Three weeks with a host near Noto, Sicily

My seven week trip to Italy is mainly a volunteer/host experience where I work for about 25 hours/week in return for room and board. I spent 2 weeks with a host in Ostuni, Puglia, then took a train down here to Noto, Sicily where I've been for a little over 3 weeks.

Noto is a city of 25,000 with a beautiful historic centre and some interesting sights. My host, Adriano, is a 27 year old Italian from Milan who, with his family, is developing a high-end B&B property and olive grove on a hillside a couple kilometres outside of town.

Main house at "Olive Alive", Noto in the distance

While I've been here Adriano has been busy coordinating contractors building a swimming pool. With summer temperatures up into the 40's Celsius (104 F) a swimming pool is essential for a place like this.  

Concrete being poured for swimming pool deck

Adriano needs a lot of volunteers in the fall during the olive harvest but I've been the only volunteer here for my 3 weeks. The olive trees were pruned in the winter and my job has been to turn big piles of branches into a firewood and tied bundles of kindling for next winter. It's been repetitive but simple and my workplace is beautiful and the daydreaming has been entertaining. It will be a sad day for volunteers (of a certain type) when this job is eliminated by a chipper!

This is about a week's work 

Adriano also asked if I could make some rustic benches out of big pieces of almond trees that had been cut last year. Oh, if I only had access to big olive branches and slabs of almond back home. It is so different from fir, pine and willow! But I like local materials and olive and almond are definitely not local at home.

Chain saw benches of almond wood. A rustic table and two more benches will be added. 

My stay with Adriano has been extremely interesting and worthwhile. His accomplishments and what he is doing now are amazing for a young guy. He's also a really nice person and a natural host. You can read about Olive Alive at http://www.olivealive.it/. If you are interested in this type of travel, check out www.workaway.info or www.helpx.net. Adriano's listing is at http://www.helpx.net/host.asp?hostid=32700

I'm leaving tomorrow for 10 days of "holiday" in Siracusa, Catania, and Naples before flying home.

Camera gear and gizmos

This is a blog about travel experiences, not photography but I'm more serious than some so I carry more equipment. Everyone packs differently and I like reading what other photographers take.

My priority is to be able to capture mostly landscape, architectural and street photos under a variety of conditions without being bogged down by equipment. One checked bag and a carry on is my limit because I want to be able to move around without a car or taxis.

Here's the camera gear and electronics that I brought on this trip.

From left, roughly counterclockwise: Macbook Air with homemade sleeve, external hard drive with homemade sleeve, Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 12-24mm lens and soft case, Fuji X100s and soft case, UltraPod mini-tripod, Feisol carbon fibre tripod, power supplies and battery chargers. The Nikon and Fuji battery chargers share the same little power plug and don't require a power cable. In the centre is a short extension cord with a European adapter taped to the plug end. Lastly, a Delorme inReach satellite communicator that can send and receive emails from anywhere with a view of the sky.

Comments

• I got the Delorme inReach for backcountry travel. It hasn't been essential on this trip, so far. 
• The little homemade extension cord in the middle of the photo is great for charging multiple devices. 
• The small and light Fuji camera has an excellent lens, is a joy to carry and is less conspicuous than my DSLR for street photography. 
• I took the above photo with my "new" refurbished iPhone 3 which I planned to use mainly for GPS. However, I also got a SIM card at a Vodaphone store in Naples for voice and text within Italy for 20 Euros/month and it has been worth it. 

More gear doesn't guarantee more good photos but it can help. The tripod allows capturing moody and unusual images when the harshness of daylight is gone. The mini tripod does the same thing but less well. I use it while walking in the evening when the full size tripod is inconvenient. I often use it sideways, braced against a wall.

I'll say more about bringing two cameras in another post.

The art and craft of pottery, 2,300 years ago

I'm catching up with posts after being on trains and off the internet for a couple days.

I know very little about pottery and less about art history but I was awed by the pottery collection at the provincial archaeological museum in Lecce, Italy three days ago. Two things impressed me about the two thousand year old ceramics - the large size of some of the pieces and the applied artwork. The ones I liked most had paintings inspired by nature and human form. Since my knowledge is so deficient, I'll just post some photos and dates.

Museo Provinciale, Lecce - Free admission

From the 4th or 3rd century B.C.
Looking closely at the brush strokes it's clear much of the colour has faded. See next photo.

