Varese & Lugano [10-9-09]

All packed and ready to move north (and definitely conscious of the reality that my trip to Italy was on its final leg), I went down to the port area of Vernazza on Friday morning for my final breakfast there. Antonio, the waiter, gave me that priceless "nod of recognition" and brought out my cappuccino with a little smiley face drawn on it, as if he knew I was sad to leave and needed a spiritual lift. The croissant was warm and crisp, and the air was slightly cooler than usual. I’d miss this town. When I was done, I said farewell to the Cinque Terre and jumped a train back down to La Spezia, then a taxi to my car in Portovenere, and then began my long drive north toward the Italian Alps.

The weather was turning. Ever since I had arrived in Italy on September 25, the weather had been basically “glorious.” Now it seemed to be ready to turn the tables. I checked to make sure I knew how to flip on the windshield wipers and found my way to the highway to Parma (the land of the world-famous Parma “ham” called prosciutto). There I merged into the northbound superhighway of Italy, the A-1, bound for Varese north of Milan.

The rain was intermittent, never a real deluge, but I could see dark skies in the north that said someone was getting it in buckets. My cell phone rang, and it was Simone, the ex-foreign exchange student I would be sight-seeing with over the weekend. Simone asked me if it was raining where I was, and said that Varese was getting heavy rain. He was concerned because he didn’t know how that might affect our plans to see the local lakes and to go up into Switzerland to see Lake Lugano. I just told him, “We’ll see … don’t worry, maybe I’ll bring the sunshine with me from the south!”

By the time I reached Varese (pronounced “var-REH-zeh”) it was still raining, but the storm had passed and all we were getting at that point was the “left overs.”

My GPS got me to the right street and block easily enough -- which is saying a lot, because Varese, like most Italian cities, has few street signs and a good deal of traffic, leaving you with the impression that you are the only one in the city who doesn’t know where he is or where he’s supposed to end up. I was looking for the street address Simone had given me. His family knows the owners of a great “bed and breakfast” near Simone’s office, and Simone had arranged for me to stay there during my visit. The address was on Viale Borri. The only problem was that I had found street and block easily enough, but where the bed and breakfast should have been there was nothing but a large vacant lot. Thinking I might have written the street number down incorrectly, I started exploring in both directions, up and down the street, even getting out and walking with an umbrella at one point, but I couldn’t see anything that contained the B&B's name or street number, nor anything that remotely resembled a personal home that might be used for a B&B.

Fortunately, I found a quiet alley near where the B&B should have been, and I called Simone on my cell phone. He said he knew what the problem was and told me to wait for him on the sidewalk (under my umbrella) so he could pick me up in his car. That all worked out. The address I had was correct, but the house was “out of place” down the street and had no sign out front except for a small plaque which said “B&B.” Anyway, I was soon being welcomed by Carmelo and Rosa, the owners of a grand old house on Luigi Borri, where I would be staying. My room was spacious and beautifully appointed with antiques and a great balcony. This photo is with Carmelo and Rosa, and their daughter-in-law on the left. Maybe it was just because I knew the Piccini’s, but they certainly made me feel like part of the family -- and they spoke only Italian, which kept me on my toes. They were always greeting me with questions about which restaurant I had eaten in, how I liked it, what I ordered, how did it compare to food in Texas. I loved chatting with them (food is an easier subject to discuss in a foreigh language than a good number of others).
I unpacked my bags, settled in, and in awhile Simone picked me up to take me out to dinner with his girlfriend (who was up from Milan to say hello and have dinner with us). The three of us walked the streets of the central city until our table was ready at the Albergo Bologna, and then we sat down to yet another feast. It was still a bit damp outside, but inside I enjoyed the lively conversation and laughter with these two young English-speaking Italians from the great city of Milan.

On Saturday, the weather had done a complete turnaround, and was once again crisp, clear and glorious. At last I could actually see this seldom-visited city in the far north of Italy. Simone and I walked around the town center (where he took this photo -- showing Varese as the sport-biking capital of Italy) and then jumped into my rental car and headed to the Swiss border, which is just a few miles away, to spend the day in Lugano and Lake Lugano. I thought it was interesting that the Swiss border guards spoke only Italian, as did all the people we ran into that day. I was expecting German. Once safely parked, we covered the scenic part of downtown next to Lake Lugano. I was fascinated by this bronze colossus head in one of the lakeside parks. Was it of a Roman emperor? Why the head wrap? I discovered that it was created by a famous Polish sculptor named Igor Mitoraj, and it is called "Eros Bendato" (Eros blindfolded). Since the banding affects both the eyes and mouth, it is said to symbolize that passionate love ("Eros") is often blind, and even unspoken. We walked the town, ate at a sidewalk café, and then after lunch caught a boat to a lakeside village called Gandria -- yet another ancient town for us to explore. We even visited the Lugano Casino (twice), and were entertained by watching other people loose their money to electronic gaming machines. What trust these guys (mostly) have in the fairness of the computer programs that are telling them whether they have won or lost each electronic “spin of the wheel.” What I don’t understand is the need for all the showmanship of the machines, with outlandish themes and artwork. If a gambler is willing to let a computer decide his fate, why not just drop all the bells and whistles, have one big keypad with 100 buttons, and have the digital voice tell the visitor, “Insert your credit card in the slot and press any one of the red buttons. We will then let you know if you have won or lost.”

