Truffles, Wine and Goodbyes

This special journey was coming to an end in just 24 hours. We had seen old and new and were privileged to meet some very special people. If you read the link in the prior blog to Ankhura you will note that both Chris and Christina, owners of the bed and breakfast, had very sophisticated backgrounds. They had decorated the Inn with art from Asia and architecture from Tuscany. They were gentle and intelligent people and made their guests feel totally at home, even though we were much less sophisticated than they. Chris had even done much of the tile and construction work. They had purchased the building from the church and you could tell that in a few short years they were probably going to move onto another phase in their rich lives.

Christina had given birth to both of her two boys in Tuscany and now a third child was soon on the way. They planned to close the Inn in December and her family would come out from Malaysia to stay with her


While showering that morning I noticed the rustic travertine tile which is common to the area and was too expensive for my housebuilding enterprise.


Christina was up bright and early setting a lovely table of homemade yogurt, homemade granola, freshly sliced fruit, coffee, toast and juice on the patio outside.

Chris was squeezing oranges and the smell filled the kitchen as we passed through. Then he changed clothes and we headed out for the truffle hunt he had arranged.

The gentleman who took us us on our truffle hunt brought two of his dogs. He had a full time job working at the local Home Depot, but did truffle hunting on days during the high season which was just starting. Truffle hunting is very competitive in Tuscany, especially for the white truffle which we were pursuing. There were tales of dogs being poisoned because of their exceptional skill in sniffing out the round treasure which could be a deep as a foot underground or just below the surface.


We stopped at a road near a Truffle Preserve but carefully skirted the area since tourists were not allowed inside. The dogs found several small and average truffles and then one excellent truffle the size of golf ball. Truffles can get to be twice the size of a potato. But size is not always an indication of quality. Our guide had brought some photos of the annual truffle fair with some pictures of very large truffles he had found.


When the dogs find a truffle they are commanded to sit and then they are rewarded with a piece of bread. The pigs used to just eat the truffles if the master didn't get there fast enough.



I didn't capture a photo of the larger truffle, but here my daughter is holding one of the smallest. The smell is strong and I could smell it from the other side of the camera lens.

After several hours of hiking along the sandy ravines we were rewarded with a picnic of chicken sandwiches, tomato and cheese sandwiches, prosciutto, capacolla, fresh sliced tomatoes, and red and white wine as we looked across a hillside with a rabbit hunter in the distance.

We could have napped during the few hours we had in the early afternoon before our wine tour when we got back to Montengriffoli, but we had a chance to see the village in daylight as well as the nearby cemetery and so we went walking.





Our wine tour was to a small 2.5 acre winery run by a widow who was about my age. She generously took us through the small and very clean winery and we tasted her Brunello from the vat, then the oak cask and finally got to taste both a young and an old bottle. Quite a privilege since Brunello's are pretty expensive in the U.S. Her bottles are all purchased by a distributer in Canada, so we couldn't buy any.


The tour was given by Guelfo Magrini who has written a knowledgeable book about the Brunellos of Montalcino. He is on the far right in the photo below. The other man was a journalist who joined us and who has studied wines in France, Germany and Italy and has written five books on wine. My daughter thought he was a little full of himself, but we certainly learned a lot about wine between the two men! I bought Magrini's book and am enjoying it thoroughly.

We finished in the late afternoon with coffee in the town of Montalcino at a modern little coffee house. The weather had turned cold and wet, so hot coffee and tea were a great idea.

We got a quick view in the town of the famous wall of plaques on a building off of a main street in the town. One of these ceramic plaques goes up each year as demonstration/comment reflecting the popular opinion of the value of the wine each harvest season. It is a sort of tongue in check response to reflect that even the wine experts have a sense of humor in all seriousness.

