Cinqueterra is so very different from Tuscany. The food is still outrageously good - if you find the right restaurant - but now the highlights are seafood and white wine, thick soft breads and pesto. And the air is so warm and you immediately relax because of that feeling you get in the hot sun, near to the ocean. Different immediately.
Seems like a week ago but it was just day before yesterday, we got up REALLY early and drove from dawn to noon from Pitigliano, then up this old roman route called the Via Cassia, up several river valleys, back to Siena. We really enjoyed it... we stopped for early morning coffee and tasty brioches in a great town called Acquapendente which had a totally comfortable feeling downtown, a nice nontouristy blend of old roman city, old medieval layout so narrowish streets, but a downtown that was more 1800s to modern. It was nice to go in for coffee with a bunch of locals whizzing in and out getting their daily standards SO quick, while we lingered to sample as many different kinds of pastry as we could it seemed like. we have finally after this learned, only one breakfast pastry thing or your stomach will feel like lead for a while. I figured out that the reason this countryside seems more relaxed than further up north in tuscany, is just that, not every hill is crowned with a major villa or farmhouse... some hilltops are actually, just hilltops, not someones estate or agri-tourisme. On our left was this huge volcano that the romans use for skiing these days in the winter. As we got up closer to the Montalcino-Montepulciano area, the fields turned back again into the gray tuscan large clod soil and the farmhouses got more estaty, more visible and more numerous. but it was all good. We stopped again a few times, once to check out an old hot springs that was designed into a large pool by the Medici for the use of pilgrims and travelers between the north of Tuscany and Rome, it was a great hillside place, Bagni di something... then we also stopped at another hilltown. they start to seem really similar. We dropped our car in Siena, went to Florence by speedy bus then changed to train to Lucca. We really like the trains... great people watching and a great look at the rural area... on the freeways, seems like mostly you see the freeway due to the speed. We passed huge nurseries where they grow every ornamental tree in italy and we passed huge greenhouses and we passed pinoccios hilltown in the distance which looks just like the 1930s movie was painted from it and did lots of people watching on the train... lots of teenagers going from school in florence to their homes on the outskirts.
Well we meant to stay 2 nights in Lucca and go up to the local mountains during the day. but honestly we could not take another touristy ville. Lucca was fine but too familiar... big white churches, narrow quaint streets filled with shoe stores scarf stores and tourists.... And Lucca did not seem to have any easy to find excellent food. the one restaurant we finally chose, the menu was full of things Americans would think are italian food-- veal scaloppine, things like that. and everyone who sat near us seemed to be American and what did they order? the veal scaloppine. Enough already. So in the morning we got on the train again and it was great. we went through the coolest semi-mountain area then to the coast to this cutely ugly modern little town called Viareggio and then we went right by the huge mountains made of marble and huge yards of giant white marble cubes... and then around a few hills and marshes, to la Spezia.
At this time we abandoned all formal trains and got on the very relaxed local trains that transit through the cinqueterra. This is a great area where steep dry-ish mountains covered with shale terraces, old olive trees, old overgrown fields, drop into the ocean and there are about five orange-yellow towns that cling to these narrow ravines. They used to hardly be able to reach each other, except by water and even that was not easy. now as everyone knows you can hike from one to the other. so thats what we all do... and come back by the little local trains, which go about five minutes between stops, and are mostly in tunnels, hardly ever out in the open air, due to how steep the hillsides are.
There are lots of tourists here again but they are so manageable... no little tour guides holding flags... lots of interesting languages... english is NOT the dominant language, nothing seems to be... and the locals seem to be very amused in general. they laugh at all our italian struggles and some totally seem to ham up the idea of being a grandiose italian waiter. I swear some are putting on the act. Its fun to watch.
If you get to the two or three smaller villages it is not that hard to find a really good meal. I think Craig is writing about our great food.
oh good I just read his post and he did a great job on the Cinque Terra. I would only mention I do NOT think Vernazza is really that quiet... it is just that it has some great amenities and it is the best laid out of all the towns and a really nice place to be. Also he did not mention our great room and our great discovery of it. At the station this oily-smoooth talking guy started to chat Craig up about his great room that was available, and how it was only 90 euros and he was recommended by Rick steves... what a smooth moover, he is not listed at all and the going rate is not 90 euros its 60 to 70. we went to see his room which was convenient thats for sure... right on the main drag, noisy and not very charming. we told him we'd be back if we could not find something in our budget. Well immediately this incredibly sweet looking 4 foot tall grandmother beckons to us and says in italian with a few english words, she said mare, mare, beautiful room, mare. we followed her up a little street that is all stairs, turned right on antother street that is all stairs, turned into the first doorway and up 3 more flights of stairs... and there was our little room, a little whitewashed room with a little enclosed balcony that has our shower on one end, our bathroom on the other, with a window that opens straight out onto the mare, the ocean. it is adorable. below is a little courtyard, we are not the only ones looking out at the mare, but our room is totally private. the whitewashed wall has a few smushed mosquitos on it and our bed is a little soggy so I was a little worried about bedbugs but after our first 24 hours here I am still in love with our little room and also our little grandmother landlady, Elia. Her place is at Via Mazzini number 1, a place she shares with another B&B, and her phone is 333 495 2967, not that you could ever really talk with her if you were not fluent in italian.but she communicated great. the room was originaly 70 euros but for 3 nights we paid 65 a night. she was a hard bargainer.
Two more things Craigs did not mention. first of all, have you ever seen a tiny caterpillar tractor take 12 large bricks directly up streets that are a flight of stairs? its a hilarious but effective thing. looks like a little robot. we have seen at least 2 of these. Second... I have never seen a town as full of comfortable, overfed, friendly cats. they have little doormats here and there place by locals, they trade off who gets to use them. a few sleep in boats. anyway most of them you can stop and pet. they are tortoise shell types, and calico types and a black manx. and have green eyes.. very nice !
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Head is the Best Part!
Aaaahhhhh. We are out of Tuscany and on the coast of the Cinque Terre in the lovely small town of Vernazza. The Cinque Terre must be one of the most beautiful coastal spots anywhere. Five tiny villages nestled in valleys and on hilltops, all right on the sea except one. Four out the five are very small with limited places to stay (the largest, Monterosa, is more of a resort and can be missed). The towns are all linked by trails that are easily hiked, about 10 kilometers of trail in all.
We arrived here yesterday morning after 1/2 day in Lucca, which, frankly, was 1/2 day too long. Lucca is pretty, with nice walls and all that, but enough already. We are just ready to be by the sea. So we arrived in the morning and as we were walking down the main street with our suitcases a little nona came up to us and said she had a room for us to look at with a sea view. Climbing not too many stairs we saw a very nice little room which indeed had a sea view and nothing below us, so no possible noise. Only 65 euros, which I think is a pretty good deal here,.
Vernazza is just so darned quaint. Except for the boatloads of tourists who unload here between 10am and 4pm, it is fairly quiet and not over run. For lunch we ate in a restaurant overlooking the town and had a frito misto (mixed fried fish), which included shrimp, squid, sardines and other assorted sea creatures.
Now about eating fried shrimp. All experienced fried shrimp eaters know that the best part is the head. Some people, no names mentioned here, will just not eat the head. But that leaves extra heads for those who are not squeamish about such things.
To get around these villages you can either hike or take the train. The train stops in each of the towns and leaves every half hour or so. So we took the train down to Riomaggiore, the southernmost town. This is a very narrow village that goes from the sea up about 300 feet.
We explored the town, saw some fisherman hanging out at the port, and then had our daily afternoon gelato. The pause that refreshes. From this town it is an easy 20 minute hike to the next town, Manarola. This turned out to be my second favorite town, after Vernazza, and the one with the best restaurant so far. We explored this town for an hour or so and then saw the sunset from the path that goes to the next town.
We had dinner in a restaurant right up from the port. It was across the street from the one that was "Raccomeded" by Rick Steves (according to the sign on the window), which Amy refuses to go to (in truth, everything there is 2 euros more then the one we went to). We had a great mixed seafood, trifie with pesto (pesto is from this region and trifie are these short, narrow noodles), stuffed clams, mixed salad and a walnut cake. This was all washed down with the local white, grown a few hundred meters up the hill. Mmmmmm-mmmmm good. We met some very nice young women from Slovenia who were at the table next to us. I had to admit I had no idea where Slovenia was, but in fact, it is only a five hour drive from here in the former Yugoslavia. They were very nice, but unfortunately for them they were staying in the dreary nearby town of La Spezia. After dinner we waddled to the train station and took the 10 minute ride back to Vernazza. The night was spent listening to the ocean waves banging against the cliff below our window.
This morning we woke up early and after a quick breakfast of capuccino and a croissant, were the first ones on the trail to Corneglia, a 2 hour or so hike south to the next village. This hike is a little harder, as it goes up about 700 feet. Amy has had a bum knee for awhile, but it seems to be getting better as she had very little trouble going up or down. The hike has a beautiful view of Vernazza and then goes into some pretty old olive groves.
And the nicest thing was being on the trail early in the morning, mostly in the shade, before the heat of the day sets in and before the hordes hit the trail. By the time we reached Corneglia, we only saw 8 or 10 other hikers. We had a nice little coffee in Corneglia and met a very nice Aussie couple, Richard and Laurie. We started talking politics, as Amy just assumes that everyone outside of the US is going to be an Obama supporter. But it turns out that Richard is more to the right, shall we say, and they had a nice and lively discussion. Richard is a very cool guy, even though he doesnt believe in global warming. They are in the Cinque Terre for 7 days, which gives plenty of time for hiking.
So this afternoon we will probably take a swim here in town and then have a nice fish dinner tonight. Tomorrow we plan on hiking way, way up to a village about 1300 feet up from the coast....Ciao!!!!
We arrived here yesterday morning after 1/2 day in Lucca, which, frankly, was 1/2 day too long. Lucca is pretty, with nice walls and all that, but enough already. We are just ready to be by the sea. So we arrived in the morning and as we were walking down the main street with our suitcases a little nona came up to us and said she had a room for us to look at with a sea view. Climbing not too many stairs we saw a very nice little room which indeed had a sea view and nothing below us, so no possible noise. Only 65 euros, which I think is a pretty good deal here,.
Vernazza is just so darned quaint. Except for the boatloads of tourists who unload here between 10am and 4pm, it is fairly quiet and not over run. For lunch we ate in a restaurant overlooking the town and had a frito misto (mixed fried fish), which included shrimp, squid, sardines and other assorted sea creatures.
Now about eating fried shrimp. All experienced fried shrimp eaters know that the best part is the head. Some people, no names mentioned here, will just not eat the head. But that leaves extra heads for those who are not squeamish about such things.
To get around these villages you can either hike or take the train. The train stops in each of the towns and leaves every half hour or so. So we took the train down to Riomaggiore, the southernmost town. This is a very narrow village that goes from the sea up about 300 feet.
We explored the town, saw some fisherman hanging out at the port, and then had our daily afternoon gelato. The pause that refreshes. From this town it is an easy 20 minute hike to the next town, Manarola. This turned out to be my second favorite town, after Vernazza, and the one with the best restaurant so far. We explored this town for an hour or so and then saw the sunset from the path that goes to the next town.
