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Tuesday, August 07, 2012
Non guilty relaxation
Chapter 7 – The Sweet Life
How to enjoy the sweetness of life.
Il dolce far niente.
The sweet life, or delightful idleness, the art of doing nothing, knowing the value of leisure.
Did you know Italians take siesta?
Everyday from 1-4 p.m., except perhaps in tourist areas, businesses close, people go home for long lunches, play with the family, take a nap, or do anything they want to do without feeling guilty about it..
4 p.m. Arrives. Back to work. Stores re-open.
I first encountered siesta while in at our agritorismo.
I drove into Pienza looking for a grocery store. Found one, a mini super market, but it was closed.
It was three in the afternoon. A sign on the front door announced the hours.
9 am To 1 pm – and 4 pm. to 8 pm.
1pm. To 4 pm was reserved for siesta.
Siesta?
I thought that was a Mexican tradition.
Even shops in the high tourist areas close, except perhaps restaurants, taverns and tourist traps.
.Il dolce far niente. Make time in your day to enjoy the sweetness of life.
One could do a doctoral study, perhaps, on when the Italians discovered siesta. Was it during the medieval age? The renaissance, the classical age? Or is it recent. While Michelangelo was carving the David, did he stop three hours for lunch each day to do nothing?
Yes, we did find many shops closed for siesta that we wanted to visit. No problem. Ah. An open tavern. We'll order a glass of wine, take a table on the piazza, and until 4 o”clock, observe tourists stroll by. If no one strolls by, we'll just sit and watch the facade of the church age.
We discovered several important things quickly. Since everybody works until 8 pm,that's when dinner begins.
We were the subject of strange looks on our first night in Tuscany. Arriving late to our farmhouse, we went into Pienza to seek dinner. It was 7 o”clock, and we looked through the windows into this delightful Italian restaurant, which seemed to be open. But there no customers.
We asked if they were serving, and they gave a reluctant “yes” We remained the only customers until 8 o'clock when the restaurant came to life.
Now, it was dinnertime.
When you dine at an Italian restaurant in Italy, the tradition is that the table you have before you, is yours for the evening.
Il dolce far niente.
Enjoy your meal, enjoy your friends, drink the wine, eat, eat, eat. The wine is full bodied. The food an art form.
The next tradition we did not know was the ritual of the check. You will not get your check until you ask for it. I did not know that the table we sat before was ours until the restaurant closed. Or, that if the waitress had brought our check before we asked for it, it would have been the height of rudeness.
So, tired of waiting, I got up and asked for the check, which was graciously provided.
Enjoy where you are, what you are doing, particularly if it is nothing. No guiltplease..
Enjoy the present moment. Sit on the steps of the Duomo in Siena, and read a book, if that's what you want to do.
Learn how to enjoy yourself, something Americans don't know how to do, the Italians will tell you.
Let yourself go and see the world
Drink wine with lunch.
Take a digital vacation.
Make dinner for someone you love, then leave the dishes.
Measure the day by how many times you have smiled. Let go of the guilt that you always have to be doing something.
Practice how you would find your il dolce far niente.
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Next chapter on Friday, August 10. Trying to compile NEW slide shows, but will have to be able to get through computer engineering courses first at MIT and Cal Tech, in order to properly wade through the complications of this blog.
Monday, August 06, 2012
Friday, August 03, 2012
On the campo in Siena
Chapter six-- Siena
Siena – San Domenico – WWII – Saint Catherine
Ciao. Buon giorno.
We sat in the cavernous church of San Domenico in Siena, church of Catherine, the town's 14th Century Patron Saint.
This is a huge church, although not as popular as the main Duomo not far from the city center.. San Domenico has a high open central nave, perhaps four stories to the ceiling. Rows of large Gothic windows line the left and right walls.
Sanctuaries are along the sides, leaving the knave open, standing room only for services. In one sanctuary, is the head of St. Catherine, her head tilted so she can see you enter or leave the church. Her thumb is in a special container.
How eerie is that?
