Europe trip (Part 6): Florence

I'm still having fun experimenting with Italian cooking. Last night I made Brasato al vino rosso (Beef pot roast in red wine), Panzanella (Tuscan bread salad) and Patate con rosemarino (Rosemary potatoes). I'm proud to say that I used my own rosemary and basil. My herb plant collection currently consists of: regular thyme, lemon thyme, oregano, peppermint, parsley, bush basil, sweet basil and sage...all plants I intend to use in my cooking. I also bought a potted lavender to put in our sun-room because it reminds me of Fonte de' Medici.

Anyway, dinner worked out pretty well; Jeff even had second helpings. :-)



Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. The strip features one of my new characters: Sven, the sf/fantasy writer. The column focuses on writing journals and other ways of kickstarting one's creativity, and includes a survey.

But back to my trip report...

Part 1 (Paris) - Part 2 (more Paris) - Part 3 (Fonte de' Medici) - Part 4 (Montalcino and Montefiridolfi) - Part 5 (La Petraia) - Part 6 (Florence) - Part 7 (more Florence) - Part 8 (Cinque Terre) - Part 9 (Pisa, Fiesole and Volpaia) - Part 10 (Lost in Siena) - Part 11 (Siena) - Part 12 (Rome) - Final

Before setting off for Florence, Ginny, Jeff and I had breakfast at the Fonte De' Medici Trattoria. Breakfast was included in the room rate and was always a buffet of cold items: cold cuts, sliced cheese, flavoured yogurts, granola and cereal, prunes and other dried fruits, fresh fruit, pastries, rolls, milk and juices. You could also ask for coffee or hot water for tea. I even managed to ask for hot water in broken Italian: acqua calda, per favore? Sometimes we'd cook breakfast at Ginny's apartment instead, and have eggs and bacon from the market. The bacon was thin and semi-transparent (and very good), just like the bacon I remember from Juliane's in Frankfurt.

Ponte Vecchio (a famous medieval bridge in Florence) at night. Photo by Jeff.

Although the theoretical speed limit on the Italian Auto strada is 130 km/h, it seemed as if most cars drove as if there were no speed limit. Ginny's car had a small rear seat; I usually sat in the back and couldn't sit up straight if the roof was up, so we rode everywhere with the roof down. This was fun, though my hair was sometimes interesting-looking at the other end.

Popular travel methods in Florence.

We visited Florence (Firenze) twice during our visit; the city was only a 20 minute drive from Fonte de' Medici. The second time was much more crowded due to tour groups flooding the city from docked cruise ships.



I don't mind tour groups in principle, of course, and I've been part of a tour group in the past. But I did find myself fleeing whenever I saw a big one approaching, especially in close quarters like some galleries and museums where there was limited space in each room (did I mention before that I'm somewhat claustrophobic?). It was interesting comparing the different personalities of tour groups from various countries. Some tour leaders bellowed out instructions and scenery descriptions without caring who else was around. Others were more tech-equipped and spoke quietly into a microphone since all the tour attendees had their own headsets.

Medieval theme celebration.

After checking into the Hotel Annalena, I was dismayed to discover that my electrical adaptor didn't fit into any of the outlets in our hotel room even though it had worked fine with one of the outlets at Fonte de' Medici. Fortunately Ginny had brought her laptop, and the adaptor she had for it enabled me to recharge my camera battery as well. When we eventually return to Italy (notice that I said when), I'm definitely going to investigate the adaptor issue more closely. My adaptor's prongs were round, but weren't quite wide enough to fit this outlet:



In the Basilica di Santa Croce, we saw the tombs of well-known historical figures like Michelango (below):

Michelangelo's tomb.

The three muses are apparently those of painting, sculpture, and architecture, mourning his loss.

Another tomb we went to Santa Croce's to see was that of Galileo:



Sad to think that Galileo died while condemned of heresy, despite his scientific and mathematical accomplishments. Afraid of opposition from the church, Galileo's relatives hid his body after his death in 1642; he was only buried in Santa Croce in 1737. From Gap-system.org: "On 31 October 1992, 350 years after Galileo's death, Pope John Paul II gave an address on behalf of the Catholic Church in which he admitted that errors had been made by the theological advisors in the case of Galileo. He declared the Galileo case closed, but he did not admit that the Church was wrong to convict Galileo on a charge of heresy because of his belief that the Earth rotates round the sun."

