read part two here:
Sailing in Italy - PART TWO
PART ONE
Er sieht mit den Augen, er faßt mit dem Sinn unaussprechliche Werke, und doch fühlt er den unwiderstehlichen Drang, mit Worten und Buchstaben ihnen beizukommen. Das vollendete Herrliche, die Idee, woraus diese Gestalt entsprang, das Gefühl, das in ihm beim Schauen erregt ward, soll dem Hörer, dem Leser mitgeteilt werden, und indem er nun die ganze Rüstkammer seiner Fähigkeiten mustert, sieht er sich genötigt, nach dem Kräftigsten und Würdigsten zu greifen, was ihm zum Gebote steht. Er muß Poet sein, er mag daran denken, er mag wollen oder nicht. ( W. GOETHE "Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert")
( He sees with his eyes, he conceives unspeakable works with the mind, and yet he feels the irresistible urge to come to them with words and letters. The consummate glorious, the idea from which this figure arose, the feeling that aroused in it when looking, is to be communicated to the listener, to the reader, and, looking at the whole armory of his abilities, he finds himself compelled to do so The strongest and worthiest to grasp what he commands. He must be a poet, he may think of it, he likes it or not. - automatic translated with Google Translator. )
It is rather a reflection on time, history and art or a kind of personal revision than a current blog entry. The sail trip took place on late summer 2011. I was then in a different life situation and a different state of mind. At this time I have defined myself as a traveler and independent intellectual, now as a artist. Everything is of course interconnected and nothing is completely new or completely different and this is the point of this new entry. A Revision or an Update of intellectual and artistic believes, habits and values. Belief revision is the process of changing beliefs to take into account a new piece of information and experience. Revision is an almost inevitable process of change of our minds as the time passes. Our believes, habits and values are open to transformation as time passes and new experiences are made.
My photographic style and my whole attitude towards photography has been changed radically since then, but the roots of my photography are lying in the challenge of the journey, the condition of been on the road ( "unterwegs sein " s. also my entry on
Martin Heidegger ).
The motive of the Road and the Image of the Road are very old and very powerful symbols / metaphors of the human culture.
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| Isola di Capri Approach ... |
A road trip in my case a sea journey is an intentional challenge. You leave your home you are underway, this typically alters the perspective from your everyday life. You expect to gain a kind of knowledge which you previously do not had ...
The genre of the "Road story" has its roots in spoken and written tales of epic journeys, such as the
Odyssey. The road story is a standard plot employed by writers and filmmakers. It is a type of Bildungsroman, a story in which the hero changes, grows or improves over the course of the story. It focuses more on the journey rather than the goal.
ITINENARY
Bormes les Mimosas ( France )
Isola di Capraia
Isola d'Elba
Ischia
Isola di Capri, Positano, Amalfi
Lipari
Stretto di Messina
Zante ( Greece )
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| Nice ( France ) |
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| Marina Bormes les Mimosas ( France ) |
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| A brand new JEANNEAU 36i. |
I arrived by airplane to Nice (France) from Hamburg. I started the journey from the marina in Bormes les Mimosas in South France and sailed during the first night to Italy. The first landmark was Isola di Capraia. The sail yacht was a brand new JEANNEAU 36i.
For the first time I decided to not have paper charts with me, just my GARMIN 60CSX GPS with GARMIN G2 Vision e-Charts ( EU716L - Central Mediterranean, VEU015R -
AEGEAN SEA AND SEA OF MARMARA ). The only printed document was the excellent book of Rod Heikell
"The Italian Water Pilot".
At those days I was shooting only digital. In my bag I had a NIKON D300 body with a Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G AF-S IF ED and the Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX lenses.
Isola di Capraia ( Capraia Island )
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| Approaching Italy |
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| Isola di Capraia |
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| Isola di Capraia |
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| Isola di Capraia |
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| Isola di Capraia |
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| Isola di Capraia |
Capraia is an Italian island, the northwesternmost of the seven islands of the Tuscan Archipelago, and the third largest after Elba and Giglio; it is also a comune (municipality) belonging to the Province of Livorno. The island has a population of about 400.
Capraia is of volcanic origin, has an area of 19 square kilometres (7.3 sq mi) and its highest point is 466 metres (1,529 ft) above sea level. It is about 8 kilometres (5 mi) long (from Punta della Teglia to Punta dello Zenobio) and about 4 kilometres (2 mi) wide. It has a coastline that is about 30 kilometres (19 mi) in circumference. The island is part of the Arcipelago Toscano National Park and marine sanctuary.
The island's small harbour, Porto di Capraia, is connected to the village by the one and only asphalted road on the island. The village, dominated by the Fortress of St George, preserves its original characteristics unaltered.
The Greeks called the island Aegyllon or Aegyllion. Its current name may have originated in the Etruscan "carpa" - stone - a word that comes from the archaic Greek "Kalpe" - sepulchral stone. The Romans called the island Capraria, its name possibly then morphing to reflect the presence of wild goats (Greek: capros).
In 1055 it was raided by Saracen pirates, and later the Republic of Pisa owned it. It became part of the Republic of Genoa after the Battle of Meloria, being assigned to the patrician Jacopo de Mari (1430). In 1540 the Genoese built the Fortress of St. George on a pre-existing fortification that the African corsair Turgut Reis had demolished. The Genoese also built three coastal watch towers (part of a system of Genoese towers) to protect against pirates. [
s. Wikipedia ]
Isola d'Elba and Portoferraio
Elba (Italian: isola d'Elba; Latin: Ilva; Ancient Greek: Aithalia) is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the coastal town of Piombino. Elba is the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. Elba is also part of the Arcipelago Toscano National Park, and the third largest island in Italy, after Sicily and Sardinia. It is located in the Tyrrhenian Sea, about 50 kilometres (30 mi) east of the French island of Corsica.