We had dinner in a restaurant right up from the port. It was across the street from the one that was "Raccomeded" by Rick Steves (according to the sign on the window), which Amy refuses to go to (in truth, everything there is 2 euros more then the one we went to). We had a great mixed seafood, trifie with pesto (pesto is from this region and trifie are these short, narrow noodles), stuffed clams, mixed salad and a walnut cake. This was all washed down with the local white, grown a few hundred meters up the hill. Mmmmmm-mmmmm good. We met some very nice young women from Slovenia who were at the table next to us. I had to admit I had no idea where Slovenia was, but in fact, it is only a five hour drive from here in the former Yugoslavia. They were very nice, but unfortunately for them they were staying in the dreary nearby town of La Spezia. After dinner we waddled to the train station and took the 10 minute ride back to Vernazza. The night was spent listening to the ocean waves banging against the cliff below our window.
This morning we woke up early and after a quick breakfast of capuccino and a croissant, were the first ones on the trail to Corneglia, a 2 hour or so hike south to the next village. This hike is a little harder, as it goes up about 700 feet. Amy has had a bum knee for awhile, but it seems to be getting better as she had very little trouble going up or down. The hike has a beautiful view of Vernazza and then goes into some pretty old olive groves.
And the nicest thing was being on the trail early in the morning, mostly in the shade, before the heat of the day sets in and before the hordes hit the trail. By the time we reached Corneglia, we only saw 8 or 10 other hikers. We had a nice little coffee in Corneglia and met a very nice Aussie couple, Richard and Laurie. We started talking politics, as Amy just assumes that everyone outside of the US is going to be an Obama supporter. But it turns out that Richard is more to the right, shall we say, and they had a nice and lively discussion. Richard is a very cool guy, even though he doesnt believe in global warming. They are in the Cinque Terre for 7 days, which gives plenty of time for hiking.
So this afternoon we will probably take a swim here in town and then have a nice fish dinner tonight. Tomorrow we plan on hiking way, way up to a village about 1300 feet up from the coast....Ciao!!!!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Alicante, at the Inn of the Rabbit
Wow, today was our favorite day in Italy ever. We have been really lucky to have found this area and pretty much by ourselves. from the time we left °Rick Steves favorite hill town° of Citiva di bagnoregio, at 2 pm yesterday, to the time we got back from a long adventurous day at 7 pm, we heard not a word of any word but Italian. then tonight we have maybe heard one word of American (but not sure) and we had some very discrete english couple who barefly muffled an audible word at our next table. We have really enjoyed being inside the community of weekend tourists from Rome, and then today and tonight, lots of locals, just sitting around enjoying the day.
Sitting around enjoying the day... if you are older than 50, you seem to be entitled to do just that. you could be chatting with your buds, or just whiling away the hours. we saw a nice old guy today with no obvious teeth, happily enjoying a gelato cone, in a little piazza with about 4 tables of locals, in a little hill town in the Maremma, Montemorano.
This area seems really lovely to us. There are woods, with second growth oak and chestnut and other hardwoods, often in what probably were fields a generation ago. but there are lots of nice fields, freshly ploughed, showing lots of the colors of the earth, everything from rich brown, to a very light grey, to yellow ochre color, orange and even rich red soils. Like paintbrush colors. This area is all volcanic, apparently millenia ago there were huge pyroclastic flows, leaving lots and lots of erodible tufa, so there are high plateaus, high ridges, deep gorges lined with yellow cliffs and lots of caves, and here and there, rolling farmland. lots of areas for agricultural crops which are all freshly ploughed now, and some sheep land and some grapes and some olives and some apple orchards. Really nice. There are a few hill towns, they are a really nice blend of the old and the new and hardly any have been °cutified° the way the more famous hill towns have been. When there are stores they are hardly aimed at hard core tourists, there are a few knickknack stores selling Etruscan pots and finely painted ceramics and linen clothes, but nothing makes you clutch your wallet and run the other way. There have been lots of tourists in 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s and the occasional great big busload but these are all Italian folks, with a mix of generations, so we have had nice times watching small clusters of older ladies having ice cream on one bench while all their menfolk hang out across the street, almost as if they dont know each other.
Tonight also in Pitigliano we got to sit out on one of the many small squares, having Punt e Mes to drink and sitting among all the local folks, of all ages, sitting, greeting each other, hugging so and sos little boy, and eating peanuts and whatever they want to drink. hardly drinking at all in fact just socializing in front of the local bar-cafe, and the local waitress seems not at all perturbed at everyone just hanging out at her place.
So about the title of todays blog. Alicante is a type of grape and we had an awesome wine, a 100% alicante grape Maremma Toscana IGT, made by a winery called Tenute Poggio al Tufo Tommassi, along with a Morellino de Scansano which is a famous °black° wine. both had really rich flavors, sorry I do not know how to explain wine flavors well, but really serene blend of rich flavors on the tonuge. and the Alicante was just a little bit bubbly when first opened. even though it is a red wine. It almost but not quite fizzed, it was not at all unpleasant.
Today Craig did a LOT of driving. in the morning we woke up and looked out our hotel window both ways along the cliffs of our hill town which were nicely lit in the first morning sun, then we went down the severe s shaped road to the base of the cliffs, looked up at the town and also saw all the many many little storage caves hand-hammered into the rock. some are small bodegas others are quite large enough for cars and some are humongous. some of these caves have been here since the ice age neolithic times. others were made and extended and carved by the Etruscans who were here from 900 bc or thereabouts til the Romans creamed them in bc 350, and they were good pals with the greeks so their funerary caves had greek columns and greek style carvings all over. a few are left. they also made these very unusual deep carved highways, like little roads 8 feet wide and lined by 30 foot cliff faces on both sides, hand pecked from the soft tufa rock, no one knows why, either for spiritual reasons or because they just liked being able to walk out of the sun. I am sure until very recently, everyone used donkeys to get around in these trails, but nowadays in Pitigliano, the only donkey you see is a bronze monument they put up to them, to remember how key they were to life here when life was hard and comforts were expensive and there were no motors. now there are lots of motors, in fact one of our favorite events at one hill town, Civita de Bagnoregio, was that although no cars go in and out of this town, and it has a very long staircase up to it, a motorbike can go in, and out, lickety split in a tight curvy stepped runway that I would never think to come up or down on a bike.
Anyway, about Craig and driving... we went from Pitigliano to Sovana, a pretty little town a little touristified,... then down a lot of vaguely labeled country roads, accidentally going up to another hill town we had NO intention of visiting, where about six farmers, taking a day off, enjoyed the sight of us u turning our little car and going back on down the hill.... then through at least two other yellow-orange hills towns on our way north to Scansano, where we went to the wine festival Craig has just been writing about... then back down to Montemoreno, where we saw the gumless old ice cream cone eater and also a very interesting group of 3 women, all about fifty, at least 2 looking like women of a certain profession, one with a very interesting top of the head ponytail which then cascaded down on her breast, of mixed very white and very black hair... and elaborate makeup with eyebrows only she herself could have invented, and a little black and white polkadotty outfit, tight pants and high heels. Then we went to a very famous little town, Saturnia, which has sulfury hot springs that cascade down like something out of Dr Seuss, only jam jam packed with swimmers... then over hills and down plateaus again back to pitigliano, and up to a really neat very ghosty hill town called Sorano which is so high up a cliff above its narrow gorged river, it is almost like being on the edge of the grand canyon.
When I first read about Pitigliano and its neighbor towns I expected something really crumbly and quaint, but its not like that. the towns have truly ancient centers, but they are well restored and laden with cool pots of flowers and herbs and lots of wrought iron. local folks look totally normal, the kids are riding the same bikes and scooters as american middle class kids, people dress fashionably, and the older ladies dont go around in black or anything like that, they wear nice flowered dressed and some elegant jackets and sweaters and it would be nice to talk with some of them, to find out howzit.
Sitting around enjoying the day... if you are older than 50, you seem to be entitled to do just that. you could be chatting with your buds, or just whiling away the hours. we saw a nice old guy today with no obvious teeth, happily enjoying a gelato cone, in a little piazza with about 4 tables of locals, in a little hill town in the Maremma, Montemorano.
This area seems really lovely to us. There are woods, with second growth oak and chestnut and other hardwoods, often in what probably were fields a generation ago. but there are lots of nice fields, freshly ploughed, showing lots of the colors of the earth, everything from rich brown, to a very light grey, to yellow ochre color, orange and even rich red soils. Like paintbrush colors. This area is all volcanic, apparently millenia ago there were huge pyroclastic flows, leaving lots and lots of erodible tufa, so there are high plateaus, high ridges, deep gorges lined with yellow cliffs and lots of caves, and here and there, rolling farmland. lots of areas for agricultural crops which are all freshly ploughed now, and some sheep land and some grapes and some olives and some apple orchards. Really nice. There are a few hill towns, they are a really nice blend of the old and the new and hardly any have been °cutified° the way the more famous hill towns have been. When there are stores they are hardly aimed at hard core tourists, there are a few knickknack stores selling Etruscan pots and finely painted ceramics and linen clothes, but nothing makes you clutch your wallet and run the other way. There have been lots of tourists in 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s and the occasional great big busload but these are all Italian folks, with a mix of generations, so we have had nice times watching small clusters of older ladies having ice cream on one bench while all their menfolk hang out across the street, almost as if they dont know each other.
Tonight also in Pitigliano we got to sit out on one of the many small squares, having Punt e Mes to drink and sitting among all the local folks, of all ages, sitting, greeting each other, hugging so and sos little boy, and eating peanuts and whatever they want to drink. hardly drinking at all in fact just socializing in front of the local bar-cafe, and the local waitress seems not at all perturbed at everyone just hanging out at her place.
So about the title of todays blog. Alicante is a type of grape and we had an awesome wine, a 100% alicante grape Maremma Toscana IGT, made by a winery called Tenute Poggio al Tufo Tommassi, along with a Morellino de Scansano which is a famous °black° wine. both had really rich flavors, sorry I do not know how to explain wine flavors well, but really serene blend of rich flavors on the tonuge. and the Alicante was just a little bit bubbly when first opened. even though it is a red wine. It almost but not quite fizzed, it was not at all unpleasant.
Today Craig did a LOT of driving. in the morning we woke up and looked out our hotel window both ways along the cliffs of our hill town which were nicely lit in the first morning sun, then we went down the severe s shaped road to the base of the cliffs, looked up at the town and also saw all the many many little storage caves hand-hammered into the rock. some are small bodegas others are quite large enough for cars and some are humongous. some of these caves have been here since the ice age neolithic times. others were made and extended and carved by the Etruscans who were here from 900 bc or thereabouts til the Romans creamed them in bc 350, and they were good pals with the greeks so their funerary caves had greek columns and greek style carvings all over. a few are left. they also made these very unusual deep carved highways, like little roads 8 feet wide and lined by 30 foot cliff faces on both sides, hand pecked from the soft tufa rock, no one knows why, either for spiritual reasons or because they just liked being able to walk out of the sun. I am sure until very recently, everyone used donkeys to get around in these trails, but nowadays in Pitigliano, the only donkey you see is a bronze monument they put up to them, to remember how key they were to life here when life was hard and comforts were expensive and there were no motors. now there are lots of motors, in fact one of our favorite events at one hill town, Civita de Bagnoregio, was that although no cars go in and out of this town, and it has a very long staircase up to it, a motorbike can go in, and out, lickety split in a tight curvy stepped runway that I would never think to come up or down on a bike.