We visited the Museo di Storia della Scienza (Institute and Museum of the History of Science) whose collection included the telescope that Galileo used to discover Jupiter's moons. We also checked out the Duomo:



There seemed to be a zillion gelato shops in Florence. I sampled as many of them as I possibly could, of course. ;-) Servings of gelato tended to be huge by default. Here's what Jeff got when he asked for a "small" gelato. I quickly learned to use the word "piccolo", emphasizing what I meant with hand gestures...I usually ended up getting a small cup of gelato which was perfect for me. Whenever possible, I asked for unusual flavours that weren't as common in North America. Pine-nut was especially yummy!



In case some of you are wondering, gelato is not strictly the same thing as ice cream, though North Americans tend to use the word to refer to ice cream prepared in the Italian way. According to this Wikipedia entry: "Gelato is an Italian frozen dessert made from milk (or also soy milk) and sugar, combined with other flavourings. The gelato ingredients (after an optional pasteurization) are super-cooled while stirring to break up ice crystals as they form. Like high end ice cream, gelato generally has less than 35% air - resulting in a dense and extremely flavourful product."



Florence is definitely a shopper's paradise. And I've never seen so many shops and street vendors for shoes and purses in such a concentrated area. Especially purses...they were being sold everywhere, from sidewalk street vendors to upscale shops. I found some of the shops in Florence to be expensive (interested in a sweater for CA$2253? :-)) and I didn't need any more purses, so I did most of my souvenir shopping in open air markets like the Il Mercato Del Porcellino, which were also fun to explore even if you didn't intend to buy anything. I did buy a scarf for my sister at the shop below:



I also bought a scarf for myself from another vendor and even haggled for it. Well...sort of. The vendor offered me a discount when I hesitated, and I accepted her new price. I'm so bad at bargaining, especially if the amount is small and the vendor looks as if they could use the money.

Later in the day we passed by this square and it was completely empty; the vendors had all packed up their stalls for the day.

I'm amazed more tourists don't get hit by motorbikes and Smartcars in Florence. I spent most of my first day wandering around with my mouth open, looking up. SO much interesting architecture and things to see, both big and small.

Like locks on the Ponte Vecchio, for example:



Along Florence's famous medieval bridge, we saw padlocks locked in what seemed like random places. Apparently it was a habit of lovers to attach a padlock then throw the key into the Arno river. Ironically, this was never a real tradition on the Ponte Vecchio, but an idea launched by some travel guides around 10-15 years ago.

You can find out more info about the Ponte Vecchio in this Wikipedia entry.



We also visited the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit in Florence, which had working models of many of da Vinci's designs.

To be continued...

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Europe trip (Part 5): La Petraia

Part 1 (Paris) - Part 2 (more Paris) - Part 3 (Fonte de' Medici) - Part 4 (Montalcino and Montefiridolfi) - Part 5 (La Petraia) - Part 6 (Florence) - Part 7 (more Florence) - Part 8 (Cinque Terre) - Part 9 (Pisa, Fiesole and Volpaia) - Part 10 (Lost in Siena) - Part 11 (Siena) - Part 12 (Rome) - Final

We celebrated my dad-in-law's 70th birthday on our trip, one of the reasons we decided to overlap his Italy visit with ours. We had his birthday dinner at the Font de' Medici Trattoria, where I discovered how much I like Tuscan white beans, which are flavoured (I think) with garlic, olive oil and herbs. I want to learn to make this dish but am having some trouble finding dried cannelli beans; I somehow doubt that canned white beans will taste the same. Last night I made Scaloppine al limone and Spinaci al limone, which turned out pretty well.

But back to our adventures in Italy...



