Brunello run

Brunello is a highly regarded wine from the region around Montalcino, a small town in southern Tuscany, about 100 Km from us.  We decided to go there for an outing yesterday, with a thought to bring back a few bottles of wine.  

Our drive first took us to the towns of Montepulciano, also well-known for its wineries, and Pienza.  All of these are medieval towns, on a hill with a substantial wall around them.  Here are a few scenes--Montepulciano as you approach it, the Duomo in Montalpulciano, and a newer apartment in Pienza with the ubiquitous flower boxes on the balcony. 

After a light lunch in Pienza, it was off to Montalcino.  Here, as everywhere we have seen, the wineries are small family estates.  We made an arbitrary decision to go into one, Solaria.  In our tasting, we learned that Brunello takes its time developing its flavor, at least seven years.  We decided to by a very nice 2006 and were escorted down into the wine cellar for the purchase.

And then on to the town itself.

Walking from the car park to the centro, we passed this classic example of what Italians do with a fifteenth-century residence:

The town has a huge fortezza at the highest point, clearly the castle keep back in the day.  Now there is a wine bar inside.  

Running down from the fortezza is the narrow medieval street that is now the home of trattorias and enotecas.  When you drive through the countryside, you always see vinyards and olive groves in symbiotic relationship.  Virtually all of the wineries also make their own olive oil, so it is natural that the enotecas sell olive oil as well as wine.

biker chick

And of course, no matter how many wines you have sampled, no day trip in Italy is complete without an afternoon gelato!

Nella settimana tre

This time, a collection of short items connected only by being from this past week:

Sunrise last Monday.  Our hillside faces east, looking over the Arno River valley.

Guida italiana:  If football is the national passion, tailgating is the national active sport.  We were driving to Incisa the other day, zipping along our winding little road.  As is typical, before long there was a car right on my tail.  Looking in the rear view, I saw that the driver was a young woman who was talking on her mobile phone held in one hand while gesturing with the other (it is impossible to talk in Italian without waving at least one hand), all while maintaining one car-length behind me around the twists and turns in the road.

Here are some of Carmen's photos from walks near our place:

Our neighbor Sara's front porch.  This is the apartment below ours.

The church below our villa.  While no services are held here, it is well-maintained and we occasionally see someone or a car there.

Wild flowers beside our road

Walking farther up our road, this view looks down on a villa that is above ours--it is very well maintained and clearly owned by someone with money.

One mystery solved, another presented.  Re: the string on the bottom of the bag.  It is attached only loosely by being tucked in folds at the bottom.  A gentle pull removes it so you can use it to tie off the top.  Now here is the new mystery:  Carmen wants to bake cookies for our neighbors and hosts, but there is no baking soda in Italy.  None in any grocery store, large or small.  Do Italians rise everything with yeast?  Carmen got a lead on a student blog on the Internet to an Asian market in Firenze that carried it, so yesterday we made our first foray into Firenze.  We accepted the fact that we would get lost trying to find it, and we did.  But eventually after circling around very wide avenues and incredibly narrow streets, we found some landmarks and eventually figured out we could park nearby in the underground beneath the train station.  The market caters to international students (it even has a Mexican food section--with tortillas!) and we picked up a few staples (chili-garlic sauce, etc).  They had baking powder...but no baking soda.  So I stand by my statement, there is no baking soda in Italy, until proven wrong;-)  Any ideas on either what Italians use instead, or where you get it (the hardware store, maybe)?

One last quick note:  Carmen and I would love to get more comments from you on our blog.  Use the comment link below to enter them!

the road home

Festa del Vino, Greve-in-Chianti

Today we drove out to Greve-in-Chianti for their annual wine festival.  As the name implies, Greve is one of the centers of wine production in the Chianti Classico region.  The annual festa apparently used to be a wild affair going back 40 years--everyone wore old clothes because you got pelted with grapes and went home purple.  It is much tamer now.

The drive out on the typical Italian narrow winding road takes 45 minutes, mostly in 2nd or 3rd gear, over hills and through valleys dotted with vineyards and olive groves.  It was a perfect day, sunny with occasional puffy clouds.

Apparently, not all the grapes have been harvested yet, as these pictures attest.

The festa is four days long, and today was the last day.  After parking, we walked past the statue of il Gallo Nero, the black rooster that is the symbol of Chianti Classico wine, to the town piazza where the festa is held.  










The piazza is set up with four rows of booths, each one a different winery from the region--55 of them in all.  Every one has their own wine and olive oil.   You start by buying a wine glass that comes with a handy pouch that you hang around your neck, and you get a punch card entitling you to seven tastings.  With 55 possibilities, seven tastings doesn't sound like much, but the reality is that they almost always pour your wine and don't ask for the card.  In fact, we got our card punched only once.  By planning ahead for a place to stay in town so you could stagger home, one could drink an awful lot of wine for free in four days;-)

remember the doorway?

there were thousands of
banners, big and small,
in this funky cartoon style

Lunch:  bread, olive oil, salame,
and pecorino cheese (our new favorite)

Carmen's beast of burden (notice
wine glass pouch hanging from neck)

A final word about the pecorino cheese:  Since arriving, we have never seen the cheeses we are familiar with and used a lot, such as jack, colby, and especially cheddar.  Excepting parmesan and soft cheeses, all you see here is pecorino (from sheep's milk--pecora means sheep).  We were considering asking our first visitors to bring us cheddar, and in the meantime, bought some pecorino to tide us over.  After making grilled cheese sandwiches and omelets with the pecorino, and just eating it with Italian bread, forget bringing cheddar!  

Figuring things out

As all foreigners do, we are gradually figuring things out in our new environment, occasionally looking like i americani stupidi in the process.  Here are two stories on the subject, plus a little mystery you can help us solve.

Gary buys produce:  On our first shopping trip to the Coop, we bagged a half dozen kinds of veggies along with a boatload of packaged food and household items.  At the checkout, the clerk said something like "è necessario il peso di questo"--you need the weight for the produce.  So the produce bags were put aside, and Carmen checked out with the other stuff while I went off to customer service desk to score a pen to write down the weights.  The ladies at the desk were mystified by my plea "Ho bisogno una penna per ricordo the weight," lapsing into englitalian (itaglish?) when vocabularily challenged.  But they gave me a pen and I hustled back to the produce section with our bags.  I was vaguely aware that the clerk called the service desk, alerting them that a clueless americano needed serious help.  One of the service ladies caught up with me to show me how you put the bag on the scale, find the item on the scale display by scrolling through the pictures, select the item, and presto, the scale spits out a sticky tag with weight and price.  Too embarrassed to go back to the same clerk, I chose another line to check out.  To cover my wounded pride, I said little and all in Italian.  When checkout was complete, the clerk said to me: "Have a nice day!"

Carmen goes for cash:  Here, ATMs are called bancomats.  Having read internet stories that you needed an ATM card with a chip and/or a 4 digit PIN, I was gratified when my chipless card with a 5-digit pin worked at the bancomat in Incisa.  That was several days ago.  Today we decided to get more cash for the open-air market, and I considered us lucky to zip into a parking spot on the street about 50 meters from the same bancomat.  Carmen went off to make sure her card worked too.  She came back with a frown and said, "the machine said it is not possible with this card."  
    I theorized that the bancomat was out of money, a well-known phenomenon in Italy, but decided to test with my card.  I went down and had no problem.  Coming back, I said "I got cash with my card."
    "You went further down the street than I did.  I thought the bancomat was that machine under the sign with the big 'P'."
    I looked where she indicated and gently said, "Sweetheart, you just tried to withdraw 500 euros from a parking ticket dispenser!"

And now for something we haven't figured out.  Here is a picture of a typical Italian kitchen trash bag.  Notice the string attached to the very bottom of the bag.  We have been unable to puzzle out what the string is for.  If it is a string to tie off the top, why is it attached to the bottom?  We would enjoy hearing your comments on its purpose, whether firm knowledge or wild-ass guesses.

per quello che è la stringa?

Contrasts of old and new

We have been here a week now, and it feels like home.  But unlike our previous home, our new place is an interesting mix of modern and Renaissance era features.  Here is a photo essay to show you what we mean.

Our stairway--very old.  Carmen says it looks like a set for "Game of Thrones."

Modern ceiling

Renaissance ceiling

                                               

Modern man in Renaissance doorway

                                                           

Renaissance microwave

 Modern range

Modern washer

Renaissance dryer

Renaissance wall--about 40 cm thick

And to close, here is a mini-photo essay on construction through the ages--all in one wall

Casa Italiana

Hi all, this is Carmen blogging here for a change.

Our new home is a 16th century villa, very rustic, old world, peaceful, and beautiful.  Lots of different things to adjust to that's for sure.  We went shopping for the essential foods, detergent, soaps etc. and we were in the Supermercado for about 2 hours!  Trying to interpret what exactly was in some of the packaged food was fun.  I bought something that I thought was dishwasher soap and it is salt!  Apparently the dishwashers in Italy have to have a pound of salt washed through once a month.  Now I must return to the store to buy the soap.  Who would have thought?

Our landlady Cid is a delightful English woman, and is so helpful.  Our one neighbor, the retired National Geographic journalist is eccentric, lively, and knowledgable.  Her hero is none other than Richard Feynman, Gary's favorite physics hero.  She also knows lots about Native American Indian art!  We will have lots of fun with her.  Our other neighbor is away on holiday this month.  I thought that this place was supposed to be a holiday!

Our kitchen is old world stocked, but there is a wine opener, and a toaster.  No microwave, no mixer, blender, or food processor, a few cooking utensils, a single sink.  Ah the old days!  We will adjust.  Also no dryer.  I have to hang my clothes outside on a line!  At least I will have the time to do this, I think???

Our garden has a fabulous view, but secretly I think the other two private gardens are much nicer.  I also have a palm tree outside our door!  I love palm trees and I have always said that I would never live again where there are no palm trees!  Thank heavens I can still claim that statement.

I ramble on so.  Take care.  Ciao!

il nostro arrivo

We made it!  Our schedule was to fly out of San Diego at 6:55am to JFK, with a four-hour layover there before departing for Rome.  We figured the long layover would at least avoid the problem we had last year when our flight in was delayed, we missed the connection, and had to spend a day in New York.  This time our first flight got in early and the second was delayed for two hours.  So it was a looong layover in New York, until we finally arrived in Rome at 12:45 on Sept. 3.

The old saying is "every cloud has a silver lining."  Carmen's cloud is her stress fracture in her foot.  The silver lining is that she requested wheelchair service, with the result that we were whisked through check-in and security, got early boarding, and then whisked through customs in Rome.  Now, Carmen is progressing well, to the point of walking as normally as anyone can with a surgical shoe on.  For the wheelchair service, however, she put on an academy-award performance of someone who can barely walk.  Her wheelchair assistant in Rome, Alessandro, was exceptionally helpful, getting a luggage cart and maneuvering us from the plane to bag claim to customs to the rent-a-car.  Here is a picture of Carmen and our luggage with the ever-friendly, smiling, joking Alessandro (and I apologize for the bad lighting, but we were waiting for an elevator and turning everything and everyone around was not an option).

We rented a Fiat 500L, which is a lot bigger than the little Fiat 500, in which we were able to load, just barely, our six suitcases, two backpacks, and ourselves.  I quickly adjusted to Italian driving on the A1 Autostrada (someone right on your ass is telling you to move over), and two hours later exited at Incisa.  From there we followed a winding narrow road through several villages to Cellai.  The turnoff in Cellai to our place looked like a narrow driveway between two buildings.  And then it was a single lane up the hill to Villa Ciarpaglini.  I have two videos capturing our arrival that I am going to put here in an update, but I will have to upload them late tonight due to a very slow upload speed with our Internet connection here.  Stay tuned for the update!

