Glast-OOOOOOOH

The Big Chill was fun, but this was the real deal. Fantastic weather courtesy of PDF. Fantastic music courtesy of the organizers. Fantastic company courtesy of all involved.

Personal musical highlights: Ting Tings, Bloc Party, Bon Iver, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Regina Spektor, not necesisarily in that order.

The forces of censorship limited my ability to document the weekend (probably for the best, I admit), but here's a sample:

Home sweet home

Poor Ewe. May she rest in peace.

Nice hippie stuff

So many rules to follow...He controls the weather

Not ok.Not too much of this.
Good times

Our fearless, yet cruel, leader:

Dol-oh-me-oh-my

Spent a vigorous weekend striding through the spectacular Dolomites with quite an entourage of family, extensions, and Guido. The scenery was amazing; the mountain people, frightening. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

No Stresa

Have spent the last few days with the fam in the picturesque lake town of Stresa.

It has all the necessary ingredients for a newly-wed-and-nearly-dead tourist hellhole.

Romantic sunsets:

Emerald islands capped with Rococo palaces (the very height of 18th century tackiness, so I took no pictures. But there was one very cool tapestry that showed a unicorn--the symbol of the Borromeo family--goring a lion with its horn. In the foreground: a land-lobster. In the background: antelope copulating. Marvellous.):


Rare albino peacocks (currently whipped into a mad mating frenzy):

The "Miss Stresa" Beauty Pageant:
And busloads, and busloads, and busloads of elderly German/Swiss tourists and their sweeties:

BUT. Despite all of these horrors, we have in fact enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. Largely because one can shrug off all the crap and focus on the genuinely lovely landscape. So there has been some climbing

and some hiking
and general chillaxing (here on the whale rock).
We somehow managed to arrange to stay at the B+B of the lovely Rossana and Francesco, charming and hospitable mountaineers. So all the frou-frou Stresa silliness was kept at a reasonable distance.

Family under the Tuscan sun

Left Milan bright and early on the zippy Red Arrow to meet the 'rents in Rome. Lovely light flowing into the Central Station.

Rocked up to the house with Mom and Dad, now celebrating 35 years of wedded bliss. A+C were on hand to give excellent parent (here pictured employing hypnosis).

Only minimal misbehavior.

The fam loved Maremma (natch), and were soon poking around every which way.

Then up to Milan with a little obligatory sightseeing en route:





Happy anniversary, mom and dad! 35 years and still going strong. The secret?

The Cult of Mount Labbro

Entertaining family means lots of vigorous activities. And so it was that last weekend, after many tries, we finally conquered the mighty Mount Labbro.


It helped that we drove a good portion of the way.

The route was a bucolic Tuscan paradise lousy with flowers, butterflies, and suspicious farmers.

After lots of marching we came to the summit.

A startling discovery awaited. Mount Labbro was/is the headquarters of a full blown CULT!!! They call themselves La Fratellanza Giurisdavidica. Nineteenth Century socialist-Christian type thing. Very bizzare.

The ruins of their temple/monastery remain on top. The complex includes a lookout tower:

Bee-infested chapel (not pictured, couldn't stand still long enough to document)

Tomb of the founder, one David Lazzaretti: zealot, revolutionary, madman.


And, best of all, English-Patient-esque grotto complete with altar!

The cult apparently continues to exist, as evidenced by this list:

I must say, it is not really surprising to discover a cult in Maremma. Kind of explains a lot, actually. Certainly this will have to be the site of some future frolics.