The Last Stop in Europe

Well, it has been a fun couple days in Parma.  We don’t know anything about the city but that isn’t why we came.  Sticking our toes into the Italian food history was the plan and it couldn’t have been more successful for us.  We finish up with a nice breakfast this morning with new quiches, new cakes and the usual eggs, meats, cheeses and cereal.  Paula and Elena are both buzzing around.  All five rooms were occupied last night but we all seem to be spacing ourselves out for breakfast so no one is overworked.  We take a 15 minute walk after breakfast, say arrivederci to the ladies and the dogs and hit the road.

Our final destination is Bologna.  We don’t know anyone who has ever been here, Rick Steves says don’t bother and the other guidebooks give it a paragraph.  It seems to be the road less taken which is fine with us.  Actually our flight home originates in Bologna and we thought why not give it a full day to see what’s up.  We try to get our phone and car to agree on a route but Sami is not playing this morning so we have to rely on the car.  It only knows about the main toll roads so that’s that. 

The fog continues but the visibility is pretty good, just a little misty.  It’s only an hour to Bologna which leaves us a little time to embark on our final learning curve to gas up before returning the car.  The station is only self-serve—no one is here—and the plan is to feed euros into the slot until the gauge reads “full.”  No credit cards – no change!  We start with a ten which barely moves the needle so we throw in a twenty and success, we’re full.  It’s only a couple minutes to the Hertz check-in, the guy gives us the OK (va bene) and we’ve survived another drive.  This was a great deal.  We had the car for three days, full coverage with zero deductible and no drop charge for a total of 95 euros.

We grab a cab into the city to Hotel Porta San Mamolo.  We’re right inside the old city walls and walking distance to all the sights, such as they are.  Our check-in person gives us the spiel and the map and we’re off in a new city before 2:00. 

There is a big sight for us today—the international chocolate festival.  It is in the big central square with literally hundreds of booths displaying the latest and greatest chocolate treats.  It is a little chilly (mid 50’s?) and John opts for a hot white chocolate.  It is actually a cup of white chocolate fondant that is all sweetness and light.  Unbelievable but you don’t have two.  Mary is in her element wriggling through the crowds and checking out every sweet treat in the place.  People hand you little bites of their stuff as you go by and by the time you’re finished you’ve eaten two pounds of chocolate.  Our only purchase was a jar of pistachio topping but we don’t know what we will top.  We’ll figure that out later.

We waddle out of the square into the old market area of the city.  A lot of the shops are open today (Sunday) and we spend another hour browsing, eventually ending up in the university area.  This is the oldest university in the world founded in the 11th century.  It has evolved nicely; however, with a bunch of banners protesting this or that and all the kids sitting around on cell phones.  Very much a 21^st century student body.  There is an English pub calling our names and we grab a beer to make sure we will exceed 5,000 calories for the day.  All in all a pretty busy afternoon in a non-destination.

As a non-tourist town not all of the restaurants are open on Sunday.  There is one right across the street (Mura, the one in Parma was Mora) and we’re a little skeptical.  We really wanted the famous sauce Bolognese in some form, but the chef here is a Sicilian.  Most of the items on the menu are seafood with a small section of Bolognese specialties.  Our server brings out a tray of whole fish and we can pick our own if we like.  We don’t like.  Finally from the Bolognese menu we order the Mortadella plate with celery and lemon to share and Mary orders a pasta Bolognese.  Mortadella is the famous sausage of the city and was the first food product officially certified in Italy in 1661.  It was so famous that its other name is a reference to the city itself—we call it baloney, but here it’s always Mortadella.  John goes Sicilian and has the crispy octopus with mashed potatoes.  Our server warns that it really looks like an octopus but we assure her that we know that.  She had a woman a few nights ago who almost fainted when she saw her plate.  All the dishes are good but the Pasta Bolognese is fantastic.  John keeps reaching over his octopus to grab bites of Mary’s pasta.  Something to remember for tomorrow night.

The moving days are tiring for us even if we don’t do much so it is right back across the street and off to bed to read for five minutes.

What did we learn today?  There is no end to the events a city can use to build energy in its center.ners protesting this or that and all the kids sitting around on cell phones.

