The Land of Painted Caves – this is not only a description of where we live – the Vezere Valley, in the Dordogne region of France – but also the title of Jean Auel’s latest novel. It is an apt title both for the region and the book.

First the region – The Vezere Valley is a World Heritage Site and justifiably so – there are over 200 prehistoric sites here – some of which are unfortunately off limits to the public, but many which we do have the privilege to be able to see. And it is a privilege that should not be under estimated. Take Font de Gaume, for example, this closely monitored cave is the only polychrome (multicoloured) cave of its type in the world that is open to the public. That’s awesome. And so is the cave itself with over 230 paintings and engravings – the best known being the ‘Kissing Reindeer’ – a touching scene, exquisitely executed by an unknown prehistoric artist. Like all these prehistoric masterpieces, the environment in the cave is extremely fragile and there is a danger of it being over-visited and being forced to close in the same way the original Lascaux was. But fortunately, it is very closely monitored and controlled by the French authorities and numbers are firmly regulated to ensure the delicate balance within the cave is not disturbed.

Best known of all must be the world famous painted cave of Lascaux with its huge bulls and ‘Chinese’ horses. Closed in 1963 for its protection because the delicate paintings were being damaged by the influx of visitors, a facsimile was opened in 1983 and this is what we visit today. Because it is not the genuine article some people are put off visiting it. That is their loss! Although it is true that you can never recreate the atmosphere of the original cave, you can nevertheless be over-awed by the magnificence of the paintings which leap out at you from the walls and ceilings and marvel at the skill and dedication of our ancestors. When Picasso visited in 1952 he declared that he could teach them nothing, they already knew everything he did about perspective, motion, light, shade – it’s all captured and just stop to consider the difficult conditions in which these artists worked. Low light levels and they could never see their entire work in all its glory!

Secondly – the book. The long awaited 6th and final novel from Jean Auel is due for publication on the 29th March. 9 years since her last book ‘The Shelters of Stone’ it is eagerly awaited by her fans – and since 45 million copies of her books have sold, she clearly has a huge following. It is true the books are fiction – but she skilfully weaves fact and fiction together in a way that many people find compelling – even if they have never visited this area. What delights are in store, should they decide to come and explore this very special area known as ‘the Cradle of Mankind’ for very good reasons. Evidence of Cro-Magnon man – us – was first discovered here in 1868 when a quarry (‘Cro’ in the local dialect) belonging to M. Magnon was being dug for the railway being constructed close by.

Jean Auel has been crafting her novels for over 30 years during which time her research has been generously aided by some of the biggest names in the archaeological world and she appreciatively acknowledges their kindness and the invaluable help she has received. Paul Bahn, Jean Clottes, David Lewis-Williams – to mention just a few. These specialists in their fields have generously given their time and knowledge which Jean Auel has taken and woven into her tales. Some of it perhaps over-fanciful, but much is plausible and much is based on evidence generously shared by her collaborators.

The Shelters of Stone, book 5 in the Earth Children series, was published in 2002 and focused on the Vezere Valley and the cliffs of the Laugerie Haut which Jean Auel referred to as the 9th cave of the Zelandonii. Although it is not published yet, it is known that The Land of Painted Caves homes in on Lascaux – a fitting culmination to sign off great series of books. We await the book with pleasure – it may not be an academic tome, but if it awakens in people an interest in our past and the importance of understanding and preserving it, then it’s doing a good job, as well as being a good read.

It also opens up exciting possibilities for us – what a wonderful basis for a new Tour – The Land of Painted Caves. It’s going to be fun for us identifying the various sites used by Jean in her latest book – and when we’ve done that, we’d love to share it with you. So watch this space – we’ll be hosting the Land of Painted Caves Tour next year. Interested? Drop us an email and we’ll keep you in touch.

(The Land of Painted Caves will be published on 29th March 2011 by Crown Publishers)

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Steve & Judie Burman live in the beautiful Vezere Valley in the Dordogne region of South-West France

Together they run Caves and Castles, specialising in prehistoric Cave Art & medieval Castles Tours.  Small groups tours (up to 6) are based at their recently converted farmhouse. Alternatively, they offer non-residential tours for a day or longer.

Professional archaeologist, Steve and his wife, Judie love to share their passion for the ‘Cradle of Humanity’. Its history and culture are awe-inspiring. The area is also famed for its gastronomy and wine. You won’t be disappointed!

