Friday, December 24, 2010
Matt Duke- Less Egg, More Nog
Ok, so it's not the most "appropriate" Christmas song but it's too funny to miss. Check out more of Matt Duke video's on YouTube. I don't know why this guy isn't famous.... Also check him out with TFDI (Jay Nash, Matt Duke and Tony Lucca). New CD's for all due out early 2011 including TFDI and *hopefully* a CD with Jay Nash and Caitlyn Crosby. If you haven't heard of Caitlyn, check her out too.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
New and Improved
Well it's new, improved is up for debate. Changed the design and commenting. This is what happens when I'm bored. Sorry past comments were lost as I was forced to change commenters.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Coming in November
I hope to post a picture every day. No comment, no title just a picture. After all this blog is Every Picture Tells A Story so I'll let the pictures tell the story.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Atrani
Atrani was, I imagine, a pretty little town until a mud slide occurred a week before we were to leave for Italy. Amalfi, where we stayed is a about a mile up the road. We walked to Atrani and took some pictures. A young girl, a barister in a coffee shop, was swept away in the flood right from the coffee shop. A week after our return her body was found off the Aeolian Islands. So sad.
This car was the only remaining car
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Limoncello
Limoncello is the golden treasure of Amalfi. Locals affectionately call it sunshine wine, as if they had harvested all the joy and golden glory of the coastline, corked it, before serving it, chilled, like summer champagne.
A national drink of Italy, limoncello is served either before a meal to cleanse the palate, or as a light and refreshing after-dinner beverage. It is made from fermented lemons, which are steeped in a mixture of sugar and alcohol for at least 20 days.
Connoisseurs agree that the best limoncello comes from the Amalfi Coast. The region’s unique soil leads to the finest quality lemons, which are sweet and citrusy, with nary a trace of sourness. Some chefs even call the Amalfi lemons “bread”, because they can be cut into slices and then eaten as a dessert or a snack: tart, juicy, and as goldeny sweet as the sunshine spilling over the beaches outside.
The lemons of the Amalfi coast also have very few seeds, minimising the bitterness, while the pulp is so rich with flavour that you can smell the sweetness through its skin. Try driving by Amalfi’s terraced lemon groves during the summer, when the branches are heavy with their fruit. The heady mix of their citrus perfumes, tinted by the scent of the turquoise sea, will linger in your memory for years.
According to legend, limoncello owes its origins to the rosoli drinks made in the convents, where nuns would make delicate liqueurs from fruits, spices and aromatic plants. The earliest records of limoncello can be traced to the 17th century, when people began talking about a particularly delectable pastry dish made by the nuns of the Santa Rosa convent in Conca dei Marini. Their secret ingredient was a lemon liqueur, beginning a long (and now world wide) love affair with limoncello
Monday, October 11, 2010
Amalfi Coast
The Amalfi Coast has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. The town of Amalfi was the capital of the Maritime Republic of Amalfi, an important trading power in the Mediterranean between 839 and around 1200. In the 1920s and 1930s, Amalfi was a popular holiday destination for the British upper class and aristocracy.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Lido di Ostia
Lido di Ostia is the closest beach to the city of Rome and is well worth a visit.
Stop off at the ruins at Ostia Antica a large archeological site that was the harbour city of ancient Rome, which is approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) northeast of the site and close to the modern town of Ostia. "Ostia" in Latin means "mouth". At the mouth of the River Tiber, Ostia was Rome's seaport, but, due to silting and a drop in sea level, the site now lies 3 kilometres (2 mi) from the sea. The site is noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes and impressive mosaics.
Ostia may have been Rome's first colonia. An inscription says that Ostia was founded by Ancus Marcius, the semi-legendary fourth king of Rome, in the 7th century BC. The oldest archaeological remains so far discovered date only the 4th century BC." The most ancient buildings currently visible are from the 3rd century BC, notably the Castrum (military camp); of a slightly later date is the Capitolium (temple of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva). The opus quadratum of the walls of the original castrum at Ostia provide important evidence for the building techniques that were employed in Roman urbanisation during the period of the Middle Republic.
In 68 BC, the town was sacked by pirates. During the sacking, the port was set on fire, the consular war fleet was destroyed, and two prominent senators were kidnapped. This attack caused such panic in Rome that Pompey Magnus arranged for the tribune Aulus Gabinius to rise in the Roman Forum and propose a law, the Lex Gabinia, to allow Pompey to raise an army and destroy the pirates. Within a year, the pirates had been defeated.
The town was then re-built, and provided with protective walls by the statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.
The town was further developed during the first century AD under the influence of Tiberius, who ordered the building of the town's first Forum. The town was also soon enriched by the construction of a new harbor on the northern mouths of the Tiber (which reaches the sea with a larger mouth in Ostia, Fiumara Grande, and a narrower one near to the current Fiumicino International Airport). The new harbor, not surprisingly called Portus, from the Latin for "harbor," was excavated from the ground at the orders of the emperor Claudius. This harbour became silted up and needed to be supplemented later by a harbor built by Trajan finished in the year AD 113; it has a hexagonal form, in order to reduce the erosive forces of the waves. This took business away from Ostia itself (further down river) and began its commercial decline.
Ostia itself was provided with all the services a town of the time could require; in particular, a famous lighthouse. Ostia contained the Ostia Synagogue, the earliest synagogue yet identified in Europe; it created a stir when it was unearthed in 1960-61.[4] By 1954 eighteen mithraea had also been discovered: Mithras had his largest following among the working population that were the majority of this port town. Archaeologists also discovered the public latrinas, organized for collective use as a series of seats that allow us to imagine today that the function was also a social moment. In addition, Ostia had a large theatre, many public baths, numerous taverns and inns, and a firefighting service.