That evening Simone’s father arrived in town from Milan to spend the rest of the weekend with us. It was a great joy to see Claudio again. We had met in 2008 when I was visiting the family in Milan for a couple of days along with my friend Linda Young. They are a charming, intelligent, generous and fun-loving family. Claudio is now retired from a large oil & gas company based in Milan, and has shifted his energies to a small computer company venture with his brother. As we spent time together for the next day and a half, we had many great conversations about the impact of the recessed economy on start-up businesses. He’s still optimistic about the future, though. Our Sunday excursions were ambitious. We drove up to the top of the Sacra Monte of Varese, which contains a great church at the top, and descending the mountain from there, a long pathway for pilgrims to climb, linking from one rotunda to the next as they ascend, each one containing on the inside a life-size “diorama” of the events of the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Christ - - not to mention a grand view of the Varese valley below and the Swiss and Italian Alps in the distance.

Simone feels fortunate to have a permanent job after graduating from Bocconi University in Milan. I know his family is very proud of him. Apparently, not all of his classmates have been so lucky in finding good employment after university. Simone works in sales for a manufacturer of advanced tools for the construction industry. He has a great loyalty to Italy, and to family, but he is also toying with the idea of going to the U.S. and building a career there. Any company, in Italy or in the U.S., would be lucky to have him ... bright, articulate, and ambitious, with a great ability to relate to people in all walks of life. I think he will do great wherever he goes.

I think that is one of the touching things about the modern Italian. This irony was bouncing around in my head for several days, and then, on Sunday, as Simone, Claudio and I walked the streets of Varese, I happened to see, and photograph, this random shot that expresses it visually. It is of a modern Italian woman sitting behind a street-market table which proudly displayed a bust of Benito Mussolini. They both seemed to stare into the distance … What were they contemplating? One, the Italian of today - - the other, an Italian of the past, who devastated Italy in his brutal drive to bring this nation back to its former greatness.
Italians are conscious of their own grand history of conquest, domination, achievement, cultural advancement, and honor among nations, but they worry that this might not be enough any more. For many centuries, they ruled Europe, and, at the same time, lead the way for other nations to rise and achieve greatness in their own right. Italy was once the single great “superpower” of the Western world. Today its citizens constantly find themselves just trying to stay up with Germany, France, Great Britain, and now even Spain - - not to mention the industrialized nations of the Americas - - and also not to mention the emerging powerhouses of the Far East. How is this relatively tiny country (roughly the size of Arizona) to find its way to recognition for new achievement, new breakthroughs, new contributions in a competitive, and ever flatter, world? No one wants this amazing country to become little more than a historical amusement park for tourists (although today most Italians do want tourists to continue coming to Italy -- the money they leave behind is simply too critical to the economic viability of the nation). The question will be whether Italy can continue to share with the world its past and its extraordinary natural beauty, and at the same time find the hard-earned leadership position I believe it yearns for within the community of nations. Perhaps that is what these two were pondering in the fading sun of this quiet afternoon in the town of Varese.

Well, the next leg of my journey is on tomorrow's American Airlines flight home to the good ol' USA. What uncommon hours I've spent here. I have to say, though, I'll be glad to get back. Like I wrote at the beginning of this journal, I’m lucky to have loved ones to go home to. So I'll end with that wonderfully, let's say, reassuring Italian farewell: "Ci vediamo" ... “We’ll see each other again.”
Ciao!

The Cinque Terre [10-6/7/8-09]

I arose Tuesday morning with the excited anticipation of heading north by boat to a magical area called the Cinque Terre (the “five landings” or "five towns"). This is a series of five old fishing villages lined up north and south along the Ligurian coast of Italy, and they’re pretty special. Italy turned the entire area into a protected national heritage park (like the conservation districts found in older cities), and the United Nations UNESCO declared it a “heritage of mankind” zone. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but I’m sure they meant it as a compliment.

The first (and most southern) of the five villages after heading north along the coastline from Portovenere is the tiny port of Riomaggiore. I remember having my first pizza with anchovies in this little village on my first visit to the Cinque Terre in May of 2001. Riomaggiore is also a popular starting point for hikers. Each of the five villages is connected by a hiking trail. Starting at the “bottom" or southern end of the trail leading out of Riomaggiore, the trail becomes longer and more physically demanding as you proceed north from town to town. So between Riomaggiore and the next village up (Manarola), the hike is fairly simple and easy … more like a walk along a paved pathway, with few heavy “ups and downs” along the way. Little children and older walkers seem to manage fine on this leg.