Get them to arrange your holiday in this stunning area of the Dordogne – email cavesandcastles@gmail.com  or visit their website www.cavesandcastles.com

Sapori e Saperi Adventures

August is party time in the villages of Italy. Posters advertising festas or sagras sprout from trees and lampposts; leaflets pile up in bars and tourist information offices. A festa was originally a solemn religious festival and sagra derives from sacra meaning sacred, but both have morphed into excuses for high spirits and enjoyment. My friends call me a sagra junkie, and I admit I can’t stay away. Most serve good food cooked by the people of the village, but only one I’ve been to so far started with a blessing of motorcycles before the supper accompanied by folk musicians and dancers.

Tonight I can choose among twelve different ones in the Garfagnana alone, which is a tiny part of Tuscany north of Lucca. There’s the ‘Sagra della porchetta’ — a meal based around succulent herby roast pork and served in the sports ground of Villetta.

But the view will be more spectacular from Trassillico, a village balanced on a razor-edge ridge in the shadow of a fifteenth-century fort, which serves Garfagnana biroldo (our sensuously spiced blood sausage) with creamy polenta.

The ‘Sagra della trota’, a menu based on trout from clear mountain rivers sounds enticing too. If I’m feeling homesick for England, I could scoff some fish and chips at Barga. Or maybe I should choose one of the three mediaeval festivals, such as ‘I banditi dell’Ariosto all’ora di Cena’ (‘The bandits of Ariosto at dinner’), where the mountain village is romantically lit by flares, the inhabitants are dressed in mediaeval costumes and each course is served in a different courtyard of the village. As the sun sets and lights begin to twinkle in the valley far below, a band of rowdy brigands bursts in through an arch and demands payment, but is bribed with wine and good food to join the company of diners. This probably sounds embarrassing to Anglo-Saxons, but the villagers are as unselfconscious as if they were wearing jeans and horsing around with their friends in the bar.

I love to include village festivals in my tours, partly because they’re fun, but also because they’re the opposite of a tourist attraction. These are parties the people of the village throw for themselves — the permanent inhabitants, the émigrés who return to their ancestral homes for the summer and the few foreigners who have bought houses in the village or are staying at a nearby agriturismo. One of my sagra calendars says, ‘Now is the time to rejoice with our people. Popular traditions are the essence of a community, the spirit that, throughout time, remains alive and is transmitted from one generation to the next’. Children are important. At parties they learn effortlessly about the best things from their past.

But Stefano Baccelli, the President of Lucca Province, comes closest to what I feel: ‘The occasion may be an art show, a theatre production, a local folklore event, the passion for artisan crafts or our traditional flavours. In the end, the motivation is of little importance: the thing that counts is the desire for a voyage, for discovery, the will to re-establish a profound dialogue with our history, our traditions, our landscape. If you share this with us, you cross “bridges” and enjoy the journey: welcome back on the human planet.’

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Heather Jarman helps you discover the hidden culinary treasures of Lucca in northwest Tuscany. You can join me for a day, a week or as long as you like. Try to include a weekend so you can come to a sagra. Find out more at Sapori e Saperi Adventures and follow Heather’s own adventures on her blog.

Corpus Domini is one of Orvieto’s most important community events. The day came about because of the miracle of Bolsena where a doubting priest found blood on the alter cloth while giving communion. The cloth was taken the 12 or so kilometers to Orvieto where the Pope was at the time. The Pope declared it a miracle, ordered the building of the cathedral to commemorate the miracle, and established Corpus Domini as a religious holiday, now observed by the Catholic church worldwide.

Now, Orvieto celebrates the event with a weekend long celebration. The culmination is the Corteo Storico, or historic procession. Over 400 men in beautifully handcrafted costumes parade throughout Orvieto. The pageantry is the result of the work of one Lea Pacini, who set about over 50 years ago to create this stellar event.

The Corteo Storico,  is simply stunning in its color, variety, pageantry, and majesty. Our friend Alberto, a protege of the late Pacini, is one of the main knights and organizers of the procession. (When he can, Alberto gives our spring groups behind the scenes tours of the costumes.) He directed us on where best to see the parade. We moved to three different spots in the city as the parade progressed. This was possible because they spend over three hours in procession covering much of Orvieto. We captured them as they emerged from where they dressed and staged the parade. It took a full 30 minutes for everyone to pass by.