You can see the old brush strokes.  That's some kind of bird in the middle surrounded by flowers perhaps.
Imagine what it looked like before the colours faded! 

More colour survives in these pieces from the 5th century B.C. 

This piece from the 4th century B.C. was at least 60 cm high! 

Detail on previous piece

That's enough before I get carried away! Maybe some of my potting friends can enlighten me later.

Most tourists don't go grocery shopping

I'm now in a little hotel in the city of Lecce for a few days, in the heel of Italy's boot.  It's a beautiful city with a large historic centre, including a partially exposed Roman amphitheatre.

After being treated to a large going away dinner on my last night with my Workaway hosts in Ostuni, I thought I'd buy groceries and eat in my hotel room for a change. It's not much fun eating alone in a restaurant and this would be cheaper. It's also a "mini adventure" buying groceries with the locals. This was a self-serve market so that was fine. However, I did have to ask for lasagna in the deli (the smallest pre-measured size was 500 grams) and I had to figure out what to do with my bulk oranges. Here, you have to put them on a digital scale, punch in their code and push a button to get the price sticker. Not complicated but it is a little puzzle to figure out and it's fun to shop like you're a local.

This will be almost all the food I need for two days!

Lasagna and red wine (on sale) were from the deli

Weighing and stickering the oranges

Italians are not famous for their healthy breakfasts!

Cheese, yogurt, lasagna, arugula, whole grain snacks, oranges, and red wine - 20 Euros

Finished working and eating in Ostuni

I helped my hosts with a few different projects here in Ostuni but it's nice to accomplish a single big task from start to finish before saying goodbye. Firewood has been been a recurring theme with my previous Workaway and Helpx gigs and that was the case here. You might not immediately think of needing a lot of firewood in southern Italy but with high electricity and propane prices, wood burning stoves are the only reasonable option. The stone houses don't help and it's colder here than I expected. I have worked outside in my t-shirt only twice ;-)

Peter and Sareeta had two loads of wood delivered, mostly olive and all green. Judging by the second load, which had been weighed before delivery, the pile in the photo is 50 quintali or 5 metric tons! It was nearly twice the volume before I moved and stacked it. I estimate it's about 2-1/2 cords. There's another 3/4 cord tucked away in other places and Peter says they'll need even more for next winter!

My main job in Ostuni, in return for room, board, and new friends

They took me out to a trattoria in Carovigno for special treat of antipasti last night. There were a total of at least 10 plates of delicious things brought to the table over a period of about an hour and a half, mostly seafood. A large number of small things makes a large amount!

Sareeta and Peter enjoying the first few antipasti last night

Out with the old Persian Year

One of the best things about volunteering with Workaway far from home is that you sometimes get to tag along to unusual events. My hosts here in Ostuni, were invited to a Persian New Year's celebration and I got to come.

Persian New Year occurs at the Spring equinox but they celebrate the outgoing old year on the preceding Tuesday. I had little opportunity to learn interesting cultural details about the event but we were fed unusual and delicious finger food and then went outside for the lighting of fires. Three small fires were lit for jumping like hurdles! It was fun but difficult to photograph.

Three fires being readied for jumping 

Successful leap by Sareeta

Me with other guests, my Workaway hosts and our hosts for Persian New Year by the bonfire

First call on my first mobile phone!

I was rather pleased with my first call on my "new" mobile phone yesterday.

I bought a refurbished, unlocked iPhone 3 for this trip, figuring it would be useful as a standalone GPS at the very least. At just over $100 it HAS been worth it for that alone, combined with MotionX downloadable maps. However, while in Naples, I also bought a pay-as-you-go SIM card at Vodafone for 20 Euros.

After spending the weekend in the beautiful little town of Ostuni, I checked out of my guest house and was on the street with my bag at 10:00 Sunday morning. I had until 4:00 in the afternoon before I was going to be picked up by my Workaway hosts but my host at the guest house said I could leave my bag at the tourist info office (Informazioni Turistiche) at the main piazza because they would be open at 10:00. Sounded easy.

In fact, the tourist office WASN'T open, but then it hadn't been open on Saturday either.

What to do? I didn't want to lug my bag around Ostuni all day so I worked up my nerve and made my first call with my first cell phone. A man answered "pronto" and I managed to tell him with beginner's Italian that I would like to leave a bag at the tourist office until 3:30. He came a half hour later, locked up my bag, and I saw more sights in Ostuni until he showed up promptly at 3:30!

Tourist Information office in Ostuni, Italy