Taste of European Byzantium

Driving south to Tuscany we made a halt at Ravenna on the Adriatic coast. This is nearly the only place in Europe with the remnants of an old Byzantium. Besides it's pleasant and not overcrowded with tourists on a White Sneakers Tour that make Florence somehow straining.


From the Great Palace in Constantinople Justinian, probably the greatest o the Byzantine emperors, controlled an empire that ran from Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East and the North African littoral. In 540 he conquered Ravenna, which became the seat of Byzantine government in Italy.




There are the great mosaics at Ravenna in its Basilica of San Vitale, which reminds me on the great Haghia Sophia, with the portraits of Justinian and his wife Theodora accompanied by their admirals, bishops, courtiers and eunuchs; the same intrigue-ridden court familiar from the written sources. The interesting thing about surviving corpus of Byzantine art is that away from these two isolated Ravenna panels its art is strictly non-secular. Across of a hundred ruined Byzantine churches in the Middle East the same smooth, resembling faces of the saints and apostles stare down like a gallery of mutes. Then came a surprise. A flock of tourists that were disturbing my intimacy with the mosaics metamorphosed into a choir. The silence and the coolness of San Vitale filled with beautiful Latin singing.

The mosaic of Empress Theodora is solemn and formal, with golden halo, crown and jewels, and a train of court ladies. She is almost depicted as a goddess. Theodora, posthumously ordained to a saint in the orthodox church, had a rather vivid life as evidenced in The Secret History written by Procopius: Brought up in a circus, as soon as she was old enough she joined the women on stage and became a courtesan. For she was not a flautist or a harpist; she was not even qualified to join the dancers; but she merely sold her attractions to anyone who came along, putting her whole body at his disposal... Later she used to tease her lovers by cracking dirty jokes and wiggling her hips suggestively and invited all who came her way, especially if they were still in their teens..

Buon appetito

Uno,

due,

tre!

Survivers: Anna, Peter, Shlakiyah

Italian holidays were short and sweet. Now we´re back in Stock and Ljubljana. And, most important; the drive was a complete success, no problems at all, Shlakiyah is running like an urverk, spinner som en katt, what do you say in English?

Italy was beautiful, of course, full of art, food and wine. Actually so full that you got dizzy, can you OD on renaissance and pasta?

We drove (or rather Peter did) from Trieste (boring) via Chioggia (cute and cheap) to Comacchio (I drove a bit!) were we spent the night on a poppy field. Continued to Ravenna (full of mosaics and nicely tourist-free), through Forli (they don´t sell food in Forli, only flowers) and into Tuscany and Florence. We slept the second night in a small monastery where my parents where supposed to be. Their efforts to make it to Florence deserves a whole new blog! Let´s say it included a thirty hour delay.

Florence was grand, David was grand, the Uffizi gallery was grand and the line-ups where very grand. It was wonderful!

We also got a chance to do some social anthropology in the field of, mainly German, camping-culture. Shlakiyah is petite in this context, among 100 000 euro caravans she is a joke. The culture includes such things as bringing your own seat-pillows when you go to a bar...

We continued to Siena after a few days but here the art-overdose became overwhelming, I couldn't go into the cathedral, the facade was enough. We went for beer and pizza.

San Gimignano was the final destination before we started the return. In this town everybody (maybe only half of the population?) was crazy about building towers in the 12th century. They built over seventy before one patrone (or something) decided no one could build taller than his tower, now about fifteen remains. I guess Freud would have something to say about the tower-obsession.

When passing through Florence on the way back we spent one night with a relative of Peters. Armeda is about seventy five and lives with her husband in a house with a garden full of roses and cherries, she stayed up until one drinking Chianti with us and talking about her illegal border-crossings during early Yugoslavian times.

I miss Italian coffee already, check this espresso!

Där små citroner gula...

We are in Italy. And: we spent the first night ever sleeping in Shlakiyah! Waking up in the middle of a poppy field was very nice, mosquitos and freezing a bit was less nice. Pictures to come. Second night was spent among Polish nuns in a monastery, Shlakiyah is blessed on a parking place by the Holy Virgin. Now we will go see some art in Firenze.

Pimp My Ride

Shlakiyah spent winter on Murch's farm in Sostanj. During this time she was ''pimped'' for the road trip.

Workshop team, made up of myself and Murch replaced an air filter, sparking plugs and rear drum brake segments. Further we rebuilt the interior from scratch. Shlakiyah is a custom "pimp", tailored to the personalities and interests of the owners. In our case we need a bed to sleep during travelling, cooking gear, and thick roof isolation to resist hot Anatolian sun.

Shlakiyah was manufactured by Toyota back in 1992 for the African market, hence her robust undercarriage had to be examined. Things look good and nothing will brake, inshallah.






The rest of the photos can be found here.