To Milan

We arrived in Milan by train, arriving at Central Station, a massive structure built in the Fascist style by Mussolini in 1931. Like something out of a ‘30s Nazi propaganda film, the building looms over one end of a modern boulevard, home to dozens of banks. However, walk one block away from the station or boulevard, and you are in
picturesque urban neighborhoods built in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Milan is a big city (4 million people, Italy’s 2^nd largest), and it’s the business capital of the country. It’s also the fashion capital and everyone dresses the part. Stylishly attired folk of every age sit in sidewalk cafés, pass you on the street, shop in the stores.  Tourists stand out in their casual dress, appearing a bit shabby by comparison.

Keeping up with the Milanese would be an expensive task. Home to the 400-euro knee-high boots and the 1200-euro Marilyn Monroe handbag, Milan stores demand a serious investment to look like a local. With Armani skinny jeans for men selling for 130 euros, no wonder Italians stock up on denim when they visit the US. (Conversion tip: multiply euros by 1.38 for the dollar value.)

Exploring the Duomo, 4^th largest cathedral in Europe, we were treated to a 10-minute organ performance resounding through that massive space.








 Afterward we enjoyed lunch at the rooftop café across the street, atop the swanky downtown department store, La Rinascente. Our table looked out on the hundreds of spires decorating the roof of the Duomo.

While many of our meals were quick pizzas and local “fast food,” there were some unusual dishes as well. Steamed octopus served with cannellini beans; a ravioli-style pasta filled with spinach and ricotta, then tossed with a sauce of sautéed chicken and rabbit livers (a lot better than it sounds); and a platter of six Lombardy cheeses served with chestnut honey and fig preserves. Cheese lover that I am, they were almost too strong for me.

We left for Atlanta on Wednesday, and though we hated to leave, we were looking forward to being home. There’s nothing like your own bed and your own shower, and people who speak a language you understand!

More Parma and Milan

Well, Parma and E-R seem to be impenetrable for non-Italians. And we think they like it that way. Probably tired of so many tourists at the end of a long summer, and don't need two more. We tried hard to find our agritourismo but couldn't. We tried to find charm
in the small towns, but only found corporate food packaging plants. We walked into amazing butcher shops and cheese stores, with no language to connect us. We stayed one night at a business hotel outside town and had a wonderful meal of melon and prosciutto with chunks of great Parmesan cheese, followed by a steak on arugula with balsamic reduction and shaved Parmesan. One of the best meals of the trip. But with no way to connect with the heart of the city, we finally gave up and left for Milan.

Milan is another story.

From Venice to Parma to Milan

What a treat Venice was. More a collection of tiny neighborhoods than an actual city, interlaced with narrow canals and even narrower walkways, Venice is charming at every turn. It's surprising how fast everyone walks. Sanda says it's because they can't have scooters to race around on, so they express their speed obsession on foot. Our hotel was a former palace, we were told, and we had a beautifully decorated room with a marble floor from the 14th Century. Just wish we had stayed longer.

Parma on the other hand did not live up to expectations. Mostly our fault (ok, my fault) for believing the Internet video with a woman speaking perfect English as she showed you around the old city. We were lost from the moment we arrived. Car rental place had nothing reserved for us and didn't speak Inglese. Then they found an old VW we could have, so we drove off without a map into a city for which we had no guide book. Actually, we couldn't find a guide book for the city or region, and were about to find out why. With a reputation as being Italy's gastronomic hub, Parma and Emilia-Romagna are

From Firenze to Venezia

We had a fine time in Florence, but PEOPLE everywhere. From our first entrance into the city during a charity RunWalk, to the Duomo, to shopping, to David at the Accademia, to dining .... Well, there were plenty of folks to walk with.

We enjoyed many beautiful scenes of the city, including nice views of the Ponte Vecchio bridge spanning the Arno River. Our hotel room looked right out on the shop-filled bridge, and the rooftop terrace where we had afternoon tea looked right down the river and across the southern part of the city.

We saw a lot more medieval and Renaissance Italian art than we expected - in the squares, churches and museums, even tucked in along the street. My dreams began to feature people in medieval dress and floating angels. Very strange!

We took the Eurostar (fast) train to Venice, and that was wonderful. Very smooth and relaxed, we had time to read and plan our arrival in Venice. We had no problem towing our luggage through the train station to the Vaporetto (water bus) and riding across the Grand Canal to our hotel. Our biggest surprise was how narrow the "streets" are, really passageways wide enough for two people to pass. Canals permeate the city, and some walkways end at the water's edge, while bridges are numerous, but are not everywhere. We have a great map and haven't gotten too lost yet. Maybe tomorrow.

We had a wonderful dinner of roasted fish last night, and visited the amazing Rialto fish market this morning. Wow, whole tuna being cut into steaks to order, more types of squid than I knew existed, many types of whole fish and shellfish, all incredibly fresh. Maybe twenty different fish vendors, every one of them larger than the fish market at Whole Foods, and it was all wrapped up and cleaned out when we passed by at 2:00 p.m.

Tomorrow we travel by train to Parma, but now we're going out for espresso and pastries. Ciao!

To Chianti, and now Florence

We had a great drive through the Chianti region, reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC, except for the rolling hills covered with vineyards and olive groves. Along one winding stretch of road a group of 5 wild boar charged across the road going uphill at an alarming speed. About the size of bull mastiffs, I didn't know anything that large could run up a steep incline that fast.