As I sat there, looking up at the Gothic windows, I noticed some were clear and some were stained glass. Were the clear pane windows part of heavy repairs from World War II Allied bombings? It was the first evidence of the war I had witnessed.
Later research proved my observation correct.
Here you are in the midst of the greatest antiquities of the world, its greatest treasures, the heart and birth of the renaissance, the seat of western thought, where Allied bombers reigned hell on earth.
Even in Germany, how many ancient cities were laid to waste by the thousands of bomber runs, over and over and over? You have seen the pictures, complete and total destruction.
What a terrible, terrible irreplaceable loss.
Yet the human spirit rebuilds and replaces anew, and as tourists today, we visit the great treasures of genius, preserved and protected.
How many historic buildings of Siena were destroyed or damaged. How many Italians killed and wounded. How much history is now history?
A necessary victory at a terrible price.
It was in the summer of 1944. Mussolini was deposed and hung in the plaza in Milan. Italy switched sides, leaving Hitler to join the Allies. Hitler responded by pouring in German storm troopers to occupy hundreds of villages and cities. The Allies and Italian forces freed Rome,then advanced into Tuscany. In the course of the campaign, tens of thousands of soldiers died and thousands of civilians were executed by German Troops. Evacuating Florence, the Germans blew up the bridges crossing the Arno, sparing only the historic Ponte Vecchio, which you can cross today, intact from the war.
In a mountain village near Lucca, German troopers killed more than 500 residents, including men, women, children and elderly.
The Americans pressed on, clearing the Germans from the mountain passes. Today, monuments and cemeteries commemorate those events. One stands today and offers a Latin prayer: “Once enemies, now friends, let us pray for peace in the world.”
Now the armies are gone. Italians have their towns back. Only tourists invade.
We have seen many travelogues of Siena. What struck me first coming into the great plaza, or Campo, was its size. TV diminishes its scale. It is here where the Palio is raced, 10 mounts, three times around the square. Winner gets the bragging rights for a year for his contrada (neighborhood). Horses are brought into the church of the contrada, specially blessed to win.
It's a good sign too if the horse leaves a calling card.
It's medieval mayhem. Parades, lavish costumes, wagering, pomp and pageantry, a true medieval happening. There are no racing rules. Riders get bumped and thrown, but they still can win. The horse carries on to the finish line.
We are here in the campo, the medieval center of the city, pop 60,000. There are no cars. Streets are too narrow. And when you walk from parking, you notice the narrow streets, or alleys or passageways. (take your pick).
Coming out from the innards into the campo, you notice how big it is, arena size.. People gather in small groups, sidewalk cafes offer food and drink or the morning cappuccino. Who can resist the colorful window display of the gelato (ice cream)shop?
(Returning home, our first purchases was a cappuccino maker and a Bialetti moka express coffee maker).
Sienese describe the campo as the shape of the protective cloak of the virgin, joining St. Catherine of Siena as the city's patron saint.
The big church is the Duomo. It stands out with green and white striped marble exterior. You will see this same green and white marble church décor again as the facade of the famous Duomo in Florence. This church sits on Siena's highest point and dates to 1215. You can sit on its big steps in front, watch the tourists file by on the Piazza Duomo.
Go inside and enter a different world.
Inside are Michelangelo statues and Bernini sculptures to name a few.
Modest ticket prices to enter. Modest dress required.
Remember, when you enter the churches and sanctuaries, you are entering a religious building. Proper decorum and respect should be observed. Many churches have guards who constantly remind you: “No photo!. No photo! In smaller chapels, it's the little old ladies to run from. Take a photo and take life in your own hands Yet there are many without guards. In one church, we wandered way down into its lower innards, and never encountered anyone
If you have never entered these awesome churches, you are in for an epiphany of religious experience. It matters not your religious philosophy or belief or faith, these churches will move you..
Next Chapter 7. The sweet life.
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Ciao. Arrivederci
Next chapter on Tuesday, Aug. 7
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Travel tips for central Italy
Chapter five—Tips on traveling
We pause in our journey to give you direction in the event you want to follow some of our footsteps towards enjoying a memory filled Italian vacation or to any country..