Then it was time to return to Ankhura for a dinner by Chris who is a Rome trained gourmet chef. We ate upstairs in a small dining room with lots of candles and near a little fireplace. The other dining partners were a young couple from Germany that had gone on the truffle hunt with us. We were served an eggplant/mozzarella tart floating on a basil-tomato sauce, followed by a pasta with lots of thinly sliced truffles (a donation from our truffle hunter and probably the most expensive thing I have ever eaten--so pungent and special) and then we had a veal steak on a bed of 'lamb's lettuce' which while a little tough, was also very delicious. All of this was washed down with a rather expensive bottle of Brunello which REALLY blossomed with each glass as it was exposed to the air. Dessert was a tart of thinly sliced fresh mountain apples on a buttery crust.

As the evening progressed we headed up to bed and savored the days memories knowing we had a plane to catch in Rome and had to head out by car by 7:00AM.


I have enjoyed writing about this trip as it has been like taking it all over again--getting to savor it twice. Although I left out lots of stuff, still I am glad that I have this journal to motivate me to do this.

The Tuscan Affair

A vanilla Tuscan moon
Through wooden shutters
How sweet the lover's sigh.

The two photos I took of the full moon from the bedroom of my B & B in Monterongrifolli were blurred, but the remembered view in my imagination is always much more beautiful anyway. So, imagine an open window on a cool fall night, antique wooden shutters pulled away to reveal the silhouette of a Tuscan hillside and the quiet blanket of night over all. This was my last night in Tuscany and I came to the full realization then that I had ARRIVED.

But enough of that. With a romance and a temporary but passionate affair such as this, one should always start at the beginning.

Tuscany is a region somewhat known in America due to a number of romantic movies and books such as "Under the Tuscan Sun" and "Room With a View." Sometimes when things are loved to death through literature or media they cannot possibly live up to their reputation and the resulting expectations. Fortunately for us all, this is not the case with Tuscany. It is all the smells, sights and feelings that you read about and see and it is more.

We left Sicily and arrived at the Rome airport. There we rented a car with a GPS and headed out to the mountainous region of Abruzzo. We spent one night in a small abandoned village with a B&B. That is another VERY LONG blog about getting lost as the sun sets, finding long lost relatives, showering with small scorpians, and enjoying a frugal meal of bread, hard cheese, proscuitto, and olives with small boxes of red wine as the haunting wind whistled outside the door and across the stone streets of an Italian ghost town. As if this wasn't exotic enough, after our make-shift supper, we watched an iffy TV cable reception beaming in from Northern Africa of the 2000 movie "The Gladiator" with French-African subtitles!

So, I will skip to warmer and more romantic Tuscany.

We left Abuzzo and drove north to the Tuscan region along the Autostrada which is just like the freeways we have in the U.S. It was not too crowded and there were only one or two 'crazy Italian" drivers and only one or two drivers who insisted that they needed to straddle both lanes in order to drive effectively. The rest of us knew what we were doing and where we were going...well sort of. We were fine except for when the GPS episodically disconnected at the most inopportune times.

We stopped briefly in the medieval walled town of Orvieto for a very nice lunch at a touristy place called The Grotto---now I know where that expensive restaurant in New York got it ideas. Not the expense...but the decor.

This is the outside of the restaurant and when you enter you head immediately down a flight of stairs to the grotto. There is a window to an outside fortressed wall at the end of the restaurant that lets in a little light.


We ordered a bottle of Vernaccia di S. Gimignano---a very nice white table wine. I ordered a ravioli stuffed with wild boar and floating in a buttery sauce, probably too robust for the wine, but like my feelings for art I am confident enough to appreciate things in my unique way. Besides my table mates were getting tired of the robust reds. They each ordered a pasta dish as well, one with a sweet sausage and one with ham. This was preceeded by a nice antipasta plate of cheeses and meats and olives.


We then took a walk to the walls of the city to look out over the country below as the afternoon was starting to wane. (Remember, you eat the midday meal in Italy starting at 3:00, so by the time we had wined and dined it was getting late.)


The city was arty and had lovely things to buy. Very much geared for the spending tourist.


And of course, the city had its important church in the center off of a large piazza at the highest point of the town. This one was most impressive, I must say. More lovely on the outside.


And the tourists were watching the locals who were watching the tourists!


