visits to Bolsena.

On 15^th January 1944 an American B-17 ‘Flying Fortress’ bomber crashed into the lake. Fortunately the crew of ten baled out successfully. Seventy years later Italian divers found the ball turret of the plane and it remains in a local museum on the lakeside. There is also a mystery of another WW2 ‘Liberator’ bomber which ditched returning from a raid over Genoa in 1944. The plane has never been located. Anne Storm, a Wiltshire woman, still believes this aircraft her father, Bob Millar, was flying went down in Lake Bolsena that year. In 2006 she travelled to Bolsena to watch a potential salvage. Sadly for her there was no sign of the bomber.  The lake is up to one hundred and fifty metres deep in places, thick weed and mud has resulted in the lake bottom having still not been searched fully.

In 2011 I contributed my own little drama to the place. I am now a legend amongst the locals. Once again we were staying in the fabulous house of our dear English friends that is up the hillside from the town. Early one evening I locked us out. With none of life’s essentials outside the house - wallet, car keys, mobile phone, address book nor warm clothes – we trudged in t-shirts and shorts to the trattoria in town armed only with a twenty Euro note. Following a pizza and free grappa – it was infiorata time, the locals are wonderfully generous – we returned to the house. The neighbouring household, four generations within and hardly a jot of English amongst them, had never had such an entertaining night. Wooden ladders were brought, to break into an upstairs window; the ladders fell apart. Phone calls were made but no entry was achieved. Heated debate followed with everyone expressing an animated opinion as to how entry could be made for the idiot Inglese and his longsuffering wife. None worked. Idiot and wife spent the night sleeping under the stars with only a sheet of cardboard (shared between two) for warmth. Next day a metal ladder from another neighbour was purloined and it was up to the task required. Using our trusty cardboard sheet and a brick I smashed the bathroom window and we were in. What did I do later that day? Yes, I locked us out of the house again! Back for the ladder with red face and muttered ‘Scusa’.

The elemental power of this area is rich. The volcanic earth provides fertility for the ‘Italian trinity – tomatoes, basil and olives’ (Keith Floyd) to grow in abundance. The sun bakes the ruins of Volsinii – the site of Roman Bolsena before the modern town was established a kilometre nearer the lake. When summer storms break over Lake Bolsena mankind spread around its rim is treated to a quadraphonic masterpiece of which Phil Spector would be proud. Recent earthquakes in Abruzzo caused ripples on the surfaces of both the lake and the glasses of ‘vino rosso’ of the locals. Here is a town in which you can overdose on sensory experiences.

For millennia the Lazio roads and tracks have been trodden by sandal, jackboot, running shoe and desert boot - all worn by busy people on their way somewhere. The shores of Lake Bolsena provided night shelter for travellers in the Palaeolithic era. Then came the migrant groups of the Bronze Age, Etruscans, Greeks and Romans; then Lombards, Franks, some popes; and after them came the French, the Spanish and the Germans. Visitors of countless nations have wandered through - rarely stopping, rarely staying. Until, that is, the Renaissance when Bolsena provided an unspoiled haven for beach lovers from firstly Rome and then Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. Most came with the intention of claiming this part of the Italian Peninsula for themselves. The popes probably had no intention of claiming the land; all of them came to escape the intense heat of Rome, drink wine – and some came to escape the scandals they left behind. Giovanni de Medici (later Pope Leo X) liked to strut his stuff around the small town whilst Popes Pius II and III preferred, like me, to idle away long, happy and lazy days in a perfect climate reading books.

So there it is, my connection to the Medicis and Pius II. Like Pius I have found no better place on earth to sit still for two weeks and read. And cook. And eat. And drink. And love. (The Medicis did all these things; the jury is still out on Pius).

 

If you would like to share your experiences of the places discussed in this blog please record them in the Comments section.

Italy is the country I have travelled in more than any other. My first visit was in 1971. In the years since I have enjoyed a large range of subjects in books written largely by British writers, with a few exceptions. Here is a short list I recommend to those who wish for a wider access to a fascinating, seductive, history-rich culture.