Our vacation was in June of 2011. Its planning began almost a year earlier.
First, decide if you want to tour any country either by bus (tour group) or by car (your group).
Yes, it's easier to let a tour organization plan your every step (on and off the bus, stop and go, stop and go, on and off the bus, 10 cities in 5 days). Planning your own trip takes time and effort, lots of it if you want to maximize your vacation time. But it's fun and educational.
First, get the books. Find books which come with maps. Rick Steves books are indispensable. As a previous bookstore owner, I also advised the tour books from Lonely Planet. For my traveling bookstore customers, those were the most popular. There are many more. Go to a bookstore near you and look over the offerings. Google Lonely Planet Rome, for example, and see what you get.
Don't forget, also, there are many tour books and guides that you can download into almost any device. We downloaded Rick's various museum tours and could, for example, listen to his discussion of various works in the Uffizi Museum in Florence before ever reaching the Uffizi.
Get a book on the language. You can also purchase tapes and disks on proper pronunciation, interpretation and translations of the language. Faye did this extensively. I said, “I'll figure it out.” I have had many bookstore customers who were avid travelers who shared my philosophy.
The prospect of landing in a foreign country where they speak an unfamiliar tongue can be stressful. But, lo and behold, English is an international language, and many foreigners speak it, especially in high tourist areas. Airport signs are in several languages. Stewardesses on airplanes give directions in several languages, depending upon your destination.
We had little trouble communicating. Pointing helps. After a few days, I became used to Italian basic words and phrases, and I found it fun and challenging to attempt to communicate. So the best advice is, learn some basics, then learn by doing. Don't be afraid. Charge on.
If you need directions, head for a group of people. Somebody in it will speak English.
There are some pitfalls, and I committed a dandy. The Italian words for bread and penis are quite similar. And when I went into a bread shop and told the lady what I wanted, she gave me the strangest look. Wrong word. I did a hasty retreat.
As I said, planning began early for our trip. Faye did it all. She put together a flawless itinerary. It went as planned due to her diligence and planning. Also, by doing it herself, she was able to communicate directly with our various hosts, and by the time we arrived, she had established an open working relationship, if not friendship, with them.
You can do it all on-line. Before you leave home for the airport, you should have all your reservations made, your museum tickets, your airline tickets and boarding passes, train tickets, your lodging reservations, your rental car, your passport and foreign driver's license.
Older drivers beware. Over 70 drivers get killed on insurance rates. If your spouse is under 70, let her rent the car. Figure out later who will drive.
The really popular tourist destinations require tickets and admission fees. Order your tickets on-line, schedule the time you wish to enter the museum, pay the fees on-line, get a printout of your tickets, sign up for a guided tour. When you go to the popular tourist spots, if you don't have advance tickets, you could stand in line for hours. Don't waste your vacation time standing in line. Get your tickets in advance, go to the head of the line, wave bye-bye to folks still waiting to get in.
If you are going to take the train from Rome to Venice, for example, buy your tickets on-line. Train stations are crowded. Compare the crowds to those in the Atlanta airport. The two guidebooks I mentioned really have extensive resources. They describe the attractions of all the cities, offer restaurant reviews indicating hours, locations, prices, menus. telephone numbers. They will tell you if you need a reservation or not. Same with lodging, bus travel, train travel and car rental agencies
Most importantly. Before you go, check your passport. Do that well in advance, because the Department of State is deluged with new applications and renewals. It could take months to process your application. Don't delay, do it now. Also, if you will be driving in a foreign country, you will need a driver's license. Apply at any AAA office.
Stay connected to home. WiFi is everywhere, even in restaurants. Our friends and family followed our exploits by Facebook. Take your laptop or similar device. Our teenage granddaughter spent hours each night connecting with her friends back home.
Check with your cellphone provider to determine if your cell phones will work were you are going. If not, don't let them sell you a special international phone. Instead, Google international cell phones. Look over the list, get one that only charges you airtime, and airtime only, no monthly or annual fees. You will be charged for the phone, about $100, nothing else, and you won't get a bill unless you make a charge. Minute rates start at $1. But check this out in detail.
