Brooklyn Bridge: a New York landmark

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As I write this, it is the anniversary of the birth of one of early America’s great engineers, John A. Roebling (born on June 12th 1806), designer of the Brooklyn Bridge.

When it was opened, in May 1883, Brooklyn Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world and an engineering wonder. It is still one of the most majestic sights of New York City.

Fixing the stays. Illustration by a worker on the bridge, 1883.

Roebling had arrived in America in 1831 with a small band of German pilgrims, intending to set up an agricultural community. His talent for engineering soon emerged, however, and he became the country’s most successful producer of wire rope. His design for the bridge that would be built over the East River contained many elements that were new or untested on such a huge scale. His vision became reality, but at the cost of many human lives, including his own. While surveying the building works in 1869 his toes were crushed in an accident and had to be amputated. He contracted tetanus and died. Supervision of the construction passed to his son, Washington Roebling, and his able wife Emily. The foundations of the bridge are sunk deep in the riverbed. In order for men to work them, they had to have air to breathe, and this was solved with a system of caissons, huge diving bells filled with air and submerged in the water. The problems of compression and decompression were not understood in those days and many men suffered from the ‘bends’, including Washington Roebling himself, who was plagued by symptoms of caisson disease for the rest of his life.

Brooklyn Bridge was superseded as the longest suspension bridge in 1903, by the Williamsburg Bridge, also in New York. Today the world’s five longest suspension bridges are in Japan, China (two), Denmark and England. Brooklyn Bridge occupies 78th place. But it is still one of the greatest and most beautiful.

For more on the bridge, and on those who designed and built it, see Carol von Pressentin Wright’s Blue Guide New York.

A Venetian Update

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by Charles Freeman

My wife, Lydia, and I were recently in and around Venice, coming in and out one day by bus from Dolo on the Brenta canal and staying two nights in the city itself.

Since March Ist there has been a new ticketing system, IMOB, run by ACTV. In Venice itself, it is quite straightforward as you can buy a plastic card for the number of days travelling on the vaporetti that you want. You touch your card on a screen as you enter the vaporetto station and some stations have barriers through which you pass your card to open the barrier. However, there is nothing on the card itself to show its duration, or how long you have got left.

But then it gets more complicated. If you are taking a bus outside the city, you can also buy an IMOB card, for instance, at one of the tabacchi along the route. They prime it with the fare for the journey you want to make and then you ‘spend’ it on a screen on the bus. The trouble is that the card is identical to the one you also get in Venice. We bought cards for all the inland journeys we knew we were making in the same tabacchi and ended up with six identical IMOB cards between us.

I thought I had a system for sorting them into separate slots in my wallet so I cannot really explain how I binned our still-valid Venice vaporetto tickets and preserved our spent bus tickets. You have been warned.

Brave the IMOB Actv website at your peril–you will be even more confused by the system.

Much though we love Venice and appreciate that Venice only became Venice because of the rapacious commercial instincts of its people over past centuries, we still get annoyed by restaurants that lure you in with relatively cheap piatti, only to find extra service charges, large cover charges, charges of over 5 euros for a mediocre glass of wine, and, in one case, an espresso costing 5 euro, almost as much as a plate of pasta.

But perhaps the blackest of bêtes noires this time was the new museum ticket. Suppose you want to visit the Museo Correr, one of Venice’s most pleasant museums, and then pass on to the wonderful Biblioteca Marciana. The only way you can now do this is to buy a full ticket costing over 16 euros, which includes the Doge’s Palace–whether you want to visit that or not. The ticket gives you only one entry to each of five museums, so you would have to buy another 16 euro ticket if you wanted to visit the Biblioteca Marciana a second time.

Still, let’s be more positive. I had never been to the museum of Byzantine icons (Museo dei Dipinti Sacri Bizantini) next to San Giorgio dei Greci, the sumptuously decorated church of the Greek Orthodox community. I was overcome by a wonderful icon of the Noli Me Tangere scene, dated c. 1500.  It  was worth the 4 euro entrance in itself and there are other things to treasure.

Then we wanted to find somewhere off the beaten track to eat. Why not try the Giudecca? If you get off at the Le Zitelle stop, you can look in on Palladio’s Il Redentore, the church Venice built as a thanksgiving for relief from the terrible plague of 1577. The interior is so much more welcoming and harmonious than the cavernous San Giorgio, Palladio’s earlier commission. And then we sat down for dinner at I Figli delle Stelle, right on the waterfront and, far from the crowds, watched the sun set over Venice. There is something so satisfying about a restaurant that does not try to be pretentious but where they understand food and the time in which you want to enjoy it without harassment. Not difficult in many parts of Italy, thank goodness, but harder in Venice. I Figli specialise in regional dishes, have a good selection of local wines and the 100 euros for two, though not cheap, fairly reflects the quality of what they offer.