Anyway, about Craig and driving... we went from Pitigliano to Sovana, a pretty little town a little touristified,... then down a lot of vaguely labeled country roads, accidentally going up to another hill town we had NO intention of visiting, where about six farmers, taking a day off, enjoyed the sight of us u turning our little car and going back on down the hill.... then through at least two other yellow-orange hills towns on our way north to Scansano, where we went to the wine festival Craig has just been writing about... then back down to Montemoreno, where we saw the gumless old ice cream cone eater and also a very interesting group of 3 women, all about fifty, at least 2 looking like women of a certain profession, one with a very interesting top of the head ponytail which then cascaded down on her breast, of mixed very white and very black hair... and elaborate makeup with eyebrows only she herself could have invented, and a little black and white polkadotty outfit, tight pants and high heels. Then we went to a very famous little town, Saturnia, which has sulfury hot springs that cascade down like something out of Dr Seuss, only jam jam packed with swimmers... then over hills and down plateaus again back to pitigliano, and up to a really neat very ghosty hill town called Sorano which is so high up a cliff above its narrow gorged river, it is almost like being on the edge of the grand canyon.
When I first read about Pitigliano and its neighbor towns I expected something really crumbly and quaint, but its not like that. the towns have truly ancient centers, but they are well restored and laden with cool pots of flowers and herbs and lots of wrought iron. local folks look totally normal, the kids are riding the same bikes and scooters as american middle class kids, people dress fashionably, and the older ladies dont go around in black or anything like that, they wear nice flowered dressed and some elegant jackets and sweaters and it would be nice to talk with some of them, to find out howzit.
Punte Mes, Beer Nuts and Black Wine...
Whew!!! Today was quite a day. A day filled with hill villages, wine, food...among other things. The main target today was a wine festival in the town of Scanzano, about 30 miles from Pitigilano. This was the festival of the local wine, Morello de Scanzano, known around here as the 'Black Wine'. It is called this because it is a really dark, dark red. And as it turns out, quite tasty.
On the way here we went to these very interesting Etruscan roads called la Via Cava. These are huge trenches dug into the tufa, as tall as 40 feet and about 10 feet or more wide. The Etruscans just dug these things out of the hill as a road...no one really knows wide. But they are really very interesting.
We finally made it to Scanzano and after finding a parking place at the top of the hill walked down to where they had the wine tasting. The tasting was really several different people serving glasses of the local wine along with tasty local dishes. We had a couple of glasses of the Morello de Sconzana before finding a place for lunch. Here, you have lunch with the other people at long tables. We were the only foreigners in town, I didn't here any other language but Italian the whole time we were there. Amy and I split a lunch of pasta cooked in wine, rabbit marinated in wine and a chocolate cake, along with the local wine.
From there we went to another hilltown, forgot the name already, and I had the biggest gelato yet. I dont think i have talked about gelato, but of course Italy has the best ice cream in the world. It is hard to explain if you have never had it, but just take the best Hagen Daas you have ever had and multiply it times 10. Today it was dark chocolate, mint chocolate and caffe. OHMYGAWD. And just sitting eating it on the town square of this little hill village, just us and the locals. None of these towns are in Rick Steves so there are no Americans here. But no Germans or french either. Just a lot of Romans, as Rome is less then 100k from here. Most of them have little yippy dogs with them and when they drive, they come right up on your ass within about 2 feet. What is with that???? Then when there is a long straight away they often just stay there like they like to be in your slip stream or something. Dont really know what that is all about, but what the hell, I am in their country and that is that.
Tonight is our last night in this, by far my favorite hill town, pitigliano. We had a nice cocktail at the Bar Centrale, just us and a bunch of nonas and bepos (grandmas and grandpas??) hanging out in the town square. We had my favorite italian aperitivo, Punte Mes. And they served it with all things, Beer Nuts!! It is a great combination, by the way.
We had dinner with crostinis of lardo (yes, more lardo), roast leg of pork and cingiale cacciattore. Cingiale is the wild pig and is my favorite food find here, maybe even above lardo. The other day we got a salami of cingiale and it was the best salami i have ever had.
With dinner we had more fantastic wine, the Morella de Sconzano we had earlier and also an alicante from here. Amazing, dark, rich and the alicante was a bit bubbly. I hope I can find these at home, but not sure if they are exported.
On the way here we went to these very interesting Etruscan roads called la Via Cava. These are huge trenches dug into the tufa, as tall as 40 feet and about 10 feet or more wide. The Etruscans just dug these things out of the hill as a road...no one really knows wide. But they are really very interesting.
We finally made it to Scanzano and after finding a parking place at the top of the hill walked down to where they had the wine tasting. The tasting was really several different people serving glasses of the local wine along with tasty local dishes. We had a couple of glasses of the Morello de Sconzana before finding a place for lunch. Here, you have lunch with the other people at long tables. We were the only foreigners in town, I didn't here any other language but Italian the whole time we were there. Amy and I split a lunch of pasta cooked in wine, rabbit marinated in wine and a chocolate cake, along with the local wine.
From there we went to another hilltown, forgot the name already, and I had the biggest gelato yet. I dont think i have talked about gelato, but of course Italy has the best ice cream in the world. It is hard to explain if you have never had it, but just take the best Hagen Daas you have ever had and multiply it times 10. Today it was dark chocolate, mint chocolate and caffe. OHMYGAWD. And just sitting eating it on the town square of this little hill village, just us and the locals. None of these towns are in Rick Steves so there are no Americans here. But no Germans or french either. Just a lot of Romans, as Rome is less then 100k from here. Most of them have little yippy dogs with them and when they drive, they come right up on your ass within about 2 feet. What is with that???? Then when there is a long straight away they often just stay there like they like to be in your slip stream or something. Dont really know what that is all about, but what the hell, I am in their country and that is that.
Tonight is our last night in this, by far my favorite hill town, pitigliano. We had a nice cocktail at the Bar Centrale, just us and a bunch of nonas and bepos (grandmas and grandpas??) hanging out in the town square. We had my favorite italian aperitivo, Punte Mes. And they served it with all things, Beer Nuts!! It is a great combination, by the way.
We had dinner with crostinis of lardo (yes, more lardo), roast leg of pork and cingiale cacciattore. Cingiale is the wild pig and is my favorite food find here, maybe even above lardo. The other day we got a salami of cingiale and it was the best salami i have ever had.
With dinner we had more fantastic wine, the Morella de Sconzano we had earlier and also an alicante from here. Amazing, dark, rich and the alicante was a bit bubbly. I hope I can find these at home, but not sure if they are exported.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Best Hilltown in Italy!
Finally, I have found my perfect hilltown. We have been to several and before today found one really nice one, Montalcino, just south of Siena. It was quite nice...small and very few tourists. Plus, they have some of the best wine in Italy, Brunello de Montecino. No tour groups and very few loud Americans (many loud Italians, though). Had a pretty good lunch there and bought some Brunello to bring home. Fantastic wine. Most of the other hilltowns just had too many tourists. Siena was packed to the gills with them. Is every tourist in the world in Italy at this moment? I think maybe so. Went to Orivieto this morning and again, just packed with tour groups.
Civita de Bagneregio, which is the one Rick Steve's goes on and on about, was very nice. Certainly one of the most beautiful hill towns. Funny thing was, very few Americans, most tourists were from Rome and it wasnt very crowded. It was a beautiful place.
But this afternoon we made it to our destination and THIS is the place...Pitigliano.
Perched on a tufa hill in the very south of Tuscany, this is a beautiful hilltown that is very well preserved. And there is real life here....Nonas (grandmas) all over the place, talking story to each other on benches long the little roads. Little kids on their tricycles toodling around the back streets. Wonderful little alleyways you can explore that end at the cliff, always with a fantasic view. This town is hardly talked about in any of the American guides...that is why we haven't seen an American tourist here...again, only Italian tourists.
Amy and I had a wonderful time wandering around the streets, taking pictures of the alleyways, views from the ramparts, and of the locals going about their daily business. This is a REAL town, not just a tourist town. You get the feel that they could do without us if they could, as opposed to the other, more famous hilltowns. I just love it here.
For the last couple of days we were with Amy's family in Umbria, at a nice farmhouse Bob and Janet rented, along with their two daughters and Amy's other sister, Eberle. We had a great time there, just relaxing after the five crazy days in Florence and Siena. We hiked among vineyards and farm animals, saw fields of tobacco and tomatoes, and had a wonderful meal to celebrate Janets 60 birthday. It was really nice seeing family so far away.
Tomorrow we plan on hiking in some Etruscan ruins and going to a wine festival nearby. We have had some really good wine so far, the best being the Brunello de Montalcino. Tonight we just had some nice local wine, the white and the red from Pitigliano. Funny thing is, all afternoon there were big tractors bringing in cartloads of grapes. It is harvest time here for the wine.
We are staying at the only hotel in town, the Hotel Alberto Guastini, with a great view of the town and had a great meal...a plate of the local cheeses with honey, a nice ensalata mixta and Amy had a ragu of lamb and me, I had a nice wild boar cacciatori. Wow, that is some meal!! Washed down with the local wine, well it doesnt get better then that.
Civita de Bagneregio, which is the one Rick Steve's goes on and on about, was very nice. Certainly one of the most beautiful hill towns. Funny thing was, very few Americans, most tourists were from Rome and it wasnt very crowded. It was a beautiful place.
But this afternoon we made it to our destination and THIS is the place...Pitigliano.
Perched on a tufa hill in the very south of Tuscany, this is a beautiful hilltown that is very well preserved. And there is real life here....Nonas (grandmas) all over the place, talking story to each other on benches long the little roads. Little kids on their tricycles toodling around the back streets. Wonderful little alleyways you can explore that end at the cliff, always with a fantasic view. This town is hardly talked about in any of the American guides...that is why we haven't seen an American tourist here...again, only Italian tourists.
Amy and I had a wonderful time wandering around the streets, taking pictures of the alleyways, views from the ramparts, and of the locals going about their daily business. This is a REAL town, not just a tourist town. You get the feel that they could do without us if they could, as opposed to the other, more famous hilltowns. I just love it here.
For the last couple of days we were with Amy's family in Umbria, at a nice farmhouse Bob and Janet rented, along with their two daughters and Amy's other sister, Eberle. We had a great time there, just relaxing after the five crazy days in Florence and Siena. We hiked among vineyards and farm animals, saw fields of tobacco and tomatoes, and had a wonderful meal to celebrate Janets 60 birthday. It was really nice seeing family so far away.
Tomorrow we plan on hiking in some Etruscan ruins and going to a wine festival nearby. We have had some really good wine so far, the best being the Brunello de Montalcino. Tonight we just had some nice local wine, the white and the red from Pitigliano. Funny thing is, all afternoon there were big tractors bringing in cartloads of grapes. It is harvest time here for the wine.
We are staying at the only hotel in town, the Hotel Alberto Guastini, with a great view of the town and had a great meal...a plate of the local cheeses with honey, a nice ensalata mixta and Amy had a ragu of lamb and me, I had a nice wild boar cacciatori. Wow, that is some meal!! Washed down with the local wine, well it doesnt get better then that.
from the hill towns
Tonight Craig and I are in Pitigliano, earlier today we were in Orvieto and in Civita di Bagnoregio. All of these are hill towns, great places to roam and discover. only problem is, that most of them are TOO discovered. Like Florence, the places that are truly beautiful like Siena, and Orvieto, that are close to airports and listed in Rick Steves, are kindof a travesty of real towns. the folks that lived there once cant afford it, and instead of real shops there are tourist shops selling expensive purses and fancy gourmet packaged foods and high toned ceramics.
But, we are happy to say, we have really had a great time in several towns today. Pitigliano, and earlier today the lakeside town called Bolsena, on the Lake Bolsena, and also, the NEW bagnoregio, have all been great towns with large medieval sections and great protected physical settings, but with REAl people living in them. tonight in Pitigliano, we saw plenty of happy tourists but they were all Italian, probably Roman, and we also saw lots and lots of old ladies, talkative old men, young teenagers all in purple which is either the fashion color, the color of the wine harvest or some obscure gang color, and young kids on scooters, bikes with training wheels or just running around. Hard to use training wheels, actually, on a stone pavement thats 500 years old... it is not so smooth.... cant quite get off them wheels...
we are in southern tuscany and earlier today we were in a different province I cant remember -- luvio perhaps.. and we woke up this morning in Umbria. we have just had two really nice nights staying at a house my sister has rented, in a somewhat remote feeling valley kind of southwest of cortona, northeast of perugia. This house was really a nicely built house, a solid stone farmhouse now with two levels, that was 5 kilometers up dirt roads from the nearest modern town and paved highway, but with lots of neighboring villages, old churches and restaurants that you could hike to... on the days they are open. The house is really in the woods, these might be overgrow hills, very high up on the side of a steep sided river valley. one side of the river valley is definitely umbria, parts of the north side are officially tuscany. it was very nice to spend two nights not hearing a car, truck or tourist word. And being able to hike right from the house, through woods and fields, watching tractors plowing, smelling fresh rolled hay bales, and walking up through grape vines with fresh fruit on them, and olive groves that make the nicest sound with wind blowing through them.
while we found the umbria house a great experience, today, when we drove south to orvieto on the freeway and then southeast on more rural roads to Bagnoregio, we were enchanged actually. We are really pleased with the new countryside look of south Umbria and south Tuscany. The soil is often brown, not big grey clods.There are still lots of hills but its very very gentle with vineyards and olive groves but also with pastures and streams and sheep and horses. in places it feels very lush. I had expected, I guess because all these small towns are described as being up on volcanic tufa, to be in some kind of desert. not at all. It often looks like the wall paintings or mosaics that ancient Romans would make, of their favorite country estate. Just like that.
TOnight, in Pitigliano, we are in a gorgeous stone town, lit up by the setting sun and now by artificial lights. It has lots of cool side streets where you could touch both walls if you stretched out your fingertips but our hotel is modern feeling and the locals are classy. Its true that old ladies still wear great multicolored print dresses and shawls and use canes, no trousers for most of them, but the modern italian world is a good one, most people have pretty high standards of living, education and a lot of them travel.
Bolsena was a really nice surprise... a modern town, but with a main shopping drag that dates back to Roman towns and so is just too, too narrow and twisty to really accomodate cars... so they go around. The shops were mostly closed both because it is midday, and perhaps there might be a wine festival somewhere... they might reopen at 5 ... but those that were open were nice, normal stores, no gucci bags, and there were happy normal sightseeing romans and local Bolsena teenagers hanging out under the enormous middle-ages stone arch.
Bagnoregio, the town outside Civita de Bagnoregio which is really a ghosttown high up on a rock, also looked like a very liveable town... lots of old enough buildings and courtyards framing these magnificent drop offs off the cliffs the hilltown is builton... but modernish streets and stores that sold real people stuff and lots of normal people of all ages walking around. no tourists. I think on a future trip it might be more fun to skip civita de bagno entirely and just stay a day or two in newer Bagnoregio!
In our travels today, the only downside today was the food.... where tourists congregate, you will get long waits and indifferent waiters... that was true in Civita de Bagnoregio, which we found to be very very beautiful, but the food we got was truly chintzy. too bad because our friend barbara had told us to expect very good. But tonight in Pitigliano, we had: a delicious plate of local cheeses of all ages with fresh honey, washed down with Pitigliano white wine; realy good salad with tasty white wine vinegar; and the roast lamb which was the house specialty, and Craig got to have more of the local wild boar
speaking of wild boar it does not seem to be endangered, while we stayed in Umbria we hiked and saw bejillions of little boar toe prints... my sister heard them at night rooting around in the compost.... and we saw shotgun shells all over apparently from successful hunters.
I guess we did not describe either the day we went from Siena, our first day with our rental car, through Montalcino over to my sisters rented place. I will say that Montalcino is another great little hill town, a little cutesy but felt more normal than most of the ones we have seen. And I will say, do NOT be talked into buying any cheaper brunello de Montalcino wines. Pay the high high prices, and be delighted. pay less, and they are NOT the same. oh well.
But, we are happy to say, we have really had a great time in several towns today. Pitigliano, and earlier today the lakeside town called Bolsena, on the Lake Bolsena, and also, the NEW bagnoregio, have all been great towns with large medieval sections and great protected physical settings, but with REAl people living in them. tonight in Pitigliano, we saw plenty of happy tourists but they were all Italian, probably Roman, and we also saw lots and lots of old ladies, talkative old men, young teenagers all in purple which is either the fashion color, the color of the wine harvest or some obscure gang color, and young kids on scooters, bikes with training wheels or just running around. Hard to use training wheels, actually, on a stone pavement thats 500 years old... it is not so smooth.... cant quite get off them wheels...
we are in southern tuscany and earlier today we were in a different province I cant remember -- luvio perhaps.. and we woke up this morning in Umbria. we have just had two really nice nights staying at a house my sister has rented, in a somewhat remote feeling valley kind of southwest of cortona, northeast of perugia. This house was really a nicely built house, a solid stone farmhouse now with two levels, that was 5 kilometers up dirt roads from the nearest modern town and paved highway, but with lots of neighboring villages, old churches and restaurants that you could hike to... on the days they are open. The house is really in the woods, these might be overgrow hills, very high up on the side of a steep sided river valley. one side of the river valley is definitely umbria, parts of the north side are officially tuscany. it was very nice to spend two nights not hearing a car, truck or tourist word. And being able to hike right from the house, through woods and fields, watching tractors plowing, smelling fresh rolled hay bales, and walking up through grape vines with fresh fruit on them, and olive groves that make the nicest sound with wind blowing through them.
while we found the umbria house a great experience, today, when we drove south to orvieto on the freeway and then southeast on more rural roads to Bagnoregio, we were enchanged actually. We are really pleased with the new countryside look of south Umbria and south Tuscany. The soil is often brown, not big grey clods.There are still lots of hills but its very very gentle with vineyards and olive groves but also with pastures and streams and sheep and horses. in places it feels very lush. I had expected, I guess because all these small towns are described as being up on volcanic tufa, to be in some kind of desert. not at all. It often looks like the wall paintings or mosaics that ancient Romans would make, of their favorite country estate. Just like that.
TOnight, in Pitigliano, we are in a gorgeous stone town, lit up by the setting sun and now by artificial lights. It has lots of cool side streets where you could touch both walls if you stretched out your fingertips but our hotel is modern feeling and the locals are classy. Its true that old ladies still wear great multicolored print dresses and shawls and use canes, no trousers for most of them, but the modern italian world is a good one, most people have pretty high standards of living, education and a lot of them travel.
Bolsena was a really nice surprise... a modern town, but with a main shopping drag that dates back to Roman towns and so is just too, too narrow and twisty to really accomodate cars... so they go around. The shops were mostly closed both because it is midday, and perhaps there might be a wine festival somewhere... they might reopen at 5 ... but those that were open were nice, normal stores, no gucci bags, and there were happy normal sightseeing romans and local Bolsena teenagers hanging out under the enormous middle-ages stone arch.
Bagnoregio, the town outside Civita de Bagnoregio which is really a ghosttown high up on a rock, also looked like a very liveable town... lots of old enough buildings and courtyards framing these magnificent drop offs off the cliffs the hilltown is builton... but modernish streets and stores that sold real people stuff and lots of normal people of all ages walking around. no tourists. I think on a future trip it might be more fun to skip civita de bagno entirely and just stay a day or two in newer Bagnoregio!
In our travels today, the only downside today was the food.... where tourists congregate, you will get long waits and indifferent waiters... that was true in Civita de Bagnoregio, which we found to be very very beautiful, but the food we got was truly chintzy. too bad because our friend barbara had told us to expect very good. But tonight in Pitigliano, we had: a delicious plate of local cheeses of all ages with fresh honey, washed down with Pitigliano white wine; realy good salad with tasty white wine vinegar; and the roast lamb which was the house specialty, and Craig got to have more of the local wild boar
speaking of wild boar it does not seem to be endangered, while we stayed in Umbria we hiked and saw bejillions of little boar toe prints... my sister heard them at night rooting around in the compost.... and we saw shotgun shells all over apparently from successful hunters.
I guess we did not describe either the day we went from Siena, our first day with our rental car, through Montalcino over to my sisters rented place. I will say that Montalcino is another great little hill town, a little cutesy but felt more normal than most of the ones we have seen. And I will say, do NOT be talked into buying any cheaper brunello de Montalcino wines. Pay the high high prices, and be delighted. pay less, and they are NOT the same. oh well.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
craig says, never trust a skinny chef
.......burp..
another great meal of antipasti including 3 types of cured meats, well aged sheepsmilk cheese, bruschetta, crostini and some type of tomato thing... followed by ravioli with gorgonzola, mint, cream, walnuts... followed by some type of grass fed rare steak topped with lardo, what else.... chased by a house wine called Le Ricchi di Picini... whatever that is, a chianti perhaps
we learned about and tasted the best wine this trip. Brunello di montalcino. first we had a sidewalk wine bar, brunello di montalcino °ventoia°, on tuesday night in florence. then at lunch today in Siena, brunello di montalcino Mastrojanni 2004. turns out that in the town-village of montalcino, 350 wineries know how to make a fairly recent wine invention, brunello. It can retail up to $1,500 EUROs a bottle depending on the vintage... which would be $2,750 US I believe... it tastes like caramel and raspberries and who knows, ever try drinking velvet, it is something like that. We plan to drive to montalcino tomorrow, and go Brunello tasting.
Tonight, we are in siena. in the daylight although siena was very pretty, we did not care so much for it. Basically I guess we are snobs, if the number of tourists outnumbers the locals by 2 to 1 we are not fans... siena is lovely but looks too much like Olde Quebec. well, by torchlight with many of the visitors gone it is very cool... you wander around quirky twisty medieval streets and never know what you will find. in fact this moment, up the street, about 200 locals are eating off picnic tables set up in a church square singing sentimental songs in the torchlight... so old Siena still exists, somewhere...
hard to believe we let another 24 hours of florence go by without thorough documentation but craig is now writing about the Dude i believe. well... it was good. But if I were coming back to florence or italy Id suggest| one less night in florence... let there be one work of art you did not see
Actually our favorite parts of florence were early in the morning, with no one up yet, except locals.... having cheap but excellent espresso and brioche across the old bridge on the Oltrarno side... having cheap but excellent sandwiches made with tlc in the park in front of the Santo Spiritu church... far away from the tour groups and their microphones and the oh so clean florence streets
I just realized what is different between italian pedestrian streets, and mexico... what they have done, is smoothly flagstone from wall to wall.. no curb to fall off of, no gutter to collect dirt... no decay... its great but oh so clean.. and so able to accomodate the large group. a disappointment in some ways.
but its so nice to have hardly any cars and those not allowed to honk at you... under penalty of death or worse.
I see that craig is not writing much about siena so let me tell you, it is a great city for reflecting the evening sun. the main plaza retains the warmth of the midday sun, the bricks are all as soft as marshmallows, you could fall asleep out there by the light of the crescent, setting new moon. Not to mention the pretty gothic arches and the towering battlements and the huge ornate cathedral that spans 7 floors... also, the great old Palio horserace flags... and the ceramic electric light covers saying Beware of the Cat... and the many expensive ceramic cups for holding your american sized coffee... and the hand printed linen table cloths with authentic medieval olive leaf print motifs. I do like siena I do I do I do I do... but a little less kitsch would also be ok.
another great meal of antipasti including 3 types of cured meats, well aged sheepsmilk cheese, bruschetta, crostini and some type of tomato thing... followed by ravioli with gorgonzola, mint, cream, walnuts... followed by some type of grass fed rare steak topped with lardo, what else.... chased by a house wine called Le Ricchi di Picini... whatever that is, a chianti perhaps
we learned about and tasted the best wine this trip. Brunello di montalcino. first we had a sidewalk wine bar, brunello di montalcino °ventoia°, on tuesday night in florence. then at lunch today in Siena, brunello di montalcino Mastrojanni 2004. turns out that in the town-village of montalcino, 350 wineries know how to make a fairly recent wine invention, brunello. It can retail up to $1,500 EUROs a bottle depending on the vintage... which would be $2,750 US I believe... it tastes like caramel and raspberries and who knows, ever try drinking velvet, it is something like that. We plan to drive to montalcino tomorrow, and go Brunello tasting.
Tonight, we are in siena. in the daylight although siena was very pretty, we did not care so much for it. Basically I guess we are snobs, if the number of tourists outnumbers the locals by 2 to 1 we are not fans... siena is lovely but looks too much like Olde Quebec. well, by torchlight with many of the visitors gone it is very cool... you wander around quirky twisty medieval streets and never know what you will find. in fact this moment, up the street, about 200 locals are eating off picnic tables set up in a church square singing sentimental songs in the torchlight... so old Siena still exists, somewhere...
hard to believe we let another 24 hours of florence go by without thorough documentation but craig is now writing about the Dude i believe. well... it was good. But if I were coming back to florence or italy Id suggest| one less night in florence... let there be one work of art you did not see
Actually our favorite parts of florence were early in the morning, with no one up yet, except locals.... having cheap but excellent espresso and brioche across the old bridge on the Oltrarno side... having cheap but excellent sandwiches made with tlc in the park in front of the Santo Spiritu church... far away from the tour groups and their microphones and the oh so clean florence streets
I just realized what is different between italian pedestrian streets, and mexico... what they have done, is smoothly flagstone from wall to wall.. no curb to fall off of, no gutter to collect dirt... no decay... its great but oh so clean.. and so able to accomodate the large group. a disappointment in some ways.
but its so nice to have hardly any cars and those not allowed to honk at you... under penalty of death or worse.
I see that craig is not writing much about siena so let me tell you, it is a great city for reflecting the evening sun. the main plaza retains the warmth of the midday sun, the bricks are all as soft as marshmallows, you could fall asleep out there by the light of the crescent, setting new moon. Not to mention the pretty gothic arches and the towering battlements and the huge ornate cathedral that spans 7 floors... also, the great old Palio horserace flags... and the ceramic electric light covers saying Beware of the Cat... and the many expensive ceramic cups for holding your american sized coffee... and the hand printed linen table cloths with authentic medieval olive leaf print motifs. I do like siena I do I do I do I do... but a little less kitsch would also be ok.
The Dude Abides in Florence
So we are now in Siena after four museum filled days in the art capital of the world, Florence. I won't go into detail about the 3,463 museum we went to during these four days except to say that there was one big huge suprise. Of course you have to go to the Ufizzi with all of it's amazing paintings, my favorites being the Doni Tondo of Michelangelo (the only canvas painting he did, believe it or not) and some really, really great portraits by Rafael. The most disappointing part of the Ufizzi were the Botticelli's...the Venus on the Half Shell was behind thick, glaring glass and you could hardly see it. Same with the Spring painting with the three graces. Oh well. (But the Venus by Titian was fantastic...she has such a 'come hither' look to her that you just gotta love it. That, and the little sleeping dog on her bed....
The greatest suprise, as far as a work of art, was a little known and little seen crusifix by Michelangelo in the Santo Spirito church, on the other side of the Arno, the Oltrarno. This is where few tourists fear to tread and in fact, we were lucky to see it. We had heard it was there and then we were looking all around the church for it. We couldn't find it so I asked a caretaker where it was and he said to follow him. He got out some very large keys and took us to a side room, a sacistry. We went in the room all alone (except for two other tourists) and there was the most beautiful Jesus-on-the-cross I have ever seen. This wasn't the Jesus with thorns on his head, lot's of blood and a look of anguish on his face. Oh no, this was a work of absolute genius, very human and very real...
So last night we are drinking some absolute amazing wine called Brunello de Montalcino in a little wine bar at the Santa Croce square when this local kid (early 20s) sits down at the table next to us. And to my astonishment he is wearing a Big Lebowski T shirt with The Dude on it and the quote, "The Dude minds, man". This kid is a big Big Lebowski fan so I know all is well in Florence. Now to those uninitiated in all things The Dude, this will mean nothing. But to all those Dude fans out there...THE DUDE ABIDES IN FLORENCE.
So tonight we are in Florence and had another amazing meal with all sorts of cold cuts, pecorino cheese, raviolis with mint and gorgonzola and to top it off a great steak with LARDO on top. To those who have read my previous post you will know that it doesn't get any better then lardo. But steak with lardo on top? Well, that is what they must serve in heaven and if I ever am asked for what I would like for my last meal, I now know.
We are staying in a nice little hotel that is actually a nunnery or was at one time. I was looking forward to it as I could be walking around Siena when I could look at Amy and say, 'Get thee to a nunnery' and really mean it. I was looking forward to little nuns showing us the rooms and maybe how the shower works and how to open the curtains. But I haven't seem one darn nun so far. I don't know where they are and I don't think they are coming out any time soon.
The greatest suprise, as far as a work of art, was a little known and little seen crusifix by Michelangelo in the Santo Spirito church, on the other side of the Arno, the Oltrarno. This is where few tourists fear to tread and in fact, we were lucky to see it. We had heard it was there and then we were looking all around the church for it. We couldn't find it so I asked a caretaker where it was and he said to follow him. He got out some very large keys and took us to a side room, a sacistry. We went in the room all alone (except for two other tourists) and there was the most beautiful Jesus-on-the-cross I have ever seen. This wasn't the Jesus with thorns on his head, lot's of blood and a look of anguish on his face. Oh no, this was a work of absolute genius, very human and very real...
So last night we are drinking some absolute amazing wine called Brunello de Montalcino in a little wine bar at the Santa Croce square when this local kid (early 20s) sits down at the table next to us. And to my astonishment he is wearing a Big Lebowski T shirt with The Dude on it and the quote, "The Dude minds, man". This kid is a big Big Lebowski fan so I know all is well in Florence. Now to those uninitiated in all things The Dude, this will mean nothing. But to all those Dude fans out there...THE DUDE ABIDES IN FLORENCE.
So tonight we are in Florence and had another amazing meal with all sorts of cold cuts, pecorino cheese, raviolis with mint and gorgonzola and to top it off a great steak with LARDO on top. To those who have read my previous post you will know that it doesn't get any better then lardo. But steak with lardo on top? Well, that is what they must serve in heaven and if I ever am asked for what I would like for my last meal, I now know.
We are staying in a nice little hotel that is actually a nunnery or was at one time. I was looking forward to it as I could be walking around Siena when I could look at Amy and say, 'Get thee to a nunnery' and really mean it. I was looking forward to little nuns showing us the rooms and maybe how the shower works and how to open the curtains. But I haven't seem one darn nun so far. I don't know where they are and I don't think they are coming out any time soon.
Monday, September 21, 2009
More Lardo, Please!!!!
This is going to be all about food. Yeah, we saw some AMAZING art today. Getting a little museumed out, by the way. The Bargelo was the best...amazing sculputure, especially the famous Donatello David, from around 1430, the first full body male nude done since Roman times. Pure Renaissance stuff. Very beautiful.
But the frickin' food here in Firenze is just amazing. Last night, after we had blogged, we went to a restaurant right near the Duomo. Started off with this tasting dish of three things; Tuscan sausage in a rosemary-white wine sauce....unreal. Sundried tomatoes with some radicchio...this was okay (if you like sundried tomates, which I don't). But the piece de bleeding resistance was LARDO with white beans crustini. Never had lardo? Pure pork fat, baby. I mean, pure pork fat. Just this slice of white, fatty, porky goodness on your toasted bread. Melts in your mouth. I can hear all the Americans who would never eat this kind of stuff just go 'eewwwwwww!!!'. But let me tell you, this is a pure pork wonder.
After this we had a taglietella pasta with FRESH porcini mushrooms. GETOUTAHERE!!!! Doesn't get any better then fresh porcinis. Then it was little pieces of rabbit with a white wine sauce with shallots and carrots. With all this Tuscan wonder food we had a bottle of Chianti Classico. Chianti always starts out a little astringent, to say the least, but by the third or fourth glass it tastes like Chateau Petrus.
So we are just leaving the restaurant, wandering down the street when, what do I hear? Sounds like church organ music. Must be coming from a boom box or something. But a few feet further we passed a church and out of the door came the sublime music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Not just any JS Bach, but one of his great tocattas. I was suddenly in another world, entering this church and hearing the great, loud power chords of history's greatest composer of 'music to send you to another world'. Just sitting there in this little church, listening to Johann Sebastian bouncing off the walls, so loud it almost breaks your eardrum...this was a totally spiritual experience for me. Bach organ music, especially the fast, powerfull stuff, has always sent me into another dimension. And then, to top it off, the organist played the greatest of all Bach's pieces, the Tocatta and Fugue in D minor. For those of you who don't recognize this, this is the piece they always play in the old horror pics. You'd know it if you heard it. This is Bach at his most sublime. And when you hear it in a very small church, bouncing and echoing off the walls...well, there is nothing more beautiful. And it also helps to listen to it after a wonderful meal and a bottle of Chianti Classico.
So the food highlight today was a wonderful restaurant near the San Marco, Restaurant Mimmo...thank you Barbara and Dennis!!!! The special was a roasted leg of pork, which I must say, was the BEST pork I have ever had in my life. It was so, so tender and juicy and had this crustiness of salt and pork goodness. It was served with potatoes that must have been cooked in pork fat. Crunchy, salty, ooohhhhh so good potatoes. With this we had pumpkin flowers (yes, pumpking flowers) stuffed with meat and cheese, with a pomodoro sauce. OHMYGOD!!!! And a salad of arugula and radiccio with pine nuts and walnuts. A half carafe of local wine, again getting better with each glass. And to top it off a cake made out of ricotta cheese with chocolate sauce on it.
So we have just come out of this meal, kind of ambled down the street and are again in an internet cafe that is only 1.5 euros per hour, about 1 third of the other places. And again, the owners and all the clients are from Sri Lanka. Don't ask, I have no idea.
We really deserved this great meal as we probably walked about 300 miles today, with all the museums, going to the central marked to buy lunch (really good parma ham, 4 year old parmessian cheese, crusty rye bread and some sort of tasty pastry), then hiking way, way up to the Piazza Michelangelo but before getting there discovering this really cool church called San Miniato, where there was a mini concert of four people singing this beautiful church music, then having a coffee for 4 euros at a little cafe looking over the beautifu city of Florence, with the Duomo and Palacio Vecchio, then hiking way, way down along the Arno over to Santo Spirito, another Bruneleschi church, and having a couple of nice bottles of wine there, then hiking to the other side of the Arno, way up to Barbara's restaurant, then back here. Whew!!!!
So tomorrow it's (you guessed it) more museums and hopefully another dinner that is as good as the last two. As long as there is Lardo anywhere nearby, I will be happy.
But the frickin' food here in Firenze is just amazing. Last night, after we had blogged, we went to a restaurant right near the Duomo. Started off with this tasting dish of three things; Tuscan sausage in a rosemary-white wine sauce....unreal. Sundried tomatoes with some radicchio...this was okay (if you like sundried tomates, which I don't). But the piece de bleeding resistance was LARDO with white beans crustini. Never had lardo? Pure pork fat, baby. I mean, pure pork fat. Just this slice of white, fatty, porky goodness on your toasted bread. Melts in your mouth. I can hear all the Americans who would never eat this kind of stuff just go 'eewwwwwww!!!'. But let me tell you, this is a pure pork wonder.
After this we had a taglietella pasta with FRESH porcini mushrooms. GETOUTAHERE!!!! Doesn't get any better then fresh porcinis. Then it was little pieces of rabbit with a white wine sauce with shallots and carrots. With all this Tuscan wonder food we had a bottle of Chianti Classico. Chianti always starts out a little astringent, to say the least, but by the third or fourth glass it tastes like Chateau Petrus.
So we are just leaving the restaurant, wandering down the street when, what do I hear? Sounds like church organ music. Must be coming from a boom box or something. But a few feet further we passed a church and out of the door came the sublime music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Not just any JS Bach, but one of his great tocattas. I was suddenly in another world, entering this church and hearing the great, loud power chords of history's greatest composer of 'music to send you to another world'. Just sitting there in this little church, listening to Johann Sebastian bouncing off the walls, so loud it almost breaks your eardrum...this was a totally spiritual experience for me. Bach organ music, especially the fast, powerfull stuff, has always sent me into another dimension. And then, to top it off, the organist played the greatest of all Bach's pieces, the Tocatta and Fugue in D minor. For those of you who don't recognize this, this is the piece they always play in the old horror pics. You'd know it if you heard it. This is Bach at his most sublime. And when you hear it in a very small church, bouncing and echoing off the walls...well, there is nothing more beautiful. And it also helps to listen to it after a wonderful meal and a bottle of Chianti Classico.
So the food highlight today was a wonderful restaurant near the San Marco, Restaurant Mimmo...thank you Barbara and Dennis!!!! The special was a roasted leg of pork, which I must say, was the BEST pork I have ever had in my life. It was so, so tender and juicy and had this crustiness of salt and pork goodness. It was served with potatoes that must have been cooked in pork fat. Crunchy, salty, ooohhhhh so good potatoes. With this we had pumpkin flowers (yes, pumpking flowers) stuffed with meat and cheese, with a pomodoro sauce. OHMYGOD!!!! And a salad of arugula and radiccio with pine nuts and walnuts. A half carafe of local wine, again getting better with each glass. And to top it off a cake made out of ricotta cheese with chocolate sauce on it.
So we have just come out of this meal, kind of ambled down the street and are again in an internet cafe that is only 1.5 euros per hour, about 1 third of the other places. And again, the owners and all the clients are from Sri Lanka. Don't ask, I have no idea.
We really deserved this great meal as we probably walked about 300 miles today, with all the museums, going to the central marked to buy lunch (really good parma ham, 4 year old parmessian cheese, crusty rye bread and some sort of tasty pastry), then hiking way, way up to the Piazza Michelangelo but before getting there discovering this really cool church called San Miniato, where there was a mini concert of four people singing this beautiful church music, then having a coffee for 4 euros at a little cafe looking over the beautifu city of Florence, with the Duomo and Palacio Vecchio, then hiking way, way down along the Arno over to Santo Spirito, another Bruneleschi church, and having a couple of nice bottles of wine there, then hiking to the other side of the Arno, way up to Barbara's restaurant, then back here. Whew!!!!
So tomorrow it's (you guessed it) more museums and hopefully another dinner that is as good as the last two. As long as there is Lardo anywhere nearby, I will be happy.
finding the harmonic convergence in florence
music in churches in florence....
last night, we had a very nice meal at a restaurant near the Duomo, called Hostaria Caminetto, first a plate of 3 appetitizers, 1) crostini topped with lardo, pecorino cheese and white beans 2) tuscan sausage seasoned with rosemary and 3) dried marinated tomatoes on fresh raddiccio. Then we had freshmade yellow tagliatelle with fresh porcini mushrooms, rabbit cooked with fennel and white wine with minced shallots and carrots, with an astringent chianti classico.
In the rain on the way home,we ducked into a small newish catholic church, and found, wow, this organist was performing amazing bach. now to me this seems like a big contradiction, how can J S Bach, the author of the best hymns for Martin Luther, play in a catholic church in italy. but craig says the catholic church embraces Bach, no problem. and he was transported, I could not budge him. he says the only thing that freed him was that after about 12 pieces the organist got him through the Dminor fugue and he had to pee. so we could actually emerge.
this is not the final time we have found unusual harmonics in a catholic church. This afternoon we hiked to a hill above florence, a pre renaissance benedictine church, san miniato, with mosaics of greek orthodox type saints, and a quartet of singers was doing unearthly palestrina and other medieval polyphony. I really loved it. and then later we were in a Bruneleschi church, more on this later, while the priest was doing the mass and we tourists were kinda coralled at the back of the church, and he started singing and the church had such majorly good acoustics, that he was creating every harmonic there could be... I swear to go there was a sweet voice singing an octave and a fifth above him, in harmonics. it was amazing. he did this 2 or 3 times in the course of the mass... the whole cathedral vibrated... and the harmonics sang.
OK I see Craig is blogging about lardo and how great it is. so I can move on to today and what I think is SO great about Bruneleschi.
He is the guy who created the Duomos dome, so we know he is cool. but today, I was in at least 4 chapels or cathedrals, that he invented. i swear he is the eichler of catholic church construction. His scenario is so clean and clear. its like a masonic design. the proportions are so perfect. the center aisle is tall and clear, flanked by two very tall rows of roman columsn. the center roof is always made of a pattern of squares, with great detailed inlay designs. The roof above the altar is a perfect dome, and in at least 2 of his cathedrals, painted midnight blue, it shows the layout of the stars on the night the dome was consecrated... where each constellation sat, that night. The side rows have perfect small niches filled with the best of renaissance sculpture and fresco. The total effect is one of scientific clarity, your mind can just float free and as I leaned today, so can the sound. it was really great. The vibrations of the voice, separate cleanly into the parts, they vibrate and compete with each other so you get LOTS of sound even from a single voice. It was very cool.
I just realize what Bruneleschi really reminds me of, it is Thomas Jefferson, its the proportions of monticello, and the University of Virginia lawn. it MUST be masonic. its very very cool, very pure.
I dont think we get enough pure music in this day and age to realize what music can do. last year we were in Bhutan, where the thibetan monks blow those long, long long horns in a deep almost toneless vibration you feel more than hear. thats what came out in all the music we heard today, the large churches create a room for the organ vibration or the voice, to create not only the high pitches but also the deep almost inaudible slow soundwaves that you can not help but respond to even if you do not know you hear them.
Anyway did Craig write yet about our dinner tonight. Tonight we went to a place Barbara Plautt suggested, called Restaurant di Mimmo. We had this amazing roast pork and stuffed squash blossoms. well now I do see he is writing about this so I can stop.
today we saw quite a lot. Close to dawn we went out to the Arno river near Santa Croce church where there is a large square in front of a huge white castle of a church in the florence renaissance style, lots of white and green marble in geometric shapes and castles. Immediately after breakfast we went out again to something totally different, the Bargello which is a medieval castle fortress, with gothic arches and stair cases to enormous halls with arched ceilings all in carved grey stone. There are so many white marble carvings on display on all 3 levels of the Bargello, which ultimately was a jail but in the 1800s was reconceived as a castle and repainted with every arch and ceiling inch with medieval herarldry and color checks and designs. veryconvincing. anyway it is a great place to see all the donatellos, della Robbia ceramic bas relief blue and white madonnas, and early michelangelos and other scultures you could want to see. The best michelangelo there, is the bas relief Pitti Tondo, mother and child half emerging from stone, she holds the squirming toddler with her left hand beneath his armpit, perfect strength in her curved left hand, each finger perfect in its motherly control.
From the Bargello which was totally pleasing we went to Santa Croce which was largely, not. You could totally give it a miss right now, as they want you to pay 5 euros for a large crowded cathedfral which at the moment is draped in gauze hiding all the basic structures while saws and planes and drills are heard, non stop. either you cant go into an area because it is supposed to be set aside for prayer (though no one could possibly pray due to the racket), or you cant see it due to the drapery and scaffolding. meanwhile the tour guide do not care, they bring their groups of 40 or 50 people through each with their private loudspeaker and talk about everything theycan see as if it is still experienceable art. big mistake. you can see a few faded giotto frescoes about the death of St francis, that is about it. Except for the one really great room-- the Pazzi Chapel, by Bruneleschi -- perfect symmetry, perfect tranquility, great sound and impressive sky.
after this we went to the central market, which was pretty fun. not really a cheap market, it is an expensive market where eager cooks can buy 12 kinds of raw proscietto, do you want sweet or salty madame, and about 15 kinds of pecorino sheeps cheeses, and things like that. lots of salamis, and their version of bacon, and whatever. it made for good snacking but costly.
The next cathedral we saw, was also a bruneleschi, the Basilica San Lorenzo, the Medicis home basilica. the best room, is also a bruneleschi chapel. its got polished mahogany color wood to a persons height then up to a perfect dome with its repeating squares and above the altar again the perfect astronomical dome observatory. and great acoustics. took a lot time before the chatterers and babies practicing their first shrieks left... then it was a really nice experience of well designed silence.
well then I got time to reconoiter, at home while craig climbed a big tower... then we both had a great long long walk across the river through pretty much non touristy old neighborhoods, the places where the english hung out in the 1880s, then up to the top of a little mountain, to see the town from a distance. thats where we went to San Miniato and hear the surprise renaissance singing. it was great... I just kinda ducked into the cathedral to see it, and suddenly it sounded no kidding like an entire Benedictine choir of monks was singing. but, actually, due again to the great acoustics, it turned out not to be so sacred or secret, just 4 really great vocalists up in the choir area, doing the work of thousands. I got it on our camera as a movie, hope the sound is as good.
we had a great coffee above town... then walked down into the ultrarno and had the great adventure of harmonic sound at the church of San Spiritu.. then we topped that off with a wine-bar visit in the open courtyard nearby.
Oh I also forgot all in this same day, day 2 of florence, we also went up to the monastery museum of San Marco, saw entirely too many Fra Angelicos, not enough Fra Bartolomeos I like him more, and saw Savonarolas cell. and pictures of his fiery death in the Plaza de la Signoria.
pretty full day... manana is the uffizi gallery ...
last night, we had a very nice meal at a restaurant near the Duomo, called Hostaria Caminetto, first a plate of 3 appetitizers, 1) crostini topped with lardo, pecorino cheese and white beans 2) tuscan sausage seasoned with rosemary and 3) dried marinated tomatoes on fresh raddiccio. Then we had freshmade yellow tagliatelle with fresh porcini mushrooms, rabbit cooked with fennel and white wine with minced shallots and carrots, with an astringent chianti classico.
In the rain on the way home,we ducked into a small newish catholic church, and found, wow, this organist was performing amazing bach. now to me this seems like a big contradiction, how can J S Bach, the author of the best hymns for Martin Luther, play in a catholic church in italy. but craig says the catholic church embraces Bach, no problem. and he was transported, I could not budge him. he says the only thing that freed him was that after about 12 pieces the organist got him through the Dminor fugue and he had to pee. so we could actually emerge.
this is not the final time we have found unusual harmonics in a catholic church. This afternoon we hiked to a hill above florence, a pre renaissance benedictine church, san miniato, with mosaics of greek orthodox type saints, and a quartet of singers was doing unearthly palestrina and other medieval polyphony. I really loved it. and then later we were in a Bruneleschi church, more on this later, while the priest was doing the mass and we tourists were kinda coralled at the back of the church, and he started singing and the church had such majorly good acoustics, that he was creating every harmonic there could be... I swear to go there was a sweet voice singing an octave and a fifth above him, in harmonics. it was amazing. he did this 2 or 3 times in the course of the mass... the whole cathedral vibrated... and the harmonics sang.
OK I see Craig is blogging about lardo and how great it is. so I can move on to today and what I think is SO great about Bruneleschi.
He is the guy who created the Duomos dome, so we know he is cool. but today, I was in at least 4 chapels or cathedrals, that he invented. i swear he is the eichler of catholic church construction. His scenario is so clean and clear. its like a masonic design. the proportions are so perfect. the center aisle is tall and clear, flanked by two very tall rows of roman columsn. the center roof is always made of a pattern of squares, with great detailed inlay designs. The roof above the altar is a perfect dome, and in at least 2 of his cathedrals, painted midnight blue, it shows the layout of the stars on the night the dome was consecrated... where each constellation sat, that night. The side rows have perfect small niches filled with the best of renaissance sculpture and fresco. The total effect is one of scientific clarity, your mind can just float free and as I leaned today, so can the sound. it was really great. The vibrations of the voice, separate cleanly into the parts, they vibrate and compete with each other so you get LOTS of sound even from a single voice. It was very cool.
I just realize what Bruneleschi really reminds me of, it is Thomas Jefferson, its the proportions of monticello, and the University of Virginia lawn. it MUST be masonic. its very very cool, very pure.
I dont think we get enough pure music in this day and age to realize what music can do. last year we were in Bhutan, where the thibetan monks blow those long, long long horns in a deep almost toneless vibration you feel more than hear. thats what came out in all the music we heard today, the large churches create a room for the organ vibration or the voice, to create not only the high pitches but also the deep almost inaudible slow soundwaves that you can not help but respond to even if you do not know you hear them.
Anyway did Craig write yet about our dinner tonight. Tonight we went to a place Barbara Plautt suggested, called Restaurant di Mimmo. We had this amazing roast pork and stuffed squash blossoms. well now I do see he is writing about this so I can stop.
today we saw quite a lot. Close to dawn we went out to the Arno river near Santa Croce church where there is a large square in front of a huge white castle of a church in the florence renaissance style, lots of white and green marble in geometric shapes and castles. Immediately after breakfast we went out again to something totally different, the Bargello which is a medieval castle fortress, with gothic arches and stair cases to enormous halls with arched ceilings all in carved grey stone. There are so many white marble carvings on display on all 3 levels of the Bargello, which ultimately was a jail but in the 1800s was reconceived as a castle and repainted with every arch and ceiling inch with medieval herarldry and color checks and designs. veryconvincing. anyway it is a great place to see all the donatellos, della Robbia ceramic bas relief blue and white madonnas, and early michelangelos and other scultures you could want to see. The best michelangelo there, is the bas relief Pitti Tondo, mother and child half emerging from stone, she holds the squirming toddler with her left hand beneath his armpit, perfect strength in her curved left hand, each finger perfect in its motherly control.
From the Bargello which was totally pleasing we went to Santa Croce which was largely, not. You could totally give it a miss right now, as they want you to pay 5 euros for a large crowded cathedfral which at the moment is draped in gauze hiding all the basic structures while saws and planes and drills are heard, non stop. either you cant go into an area because it is supposed to be set aside for prayer (though no one could possibly pray due to the racket), or you cant see it due to the drapery and scaffolding. meanwhile the tour guide do not care, they bring their groups of 40 or 50 people through each with their private loudspeaker and talk about everything theycan see as if it is still experienceable art. big mistake. you can see a few faded giotto frescoes about the death of St francis, that is about it. Except for the one really great room-- the Pazzi Chapel, by Bruneleschi -- perfect symmetry, perfect tranquility, great sound and impressive sky.
after this we went to the central market, which was pretty fun. not really a cheap market, it is an expensive market where eager cooks can buy 12 kinds of raw proscietto, do you want sweet or salty madame, and about 15 kinds of pecorino sheeps cheeses, and things like that. lots of salamis, and their version of bacon, and whatever. it made for good snacking but costly.
The next cathedral we saw, was also a bruneleschi, the Basilica San Lorenzo, the Medicis home basilica. the best room, is also a bruneleschi chapel. its got polished mahogany color wood to a persons height then up to a perfect dome with its repeating squares and above the altar again the perfect astronomical dome observatory. and great acoustics. took a lot time before the chatterers and babies practicing their first shrieks left... then it was a really nice experience of well designed silence.
well then I got time to reconoiter, at home while craig climbed a big tower... then we both had a great long long walk across the river through pretty much non touristy old neighborhoods, the places where the english hung out in the 1880s, then up to the top of a little mountain, to see the town from a distance. thats where we went to San Miniato and hear the surprise renaissance singing. it was great... I just kinda ducked into the cathedral to see it, and suddenly it sounded no kidding like an entire Benedictine choir of monks was singing. but, actually, due again to the great acoustics, it turned out not to be so sacred or secret, just 4 really great vocalists up in the choir area, doing the work of thousands. I got it on our camera as a movie, hope the sound is as good.
we had a great coffee above town... then walked down into the ultrarno and had the great adventure of harmonic sound at the church of San Spiritu.. then we topped that off with a wine-bar visit in the open courtyard nearby.
Oh I also forgot all in this same day, day 2 of florence, we also went up to the monastery museum of San Marco, saw entirely too many Fra Angelicos, not enough Fra Bartolomeos I like him more, and saw Savonarolas cell. and pictures of his fiery death in the Plaza de la Signoria.
pretty full day... manana is the uffizi gallery ...
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Watch out for the bicycles!!!
Our first day in Florence has been great. We arrived last night after the long flight and got to our nice little BandB, the Badia guesthouse. It's in a great location between the Piazza de la Signoria and the Duomo. We went straight out for a walk and saw one of the most beautiful sites anywhere, the Duomo. I had read a lot about this masterpiece of architecture, especially the building of the dome, by Fillipo Bruneleshi, so finally seeing it in person was breathtaking. Tomorrow I plan on climbing it, but for now it was enough just to see it.
Bruneleschi's dome...
We wandered about the streets of Florence until 10:30 when we finally decided to eat. Unfortunately, almost all of the restaurants close at 10, so we had a hard time finding a place. We ended up at a nice restaurant and had carpaccio of duck breast (unreal), Parma ham (like butter) and a fettucini in cuttlefish sauce (very black ink), which was quite different.
There weren't all that many people on the street, but there were a lot of locals on bicycles. You really have to watch your step, as they will run right over you if you're not carefull.
This morning (Sunday) we were up at dawn and walked down to the Arno. We were about the only people on the street except for a few locals jogging or going to church. The sight of the Ponte Vecchio in the early morning sunlight was spectacular, as was the colors of the homes along river.
After breakfast in our guesthouse, we headed to the Duomo museum. There are some great works here, including Michelangelo's pieta (the later one) and the wooden statue of Mary Magdelene by Donatello. There are also the original panels from the doors of the Babtistry of Ghilberti. These are just unbelievable...the detail is unreal.
Michelangelo's pieta...
From here we went to the Medici Chapel which has many carvings of Michelangelo. On the way there we went through the San Lorenzo market, where you can buy leather (a lot of leather everywhere), scarves, t shirts, pottery and some really tacky souveniers, such as boxer shorts with a picture of the David's you know what right in the correct spot.
Most of the afternoon we spent just wandering around the streets and ended up in the Oltarno, the other side of the river, where few tourists go. We had a nice lunch...sandwich and wine...for only 4 euros. I had a sandwich of salami and cheese, Amy had prosciutto and cheese. From here we went to the Brancacci Chapel, which has some of the most beautiful frescoes anywhere. These are the frescoes of Massacio, who painted frescoes of what look like REAL people,which was unheard of at the time. Before Massacio, people were painted very idealistically, but he painted people with real emotion and even painted people who were crippled (who were getting healed by St. Peter).
Here is Massaicio's painting of Adam and Eve being thrown out of Paradise...
This evening we are gettinga thunderstorm and getting a lot of rain, so we are in this internet cafe trying to get dry. Soon, though, it's dinner time and we will be looking for something tasty.
Bruneleschi's dome...
We wandered about the streets of Florence until 10:30 when we finally decided to eat. Unfortunately, almost all of the restaurants close at 10, so we had a hard time finding a place. We ended up at a nice restaurant and had carpaccio of duck breast (unreal), Parma ham (like butter) and a fettucini in cuttlefish sauce (very black ink), which was quite different.
There weren't all that many people on the street, but there were a lot of locals on bicycles. You really have to watch your step, as they will run right over you if you're not carefull.
This morning (Sunday) we were up at dawn and walked down to the Arno. We were about the only people on the street except for a few locals jogging or going to church. The sight of the Ponte Vecchio in the early morning sunlight was spectacular, as was the colors of the homes along river.
After breakfast in our guesthouse, we headed to the Duomo museum. There are some great works here, including Michelangelo's pieta (the later one) and the wooden statue of Mary Magdelene by Donatello. There are also the original panels from the doors of the Babtistry of Ghilberti. These are just unbelievable...the detail is unreal.
Michelangelo's pieta...
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From here we went to the Medici Chapel which has many carvings of Michelangelo. On the way there we went through the San Lorenzo market, where you can buy leather (a lot of leather everywhere), scarves, t shirts, pottery and some really tacky souveniers, such as boxer shorts with a picture of the David's you know what right in the correct spot.
Most of the afternoon we spent just wandering around the streets and ended up in the Oltarno, the other side of the river, where few tourists go. We had a nice lunch...sandwich and wine...for only 4 euros. I had a sandwich of salami and cheese, Amy had prosciutto and cheese. From here we went to the Brancacci Chapel, which has some of the most beautiful frescoes anywhere. These are the frescoes of Massacio, who painted frescoes of what look like REAL people,which was unheard of at the time. Before Massacio, people were painted very idealistically, but he painted people with real emotion and even painted people who were crippled (who were getting healed by St. Peter).
Here is Massaicio's painting of Adam and Eve being thrown out of Paradise...
This evening we are gettinga thunderstorm and getting a lot of rain, so we are in this internet cafe trying to get dry. Soon, though, it's dinner time and we will be looking for something tasty.
Retreat from the Rain
we are having a little thunderstorm, so we are in a very warm internet cafe run by and occupied by a lot of friendly north africans. Relearning things like how to create an °at° sign with alt'6'4. stuff like that.