What about money?
Bank ATM machines abound. Debit and credit cards are routinely accepted. Everywhere.
Everything is traded in Euros. The denominations are similar to US coins and bills. There are 2 and 5 Euro coins (dollar) as well as bills, which I found quite useful.
We departed Italy from Venice's very modern airport. First stop was baggage check-in. The desk clerk asked for our passports, and when she returned them to us, our boarding passes were included – all the way back to Tallahassee.
How great is that?
Next: Sienna and World War II in Tuscany.
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Friday, July 27, 2012
Hill towns of Tuscany
Chapter – 4
The Tuscan hill towns of central Italy
San Gimignano, Volterra, Montalcino, Pienza, Montepulciano, Cortona, Urbino, Orvieto, Civita Di Bagnoregio, Siena, Assisi
Centuries ago, the hill towns of Tuscany were built on top of large hills. That's why they call them hill towns. It was a defensive position. Early hill town residents worried little from invading barbaric hordes.
It was their neighbors who gave them fits.
The hill towns fought among themselves mostly, each trying to subdue one another, enlarging their city-state sphere of influence.
It's a tradition which lingers today. You may have seen the travel films of the twice a year horse races in the campo (field) of Siena in the center of town. There are no rules. Just win.. Each rider represents his neighborhood. The rivalry is intense and severe. Losing the race brings disgrace and ridicule upon your neighborhood. The winner basks in bragging rights for one year while losers discover the miseries of defeat.
Our hostess at Cretaiole, Isabella told us this personal rivalry story.
Her husband, Carlo, grew up on the family farm in Pienza. One day, she related, a car with two tourists stopped to ask directions to the next town, San Quirico d'Orcia.
Carlo told them, “never heard of it.” Carlo was involved in his youthful years in town-to-town rivalries.
Each year, a contest was held, and the loser got to pour huge amounts of salt on the loser's town square. There were other insensitivities too.
So when the tourists asked directions, pointing to a map which showed the town they were seeking, 10 kilometers away, Carlo said, “no, the map is wrong, it's not there.”
“I couldn't believe he did that,” said Isabella relating the story.
If you are in Tuscany, you will visit the hill towns. Beware. They are hilly. Bigtime.
Before you leave home, get yourself in good physical condition. As you walk the streets, you will either be going up or going down. We did not physically prepare ourselves before leaving home, and we never made it to the town square at the very top of Montepulciano. (mohn-tay-pull-chee-ah-no)
But we did find a good wine shop, noted for its Vino Noblie wine.
In tourist season, which we were in, these little towns like Montepulciano, get really crowded. Parking lots are at the bottom of the hill. Parking meters are pricey. Parking spaces are premium. Then once you find a spot and feed the meter, it's all uphill from there. You are headed for Piazza Grande, on the top of the ill, if you can get there..
Then there's the traffic..
The hill towns have tiny streets, no sidewalks. As you now are heavily breathing, headed for the Piazza, comes from behind another nuisance, a little Italian car, small enough to negotiate the walkway-streets but big enough to be annoying..
Hill towns are clean and tidy. No trash. Parks and plazzas are bright and cheerful, beautifully landscaped and eye-pleasing.
Flowers abound. Lots of flowers. Townspeople are of modest means. But they decorate their windows and entrances with brightly colored flowers, their way of saying to the thousands of tourists who climb their streets each year – Welcome.
Montalcino (mohn-tahl-chee-no) is famous for the brunello grape, growing in vineyards surrounding the town. The grape makes the famous brunello wine.
The young man in the wine shop told us that the bottle of brunello that I was holding, came from the very grapes grown on his family vineyards. How could we refuse.
Anyway, before we vacated the wine shop, and there are oodles of them here, we dropped 70 euro. Some brunello wine, which we brought home, a bottle of vin santo and a bottle of lemoncello.
Vin santo is a sweet wine favored by Italian ladies as an afternoon pick-me-up (or pick-me-down). It is highly alcoholic.
Lemoncello is an after dinner wine. Be sure you have a full stomach before sampling. This stuff has a real kick. compare it to flavored moonshine.