November 14, 2015

 

 

Back in the Kitchen

This is a John day.  Yesterday was going to be a John day too, but Mary enjoyed it enough that it will be moved back to the center of the ledger.  Not today.

We are a little lazy this morning and don’t get to breakfast until 9:15, which in retrospect will be a small mistake.  Head cook Paula is running the breakfast this morning and there are a couple more people around this morning.  She whips up some coffee, fresh squeezed OJ and scrambled eggs to go with the nice assortment of other goodies.  Always prosciutto, cheeses, some sort of quiche and assorted cakes, cereals and breads.  Paula is not an English speaker but we can communicate enough to be well fed.

The big deal today is that John is joining Elena and Paula in the kitchen for a 2 on 1 cooking class.  This won’t be the full blown deal but fresh pastas and torta fritta are both on the agenda.  Mary gets to pull up a soft chair in the living area of the house, read a book and look at the garden. (Say, maybe this is a Mary day after all.)

The cooks start with the fillings for the pastas.  We’re going to do two different stuffed pastas today, each a different shape but both called tortelli in local terminology. (We might call them ravioli.)  One filling is ricotta mixed with seasonings, Swiss chard and Parmigiano Reggiano.  The other is “pumpkin” which is butternut squash in America, steamed and mashed with almonds, nutmeg and apple mustard.  Paula gets John started on the pasta (1 lb. flour with 5 eggs—that’s a lot of eggs) and decides that he is reasonably capable to knead the dough.  Operating the pasta machine is a different story.  We’re making a lot of pasta today which is a good thing because it takes a lot of practice.

The first shape is squares created by folding one side of a sheet of pasta over the other with the filling in mounds in the middle.  The pasta is then pressed around the filling and then cut into squares and lined up in a hotel pan.  Pretty basic stuff you see on the food channel.  John first discovers that one hand is required to crank the pasta maker, another is needed to guide the pasta onto the cutting board and a third hand has to make sure the long sheet of pasta continues to feed into the machine.  That’s one too many hands.  The more we do, the better he gets.

Paula makes the first few ricotta stuffed pastas in the square shape and then turns it over to John.  He is in his element now plopping the mounds of ricotta down onto the pasta sheet until, out of the corner of his eye, he catches Paula making concerned eye contact with Elena.  Elena says that Paula believes there may be too much stuffing.  OK, no problem.  John makes smaller piles then folds the pasta over and starts pressing down around the filling.  Again with the eyes.  Elena says that maybe Paula should show me again exactly how to seal the pasta so it doesn’t come apart in the water. Sure, that’s fine.  Finally it is cutting time and that will be easy.  John is using the rolling pasta cutter like a pro until Paula rips it out of his hands and starts to re-trim all of the edges.  Apparently there needs to be a little precision here.

By the time we make batch after batch of the ricotta/chard tortelli John is getting the hang of it and the individual pastas are actually starting to look pretty good.  Time to move along.  We are doing the pumpkin stuffing and will make the tortelli into a round shape.  John is rolling now on the pasta machine (except for the occasional dropping of the handle causing more eye rolls—but with smiles).  With this pasta we are using one sheet on top of the other instead of folding.  The pumpkin stuffing is still in mounds in the middle in just the right amounts.  We use a cookie cutter type of device to make perfectly round shapes with the stuffing hopefully in the middle.  Paula is smiling, Elena is smiling and John is relieved.  All of our pasta is covered with towels and stored to be used later.

The ladies made a dough earlier for the torta fritta.  This is the fried puffy bread that we have been having at the restaurant the last couple nights, also a local specialty.  It is a flour, water and milk combination which is what we used to make spaetzle at the Lodge.  Here a little bit of yeast is added to help with the puffing process.  More time on the pasta machine for John as we take a hand-size rectangle of dough and work it down to a medium-thin sheet and then slice it into random shapes.  Elena has heated a pan of oil on the stove and we drop the bread sheets into the oil and they puff right up and turn brown.  These are an acquired taste but over the last couple nights we have gotten the hang of it and sort of like it.

