Caoria, Italy - the last village in the Tyrol, and the place where my Nonna grew up

Caoria is a tiny village in northern Italy, surrounded by very high mountains. The tradition there was to share goat-herding duties - one person, often a young boy or girl, whose job it was to take everyone's goat's up the mountain to feed. This was Nonna's job as a young girl. The streets here are very narrow, once you get off the main road. So narrow, in fact that they're little more than alley ways or gutters between houses. The houses are very close together and there is no apparent grid to their arrangement. Some of the houses, like my grandmother's family's (the Sperandio's), are 500 years old. We went looking for her house.

The local is for sale.

At first, I took pictures of every house in the village, knowing that one of them was my grandmother's. It turns out that it was this one, with the scaffolding. A distant cousin, Bruno Sperandio, was renovating it. For sale, I think.

We ate lunch in this one and only restaurant in town. The waitress was a Sperandio. She told my cousin where we might find the Sperandio house.

So we went back to the house with the scaffolding. It's this one. I wish I could buy it.

One photo looking into the first floor. Did Nonna walk down this hallway on her way out the door? 

But then, maybe I could live here, instead. A gorgeous multi-family house in the vernacular architecture of the region.

Rocks with bright orange minerals - iron? - in the Vanoi River, which runs along the edge of the village

The road leading up to the cemetery

The cemetery, which holds a lot of town history

and a multitude of Sperandios who are at rest here.

And the road leading away from the cemetery. Goodbye to Caoria.

Two days in Milano (tomorrow, the Dolomites)

Il Duomo

the doors, adorned with multiple sculptures, seen from the inside

the floor, the carved pews

De Medici tomb + tourists
for more pictures from the interior of Il Duomo, check out
an earlier post at
http://fourlegsgood.blogspot.com/2009/06/on-road-in-milan-trento-and-bolzano.html

shopping complex on the Piazza Del Duomo

street scenes of Milan

me, the Italian sky overhead

Leonardo at the Piazza della Scala

La Scala opera house, outside and in

taking a picture of Leonardo's statue from inside La Scala

soft rain on the second day in Milan

Santa Maria della Grazie - closing in on The Last Supper
(no photos allowed)

from the train on our way out of Milan, heading for the Dolomites

Aboard the Staten Island Ferry

This is why I love tourists. They want something. They are not cool. They are enjoying themselves in all their tourist splendour, right in front and right out loud.

Opening Day of the Seasonal Farmer's Market at the Hattie Carthan Community Gardens

Okay. Most of these photos are of the bicycle-powered smoothie blender. This young lady is making me a watermelon-pear-honey-mint smoothie. A bargain, full of Vit. C, for $3.

The altar at the Garden. This is where the majik happens, literally.

The clay and brick bread oven. More magic.

And the long table full of veggies and home preparations. The farmer's market is open every Saturday. It's on Clifton Place at Marcy Ave., right near Lafayette Ave. Easy to get to via the G-Train or the B38.