On our fourth day in Italy, we went to visit a relative of Ginny's. On the way, we dropped by Panzano in Chianti to visit Antica Macelleria Cecchini, otherwise known as "The Mad Butcher Of Panzano" (Via XX Luglio, 11R Tel: 055/85.20.20) and run by Dario Cecchini. You can see an article about him here. Sadly, Cecchini was not in the shop when we visited, but we still bought one of his famous meatloaves for dinner that night.

The shop has become a Panzano tourist attraction. We saw one fellow stroll into the shop, cross out an item on a list in his notebook, then leave. I never, ever want to become this kind of tourist, to just visit a place JUST to be able to say I visited while not being at all interested in actually appreciating it.

Throughout our trip, I also saw way too many tourists who only "looked" at famous landmarks or attractions through the lenses of their cameras. It was basically CLICK-CLICK and then they were rushing off to the next must-see item on their list. I usually took a photo of anything I really liked or found interesting but for me it was a bonus, not the main focus.

In Panzano, we also visited the Sunday market and bought a tablecloth for 5 Euros. Lots of wonderful people-watching opportunities, including a group of older Italian men who were obviously used to sitting on a bench in the centre of the square, waiting for the wives to finish shopping.

Check out the birdcage attached to the top window in this photo:



And then we were off to Radda in Chianti to visit La Petraia, the home of Ginny's cousin and his wife. As usual, the countryside scenery was stunning. I had stopped taking so many pictures by this time, realizing (somewhat reluctantly) that there were only so many photos of gorgeous Tuscan vineyards that I'd be needing, after all.



Ginny's cousin was out of the country, but we enjoyed visiting with his wife Susan. Susan was a co-founder of Alias Research Inc. but then retired from the business; she now owns and operates La Petraia, a 165-acre azienda agricola in Tuscany's oldest wine region, Chianti Classico. She and Ginny's cousin are restoring the property to its origins as a working farm and winery. La Petraia is also an agriturismo, and will soon be offering meals, accommodation, and cooking classes to tourists, with most of the ingredients used in the kitchen coming directly from the property. It even has an Etruscan archeological site called 'Piazza di Siena'.

Part of their lavender crop this year:



Susan is also author of "Piano, Piano, Pieno: Authentic Food From A Tuscan Farm," published this year by Harper-Collins. The title means "Slowly, Slowly, Full" and embraces a philosophy of cooking that emphasizes simple, seasonal and local ingredients, traditional preparation of foods that are enjoyed at the table with good company.

Susan was kind enough to give me a copy, and I started reading it during our visit in Italy. Wonderful writing with a ton of useful information about Italian cuisine. I can't wait to try out some of the recipes. I only recently found out, by the way, that my friend Ray did the Web site for the book. (!)



Susan had crafted a menu just for our lunch with her. Here are just a few of the wonderful dishes she made:

Homemade whole grain seed flatbread crackers, using a natural levain. This recipe (like the other dishes served at our lunch) can be found in her book Piano Piano Pieno:



Deep fried sage leaves, each with a small piece of anchovy sandwiched between the leaves. These were to die for, and one of my favourite food experiences during the trip:



"Chips" of baked thin slices of Comte cheese:



Spring salad of sprouted azuki, asparagus, fave beans and fresh mint from the garden:



In the photo below:

- Scallopine from La Petraia's Cinta pigs stuffed with proscuitto and sage, cooked "the way little birds are." (latter refers to a Tuscan tradition...Here's an explanation on Susan's Web site)

- Fagioli al Fiasco - Tuscan white beans. I got hooked on these during the trip, as I've mentioned before.

- Greens are from the spring salad mentioned earlier



Dolci pictured in the photo below:

- Petraia Chestnut Honey (they have their own beehives) Semifreddo with a Pistachio Praline

- Peppery Fruit Cake From Siena

- Cooked chocolate and orange cream from Cogne, served with a tegole wafer



It was one of my favourite meals during our Europe visit, not surprisingly. You can find out more about the book here and about La Petraia farm here.

Many thanks to Susan for her wonderful hospitality!

To be continued...

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Europe trip (Part 4): Montalcino and Montefiridolfi

Second Blathering today!