Now is the part where we should have been at breakfast at 8:00 this morning.  John is sent to get Mary and lunch is served.  There is a plate of prosciutto with cheeses and the torta fritta as a starter with a bottle of Malvasia white sparkling wine.  Then the ricotta and chard stuffed tortelli that Paula has tossed with a brown butter and fresh sage leaves.  Finally the pumpkin tortelli in a tomato-shallot sauce that is heavenly. What a great lunch and we are more than stuffed.  It’s 2:00 in the afternoon and we’re done for the day.  Really.

We do our best to keep moving.  We walk the four corners of Porporano.  We make friends with some Italian dogs.  We log a couple miles of exercise and that’s as good as we’re going to do.  If it were sunny we may have gone into Parma but it is still foggy and gray so we’ll stay close to home.

We read and nap off our big lunch/bottle of wine and decide to just stay in with no dinner tonight.  We have our own bottle of wine, a couple pears and the last few pieces of a Toblerone bar.  We watch some more news from Paris and wrap up this really fun day.

What did we learn today?  The best cooks pay attention to the details.

November 13, 2015

The Three Kings

No we’re not singing the Christmas carol, we’re in Parma.  This is a big day just to show we’re not quitters.  We actually set the alarm this morning and we’re cleaned up and ready to go for breakfast at 8:00.  Since we were the only room last night Elena is handling the breakfast by herself this morning.  We have cereal, yogurt, some fruity things with honey and then Elena whips up some perfect scrambled eggs with cheese and prosciutto on the side.  She also squeezes fresh orange juice and makes a perfect cup of Café Americano.  We chat for a while.  She loves the Americans, Canadians, Brits, Danes and Aussies; she likes the Swedes, Norwegians and Belgians; she tolerates the Germans and other eastern Europeans; she hates the French and Russians.  Good to know.

We are in our little Pulsar zooming around Parma for our first event at Caseificio Baganzolino.  We have a meet scheduled at 9:15 with our guide for the day Alice Rossi.  She is picking up two other Americans (David and Danielle from Oklahoma City) and runs a few minutes late but no problem.  This is a producer of Parmigiano Reggiano, the king of all cheeses according to many and certainly to everyone in this part of the world.  Today and tomorrow we will explore many aspects of why this little area is such a big contributor to the food world.

Alice seems like everyone’s best friend as we get geared up in sanitary garb and march into the production facility.  She also knows every step of the production process in detail to the point that we believe she must have worked there at some point in time.  There are 8 cookers going this morning that raise and lower the temperature at just the right levels at just the right time.  Each vat holds 350 gallons of milk, half from last night that sat at room temperature overnight to begin the bacteria process and the other half fresh this morning.  Each vat will yield 2 wheels of cheese, each weighing 40 kilos (88 lbs).  The cheese is harvested from the vat while the whey is drained away for other uses and a small amount is kept as a starter for tomorrow’s batch.

The wheels are labeled, weighted and formed with a wooden mold to take the right shape overnight.  Tomorrow starts the next phase of the aging process as they are moved into different molds that imprint the name of the producer and the indications that this is Parmigiano Reggiano.  After about 20 days they get a salt bath then are moved to a permanent storage warehouse for the aging process that will last from 12 to 36 months. On a rotating basis they have a machine that picks up each wheel, wipes it down to keep the mold to a minimum and then flips it over.  At 12 months they are tested by the local consortium to see if they measure up to the standards that have been in existence for a thousand years and if they pass (about 95% do) they can be sold as the real deal.  The tester actually uses a small hammer to tap every wheel in different spots to make sure that there are no hollow sounding spots which would indicate an air bubble. If they don’t pass the rinds are stripped of the imprinted designation and they are usually grated into some sort of table cheese.  It is a fascinating process and Mary, who has been dreading this day, is enthralled.  We actually get to see every step of the process from heating the milk to harvesting and molding the cheese—great experience.  And we get to taste the 12 month and 30 month in the tasting room after the tour.  It does get stronger as it ages and Alice suggests that the 24 month is always a good compromise.  They are selling the 24 month here for about 15 euros per kilo or less than $8 a pound.  At Lund’s it is $25 a pound—wish we could bring home a suitcase full.  One King down.

