Sicilia, Napoli Roma: two months in Italy: Amtrak Cascades to Vancouver

venerdì 11 febbraio 2011

Amtrak Cascades to Vancouver

Siracusa, Friday 11/02/11: We happily recommend taking the Amtrak Cascades train to travel to and from Seattle-Vancouver BC (always adding the BC to Vancouver, to signify the one in the Canadian province of British Columbia, there also being a Vancouver in the State of Washington USA, south of Seattle.

We had come south on Amtrak, but at a time when the route was served by bus rather than rail, not quite as pleasant. We were on the Cascades to go north. It's nice to be able to move around on the train. And nice to go sit in the buffet car for morning coffee.

I reported in the last entry that the sun shone. Only briefly. Nevertheless there was a dark spectral beauty outside the windows, of country houses on damp ground in this top corner of the USA, of water coming almost to the track, of the infrastructure of arrival in Vancouver. Let photos tell the story.

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TOP PHOTO

A seat on the cliff road at Positano just off the Amalfi Drive, south of Naples.

Just out there in the blue, the Sirens lived and tempted Ulysses. Ulysses' men, according to Homer's Odyssey, had their ears filled with wax, rowing furiously, deaf to the lure of the Sirens. Ulysses had lashed himself to the mast to avoid the Sirens' temptation. According to myth, Parthenope, one of the Sirens, fell in love with Ulysses but he ignored here. She came ashore and died of a broken heart near what is now Naples, a city founded as 'Neapolis' by the Greeks — and still Greek, luxurious and epicurean, through Roman imperial times. Parthenope and Neapolitan culture are synonymous.

Also, according to Greek myth, Persephone, daughter of Demeter, goddess of fertility and harvest, was abducted by Pluto and taken to Hades via the entrance to the underworld in the crater of the volcano at Avernus, near Naples. Not knowing of Pluto's action, Demeter charged three of the sirens, including Parthenope, to find her daughter, lighting the sea with the great volcanoes between Vesuvius which broods over Naples to Etna which occupies southeast Sicily. Demeter was angered when the Sirens could not find Persephone, changing them into birds with female faces or in later rendering creature more like mermaids. Demeter eventually came to terms with Pluto for sharing Persephone, each for half a year.(Gosh, how modern!) Persephone, from the Hades of death and sleeping plants, ascended to Demeter, near Naples, with its rich soils, as the bringer of harvests each year.

To travel in Italy from the south to the centre, from Sicily (occupied by Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Germans, French, Spanish and Americans in twists and turns) northwards to Rome, is to follow the heart a special way, through depths of culture and complexity of character very different from the better known worship from abroad of the world of Tuscany and Florence.