ON THE ROAD.
OLIVE’S SIXTY NINTH POST
Mike
Apologies to all those who’ve been enjoying Ollie’s blog over the last year. I am overseas with my daughter, Ellen, and have been unable to post on Olive’s behalf.
We thought that our good friend, Eric, might carry on the writing and posting for Olive in my absence, but he has not felt comfortable with the technology, and who can blame him?
Indeed, Eric is kindy caryying on. Go to links on the side here and click on Eric blogs for Olive. If that fails, try this URL http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com/
Indeed, the site won’t let him in for so reason we can’t fathom.
Eric did send me a lovely interview he did with Ollie on her school days, But I have not been able to cut and paste it from here in Bologna, Italy, where I ‘m sitting.
This being Olive’s blog, this is a report to her on our travels. I Know she wants to know how it’s going.
Eric reports that she’s in good health, by the way, has color in her cheeks, and told him tales of Silverton on his last friday visit with her.
Silverton is a town near Broken Hill where a tragic massacre occurred round about 1915, and in which Ollie was nearly involved.
Hi Olive,
As you know, the point of the trip has been for the Dad, that’s me, to bond with daughter, Ellen, almost 16.
I thought that some time away together in stimulating places, even if meant missing school, would be good for her, and that’s proved to be true.
She’s keeping a most interesting diary which I’m allowed to read from time to time. She’s also deep into a book at every chance, on the ferries, the trains, and she usually hates books. So, I’m very happy so far.
We flew to Athens at the beginning of May and stayed with friends on an island very close to Athens, called Aegina.
It’s not on the tourist trail but we found Aegina just great with a quiet charm, and wonderful walks. The port strand has a line of cafes where you can sit your feet almost in the turquoise sea, watching the coming and going of the boats, the various ferries, and the colorful fishing boats.
Like their houses, the Greeks love painting their boats, white or various shades of blues. Behind the cafes, stately houses never more than two storeys, make an ochre frieze against the brown hills. The rusty old water freighter stands in the harbor. All water to Greek islands like this comes in by boat.
Further back the hill invite walking.
Both Ellen and I are wearing our pedometers daily and write down the number of Kilometers we cover in our diary.
The longest day’s walk so far has been 18 kms with an average of about 10 per day. In Italy, where we now are, the walking is a wonderful counterbalance to the piles of pasta one inevitably eats.
Anyway, from Aegina we went to to the fabled island of Hydra where 40 years ago, I spent a crazy night at the house of the poet songwriter, Leonard Cohen. He would not remember but I do!
Hydra has not changed much. Still, the white houses are like a throw of the dice, tumbling down the steep slopes, turning the tiny winding streets between them into stairs.
Hydra still has no cars, all transporting of goods for shops from the port being done by donkeys. It was so nice not to have the scream of motor scooters in one’s ear all the times in other parts of Greece and Italy
We had an amusing problem with our Hydra guest house. (name suppressed) I’d made an internet booking and been promised a room with a view for 58 euros. That sounds a lot, (about 100 Aust. dollars) but is a good deal actually for Hydra.
When we got there, we found the room not only very poke, y with no view to speak of. Worse still, official the price on the back of the door , said 40 euros. Moreover, that was for room 4 and we were in room 2.
I checked out room 4 and found it vastly superior, with a balcony overlooking the turquoise sea, the fishing boats, and an en-suite bathroom, it had the lot. A Finnish couple was in residence, claiming they were paying 30 a mere euros.
Well, that was just too much over charging for my liking!. I challenged the plump proprietor, saying that given the tiny room, etc. I’d pay no more than 30. She was furious that the Finns had spilled the beans, she swearing that they were paying 50 and went to remind them so.
With proof in hand that the agreed price was 30 euros, the Finns then decided to check out (it was about 7pm.) and go elsewhere. So, everything collapsed in a heap for the confused owner of the pension. I even felt a bit sorry for her.
We did stay on at an 30 per night, but were soundly punished. The communal kitchen was locked to us and the hot water dried up.
As we prepared to prematurely leave too, the landlady had second thoughts and things were turned back on.
In the meantime, I was hiking up to to the tops of the nearby mountains, finding monasteries way above the town in which Ellen still slept.
These monasteries were simple white washed buildings around wide courtyards. At the first, no one was in sight but the sounds of chanting just reached me. In the vaulted gate house was an ancient collection box.