We ended the day with a walking dessert at a world famous gelato place. They had a poster up that showed Alexander Solzenitzen eating gelato there, so we just HAD to try it.



Then trying to avoid putting our arrival too close to dark we reached the Agritourismo farm Locanda Rosati an hour before our scheduled 8:00PM family style dinner. We had brought playing cards and proceeded to sit at a game table in one of the farm-like sitting rooms playing games and sipping the wine brought by our host, Paulo. The dinner meal began in a large rustic dining room with introductions of all the guests and a vociferous welcome from Paulo. Many bottles of red and white wines were brought to the table for us to help ourselves. Then we started with a pate of boar, chicken liver, lime juice, olives, etc. to be spread on some salted puffed breads that were very much like sopapillas only salty. This was followed by an excellent mushroom rissotto, which was then followed by a meatloaf of wild boar, some wild bird and pistachios with a side dish of roasted potatoes. More wine and then a buttery fruit tart. Finally bottles of grappa, limonchello, and mezzaluna arrived and people freely sampled everything. I am not big on sweet liquors, but had fun watching my two mates get a little plastered and silly. After all, our room was only a short walk up a few steps.


Early the next morning we explored the grounds and found a lovely orchard of chestnuts and met our host's sister-in-law filling plastic bags with those that had fallen.


We checked out of the Inn after a breakfast of coffee that was to die for and an assortment of fruit, pastries and breads. We obtained directions to our next stop from their Internet, and thus plotted the day. We had been told that Italy's shopping outlets were on the way so we decided to stop at one called "THE MALL" just to see what an outlet in Italy was all about. There were stores from Fendi, Yves St. Laurent, Valentino, Gucci, Georgio Armani and a bunch of other old guys I had not heard about. These were the kind of stores that, in the states, you would wait for someone to unlock the door for you to enter. Here there was a steady stream of customers going in and out, many rich Asians with lots of bags over their shoulders. Items inside were 50 to 70% off! But since most items started at over $1,000 including simple silk blouses, I had to pass on any souvenirs from this place. (I played mind games in my head on what the ironing board thin 'customers assistants' in their designer clothes were thinking as I entered with my Macy's purse and sporting goods store walking shoes...and controlled myself so that I didn't laugh out loud.)

Then, as we settled back in the car, we read the directions from Chris and Christina to their Inn called Ankhura. They went something like this: Follow the exit to (Tuscan town) and then as you enter the roundabout take the exit to (another Tuscan town) and follow this road up the hill past the exit to (another Tuscan town) and take the roundabout and pass the exit to (another smaller Tuscan town) and head out and past the exit to (a very small Tuscan town) and then go on a gravel road and past (a named road) and head up the hill and pass the road to the cemetary and then you will reach Monterongrifolli.

Park your car at the sign that says "no parking beyond this point" and then go around the church and we are in the back up the street.(At first we thought that the symbol below was the no parking part! I took the photo the next day when we discovered it in the daylight.)



We arrived in the dark after 8:00 after much reading of signs and maps and second guessing and even going down a few blind streets in little unknown towns.

But the place was tremendously lovely and the hostess was graciousness personified. So, now it was time for my well-earned sleep on her lovely Malay linens and you too must rest for tomorrow we head out on a truffle hunt AND a wine tour.

A Sicily post script

The Sicily sun is intense, and even in the fall, so warm that we frequently sought the shade of a building or tree. The beach itself was very peaceful and sandy.

We stayed at Hotel Spendid in the little beach town of Mondello. Each night there was a little market along the beach walk where tables were filled with crafts from Northern Africa and rural parts of Italy. One stand was roasting chestnuts which were in season. It seemed to me that most of the tourists were Italians.

The best seafood in Sicily was the shrimp and squid which were fried. I had the stuffed squid which was tough and not all that appetizing looking. We also tried the mussels which were fat and fresh.

I tried hard to find fresh fish, but was unsuccessful.

If I get back to Sicily again I will rent a car and just slowly make my way around the island stopping at the various villages---each has something unique to offer.