There are bugles, drums for many of the different units and each of the four city quadrants. There are fighters with various weapons. There are flags and banners for the different guilds. There are the noblemen, knights, and a few women. Most of the women had gone in the parade the day before. It is truly a beautiful event, and one important to the history of Orvieto.

What follows are a few images capturing a bit of the character of the event. For  coverage in greater detail visit my blog where I began a series yesterday, June 19, covering the Corteo Storico. You can find more coverage of other events of the celebration at my blog on June 2, 3, 4, 5 and 9.

Enjoy!

The stained cloth that led to Corpus Domini

The back of the receptacle holding the cloth

The flags are beautiful!

These are the banners of the various guilds

Look at the tights!

Noblemen

And Noble Lady

Our friend Alberto the knight

The detail!

Over 400 hundred strong

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Kristi and Bill Steiner

Kristi and Bill Steiner began leading “learning vacations”  to Orvieto, Italy in 2003. Through Adventures in Italy they provide a cultural immersion experience. Many trips include the pursuit of some kind of creative work that complements and reinforces exploration of Italy’s culture. Relationships built over the years enable Kristi and Bill to provide experiences that a typical visitor to Orvieto never gets. Trips are held in May and September/October every year. Their Discover Orvieto and Girlfriend Getaway trips are available to groups any time of the year. Learn more about Kristi and Bill’s trips.

Stay abreast of Adventures in Italy developments, and follow Bill’s musings about travel and Italy on his blog Make Haste Slowly.

Prague’s  elegant Rudolfinum is one of the most beautiful concert venues of Europe…and the May 25th evening performance was like no other we have heard there or elsewhere.
We all were spellbound as Giora Fieldman entered the concert hall from a side door, whispering a haunting tune on his clarinet. He approached the stage, and invited us all to sing/hum a single note. With the foundation of our voices, he began the extraordinary concerto (Concerto for Giora) composed for him by  conductor Peter Breiner, accompanied by the Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra.
We didn’t know the clarinet could be played sooo softly.

Giora Fieldman wept and moaned into his clear plexiglass clarinet; then whispered, growled, squawked and screamed into it and the audience melted.
The melody of this amazing piece stays with us for the following days, and the memory of the joyous conductor/composer, who practically danced his way through the piece. Giora, who has played for decades, is so comfortable with his instrument that he can interact

enthusiastically with the audience, orchestra, and conductor…his love for music and people nearly GLOWS.
An unforgettable evening….

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The best way to describe us (Kirk and Anne Woodyard) is that we’re interested in the stories that make the places we visit come alive.
We’ve visited Europe more times than we can count, learned some entertaining stories there, and met some warm and helpful people who also enjoy the wonders of music and life in Europe.

Between our music-related travels, we split our time between our homes near Washington DC and the Languedoc in the south of France. We look forward to sharing these stories and friends and experiences with our Music and Markets guests.

While both of us have experience in organizing travel and music groups Kirk’s background is in project management and competitive writing, and Anne is an accomplished pianist with over thirty years of teaching experience, and a travel and food writer specializing in France and Italy.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since we celebrated the millennium in Paris, watching in delight and awe as the Eiffel Tower lit up with fireworks.

This anniversary of a decade has brought to mind the many holidays we’ve enjoyed in locations other than home…really soaking in the atmosphere of a particular place

There’s the Christmas we spent in London with our son who was studying in the UK for a year…carols and concerts at St. Martin in the Fields, a cold and windy day trip to Bath, Christmas crackers and crowns at a restaurant near Buckingham Palace, and an adventurous train trip north to Edinburgh for Hogmanay, their renowned New Year’s Eve bash.
The posters and advertisements of the celebration showed planet earth, from outer space, with a big arrow pointing to Edinburgh: “The party’s HERE!”And what a party it was – the chilly temperatures didn’t hold anyone back from celebrating! And the spitting snow just added to the magic of the many street performances and the proud hilltop castle.
A few years ago our Slow Travel speeded up a bit. Kirk and I had been in Vias, at our home in France, La Belle Cour, and excitedly drove north to Toulouse to pick up our son, who was flying in from the US. On the way back to Vias we stopped in Carcassonne to give him a taste of old France, then on Thanksgiving Day we drove all day to reach our brother-and-sister-in-law’s home in the French Alps. A turkey dinner complete with all the trimmings was ready to be served to us hungry travelers, and the pleasure of having family to enjoy it with made the long trip worthwhile! We had been singing as we drove – “over the river and through the woods, to Aunt Patty’s house we go!” The holiday that year included some beautiful snowscapes in the mountains, and visits to charming lake-side Annecy.
We’ve spent several Thanksgivings in France – the last two in Paris, where the holiday decorations are already in place, the Christmas markets line the Champs Elysees, and the giant ferris wheel is in place on Place de la Concorde.