Non-fiction:

·      The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli; 1532

·      Twilight in Italy, D.H. Lawrence; 1929

·      War in the Val D’Orcia, Iris Origo; 1947

·      A Season with Verona, Tim Parks; 2002

·      The Pursuit of Italy, David Gilmour; 2011

·      Good Italy, Bad Italy, Bill Emmott; 2012

·      Saving Italy, Robert M. Edsel; 2013

Fiction

·      The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa; 1958

Crime Fiction (for the best descriptions of contemporary Italy)

·      All the Commissario Guido Brunetti novels by Donna Leon; set in Venice

·      The Aurelio Zen novels by Michael Dibdin

·      The Marcus Didio Falco and Flavia Albia novels of Lindsey Davis

·       The Inspector Salvo Montalbano novels of Andrea Camilleri

Cookery

·      Il Cucchiaio d’argento (The Silver Spoon); 1950

·       Floyd on Italy, Keith Floyd; 1994  ‘Veni, vidi, coxi – I came, I saw, I cooked!’

·      Lorenza’s Pasta, Lorenza de’Medici; 1996

·      Jamie’s Italy, Jamie Oliver; 2005

Books by the authors referenced can be bought at: https://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk

Port Arthur

Port Arthur penal settlement

I am back in Australia. On landing I read that fifty years ago, on 3rd February 1967, Australia sent a convicted killer to the gallows. Ronald Ryan was the last Australian to be legally hanged - in circumstances eerily similar to a British case that has always fascinated me, that of James Hanratty, perpetrator of the so-called ‘A6 murder’. Australia is a country that was colonised by killers, petty criminals and reluctant members of the military back in 1788 when the First Fleet of deported convicts from Britain arrived in Sydney Harbour. Before the United States of America gained independence from Britain in 1776 the British, shipped over fifty thousand convicts westwards across the Atlantic.

There are a number of ironies linked to these three dates not least in a week that President Trump (how that moniker sticks in my craw) seeks to ban some foreigners from his country, for fear of what killing they might do.

Americans then and now have never been too happy that for nearly sixty years from 1718 they received the underclass of British society. Conversely there are many Australians proud of their convict past and even today boast about their ‘colourful’ ancestors. Captain Arthur Philip, who commanded that First Fleet, was followed two years later by the Second Fleet and then a good many more. In the ensuing years coastal areas of Australia were colonised by the British and the authorities began to look for more remote landscapes in which to settle Britain’s convicts. In 1800 the first convicts arrived in Tasmania.

When we travelled in Tasmania in 2008 we found remote landscapes. The people of Tasmania, just 500,000 of them, refer to the rest of the country as the North Island. We happily meandered in our car on unsealed roads; on foot in huon pine forests; and swam in the Pacific Ocean. On the west coast, south of the town of Strahan is Macquarie Harbour. And in the harbour lies the small, desolate and now deserted Sarah Island, home to the first British convicts in Tasmania. 

The ruins of Sarah Island

Here convicts faced not only isolation on a frightening level but suffocating heat, deprivation from decent humanity and a complete lack of privacy. However, it took so long for communications and supplies to reach them from Hobart Town (supplies had to come around the island by ship, there was no overland track) that the authorities looked for a more convenient place to build a penal settlement.They chose Port Arthur.

I have visited some godforsaken spots on this planet but Port Arthur is probably the saddest of them all. Port Arthur prison was opened in 1830 but housed convicts for less than fifty years, being closed in 1877. For some English convicts life inside the walls of Port Arthur prison may just about have been more bearable than if they had been incarcerated in one of London’s grim jails. They had survived the very process of transportation that was devastatingly cruel. Many died from typhus, dysentery and influenza on the ships between London and Australia.

Escape from the Port Arthur prison buildings was possible and indeed not uncommon. But once outside the settlement escapees had to cross Eaglehawk Neck – a narrow strip of land less than 100 metres wide that separated the prison from the rest of the island. The authorities chained a line of ferocious dogs at ten-yard intervals across the Neck. These were fiendish animals trained to attack any unfortunate convict that came near. Men suffered terrible deaths.

