Come Scavare Gradini Nella Terra
Tanta fantasia e tanta voglia per una scala perfetta By GOė Art.
Rome’s Spanish Steps are famous around the globe. As too are Venice’s stepped bridges crossing her countless canals. And the Vatican Museum’s Bramante spiral stairway is one of the most photographed in the world. But Italy is also home to many more historic staircases. From Michelangelo’s Florentine work of art to Rome’s biblical centerpiece to Sicily’s ceramic flight of flowers, these architectural sculptures add elegance, decoration and beauty to the simple task of climbing the stairs. Let’s take a look at eight of the best.Let’s start with one of the oldest; the Scala Santa or Holy Stairs in the Piazza of St John in Laterano, Rome. Legend has it these are the 28 steps climbed by Jesus on his way to trial by Pontius Pilate.
But Pilate lived in Jerusalem so how did the stairs end up in the Italian capital? For that we have St Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother, to thank. Mother and son were some of the first Romans to convert to Christianity and Helena marked her devotion with a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Whilst there, she tracked down the true cross and Pilate’s palace bringing the wooden crucifix and white marble steps back to Rome as a gift for the nascent Holy See. Today the blood spotted marble is encased in wood to preserve what are believed to be the last few traces of Jesus himself. The Cordonata Capitolina stairs, designed by Michelangelo, link Piazza di Ara Coeli to Piazza del Campidoglio atop the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven old hills of RomeAlso in Rome, the Cordonata Capitolina stairs, designed by Michelangelo, link Piazza di Ara Coeli to Piazza del Campidoglio atop the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven old hills of Rome.
Fittingly these broad, sloping steps, built with shallow steps to enable horses to climb them, lead up to twin marble statues of Castor and Pollux, ancient patrons of horsemen, and to the only surviving Roman bronze statue of a pre-Christian emperor on horseback, that of Marcus Aurelius.This staircase is well worth the climb, but is not Michelangelo’s only attempt at designing stairs. The orientally inspired Scala Contarini del Bovolo.
Built around the end of 1400 it combines Renaissance, Gothic and Byzantine stylesIn a quiet corner of the first floor Brunelleschi cloisters of the Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence, lies the Laurentian Library, building holds the private literary collection of the Medici family and apart from its priceless catalogue is renowned for its architectural design by Michelangelo, including his Laurentian Library stairs. Entry to the library is unencumbered by tourist hoards that have yet to discover the hidden secret.
Lucky visitors, therefore, have the chance to see Michelangelo’s originality in quiet contemplation, admiring the fanciful trio of staircases, two pointedly quadrangular in fine-grained grey sandstone, the middle run curved and softly rounded as it climbs to the reading room. It’s a perfect example of the Mannerist style, typically characteristic of the Renaissance and a beautiful insight into Michelangelo’s imagination. Scala Contarini del Bovolo, in VeniceFrom the Tuscan realm of the Medicis let’s journey south to 17th century Sicily and the Scalinata di Santa Maria del Monte in Caltagirone. The 142-step incline dates back to 1606 when it was built to link the old town Piazza Municipio with new development at the top of the hill. And although it was originally a series of flights separated by little landings, the tiers were finally united in the 1880s fringed by houses, bustling shops and ornate balconies.
The town isn’t called the “castle of pottery” (qal’at-al-jarar from old Arabic settlers) for nothing, however, and in 1956 the famous maiolica artisans of Caltagirone set about giving the stairs a spectacular ceramic facelift. So now as you climb, each tread is faced with a different hand-painted design and the staircase stands as a testament to a local tradition that stretches back over 1000 years.
Here is a short review of the Hanwag GTX approach shoes. I decided to post this after my trip to Nepal a few weeks ago (see previous post). The decision of buying these shoes was driven by the fact that I sometimes suffer from pressure points on my heels, because of a slight form of Haglund syndrome. I guess this was probably also the reason for my injury at the Achilles tendon after the Jungfrau marathon.Anyway, I decide to buy a pair of approach shoes that are low, so let's say below the ankle. I didn't even know about the Hanwag brand, but after a few trials in the shop these shoes feel really good and I decide to buy them.