Following the Treaty of Fontainebleau, French Emperor Napoleon I was exiled to Elba after his forced abdication in 1814, and he arrived at Portoferraio on 30 May 1814. He was allowed to keep a personal guard of six hundred men.
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| Portoferraio, Island of Elba, Italy |
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| Portoferraio, Island of Elba, Italy |
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Portoferraio, Island of Elba, Italy
Portoferraio - It was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1548, with the name of Cosmopoli ("Cosimo's City"), to balance the presence of the Spanish citadel in Porto Azzurro. It had three forts (Forte Stella, Forte Falcone and Forte Inglese) and a massive line of walls, all still visible today.
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| Elba Island and Portoferraio |
Ischia and Castle Aragonese
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| Ischia Light House, Port entrance |
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| Ischia Light House, Port entrance |
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| Ischia Italy |
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| Ischia Italy |
Ischia (Italian pronunciation: ['iskja]) is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands.
Virgil poetically referred to it as Inarime and still later as Arime. Martianus Capella followed Virgil in this allusive name, which was never in common circulation: the Romans called it Aenaria, the Greeks, Pithekousai.
Aragonese Castle (Italian: Castello Aragonese) is a medieval castle next to Ischia (one of the Phlegraean Islands), at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, Italy.[1] The castle stands on a volcanic rocky islet that connects to the larger island of Ischia by a causeway (Ponte Aragonese).
The Aragonese Castle is the most impressive historical monument in Ischia, built by Hiero I of Syracuse in 474 BC.
Isola di Capri, Positano, Amalfi
Capri (usually pronounced /kəˈpriː/ by English speakers); Italian pronunciation: [ˈkaːpri]) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been a resort since the time of the Roman Republic.
The city has been inhabited since early times. Evidence of human settlement was discovered during the Roman era.
After the end of the Western Roman Empire, Capri returned to the status of a dominion of Naples, and suffered various attacks and ravages by pirates. In 866 Emperor Louis II gave the island to Amalfi.
In 1496 Frederick IV of Naples established legal and administrative parity between the settlements of Capri and Anacapri. The pirate raids reached their peak during the reign of Charles V: the famous Turkish admirals Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha and Turgut Reis captured the island for the Ottoman Empire, in 1535 and 1553 respectively.
The first recorded tourist to visit the island was French antiques dealer Jean-Jacques Bouchard in the 17th century. His diary, found in 1850, is an important information source about Capri.
Positano is a village and comune on the Amalfi Coast (Costiera Amalfitana), in Campania, Italy, mainly in an enclave in the hills leading down to the coast.
Positano was a port of the Amalfi Republic in medieval times, and prospered during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the town had fallen on hard times. More than half the population emigrated, mostly to America.
Positano was a relatively poor fishing village during the first half of the twentieth century. It began to attract large numbers of tourists in the 1950s, especially after John Steinbeck published his essay about Positano in Harper's Bazaar in May, 1953: "Positano bites deep", Steinbeck wrote. "It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone."
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| a self portrait from the time ... Positano, Italy 2011. |
AMALFI
Amalfi is a town and comune in the province of Salerno, in the region of Campania, Italy, on the Gulf of Salerno. It lies at the mouth of a deep ravine, at the foot of Monte Cerreto (1,315 metres, 4,314 feet), surrounded by dramatic cliffs and coastal scenery. The town of Amalfi was the capital of the maritime republic known as the Duchy of Amalfi, an important trading power in the Mediterranean between 839 and around 1200.
First mentioned in the 6th century, Amalfi soon afterwards acquired importance as a maritime power, trading grain from its neighbours, salt from Sardinia and slaves from the interior, and even timber, in exchange for the gold dinars minted in Egypt and Syria, in order to buy the Byzantine silks that it resold in the West. Grain-bearing Amalfi traders enjoyed privileged positions in the Islamic ports, Fernand Braudel notes. The Amalfi tables (Tavole amalfitane (it)) provided a maritime code that was widely used by the Christian port cities. Merchants of Amalfi were using gold coins to purchase land in the 9th century, while most of Italy worked in a barter economy. In the 8th and 9th century, when Mediterranean trade revived it shared with Gaeta the Italian trade with the East, while Venice was in its infancy, and in 848 its fleet went to the assistance of Pope Leo IV against the Saracens.
In 1135 and 1137, it was taken by the Pisans and rapidly declined in importance, though its maritime code, known as the Tavole amalfitane (it), was recognized in the Mediterranean until 1570. A tsunami in 1343 destroyed the port and lower town,[5] and Amalfi never recovered to anything more than local importance.
In medieval culture Amalfi was famous for its flourishing schools of law and mathematics. Flavio Gioia, traditionally considered the first to introduce the mariner's compass to Europe, is said to have been a native of Amalfi.
Amalfi has a long history of catering for visitors, with two former monasteries being converted to hotels at a relatively early date, the Luna Convento in the second decade of the 19th century and the Cappuccini Convento in the 1880s. Celebrated visitors to Amalfi included the composer Richard Wagner and the playwright Henrik Ibsen, both of whom completed works whilst staying in Amalfi. Author Gore Vidal was a long time resident.
coming soon ...
Lipari
Lipari ( Sicilian: Lìpari, Latin: Lipara, Ancient Greek: Meligounis or Lipara) is the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, southern Italy; it is also the name of the island's main town and comune, which is administratively part of the Metropolitan City of Messina.
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