Winch by the Inch

It's never a dull moment around here, and I have learned to expect the unexpected. Most recently, Michael and I went into the Piazza del Popolo to be treated with the sight of one grown man winching up another through a small hole in the paving. The man being winched out of (presumably) the cisterns that are not accessible to the public was wearing normal clothes, hard hat, light, hiking boots, and...flippers.

Enjoy!

Love,

Alexandra

True Colors

While Michael was gone, clearly I had nothing to do. Plus, he can't stand the mess of construction as easily as I can; I decided to have our bedroom painted! I was really tired of the old mildew stains...stone walls have a HUGE advantage over timber and drywall (I haven't seen a roach in three years, except during my trip to the US), but the disadvantage is moisture retention.

Lots of furniture moving, cleaning, dusting, and so on later, the room was ready for the painters to come! I am lucky enough that my friend Edvina's husband does this sort of work...so he was on for the challenge of doing this while Michael was away. As always happens, though, it waited until the last minute. He's also simultaneously working on their house (so I felt bad tearing him away from that, but Edvina assured me that it was fine!).

Andrea (Edvina's husband) and Giovanni arrived last Wednesday. Yes, that was the feast of San Fortunato. I had previously chosen the colors to be used, and the purple was fantastic! Unfortunately, the blue--while a lovely color--was completely clashy with the bedspread. The mixing was slightly off, and it was much brighter than required. Yikes!

If you missed it the first time, that was a feast day. The implication: yes, the paint store was closed. And we knew Michael would be home at some point Friday morning.

Nothing daunted, Giovanni started on the ceiling (soft white) and one wall (the purple that worked). He also had time to do the hall -- not beautiful to begin with, three years' worth of boys had rendered it scuffed and tired. And Andrea had managed to get a good deal on the paint, so why not?

Andrea and I made plans to be down at Umberto's (the hardware store fellow) at 8:15 the next morning to address the remixing of the blue.

Yes, at 8:15 (yawn) we were duly there. Too bad that Umberto wasn't, though. His parents very helpfully (!) told us that he was in Parma on the way back from Milano, and of course they don't know how to mix paint. But Umberto would be back for the 4:00 p.m. reopening of the store, no problem!

Well, yes, problem! I was supposed to be in Perugia with James. A quick call to Leonardo established  a ride for James, making me free to be back down at the hardware store. No need for panic...

Umberto, Giovanni, Andrea, and I mixed black pigment into the blue to make it much more suitable for the room, and then Giovanni went up to the house while I got new light fixtures for the hall (the others were a cheap plastic that had melted under the heat of some of the "low consumption" light bulbs...bright and HOT).

New color? Much better.

A note about the paint here: the formulation is completely different from that in the US. It is much chalkier (even the "scrubbable" paint) because with stone walls you MUST have breathability. If not, the water in the walls will push through and you will have flaky paint in no time at all...and a complete mess to cover up the next time. It goes on really translucent, but dries to be very opaque. Giovanni was telling me that one coat of white will cover black, no problem. I saw it to a lesser degree myself: he had "touched up" where some blue hit the ceiling, and I only saw that it looked wet with that blue showing right through. Fifteen minutes later, the paint had dried and the blue was not to be seen.

Another note: the paint is mixed in big painters' pails (like the five-gallon buckets) that are reused. You can buy paint in smaller containers, but the contractors typically get it in the pails no matter what the amount...4 liters, 10 liters, whatever.

A third note: they typically paint up to a taped line (as in, not all the way to the corner) because in these plastered houses, the corner is NEVER straight...so in order to circumvent having a wavy line at the top of your room, they put an inch or two of tape from the corner.

And now Andrea is back to working in his own house...

Love,

Alexandra

Tourists at Home

Outside the convent

Today is the FAI (Fondo Ambiente Italiano) Maratona, which is a day where certain things (monuments, churches, etc. that are normally not accessible) are open to the public. Last spring, we had the chance to go into the drainage courses as a result of this same group.

The sink in the refectory; the frame is around a well

Anyway, today's maratona included a monastery consisting of two churches, and two additional churches. The monastery is currently a convent (in Italian, "convento" and "monastero" appear to be used interchangeably and regardless of shades of meaning are NOT used to distinguish the use between monks and nuns...in English, "convent" generally means use by women) inhabited by a grand total of two nuns. Apparently more are on their way (sometime in the next decade? that part was unclear).

The convent is used not only for these two nuns, but also as a guest house. The main church is very 1700s in appearance, with lots of marbleizing, etc. They have recently finished a revamp of the organ (there will be a concert there tonight, but I've got too much on to go for the concert). The refectory was just lovely, and the courtyard was similarly beautiful.