Part 1 (Paris) - Part 2 (more Paris) - Part 3 (Fonte de' Medici) - Part 4 (Montalcino and Montefiridolfi) - Part 5 (La Petraia) - Part 6 (Florence) - Part 7 (more Florence) - Part 8 (Cinque Terre) - Part 9 (Pisa, Fiesole and Volpaia) - Part 10 (Lost in Siena) - Part 11 (Siena) - Part 12 (Rome) - Final

I've never been a huge wine drinker. I used to dislike the taste of wine, and then could only tolerate the taste of white wine. Now I do like some wines, prefer reds and can actually tell the difference between some types of wine, though I still doubt I'd be able to discriminate between a $10 bottle and a $500 bottle.



(Quick note re: above photo -- Note that Jeff shaved off his beard and moustache during the trip! Now I have to figure out how to draw him in My Life In A Nutshell all over again!)

One of things I enjoyed in Italy was trying different wines. Jeff and I visited the medieval walled city of Montalcino with his parents on our second day. We had a fine lunch at Osteria Osticcio (Via Matteotti 23, Montalcino, Italy Phone: 0577-848271), a restaurant regarded as having one of the most serious wine stores in Tuscany. It also had a lovely view of the town:



We also ordered from the wine-tasting menu, where the waiter explained each type of wine as well as writing the name on the coasters. We ended up buying several bottles of one of the Brunellas for 29 Euros each. Later we found it listed in Wine Spectator magazine in the top 100 wine list for US$70.

According to some industry experts, Brunello di Montalcino is considered the best Italian wine and this source claims it is also Tuscany's most expensive, rarest and longest-lived wine. Here's some more info about Brunello wines, if you're interested.



I had heard of wine tastings before, but never olive oil tastings, something else we tried at Osticchio. Our waiter poured three types of olive oil into small glass containers, and we tried each with raw vegetables and Tuscan bread. All three had stronger flavours than what I was used to in olive oil, two had a spicy afterbite which I quite liked. Here's an interesting site about tasting olive oil.

I was intrigued by all the shops I saw in Italy which sold ONLY olive oil and was tempted to buy some, but I had no idea how to choose plus was paranoid about luggage space; Jeff and I had only brought one large suitcase in addition to our carry-ons, and that had already been overweight when we checked in...the Air Canada employee in Toronto let it slide because we were only a few pounds overweight, but I knew that souvenirs would add up.

Instead, I bought some expensive olive oil when I got home. :-) I've decided to save it for special dishes and use my $5/bottle olive oil for regular cooking.



The next day, we hiked to Montefiridolfi for lunch. I'm very glad for all the walking we did on our trip, by the way; it helped work off all the calories we were hoovering at mealtimes. This walk was particularly scenic, through the hilly Tuscan countryside, and I marveled at all the gorgeous wildflowers growing by the side of the road.

Before lunch, I checked out the small convenience store across from the restaurant out of curiosity. As some of you already know, I love investigating grocery stores in other countries. :-) Anyway, the owner greeted me with Bonjourno! and beamed at me as I snooped through his wares. As I paid for a boxed pear juice (pera) he said something that sounded very friendly and included the word bella, made a hand gesture near his cheek. Not exactly sure what he was saying, but I smiled back and thanked him for the change.

My Italian was pitiful, by the way, and I belatedly realized what a mistake it had been to try learning two languages at the same time. French words kept popping into my head (and German!) while I was mentally searching for my new Italian vocabulary, and inevitably by the time I found the right word, it was too late. Ah well, I'll know better next time.

We had lunch at A Casa Mia, a tiny restaurant where I had some of the best food on our trip. Here's the menu, for those interested. Ginny, John, Jeff and I shared a mouthwateringly delicious antipasto dish:



I also ordered the Panzanella, which is basically a bread salad. I tried it for the first time at the Fonte de' Medici Trattoria; there, it was served warm. I ordered again several times throughout our stay in Italy and each time, it was prepared and served differently. Here is the Casa Mia version, which was delicious (though I think I prefer it warm):



The Italians are very good about not wasting food, including old bread. They use it in salads, soups, crostini and other recipes. I definitely want to learn some of these recipes!