When I dropped in a coin, the clang echoed across the austere yard, and I thought I saw a flutter at a distant window.
They were such peaceful places, high up midst whispering pines, and though I’ve no desire to be a monk, it was strangely attractive. Nice also to be all alone, to have the bright early morning to myself.
On my second massive hike, I got caught in rain, the first fall on Hydra for 5 years the locals said, and so I sheltered in a cave high on a cliff, last occupied by invaders 800 years ago, or so it felt.
From this perch, way below in the curving port, I could see the internet cafe where Ellen typed away to her facebook friends ten thousand miles away.
I texted her my predicament, being trapped by rain, and asked her to come out and see if she could see my shelter in the cliff, the hole where I was trapped by slippery wet rocks.
She did emerge, but claimed not she was not able to see me, though I saw her, a speck below, as another ferry came and went from the mainland .
Fom HYdra , we went to the millionaire’s playground the favorite stop on 19th century grand tour, the island of Capri, and how lovely it was.
Again, great walks and lots of history. Here there was traffic with toads so narrow that wen two of the tiny buses met, they had to come to a complete stop and inch past each other, mirrors brushing.
We wanted to swim in the famous blue grotto, a cave in with an under water natural window which is filled with a strange shimmering blue light, but the sea was a bit sloshy and the fishermen just above, were dangling hooks which looked menacing.
Next, on to Naples where my grandfather studied art at the end of the nineteenth century (yes, I am that old, Ollie) and there, we made an amazing discovery.
In Grandfather’s file (it took some finding) file at the Naples University, as well as reporting what a great student Antonio Dattilo Rubbo had been in 1893, the dossier told something of his life story.
It revealed something none of our family ever knew, that Nonno, as we called him, was abandoned at a church by an unknown Naples mother, a day after his birth.
The way to leave a baby in those days was quite catered for. There was a special aperture in the church wall.
You pushed your child through that opening, into a wooden box beyond the hole, and then spun the contraption so the baby was deposited inside, probably never to be seen again.
It was a bit like one of those airlock glass doors going into a hotel.
The mechanism was called >La Rota della Misericordia, and it still exists, the very one same turning box which took in Grandfather, the mechanism that is, into another life. He just made it. The outside hole was stopped up in 1870 a plaque explained.
We found out that he was abandoned on June 22nd. at 4 pm, 1870, just one day old at the time.
As I say, none of this was known in the family and came as great shock
I next spent a quite a lot on international calls, telling everyone back in Australia. (those whose mouths I knew would fall open at this news) what the trail had revealed
From Naples to Pompey which we visited in just a few hours , we had to do it that way because of our train time tables.
We picked what we were told was one of the best places on the vast site , the house of the mysteries, and headed straight there, down a a magestic avenue of cypress and ancient flagstones.
In the ancient house of mysteries, we found elegant courtyards, (the house was roofed) high walls with frescoes, and even the frozen bodies of two of the inhabitants, caught by the falling ash before they could flee as nearby Versuvius blew it’s top. ( The fallen were in in dusty glass cases)
I am sure you know that when they were excavating Pompey, they found curious cavities. Pumping plaster of Paris into these empty spaces, they found that they were cavities left by the bodies of the people of Pompey who’d been overcome by ash.
Eventually the bodies rotted away, leaving a sort of negative from which, with the injection of Plaster of Paris, a grim positive emerged.
We saw a man, his head cradled in his arms, a scream of agony on his face. Also, a contorted dog, and a pregnant woman, belly down. It was all so sad, even after all this time, 2000 years, I think, but grimly fascinating too, I must admit.
From Pompey we took the train to to Bologna where I type this report. My nephew, Joe is studying Italian here and gave us a roof.
What an elegant city of collonnades and warm brown walls, is Bologna, somewhat marred by graffiti.
The Italians live on the streets, and at night the cafes are full of happy chatter and cuddling couples. Lots of sipping of wine or beer but no public drunks that we could see, no binge drinking here.
No violence either as Jo, my Nephew, reminded me of how, by contrast, he’d been attacked on a Melbourne street not long before his departure. Head butted by drunken louts.
Our Australian cities have become very violent as drunks take umbrage at the slightest supposed insult and swoop to attack, sometimes to kill.
“Has a tourist ever been killed in Bolgona?” I asked Jo, thinking of the many back packer
murders which have taken place in Australia in recent years. “Not one,” said Jo, as far as he knew.