Of course, this is no ordinary walk. The height above the sea gives enormous perspective of the coastline, and the sights are breathtaking. From the surf crashing far below the trail, to the grape vineyards clinging to the 200 year-old terraces above the path, it’s an amazing experience. Even the rock that forms this coastline is amazing … with twisted strata and up-ended monoliths, you can put on your amateur geologist’s hat and clearly see the torturous pressures at work here -- pressures that at one point pushed the Alps up into the sky. The layers you see in this picture were perfectly flat and horizontal when they were first formed.

Why all the geologic commotion? Africa. Really! The tectonic plate that supports the continent of Africa presses against Europe with a force only a floating continent can deliver. It gains only one inch per year in its struggle to merge with Europe, but over eons of time that annual progress of compression has definitely left its mark on Italy, as it juts south into the Mediterranean in its eternal attempt to keep Africa in its place. The continual earthquakes and volcanoes of this country are the direct results in our times. You might say Vesuvius erupted because of Africa.

Anyway, back to the “trail” -- everyone visiting the Cinque Terre should at least do that first leg heading north out of Riomaggiore. It's truly an easy (but breathtaking) walk to the next town to the north, little Manarola. Continuing north from Manarola, the trail does become a bit steeper, so continue walking only if you have time, energy and strength. If you do continue your hike, the next stop will be the “Number 3” town of Corniglia (“cor-NEEL-yah”), which is set high up on a sea cliff and is the only one of the towns without some kind of port area. The families of Corniglia are better known for their wines and olive oils than their seamanship. If you've had enough hiking, you can take the northbound train out of Manarola, which will stop next at a station immediately below Corniglia.

My boat’s next stop was my destination town (and personal favorite): Vernazza. I first visited the Cinque Terre in 2001, and then again in 2007, but this time was different, because I was going to be staying for three nights in a little apartment right in Vernazza. What a privilege. I would eventually trek on up to the most northern Cinque Terre member town (Monterosso – the only one of these towns that allows cars in its streets), but first I wanted to settle into my new home.

My landlord, Bartolo Lercari, met me at the dock and happily led me up to my new abode in the town as he pointed out various points of interest along the way. Bartolo is a distinguished, articulate, and energetic person, and I immediately felt like I had my first ally in this town. As we passed by an old man sitting in the sunlight on the main road up the hill, Bartolo said “Ciao Babo” and then turned to me and said, “That’s my father, he’s 87 years old. His name is Ercole, and for many years he ran the best pizzaria in town. Now he’s retired and he just enjoys life.”

Bartolo’s family has been part of Vernazza for many generations. I saw evidence of this in the town cemetery where there are a good number of Lercari tombs. He now owns most of the vineyards on the slopes above the town and continues making his highly regarded local wines: Perciò, Sciacchetrà, and DOC Cinque Terre, all delicious. He hosted this wine tasting party for a group of 50 visiting Sweeds and invited me to join, which I of course did. His wife, Lisa, is the actual seller of the wine, and she speaks Swedish, so I hope they sold a lot. It was a fun wine tasting, with various Sweeds in the tour group wondering who I was -- this stranger who didn’t “look Italian at all.” I spoke at length to one 50 year-old cardiologist who said he had been to several medical conventions in Dallas over the years. When I complimented his perfect English, he said that, of course, most of the medical literature of today is written in English, so it’s essential for specialists to know the language fluently. “The New England Journal of Medicine is not translated into Swedish,” he quipped with a big grin. His favorite thing in America? California wine. “It’s much better than Americans think it is. I like it much better than French wines.”

There really isn't much “to do” in Vernazza, but I don’t think activities are what draw people here. It’s a storybook setting, and what a lot of visitors are doing is nothing in particular. I was okay with that, especially after my week-long touring of Tuscany. They know that the world beyond this coast is a frenetic place, but here one driftes into letting the angle of the sun mark the time of day. Here they still honor the national creed of Italy . . . “Il dolce far niente” (the sweetness of doing nothing).

That doesn’t mean all of this “nothing” is effortless, mind you. This town clings to a mountain side. Down is easy; up take some huffing and puffing. The side streets are all “stepped” to make climbing a bit easier (although it’s not a lot of help with wheeled luggage, which you end up picking up and carrying). They are narrow and endlessly mysterious. The buildings are more like individual towers lined up side-by-side, with archways high above the street, connecting the buildings from one side of the street to the opposite. It’s sort of like the buildings are saying “I’ll hold you up if you hold me up … together we’ll be fine.” Maybe that’s the nature of the residents of those buildings, too. People who reside in small, remote villages seem to understand that their neighbors are "all we've got." They live lives propping each other up, making for a happier village life. You see this everywhere in the Cinque Terre.

All of the up and down treading requires concentrated fuel, so gelato is always available in all the flavors you could ever ask for. It’s no secret that gelato is one of the best reasons for coming to Italy in the first place. Made strictly with milk (not cream), the fat calories are few. And the sugar will be burned off in the unending climbing and descending.