Our Thanksgiving dinner of choice in France is duck, not turkey, when we’re eating out!
Here or there, the greatest pleasure of all is being with friends and family to celebrate the holidays. We’ll get an early start on Christmas celebrations this weekend, when we join our son and his wife and our newest granddaughter (not even a week old!), Ivy, in Texas. Then the fun will continue as we celebrate Christmas with our daughter and family in Florida.
And then – maybe Paris again? I really think we should celebrate the decade since the millennium by the Eiffel Tower again, don’t you?!

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The best way to describe us (Kirk and Anne Woodyard) is that we’re interested in the stories that make the places we visit come alive.
We’ve visited Europe more times than we can count, learned some entertaining stories there, and met some warm and helpful people who also enjoy the wonders of music and life in Europe.

Between our music-related travels, we split our time between our homes near Washington DC and the Languedoc in the south of France. We look forward to sharing these stories and friends and experiences with our Music and Markets guests.

While both of us have experience in organizing travel and music groups Kirk’s background is in project management and competitive writing, and Anne is an accomplished pianist with over thirty years of teaching experience, and a travel and food writer specializing in France and Italy.

As I write this I am watching snowfall steadily covering the grass and I am reminded that this weekend kicks off the holiday season in Italy, ushered in officially with the festa della immacolata on December 8.  Lights will be strung across narrow streets, and piazzas will be packed with people admiring the displays and enjoying festivities.

Prosecco

Our adopted city of Ascoli Piceno is particularly pretty this time of year.  A skating rink will be erected in Piazza Arringo and a carousel will merrily whirl in Piazza del Popolo.  The weekly mercato grows larger than usual; kids squeal in delight as one shop window after another begins to display glittery goods and appealing apparel.  Despite the cold, everyone wants to be outside to stroll.

The holidays in Italy are enjoyable as they seem more sedate and less commercial than in the US.  There is not the over-hyped shopping frenzy or unending, inescapable muzak flow of canned carols everywhere.  Emphasis is placed on spending time with family and friends, food (no surprise there!) and enjoying the festive atmosphere in simple ways.

While there are many regional differences and traditions, we have noticed that there are some common denominators throughout the peninsula when it comes to Christmas-time celebrations.

Panettone

- Prosecco.  The Italian sparkling wine of choice is popped open for aperitivo with friends, and uncorked to end holiday meals as a toast to the guests just before they depart, a sort of christening for Christmas and the upcoming new year. It is often purchased by the case and will be consumed frequently from the Immacolata right on through Epiphany.

- Panettone.  Unlike the weighty fruitcakes that we grew up with, panettone is a high-rise bread-textured sweetened loaf containing small pieces of candied fruit and raisins.  Huge boxes contain the confections, which are handed out like greeting cards to all acquaintances.  Panettone is served at the end of nearly every meal for the next month.  It is the most traditional holiday fare no matter where you go in Italy, and it can be found in commercially-produced versions at the supermarket, or homemade varieties that are proffered in the pasticcerias.

Presepio

- Presepi.  By far the most popular seasonal decoration is the nativity scene.  From humble mangers to elaborate displays and live, almost theatrical scenes played out in great detail, the nativity is a treasured tradition.  It is said that St. Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene, and his birthplace certainly pulls out the stops with decorative displays from around the world.  Every church and town has their own version and local residents enjoy strolling from one to the next to behold the year’s new themes and variations.

Outside the snow is stopping but thoughts of the simple pleasures of the holiday season linger.  If you can’t travel to Italy, you can still adopt some of these traditions to give your holidays an Italian flair.  However you choose to celebrate, Bryan and I wish you buone feste.

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Valerie Schneider is a travel professional turned freelance writer and tour guide who moved to Ascoli Piceno in the beautiful region of Le Marche in 2006. She and her husband Bryan operate Panorama Italy, planning personalized journeys so travelers can experience the colors and flavors of a little known corner of Italy. Walking tours, winery visits, and genealogy trips are just a few of their offerings. Visit Panorama Italy for more information on this beautiful place and how Valerie and Bryan can help you experience it personally.