(11.655)

Visiting the comune of between Luino and Laveno Castleveccana and took a hike through the frazione of Caldè to the Rocco, a promontory that first hosted a defensive castello in the early tenth century but was breached during the campaigns of Otto I against Berengar II. 

We first passed the line processing furnaces in a rather venerable industrial park, in operation from 1280 to 1970 these kilns made quicklime for mortar, pottery and plaster and for use in agriculture by superheating limestone, the techniques superannuated by the rise of cheap petroleum. The design of the furnaces and technique were virtually unchanged since the Middle Ages. 

We next came to the a sixteenth century church dedicated to Saint Veronica that was originally a chapel and shelter for farm workers and shepherds in service of a second fortification built on the Rocco, destroyed by the Swiss in 1513 during rivalries between the French and the Holy Roman Empire and allies, the sanctuary being the only part not in complete ruins and overtaken by nature.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Dancing in the Streets (with synchronoptica), an animatronic facelift, We Didn’t Start the Fire updated plus US supreme court ends affirmative action

seven years ago: the parable of the second arrow, rolling back regulations on pesticide use in the US, Trump goes to Paris plus the US united in quackery

eight years ago: weaponising toxic-masculinity, more on ISOTYPEs plus a Golden Mean pocket scope

nine years ago: a word for relating to pigeons plus assorted links worth revisiting

ten years ago: social engineering, an optical muezzin plus placebos and nocebos

isola boromee (11. 654)

Though island-hopping was not as logistically easy as we thought—an all day commitment and much of the archipelago did not allow dogs, we nonetheless enjoyed our excursion via ferry to the Lago Maggiore island group in the bay of Stresa.  

One of a number of merchant and banking dynasties to carry the title Buon Romei—trustworthy Romans, the House that began acquiring the properties in the mid-fifteenth century were eventually ennobled and still to this day retain much of their holdings. Isola Bella contains a summer palace and Isola Madre has an English-style botanical garden. Isola Superiore (dei Pescatori, the Island of the Fishermen) where we disembarked, is the only one with a permanent—albeit a small one and far outnumbered by the staff of the many restaurants—and never owned by the House Borromeo.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica) plus The Wizard of Oz x Pink Floyd

seven years ago: Grenfell Tower, colonial Americans’ expanding settlements plus Germany legalises same-sex marriage

eight years ago: biometric passwords plus Invisibilia returns

nine years ago: more on the Right of Panorama plus a trip to the Wetterau

ten years ago: obscure sorrows plus pataphysics and Alfred Jarre

ponte dei salti (11. 653)

Driving back through Ticino near Locarno, we headed through the Verzasca valley, punctuated with a monumental reservoir, Lago di Vogorno. Completed in the mid-1960s by the same civil engineer, Giovanni Lombardi, who designed the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the dam makes a cameo in the 1995 film Goldeneye, with James Bond parachuting from the wall. No bungee jumping was on offer today, however.

We went on towards Lavertezzo with the arched pedestrian crossing, built originally in the 1700s for donkeys bearing burdens, over the turquoise river. 

The route was dotted with villages with traditional slate and granite houses. The rapids are treacherous but the shallows in this spot with bathers made it seem like a prehistoric water park from The Flintstones.

synchronoptica

one year ago: paronomasia (with synchronoptica) plus a critique of the Latin alphabet

seven years ago: America’s retaliatory strike on Syria, Salvador Dalí exhumed plus the TSA empowered to check one’s reading material

eight years ago: US supreme court upholds Trump’s travel ban plus the history of America’s Pledge of Allegiance

eleven years ago: Snowden granted asylum 

twelve years ago: drone warfare 

carmine superiore (11. 652)

Traveling back to Luina—which inherited market privileges from Maccagno—but not quite the showcase of local food and craft week expected, we returned to Laveno to take a ferry ride to the Piedmontese side on the lake at the port of Intra by Verbania and between the stretch of coast known as the Cannero Riveria—with same Mediterranean flair—and city of Cannobio, we stopped to explore an abandoned village—the lower settlement named inferiore though still populated. 

