Peabody Museum

We took the granddaughters to Yale's Peabody Museum on Wednesday..  The museum re-opened recently after a four-year renovation.  It was magical.  I don't know if the children or grandpa enjoyed it more.

One walks along a path embossed with dinosaur footprints to approach the natural history museum, passing by a 2005 sculpture of a Torosaurus Latus by Michael Anderson.

Torosaurus Latus was a herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, some 66 million years ago. It has great significance to the Peabody Museum as it was described and named by O.C. Marsh, world-famous dinosaur collector, Yale's first professor of paleontology, and one of the three original curators of the Museum.

I will probably show photographs from inside the museum in future days and weeks if I can figure out which ones I took and which ones were taken by the nine year old granddaughter who took my iPhone.

First Congregational Church of Ridgefield

 

The side of the church, lit well both inside and outside, looked great to me.

Rose Weekend

 

I have visited Elizabeth Park when the roses are at peak for more than forty years.

Two Dancers

 I visited Elizabeth Park on Saturday.  

Two young women danced in the rose garden.

Reading

 

This is a new mural by Michael Rice on the back side of a  parking garage on Asylum Avenue in Hartford.

Linked to Monday Mural.

New Neighbors

While I was away, new neighbors moved in.

They keep coming to my front door, but whenever they see me approach, they leave fast.

Looks like they are about to have children.

 Until the births, I will be using the garage door to go in and out.

Polignano's Tribute to its Patron Saint

All week we have walked past these unlit structures along Polignano's main streets and piazza.

For the weekend, they have been lit, to honor St. Vito, the town's patron saint.

It was worth the wait. 

Polignano

 I have been staying in Polignano, a town on the Adriatic, and taking day trips to other towns in Apullia.

Domenico Modugno, a Polignano native, wrote and sang Volare.  His home town is very proud of him.  Everyone who passes his seaside statue has to be photographed echoing his joyful expression.

At night, streets with Volare's lyrics are lit from above.

The beach is surrounded by cliffs.  It is very busy on the weekend.

I have a pretty "golden hour" view from the balcony off my hotel room.

The view from my balcony back toward the bridge, Ponte Borbonico su Lama Monachile, in early evening.

Looking back at the hotel from the bridge.

A Day Trip to Monopoli

I took a quick trip to Monopoli, a charming town on the Adriatic Sea, but my timing was bad.  Several of the features I would have liked to see were closed from noon to 4 p.m.

Boats in an inlet beside Castello Carlo V, a seaside fortress from the 16th century.

A fisherman mending nets.

Shops like those all over Italy.  I liked these.

A fisherman's hall had several exhibits, plus a dozen or so large, wonderful photos of fishermen.

Castello Carlo V had an exhibit of works by Dali, Miro, Ernst and others.

I don't remember which churches these were, but they were all closed.

A local artist had rented space in a former church to display his paintings.

This is the rear side of a big monument in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuelle II.  (The light was better than in the front.)  A big wreath is over the inscription on the other side, so I don't know what it is all about.

I rarely pass up a chance to photograph a nice deus chateaux.

Matera

 Matera is a very old city inland from Bari.  People have lived in Matera since the Palaeolithic period, a time when woolly mammoths roamed the earth and the last Ice Age was winding down, about 15,000 B.C.

People originally lived in caves.  Eventually one room stone houses were built above the caves,  The structures looked like houses on the outside, but many were still caves inside.

The houses have no heat, the alleyways are narrow, steps are slippery and steep.

Life has always been very difficult in Matera. 

In the 19th and early 20th century, there was much poverty and disease in Matera.  People lived in one-room stone homes—or caves—without heat or plumbing, often with donkeys or other animals sharing the same space.   in 1952, Italy passed a law forcing Matera’s dwellers out of their old quarters.

But in 1993, the area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. As Matera has become more popular, people have started moving back into the stone homes and even opening them as luxury hotels.

The Trulli of Alberobello

 Spending some time in Apulia (or, as the Italians say, Puglia), the heel of Italy's boot.

The town of Alberobello holds about 1500 trulli, which are dwellings made by dry-stone limestone construction, usually with conical roofs made from limestone slabs.  

The technique dates back to prehistoric times.

Some of the structures in Alberobello date back as far as the 14th century.  

The trulli of Alberobello were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1998.

Fountain and Inn

A fountain at the intersection of Main Street and West Lane is Ridgefield's symbol.  It was a gift from noted architect Cass Gilbert, who lived nearby.  Drunken drivers keep running into it.  The fountain has had a recent restoration, for which a generous and anonymous Ridgefield citizen paid half of the cost.

The fountain is now raised above the roadway in hopes that drunks will hit the lower level before damaging the fountain.  Flowers are changed with the seasons.  Fountain Inn is visible beyond the fountain.  I have not yet had a reason to book a room for visitors, but I hear that it is terrific. 

Sneakers

 The owner of Ridgefield Running Company is a successful entrepreneur.  She is also very civic-minded.  This summer she has spearheaded a program in which artists funded by local businesses decorated big fiberglass and resin sneakers, which are displayed around the downtown. 

Compassion.

In front of Queen B Coffee.

This sneaker is displayed in front of Ridgefield Town Hall.  After Run Like a Mother, there was a station where kids and their mothers could get paint smeared on their hands, then press them agains this sneaker.  My daughter's and two granddaughters' handprints are among the ones on this sneaker.

Some of the sneaker forms were smaller.  Individual agents from a real estate firm decorated and displayed sneakers outside Books on the Common.

 In September the sneakers will be auctioned off.  The proceeds will fund kids' and arts' programs.