Today we leave for Croatia. So, Bye, Ollie, I’ll try to tell you more soon.
All the best, Mike
Apologies to all those who’ve been enjoying Ollie’s blog over the last year. I am overseas with my daughter, Ellen, and have been unable to post on Olive’s behalf.
We thought that our good friend, Eric, might carry on the writing and posting for Olive in my absence, but he has not felt comfortable with the technology, and who can blame him?
Indeed, Eric is kindy caryying on. Go to links on the side here and click on Eric blogs for Olive. If that fails, try this URL http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com/
Indeed, the site won’t let him in for so reason we can’t fathom.
Eric did send me a lovely interview he did with Ollie on her school days, But I have not been able to cut and paste it from here in Bologna, Italy, where I ‘m sitting.
This being Olive’s blog, this is a report to her on our travels. I Know she wants to know how it’s going.
Eric reports that she’s in good health, by the way, has color in her cheeks, and told him tales of Silverton on his last friday visit with her.
Silverton is a town near Broken Hill where a tragic massacre occurred round about 1915, and in which Ollie was nearly involved.
Hi Olive,
As you know, the point of the trip has been for the Dad, that’s me, to bond with daughter, Ellen, almost 16.
I thought that some time away together in stimulating places, even if meant missing school, would be good for her, and that’s proved to be true.
She’s keeping a most interesting diary which I’m allowed to read from time to time. She’s also deep into a book at every chance, on the ferries, the trains, and she usually hates books. So, I’m very happy so far.
We flew to Athens at the beginning of May and stayed with friends on an island very close to Athens, called Aegina.
It’s not on the tourist trail but we found Aegina just great with a quiet charm, and wonderful walks. The port strand has a line of cafes where you can sit your feet almost in the turquoise sea, watching the coming and going of the boats, the various ferries, and the colorful fishing boats.
Like their houses, the Greeks love painting their boats, white or various shades of blues. Behind the cafes, stately houses never more than two storeys, make an ochre frieze against the brown hills. The rusty old water freighter stands in the harbor. All water to Greek islands like this comes in by boat.
Further back the hill invite walking.
Both Ellen and I are wearing our pedometers daily and write down the number of Kilometers we cover in our diary.
The longest day’s walk so far has been 18 kms with an average of about 10 per day. In Italy, where we now are, the walking is a wonderful counterbalance to the piles of pasta one inevitably eats.
Anyway, from Aegina we went to to the fabled island of Hydra where 40 years ago, I spent a crazy night at the house of the poet songwriter, Leonard Cohen. He would not remember but I do!
Hydra has not changed much. Still, the white houses are like a throw of the dice, tumbling down the steep slopes, turning the tiny winding streets between them into stairs.
Hydra still has no cars, all transporting of goods for shops from the port being done by donkeys. It was so nice not to have the scream of motor scooters in one’s ear all the times in other parts of Greece and Italy
We had an amusing problem with our Hydra guest house. (name suppressed) I’d made an internet booking and been promised a room with a view for 58 euros. That sounds a lot, (about 100 Aust. dollars) but is a good deal actually for Hydra.
When we got there, we found the room not only very poke, y with no view to speak of. Worse still, official the price on the back of the door , said 40 euros. Moreover, that was for room 4 and we were in room 2.
I checked out room 4 and found it vastly superior, with a balcony overlooking the turquoise sea, the fishing boats, and an en-suite bathroom, it had the lot. A Finnish couple was in residence, claiming they were paying 30 a mere euros.
Well, that was just too much over charging for my liking!. I challenged the plump proprietor, saying that given the tiny room, etc. I’d pay no more than 30. She was furious that the Finns had spilled the beans, she swearing that they were paying 50 and went to remind them so.
With proof in hand that the agreed price was 30 euros, the Finns then decided to check out (it was about 7pm.) and go elsewhere. So, everything collapsed in a heap for the confused owner of the pension. I even felt a bit sorry for her.
We did stay on at an 30 per night, but were soundly punished. The communal kitchen was locked to us and the hot water dried up.
As we prepared to prematurely leave too, the landlady had second thoughts and things were turned back on.
In the meantime, I was hiking up to to the tops of the nearby mountains, finding monasteries way above the town in which Ellen still slept.
These monasteries were simple white washed buildings around wide courtyards. At the first, no one was in sight but the sounds of chanting just reached me. In the vaulted gate house was an ancient collection box.
