I’ve never been to Europe before, and Paul hasn’t been in many years, so imagine my excitement when our first trip away from the kids was to Italy! We spent a few days in the country driving the beautiful narrow, windy roads of Tuscany that reminded us of California before we hit the cities for the end of our trip. In retrospect, we...
We soon departed for a day of driving and wandering around the towns of Orvieto, built on a type of porous stone called tufa, and Montepulciano, where part of the Twilight movie New Moon was filmed. We made a final stop at a beautiful 12th century abbey, Sant’Antimo whose original chapel dates back to the late 700s, missing the live Gregorian chants, but listening to the soundtrack playing in the background. We didn’t realize how narrow and windy some of the roads were, but made it back for dinner at a local trattoria in the little town near our inn and later had the complimentary bottle of one of the inn’s white wines on our little balcony overlooking olive trees and grapevines.
July 8 - After breakfast and checkout the following morning, we headed north to Chianti. The road signs were hard to follow and at intersections sometimes we’d slow to a crawl to read the numerous signs trying to figure out which way to go. There must be some logic to it – brown for sites, blue for towns or something. Let’s just say we took a more circuitous route to get out of the Maremma area to the highway at Grosseto winding through roads more suitable for biking and whizzing through little towns on sides of hills and cliffs. The highway to Siena took a little over an hour. We were debating which bullseye sign that indicated historic town center, “Centro” to follow amidst all the other parking signs for buses, etc, and ended up in a multi-story lot just inside the city walls, but still a hike to the center. This was to be the first of many days of walking outside in the sun touring the cities. We saw quite a number of university students and tourists, of course, had a simple lunch off the main piazza “il Campo”, where the famous horse race, Il Palio, is held around its’ sloping triangular perimeter, and walked around looking at interesting shops and churches, again, snapping lots of photos.
We had to fill up our little diesel at this point and the attendant pointed us in the direction of the SR222, the Chianti wine road dating from the 1700s that would take us up into the beautiful rolling countryside to our B & B, La Piazzetta in Panzano, home of butcher Dario Cecchini and his prix fixe restaurant Solociccia, dinner at which I had reserved in advance through the B & Bs manager who actually worked for the butcher. (I had read about Dario in Bill Buford’s book Heat and found out about the restaurant browsing online.)
After checking in, Paul was on a quest for ice cubes to go with our water and sodas, so we hit the local stores in our little town and a bigger one, Greve, up the road, to no avail. Nevertheless, we sat on our balcony enjoying the partially blocked view of the old part of town, with villas and vineyards surrounding it until it was time to walk down to the restaurant for the earlier of two seatings.
The host indicated we dine at communal tables, together in “con vivio.” There were families from Ireland and Sweden, and a German and Italian couple along with us enjoying conversation, free flowing wine and a multi-course meal highlighting meats prepared in different ways: in a ragu, fried, sauteed, boiled, braised, and roasted – all for 30 Euro.
After coffee and olive oil cake, we were shooed out for the next seating, so we went across the street to the actual butcher shop to enjoy digestivi and more conversation among the guests. We were in a convivio state of mind. My favorite liqueur was one with quinine and orange peel. We took photos with the butcher and talked to the butcher’s wife, an American who acted as translator. She gave Paul, who had admired and enquired about Dario’s pants, his tailor’s address in Florence and after the last of the guests headed to their vehicles to drive back to where they came from, the butcher played a video of a Taiwanese food show that had recently wrapped filming that included an interview and segment about his shop and restaurant. His wife meanwhile said “don’t go away” and came back with a package wrapped in paper – “a little something,” she said. We bade our farewells and wandered across the street for a gelato nightcap to enjoy while walking up the slope to our B & B, whereupon opening the package we discovered a takeaway container of ice cubes! We had our first sodas and waters on ice, sitting on the balcony listening to the occasional dog bark, car go by and the creatures of the night.
July 9 - We decided to follow the length of the wine road and ended up a little more Southeast of where we needed to be, so sat in some morning traffic around the ring road of Florence to head north to Maranello, home of Ferrari. It was highway driving nearly all the way, and we arrived in time for lunch after glimpsing the factory, both new and old entrances, before finding the museum. We had a pasta and a scallopini alongside other tourists and a few business people while glimpsing the occasional red-suited Ferrari employee ride by on a bicycle. Paul took quite a number of photos of the cars on exhibit, and we took in the trophy room and gift shop before heading out to look for the test track, Fiorano. We heard some unmistakable engine sounds on the way, but alas, we missed any cars and only got to shoot photos of the empty Turn 2 and zoomed in on the overpass with the Shell fuel logo.
The autostrada has rest stops with the restaurant straddling both lanes , so we stopped for a little break and watched the cars zoom by underneath before getting back in the car to sit in the traffic that was backed up approaching Florence. We returned the car at the little airport outside city limits and took a cab into town to our funky, modern hotel, owned by the Ferragamo family. The Continentale was right next to the famous jewelry bridge of Ponte Vecchio and around the corner from the Uffuzi. We walked up to the Palazzo Borghese and the piazza where lots of sculptures, including a David copy, were on display, and then to the Duomo, getting lots of photos in the great evening light. We had a tasty dinner al fresco at Il Caminetto within view of the Duomo of evening’s special “trippa” as well as pasta and another scallopini. We found Grom, a popular gelato place for dessert and wandered around people-watching and window shopping until we decided to retire for the evening.
July 10 - We ate quickly the following morning and joined the line at the Uffuzi (art gallery) and purchased advance tickets to the Accademia (sculptures) for the afternoon. There was so much to see by so many different artists! Some people had guidebooks, others were in tours with audioguides, and Paul wanted to download an app for his new iPad, but it was too big to download with our pre-paid data card. We enjoyed lunch at Osteria de Peccatori (pizza for me and bacon and mushroom crostini for Paul) near the Duomo and didn’t have to wait in line to see the real David – enormous!