Early in our visit, we sat down for lunch at an out-door table. We had heard of Lemoncello from one of the Italian cooking shows and wanted to taste it. “We'll have lemoncello with lunch,” we told the young lady.. The waitress asked if we ever drank lemoncello. We said “no.”
“ It's an after-dinner drink,” she said. “ Very powerful.”
We changed our choice to fizz water. When our meal came, she gave us a small complimentary sample glass of lemoncello, just enough for a taste for two. She was right. It was powerful.
We gave her a nice tip.
http://www.sangimignano.com/ www.prolocomontalcino.it
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Thanks. Chapter 5 on Tuesday
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Chater 3 --- Castelmuzio
Chapter 3 -- Castelmuzio
A journey to a Tuscan villa
This week we will visit the small hilltop town of Castelmuzio in the heart of Tuscany.
You can be there in all its glory too, because I will give you a website and Google links where you can visit this 13th Century town of 200 people, and luxuriate in a newly restored villa opened this spring, the highlight of this visit.
There are more than 30 professional photographs for you to visit on the villa. Read the history of the villa, the town, and the region, visit with the husband and wife team who labored for seven years to offer a real Tuscan experience in unquestionable beauty. After clicking on the website, be sure you scroll down for full information.
In our trip to Italy covering most of June, we visited Castelmuzio three times, wandering its narrow streets, nodding to the locals, viewing the farms of the valley from a high overlook. Each time, we were the only tourists in this Tuscan Medieval town.
Part of our one week Tuscan stay was in the Agritorismo called Cretaiole near Pienza. It was , managed by the same family who restored the villa in Castelmuzio, only a few miles away. Part of our stay included participation in an evening with a professional Italian chef, demonstrating his skills and explaining the food while he prepared for us a seven-course meal.
My daughter Tricia and I participated in this event.
The chef prepared the meal at the restored villa in Castelmuzio.
As you go through the website, which I will give you before we leave here today, notice the photos of the kitchen. The chef cooked on a magnificent red gas stove. See the table in the center of the room. Tricia and I and eight others gathered around this table, sampling wines, and discussing the menu as the chef and his teenage daughter prepared the meal. We also were supplied with a printout of all the recipes he prepared that evening. We dined outside on the patio.
At the website you also will meet your hosts, Carlo and Isabella Moricciani, and come into the villa they restored, Casa Moricciani. The villa is designed with two apartments, one up and one down. Each apartment can accommodate 2-4 people, and each rents for a minimum one week. Through the website, you can request the rates, but be prepared.
Interiors were designed by an award winning Italian company blending antique and modern Tuscan furniture with draperies, fabrics, marble, stone, lighting fixtures and large modern baths. You will see a living room chair restored to its 300 year old splendor.
Isabella and Carlo award all their guests in each of their other accommodations with a basketful of products they produce on their farms which includes white and red wines, extra virgin olive oil, pecorino cheese. It means they are jamming corks on more than 5000 bottles a year for their guests.
If you stay in the newly restored villa, they will do the grocery shopping for you plus add fresh seasonal fruits, pastries, fresh butter and bread, locally produced red Orcia Rosso doc wine and Proseco sparkling wine.
How good is that?
To arrive at this small hamlet, you will drive through Tuscan landscapes and farms, through winding and meandering roads, past olive groves and vineyards and unfenced fields of wheat and grains.
You will NOT see old rusting abandoned cars in yards, mobile homes new or old, trash along the roadsides, ramshackle buildings or shacks of any kind
You will come to Castelmuzio high on upon a volcanic hilltop, a mesmerizing medieval hamlet with most of its buildings dating back to the 1200s.
OK. Here's your links: http://www.casamoricciani.com/
Also, Google Castelmuzio for more about this village. For a photo slide show, click on: villagio di castelmuzio—youtube.
Enjoy your trip.
NEXT – Next, chapter four, we travel the hill towns of Tuscany
And now the commercial – Help my income by visiting my personal website: http://www.jamesellistonsmith.com/ Perhaps we can help each other.
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