The Casa Mia dolci plate was a great way to try more than dessert at a time:



The cake was wonderfully rich with a dark chocolate flavour exploded (in a good way) in my mouth: slightly bitter and VERY chocolatey. Yum. I'm going to have dreams about this cake, I think.

During lunch, an Italian woman came in with a stroller, which she left by the front entrance because her baby was sleeping, then went into the kitchen to chat with the people in the kitchen. I think she was the owner's wife.



I remember thinking that this would never happen in Toronto, a mother leaving her sleeping baby unguarded with strangers sitting nearby. Are we just more paranoid, or is there more crime in Toronto? A little of both, I think. The woman came out later to check on the baby and she chatted with us a bit in Italian, showed us her one-week-old baby (SO CUTE!) and also introduced us to her seven-year-old son. Then the owner (I assume he was the owner; he also did the cooking and serving) came out and chatted with us as well, obviously very proud of the new addition to his family.

After lunch, I thought I'd pop by the grocery store to say good-bye to the elderly man but the store was closed. In fact, we found that many places in Italy close up for lunch, sometimes for 3-4 hours, even in the bigger cities.



After hiking back home, I did some laundry at Fonte De' Medici. Ginny and I spent about ten minutes trying to figure out how to use the laundry machine, but in the end we got it working. :-) The maids also showed me one of the Fonte De' Medici cats that had recently given birth to three kittens:



The maids had named the three kittens Romano, Diego and Teresa. Not sure which one this is, but it's darned cute:



To be continued...

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Europe trip (Part 3): Fonte de'Medici in Italy

Part 1 (Paris) - Part 2 (more Paris) - Part 3 (Fonte de' Medici) - Part 4 (Montalcino and Montefiridolfi) - Part 5 (La Petraia) - Part 6 (Florence) - Part 7 (more Florence) - Part 8 (Cinque Terre) - Part 9 (Pisa, Fiesole and Volpaia) - Part 10 (Lost in Siena) - Part 11 (Siena) - Part 12 (Rome) - Final


We flew from Paris to Florence via Air France, during which we had a snack consisting of a mini ham sandwich, mini open face sandwich spread thinly with a peppery cheese, a small pastry shell filled with seasoned chopped tomatoes and dill, and a delicious cherry tart. Yum...way better than a micro-package of pretzels.

Ginny picked us up in her rented Alfa Romeo convertible, and we drove from the airport with the top down, the wind in our hair and sunlight on our faces. I was astounded by the beautiful scenery of the countryside: the rolling hills, green vineyards and olive trees, the brilliant wildflowers. Hm. "Beautiful" seems too lame a word, really. Breathtaking is better. Gorgeous. Stunning. Oh-dear-lord-I-MUST-BE-DREAMING?!?



After about an hour, the winding road starting up a steep hill and Ginny pointed to the left to two houses visible on top of a hill:



Our apartment complex is the house on the right, on top of the hill. Here's what we saw as we reached the building:



The Fonte de' Medici is one of the Chianti Classico estates owned by the Antinori family, which has been famous for its wine production since the 1300s. Fonte de' Medici was named after De' Medici Family's spring, where 15th century travelers between Florence and Siena refreshed themselves. Fonte de' Medici includes three clusters of wholly restructured and newly equipped farmhouses surrounded by vineyards.

We stayed in the Malvasia apartment, named after a Tuscan grape. It was spacious and full of light, and included a full kitchen, huge walk-in closet, and a bathroom that was at least three times as big as the one we had at home. This was our home base for most of our stay in Italy, thanks to the generosity of Jeff's mom:

A grassy sitting area in front our apartment looked over a bank of lavender down the hillside. You can see Jeff relaxing in one of the recliners in the photo below:

On our first morning, I got up early and walked around the renovated farmhouse. Roses were everywhere... lining fences, cultivated in clumps, sprawling over stone walls. I never once ran into another soul during these morning walks. The grounds were immaculately kept, with several gorgeous sitting areas like this one:



And yes, I felt very, VERY spoiled.

To be continued...



You can see more trip photos here.

You can find out more about Fonte de' Medici here.