The Island of Sicily

Commenters have asked for food pictures--and I don't think I took to many. I was always diving in and eating rather than focusing! And for my dear blogger, Colleen, that was my daughter and her M.I.L. behind the Venetian masks in the store photo.

Sicily is a fairly large island to the south of the peninsula of Italy and maybe most famous for the volcanic Mt. Etna. Most of what you read about Sicily will mention that it is a poorer and less pristine part of Italy. I think the Sicilians are a generous and polite people and several went out of their way to caution us about pickpockets and thieves. We did not encounter a single bad incident. My lovely daughter did get the 100-times-over from a man twice her age on the bus into town one morning. They are NOT shy about looking! There are also cautions about the criminal element, since the Mafia began here. (As an historic note, the big M began because Sicily felt it was being taxed unfairly by the main government in Italy but not getting the resources and support. They didn't like the main government setting up all the rules and regulations, so they decided to run their own little government.)

My daughter selected 2.5 days in Sicily because her M.I.L.'s mother's side of the family came from that region---was that clear? Anyway, because we did not have a car and had to rely on buses and trains, we touched only a small part of the island. I missed some great cultural and archeological parts as daughter and her M.I.L. were into the churches!


We stayed at a 1950's type hotel on the far point of one of the lovely beach areas. It was a little bit of a walk to the beach, but we did manage to soak our toes at the end of the days. The hotel is way at the end on the point in the photo above. It looks far from the beach, but I was taking the photo from the first drop off of the bus at the days end.


Each day we took the bus into Palermo which was the primary city nearby. It was a quick 15 minute ride. Then we had to walk a few blocks to catch the bus/train that we needed for the next leg of the day's journey.

The first day we went to a lovely village on the coast called Monreal. We were very lucky in that we got there early in the day. While we were eating a lunch of pizza across from the piazza in the photo below, I saw the police beginning to set up street barriers and various officials in fancy dress arriving. By the end of our lunch we discovered that this day was a funeral for their Archbishop who had passed away a few days before. The death of an Archbishop is a big deal in any country, but especially so in Italy. Dignitaries paraded in with banners and flowers and full regalia for several hours that afternoon and we just sat and sipped our wine and watched from our front row seat. We eventually moved to the church and got inside for a quick look before it had filled and the service started. They even broadcast it on a large TV screen outside. Below, the villagers that lived across the piazza watched the parade from their balconies.


Then we took off for a walk around the village since everything had started to close. Going up and down hills like these is what keeps Italians so thin after eating plates of pasta and pizza.


We encountered small children in the alleys and byways playing and taking advantage of their time off during the funeral. These two lovely ladies below were playing with Barbie dolls, of course!

And here is a sign outside the local day care center...?

The trip back on the bus was an interesting but it is a longer story...which I will save for another day, if reminded.

Our second day in Sicily required a train trip. Trains in Italy are so easy to use and so comfortable and really on time. We took the train to an even smaller village called Cefalu--to look at the church in the picture below.


We hiked outside the city walls and saw are a close-up view of the lovely Mediterranean Sea.


On our last night in Sicily we had eaten so much food that day that we decided on a dinner of cheeses and wine ( a nice Sicilian white) at an outside Enoteka. This was followed by a gelato (or cannoli in my case) in the piazza of the small beach town where we stayed. It was a good decision since we were given the fun of seeing the town wind down as the locals stopped in the piazza and viewed a local classic car show. The drivers were dapper as they had dressed for the occasion and clearly were enjoying the attention!


My next post will be the last of Italy but all about romantic Tuscany.

Rome Part II

We had allowed time to spend a second day in Rome. This turned out to be a good idea since we had only seen the outside in a sweaty blur as we taxied and then ran by. The Sistine Chapel was closed because it was a Sunday, so the M.I.L. had to forgo that tour for another time. Hubby and I had seen it years ago and it was beautiful and we felt worth the time if you could get your mind around the hundreds of tourists at your shoulders, the guards calling out telling people to keep moving, to stop talking, and the people ignoring the guards and talking, etc., etc. If I had to see it again I would pick a cold day in winter. Also we were wise to bring binoculars as the ceiling is far above you.

