Our Garden In July - Il Nostro Giardino in Luglio

 

 A corner of our terrace.

Another month has flown by and it is time once again for me to share some of my favourite garden photos from the last month with you. Once again I have had difficulty selecting just a few from the many I have taken over the last few weeks. Just under 200 again this month, it is just too easy to get carried away with digital photography but I do enjoy myself. Did you spot me in the first photograph?

The interested gardeners and photographers amongst you will find the full album on Flickr.  Our Garden - July 2011

Agapanthus have put on a beautiful display for the entire month.

Another plant providing splashes of blue in the garden this month has been Plumbago, the colour is so intense I just had to show you a close up.

 

The Crape Myrtle has flowered really well this year and what a stunning colour!

You will notice in the above photos of the hibiscus trees that we were not the only ones enjoying them!

Our Garden is also just as much about productive plants as it is about colour so I must, I feel include a few produce shots.

This month we have enjoyed plums, greengages and some very early pears as well as these delicious peaches.

The orto (vegetable plot) though has not been producing very well at all this year, enough for two of us but not much in the way of surplus crops apart from courgettes and we have no real idea why.  We are growing three different varieties of tomatoes and these cherry tomatoes are producing the most fruit so far.

Finally it looks like the apple harvest will be another bumper crop.

All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection

I hope you have enjoyed sharing this collection of photos taken around our garden this month and remember if you would like to see more views of the garden taken during 2011 please visit the collection of albums at Flickr.com entitled  Our Garden 2011

Welcome to ‘News From Italy’ to the other participants of Post of the Month Club, thankyou for calling by. I hope you have found some pleasure in sharing photos from my garden in Italy, a popular regular post that I hope will encourage you to call by again. I have made so many virtual friends from around the world via this blog, such a friendly network of people, many that also have blogs of their own that they publish for a multitude of different reasons.

I will not be posting here on News From Italy again until sometime early next week as my cousin is staying at the moment and I shall want to spend time with her not blogging, although I may have a book review ready to post over on LindyLouMac's Book Reviews during the week. I will also continue to post a daily photo on Beautiful World maybe you will join me there.

Thanks to Mademoiselle Poirot for the August Break Logo.

Saturday Snapshots - Notte Bianca a Capodimonte 2011

 

 

There is not actually a lot one can say about Notte Bianca Nights but I can share here with you a selection of the photos I took last Friday evening July 22nd 2011 of the many things for sale and people enjoying themselves.  For those of you that are not familiar with Notte Bianca - White Nights you will find a short explanation and links to more information on the post I wrote last year.  

Notte Bianca 2010

  

These are just a few of the random shots I took last week, the full album can be viewed on Flickr.com if you are interested.

 Notte Bianca Capodimonte 2011

Have a great weekend everyone wherever you are in the world.

Serenata a Piazza dell’ Olmo – July 21st 2011

 

 

We had a relaxed and enjoyable time at this fund raising concert last Thursday evening. I took quite a few photos and even attempted to take some video footage. However the amateur that I am, I am afraid they are very poor and also I stupidly did not realise that you can not rotate the camera if taking videos!  As I would like you to hear my favourite performances from Domenico Cannizzaro,  who has a wonderful voice, they have still been included in my album, Serenata a Pizza dell'Olmo – Marta at Flickr.  The best of my dreadful  attempts at filming are also shared here with a selection of photos.  Hopefully some of you will be interested in seeing and hearing more and will visit my album and Domenico’s  Official Website, as usual clicking on the blue links will take you to the relevant sites.  You will also find some brilliant videos of him singing at the Australian Opera House on the website.

The evening was organised by the owner of local restaurant La Vela in Capodimonte whose son died from leukaemia and the performers were all locals who gave their time and talent to perform at this concert, to help raise funds for leukaemia research.

 

The best of my poor videos, please listen though it is worth it!

Domenico Cannizzaro by LindyLouMac

Finally the locals still wanted to party on when it was time to pack up!

Thankyou to everyone concerned for providing us with a very varied evening of great entertainment for a good cause.

