May 13, 2008

Miryam and Gigi picked us up at the hotel and took us to the train station. Our 8:39 am train picked us up promptly and we were off to Sorrento. Our lovely hosts had us seated in first class and we were able to comfortably work on the blog and/or sleep depending on the team member.

Tranquillino and Renato met us at the train station in Sorrento to drive us to Avellino. Tranquillino is a civil attorney and Renato is a doctor of geriatrics. On the way to lunch, we picked up Maria Louisa who is one of the members of the team from Italy that visited District 7450 in April.

We had a nice lunch in the mountains before heading to City Hall. We met the Assistant Mayor. He showed us a movie about Avellino and then presented us each with a copy of the video along with a blessed picture with a copy of the Madonna portrait they have in the monastery. Next we visited this monastery that was built in the 1100s. The resident monks lived on the mountain but came to the monastery during the winter months so they could help people in the hospital. The original house was destroyed by an earthquake in 1732, but rebuilt by Domenico Baccado. Today this monastery serves as home to public archives and has a large library. Many of the ancient works were written by hand by the monks in an effort to preserve the history of the town as well as the history of the world. There is a room in the monastery away from the library which holds a number of very old manuscripts. You have to be a specialist to receive permission to view these documents. There is an ancient pharmacy in the monastery. They had one room to hold all of the ingredients and another room where they mixed the medicinal herbs. To this day people visit the monastery asking the monks to cure their illnesses. They still have a number of the old measuring tools and jars that were used which they managed to save during the war. In the library are scrolls that date back to the 900s.

For dinner we went to the Ristorante Barone in downtown Avellino and enjoyed some Campania dishes such as fried zucchini flowers stuffed with cheese and pumpkin marinated in olive oil. We enjoyed dinner with a number of Rotary and Rotoract members including the Avellino Rotary Club President. Jason and Nick stayed with host families while Jane and Martina stayed in a hotel. Jason stayed with Tranquillino’s family. Nick stayed with Tranquillino’s friend and neighbor Tomas.