During the trip in Nepal I wear this shoes on every hiking day, except when I have to be on the glacier. They are absolutely amazing shoes. The sole is quite stiff, similar to a normal hiking boot, so they give a lot of stability when walking on rugged terrains. Also, despite being lower than the ankle I have the feeling that they provide a very good ankle support. I should say that I was hiking almost all the time with walking sticks, so these might help in increasing the general stability, but still I had the feeling that the shoes where very stable. As for every good hiking boot, the tip is hard and if it happens to kick a few rocks your toes won't feel anything.
The level of grip is also astonishing, as they could basically grip onto anything other than bare ice. The porters managed to grip onto bare ice with trainers only.but I'm sure they were somehow cheating:). I also find that on the steep paths the fact of not having an ankle support is helpful. This is because I can flex my ankle much more than with a normal hiking boot, and therefore I can keep always the full sole in contact with the ground, hence increasing the grip. My fear was that I was carrying a heavy load, and after a while those shoes might have given me pain or blisters.none of this happened.
I had absolutely no pain and not even the shadow of a blister. When I reached the base camp of Mera Peak I wanted to give these shoes another test, and I went bouldering for a few hours. The base camp of Mera Peak is a really good place for bouldering.and I managed to spend three hours going from boulder to boulder. The shoes performed wonderfully.really really good. I could stand on really small ledges using only the tip of the shoes and still feel a great stability on the whole foot. Of course you cannot expect to be able to bend these shoes as you would with normal climbing shoes.but I guess this is not a defect of the shoes. So if you are climbing on walls or on boulders that do not require you to use too much friction, I would even dare saying that these shoes are better than the normal climbing shoes.
A snug fit, very high comfort level, good ankle support and generally a very good feet support.what can you ask more for a hiking shoe? I have never tried those sort of lightweight hiking shoes before, but I could say this is by far the best hiking shoes I ever had.
I guess if you really want to find a negative point for them, is that having a low ankle I would be not so nice to walk through deep snow (as you might get some in your shoes). Also, if you are one of those fashionable hiker/climber, you might start complaining that there is no big logo of the brand on these shoes. Differently from La Sportiva where you can normally read the log from miles away, you almost cannot read the log at all. Personally, I find this a good thing! First of all I should say that I have decided to write this post in English because a lot of people I know asked for this, and most of them speak English. Maybe in the future I will write some other posts in English as well so that more people could read and, hopefully, benefit from them.Having to get rid of some the holidays from work (new company policy) me and my friend tried to find a nice trek in the late autumn.
What better than going to Nepal? And, once there, why not attempting a peak above 6000m? The choice fell on the Mera Peak, which is possibly the easiest peak above 6000m in Nepal. It's basically considered as a trekking peak, despite the fact that crampons, harness and rope are necessary.
Only the last 20m are 'a bit' difficult, but in total is classified as PD-, so basically a motorway. Anyway, this time the aim was not for something difficult but for something high, also as a test for the altitude sickness.The trek starts in Lukla. This is a small village built around the airport that Hillary wanted to build right in the middle of the mountains. Is a bit a particular airport since the runway is not flat at all, and all pilots landing there must have a specific training. This airport makes it much easier to get into the Himalaya and to start expeditions to Everest and company. However, being in the mountains, the airport is at the mercy of the weather.which basically means that your flight could be delayed even by one week if strong winds persist for long enough.
Couple this with the extreme non organization of the Nepali and you will understand why some people are willing to pay even 500 dollars to get an helicopter down to Kathmandu. After the arrival in Lukla we went for a short tea, we met the porters and then off we go. We is myself, Ross and Ingo. We all are colleagues at work, but all come from different countries.First day of trek is not so long. We climb from 2800 to 3400 and sleep there in a lodge.
Here we get to try the typical Nepali dish, dal baht. This consist, at least in all the lodges we have been, in a big portion of boiled rice, some stir fry potato and vegetables, and a lentils soup.
Quite a nice dish actually. Somebody could say it's not that nice to eat everyday, but I actually did not mind it. In the first evening we start understanding how all the other evenings would have been like.doing nothing because there is no light in the lodges and basically waiting to go to sleep because it's too cold. The only warm place in this trek has been the sleeping bag! Unfortunately we can't talk that much with our guide. He speaks English, but not very good and sometimes we got the impression he replied to questions we never asked.