We found the supposed "best butcher in Italy" (according to Anthony Bourdain) and had lunch in his restaurant. It was a 10 euro hamburger with fries called the Mac Dario, named after him. Actually, it was pretty good. Later we tasted some wine at Monte Bernardi, a small producer of Chianti Classico. Finally found a 100 percent Sangiovese wine that I like, called Sa'Etta and requiring about 15 years of aging. Tried the 2000 vintage and it was splendid, just coming around.

Sunday we left our B&B in the hill town country and drove to Florence, where of course they were having a Marathon and the city was flooded with people. Finally dropped off our car and found our hotel. We've been real tourists, walking all over, taking pictures everywhere, and eating gelato. Also a bit of shopping, not nearly enough by Sanda's estimation.

Will stop for now as we're buying wifi time by the hour.

A Little Bit of Heaven in Tuscany

We made it to our agriturismo in Tuscany without much difficulty, although we didn't expect it to be 4 kilometers up a dirt road that winds through vineyards and wildflowers. The property sits at the top of a ridge looking across a valley of yet more vineyards to the medieval hill town of San Gimignano. It is a touch of heaven in Tuscany. We always meet interesting people at these B&B's, and this time most of them speak English! Two couples from New Zealand, two couples from Denmark, a family from Boston, then a couple from near Cinque Terra, our only Italians so far.

Yesterday we drove to the western coast overlooking the Mediterranean in search of a well-known seafood restaurant. We found it and had a wonderful lunch of seafood risotto and an assortment of steamed fish and shellfish. When we left our waiter called to the chef to come meet us. He asked where we came from and was surprised that we had heard of him in Atlanta. In fact he was highly praised in one of our books for the freshness of his seafood. He started as a fisherman and still went out with his pals to catch the day's lunch menu. A man dining nearby beamed at our meeting, and confided to me, "He's the best chef in Italy." I wouldn't disagree. I've never tasted seafood better prepared.

Today we went into San Gimignano and walked the streets, poking into shops, eating gelato, and taking pictures of the ancient buildings. Supposedly they withstood the onslaught of Attila the Hun, although they joined in with Hannibal and his elephants against the Romans about 200 BC. A very old hill town. It's known for it's towers, 14 of which still stand out some 170 in it's heyday. While towers in some towns were used for drying dyed fabrics, these were just status symbols, the taller the better. Good for hurling rocks at your shorter neighbors, some say.

Dinner at our agriturismo, Torraccia di Chiusi, is terrific. Bruno, the chef, cooks excellent local cuisine, the food of his mother and ancestors, only better, we suspect. Each night is a five-course meal: an appetizer, a soup, a pasta course, a meat course, and dessert. Various wines are available, but the red and white produced on the property (at 5 euros per bottle) are just delicious. The red is a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot, and another grape, while the white is a bone-dry Chardonnay. Both come in bottles with no labels. Among our favorite dishes were crostini (Bruno's bread toasted) with garlic, pepper and their own olive oil; Fontina cheese and a dollop of local honey; zucchini soup; ziti with meatless bolognese sauce; pork ribs with fennel seeds, served with roasted fennel bulb; beef steak in a red wine-balsamic gravy; and biscotti to dip in vin santo, like Madeira but stronger!

Life is good. Like Sanda says, a little bit of heaven.

Todi, day 3

After breakfast at our B&B, Casale le Lucrezie, we drove north along the wine road to Montefalco. There we tasted at two wineries, one a small boutique, the other a large producer with a beautiful new tasting facility, somewhat like Mondavi in Napa. The boutique winery is Paolo Bea, dating back to the 1500's. They are organic, and aspire to be biodynamic, picking grapes by the stage of the moon. A little astrology here, and they probably have a cow's horn filled with manure planted somewhere on the property. Their wines are made only from Italian varieties, such as Sangiovese and Sargentino for red, and Garchetto for white. They produce some 56,000 bottles a year. The reserve Sargantino wines are wonderful, and at 40-50 Euros a bottle they should be, but need 15-20 years aging. Don't know that I can wait that long!

The large producer is Arnaldo Caprei, producing some 750,000 bottles a year. They produce wines from most of the same grapes, from the same area, but mostly with less attention to detail. Thus lower cost, most being in the 5-15 Euro range, but their better wines are very nice and command a higher price. Their best Sargantino reserva sells for 60 Euros, and again needs 20 years for aging.

Returning to Casale de Lucrezie, for dinner the last two nights we had simple but robust regional cooking - roasted chicken breast with crispy skin, veal stew,a grilled pork steak, stir fried beef strips with arugula and tomatoes, tortellini with white truffles, spinach ravioli in a red sauce, grilled eggplant, and much more. All was served with the house wine, white or red, from crockery pitchers. Perhaps short on bouquet and distinctiveness, but pleasant and delightful with the food. What a wine should be. And included in the modest price for the meal.

Among our sightseeing adventures, a visit to Assisi where we got lost, had to turn around twice, and found ourselves driving down a narrow cobblestone road from 1000 AD, through an arched gate that would barely accommodate a wheelbarrow. And the pedestrians thought nothing of hugging the wall, trusting that I knew what I was doing!

We had lunch in Montefalco, a working man's lunch of freshly baked sausage pizza, hot from the oven, served on a paper plate with no frills and eat it outside, please, for 2.40 Euros - about $3.50. It was great, and like the workmen, we were back on the road in 15 minutes.

Wednesday we leave for San Gimignano, but not without regret. Some area we wish we could have seen - Norcia, pig capital of Italy; Narni, inspiration for C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia;
Orvieto, built on volcanic rock; and a much deeper tour of the towns we did visit. Maybe there will be another visit. What we've done has been wonderful - wrong turns and all!