Otherwise, you will see a lot of sitting on benches and just watching the sunset, reading a book, chatting with neighbors, or taking pictures of kids in the square kicking around a soccer ball or zooming by on in-line skates. As the sun sets in the west, over France, the lateral light continues to illuminate the colorful umbrellas in the town square, making the people under them glow with the same hues.

This is one of the ring leaders of the town kids. Little Mateo is one of my next-door neighbors, and he only knows how to speak at full yell. I saw him delivering some kind of paper notices to various doors along our narrow street after school one day, and I assume it pertained to some upcoming school project. He’s a good example of “free range” kids in this part of the world. After school he has permission to be anywhere in the town with his friends, as long as he doesn’t get in people’s way and is home by suppertime.

I wish I had been able to snap a picture of one little tike the second night I was in Vernazza. In a restaurant a toddler had been eating with his parents. When they finished his mother lead him by the hand to the front door to exit, while he, dragging behind her, with his pacifier firmly clinched far to one side of his mouth so he could continue talking, was saying “Ciao tutti, ciao tutti, ciao tutti” to every table he passed (meaning “good bye everyone”). I guess he realized we’d all miss him. It was about as cute as it gets.

During the daylight hours, I was driven by good weather. If it’s cloudy or raining, there’s no reason to rush to get out into the town and snap photos, but if the weather is sunny and beautiful, you’ve got to (as Janis Joplin said) “get it while you can.” Tomorrow may be a lost cause if the Mediterranean starts storming up, as it can do.

On Wednesday my main objective was to hop a train north to Levanto (very nearby) to meet up with friends from Hawaii. As I got ready to go, I discovered that my camera battery was dead. Then, after furiously searching for the spare battery and the charger, I realized that I had left them in my car in the garage in Portovenere. I emailed my friends and told them I might be a tad bit late, but I was not coming to visit them without a functioning camera. They understood completely.

That is one of the best lessons I’ve learned traveling in Italy over the years (this is my 13th trip). It’s not a question of whether or not things will go wrong on the trip. They will. They always do. The question is how well and how quickly you can recover.

Instead of heading north, I hopped on the next train heading south to La Spezia (a large port city). From there, I got a taxi to Portovenere, had him stop at the garage, fetched my extra battery and charger (feeling foolish for having forgotten them when I was “packing light” for my three days in the Cinque Terre), hopped back in the cab, got back to the La Spezia train station ($60) and got the next train heading to Levanto in the north. I had recovered.

Denny and Debby Wright met me at the train station in Levanto. It was a joy to see them again. Debby and I were law partners back in the early and mid-80’s at Passman & Jones in Dallas. In 1987 she and Denny, and kids, picked up and moved to Maui just because they wanted to, and they’re still there today. They are two people who seem so full of happiness you just can’t get enough of them. They joke around, they ask questions, they’re interested in everything! We had numerous glasses of local wines and finally ended up at a restaurant in Levanto, joined by their son Doug and his wife and two little angel daughters. It was a wonderful evening. It had probably been almost 20 years since I had seen them. They had changed very little. How random to have had our paths cross in Italy of all places.

On Thursday I decided to take a train up to Bonassola and see what Hemmingway’s favorite city on this coast was like. I didn’t see what he saw and was happy to head south again toward Monterosso. Waiting for that train, I met a troop of German scouts (3 girls and 4 boys, all in full scout uniforms) who were trekking through Italy for a couple of weeks. They seemed like exceptional kids. My only inwardly negative thought was “I wonder how much these very German-looking kids resemble the Hitler Youth of the 1930’s and 40’s.” I don’t know where that came from, but the point is … how wrong our impressions can be. As they asked me questions about Texas (I'm sure for the purpose of practicing their English on me more than any actual interest in Texas), I noticed the patch each of them wore on their uniforms at the left shoulder. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. Their troop was named for Martin Luther KING (i.e., not just Martin Luther, which I would have understood immediately). I pointed it out to them and asked “Why Marting Luther King?”

“Be-cass … well … zee I Have A Dream … You know it?”

Yes, I did know it. Maybe there’s hope after all.

I visited Monterosso briefly and then hopped the next train south to Vernazza again for my last evening in town. I think the people of this town are very interesting. They are very hard working.
I found this one local laborer using a gas motor driven “tank” to carry buckets of gravel (weighing a ton, I’m sure) up the steps of a narrow side “street.” I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the builders of this town to do this all by human labor alone. Otherwise, “streets” in Vernazza are for pedestrian traffic. They do permit garbage trucks and delivery vehicles into the town at daybreak, but once they depart, there’s nothing but human beings. The town has very nice cafes and restaurants, but I think the people of Vernazza cannot escape their heritage any more than the rest of us can. They are, so often here, families of fishermen. Going to sea has been in their blood for centuries. That’s why the service in the plaza or in the tiny restaurants along Via Roma can seem a bit rough or abrupt at times, lacking finesse. They are fishermen making a more profitable life for themselves in catering to the needs of tourists, but it seems not to come “naturally” to many of them, as it might in Rome or Milan. They don’t have a lot of patience for the tourists that bop into town every day, and that is understandable. Tourists present to them all that is chaotic: questions they don’t quite understand, requests, demands, frustration, obstructions to foot traffic, constantly stopping and taking pictures in the middle of a busy pedestrian street, all that is odd and frustrating. And the tourists never really stay. They will be on the next boat or train to “elsewhere” - - so there isn’t much chance to “see” the real person inside that tourist “figure” standing before them. No real connection, just the prospect of income for goods and services sold, clumsy interaction and then POOF … they’re gone.

That’s why I wanted to stay in Vernazza for three days. I wanted to see the same waiters day after day, so they’d recognize me. I wanted to see how that might change things. Predictably, it did. I started getting those “knowing nods of the head,” and that meant I was recognized for being different from the mob. I was in. I liked that.

Portovenere [10-5-09]

I’m getting tired of every new place I see suddenly becoming my favorite “spot” in Italy. How many spots does this little country have? I left my hotel in Lucca at 11:00 AM, found my way through the old wall and into “modern day” Lucca, followed a large commercial truck to the “Interstate” (Autostrada) … I figured that was where he was heading with his haul … and followed the signs for Genova. La Spezia was my cutoff a little over an hour later. Then I followed the well-marked signs to the coastal port town of Portovenere. The underground parking garage was in the same building as my hotel (the “Grand Hotel Portovenere”), so parking the car and checking in were both a snap.

Probably because it’s really starting to be “low season” around here, I was upgraded to the corner suite on the top floor of the hotel. I guess they figured they had to give it to someone, so why not me.

The room was very nice, modern, and clean as a whistle. Then I opened the drapes, and the glass doors behind them, and walked out onto my private balcony. This is the scene that greeted me. “Welcome to Portovenere … your new favorite town in Italy!”

Who wouldn’t love this place? It’s not only photogenic. It comes with a deep history. The Romans used this port for their fleets of battleships as they launched attacks on “Cisalpine Gaul” (“Gaul, this side of the Alps”). Mark Anthony and Octavian united their armies in this area after the death of Julius Caesar and ultimately added this part of Italy to the empire. Admiral Pleny the elder used it as a northern home port for his Roman fleet in the 70’s A.D. when Vespasian was emperor in Rome.

The high fortress (the “Castello Doria”) is certainly more recent vintage, although built on top of Roman lookout points. It was greatly expanded under the governance of Genoa (the large Italian port city to the north), and in 1797 it was surrendered to Napoleon (who eventually took over most of Italy). He turned the Portovenere fortress into a prison for political enemies. The fort is easily accessible (if you can climb stairs and ramps) and explorable.

I noticed that these ancient arches inside the fortress now contain a modern element. Those panels suspended between each arch are solar panels to power the lights that illuminate the fort at night, another beautiful sight to behold.

I also really liked just walking the back streets of this little town. It’s not “just a tourist attraction.” I had returned to the town just as school let out Monday afternoon. Suddenly the narrow streets were filled with happy kids chirping Italian at the top of their lungs. I wonder if they were that exuberant in class today.

Below the fortress is the city cemetery. I mention this because if you’ve never visited an Italian cemetery, you should take that opportunity if possible. They aren’t like our cemeteries. Each tomb is above ground, and they all contain durable photographs of the occupant, with fresh flowers placed in little attached vases. Somehow this seems a more fitting form of memorial than the engraved stones we’re used to seeing in the States. This photo is the marker for little Rolando Sturlese, born 1948, died at age 8 in 1956. The inscription below the photo says it was placed there by his parents, his brother, and his sisters. The yellow mums were fresh-cut and placed in water-filled goblets attached to the stone. Who was this little Rolando? What was he like? I wish I knew, but that does't matter. He's still remembered, 56 years later, by someone.

My only disappointment in Portovenere, and it was minor, was dinner at Da Iseo. The waiter had one of those painfully forced smiles that just don’t seem right … unreal, not from a smiling heart. Worse was the fact that the pesto wasn’t as good as what I make at home in Dallas. It had the consistency of mayonnaise. I think this was mass-produced “tourist pesto” – which is a misdemeanor, for sure, on the Ligurian coast, where pesto is supposed to have been invented. Still, I’ll come back to this town again some day.

Lucca [10-3-09]

After winding up our week at Carlo’s cooking school in Arcidosso, we all had a final breakfast and bid a fond farewell to each other. Everyone, hosts and guests, were in that happy/sad state of saying goodbye and wondering if we’d ever see each other again. At least we have email, right?

My driving destination was the town of Lucca to the north, a good 3 hour drive. Thanks to Google Earth, I had pre-experienced my daring drive into the tiny streets of this ancient city several times before I left Dallas. I had done it “from the sky” enough that I felt I could almost drive to my hotel blindfolded. Well, it wasn’t quite that easy, but it sure helped to know ahead of time what things would look like, where the traffic circles would be, where the tight one-way streets would get me to my hotel. It worked like a charm.

And speaking of charm, this city has it in abundance. Even the simple plazas look like impressionistic paintings from the late 1800’s. If the dappled sunlight weren’t enough, the hundred-year-old sycamore trees offered their speckled brown and white bark. What photos I took here! And the people were probably the most photogenic I’ve seen anywhere in Italy. “All kinds of beauty,” as they say.

The streets were so narrow, that they are best photographed around high noon so you can get at least some sunlight to fall down one side. Lucca is often compared to Pisa (far more industrial) and Florence (far more tourist-bus choked) … and I quickly determined that Lucca is the best of the three. Florence has far more art (Who can compete with the collections of generations of Medici princes?), and Pisa has “the airport,” but Lucca has … ambience.

One very interesting find (and unexpected) lies beneath the church of San Giovanni. It is the site of a well-excavated and very accessible Roman town - - the first Lucca. With well preserved mosaic floors, public baths, plumbing, streets, etc., it’s not the “full city” of the Roman era, but it is a lot of fun to see. It’s like a mini-Pompeii.

Etruscan Towns of the South [10-2-09]

For our Friday trip, Romeo took us south, almost to the Tuscan border with Lazio (the Italian state for which Rome is the capital). While the towns we had been visiting earlier in the week seemed “ancient” in comparison to what we know in the U.S., what you actually see in the typical Tuscan hill towns may be as young as 300 years, or as old as 1100 years, but not much older than that … at least on the visible surface.

Now we would see the “really old” stuff -- things so old, even the early Romans studied their archeology. Our first stop was a verdant mountain setting, with lush vegetation, tall trees, and babbling brooks. What brought us here, however, were the ancient tombs of Etruscan kings and nobles. Carved into the sides of these lava stone mountains were mammoth-scaled altars, crypts, caves and tombs. I was blown away by the honor of being able to walk up to these magnificent structures, and touch them with my own hand. Someone once carved this beautiful groove I am touching, with tools he held in his hand, right here, standing where I stand now. Who was he? What did he love? What did he fear? George Trevelyan once wrote: "The dead were -- and are not. Their place knows them no more, and is ours today ... The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once on this earth, once on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now are gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow." The Etruscans were very advanced as a society, and the Romans borrowed heavily from their technology, belief systems and culture in building the Roman Empire. One might think of the Etruscans as “proto-Roman,” except that might be distasteful to the Etruscans. The name Tuscany is derived from the word Etrusca.

Our next stop was the stunning city of Pitigliano (“pee-til-YAHN-no”), a city far older than places like Pienza or Montalcino, a city that is so “Medieval” it’s a bit scary. Using the local dark gray-brown tufa stone from the surrounding volcanic mountains, the city is deliciously dark and intriguing, especially from the outside looking in. On the inside of the city, almost as if the locals realize the color of their city is a bit off-putting, there are flowers everywhere. During the Middle Ages (and to some extent all the way back to the days of the Roman Empire) Pitigliano was the home of a large Jewish population. It was called “New Jerusalem.” They had prospered here, and had been largely responsible for the building of the city high above the dense forest below the walls. Of course, the Nazis of World War II made Pitigliano an example of racial cleansing, capturing and shipping off many members of Jewish families who had lived in this town for centuries. The Italians did what they could to hide some families, preventing their extermination. They also are said to have adopted many of the Jewish children, so they could pass as gentile when the Nazis came calling.

The food is excellent here. It's rustic and unrefined, and I ate every bite. For lunch I had one of the best lamb stews I’ve ever tasted. The meat was, of course, falling off the bone, and the whole thing was in a tomato and veggie stew, along with classic Tuscan bruschetta (which is just toasted slices of rustic bread smeared with garlic and olive oil, and sprinkled with salt).

We then departed for the neighboring town of Sorrano, a smaller version of Pitigliano. Romeo explained the sad fact that towns of this kind are dying in Italy. Fewer families, if any, move into these towns, the young people who do grow up in them so often move away for better jobs in big cities. The remaining population becomes older and (my guess) more and more resigned to a feeling of isolation. What town can do without the sound of kids invading its streets after school lets out in the afternoon? Unless something changes, such towns are destined to become ghost towns. I have to think that would be a great loss to us all if these towns, after enduring so many centuries of struggle and survival, cease to exist as living and breathing villages crowning the great hills of central Italy.

Montalcino and Pienza [10-1-09]

Okay, no more fooling around. It’s time to go for the gold. On this bright, cool Thursday morning, Romeo picked us up and we rocketed through the mountains to perhaps the most famous of all Italian wine-making towns … Montalcino (“mohn-tal-CHEE-noh”). Here is where the Sangiovese grape rules like an archduke of wines.

