Wednesday 7th October 2009
A Whistle Stop Tour through Italy by Mrs Mary Forlenza
For the month of October it was our pleasure to welcome Mary to our after lunch presentation as you will note this was titled a whistle stop tour, what became apparent it became a high speed non stop and most entertaining talk, afraid the following is a poor attempt to cover the multitude of events, suggestion and antidotes of her long experience of Italy.
Mary informed us her father was keen on Italian holidays and so she travelled to that country from an early age, as she progressed to teenage status then dad had to keep a wary eye on her from the local handsome youths, but to no avail she told us she married one of the young men and for the last 35 years has spent roughly six month in each country.
She made her presentation in two parts the first covering the best way to see, feel and smell the culture, history, scenery and the way to avoid offence or the local rip off situation!
This was presented in a humorous way and yet entertaining to keep the sixty members wide awake in anticipation, but the best thing is to search the Internet and find out where Mary is talking next and enjoyed as we did.
The second half used a slide show to cover a multitude of places zooming at break neck speed virtually around the coast of Italy round the boot at the bottom up the other coast, the slides below are just a sample of places covered, with advice of where to go what to avoid etc.
The places covered a range of Lakes, Como for example and others that border onto Switzerland, to Venice and advice about gondolas, St Peters Basilica , The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Mount Vesuvius and the Monastery at Monte Casino where thousands of soldiers of numerous nationalities lost their lives during the bitter battles to drive the Germans out of Italy during WW11. (more detail at footnote)
Our President Ken Amess controlled the question time, these came from far and wide perspectives, Mary was able to answer all with great confidence, these ranged from earthquake and disaster, Mary stated that Italy sat on one of the earth hot spots being a fault line, but expanded on this and gave us personal accounts of how such not uncommon occurrences affected her immediate family and friends.
Another was about the different languages found and she pointed out that until the late 19 th century, Italy was divided into autonomous regions that controlled their own destiny including languages. She digressed between the culture and opportunities of the rich north and the destitute south and indicated that Mussolini in his first spell as President was a blessing who brought education, roads and best of all irrigation to the south, that all men were able to support their families by growing food on a previous infertile and barren land.
Unfortunately under the influence of Hitler lead the country into trouble and hence his own execution by hanging, but some of the older folk still remember Mussolini with affection because of his good works.
Deric Tonge in his vote of thanks thanked Mary for her inspiring talk which related closely with his own experiences in Italy and indeed brought back memories of his trips there and many Probus members were of the same opinion, hence Deric thanked Mary for a great presentation and the membership agree with warm applause.
Lake Como
Venice
Venice
St Peters Basilica
St Peters Basilica
Mount Vesuvius
The Leaning Tower of Pisa
Monastery at Monte Casino, rebuilt after the war.
Footnote:- more about the battles see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Cassino