This trip we toured the Roman Forum below:




and the areas around that which are a necessary part of a Rome visit. We started with Circus Maximus which was near the hotel...a large area for horse racing and mock battles. Now just a large open area in the city and a long walk to other places.


We had lunch at an area near the Coliseum where back in history they did some outside training of the Gladiators or animals or whatever. While historically there were all kinds of events at the Coliseum including flooding the place and holding mock naval battles, the Coliseum always resides in my mind as such a blood-thirsty place that I have very mixed feelings when going there. It is also very touristy--notice all the heads below in the photo. Mock Roman soldiers with large hairy legs beneath their plated skirts willing and ready to get a picture taken with you for a fee--I did not take a photo!

We did set aside time to see the Baths of Caracalla which I had not seen during my prior visit and this visit was most impressive. Some of the wall and floor mosaics were still visible. This engineering marvel built in 212 AD used between 15-20,000 cubic meters of water (both hot and cold) per day and held as many as 1,600 daily visitors. Due to the tight living quarters among the Romans it was a central part of the Roman social life.

The photos above don't really do it justice and I didn't want to load ALL that I took.

Next week on to the sunny island of Sicily.

First Day Rome Arrival

Flying into Rome from America usually results in leaving late in the afternoon, flying overnight, and with the back crossing of time zones, arrival is the next morning. The airport is about 16 miles outside of the city and taking a taxi into the city costs about $50.00 depending on the going rate of exchange. NOT in our favor these days. You can also take a train into the city which is cheaper, takes a little longer, and requires a little more vigilance for pickpocketers as well as schlepping your bags.

Going through customs was a brief courtesy since Italy has thousands of tourists each day from the U.S. We had booked Splendid Hotel La Torre in Rome, but on arrival, we were transferred a few blocks away to
Hotel Villa San Pio. The location was a lovely, quiet suburban area. The three of us shared a room with an additional bed.


Below was the view from our bedroom window.


Since we could not actually check in, we dropped all our bags at the hotel and then requested a cab to the Vatican. Because we were booked for the Scavi tour at 10:45 A.M. and had arrived at the airport at 8:30 A.M. we were under a very tight schedule. We hadn't showered but were able to change clothes a little in the bathroom at the hotel lobby . In our pathetic Italian and rudimentary English we explained to the taxi driver that we had reservations for the tour of the excavations under St. Peter's Basilica. Only 120 people a day get to tour and we didn't want to miss this opportunity. He indicated that he knew where we should go. As we drove around the Vatican on a Saturday morning, we saw the line of people for the tour of the Sistine chapel...blocks and blocks long. He dropped us at the front of this line. We now had a little less than 20 minutes and were feeling pretty good about the time we had made. We, of course, were told by the guards at the drop off that the excavations' office was clear on the other side of the Vatican and our taxi driver was already gone. We held out purses and camera tightly to our bodies and actually jogged all the way to the other side of Vatican City past the line of tourists. I am sure they thought we were crazy...I have never seen anyone jog across St. Peter's Square, that was a first.

We arrived at the office out of breath, and a little sweaty, but on time. Our luck was holding as there were only three others on our tour and the women who gave the tour was magnificent. She knew her subject well and gave us lots of time for questions at each stop. It was not a religious tour, but an historic tour and most rewarding. It ended at the hall of the Popes where we were gently and firmly pushed aside by a Cardinal and his minions on a tour reminding us abruptly of our place in this structured Catholic society.



The Swiss guards at the Vatican are very patient in answering the tourists questions every day. They are also cute.

Here is a quick shot inside St. Peter's.

We then walked to the Pantheon which is a must-see for any first time visitor as was my daughter's M.I.L. As you can see they were way ahead of me!

During the walk we stopped to visit the shops and be silly since we now had been up for over 24 hours.

The Pantheon is most impressive with a span of over 142 feet. It was originally a Roman temple and survived by being consecreated as a Catholic church. The architect is unknown. I had taken many pictures on a prior trip, so was able to just enjoy the building this time.

