Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Curiosities”
How would you feel if you were the descendent of a murderer? Helene Stapinski grew up hearing stories about her great-great grandmother, the strong-willed matriarch and murderess who fled to America and gave life to the Vena family of Jersey City, New Jersey. The legend gnawed at Stapinski, so she decided to play history detective and embark on a journey …
The castle of Roseto Capo Spulico turns heads. Fused to a rocky cliff right at shore’s edge, the striking monument along the Ionian Sea is situated on the Calabrian side of the border between the southern Italian regions of Calabria and Basilicata. I had admired the majestic structure from train and bus windows before recently having the opportunity of viewing …
“Kalimera.” A spry, older woman dressed in black warmly greeted us as we stepped out of the car and began to walk up the street to the main square of Gallicianò. She was like the town sentinel and greeter all in one, speaking perfect Italian to us, then lithely pulling a cell phone out of her pocket to call our …
As we drove up the hill to Badolato, a fleet of bicycles was coming down. The riders looked serious and there seemed to be a lot of them for a weekday morning in spring. “They’re Danish. We have a large Scandinavian community here in Badolato.” Having heard of the town’s welcoming of migrants some twenty years previously, I had expected …
When I begin to talk enthusiastically about the archeological museum in Reggio Calabria, I usually just get blank stares. If I show a photo or two of the famous Bronzes of Riace, interest piques. Once I have my listener’s attention, I introduce the rest of the museum’s collection.
Otherworldly screams? Laments from the afterlife? The bloody hand of the devil? The poor town of Pentedattilo on the edge of the Aspromonte Mountains in the southern tip of Calabria has seen it all. Earthquakes and precarious shifting of soil lent the final blow. But this cluster of edifices clinging to a strange rock formation, finally abandoned completely in the …
Growing up in the United States, I’d see royalty on TV every so often and think of it as a phenomenon of a distant land. I figured I would have had a greater opportunity of meeting an astronaut. Then I began spending time in Italy and it seemed that I ran into royalty with a certain frequency. Perhaps not every …
Before visiting the Museo San Paolo housed in Reggio Calabria’s Palazzo della Cultura, I was under the impression that it was just the usual collection of a couple pieces of silver, a few religious paintings and an old frock. How many times have I paid the Euro and gone through a side door past a heavy velour curtain to view …
THE “CURE” IN LAMEZIA TERME Using her hand like a shovel, Maria scooped up a goodly portion of mud and unceremoniously thwocked it onto my elbows, diving back into the gooey substance for my wrists, my feet and knees. Then, with multiple plops of the thick, grayish mud onto the table’s raised backrest, she instructed me to lie back onto …
UNPROTECTED FEMALES IN SICILY, CALABRIA, AND ON THE TOP OF MOUNT AETNA Intrepid is the word that comes to mind when characterizing women travelers in remote regions. Take Mrs. and Miss Lowe, two proper British ladies, a mother and daughter team that tramped all over the “continent” in the middle of the 19th-century to both the horror and delight of …