When I dropped in a coin, the clang echoed across the austere yard, and I thought I saw a flutter at a distant window.
They were such peaceful places, high up midst whispering pines, and though I’ve no desire to be a monk, it was strangely attractive. Nice also to be all alone, to have the bright early morning to myself.
On my second massive hike, I got caught in rain, the first fall on Hydra for 5 years the locals said, and so I sheltered in a cave high on a cliff, last occupied by invaders 800 years ago, or so it felt.
From this perch, way below in the curving port, I could see the internet cafe where Ellen typed away to her facebook friends ten thousand miles away.
I texted her my predicament, being trapped by rain, and asked her to come out and see if she could see my shelter in the cliff, the hole where I was trapped by slippery wet rocks.
She did emerge, but claimed not she was not able to see me, though I saw her, a speck below, as another ferry came and went from the mainland .
Fom HYdra , we went to the millionaire’s playground the favorite stop on 19th century grand tour, the island of Capri, and how lovely it was.
Again, great walks and lots of history. Here there was traffic with toads so narrow that wen two of the tiny buses met, they had to come to a complete stop and inch past each other, mirrors brushing.
We wanted to swim in the famous blue grotto, a cave in with an under water natural window which is filled with a strange shimmering blue light, but the sea was a bit sloshy and the fishermen just above, were dangling hooks which looked menacing.
Next, on to Naples where my grandfather studied art at the end of the nineteenth century (yes, I am that old, Ollie) and there, we made an amazing discovery.
In Grandfather’s file (it took some finding) file at the Naples University, as well as reporting what a great student Antonio Dattilo Rubbo had been in 1893, the dossier told something of his life story.
It revealed something none of our family ever knew, that Nonno, as we called him, was abandoned at a church by an unknown Naples mother, a day after his birth.
The way to leave a baby in those days was quite catered for. There was a special aperture in the church wall.
You pushed your child through that opening, into a wooden box beyond the hole, and then spun the contraption so the baby was deposited inside, probably never to be seen again.
It was a bit like one of those airlock glass doors going into a hotel.
The mechanism was called >La Rota della Misericordia, and it still exists, the very one same turning box which took in Grandfather, the mechanism that is, into another life. He just made it. The outside hole was stopped up in 1870 a plaque explained.
We found out that he was abandoned on June 22nd. at 4 pm, 1870, just one day old at the time.
As I say, none of this was known in the family and came as great shock
I next spent a quite a lot on international calls, telling everyone back in Australia. (those whose mouths I knew would fall open at this news) what the trail had revealed
From Naples to Pompey which we visited in just a few hours , we had to do it that way because of our train time tables.
We picked what we were told was one of the best places on the vast site , the house of the mysteries, and headed straight there, down a a magestic avenue of cypress and ancient flagstones.
In the ancient house of mysteries, we found elegant courtyards, (the house was roofed) high walls with frescoes, and even the frozen bodies of two of the inhabitants, caught by the falling ash before they could flee as nearby Versuvius blew it’s top. ( The fallen were in in dusty glass cases)
I am sure you know that when they were excavating Pompey, they found curious cavities. Pumping plaster of Paris into these empty spaces, they found that they were cavities left by the bodies of the people of Pompey who’d been overcome by ash.
Eventually the bodies rotted away, leaving a sort of negative from which, with the injection of Plaster of Paris, a grim positive emerged.
We saw a man, his head cradled in his arms, a scream of agony on his face. Also, a contorted dog, and a pregnant woman, belly down. It was all so sad, even after all this time, 2000 years, I think, but grimly fascinating too, I must admit.
From Pompey we took the train to to Bologna where I type this report. My nephew, Joe is studying Italian here and gave us a roof.
What an elegant city of collonnades and warm brown walls, is Bologna, somewhat marred by graffiti.
The Italians live on the streets, and at night the cafes are full of happy chatter and cuddling couples. Lots of sipping of wine or beer but no public drunks that we could see, no binge drinking here.
No violence either as Jo, my Nephew, reminded me of how, by contrast, he’d been attacked on a Melbourne street not long before his departure. Head butted by drunken louts.
Our Australian cities have become very violent as drunks take umbrage at the slightest supposed insult and swoop to attack, sometimes to kill.
“Has a tourist ever been killed in Bolgona?” I asked Jo, thinking of the many back packer
murders which have taken place in Australia in recent years. “Not one,” said Jo, as far as he knew.