Mary sits about 4' high

The second church (La Chiesa di San Biaggio) was repurposed into a breakfast room, although it does have a wooden statue of the Annunciation. Unfortunately, the angel Gabriel is no longer part of the statue ensemble, but we do have Mary seated listening to her perplexing news. The amazing thing to me is that this wooden statue is just stuck in a corner of the dining hall...oh, did I forget to mention that it dates to the 1400s?

Next stop, Sant'Ilario. This is a tiny church from the 1200s that I have been dying to see inside since I first clapped eyes on it. It is near the Palazzo Pongelli (in fact, it is attached to the gardens...there is an upper door from the gardens into the church -- there used to be an interior balcony accessibly by this door so that the Pongelli family members could attend Mass without having to rub shoulders with the proletariat). Apparently this church served as the city's cathedral (believe it or not!) in 1300. Since the crypt of the Duomo was already constructed at that point, I can only surmise that it was during construction of the upper part of the Duomo? Why else would such an insignificant church have become the cathedral? That was unclear.

At one time, Sant'Ilario was completely frescoed inside. In the 1800s, though, it was no longer de rigueur. Since tastes had changed, down came the frescos! Only one fresco remains...a picture of the Madonna of Mercy done by Lo Spagna.

I loved the trompe l'oeil "curtain" to conceal the angled exterior wall

Last stop, the church of Sant'Antonio. Attached to our butcher's (which used to be a hospital), the church was originally built in the 1300s but completely changed (widened and redone) in the 1600s. It was decommissioned around 60 years ago, but all the furnishings are somewhere in a warehouse, so it could easily be recommissioned if required. I found the paintings really interesting, because the paintings and the ceilings were painted by the same fellow (I fail you with the name); however, the paintings were done around 50 years earlier than the frescoes on the ceiling. The frescoes are a completely different palette of colors: much brighter and lighter than the rather somber wall decorations. Of course, an organ was shoved into the back sometime in the 1700s, completely spoiling the proportions and look of the thing, but, hey, they didn't ask my opinion.

Off for a gelato! The gelato season is almost over, so every time we go, we think it may be for the last time this year. It's about time for the fave dei morti ("beans of the dead"...cookies that are baked during the season of All Souls' Day)!

Love,

Alexandra

I loved the three-way arched building addition

Darlington Trip

For those of you who don't already know, last weekend I went to Darlington to attend the 25th anniversary of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust (remember my earlier post, London and North Eastern Railway Peppercorn class A1 60163 Tornado?) and to see the locomotive I'm sponsoring, no. 2007 Prince of Wales. I had to fly on Easyjet because they're the only airline brave enough to accept 15-year-olds and so then we had to choose between the Fiumicino (Rome) and the Galileo Galilei (Pisa) airports. The schedules worked out better at Pisa, so I flew out frome there. I was to meet James Gibb (an English mathematician who comes to Todi every so often for a few weeks; inevitably we have become good friends) at London Luton. I would spend my two nights in England with him and his lovely wife at their house, and on Saturday he would take me to Darlington and suffer several boring (according to him) talks...and then he would take me to York to go spend some time at the NRM. When they told me, they also told me I had to figure out how to get to Pisa by myself. I ended taking 4 trains and 1 bus there, and 3 trains and 1 bus back. With 8-15 minute changes. I'm going to give you what my darling mother calls a "picture essay".

The dress code for the convention was suit, tie, etc. so I wore my jacket and the lesser of my two nice black shirts on the journeys to and from London, and the greater shirt in Darlington.

I look huge and intimidating in these photos.

That's better.

As you can see, I left in the morning.

Following are my modes of transport:

Fiat 500 F

Umbria mobilità regionale:

Automotrice FCU ALn 776 n0. 009- built by Fiat

Half of one car... a quarter of the train

This is the regulator barrel. Each slot corresponds to a motor, or gear if you like, and the further up the slot the regulator arm is, the more power is applied. You can see the arm to the left with a black knob at the end.

one car

the other car

 Regionale Veloce:

the inside of a car

 Intercity: the loco and cars are from the '80s

class E. 402A no. 033 

Compartments! Remember them?

yup, from the era when you could see the tracks rushing past when you flushed the loo

part of a poster with(from left to right, increasing number of stations visited, decreasing speed) Frecciarossa, Frecciargento, and Frecciabianca

my compartment

Note the fact that the window on the other side of the corridor aligns perfectly with the compartment. Also note the compartment controls above the door.