Next is the king of vinegar, balsamic.  This is not the stuff you buy at the grocery store to cook with.  It is the traditional method that is aged for a minimum of 12 years and as much as 25 or more.  The winery we visit is Medici Ermete run by Allesandra Medici (descendent of the historical Medici family) in Emilia Reggio between Parma and Modena, the city most often associated with balsamic.  They start with a red wine that has been evaporated down by 75% forming a must.  The must is then introduced to a “battery” which is a series of a minimum of five barrels ranging in size from 3 liters to about 10 gallons.  Each barrel has a square hole in the top covered with a cloth to allow it to evaporate.  Through natural heating and cooling within the aging rooms, the must will evaporate and when it loses 20% of its volume it is topped off from the next larger barrel over and more new must is added to the largest barrel on the end. 

This process is repeated as mentioned for a minimum of 12 years which is the earliest it can be submitted to the balsamic consortium for approval.  Very few get approved at 12 years, it usually takes longer to get them just right.  Alice tells us that in these family productions a new battery is started with the birth of a child.  The room we are in has a battery still producing that started with the birth of Allesandra’s grandfather back in 1906, as well as batteries from the managing partners now that date to the 1960’s.  Again, fascinating.  We get tastes from Allesandra of the 12 year (red), the 20 year (silver) and the 25+ year (gold).  Alice says it is her drug of choice and we agree.  They sell the 12 year in small containers (a cup) for $45 and the price goes up from there.  Of course it is served in a tiny amount with a sampling of Parmigiano Reggiano.  This balsamic is our second King.

Now we head for the hills.  We stop for lunch at a little roadside trattoria that is waiting for us.  Alice has her regular route and these folks prepare a lunch that allows those on the tour to have a meal of the local products.  We have been so overfed lately that we split the pre-ordered lunch and that is plenty for us.  We get to chat a bit.  When Alice graduated from college she went to work for Barrilla, the big pasta maker.  Her job was to help local tour guides understand the local foods to make them better equipped to spread the word of local specialty foods.  She would also help arrange the tours for visitors to the area.  After a while it seemed like a good idea that instead of teaching the tour operators she should be one herself.  She is in her second year and says business is booming.  We find out as we go that this is her passion and she knows every little detail and every worker at all of these plants.

David and Danielle are on a teaching assignment in Vienna.  He teaches at a Christian College in OKC and they are shepherding 37 students in two cycles through Vienna as well as scheduling side trips for the kids.  They are good foodies and we are glad that we got to join up with this group.

Now it is a precarious drive up into the hills northwest of Parma.  The windy road leads to the top of a hill where we can look down into the valley and a number of miles across to the next range of hills.  This is the valley of Prosciutto di Parma.  Prosciutto is a cured ham and is made in different regions around Italy and is similar to the Iberico Ham from Spain.  This valley is blessed by a steady breeze that comes shooting through these rows of hills all the way from the west coast and the breeze is the key factor in how the ham is dried and processed.  This valley hosts dozens of Prosciutto di Parma producers and together they cure 9 million hams per year.  That’s a lot of hogs and most are imported from an area north of here to very demanding specifications.  If hogs from other European countries are used they cannot get the “di Parma” classification.

We gear up again with our sanitary attire and get right into a pile of raw hind legs (the only part of the pig used for Prosciutto di Parma).  One fellow is tossing them onto a conveyer belt that first brands them with the logo of this producer and then on to a massaging process that gives them a good rubdown.  They pop out the other end where three guys are waiting to salt the exterior of the ham.  Their specialty is knowing how much salt to put on which part of the ham to make it perfect.  The hams are then loaded onto an overhead-suspended storage rack which is pushed on a track into one of the waiting coolers.  This begins the aging process.  As the hams age and dry, the meat around the bone begins to shrink and is constantly trimmed to make sure there are no air gaps that would spoil the meat.  Next it is moved upstairs to the drying room where the windows can be opened to allow the famous Parma breeze to do its work.  Most of the ham is covered with a natural fat layer, but where is was severed in the butchering process it is now manually covered with a layer of 99% lard.  The other 1% is a mixture of black pepper and other spice flavoring that is unique to this producer.  The black pepper acts as an aerator to allow a tiny bit of evaporation at each spot of pepper to continue the drying process.

