A to Z of Statues – U is for King Umberto I of Italy

This one was taken in the City of Naples…

Umberto was king of Italy from 1878 – 1900 when he was assassinated by an American/Italian anarchist

This is an interesting but unlikely story about him..

One day he was eating in a restaurant when he noticed the owner was a near-exact physical double. It emerged that both were born on the same day, in the same town, and had married women with the same name. The restaurateur had opened his establishment on the day of Umberto’s coronation. Umberto was shot dead on the day he learned the restaurateur had died in a shooting.  His dad had no doubt been playing away.

Umberto was allegedly an uneducated man which led him to have the unfortunate nickname of Umberto the Simple.

Lots of Kings in history have been given unkind nicknames…

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Travels in Italy, A Walk Around Rimini

I was pleasantly surprised by Rimini, I was expecting a ghastly Mediterranean holiday resort but found history, charm, elegance and a busy fishing port.

Click on an image to scroll through the gallery…

Travels in Italy, A Walk around Lake Como

 

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Naples, Blue Sky and Statues

Like any great European City with a splendid history Naples has its fair share of public statues …

Do you notice anything unusual?

Not a single pigeon to spoil the picture!

What A Difference Thirty Years Can Make (1)

  

… the village of Vallone di Furore, a narrow fjord where steep rock walls sheltered an enclave of fishermen’s houses and a tiny harbour with a beach littered with small hard working fishing boats all resting for the day.  I had seen this place before and thirty years later it was completely transformed.  In 1976 it was a shambles with dilapidated buildings but now it was renovated and restored but had kept its charm intact.

Have you ever returned somewhere years later and found it greatly changed?

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Rule of Thirds

Weekly Photo Challenge: ZigZag

On the way to Amalfi the coach stopped to admire the view of the town of Positano that clings improbably to a vertical cliff with buildings tumbling chaotically from the top right down to the beach at the bottom.

Best of all, in my opinion, was the village of Vallone di Furore, where steep rock walls sheltered an enclave of abandoned and partially collapsed  fishermen’s houses and a tiny harbour with a beach littered with small hard working fishing boats all resting up for the day.

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Car Hire in Sicily, a rash decision in a moment of madness!

Woke early in a sweat!  OMG!  I am going to drive a car in Sicily! I must be insane; whatever possessed me to dream up an idea like that!

After breakfast we walked for a last time down the Via Roma and noticed that it was quieter today, perhaps because last nights revellers were still in bed nursing hangovers.  The streets were already impressively clean so the local council had obviously been working hard throughout the night.  We arrived at the Piazza Giulio Cesare and missed the bus to the airport by just ten minutes.  That gave me further thirty minutes worrying time while we waited for the next one in the railway station bar (nowhere else was open).

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Sorrento, The Amalfi Drive

The corniche provides one of scariest but most scenic motoring experiences in the world as coaches veer vertiginously around the jagged granite edges of the Lattari Mountains, twisting and tunneling and hairpin-bending, providing vista after stunning vista of gorges, bridges, cliffs plunging vertically into the glassy Thyrrenian Sea, and sudden improbable villages tucked picturesquely into the landscape.

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Sorrento, The Amalfi Drive

“Flaming like a meteor we hit the coast, a road, high, high above the blue
sea, that hooked and corkscrewed on the edge of nothing, a road carefully
designed to be a little narrower than two cars side by side.”                                 John Steinbeck

On the next day dad finally dispensed with his tie and dropped a couple of gears down from civil servant to holidaymaker mode and first thing in the morning we had continental breakfast in the dining room.  Bread and jam for the first meal of the day was another new experience for me because I had only previously been used to having raspberry preserve at teatime but I quickly adapted and by the end of the fortnight I had become completely used to it.

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