Each person has their own reading light

At the front of the train looking at the loco through dirty glass.

coupler

you can see a tread on the buffer for workers (cleaning, maintenance, etc.)

brake hoses

Nice use of parallelograms!

pantograph and cyclops headlight

electrical connection

you can see the pilot down under the buffer-beam.

The rungs are for cleaning/maintenance.

the other buffer with tread

 Trenitalia regional train:

Each car was divided into three seating areas with exit areas between them. This is an end seating area.

the exit area

the middle seating area

This is a plane I saw at the airport. Note the rear wheels an the steps built into the doors of both the cabin AND the hold. When do you s'pose this is from? '60s? '80s?

My plane.

On Saturday James and I went to Darlington to attend the convention. We missed a train, but if I were to inform you that it was ALL HIS FAULT I wouldn't be allowed to tell you his name. So I won't. By the time we arrived at the Mercure Darlington King's Hotel (where the convention started) half an hour late (I'm not allowed to tell you whose fault that was either-or that it was the same person who'd made us miss the train), they were already in 1994 of their year-by-year history of the Trust (starting in 1990). After that they gave a few presentations on finances, fundraising schemes, design, Tornado's recent overhaul, etc. Then they provided us with transportation to Darlington Locomotive Works, where we had lunch, oohed and aahed over the frames, and listened to some more talks.

Great idea, right?

Front window of the upper deck of the double-decker bus

The entrance of the Works

machined driving wheels

Note that the tires aren't on yet.

leading and intermediate axle box top and bottom

photo albums

smokebox dart

Copy of the original plans for no. 2001 Cock o' the North.

smokebox end

firebox

cutaway view

Note the N° 2001 buffer beam mark

another cutaway

view of the backhead

hole for buffer

flush bolt next to a hole for another bolt

'nother bolt hole with hand for scale

bolts

graph depicting the movement of various components of the motion 

model station with engine yard and track

no. 60147 North Eastern.

frames as seen from the smokebox end

rail with boards covering pit

door

rafters and ceiling

The axle boxes will go in these holes to help distribute the weight.

The footplate has been moved forward to expose the drag box. Mark Allatt (chairman of the board) is the one in the middle. Note that most of the people present are white-haired old men. I was the youngest person there by about 20 years.

drag box

The drawbar will be attached here.

The inside frames changes to double frames at the cartazzi axle.

the podium at the Works

footplate and steps trail fitted at the smokebox end

I caught some men using the drivers as a table.

There was an old brake van coupled to an LMS 24 ton tank wagon on a siding next to the Works.

spring buffer

screw coupling

brake hose for continuous braking!

the Instanter coupling on the tank wagon

stretched out

Note the number of axles.

Brake- when the wagons were sorted in hump yards someone would have to jump on the brake lever of each one and vary the amount of body weight applied to slow them down just the right amount.

This pin holds the brake lever down to keep the brakes applied- a form of parking brake.

This beam at the bottom of the photo is the brake lever.

Instanter coupling almost coupled. Rotating the middle link 90° shortens the chain to fully couple the wagons.

Screw coupling coupled. Nowadays the coupler leaves no slack.

No, the camera was NOT turned upside-down. Evidently the majority of metal used for railroading during this period was not steel. Really makes one think.

one outlet

Note the rivets.

another outlet

A tread on the buffer- remember the one on the Intercity loco?

the manway coverplate.

valve for outlets

view of the brake van from the top of the tank wagon

beautifully machined corner on the frames of no. 2007

photos (coloured after capture) of Sir Nigel Gresley and some of his P2s and an A4

Sir Nigel Gresley standing next to the A4 locomotive named in his honour

Some more pics of (and from) the bus:

And we're back at the station!

Note the rivets.

This is James. Talk about stereotypical retired mathematician!

Again, note the rivets.

Note that the shield includes locomotive no.1 Locomotion.

On the way back, we stopped at York to go to an M&S and the NRM:

the outside of the NRM

This is the largest set of driving wheels ever successfully used.

A locomotive that's been cut open to expose the innards.

a stationary engine

a cutaway replica of Rocket

 One of the original six double Fairlies built for the Ffestiniog railway! 

firebox door

the cab (driver's side)

At this point, my camera died, so as an extra bonus, I'll give you some pictures James took:

I look really good here, don't I?

station at York

Evening Star, the last steam locomotive built for the BR.

Jumbo

self-explanatory

Apparently I was the only one who went in between the frames

Mallard

Darlington station

Model train set in the Works

Just one last note: the trip back was much the same as the trip there.