Italy 2011

Italy was amazing. The beauty of Tuscany and Umbria blew me away. Flowers bloom everywhere from scotch broom to wild poppies to baskets and window boxes of geraniums and petunias to roses of every color. Flowers bloom in the most unlikely places. The cities built on cliff sides have flowers in pots decorating stairs to residences and shops. We must have seen hundreds of miles of olive groves and vineyards. We passed huge stands of hazelnut trees (oh, the nicciola gelato was exquisite). Farmers plant all sorts of crops. The largest tracts are tended w/machinery while the smallest triangles of dirt boast rows of lettuce, peppers, or tomatoes.

Jean arranged our accommodations. For the first six nights we stayed in a small stone cottage in northern Tuscany in a town named Piazziano near Lucca (link here and scroll down for photos) I think it was originally an out-building for the olive grove. It is accessed by a dirt road, but to get there you need to stop at the cemetery first. In autumn when the olives are ripe you can pick them from the bedroom window. Mosquito netting hung from a hoop hooked to the ceiling. It was so quaint, so peaceful; it would have been better if there was hot water, but we managed. At night the fireflies were abundant. We bought groceries and cooked. Inexpensive wine from the supermarket is very palatable in Italy (big grin.) We probably should have spent more time just hanging out but we had a country to see.

Day trips included Lucca: a lovely pre-Etruscan city w/ Roman walls. This was our first full day and I was charmed. In retrospect, I wish we spent more time here.

Sienna: is a large city w/a beautiful church. The marble façade is extraordinary. We walked and explored but did not have a city map. I think we missed some of the highlights. Earlier that day we did a drive-by wave to the tower of Pisa while en-route to the airport to change money. (Note to self: change money in USA before departing.)

Cinque Terre: 5 towns on the Liguria Sea approachable by foot or train. (I opted for the train.) This area is oh, so beautiful. In one of these towns I ordered pesto for lunch. The pesto was served atop homemade pasta – very delicious. The unusual part was the potatoes and green beans under the pasta. We met a British couple who told us the Brits take a lifetime to see Italy – one city at a time. Americans do it all at once.

Elba: took the ferry and drove around this large beautiful island and happened upon a nature preserve. We could not figure out why Napoleon had a problem w/Elba. It seems to be a favorite family vacation spot in Italy.

Florence: drove to Pesica and then took the train to Florence. Saw The Birth of Venus at the Uffuzi. A mime accosted me and then turned to Jean who gave him a good pinch on his bottom to the applause of the crowd seated on the cathedral steps. We ate a wonderful dinner at a restaurant that served wild boar. The train trip back was notable in that I got us on the wrong train. It only went to Pistoia, which was several stops short of ours. I asked for the train to Pesha and received a puzzled look. The workers figured where we wanted to go and was able to pantomime that I need to take the train on track 2 – but not the one arriving in 2 minutes. I needed the one arriving in 10 minutes. Grazie, grazie. Some man overheard us and tried to help. He spoke to Jean in French. The joke turned into tears of laughter when we realized that pesha means fish and this explained the puzzled look I got from the train people. I imagined him thinking “Fish? Lady, this is a train station. There is no fish here.”

Venice: is everything you hear it is. The big highlight for me was the opera, The Barber of Seville performed at a palatial residence with limited seating (maybe 50-70.) With each act the audience got up and moved to the next room with the final act in the bedroom. The Barber of Seville was somewhat slapstick and the audience was engaged from the beginning. We bought a libretto and were able to follow along pretty well. The other Venetian highlight for me was the open-air market on Saturday morning. Tented tables and tables of fruits and vegetables whose aromas filled the air. The covered area was just as large with fresh seafood: whole flounders, squid, octopus, snails, shrimp and clams of every size, eel, crabs, fish, fish and more fish. The fishmonger gutted and cleaned fish, wrapped it and presented it for payment. He worked the whole time with ash dangling from the cigarette in his mouth. I think the sea bass I had for dinner that night on the Grand Canal was obtained from this market that morning. It was delicious.

Next stop north Umbria. The pictures don’t capture the charm of this place. This was probably my favorite even though the upper bedroom is accessed by a steep ladder. A woman from the Chicago area owns this and rents it when she is in the States. (It includes screens on the widows and a bathtub!) As the listing states “Arezzo, Cortona, Perugia, and Siena are all less than a hour away. There are five absolutely beautiful medieval towns that are 15 minutes or less from the house with spectacular views of the Tiber valley. Monterchi is only five minutes away and there you will find the museum which houses Piero della Francesca's famous painting "The Pregnant Madonna." There is also a variety of stores and two restaurants.” We did it all. One restaurant served ravioli with a cream truffle sauce. Oh, so good. Again we should have hung out here more, but the hill cities called. With all of these cities we parked outside the city walls and walked the rest of the time.

Assisi: the cathedral is magnificent. I felt my mother sitting on my shoulder in this church. There are several sections or altars. Every so often we would hear a recorded “shush” or “silencio.” We descended into the tomb of St Francis and happened upon services. The monks chanted while some congregants responded. Loretta was happy. The town is beautiful; the vistas spectacular.

Cortona: This city has beautiful churches, gorgeous views, so-so panini, and good gelato. (I haven’t met a gelato I didn’t like and have a plastic spoon collection to prove it) Many of the churches have frescos that are literally falling off the walls. They are so old. Many are faded. I lit a candle for Loretta in one of these churches. Jean told me that Italy is very prone to earthquakes so it is surprising that these buildings hundreds of years old are still standing. I kept thinking of Macaulay’s Cathedral where he describes the hundred (or three) years it takes to build a cathedral and what that meant in terms of daily life.

Narni is proclaimed the center of Italy. As one of the professors (born and bred Southern Baptist) reminded me Italy is the heart of the Catholic Church. I think the Italians are more accustomed to relics of the saints and bones etc, but in Narni one altar covers a tomb w/glass sides to enable all to view the corpse of St Lucy. She died in 1544. It was downright eerie.

Montepulciano: what a friendly city. Once you enter the town there are numerous shops offering samples of their wares from cubes of bread dipped in olive oils or balsamic vinegars to varieties of sausage you’ll not find in an American grocery store to wine – very good wine. This is not a bad marketing technique. The samples put you in a good mood and the wine mellows you toward a purchase. The shops have passageways that lead to basements filled with casks of wine. It is all so old – Etruscan I think – pre Roman – fascinating.

Rome: We only spent one night here to be close to the airport for the next day’s departure. We did not do any sightseeing, but had dinner at a sidewalk café and watched people going about their daily lives.

Then there was the gnocchi that was the best ever and the woman who tried to sell me a black straw hat full of butterflies and the physics professor from Princeton and the fight due to vaporetto tickets and the problems with changing money and credit cards and car rentals. Gas was about $10/gallon. Jean drove, Helen navigated with a country map of Italy while Paul sat in the back seat, said little and took pictures. We have about 2000 photos. We forgot to bring the phrase book so could not say more than please, excuse me and thank you while depending on Jean’s much better but far-from-fluent Italian.

Have I captured it? I don’t think so. I tend to write in chronological order, first this then that. I don’t know that I conveyed the beauty, the aromas, the feeling I was in an enchanted land with endless history and endless time to explore. It was romantic in every sense.