Nonetheless, his English was good enough to understand a little bit of the culture of the local population.Morning of the second day we realize that Ingo is sick, very sick. Altitude has already got its first victim. However our guide decides to still go on for that day, but to have a shorter hike. We are 'only' going to go to 4100.
It takes almost the whole morning to get to the second lodge where we would have spent the night. Ingo is unfortunately really suffering and he has to seek for the help of one the porters to carry his rucksack.
Once at the second lodge, me and Ross go off to inspect the path of the next day. This is a relatively steep ascent up to a pass at 4500m, almost completely covered in snow. It has been snowing a few days ago but due to the cold the snow, and ice, is still there. So we take the ice axe and we go. The path does not seem that difficult and even though sometimes it's useful to cut some steps we can manage without crampons. We see a few porters coming down with huge loads, at an incredible speed for that path. Any person I know, even alpine guides, would have had to slow down on that path.especially on the way down.
Not the porters.despite the fact that they were only wearing trainers and not carrying any ice axe or walking stick, they were coming down as if they had crampons. Really incredible. We stop at 100m from the pass and start walking back to the lodge.we don't want to spoil the surprise of looking on the other side of the pass the day before we have to actually cross it.This second evening is even colder than the first one and it takes a while before we actually manage to get warm in the sleeping bags. We all hope Ingo is going to feel better the next day so that he can continue trekking with us. Following morning unfortunately his conditions are still unchanged and the guide decides to send him back to Luckla. One porter goes with him and from now on there will only be me, Ross, the guide and one porter. It was quite disappointing that the guide did not let Ingo try and cross the pass, but at the end of this third day, we understood why he did it.
The third day was possibly one of the most tiring one. Once we reached the pass at 4500m we realized that there was another, even higher pass, to cross.
This higher pass was 'only' 100m higher, but I can tell you that until you are properly acclimatized even 100m can be not exactly a piece of cake. Once we reach the top of the second pass we stop at a tea house on the way to have some quick lunch.
Here I ask our guide if the path is from now on only going down hill.and he says yes! Of course he was lying. After the tea house there is a decently long down hill part, but then we have to go up again to another pass. Here we meet another group of trekkers coming back. They seem to look at us in a bit strange way.and I think I know why. Me and Ross were carrying really big rucksacks, since we decided to carry as much as possible on our own without leaving too many things to the porter. Conversely, most if not all the other people that we met on the trek were carrying basically a day pack of not more than 30 liters.
And then you could see the porters loaded like hell. Onc could say 'well, in the end is their job'. That is true, but giving people the possibility of having a job is one, and exploiting them as hell is another. It would be the same thing as if your boss at work decided to work only 6 hours per day doing almost nothing giving all the work to his employees and to you.
Come Scavare Gradini Nella Terra Lyrics
Also in that case, that's your job.but would you be happy of doing that? Also, the job of a porter, despite paying quite well, is a rather dangerous one. They do this job not because they love the mountains or whatever, but only because they want to earn enough money to pay the school fee to their children. In such a way they won't have to do the same porter job once grown up.
Is there a more noble intention than this one? For this reason I only left to the porter my double layer boots for the glacier, which simply did not fit in the backpack.
Anyway, back to the trek. After this pass there was a section slightly exposed and contouring the flank of a mountain up to another pass. After this, finally.and after a long way down, we reached the lodge. In the evening we were hosted in the kitchen since it was the only place with a running fire and therefore the only possible place in which to keep slightly warm. It was really nice to spend some time really inside a house of local people. Again the problem was that they were not speaking English, so we could not talk a lot.but nonetheless, a nice thing. Guess what we had for dinner.?In the morning our guide wants to cheer us up a bit after the long day we had to through and he says today would be flat.but Nepali flat.
Basically Nepali flat means that it's not going up steep by more than 1000m.but it absolutely not flat! We start by going down in the valley up to a river and a nice and relatively big village.
We stop here for lunch and for the first and possibly only time we don't feel cold while having our meal. It was really sunny, no wind and no clouds. In this village we could see Mera Peak for the first time.
It looked damn far away, and quite difficult to access from this direction. This gave a small taste of the scale of Himalayan expedition. You gotta walk for days just to get in sight with the mountain you want to climb. Also, we had the great advantage of being able to use the airport, but what about 50 years ago? The first explorers that went into the Himalaya to try and summit 8000m peaks, those were the real adventure people. Basically having to walk for a month only to get to the base camp.In the afternoon we leave this village heading along the valley and following the river. The path was never steep but always going up hill, even if very slightly.