For years after World War II the Italian nation was it ruins. As the allies pushed the Germans ever northward with brutal battles and bombings, the collateral damage to Italian towns, and people, was devastating. What does that have to do with wine? A lot. With their post-war infrastructure in shambles, people were simply trying to find enough food to live on while they rebuilt their homes and towns. Picking up the pieces. The art of fine wine making necessarily took a back seat. Eventually, as towns rebuilt and people found productive jobs, things slowly began to return to normal, which allowed for the timid revival of wine production. The volumes increased, but the “art,” the fineness of the wines of central Italy, was still lacking, the same way Japanese cars were a joke in the 1960’s. I can remember in the 1960’s and 1970’s, even the word “Chianti” was a kind of code for drinkable, but not at all “good” wine -- while the wicker covered bottles became gaudy, wax-coated candle holders in every Italian restaurant in America.

Then in 2001 a huge spotlight was focused on the small hill town of Montalcino in central Tuscany, when Wine Spectator (the international publication that rates all major wines) announced that the newly released 1997 Brunello di Montalcino was, literally, the best red wine in the world – beating out the usually dominant French reds which the world had come to accept as the standard by which all other wines were measured. Not so any more. The lively complexity, depth of color, mouth feel, broadly nuanced Brunello di Montalcino had won the grand prize from the best wine tasters on the planet. Everyone who dealt in wine would have to rethink the stature of Italy as master wine maker.

Little Montalcino! Suddenly people began talking, once again, about Italian wines. What had happened? The old candlestick-bottle Chianti had suddenly become Chianti Classico, also winning new collectors and awards, and in demand everywhere. Then new mixes of Sangiovese and other Italian grapes began winning acclaim as the “Super-Tuscans.” You might say the lexicon of wine making had changed to include these new giants. More importantly, the art of making fine wines had been recovered in Italy, in the same way Brunalleschi recovered the art and craft of making a great dome (his, the Duomo of Florence) after being lost to the world of architecture for a thousand years.

Romeo took us to the La Fortuna winery just below the city of Montalcino, where the grapes were now off the vines and the massive process of turning their juice into wine was well underway in huge stainless steel vats of roiling red. Again the wine making family was happy to see Romeo and treated him like a cousin. They wanted us to try their “mosto” (known as “must” in English) – the grape juice as it exists in the early days after being forced from the skins of the grapes. It was like drinking a lollypop - - heavenly! The fact was explained that once the juice is removed from the skins, it is separated from what will eventually make it a Brunello. The SKINS are where the flavors begin. These large vats had tons of skins floating on the surface above the denser grape juice below, and the process underway was power-siphoning the “mosto” from a bottom port and redelivering it to the top so it could, over and over again, shower and pass through the grape skins, eventually stripping them of their flavors and color. I bought a bottle of the La Fortuna Brunello for the equivalent of $30 U.S. – a bottle that will cost up to $150 in about 4 years when it’s released to the market en masse. In the meantime, once finished in oak barrels and properly balanced and bottled, it will “sleep” in the cool La Fortuna cellars. They quietly let us see where the 2008 is now sleeping, and the 2007 and 2006 – massive cages filled with stacks of dark, unlabeled bottles lying on their sides, awaiting their day of liberation. We didn’t want to wake them.

Pienza was our afternoon stop, not far to the east from Montalcino. Pienza is known as “the perfect Tuscan hill town,” not just because the locals like to think of it that way, but because Pope Pius II spent a huge chunk of church money on making it that way. It had been his childhood home, and I guess he had a vision from God on how to give it a long needed makeover so all those other hill towns that surround it would no longer look down their noses. He did well. Pienza today is like a Tuscan hill town designed by Walt Disney Studios. Cute as a bug in every nook and cranny. Its product is cheese … pecorino cheese to be exact. Made of sheep milk, this world famous cheese was originally the product of the sheep farms of Sardinia. After World War II, many of those shepherd families moved, with their herds, to the mainland of Italy, settling in southern and central Tuscany. The fine art of pecorino cheese making was their gift to their mainland Italian cousins.

Pecorino comes in three ages or levels of maturity, from “fresco” to “stagionato” (aged). I bought a one-kilo wheel of the stagionato, which Romeo’s favorite cheese vendor in Pienza was happy to vacuum pack for the long trip back to the states. No refrigeration required. It’s not a “smelly” cheese at all, but the vacuum wrap will help confine it. If you saw this round wheel of cheese on the side of the road, you’d think nothing of it. It looks like a dirty, blackened rock. That’s because the Pienza stagionato is aged in layers of dried chestnut leaves mixed with the black ash of burned chestnut leaves. When eating it with slices of pear and a good Brunello, pecorino staggionato taste sort of like … chestnuts!