Eaglehawk Neck

Following the closure of Port Arthur prison it was turned into a tourist attraction for the ghoulish and genteel Victorian-era gentlefolk who came to celebrate the taming of convicts sent to Australia from their homeland. But what they chose to ignore were the atrocities performed by their forefathers on the indigenous Aborigines. Prior to the opening of the prison British settlers massacred nearly 5,000 Tasmanian Aborigines in twenty years. Yet, not only was this atrocity not seen as wrong by many white settlers, the authorities in Melbourne and Sydney condoned such behaviour for a long time.

Tragedy, atrocity – call it what you will, I will call it the past revisiting the present – visited Port Arthur again in 1996. One Martin Bryant walked in to a café on the site of the penal colony. This 28-year-old man ordered some food then drew a semi-automatic rifle from his bag and proceeded on a killing spree. When he was eventually captured the next day, 35 people were dead and 23 lay wounded. It was claimed at the time, and sustained since, that Bryant had become the worst mass-murderer in Australia's history. This is not true. There were European settlers in the 1800s that performed mass killings against the Aborigines in the states of New South Wales and Victoria as well as on the island of Tasmania.

One good thing came from Bryant’s actions. The Australian government of John Howard subsequently “introduced the National Firearms Agreement — legislation that outlawed automatic and semi-automatic rifles, as well as pump-action shotguns. A nationwide gun buyback scheme also saw more than 640,000 weapons turned in to authorities”.

 So why cannot the United States follow suit? Does the USA have any pretence of being a civilised country? 

One man thought so: President Obama, who in his eight years in office was frustrated in his attempts to tighten gun control, praised the Australian reforms in the days after one US massacre. "When Australia had a mass killing … it was just so shocking the entire country said, 'Well, we're going to completely change our gun laws,' and they did. And it hasn't happened since," Obama said.

I can believe in the second amendment to the US constitution. I would not deny an American’s right to bear arms. But the Founding Fathers could not foresee the semi-automatic and assault weapons behind today’s mass shootings when they wrote their historic document. So surely there must be another amendment.

I am proud that in Britain we shall never have another James Hanratty, killed by the state in revenge. Australia too had the civility to say ‘enough’ we will not kill our citizens any longer. Why did these two nations act so? Not because it was unfortunate (to say the least) if they sent to the hangman an innocent man. Nor because it seemed a civilised thing to do. It was because they have respect for life, hard won after all the lack of it meted out by their ancestors in the penal colonies of the empire.

President Trump (aargh again) does not have respect for many people, especially many Muslims. His utterances and attempts at Executive Actions regarding foreigners will lead to more killings, more hatred and more atrocities. Let’s all remember what Englishmen did to their fellow men on Sarah Island, Port Arthur, and the Maze; what other Europeans did at Auschwitz; and tell Mr Trump how near he is to pushing down a similar path to hell.

The southern ocean at Eaglehawk Neck

If you would like to share your experiences of the places discussed in this blog please record them in the Comments section.

Since my first visit to Australia in 2005 I have read some superb books, fiction and non-fiction, that capture a part of what the country was and is. In no particular order I can strongly recommend the following: -

Fiction:

·      For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke; 1874

·      The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough; 1987

·      Morgan’s Run by Colleen McCullough; 2000

·      Voss by Patrick White; 1957

·      A Fringe of Leaves by Patrick White; 1976

·      The Golden Age by Joan London; 2014

·      The Rosie Project by Graham Simsion; 2013

·      The Light Between the Oceans by M.L. Steadman; 2012

Non-fiction:

·      The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes; 1987

·      The Longest Decade by George Megalogenis; 2006

·      Island Home by Tim Winton; 2015

·      Thicker Than Water by Cal Flynn; 2016

Books by all the authors referenced above can be bought at: https://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk

Lindisfarne

When the tide goes out at Lindisfarne I become a pilgrim and a time traveller. When you feel the liquid sand and mud between bare toes where St Cuthbert once walked you too will become a pilgrim.

Since Cuthbert’s time (AD 670) this tiny island - occupying just 1,000 acres off the coast of Northumberland - has inspired soldiers, priests, fishermen, writers, artists, architects, gardeners, filmmakers and plain trampers like me.