Within a few blocks was a small and lovely church that we had passed before and decided to visit.

That evening was M.I.L.'s birthday and so we took a taxi to the top of Janiculum Hill for a meal at Antico Arco. This place is expensive and has recently been re-designed with a modern minimalist interior. The wait staff anticipate your every need before you know you have one and it is just the place for a memory. Don't eat here if you want lots of food at a reasonable price...memories are more expensive. I ordered a raw seafood salad, a wild mushroom pasta dish, a lemon veal, etc...I can't remember what everyone else ordered but we shared and tasted since they provided tasting plates of what others had ordered and it was delish.

The Wanderers are Back

We got up at 6:30 yesterday morning in Monterongriffoli where we had stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast in a medieval hamlet outside Siena for two days. By the time we drove to the Rome airport, checked our bags and got through two security checks, caught our plane to Boston where we went through customs and caught the second flight to Philadelphia and then drove home we had been up and moving for almost 24 hours! My daughters M.I.L. had been on 6 planes by the end of the the 10 day trip and handled all like a trooper. She now is thinking she may want to do more travel!

Still shaking the Tuscany dust off my shoes and trying to adjust to another continent, I have many lovely memories. My daughter had planned all of the this trip and it was one of the most rewarding I have ever taken. So I will take the blogger through step by step so that I have a good journal of the experience for myself and can share with readers as well.

Hundreds of pictures were taken and, of course, I cannot post them all, but will share some of the best.

Arrivederci

After many phone calls and odd conversations (due to poor technology not emotionality ) with all the family who are involved (there will be 5 of them) I have decided to go to Italy. I can probably do more to help all of them once Dad is moved back into my brother's house.

Today they moved him out of the hospital and into the therapy care house where they expect him to stay for the next three weeks. He seems reasonably strong if somewhat confused. The pain is finally subsiding for a while. From my brother's description everyone was in extreme pain just watching him struggle from the chair to the bed. We have never seen my father in pain. He has always been a go with the flow kind of guy, so this is very upsetting for all of us. And, although he is 92, he has never been in a hospital except to stay with my mother who there many times. Really!

Old age is not for the weak of heart or mind.

With regard to the Italy trip, I will post some pictures or at least talk about the trip when I return. My daughter has planned this trip for her mother-in-law's 63rd birthday and asked me to be the partner in the crime. Her M.I.L. has never traveled much anywhere in her life and is afraid to fly on planes. We will ply her with liquor and laughter. Three silly woman. I hope that we do well. We are going on a truffle hunt and wine tour. That should be something to blog about.

I will miss my blogging buddies and wish I could take all of you. You would all add something unique and special to the trip. But instead, I will try to take you virtually.

The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club (2005)

We had to leave the apartment for a dinner out and a movie last night since the managment told us the carpet cleaners were 'on the way" and had been delayed by a clean-up of a broken pipe. (They weren't and didn't! That is another story.)

Anyway we saw a movie that I had been hoping to catch sometime this month. Reviews, backgrounder and info can be found at Ronni's Guest Blogger entry at Times Goes By . Guest blogger did an extensive review of the movie, Boynton Beach Bereavement Club, which is about elders in a retirement community in Florida.

Anyway, the movie was very interesting in many ways but not all that compelling. The actors were all top flight folks and the dialogue was not all that bad although some of the jokes were predictable. The whole theme was about loneliness and love and in some cases sex among the elderly. It was pretty lite fare considering the lives of people in a retirement community are not that shallow. You won't see much of the younger family members either.

It is refreshing to see natural wrinkles and sags and real people on the big screen and maybe this will be the beginning of more movies like that.

I did find it painful to watch the actors who had filled their lips with collagen and tightened their faces so that they looked like perpetually smiling mannikins. The actors who had not were much more interesting to watch.

As an aside, I read an article recently which stated that Jane Fonda and Sally Fields had made a pact to not have plastic surgery.

Well, enough of this stupid blogging.