Montepulciano & Vino Nobile [9-30-09]

On Wednesday we were once again trundling across the countryside and mountain roads in Romeo’s van, this time heading northeast to the land of the great Vino Nobile (“VEE-noh NOH-be-leh””) of Montepulciano. Romeo lectured us most of the way there on how this honored wine is made (with Sangiovese grapes, which are nicknamed “Prugnolo Gentile” in this part of the country). He pulled off the road to visit one of his favorite wine makers, the Natalini family, and their Le Berne vineyard wines. You could immediately tell that this was a placed cared for, year round, with love and attention. The clusters of grapes on the vines, and the broad leaves that surrounded them, seemed to have been carefully arranged for our photographs. There were no real "weeds" anywhere in sight. What work this must require. The aromas that surround any winery are unique and unforgetable. Breathing in that smell of grape fermentation takes me back to earlier trips to the Napa Valley. I always feel like its a kind of great priviledge to be allowed to walk into the space of this ancient art. It was a beautiful day, and we caught this happy family “just right” -- in the process of harvesting their matured crop of grapes. I counted about 8 people working in the vines. This was no bulk harvesting process. These "workers" seemed as if they might be family friends who had volunteered to come over and help with the harvest. Joking and banter back and forth, as they cut clusters off a vine and dropped it into their big red bucket, made it seem like a little party in the grape fields. I don't mean to make light of their labor; it's just that they seemed so happy to be there, doing what they, in large part, lived for. Hanging in beautiful mounds of dark blue-gray, these grapes became our snacks while the various family members joked with Romeo and guided us around the vineyard, showing us how they select and cut the grapes from the vines in such a way as to preserve the health of the vines for next year’s growth. Scattered here and there on the ground were thousands of “raisin” clumps of grapes that were cast off in earlier weeks as imperfect. This was indeed a tour that “not just anyone” would be able to take, given the urgent business at hand of getting the grapes into the long wine-making process while the time was right. Once again, Romeo was our key to that door. The main end product of this harvest will be the 2009 Vino Nobile, Vino Nobile “Reserva,” and the Montepulciano Rosso (the younger brother “table wine” to the distinguished Vino Nobile, made with exactly the same grapes).

When the wine tour was complete, we drove up the mountain and entered Montepulciano. It was a comfortably coolish, sunny day, and the stroll up through the streets of the city to the main plaza at the top seemed effortless.

Grosseto and the Coast [9-29-09]

The second day of touring began with breakfast at the Innocenti house and then the arrival of our guide and driver, Carlo’s son Romeo (pronounced “roh-MAY-oh”). Romeo speaks English very well (his mother was British) and enjoys taking the cooking school guests on daily tours of Tuscany. He actually lives in the town we visited on this date. His wife is a therapist and they have two kids, a 4 year old boy and 6 year old girl.

Grosseto is a handsome Tuscan town, but it lacks one of the typical ingredients of its sister cities and towns: it’s not on a hill. In fact, Grosseto is located in what was once a vast swamp land, where the flatness of the terrain made it almost impossible for natural rainfall to seek its way to the ocean. The entire area was drained by the digging of canals in the late 1700’s … a huge civil engineering project advanced by Leopold II, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold’s family ruled Tuscany from Vienna after the decline of the Medici family, which had held sway over the grand duchy for generations. When Leopold, as the emperor's second oldest son, inherited only Tuscany, he moved to Florence to take up the job. This statue honors Leopold’s success in draining the swamps of southwestern Tuscany and bringing an end to the malaria that had always plagued that area in prior years. Notice the lady at his left side (she represents the town of Grosseto) holding a dead child (representing the unfortunate victims of malaria). Behind Leopold, a huge snake (malaria) is being killed by a griffin (the symbol of the rulers of Florence). So this statue tells the malaria story in one shot, giving credit to the Grand Duke for spending Tuscan money on this project instead of conducting wars with neighboring princes.

Upon our return to Arcidosso in the afternoon, Carlo and his partner Pascale (far left in this photo) take over and engage the class in making the night’s dinner. This evening we started with a lesson on various forms of Tuscan bruschetta. It was also our introduction to making pasta. This was Pascale’s specialty and each of us was expected to make our own pasta for the evening supper. She walked us through the ancient process of combining a finely ground flour with an egg, a generous pinch of salt and a local olive oil. Mixing the dry ingredients first, she then had us make a deep depression in the middle of the flour mix (making the little hill look like a volcano). Then the liquids are inserted in that hole. Pascale said it was best at first to start tossing the egg/oil mixture around with a butter knife (her favorite) or a fork, slowly incorporating the flour on all sides. When the dough ball began to form, we sifted to our impeccably clean hands and commenced a full 15-minute process of rolling and kneading the dough to build up the long gluten strands that would hold the dough together. Then the fun part. Using a stainless steel pasta press, we rolled out longer and longer “flats” - - each one being pressed slightly thinner than the previous run-through. In the end, we had beautiful, pasta which could easily be sliced into linguini noodles by a quick adjustment to the roller press, but we had a different use in mind. We laid the finished flats on the long wooden work table (which had been sprinkled with simolina flour to keep the dough from sticking to the table) and plopped little scoops of a spinach and ricotta cheese mixture about every 4 inches along the flat. With a fold-over and several cutting and fork tong pressings, we had our fresh tortellini, ready for boiling - - our main course for the evening's delicious feast.