Though visible from the campground perched midway up the mountain and only about a kilometer away, was quite a journey to get to the well-preserved medieval ghost town, with a hike through the woods and cascades for the final ascent, Carmine Supreiore was originally built as an escape castle and observation post for Carmine below and the harbor of Cannobio, with a commanding view of the lake and Lombard mountains. 

This better-defended retreat saw its significance wane and was depopulated after the First World War, but subsistence farmers and vintners had the foresight to ensure that it did not fall into complete ruin and had a series of caretakers. Dominated by a church from the thirteen hundreds dedicated to St Gotthard, invoked, among other thing, for relief gout and still sees regular pilgrimages from sufferers. Afterwards we went to Cannobio, a pre-Roman city that rebelled against fascism by establishing the independent Republic of Ossola, with its extensive lakefront piazza before heading back the long way around through Switzerland.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus the Pied Piper of Hamlin

seven years ago: low-Earth orbit being crowded out, mobile check-up units, more links to enjoy plus an IBM featurette

eight years ago: a camera carriage frame for car morphing, secessionist groups plus a potential UK constitutional crisis

nine years ago: more links to enjoy

ten years ago: the Wicked-isation of classic fairy-tales

 

eremo di santa caterina del sasso (11. 651)

Driving a bit south, we a came to a late twelfth century religious complex dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria in gratitude by a wealthy cloth merchant called Albertus Bessozi after surviving a violent storm on Lake Maggiore, vowing to become a hermit afterwards and in exchange for prayers and religious support rendered (St Catherine also protected the area from a plague outbreak), the community funded the building of two additional chapels and an extension to the chapter house, presently run by brotherhood of twelve Dominican oblates.

The Blessed Albertus‘ incorrupt body is in a glass coffin in a votive chapel modeled off of the dimensions of St Catherine’s in Sinai. Del sasso means something like on the cliff-edge.  On the way back to the campground, we stopped in Laveno-Mombello and walked around the promenade at the ferry terminal looking for possibles for exploring the islands and further adventures.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: mutineers march toward Moscow (with synchronoptica), Facebook suspends newsfeeds in Canada, Fire Bird (1910) plus a confession of faith (1530)

seven years ago: Turkey removes evolution from its public school curricula, meeting one’s paranormal needs plus AI on fables

eight years ago: construction on Mars, chronotherapies, Brexit contagion plus the first satellite simulcast (1967)

nine years ago: the roots of hippie culture, the Grail in Iceland plus the Nice of the North

ten years ago: the Punitive Expedition (1916)

maccagno (11. 650)

The former independent Lombard commune now merged with other municipalities along the lake, the town where we are staying. Elevated during the tenth century by Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great as the immediate fiefdom of the Four Valleys for hospitality demonstrated during the Kaiser’s Italian campaign against his cousin Berengar Ii as king of Italy with a charter to hold a market and mint coins of the realm.

The town’s importance waned once grain exports were limited and the town had to give up its autonomy to the counts of Borromeo—of insular fame. We travelled up the mountain overlooking the port first from the village of Agra with numerous Belvedere affording a panoramic view of Lago Maggiore after a nice hike through the woods and then from above Maccagno’s old port abutting a cliff face and caverns for exploring.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: resistance fighter Willem Arondéus (with synchronoptica), the Wagner mutiny plus the last Western Roman emperor

seven years ago: television cameras banned from White House press conferences, the Queen signals her displeasure, plus fact-checking the Trump campaign

eight years ago: populism in the US and UK, subterranean Singapore plus Greenland leaves the EU (1982)

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit, reconciling ancient philosophy with church doctrine plus a chimeric lamb

ten years ago: the importance of boredom, the vocabulary of migration plus bootstraps and bitcoin