We were done and had time for a siesta before hiking over the Arno and up to the Piazzale Michelangelo for sunset views of Florence. There was a bronze David there. While we waited we ate and drank overlooking the parking lot and statue with views of the city beyond. On the way back, we passed by a large screen TV in a park by the river with a World Cup soccer match being broadcast. We stopped at a local market and found water that was half the price of the touristy area we were staying in! After dropping off our purchases, we decided to head up to the hotel’s rooftop bar to enjoy a little people watching and to snap a couple photos of popular buildings that were lit up. We packed a lot of sites and walking into that day but more was to come as we were headed South for the last few days of our trip.
July 11 – We had our breakfast, packed, and I headed out to buy a few more things and have a gelato at Carapina before we walked to the train station at Santa Maria Novella which was so much bigger than the airport – more people use the train to travel between the bigger cities of Milan and Rome... After figuring out which class of tickets to buy from the machine, we made it on board with minutes to spare! Paul had a panini and Coke on board and was checking to see if the wifi would work. The trip was about an hour and a half and we spotted one of the towns we stopped at a few days ago as well as the meandering train tracks of the local train sort of paralleling the high speed train tracks we were on. In comparison, the local train would have taken four hours!
We took a taxi to our hotel at Campo di Fiori, a farmer’s market from morning until early afternoon, then cleaned up for the restaurants surrounding the square to set up their tables. This hotel was another family owned, place with maybe 25 rooms, decorated in a more old-world style. There was also a terrace on the roof here, but no bar. The area was nicely decorated with outdoor furniture so people could bring their own food and drinks to enjoy.
After checking in, a shower and a short rest, we hit the streets. This was a precursor for the days to come – we were out from about four o’clock until nearly 10pm that first evening! We walked from our hotel to Piazza Navona, home of two famous fountains, then to the Pantheon and another famous fountain – Trevi. kept going to the Spanish Steps and up to check out the view, back down and along the shopping street to Piazza del Popolo, then up the hill for another view of the city before back-tracking down the way we came to take photos of the same sites lit up at night. We stopped for Chinese food near the Trevi Fountain – Paul was craving noodles! We made it back to Campo di Fiori to find all the restaurants packed and people sitting around the fountain facing all directions at the TVs set up at all the restaurants surrounding the piazza to watch the World Cup Finals so we stopped to watch the match for a bit before heading up to the roof of our hotel to unwind before bed.
July 12 – We geared up for a full day pounding the pavement. The weather continued to be quite hot, with the brutal sun beating down on us. Good thing there were plenty of fountains where drinking water was pumped out of the ground to refill our water bottles.
We went around the Vittorio Emmanuel Monument to the Forum where we roamed among the ruins including the Temple of the Vestal Virgins before we walked under an arch and down the road to the Colosseum. Since we had purchased tickets at the Forum we bypassed the long line snaking around to enter. It’s amazing to imagine the amphitheater in it’s heyday - we purchased a book that showed through overlaid transparent pages the old and the new sites of Rome. We stopped for water and gelato in the colors of the Italian flag before walking up to Palatine Hill where there was a nice view of the Forum and surrounding city.
We went to the Roman Holiday church where the Bocca del Verita (Mouth of Truth) is and stuck our hands in to see if we’d be bitten... We were wishing we had a Vespa to ride back to our hotel at that point. We stopped at Chagat in the Jewish ghetto area and had falafel and a hamburger before making it back for a shower and rest. We ended our day with dinner near our hotel and delicious granita di caffe con panna (icy bits of espresso with cream) at the famous Pantheon-area Tazza D’Oro – there was even a little sign in Chinese on the door. It was so rich we had to have a lemon sorbet to clear our palates!
July 13 – Our last day in Rome – to avoid the lines we booked a five hour tour to see the Vatican City museum and St Peter’s basilica. Our little group of 14 was led by Filippo of Through Eternity Tours. We wore audio headsets so we could hear his knowledgeable commentary. He pointed out all sorts of things in the paintings that we would have missed – the artwork hasn’t been kept in modern temperature controlled settings, so some of it has deteriorated and there were some areas closed for touch-ups. We saw sculpture, tapestry, frescos, mosaics, tile-work, and other paintings on lots of surfaces and in different mediums... Some of the frescos were overwhelming – I’ve seen photos, but it’s not even close to seeing it in person. We finished the tour at the basilica – the one of the largest churches in the world, and parted ways with a final look at the grand St Peter’s Square, actually elliptical in shape outlined by a colonnade with statues on top that is open at the entrance so from an aerial view looks like arms welcoming you.
We started our walk back to the hotel by going through the more residential area intending to cross the river closer to our piazza, but it was still so warm that we ended up backtracking, walking through a tunnel and across a bridge instead which was a more direct route. We window shopped a bit trying to spend our last euros. Bought some tasty pastries and cookies sold by the kilo made from almond paste at two different bakeries (one was Il Fornaio) and we had our last dinner at a family owned seafood trattoria, Pesci Fritti, open only for dinner that was decorated in shades of blue, with fish, of course! We had a little table outside in the little alley and while we sipped wine and ate tuna carpaccio, fried calamari, pasta vongole and fish with capers and lemon, we watched people walking by, some of them locals picking up their takeout from the restaurant and little cars trying to park in the tiny parking spaces nearby. It was a lovely evening once again ending on our hotel’s rooftop. The next morning a we’d have a hired car waiting to drive us back to the airport and the trip across the Atlantic and the North American continent. Looking forward to returning someday!