Today we leave for Croatia. So, Bye, Ollie, I’ll try to tell you more soon.
All the best, Mike
Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
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12 Responses to “ON THE ROAD.”
Leave a Reply
May 20th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I’m glad to hear that Ollie is well. Your trip sounds wonderful, Mike. And isn’t it exciting when skeletons fall out of the family closet?
May 20th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Hello, my name is Violeta Facio. I am an student of psicology in the University of Sevilla interested in searching some information about the use of the internet in old people. I am sorry if my language is not very correct but I am Spanish and I don´t have too much knowledges of English language.
The reason why I am writting to you is to ask you if you could answer some easy and short questions for me in order to help me in my project.
So, if you can give me any e-mail to contact with you I will send you the questions hoping you answer them and send them back to me.
Thankyou very much,
I look forward to hear from you.
Violeta
May 21st, 2008 at 1:49 am
Hellloooo Mike!
How wonderful to finally hear from you, (and no apologies needed to us as we all know what you are doing) and what a TOTALLY fascinating! trip report. You are sooo lucky to be able to see all that you are, with your daughter, Ellen by your side. Not many fathers would take the time to do such a thing. She is one lucky young lady!
Continue to enjoy your travels, and all of us readers will just have to wait patiently to hear more of them. Keep safe and God bless.
Sandy in WI (US)
May 21st, 2008 at 5:44 am
What an extraordinary trip you are on. Greece is magical. I read this post jealously as I sit a work.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Hello Olive! What an exciting time Mike and Ellen are having right now! I took my oldest daughter to England, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Ukraine for her 18th birthday, and we had a wonderful time!
Megan really loved Dubrovnik, which is a town in Croatia. It was sad though, because they had recently been bombed, and some of the old tile roofs had been partially destroyed. We both would love to go back sometime, maybe when we are wealthy instead of beautiful!
I hope your weather is lovely this time of year, and that it isn’t too cool for you yet. My friend who lives in Queensland on a cattle station says that this is simply the loveliest time of the year out there.
Things here are a bit dicey, my divorce should go through in a few weeks, and not a minute too soon, since my fiancé is in a spot of trouble with our Immigration Department. But all should be well soon, and I am keeping my hopes up!
Mike, I hope you and Ellen have as wonderful a time in Croatia and Meg and I did, stay safe and write often!
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Hi! Mike & Olive..
It’s great to read about your wonderful trip with Ellen & I am glad that Olive is well.
Take care .. & warmest greetings from Malaysia!!
May 24th, 2008 at 10:43 am
hi mike,.
what a wonderful trip it sounds like you are having. the stories about the abandoned baby and the bodies in Pompeii especially intrigued me.
i’m glad to hear Ollie is doing well. sorry i havent been around much lately, but i do check in with you two from time to time. keep having a great time!
love
christina
May 25th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Wonderful trip you are on Mike! Sounds quite magical.
May 31st, 2008 at 10:54 am
To Violeta Facio (sender of Comment #2)
If you send your questions and email address to me ( eshackleATozemail.com.au. ) I will refer them to Olive when I visit her next week.
June 10th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Hey Olive, I’m glad to be able to read your “blob” that Eric is helping with while Mike’s gone. I just read your comments about singing being a lift to one’s spirits. My co -workers and I use it often but in a different way. We work around theater and musicians so when things get stressed out we often find something that reminds of us a song and then spontaneously give it new words. The trick is to sing as much of it as you can, making up the new words as you go. Sometimes you don’t get very far, but the idea is so good we all work on it and write a whole new set of words. However you use it singing really does help get you through stuff, doesn’t it?
Kathryn
July 8th, 2008 at 2:38 am
I am remiss in being so tardy in reading this wonderful and interesting blog. I envy you traveling this way. I was on the Isle of Capri and in Pompeii twice, but failed to see the house of Mysteries. I did see the House of Veti that still had a roof and frescoes. I love travel and found your report fascinating. I will return to check on more of your travels.
July 13th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Hello
Read on the other blog that Olive was ill, I tried to leave a comment on that site but I don’t have a google acconut.
But I wanted to say that it was sorry to read that she is ill, I hope she will get better soon. It have bees so interesting to read about her and her life. So I really hope that I can continue doing so. I will send a prayer to her. Kiss her from me.
Anna, Haparanda, Sweden