I primi ospiti

Winners of the First-To-Visit award go to:  Frank, Lisa, and Rose Cicero!  

Frank and Lisa

Rose

Yes, we finally had our first guests.  In the run-up to their visit, Carmen asked Lisa to bring a few crucial items to us--baking soda and measuring cups and spoons.  If you have been following our blog, you may remember our claim that there is no baking soda in Italy--a claim that has yet to be disproved.  Lisa very kindly obliged.  First we met up with the Ciceros in Firenze for dinner on Friday night, where the hand-off of the items was accomplished.  Carmen wasted no time and spent Saturday baking the chocolate chip cookies we had promised to our neighbors.  

where is dinner?

Then on Sunday, the Ciceros made the trek to our humble abode for a home-cooked dinner and to spend the night.  Among other firsts, it was the first time we had to explain the idiosyncrasies of our bathroom toilet (don't ask).  It was a night of good food, great conversation, and of course lots of fine Italian wine.  

cozy by the fire

All packed up and ready to go

We had to bid them arrivederci early on Monday morning so they could catch a flight to their next destination, Sicily.

Room(s) with a View

As we have mentioned before, we are in a 16^th century converted villa, fairly rustic and very ancient, but quite comfortable.  One thing we have that we marvel at every day are the views we have from our various windows.  So I have framed some photos from each of our windows to show you what we see:

From our bedroom hallway, looking southeast, down Val d'Arno.  You may remember a photo of me hanging laundry out this window!

From our bedroom hallway looking southwest.

From our bathroom window, when standing in the shower!

From the tower study--my desk faces this, Gary's faces a blank wall;-)

From our kitchen door.  This leads out to our Game of Thrones stairway.

From our living room, facing west (the only window not facing south).

Lake Como

Our strategy while here is to use our place as home base for short trips to all the places in Europe that we want to see.  Last Thursday we went to Lake Como for four days for our first such outing.  Our travel was by regional train to Firenze, high-speed train to Milano, regional to Como, and a bus to the town of Bellagio.  The high-speed train (Frecciarossa--red arrow) is impressive:  the highest speed I saw on the monitor was 297 Km/hr (metric system lesson time:  divide by 8, multiply by 5 to get miles per hour).

Lake Como was carved out by a glacier eons ago in the shape of an upside-down Y, and Bellagio is in the crook of the Y.  Here are a few scenes from around town:

Carmen keeps telling me George Clooney has a place here, and she was very disappointed not to see him on this trip.  The main street is along the lakefront, fronted by old buildings with archways set with cafe tables, plus trendy shops.  What looks like streets going up from the lake on a map are actually "salite", which translates as "climbs", stone stairways, including the one we had to schlepp our luggage up.

A short walk from town took us to a small marina at the point in the crook of the Y.  The point is called Punta Spartivento, "the point that divides the wind."  I tried telling Carmen the translation is "the point that breaks the wind", but she wasn't buying it.

Carmen at Punta Spartivento.  Varenna is in the background.

Here are a few scenes from the rest of our walk:

The next day, we took our first boat trip across the lake and visited Villa Carlotta, built in the 17th century, and now home to an extensive botanical garden.

Bellagio from the lake

Our boat; Villa Carlotta

Two quick remarks about the above:  Always check out the ceiling when you are in a fancy old European building;  we see lizards everywhere we go (especially out our front door).

On Saturday, it was raining buckets and we spent the morning holed up in our room reading.  We were going stir-crazy and after lunch we decided that we would take the ferry to Varenna on the eastern shore, rain or no.  

(left) Believe it or not, this is a color photo.  (right) Varenna from the ferry.

Varenna is a nice little town, lower key than Bellagio but still with cozy cafes and trendy shops along the waterfront walkway.  We ended up visiting another Villa, Monastero.

Villa Monastero's modest bathtub; old lamp fixture refitted with a compact fluorescent

Villa Monastero started as 13th century nunnery (presumably before the bathtub was added) and converted to a villa by an Italian noble in 1569.  The physicist in me was warmly surprised to find that Enrico Fermi taught courses here in 1954, shortly before his death.  Inspired by him, a conference center was set up and the Italian Society of Physics holds courses here annually in honor of Fermi.  Hey, I never got to go to a conference in a place this nice!

Well, this has been a long one, but we hope you enjoyed it.  Fino alla prossima volta.

La citta' di Arezzo

On Saturday Gary and I took the train to the town of Arezzo.  This ancient town was once the center of the Valdarno area, producing farm goods, and was also well-known for its ceramics.  Arezzo is about 63 kilometers from our home in Cellai, which takes about an hour to drive or to take the train, so we opted for the train as we would not have to deal with parking.

The Arno from the train.  Fall is in the air and the leaves are starting to turn!

The train let us off right in the center of town, which made for little walking.  We originally went to find a vitamin shop, which we never found, but the town is quaint and vibrant.  It of course has many churches,  

La chiesa di San Francesco

but it is also a small rival to Firenze for clothing, leather goods, and other high end goods.  In the middle of town is a very long street, Via Monaco, that is closed to traffic.  Here you find all the beautiful shops full of wonderful clothing, shoes, boots, perfumes, etc.  Mixed in with the shops are ristoranti, gelateria and bars.  The bars are not like our bars.  The Italian bars are coffee shops where you buy your expresso, biscotti, and panini (Similar to our Starbucks but with a much better selection of items). 

This street is the social center of the town, and it was packed with people doing the “stroll”.  Young women dressed to the nines strolling with arms linked, talking as only Italian women can do with so much gusto; while the young men are slicked up, trying to catch the eye of any number of the women; mixed in with this are the families with children in tow; then you have the middle aged couples walking arm in arm; the grandparents keeping everyone on their best behavior; and finally the teenagers all out to show off to their peers.  We could use some of this type of people mixing in the US instead of pick-up bars.

After our stroll we had a wonderful lunch at a trattoria with Montalcino wine, and pasta of course.  I had tagliatelle with porcine mushrooms, and Gary had spinach stuffed ravioli.  Yum!

Then we happened upon the monthly antique fair, and wandered through the outdoor booths looking at all the silver, crystal, ancient artifacts, furniture and collectibles.  Unfortunately I was too busy people watching to take many pictures, but here are a couple I did manage to take:  there was one place where these hanging statues were suspended over the street, and it was too weird to pass up!

Primo giro in bicicletta

We finally got bikes and a car carrier, so we were dying to get out on Tuesday.  It has been a long time since we have ridden, owing to all we had to do before we left, so we were looking for an unchallenging ride.  That is not easy around here--lots of steep hills, and biking on a road with traffic is way scarier than being on it in a car.  Fortunately, we met a wonderful couple, Lindy and Karen, staying at the B&B next door who spent time exploring the area.  They suggested that we go to Loppiano to ride.  I was skeptical because we go by the turn-off to Loppiano on our way to Incisa, and it goes up a steep hillside.  But we tried it, and it turned out to be a great place to ride.

On the way out, Carmen finally got the chance to photograph the bright yellow flowers beside the road.  This particular spot is just past Burchio, one of the small comunes (villages) on the way to Incisa.

After winding our way up the hill, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the terrain was relatively flat on top with a choice of several back roads to ride on, and a convenient parking lot across from a church.  

Down one back road, we found a small cemetery.

Here is what Carmen saw through the gate:

At one point we found a dirt path between two of the roads, so it was time to work out those new mountain bikes!

You may notice I am not wearing a regular bicycle helmet.  The story here is:  do you remember our adventure shipping the boxes of our stuff?  The first of our boxes arrived a few days after we did.  Getting the customs form filled out correctly was a whole other adventure, but I digress.  Two weeks later, our neighbor Sara knocked on our door and told us two of our boxes were waiting for us at the local gas station.  Apparently that is where the postman drops off large packages that are too much trouble to haul up our hill.  So we have received three of the four boxes, but four weeks on, we have not received the last one.  Everyone says don't worry, they always show up eventually.  Well, my bicycle helmet is in the missing box, so in the meantime I am wearing my snowboard helmet.

After our very satisfying ride, we stopped off in Incisa to do a little shopping.  Here is a view of the Arno River from there.  Apparently Tuesday is laundry day at the house across the river.

And here is our little Fiat Panda loaded up with our bikes:

Until the next post, Ciao!