Trajan too, required a widening of the naval areas, and ordered the building of another harbor, again pointing towards the north. It must be remembered that at a relatively short distance, there was also the harbor of Civitavecchia (Centum Cellae), and Rome was starting to have a significant number of harbours, the most important remained Portus.
Santa Aurea, OstiaOstia grew to 50,000 inhabitants in the 2nd century, reaching a peak of some 75,000 inhabitants in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.[citation needed] Ostia became an episcopal see as early as the 3rd century, the cathedral (titulus) of Santa Aurea (illustration, left) being located on the burial site of St. Monica, mother of Augustine; she died in an inn in the town. In time, naval activities became focused on Portus instead. A slow decadence began in the late Roman era around the time of Constantine I, with the town ceasing to be an active port and instead becoming a popular country retreat for rich aristocrats from Rome itself (along the lines of Brighton's relationship to London in the 18th century).
The decaying conditions of the city were mentioned by St. Augustine when he passed there in the late 4th century. The poet Rutilius Namatianus also reported the lack of maintenance of the city in 414.
With the end of the Roman Empire, Ostia fell slowly into decay, and was finally abandoned in the 9th century due to the repeated invasions and sackings by Arab pirates, including the Battle of Ostia, a naval battle in 849 between Christian and Saracens; the remaining inhabitants moved to Gregoriopolis.
Stop off at the ruins at Ostia Antica a large archeological site that was the harbour city of ancient Rome, which is approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) northeast of the site and close to the modern town of Ostia. "Ostia" in Latin means "mouth". At the mouth of the River Tiber, Ostia was Rome's seaport, but, due to silting and a drop in sea level, the site now lies 3 kilometres (2 mi) from the sea. The site is noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes and impressive mosaics.
Ostia may have been Rome's first colonia. An inscription says that Ostia was founded by Ancus Marcius, the semi-legendary fourth king of Rome, in the 7th century BC. The oldest archaeological remains so far discovered date only the 4th century BC." The most ancient buildings currently visible are from the 3rd century BC, notably the Castrum (military camp); of a slightly later date is the Capitolium (temple of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva). The opus quadratum of the walls of the original castrum at Ostia provide important evidence for the building techniques that were employed in Roman urbanisation during the period of the Middle Republic.
In 68 BC, the town was sacked by pirates. During the sacking, the port was set on fire, the consular war fleet was destroyed, and two prominent senators were kidnapped. This attack caused such panic in Rome that Pompey Magnus arranged for the tribune Aulus Gabinius to rise in the Roman Forum and propose a law, the Lex Gabinia, to allow Pompey to raise an army and destroy the pirates. Within a year, the pirates had been defeated.
The town was then re-built, and provided with protective walls by the statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.
The town was further developed during the first century AD under the influence of Tiberius, who ordered the building of the town's first Forum. The town was also soon enriched by the construction of a new harbor on the northern mouths of the Tiber (which reaches the sea with a larger mouth in Ostia, Fiumara Grande, and a narrower one near to the current Fiumicino International Airport). The new harbor, not surprisingly called Portus, from the Latin for "harbor," was excavated from the ground at the orders of the emperor Claudius. This harbour became silted up and needed to be supplemented later by a harbor built by Trajan finished in the year AD 113; it has a hexagonal form, in order to reduce the erosive forces of the waves. This took business away from Ostia itself (further down river) and began its commercial decline.
Ostia itself was provided with all the services a town of the time could require; in particular, a famous lighthouse. Ostia contained the Ostia Synagogue, the earliest synagogue yet identified in Europe; it created a stir when it was unearthed in 1960-61.[4] By 1954 eighteen mithraea had also been discovered: Mithras had his largest following among the working population that were the majority of this port town. Archaeologists also discovered the public latrinas, organized for collective use as a series of seats that allow us to imagine today that the function was also a social moment. In addition, Ostia had a large theatre, many public baths, numerous taverns and inns, and a firefighting service.
Trajan too, required a widening of the naval areas, and ordered the building of another harbor, again pointing towards the north. It must be remembered that at a relatively short distance, there was also the harbor of Civitavecchia (Centum Cellae), and Rome was starting to have a significant number of harbours, the most important remained Portus.
Santa Aurea, OstiaOstia grew to 50,000 inhabitants in the 2nd century, reaching a peak of some 75,000 inhabitants in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.[citation needed] Ostia became an episcopal see as early as the 3rd century, the cathedral (titulus) of Santa Aurea (illustration, left) being located on the burial site of St. Monica, mother of Augustine; she died in an inn in the town. In time, naval activities became focused on Portus instead. A slow decadence began in the late Roman era around the time of Constantine I, with the town ceasing to be an active port and instead becoming a popular country retreat for rich aristocrats from Rome itself (along the lines of Brighton's relationship to London in the 18th century).
The decaying conditions of the city were mentioned by St. Augustine when he passed there in the late 4th century. The poet Rutilius Namatianus also reported the lack of maintenance of the city in 414.
With the end of the Roman Empire, Ostia fell slowly into decay, and was finally abandoned in the 9th century due to the repeated invasions and sackings by Arab pirates, including the Battle of Ostia, a naval battle in 849 between Christian and Saracens; the remaining inhabitants moved to Gregoriopolis.
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