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Europe trip (Part 2): More Paris!

Part 1 (Paris) - Part 2 (more Paris) - Part 3 (Fonte de' Medici) - Part 4 (Montalcino and Montefiridolfi) - Part 5 (La Petraia) - Part 6 (Florence) - Part 7 (more Florence) - Part 8 (Cinque Terre) - Part 9 (Pisa, Fiesole and Volpaia) - Part 10 (Lost in Siena) - Part 11 (Siena) - Part 12 (Rome) - Final


Still haven't adjusted to Toronto time yet; I woke at 5:30 a.m. and finally gave up trying to go back to sleep, made myself a cup of Casablanca tea from Mariage Frères. Mint and bergamot, yummmm...

Thanks for the comments to my previous post. I especially liked the one from Amanda Snyder: "Scott and I had a moment in London when we were at Westminster Abbey looking at the coronation throne. Our guide explained that the carvings on the chair was from the 1700's when you could sit on it. Various school boys carved their names on it. Scott leaned over to me and said 'The graffitti here is older than our country.'"

I can SO identify with this!

But back to Paris. Don't forget that you can click on any of these images to read my Flickr comments about them...



Jeff and I only had two full days in Paris, so we knew ahead of time there would be no way to visit all the usual "must see" tourist attractions, and we didn't want to be rushing from one place to another, not being able to take the time to actually enjoy any of them. Instead, we opted for just a few and spent the rest of the time just getting a feel for the city: exploring the narrow streets, peering into shops, people-watching, discovering delightful markets like this one...



We strolled down the Champs d'Elysée and dropped by Ladurée, an upscale chocolate shop that my friend Joey told me about.

Martin GK had recommended climbing the Arc de Triomphe. As he predicted, the queue was quite short and the view well worth it. Here's a view of the Champs d'Elysée from the top of the Arc de Triomphe:



Jeff and I also visited Sainte-Chapelle (more gorgeous stained glass!), the Musée d'Orsay, Tuileries gardens, Luxembourg Gardens, rode the Metro, checked out Victor Hugo's house. I'm glad we decided not to go to the Louvre; even at the Musée d'Orsay, I felt as though I could have spent days exploring the gallery instead of hours. I love art galleries, but I get more satisfaction looking at fewer pieces of art for a longer time than rushing through each room with barely a few seconds on each piece. When we lived in downtown Toronto, I bought a membership to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) so that I could go whenever I wanted.



On our walks through Paris, we kept running into avid soccer fans who were in Paris for the Champions League final: Arsenal v Barcelona; they wore team jerseys, waved flags, chanted and yelled. Greek restaurants smashed plates in their doorways at night while fans cheered inside; I'm not exactly sure what ritual this was, but we're theorizing it said something like "HEY! Come inside and cheer your favourite team here! We know how to party!!"

Here's a bunch of fans who gathered at The Great Canadian Pub (yes, Jeff and I were highly amused by the name) to watch the big game:



Barcelona won.

And now I have to talk about the food in Paris.

Ah, the food. For me, food is a vital aspect of travel enjoyment. I love trying new cuisines, comparing how other cultures prepare dishes, checking out the produce. I LOVED each and every meal I had in Paris. Some of my favourites:

- A sandwich I ate in a small park near Victor Hugo's house, bought from a street vendor. Flat bread sliced in half and stuffed with sliced tomato, basil and brie, and grilled until the brie melted a bit. YUM.

- Walnut chestnut ice cream cake in the La Rotisserie d'en Face (2 rue Christine).

- Our lunch at Delmas restaurant on Rue Mouffetard, where we sat at one of the outdoor tables and watched passersby. My St. Jacques salad (with scallops) was fantastic:



I had heard rumours about the Paris locals being rude to tourists. I'm sure this has happened, but Jeff and I never came across it. To tell you the truth, the only rudeness we experienced on our trip came from other tourists. :-\ Like any big city, the Paris locals tend to be busy and rushing around, but downtown Toronto can be like that as well.

I loved Paris, and hope to go back someday.



We fly to Italy in my next Blathering...

You can see my Paris pics here and all my trip pics here.

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