We were happily soothed by the experience.

N.B. Palazzo Fortuny is now fully and well restored but it only opens when they have a special exhibition on.

Springtime in Friuli

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In April, around the perimeter walls of the star-shaped fortress-city of Palmanova in northern Italy, you can expect to see people out in force, armed with plastic bags, some even with scissors, searching the grassy banks for a certain plant. What is it?

The answer is “sclupit”, as it is called in Friulano. In Italian it is known asstridolo. In English it is the bladder campion (Selene cucubalus). The young leaves are gathered in spring and used to lend a subtle, slightly aromatic flavour to risottos, omelettes and pasta dishes.

The Union of Friuli Venezia Giulia cooks (Unione Cuochi Friuli Venezia Giulia) recommends a delicious seasonal recipe of ravioli filled with sclupit, ricotta and montasio cheese and served in a butter and asparagus sauce.

The picture here shows a sprig of sclupit resting on the editor’s annotated copy of Blue Guide Northern Italy .

For a full glossary and miscellany of Italian food, with over 2,500 Italian food terms translated (and pronunciation given), see the handy pocket-format Blue Guide Italy Food Companion. Don’t leave your hotel without it!

Roman Aquileia

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The ruins of the Roman colony of Aquileia, once the fourth largest Roman city in Italy, lie under and around the peaceful modern town and its splendid Early Christian basilica church. Where the amphitheatre once stood, citizens now hoe their vegetable patches and tend their sweet peas. It is all incredibly atmospheric. The town also boasts one of the finest archaeological museums in the country, full of exceptionally interesting artefacts, not least some exquisite pieces made of the Baltic amber for which Aquileia was once a key trading centre. It is easy to spend a full day and more here. The tree-lined walk along the quayside of the old Roman river port is not to be missed. Nor is the Sepolcreto, a quiet enclosure containing five family tombs of the 1st–2nd centuries. After seeing the museum, stop off for a glass of local Malvasia wine in the Attila Scourge of God (Attila Flagellum Dei) wine bar on the opposite side of the street. If you need somewhere to say, the simple, no-frills, friendly Aquila Nera is recommended. It is extremely good value and they offer a good dinner.

Detail of the tomb stele of a blacksmith
IN AGR P XXX: a grave enclosure measuring 30 feet in depth, with foot, exactly one Roman foot long

Edward Lear and Crete

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The well-known nonsense poet and artist Edward Lear paid a short visit to Crete in 1864. He was coming from Corfu, where he had lived for nine years; when the British government returned the Ionian islands to the Greek state, the British community dispersed. At that point in his life he needed to find a warm place for his indifferent health and to produce another book like his Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, which had sold steadily. Lear chose Crete, and arrived in Chania on 11th April, with his faithful valet George Kokali and armed with Pashley’s Travels in Crete. Although he was aware of the presence of Venetian monuments and of some earlier ruins, what he was searching for were beautiful, exotic landscapes that he could sell in England, possibly in a book reworked from notes in his diary. Crete proved a disappointment in many respects. The landscape, vast, rugged and raw, did not lend itself to artistic composition according to the classical canons. The weather did not help and living conditions, from the food to the ever-present fleas and the state of the pavements, proved a perennial source of complaint. The only things that seemed to cheer him were the wine, the birds and the flowers. Lear took more notice of the latter than of the people. Unlike Pashley he makes very few ethnographical observations, even though he spoke Greek and took lodgings with local people.

Lear first travelled west in the Kissamos direction, venturing as far south as Topolia. He then went back to Chania for the Akrotiri and continued east to Souda and Aptera, cutting across to Vamos and Lake Kournas, finally sailing from Rethymnon to Megalokastro (i.e. Herakleion), which failed to impress him. He continued south, ascending Mt Juktas on the way. This he pronounced ‘Cumberlandish’, a term that he had already applied to Lake Kournas and of which he was obviously fond. The Mesara reminded him of the Beka’a Valley in Lebanon, but wanting in colours, lines and shape, and Mt Ida, around which he skirted from Tymbaki on his way north through the Amari Valley, was forever lost in the clouds. Lear was probably relieved to arrive back in England on 11th June. He had with him some 200 sketches and a diary: nothing of either was ever published in his lifetime. A few drawings were reworked and completed on commission and are now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The bulk of the sketches found their way onto the London art market in the late 1920s. The Gennadius Library in Athens has 92; the remainder are in private collections and museums. The diary was published in 1984.

An extract from Blue Guide Crete by Paola Pugsley. © Blue Guides. All rights reserved.

To mark the bicentenary of Lear’s birth, the Ashmolean Museum is currently running an exhibition entitled Happy Birthday Edward Lear: 200 Years of Nature and Nonsense.