Have you ever wondered why so many of us tramp (v. walk firmly; walk, go on foot. v.t. perform journey, traverse country, on foot)? I do often. I did when I stood at the top of Uluru (Ayers’ Rock) in the Northern Territories of Australia, especially after being admonished by a wife sensitive to the wishes of the indigenous people who prefer visitors do not climb. I did when half way across northern England on The Coast to Coast, caught in a rainstorm at Keld. I did on the summit of Ben Nevis in a near whiteout on 4^th June for heaven’s sake. So why do it? The answer is landscape, culture and people.

With wife Liza, sister-in-law Mary and her husband T.K. I walked in Cuthbert’s footsteps in 2003. The 60-mile Way crosses the Eildon and Cheviot Hills, winds with the River Tweed and concludes with crossing the sands to Lindisfarne by a line of posts marking the Pilgrims Route. The modern statue of St Aidan within the ruins of Lindisfarne Abbey is the symbolic end of St Cuthbert’s Way.

An intrepid tramper

In Beal, the tiny village overlooking the causeway to 
Lindisfarne, I looked over the sands on the last morning of our expedition. I smelled pine trees, heard the plaintive call of the seagulls and imagined how Cuthbert must have felt thirteen hundred years ago. Cuthbert and I will have found pretty much the same view, excepting I have the castle. Peace and serenity abounded then as it still does today. The early scholars thought the peace was good but the serenity was fragile. So they moved their base to Durham, to put Northumberland between themselves and the unpredictable noisy, northern neighbours. The island thus escaped ‘development’. Apart from the active years of the castle (1570 to 1603) Lindisfarne has remained in the hands of fishermen and travellers.

I’ll not bore readers with a lengthy history of Lindisfarne, (or Holy Island), save only to say that St Aidan founded a monastery here in 635. St Cuthbert, in my book a great man, became prior around 675. The troublesome Vikings sacked it the 875. The Benedictines of Durham started the current abbey in the 11^th century. A castle was built in 1549 – to keep at bay more pesky invaders, the Scots. And in 1902 another great man arrived to turn the castle ruins into a house; that man was Edwin Lutyens.

Lindisfarne fills me with wonder. I am compelled to revisit every few years. The landscape here plays with all my senses. I care about places like this and their preservation for the next generation of fishermen and future travellers. One such past traveller was Edward Hudson, the founder of Country Life magazine. In 1901, whilst holidaying in the area, he discovered the neglected castle remains. He hired his favourite architect, Edwin Lutyens, to convert it to a private home.

Lutyens is my quintessential English architect and a man of vision whose buildings express cool English emotion yet also a pronounced durability. Lutyen’s Thiepval memorial to the missing on the Somme (see August 2016 blog), Castle Drogo in Devon and Lindisfarne Castle each serve a purpose that resounds as strongly today as when he designed them. The landscapes with the buildings he created in them became fused focal points that lay down a lineage that has attracted succeeding generations of visitors.

This constant and febrile joining of land and history on Lindisfarne influenced others that followed Cuthbert and Hudson. It was instinctive for Lutyens and Hudson to ask Gertrude Jekyll in 1906 to redesign the planting of the atmospheric Walled Garden north of the castle. In 1966 the brilliant filmmaker Roman Polanski shot Cul-de-Sac totally on location on the island and used the castle for many of the scenes. The mercurial lead actor Donald Pleasance, known to many as Blofeld in an early James Bond film, spends much of the duration in this bizarre film dressed in only a pink nightie. (Movie fans not familiar with early Polanski work will be captivated). Poets Sir Walter Scott and Tony Harrison and novelists including Melvyn Bragg, George R.R. Martin and Bernard Cornwell have all felt the drama and mysticism of the island.

Gertrude Jekyll's garden

There is another long distance walking trail that starts on Lindisfarne. This is St Oswald’s Way. I therefore felt an innate impulse that we should return to the island and once more be pilgrims. We wanted to feel the slimy sand between our toes as we crossed the Way and get lost once again in the inescapable Northumberland littoral.

If you would like to share your experiences of the places discussed in this blog please record them in the Comments section.

Books by all the authors referenced above can be bought at: https://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk