trying out the Vespas, Monteriggioni

Well, we had to show the nieces a good time out in the countryside.  So, I called "Fun in Tuscany" and they set us up with a Vespa tour of Chianti.  Invited another 10 women (temporary Florentines) so we all took the van out together to a little farm in Chianti.  They put us on Vespas on their little round test track and there were a few preliminary crashes and gas spills and then we were on our way down these back roads.

 Now, with all the tourists in Florence and the Vespas buzzing all over the place, I thought we might as well just try it out ourselves as part of our "cultural immersion."  Paul Theroux, the travel writer says when he was in Italy in the early 70s, he would see young men in their brown baggy 
suits on white motor scooters with their mothers in black coats riding sidesaddle behind them on Sundays.  Of course, that's a thing of the past!  An interesting commentary on trust, though: we didn't sign anything, didn't pay up front, no one even asked for our licenses and off we went, all 12 of us without any preliminary fuss.  My sister and I had a minibike with a converted Briggs and Stratton engine as kids (for a short time that is, until one of our friends drove it into a neighbor's car!) so 

 getting the hang of driving it wasn't hard. It was incredible driving around the countryside at about 40 or so km an hour, passing castles and vineyards and being passed by cars.  Mostly we were on tiny back roads or gravel roads.


Here are Kelcie and Molly looking very photogenic after removing their helmets.

 I'll admit, I had a little trepidation at first, but you only live once and this is some of the most beautiful country anywhere.  It was like being in a scooter parade.

This is the castle town of Monteriggioni, where we stopped for lunch.  This was a stronghold for the Sieneses to control the via Francigena (holy road to Rome from France) as a defensive outpost against Florence and the little town is completely contained within its medieval walls.  Some of the pictures are taken from the walkways that connect between the lookout towers.

 So this was a way to take a breather from the city and even get a little culture...even Dante recorded the walls of Monteriggioni "come in su la cerchia tonda Monteriggion di torri si corona" (like Monteriggioni, whose round circle of walls are crowned with towers)--again that Blue Guide Tuscany is very helpful in such matters.

 the lone "street" of Monteriggioni.  The whole town has about 50 inhabitants now.

flowers from zucchini

peaches, sweet peas and strawberries are in

Kelcie in Grassina fruit store

At Montevertine Winery

Vineyards in Chianti (Sangiovese!)

Ryan and Evan with big lemons in Naples!

A little bit more about food.  We’re pretty sick of the “white stuff” ---that is, the breads, pastas, pastries –I tried it all in the first two months as did the boys (they also included heaps of chocolate!)  But…the fresh produce here is something we will miss!  Non-GMO, local, no pesticides (at least they say that, but who knows, often times they’ll answer whatever you want to hear!).  Since I try to eat completely wheat-free, it’s pretty easy here…you can always have fagioli soups or vegetable soups and fish or chicken plus all kinds of vegetable dishes.  There is abundant riso and also a wheat-free grain called hulled millet which is really good.

Yesterday, Kelcie and I went out with the cooking class to Grassina to visit some local stores…a Pescheria (=fish) called Pescheria Marisa, a fruit and wine store called Primizie Massimo, and Veronica’s favorite bakery “Fiori di Pane.”  Then we drove through the Chianti countryside to Montevertine Winery in Radda in Chianti....a little tour of their winery (the original storage tanks are “cement” before they place the wine to age in the oak barrels…although this winery was founded in 1971, they say they are doing it the “old way”...no steel storage barrels like we saw in the modern wineries in Montalcino) and a wine tasting.  I have just never acquired a taste for wine….and I guess after getting to try some of the “good stuff” here, if that hasn’t converted me, nothing will.  But I loved the handmade wine labels and getting to visit the dug-out cellars.  No worries though, we bought red pears and also came home and shelled a kilo of sweet peas! I have seen several people sitting outside vegetable stands here in town recently shelling peas...it's very therapeutic I might add.

We also visited a wonderful place in Radda in Chianti called “Neltempo” which has incredible hand-painted terra cotta ceramics, but a little different from the traditional Tuscan ceramics which have the bright yellows, blues, and greens (and are also beautiful).  You can order up your place settings from their patterns. Just recently, someone mentioned that terra cotta means "cooked earth" in Italian (so interesting that we've heard those words for years and know what they mean by association but I never thought about the meaning of the words).  They also had hand-painted dresses.  And of course, there was the requisite fortress of stone in the center of town.  These towns are up on hills, often with railings and walkways where you look out over valleys with vineyards planted as far as meets the eye.  Good place to rest your eyes!

Fiesole, Kelcie, dogs in baby carriages,etc.

view from San Francesco church area

So, what do you do when you inadvertently start humming the theme from Lion King every time you walk out the front door and see the relentless mob of tourists descending like wildebeests onto Santa Croce Piazza?  In the jungle, the might jungle, the lion sings tonight…  I have never seen so many tourists ever, anywhere.  They say this year is a banner year and tourism is up 20% in Florence.  TripAdvisor says Florence is the number 1 family destination in the world right now.  That’s a lot of people to pack into a not-so-big city.  And I’ve just read that Florence’s mayor approved MTV’s reality show Jersey Shore to shoot its fourth season in Florence in May and June.  Frescoes and spray tans in the Renaissance city…perhaps there will be a new Panini to commemorate all this!

Even though some of the guide books say not to bother with Fiesole unless you’re really only going to be in Florence and want to see a touch of Etruscan, I love Fiesole!  From our apt., you walk about 15 minutes to the San Marco bus stop and take the #7 bus up to Piazza Mino di Fiesole, which was empty today…a few of us were on the bus including our niece Kelcie, who just arrived yesterday for her first visit to Italy.  She said, “I’ll see anything, it all looks new to me,” so I have my next victim lined up for sightseeing! Once you’re in the main piazza, it’s a short walk from the bus stop up to the Franciscan church San Francesco and amazing views of Florence to the south.  Then there’s the Roman and Etruscan Ruins area with its intact theater, the Roman baths, and an Etruscan temple from the 1^st century BC as well as paving stones from the first Roman road.  The archeological museum inside has Etruscan bronzes, figurines, etc.  Fiesole predates Florence by many centuries, founded by the Etruscans in the 5^th century BC. I’ve gotten to the point I care more about the views than the quality of food…so we had lunch at the Blue Bar since it had such a nice terrace facing south overlooking Florence.  We walked up via Giuseppe Verdi to the woods of Montecerci where the old stone quarries (the grey “pietra serena” that was used all over Florence to decorate the interiors…Fiesole was celebrated up until the 20^th century for the skill of its stonemasons) were…it’s all covered in a beautiful pine and cypress woods now!  And at the top is the place where Leonardo da Vinci tried his “flying” experiments.  There was no one on the footpaths in the woods except for a sprightly older man who bounded past us walking his dog!  And the views at the top were stunning…plus you get to see some beautiful villas on the way up and down.  Yesterday, a shop owner told me a number of celebs have villas nestled in the hillsides 

between Fiesole and Florence.

walk up to San Francesco from piazza Mino in Fiesole

looking down at Fiesole and the Roman ruins

Kelcie in Fiesole

Roman theater, cavem and archeological museum

Florence through the flora

not too shabby

modern sculpture exhibit inside the ruins

olive tree grove

and, finally back in Florence, a woman walking her baby dog!

One of the gifts has been to be able to go visit these places in and around here several times…what you don’t see or experience the first time, you see the next go-around.  I’m really beginning to think that spring, before the mosquitoes come out in full force and the heat becomes oppressive, is really the time to be here. 

Tomorrow, we’re heading out to Chianti for wine tasting (I’m more interested in seeing the countryside and Kelcie is interested in tasting the wine since she’s still underage in the US!) 

Southern Tuscany in spring

Castello di Ripa d'Orcia--we stayed here.  This is from a hike down to the river
where the vineyards are.  Beautiful views, beautiful place if you can stand the
castle keepers (remember Marty Feldman in "Young Frankenstein??")

Well, we have really done some traveling and are far behind on posting!  It started four weeks ago with a trip to Naples (forthcoming) for the weekend to see Naples and Pompeii, and then Debra and Lulu (from England) came for the week to visit.  That Friday spring break started and the boys and I took the train to Milan to meet Fred...only his plane out was diverted to Pittsburgh instead of NYC...long story short, he met us the following night in Prague (to follow!) where we spent a long weekend, then flew back on EasyJet (cattle call style seating just like Southwest Airlines only people are much more aggressive!).  What do you know, the national Italian MTV awards were right out in the Piazza with 20,000?? teenyboppers and music so loud it shook the 15th century window casings!  The boys both invited friends to watch the whole thing from our windows and Fred and I protected our cochleas in the back rooms!  The following day we rented a car and spent four nights in southern Tuscany.

So, the long and short of it is that we spent Easter in a 13th century castle (Castello di Ripa d'Orcia) in val d'Orcia.  We were the eggs in the castle!  Lo and behold, we found out shortly before going that Fred's old roommate from medical school (Jon Ark) was going to be only 15 km away in Montalcino at exactly the same time we were there so we joined them for dinner two nights and a tour of the winery Il Poggio Antico.  They were staying at an Agriturismo, which I discovered is fairly common in this area...the vineyard owners set up apartments, old farmhouses, new condos so that tourists can stay right in the vineyards!  Though I am not a wine drinker, I enjoyed the tour of the winery and and their olive pressing plant.  This particular agriturismo had over 500 acres of which less than half was devoted to growing mostly the Brunello grape for which Montalcino is famous.  There were also acres of olive groves.  Compared to old days, this is all high tech now...I love the oak barrels from France at 70,000 euros apiece. But that's okay...the vintner gave us a tour and he was a fifth generation vintner.  We learned what I'd heard in Florence: you only want to buy cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil.  Cold pressed for the obvious reasons the heat doesn't destroy the oil (light, heat, and moisture...that's why olive oil should be stored in a dark bottle so it doesn't oxidize) and "extra virgin" because it's the first press and they are allowed to use 10% of pits, etc. in just plain old "virgin" olive oil...which means there might be an extraction with petroleum products involved! We also learned the Brunello wines Fred bought have to age for at least five years.

But, I think the highlight was really the countryside.  We had read about this area in National Geographic Traveler Tuscany (I highly suggest this as it's so complete) and the Tuscan Blue Guide (if anyone out there is thinking of going to Tuscany and touring around, I would highly suggest both...they complement one another with the Blue Guide also including some really out-of-the-way places to visit), GPS (ours didn't work), and a big map of the back roads of Tuscany.  In spring, the fields are all shades of green and the red poppies start popping up everywhere.  The grapevines are all espaliered and just starting to show some leaf action. There are miles of undulating hills with rows of poplars and cypress and acres of primly pruned vineyards everywhere.  Not to mention, medieval castles on hilltops sprinkled everywhere!

I mentioned above we stayed in val d'Orcia in Castello di Ripa d'Orcia....the views from the castle were stunning and the castle itself was pretty self-contained with a little church, a bell-tower, etc.  The castle keepers, unfortunately, seemed to have been locked in the castle far too long and leaned out of the belfry bellowing when we brought our friends in (for twenty minutes one morning just to see our place), insisting that they leave.  Really, that was the only down side to the whole trip.  The castle was in a wonderful location a few miles from San Quirico d'Orcia, a lovely little walled town which doesn't make it in the guidebooks.  We were close to and visited the fortress towns of Montalcino and Montepulciano, both of which are known for their wines as well as Pienza, a beautiful Pope Pius II "designed" hill town  which is also known for its peccorino cheese (sheep, that is) and Bagno Vignoni where the town square is a sulfur thermal bath from the Roman times! We also visited the Sant'Antimo abbey (the one Charlemagne stopped and had built in gratitude right where an angel appeared to him telling him to grind a local herb, now named "carolina", to cure his troops of a crippling mysterious disease on their way back from a conquest in Rome)...it was good Friday when we visited so it was interesting to see Christ on the cross draped in red. Nearby was the extremely quaint and quiet, pristine castle village called Castelnuovo del'Abate and we walked through the little single street one morning just as people were starting to come out of their enclaves.  We also visited Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore (the other of southern Tuscany's great abbeys) which was surrounded by cypresses, olive groves and oak woods and has an incredible fresco cycle on its cloister walls by Luca Signorelli and Sodoma showing the life of St. Benedictine.

I mention all this to remember it...it truly is some of the most beautiful countryside ever and just a drive through this area (without even stopping off to peer into the castles and castle towns and abbeys) would have been enough! 

 

view from Montepulciano

The Arks and Duffys at the Agriturismo Poggio after the wine tour

Easter Day in Pienza's main square!

Ryan on the "main street" of Castello del Nuovo dell'Abbate

Ryan and Evan at dinner in San Quirica d'Orcia

Abbey of Santa Maggiore Oliveta (frescoes of St. Benedict's life by Luca
Signorelli and Sodoma)

Bagno Vignoni--where the town square is a thermal bath!

window in Castello delnuovo del'Abbate



Sant'Antimo Abbey






Villa La Pietra in Florence

I was kindly invited by Nancy, a retired principal, who is staying in Piazza Santa Croce area and has been coming to Florence yearly for the past 10 years (!!) to go on a tour of the La Pietra estate yesterday.  Tours only occur on Fridays by appointment and she said I wouldn’t want to miss it.  It turned out to be one of those beautiful, clear cool days that the Italian guide said only occur with the tramontana (winds out of the north from the mountains). 

This is a lovely villa from 15^th century Florence (then, actually the countryside) that was bought in the early 1900s by the Acton family.  Arthur was a Brit and Hortense was the daughter of a very wealthy Chicago banker. Nice combination: Brit with exquisite taste and pedigree funded by American banking money.   Sir Harold Acton was one of their two sons…the other son died in WWII and Harold inherited the property.  When he died in 1994, he bequeathed the property and 110 million to New York University to maintain in its exact state, inside and out. Our Italian guide told us that it probably would have fallen to complete ruins if he left it with the Italians, since there are no tax breaks with inheritances or not-for-profits and the Italians have a ton of “other” buildings and art to keep up with.  She said many buildings go to ruin here for that reason.  The Actons had acquired several villas on the surrounding properties and those are used for NYU students who study abroad at the NYU campus. Sometimes, visiting professors, etc. stay in the upstairs' rooms of La Pietra.  We were told yesterday that over 80 American universities have presences in Florence! We couldn’t take pictures inside but I will say this is one place to see inside and out—the original villa belonged to one family during Renaissance times and then was bought by the Caponi (=castrated chicken in Italian) family and their coat-of-arms is still seen in one of the sitting rooms! However, Hortense (daughter of very wealthy Chicago banker) liked the Medici coat-of-arms since they were also bankers and there are several of these displayed throughout the house. What is interesting is the eclectic combination of medieval and early Renaissance to high Renaissance art that the older Actons collected.

