I wish I could stay here longer but the bells remind me of time, ‘ding, dang dong’ goes the bell instead of ‘ding dong’…wish you were here – Under the Tuscan Sun
It’s easy for me to forget how much I adore Italy until I find myself returned there. Now matter where I go, there is always something about Italy. If I could speak even a smattering of Italian, I would seriously consider moving here – but, alas, the language escapes me completely. My fascination with the country probably began with watching Avanti with my mother when I was little, though I’m sure that University helped. I have vivid memories of sitting in early morning art history classes escaping into slides of Venice and Rome.
As I sit wondering where to go for lunch, the last shivering notes of the huge clock tower shimmer through the air, chiming eleven o’clock. Plenty of time until noon when the lions on the clock roar and the gold automatons come to life. Until then I need to find something to occupy myself. Here, that’s no problem; here history is on ever corner. No matter where you go, there is something to catch your eye. I let my feet wander. This is, after all, Italy, there’s no need to walk more than a block before there is something to see. Ten minutes walk finds me at the gate to a tiny archeological excavation site and its accompanying antiquarian. The attendant speaks no English and the description signs are all in Italian, but that doesn’t matter. It is a peaceful place and peace will always do the heart good. I spend a comfortable twenty minutes observing the pottery fragments and animal bones stored carefully behind glass. The excavation site has long since become inactive, the remains of the walls covered in grass and the yellow dots of wildflowers – a hidden oasis of green in the heart of the city.
I also make my way into the cathedral itself. Each cathedral I’ve set foot in over the years has a different personality, a different self. This one is not one that welcomes me as much as I’m used to. A vast cavernous hall that is constructed to make you feel small – and it succeeds. I watch a small boy, who cannot be more than five years old, drop to his knees and cross himself before the alter, and for some incomprehensible reason I think of my father. For the first time I do not light a candle, do not kneel to pray, in a place like this, such a gesture from one such as myself may be taken amiss. Instead, a bow my head respectfully and emerge back into the sunshine scented square of the main square.
By then the crowds have assembled at the base of the clock-tower, waiting for noon. When it comes the clock comes to life: the great golden lion roars, lashing its tail as it flashes in the mid-afternoon sun. The other figures – a golden rooster, a chariot, and the twelve apostles – soon follow the lion in motion. The watchers actually applaud when the rooster spreads golden wings to the sun and crows. The entire process of the clock takes ten minutes before the bells fall silent and the clockwork spins once again to stillness.
A brief exploration reveals that for a very small price one can climb to the top of the clock-tower. Despite knowing that anyone can come here, I feel as if I’ve been granted entrance to some kind of secret world as I climb the smooth marble steps behind the clock work and amongst the bells. The bells are huge, larger than any person and dark with age. As I stand there poised on the steps to marvel at them they beign to ring the quarter. The sound is tremendous, reverberating of the marble walls, shaking my rib cage – as if my ears simply refuse to accept that anything this loud can actually be a sound. I hold my free hand to one ar but am holding the camera with the other, ignoring the warning in my mind that is asking me if I really want to end up like something out of Lord Peter Whimsey and the Nine Tailors.
My heart starts beating again when the bells stop, and a short climb brings me to the small wooden door that opens onto the topmost belvedere. I stand there looking out at the spectacular vista of Messina spilling out in front of me, all red roofs and carved fountains, with the breeze ruffling my hair and the salt from the harbor barely touching my senses. From this high up our ship in the distance looks like an oversized child’s toy. The view is incredible.
They request that visitors only stay on the top belvedre for twenty minutes, to allieviate crowds and congestions. But as I look around I realize that the narrow space is empty except for me, so I sit on the cool marble with my back against the roughness of the wall and a notebook across my knees and let myself drift on the solitude. Below me I can hear the bells chiming the hour again…
Sometimes I am struck dumb by just how incredibly lucky I am…