At the end of the day we got the lodge at almost 4000m. So basically the Nepali flat was starting at 3800, going down to 3400 and then up agin to 4000. Ok, not really a massive altitude gain and loss.but I would not call it flat:). In the lodge, at the end of the day, I start feeling the remoteness of the environment. Not that the other villages were full of people and with an intense night life, not at all.it's just that the surrounding now look much more like an expedition one. The next morning we start walking up to the base camp of Mera Peak.
The guide takes it really easy to give us enough time to acclimatize. It's quite funny to reach the height of Mont Blanc and still being only wearing light trekking boots, and only a long sleeve shirt.far from glaciers and snowy summits. In total it takes 4 hours to walk up to the base camp.
The height gain is only 800m, but as I said, the guide made us walk quite slowly. Once at the base camp we have time to relax and to enjoy the sun. Looking around I see lots of big and small boulders.and I just can't resist the temptation to start climbing.
I have to say that bouldering at 4900m is much more tiring that in an indoor gym. Sometimes I get the impression that some locals are looking at me like I'm doing something really weird.but I guess they have seen other people doing this before. Next day is a so called rest day. This means that we will have more time to acclimatize. To help the process we walk up to 5200m, which allows us to enjoy nice views of the whole valley, and then we come back to camp.just in time for lunch. In the afternoon we practice climbing up fixed rope, because apparently there will be at least one on the summit.
Later, I put on my Spantiks and start walking around the base camp, in order to get some practice. These boots are absolutely massive.to the point that my crampons had to be extended to the maximum in order to fit them on. They are double layer boots and are supposed to be very good up to 7000m. However, walking in them, requires some practice. At the beginning it feels like wearing blocks of woods.
Finally, we start preparing the rucksack for the following two days. The plan is to walk up to the high camp at 5800m, sleep there and the next morning attempt the summit. I'm not so confident in the weather.The sky gets suddenly filled with the typical clouds that, in the Alps, would announce bad weather. However, there is not much we can do.just hope. Following morning Ross is also suffering from altitude sickness and the guide suggests he goes down to the lower lodge at 4100 and waits there for us. A bit joking, but in reality quite convinced about that because of the weather, I tell him that we would see each other again in the evening.Walking up to the glacier is quite tiring.
Big boots, big rucksack, and no friend to talk to.but in a couple hours we are there. A group comes down from the summit and tells us that the wind was so strong the previous night that their tents were ripped apart. In fact, even at this lower altitude, the wind can clearly be felt as strong. The guide promptly says that we have to go back.WHATTTA!!!I came all this way from Switzerland, walked for 5 days to get up here, risked to take food poisoning at every meal just to get to the beginning of a glacier?? I want at the very least to reach 6000m, if we really can't make it up that day. We finally agree that camping up there is not possible and that we have to leave all the unnecessary stuff there, together with the porter. We will then try and climb as far as possible, until the wind becomes too strong.
The climb on the glacier goes really smoothly until we reach the first plateau. But I have never felt so unsafe on a glacier before. There were 3 of us on the rope and we were at a maximum of 3 meters from each other. The first person on the rope (I was in the middle) had all the rope which was than tied with a knot and in his rucksack.WHATTTA!!!I ask the guide why we are doing that. I try and tell him that normally on a glacier there are crevasses and that if he falls, we are all going with him.unless someone cuts the rope. Luckily I had my pen knife attached to my harness:). He says that on this part of the glacier there are no crevasses.and he seems sure about that.
But I'm sure we have crossed a few, and even if they were very well covered in snow, how can he be so sure one of the bridge is not going to collapse? No No No, this is not the way to do it. On a glacier, if the risk of falling in a crevasse is higher than the risk of slipping and not stopping because too steep, you keep the rope long.
And long means at least 8 meters between each person, in case of 3 people on the rope. At least, this is what I have learnt.
Once we reach the plateau I feel the greatness of the Himalaya. Even though I'm well above 5000m there are still mountains that look giants from where I stand. Also, there are mountains all over the place, up to where eye can see.