The photos and videos are my own All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection

More photos and videos can be viewed in My Flickr.com Album Serenata a Pizza dell'Olmo – Marta

 

Italy in Books Reading Challenge July 2011

 

Beyond The Pasta by Mark Leslie            Italy in Books - Reading Challenge 2011

                                       

 

The July post with a list of books that the other people taking part are reading this month has already been posted. July Reviews

Beyond The Pasta is so much more than just another Italian cookery book as besides providing great recipes Mark writes a diary about his trip to Italy to learn authentic Italian cooking. The added wow factor for me was not just that it is set in Italy but in our region of Viterbo. I loved all the local recipes, some of which I had heard of but others were new ones. I shall definitely be getting my husband to try these out for us, as he is the chef in our household. Mark’s diary of his time here in Viterbo was absolutely fascinating, particularly as we know and love the places he visited. It was  interesting to read his take on places that we are very familiar with. As for instance his impression of Marta, as a place with a long line of hotels lining the lakefront. Sorry Mark, but first impressions were deceptive, there is only one hotel along the stretch he wrote about. In fact at the time of writing there was only one hotel in the whole of  Marta and that was ‘Otello’s’, attached to the restaurant he visited, one of our favourites. He was right about the restaurants though as there are three in a row just in that stretch of lake frontage. I guess it must have just looked impressive.

Besides being an account of the everyday experiences of his month in Viterbo immersed in Italian culture,both language and cuisine, it is also as I already mentioned a cookery book, a record of Nonna’s amazing sounding recipes. I have no intention of sharing any of them here with you as I have yet to discover my favourites. You can discover some of them by visiting the links below.

It is with thanks to Michelle at Bleeding Espresso and her review that I learnt of the existence of this book.  It was her review that convinced me I had to have a copy of my own. Maybe my review will tempt some of you to also buy a copy! Having said that it will be no surprise that I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves Italy and all things Italian.

I hope one day that Mark will be back in Marta so that he can autograph his book for me!

Mark Leslie

Do spare a few minutes to watch this video.

Uploaded by 334mdl on Jul 23, 2010

Here is Nonna~ the grandmother of the family Mark Leslie lived with in Viterbo, Italy. She is the central character in his book "Beyond the Pasta: Recipes, Language & Life with an Italian Family" which was released on September 1, 2010, by Gemelli Press. Please visit http://mark-leslie.net for more details. In this clip, Nonna is telling a story about her mother--you can truly see her sense of humour as she tells the story. She made him laugh every day while he was there...and she will make you laugh in the book, too!

Information for this post is with thanks to the following websites.

YouTube - Mark Leslie – Where you will find a selection of great videos from Mark publicising his book.

Beyond The Pasta - Mark Leslie's Official Website

Beyond The Pasta - Facebook Page

I also post these ‘Italy in Books’ reviews on my other blog

LindyLouMac's Book Reviews

Il Castello Templare di Castell’Araldo del XIII Secolo - Marta

 

Recently we had the honour of attending an investiture for I Cavalieri Templari a Marta - Marta Knights Templar held in a beautiful location, The Templar Castle and church dating from the 13C dedicated to Santa Maria delle Grazie and their surrounding grounds.

Before work commenced.

After

The three photos prior to and just after restoration of the church are with thanks to http://www.castellaraldo.it/index.htm

 

Castell’Araldo is a Templar Castle and church dating from the 13C, located on the road to Tuscania just a few kilometres outside Marta, on a hill 313 metres above sea level high with the river Marta in the valley way below. The Knights Templar Monks built it to defend the road and during that era it was important amongst the Bishops and Abbots of the region, also the local parliament of Montefiascone. After the dissolution of the order the castle passed to the order of Knights of St John in Jerusalem. In 1434 it was occupied by mercenary troops and started to fall into decline until it was destroyed in 1459 by the inhabitants of nearby Canino. The Knights of St John in Jerusalem continued to own and maintain the site until 1889 when the church was sold to the town of Marta.

It has always been considered an important site over the centuries as it was crossed by an important road, which joined the Via Aurelia and Via Cassia. It was also part of the Via Francigena, used by thousands of pilgrims travelling to Rome from Northern Europe.

Up to 2006 (and probably from the fifteenth century) the Castle and the Church remained only ruins covered with vegetation, work on recovery and restoration of the church was completed in 2008.  It is wonderful to see the Castell’Araldo restored to its former glory after hundreds of years of neglect.

The management of the Church and the whole site is now organized by the Marta Knights Templar (VT), under the supervision of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage of the Lazio Region of Italy.

Occasionally feasts and ceremonies "Templars" are held in the presence of various authorities and local citizens at the site. It was our presence at one of these ceremonies that enabled me to take these photographs.

The purpose of this post is to share some photos plus a little history of the Il Castello Templare di Castell’Araldo del XIII secolo but if you are interested in finding out more about either Castell’Areldo and I Cavalieri Templari a Marta - Marta Knights Templar I have included some links to two websites that may be useful.

Photos are my own All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection unless otherwise stated and information was researched with the help of the following websites.

http://www.castellaraldo.it/   Official Website dedicated to the site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar