Day 19

Italy 2010

Day 19

You might be thinking that Italian food is no longer one of our priorities. Just so you know, we eat at least three meals a day, often more. This morning, at our favorite bar/café, we came up with our new song – pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at suppertime. Here is the breakfast pizza:

One of our goals was to find a certain trattoria in Fiesole, a small town just five miles from Florence. This is a very old town that predated the Romans. Unfortunately, we didn’t find our old favorite eatery, but we stumbled into a good second choice.

We’ve all had truffle oil added to our pasta, but today was a first as Dan had the coveted fresh black truffle mushrooms shaved onto his risotto.

It was excellent as was the green risotto – actually the meal of the day! We know it may not look as good, but this spinach-like-based risotto, picked out by Shari, was delizioso!

We took the bus to get to Fiesole (Fee-ay-sole-ay), but once there, we walked many miles, first in the town’s archeological site, then chasing our meal. The archy site displayed 2500 years of history, and was infused with modern art.

The amphitheatre that dates to the first century A.D. is where they play 18^th century Mozart and Verdi in the evenings (during our dinner time).

We walked most of the way home on the old route from Fiesole to Florence that the Romans and others used for centuries. We had to watch out for 20^th century chariots on the narrow route down from Fiesole.

We are very fond of Florence and have heard that if you embrace a certain pig, you will return. To ensure another visit, Shari and Roberto sealed the deal today for still another trip.

Day 18

Italy 2010

Day 18

Dan and Jan’s late arrival was due to their British Airways adventure – the strike did impede their arrival. Can you imagine arriving in a foreign city at 2:00 in the morning and trying to find your new home? And can you imagine us worrying about them when we thought they might arrive at 10:00 the previous evening?

Since it was Sunday, we decided to stroll the neighborhoods and parks around the river and forgo any museums or tours. Leave it to Jan and Dan to find a wooden statue in the land of marble. Most statues date from the Renaissance or Medieval times. This one, however, is dated 2010!

We later found one of Romulus and Remus dating back to the Roman empire days to bring the average back into line with what we would expect of Florence.

If you don’t know the mythical story of Romulus and Remus, check it out on Wikepedia.

We walked several miles around the Boboli and Bobolino gardens, but not in the gardens. It is hot and humid here so we favored all the shady parks.

At the end of the day, after hours of walking and talking, we were rewarded with a view of the skyline of Florence.

Everywhere we go in this city and around it, the Duomo is a prominent feature. It is almost unbelievable how big it is.

Day 17

Italy 2010

Day 17

We have a new home for a week in Florence! This is the home of Michelangelo, and it’s rumored Roberto is a 4^th cousin 6 times removed. While Roberto is half Italian, we base this discovery partly on the artistic abilities of our grandkids. One of our first sites was a glimpse of the Duomo – more pictures of this in later days.

The new villa is in the heart of Florence and is a two bedroom/two bath affair as Jan and Dan Studer join us this evening for the remaining two weeks. Their navigation skills will be tested as they have a 20-minute walk from the train station in the middle of the night. Neither of us has a cell phone, so we are dealing with this the old fashioned way.

Moving days usually aren’t our best days. But, we did enjoy the huge market which is great for meats, veggies, fruits, leather, and various clothing. We were ‘hailed’ from 20 yards to the meat market shown here.

This is only half the counter loaded with a lot more than meat. Notice all the pancetta slabs hanging about the butchers’ heads.

We like people who love their work. It makes shopping fun. Who wouldn’t want to buy veggies from this guy?

With a lettuce leaf on his head and a stalk of asparagus over each ear and a smile on his face, you gotta buy something from this guy. BTW, he later added a long nose ring made from a green bean.

The bread lady wasn’t quite as colorful, but we still liked the outfit.

One last but important item. Check out on the upper right of the Blog a link to Culture Discovery You Tube. If you clink on this, you’ll go to a YouTube video of what the cooking school is about. There’s good music, movie, and still pictures. Check it out.

As of this posting, Jan and Dan made it – at 2:30 am!!

Day 16

Italy Trip 2010

Day 16

Today, being our last day in Lucca, we did a lot of odds and ends like banking, shopping, and Roberto even got a haircut. We found time to drink cappuccini, espresso, and wine, and we ‘tested’ gelato and wonderful bread, cheese, salami, olives, tomatoes, and arugala – all from Italy. The weather was as perfect as we could imagine.

We filled our water bottles from an ancient fountain in a nearby piazza (plaza) as we have done every day. This is something all the locals do, and we have been told the water is more pure than anything we can buy. The water flows continuously from four openings. The smaller ones are for people to drink from. This statue and flowing water have been in this location since the year 192 A.D. It’s so beautiful and simple.

We also took in one of the local gardens. Sculpture of the roman gods were placed around the gardens amongst the roses, mums, and an interesting flower that looked like a red caterpillar.

We also found time to ride bikes three times around the wall in the afternoon. On our last loop we found a woman trying to enjoy her riposo (siesta), but her pet was not in the mood for sleeping. Based on the dog’s size, it was probably too hungry to sleep. A park bench isn’t a big enough bed for this dog anyway.

Day 15

Italy 2010

Day 15

Today we took a day trip by train (actually three different trains each way) to Cinque Terre (five lands). This is a popular area of five towns hanging onto the cliffs along, and above, the Ligurian Sea. They can only be reached by train or boat and are connected by a steep, narrow, and rocky trail. The last leg of the train ride was mostly in tunnels, and the little bit of daylight we saw from the train was where we arrived at the five towns.

We were here six years ago, loved it, and wanted to revisit this wonderful part of Italy.The hiking between towns is one of the highlights of the area because the trail is made of miles of hand placed rock and great views of the towns, the beautiful sea, and terraced hillsides with olive trees, grapes, and all sorts of vegetables. There is terrace upon terrace above the church.

We got off the train at the fourth of five towns, Vernazza, had lunch, and hiked back to the third town, Corniglia.

Vernazza, like the other Cinque Terra towns, is very photogenic:

There were lots of people on the trail, a notable difference from our last visit, and that made quick hiking impossible. We still recommend this area as a stop on anyone’s tour of Italy. BTW, this is a national park, one of relatively few in Italy.

The trail is anything but level, so little time was spent contouring along the sea. It was almost like one big stair machine with uneven steps made from hand-hewn rock. The Italians had, and have, an incredible interest and talent in using rock.

We have mentioned our new favorite pasta - tortelli lucchese. It’s a very thin ravioli with a ragu filling and sauce and when prepared well, it looks like this:

Day 14

Italy 2010

Day 14

We found out the weather man in Italy is not much different than those in Utah. There was a 90% chance of rain this morning, but we got up to sunshine after sleeping in. At least the Italian mattress was on our side as the bones didn’t suffer.

We’re not sure we’ve painted an adequate picture of Lucca and the walls. This was a very rich city, and the merchants didn’t want to fight wars to grab more real estate. They had all they wanted, so they spent a fortune hiring good bricklayers to build an immense wall that looks like the following today:

Back in the day when the wall was meant to keep invaders out, there was also a wide moat tens of meters wide. It is rumored that the first biathlon was held here with the two key events being swimming and pole vaulting.

The bricklayers had work for 100 years for the building of this wall.

The 90% chance of rain occurred during the middle of the day for about three or four hours. There was loud thunder (and probably lightening that we couldn’t see because of the high walls and narrow alleyways) and hard rain. We walked around with umbrellas and still got wet. We took shelter at a bar and had the best cappuccino and espresso we’ve had here in Lucca. We would have took shelter under the trees, but a lot of them just grow straight up. These are not your average elm trees.

Day 13

Italy 2010

Day 13

We rented a car and drove north into the mountains. We first visited a small ancient walled village called Barga. We climbed lots of steps to the cathedral at the top.

Next we drove to Grotta del Vento, a huge underground cave, and went on an hour-long tour. The cave is so big we could have taken a three-hour-long tour. There were underground rivers and lakes, limestone formations, and the usual stalactites and stalagmites. This cave is located way up in the mountains, and we had to drive on a very winding and extremely narrow road to get there. If we were to meet another car on a curve, both drivers have to come to a screeching stop.

On the way back to Lucca, we checked out the Devil’s Bridge. There is a Devil’s slide in both Utah and Montana, but the bridge is a more impressive work.

It’s not every bridge that you climb.

In the evening we ate at a trattoria (outside, of course) where we had the most delicious local dish called tortelli lucchese. It’s a very thin ravioli with a ragu sauce and filling. We kept saying “ummmmmmmm” and “OMG” with every bite.

Being the evening before a holiday that celebrates when Italy became a republic (or something like thatJ), there was live music and lots of partying in the piazzas until early in the morning. Luckily our apartment is in a quiet area.