Apparently, Renaissance art really didn’t have much of a price tag until about mid-20^th century and a number of British and American collectors made some very fine purchases. The guide said that in the early 1900s the Italians were clearings out villas, convents, churches, etc. that were no longer inhabited to make schools, apartments, etc.  There was an abundance of cheap art. The villa was occupied by the Germans during WWII and Harold’s mother was imprisoned and then went to Switzerland and then recovered the villa after the war.  The villa had some of the old red-tiled Tuscan floors plastered over and then drops of paint applied and varnished to create the “alla Veneziano” floors that look like the precursor of present-day linoleum!  There is an eclectic mixture of carved wooden holy figures, paintings, even crèche pieces from Naples (which is famous for crèches…we were in Naples last weekend and I promise to post something shortly on that visit).  There is a grotto right outside one of the studies…grottos became popular here after the Medicis had one built off the Boboli gardens.  They are pretty macabre looking with plastered over shells, etc covering walls and ceiling and usually with some type of fountain—apparently to recreate something from Nero’s villa in Rome which was discovered buried under sand in the 1500s. There are statues and tapestries and paintings as well as collections (Chinosie as Hortense loved Oriental art) and apparently upstairs there are costumes that they collected for their “theme parties.” 

Our guide said, their son Harold spent his life as an “esthete” keeping up the family property…however RWB Lewis said that sir Harold was a respected author and poet.  I read that DNA testing has revealed that Sir Harold (who never married, had no children) actually had an illegitimate half-sister and her family is contesting the estate.  Oh, the lifestyles of the rich and famous.  We saw the pictures of Princess Di and Prince Charles on one of the tables…they spent a week of their royal honeymoon at La Pietra.

Outside there is a commanding view of the countryside…and I mean commanding, especially in the spring.  They employ 8 full-time gardeners year round (and 4 extra in summer) to keep the gardens in the same condition they originally were when the Actons lived there.  NYU even imports water in to maintain these (they are apparently against disturbing the property in any way, including digging for a well…).  The budget for the garden is far beyond the budget used for maintaining the villa!  The Actons stipulated pink roses and there are only pink roses on the property…the guide says they wanted to create an Italian garden but it really is a British garden.  There are “14 shades of green” in this garden and it was meant to have outdoor rooms and even an outdoor green theater.  It is absolutely gorgeous and well worth a visit!

view of olive trees and surrounding villa where students stay

La Pietra villa

the back of la Pietra



view north from gardens.  Look at that wisteria!

more wisteria

a hole in the trees for views

southern view from garden...of Duomo

the lemon garden

more of the lemon garden...limonarium in the photo is where
lemon trees are stored in winter

the "outdoor theater" where performances occurred in summer

garddens and old watering trough for horses (decorative!)

Fred in Dallas...San Gimignano

   After our return from Paris I spent the next week in florence with Renee and the kids.  I went to some of Renee's activities, such as a cooking class she was taking.  I think she already showed a picture of us but it was myself and nine women...very nice!:

  Renee and the boys have been to several Tuscan towns and she has blogged about some of these: Siena, Voltera, Pisa.  We took out a bus out to San Gimignano, the epitome of a Tuscan hill town.  Pretty touristy but it has 14 of the original 72 midieval towers still standing and very scenic.  We had a nice lunch and I had a Tuscan delicacy for the first time: boar stew...not bad.  Wild boar, or cinghiale, is served in many different ways.  Some photos of the town and views around it:

A wall surrounds the town and this is the village below:

 

    I had a great week in florence and could choose form hundreds of pictures...the Duomo, the Bargello (incredbile, worth a separate entry), Santa Croce, Oltrano...the list goes on.  My last day there we went up to Fiesole, a small hilltop town overlooking florence founded by the Etruscans about 400 years before the Romans founded Florence.  Great Etruscan and Roman ruins and a neat little museum.  We had lunch in a favorite local spot, Ristorante Perseus where I had ribollita, a Tuscan favorite...a traditional peasant dish with vegetables, bread, and spices.  Mine was incredible.  Ahh the best part of travel.  We met an old gentleman at the table behind us, a shoemaker who had taken up painting in the past 10 years.  He has only been out of Florence three times in his life...in his early 70s.  As sweet as they come!:

                            

  I head back to Italy this Saturday...first stop, Prague!