L'Aquila! July 11

Yesterday morning we painted on the terrace of some friends of ours from Denmark that have a holiday house here. They are in Denmark in the miserable rainy weather and we are on their deck. Jim finished his drawing, but I will be back tomorrow. 

Today we took the train to L’Aquila.

Abruzzo is made up of four regions. We live in the region of L’Aquila and the capital of L’Aquila is L’Aquila. L’Aquila was also the epicenter of the April 2009 earthquake. We have never gone there because so much of it was destroyed and people said it was very sad. It is still sad. Every town we see in Abruzzo has a crane.

Our first understanding of how bad the earthquake was in L'Aquila.

In L’Aquila, it was impossible to take a picture without a crane except in the one church. This is a big city and the damage is huge. I can’t not imagine where all the people have gone that lived in the damaged area.

We walked and walked and occasionally asked people if there was any place with tourist info. We did not have a map and we assumed that, like in Sulmona, there would be an obvious information center. L’Aquila is way bigger than Sulmona and way bigger than we expected. I do not think we will return. I do not think it will be restored in our lifetime. 

The church we visited is at the end of the the scaffolding. 

Cranes

We went in one church. I believe it is the one that the dome collapsed in on itself. It has been repaired and was filled with interesting paintings, gold leaf and a mummy of a monk in a San Franciscan robe. So if it is a mummy of a monk, does that make it a monkey? Trust me this is the only piece of levity available in L’Aquila. There was another mummy of a bishop with a silver leafed face. No jokes come to mind. The church was huge and I don’t know how it could ever be filled, but all along the sides were modern works of art that were made to be carried by four people in religious processions. They had a Bread & Puppet quality and each one individually represented hours of work. They were made to light up and a night procession of these moveable art works would be amazing. 

Mummy in box on red cloth

Restored dome

Cool processional artwork

Who needs Rome?

Small Jim in big church

cool thing

We also found the large piazza, but no tourist info ever. We managed, finally to get over 10,000 steps in a day. And it was not too hot. Oh and we also went into a mall that had an escalator! 

This van transforms into a small crane

In the big square

 As you know many buildings are wrapped while they are being worked on. It is not attractive, but in L’Aquila some of these wrappings have been turned into works of art or representations of what is behind them using enormous photographs. There was a series of three enormous black and white except for a huge, red, sculpture of a heart, photos.. One picture showed workmen carrying it out to the foot of Connette Grande. (big mountain, Mussolini kept captive there, helicoptered out by Hitler) The last picture showed the heart resting in the mountains. Why did I not take a picture? Too much back light.

Example of decorated wrapping

My favorite part of the trip was the train ride through the field dotted valley between the Sirentes (our mountains) and the Gran Sasso Mountains. (their mountains) We were prepared to hitch hike or walk home from the train station. This is the same train station where we found ourselves on our first arrival at night in CVS. Jim observed that in America towns were built up around stations, but here in Italy trains are so new that they are outside of town. Like airports. It is 2 km. to CVS from the train. I would not mind walking, but the road is very narrow and winding. We walked up to the street where the railroad crossing guard was still down. We were standing there when the woman waiting asked if we would like a ride. No thumb sticking out was involved. 

Since our big adventure we have been hanging out at home watching the weather on the big screen. 

And no, we did not go out painting. More thunder is coming so better end.