Craig is writing classy details about our nice first day and our first meals and our nice B/B the Badia. Meanwhile Im thinking about details about how the first animal we saw in munich in the airport was, naturlich, a dachsund, and about how much nicer italian sounds to my uncouth ears, than german or english. And about how I have seen Barbaras mother, Gelsea, 3 times today, sweet kind ladies who suddenly break into a gentle smile just when I need it most. Also how much fun it was to fly over the alps in a 30 seat prop plane where we had to hand over all our hand luggage before climbing up the 4 steps into the plan. Air Dolomite. AIr Dolomite gives away free squares of tasty semi'bitter italian chocolate at their front desk. A big favorite in my view.
we really had a nice flight over from SFO to Munich on Lufthansa. Have you ever been on a plane where the restrooms were classy full sink corian type deals, in their own little downstairs location, with real carpet while you wait, and individual little movie screens just like singapore... watched Angels and Demons on the way over just to get in that italy mode.
So, first impressions of italy. well first I have to say I would like to cement into my mind, some of the very cool art we have seen all in the first day. We got to see six michelangelos so far.... the last Pieta that he did, which is at the Duomo Museum, and Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night at the Medici Chapel, and a Madonnnna holding a toddler child. Also one of the cool things... in the medici chapel, that he built, on the walls b ehind the altar, there are Michelangelo doodles! In the white plaster, barely visible, are Michelangelo drawings of figures, and scratches on the wall for how many days have gone by, and pencil sketches of the geometries of what is soaring above you in walls and recesses and domes. The best thing about seeing the florence statues, is how very alive they seem when you see them from a new angle. Seeing these reclining day and dawn figures is all ok in a photo, but in the chapel you can stand at their feet and look back at their waists and you notice the curling of the big toe and the arch of the foot and hint of the veins on the front of the ankle and the way the shin has a sheen on it right where it stops being flat and becomes the belly of the calf. The guy was a genius.
Another great hour was down at the Brancacci chapel south of the Arno which is a room full of many scenes, nearly all Masaccios. Masaccio was a pre michelangelo painter, one of the first to paint in human expressions of anguish and jealousy, in his crowd pictures there is an old man dozing off and a child being bored while Saint Peter is actively healing folks and causing others to fall down dead. Lots of great drama, and yet people are just being people in its presence. The colors are something. He inspired the other artists with his excellent use of perspective and vanishing points, and some of the paintings were lost but can be somewhat recreated by the training paintings that Michelangelo, da Vinci and others did of some of his figures.
Florence itself has been so easy so far... as long as you have access to an atm that is. Its way more compact that I figured, the labyrinth of streets is easy to figure out because they keep breaking out into the squares you have seen before, and its not very slopy, and even with an achy knee Im doing just fine. we got in last night on a fine night, kinda warm, and were able to roam around looking at menus and ancient walls and every house wall seeming to have some kind of niche with some kind of sculpture or painting in it, and lots of the streets crossed over with arches suporting more houses. we got very tasty simple meals which Craig has been describing, I do not understand why their arugula is so much better than my arugula. This morning was great, we got ourselves out of bed at dawn in order to adjust to the time zone and walked down to the Arno and it was such a pleasure because the rising sun caused beautiful golden reflections of the buildings down on the river water, which barely had a ripple in it, and the sky above was blue with white curly hints of cloud in it which really did have those renaissance forms you see in paintings of florence in the 1400s. And you could see these clouds, and a few birds, reflected in the water of the arno.
So another great thing about florence is that even though the euro is kinda expensive right now, you get such great food value for your buck. Even if one plate of appetizer food, just plain old crostini with crudo parma prosciuto, costs 11 euros, when you get it its an enormous plate with about ten huge curlicues of prosciuto and the two crostini are covered with a velvety chicken liver mush that probably sounds awful but is divine and there are fresh lettuce leaves to give that fresh taste and splitting it with Craig is just fine. None of this stingy california plate stuff.
well this is not a small thunderstorm after all its a big rain now and thunder thunder thunder so I guess we will be here and wet for a while. But luckily day one in florence was just lovely and maybe now I can coax Craig to spend the hours and hours in the Uffizi that I have been longing to do. Just kidding craig! he was actually really entranced with the Duomo museum and the Brancacci chapel.
Oh yeah the duomo museum also has a lot of fabulous old marble carvings and cornices from other pre renaissance and renaissance times, including a fascinating reclining Mary apparently in the process of giving birth, with no agony at all, she looked kinda like a reclining buddha. oh, la de da, think Ill give birth today. Also there was a really great collection of Della RObia children playing instruments of all kinds to praise the lord, and we got some great shots of this, and Donatelllo made one very similar which is facing.
and the Ghiberti doors. They are pretty cool too but not my favorites so far. My favorites are everything else I saw today. Also the very cool colors of stone today, green malachites and green sandstone and white marble and chalcedony and jasper and whatever.
Oh and I think Craig also mentioned there are just a few vendors in town.... wanna buy a scarf, wanna buy a belt, wanna buy a purse, step right up
Craig is writing classy details about our nice first day and our first meals and our nice B/B the Badia. Meanwhile Im thinking about details about how the first animal we saw in munich in the airport was, naturlich, a dachsund, and about how much nicer italian sounds to my uncouth ears, than german or english. And about how I have seen Barbaras mother, Gelsea, 3 times today, sweet kind ladies who suddenly break into a gentle smile just when I need it most. Also how much fun it was to fly over the alps in a 30 seat prop plane where we had to hand over all our hand luggage before climbing up the 4 steps into the plan. Air Dolomite. AIr Dolomite gives away free squares of tasty semi'bitter italian chocolate at their front desk. A big favorite in my view.
we really had a nice flight over from SFO to Munich on Lufthansa. Have you ever been on a plane where the restrooms were classy full sink corian type deals, in their own little downstairs location, with real carpet while you wait, and individual little movie screens just like singapore... watched Angels and Demons on the way over just to get in that italy mode.
So, first impressions of italy. well first I have to say I would like to cement into my mind, some of the very cool art we have seen all in the first day. We got to see six michelangelos so far.... the last Pieta that he did, which is at the Duomo Museum, and Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night at the Medici Chapel, and a Madonnnna holding a toddler child. Also one of the cool things... in the medici chapel, that he built, on the walls b ehind the altar, there are Michelangelo doodles! In the white plaster, barely visible, are Michelangelo drawings of figures, and scratches on the wall for how many days have gone by, and pencil sketches of the geometries of what is soaring above you in walls and recesses and domes. The best thing about seeing the florence statues, is how very alive they seem when you see them from a new angle. Seeing these reclining day and dawn figures is all ok in a photo, but in the chapel you can stand at their feet and look back at their waists and you notice the curling of the big toe and the arch of the foot and hint of the veins on the front of the ankle and the way the shin has a sheen on it right where it stops being flat and becomes the belly of the calf. The guy was a genius.
Another great hour was down at the Brancacci chapel south of the Arno which is a room full of many scenes, nearly all Masaccios. Masaccio was a pre michelangelo painter, one of the first to paint in human expressions of anguish and jealousy, in his crowd pictures there is an old man dozing off and a child being bored while Saint Peter is actively healing folks and causing others to fall down dead. Lots of great drama, and yet people are just being people in its presence. The colors are something. He inspired the other artists with his excellent use of perspective and vanishing points, and some of the paintings were lost but can be somewhat recreated by the training paintings that Michelangelo, da Vinci and others did of some of his figures.
Florence itself has been so easy so far... as long as you have access to an atm that is. Its way more compact that I figured, the labyrinth of streets is easy to figure out because they keep breaking out into the squares you have seen before, and its not very slopy, and even with an achy knee Im doing just fine. we got in last night on a fine night, kinda warm, and were able to roam around looking at menus and ancient walls and every house wall seeming to have some kind of niche with some kind of sculpture or painting in it, and lots of the streets crossed over with arches suporting more houses. we got very tasty simple meals which Craig has been describing, I do not understand why their arugula is so much better than my arugula. This morning was great, we got ourselves out of bed at dawn in order to adjust to the time zone and walked down to the Arno and it was such a pleasure because the rising sun caused beautiful golden reflections of the buildings down on the river water, which barely had a ripple in it, and the sky above was blue with white curly hints of cloud in it which really did have those renaissance forms you see in paintings of florence in the 1400s. And you could see these clouds, and a few birds, reflected in the water of the arno.
So another great thing about florence is that even though the euro is kinda expensive right now, you get such great food value for your buck. Even if one plate of appetizer food, just plain old crostini with crudo parma prosciuto, costs 11 euros, when you get it its an enormous plate with about ten huge curlicues of prosciuto and the two crostini are covered with a velvety chicken liver mush that probably sounds awful but is divine and there are fresh lettuce leaves to give that fresh taste and splitting it with Craig is just fine. None of this stingy california plate stuff.
well this is not a small thunderstorm after all its a big rain now and thunder thunder thunder so I guess we will be here and wet for a while. But luckily day one in florence was just lovely and maybe now I can coax Craig to spend the hours and hours in the Uffizi that I have been longing to do. Just kidding craig! he was actually really entranced with the Duomo museum and the Brancacci chapel.
Oh yeah the duomo museum also has a lot of fabulous old marble carvings and cornices from other pre renaissance and renaissance times, including a fascinating reclining Mary apparently in the process of giving birth, with no agony at all, she looked kinda like a reclining buddha. oh, la de da, think Ill give birth today. Also there was a really great collection of Della RObia children playing instruments of all kinds to praise the lord, and we got some great shots of this, and Donatelllo made one very similar which is facing.
and the Ghiberti doors. They are pretty cool too but not my favorites so far. My favorites are everything else I saw today. Also the very cool colors of stone today, green malachites and green sandstone and white marble and chalcedony and jasper and whatever.
Oh and I think Craig also mentioned there are just a few vendors in town.... wanna buy a scarf, wanna buy a belt, wanna buy a purse, step right up
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Off we go...
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For the next couple of weeks Amy and I will be traveling through the Tuscan countryside and towns...Florence, Siena, Pitigliano, Lucca and inbetween. We will then be in the Cinque Terre for a few days before going to the south of France to visit my dear friends, Jean Marie and Catherine Peyraud, of the great winery, Domaine Tempier, near Bandol.
On this trip we will see some of the world's greatest art, walk in some of the most beautiful hill villages anywhere, eat great food and drink fantastic wine. We will go on long hikes to see Roman ruins and hamlets that seem to hang in mid-air over the sea. We will meet family in Umbria and old, dear friends in Provence. We will sleep in a nunnery, in a farmhouse and in a villa over the Mediterranean. We will eat great pasta, fish dishes and many local specialities. We will be in the land of pesto, bouillabaisse, white beans, lamb, pasta and gelato!...some of the world's truly great cuisine.
And we will try to do all of this on a budget. Just how much fun and how much good food and wine can you have these days in Europe (almost $1.50 to the Euro) on a budget? We plan to find out. Now I'm not talking hostels here. We're to old for that! But we will be staying in nunneries, farm houses, and small B&Bs. We'll eat picnics for lunch everyday. We'll order the menu de jour and the house wine. This is what we plan on doing. So tune in every once in awhile to see what the heck we're doing. This is the first trip to a non 3rd world country we've gone on together. But I can't think of a better place I'd rather be then in central Italy and the south of France.
Michelangelo's David
Pitigliano
The Duomo in Florence
Vernazza, Cinque Terre
Les Freres Peyraud, Francois and Jean-Marie of Domaine Tempier
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