Note on the update:  The videos will have to wait.  Our upload speed is a pathetic 0.2-0.25 Mbps and the smaller of the files did not upload overnight.  I may try to find a place I can go for faster service and will put up the videos then.  Sorry folks!

The last week in the U.S.

Note:  this was written September 1 but, due to our travel, not posted until now:-(

Well, it has been a busy week.  No matter how you plan it, when there are so many things that have to be taken care of, it is going to be a big effort.  So here is a recap.

I want to start by talking about our good friend Tom Walters.  As many of you in Action Ski Club know, Tom had surgery on Sunday, August 17, to remove two brain tumors.  We saw him just two days later, and it was remarkable how well he was doing.  We hooked up with John Thomas and Janet Katz and saw him again on Friday, August 22, and then we dropped by again last Monday morning when we were in the area, just in time to catch his physical therapy session.  It is truly incredible that anyone can go through such a major traumatic experience and recover so quickly.  Attitude has much to do with it, and Tom’s attitude has always been steadfast upbeat.

We visited Tom last Monday after taking daughter Liz and husband Jeremy to the airport after her 10-day visit with us before we take off.  Jeremy was only able to get off work and come in for the last 4 days.  For their last night with us, we went to the Chart House in Cardiff for dinner.  It was a beautiful night, and afterwards they took off their shoes and waded in the surf.  That will be something to tell their friends back in rural New York about.

Working to our schedule, on Wednesday we got the moving truck from our storage unit and moved all the stuff we had packed.  Tom Sullivan volunteered a long while back to help with this, and truly we could not have done it without him.  Do you remember the game Jenga, with all the wood blocks that have to fit together?  That is what filling our storage unit was like.  Then on Wednesday night, we had our last Italian class.  Thank heavens we got to passato prossimo verb tense before we left!

Thursday was devoted to more packing, along with our last Italian conversation group and a meeting I had on one of my projects.  Friday started with taking our 2001 Honda in for a service and smog check prior to selling.  The next item was supposed to be easy—mailing boxes of our stuff to ourselves at the post office.  This was our first experience with shipping anything internationally, and we were deer caught in headlights.  The difficulty is you have to make customs declarations, and restrictions on what you can send vary from country to country.  We were not surprised, after our visa experience, that Italy is one of the worst.  On our second trip to the post office, we were off in a corner opening our boxes to inventory the stuff for the declaration.  Fortunately, we thought to bring packing tape and scissors, and had a very helpful postal agent that advised us on just how detailed the declaration had to be.  Will our shipment be rejected by Italian postal authorities?  Stay tuned to find out.

On Saturday, as planned, I borrowed Andrew’s truck and hauled the bed from our guest room up to Brian in LA.  I hoped to get back early afternoon and get a few things done before having dinner next store with our neighbors Sharon and Sue in the evening.  Driving up I did not hit particularly heavy traffic, but I was reminded that it was Labor Day weekend by the gridlocked traffic heading south.  It gave me a bad feeling, that turned out to be painfully true.  It took me over three hours to finally get home, late for dinner.  But after a shower and a glass of wine, it turned into a wonderful evening with our neighbors and Andrew and Violet.

Saturday night was our last in our place for the next year.  Sunday was for picking up loose ends, packing our suitcases, and the challenging task of fitting our mountain bikes into the storage unit.  We were going to hand the place over to Amanda and Rob, our tenants, that afternoon, but we all agreed that we needed more time.  We moved our luggage over to our neighbor Debra’s place, had a delightful dinner with her, and crashed in her guest bedroom.

And that brings us to today, Monday, September first, Labor Day.  Brian came down to go to lunch with us, and take us and our luggage to the Sheraton by the airport.  His car was packed to the gills.  So here we are at the marina, experiencing why San Diego is such a desirable tourist destination, finally relaxing after an incredibly hectic week.  And tomorrow the adventure starts a new chapter.  Ciao!