The hams are eventually hung in the drying warehouse where they are dated and at some point graded, once again, by the consortium of local growers.  The graders will show up every few months and grade all of the hams that have been aged for at least 11 or as much as 13 months.  They use a sharpened piece of horse bone because it is porous, insert it into the ham at specific points and then sniff.  If it passes it gets the stamp of the consortium and is officially Prosciutto di Parma.  Once it passes the test the producer decides on whether it needs more aging or if it is ready.  The larger the ham the more aging required to become buttery melt-in-your-mouth tender.  Alice says with this audience around here, they wouldn’t dare sell a ham that wasn’t perfect.  Prosciutto di Parma is King number 3.

The fog has settled in big time and so has darkness.  We have to hustle to get home while we can still find it.  We have already missed our nap time for today so we’ll have to tough it out and have an early night.

We return again to Mora for dinner and the owner is ready for us.  We get the cheese plate again, especially appreciating the Parmigiano Reggiano along with the puffy bread product (torte frito).  John has the stuffed veal which is a slice of veal roast stuffed with a seasoned corn meal mixture and mashed potatoes on the side.  Mary has the tortellini with a Bolognese sauce.  Both are good and we’re stuffed again.  We feel our way through the fog back to the house and crash.  We won’t find out until tomorrow about the attacks in Paris.

What did we learn today?  We think finding out more about things in our daily lives (food) is more interesting than finding out more about 16^th century art.

November 12, 2015

 

 

Sprint to the Finish

For those of you who have following this blog faithfully, we’re sorry.  We wouldn’t have lasted past day two if we would have had to read it.  We woke up, we did this, we went there, we ate that, we went to bed and here’s a picture.  We think it will be fun to look at in five years but we know how mind numbing it must be right now.  We haven’t had a comment on the blog since Croatia so we hope everyone had the good sense to move along.  Only five more nights in Italy so almost done.

We are taking this opportunity to share that thought because this day is worth about a paragraph.  We check out of our apartment this morning.  John has to take the recyclables up to the Santa Maria Novella Square to the big containers.  While out he decides to pick up some cash for the next few days and starts aimlessly wandering looking for an ATM.  This wandering lasts for about 15 minutes before he finds a legitimate looking bank, gets the cash, walks out and has no idea where he is.  We thought you could blindfold us and drop us in the middle of Florence and we would be able to find our apartment but maybe not.  It only takes about five more minutes of wandering to find a landmark and he finally makes it back after a half hour of a five minute chore.  Senility?

Miki showed up for checkout at the agreed upon time of 11:00.  We tried to stretch it out because we have a rental car reserved for 1:00.  She offers to let us leave our luggage and keep our building keys for a while but we decide to move along.  We walk back up to the SMN square and check for an Uber car—none available.  We think moving to the train station will improve our odds so we walk up the street and try again.  Sure enough he is 7 minutes away and coming to get us.  We stopped about a block and a half short of the station thinking this would be a better pick-up point away from the other crowds waiting for rides of some sort.  The whole idea is that the Uber car will come to the GPS signal from your phone so you can really be anywhere.  After 15 minutes he called and said he was at the station.  We told him where we were waiting.  12 minutes later we see him zooming past away from us.  We call him and he tells us that he waited 10 minutes at the station and is leaving.  We tell him that we have been waiting longer than that for him to pick us up.  He blows us off and we huff and puff about stupido Italiano “bleeps” while we walk the rest of the way to the station to get a taxi.  The taxi driver is fine, the Hertz guy is fine and we’re on the road by 12:30 feeling better about Italianos.

Destination today is Parma.  We have a little Nissan Pulsar with a diesel engine that moves along very well.  We take the longer route going west (after having missed the second turn out of the Hertz parking lot), first past Luca and Pisa to the coast at Viareggio and then up to La Spezia before turning northeast and inland.  We do the Autostrada rest stop for lunch where the big news is that Mary got a large size Toblerone chocolate bar for half price.  We also shared a tuna salad and ham and cheese panini but that is old news.

Going inland we move into the mountains and pass Carrara.  There must be miles of marble producing companies along the highway and we can see up into the mountain where the quarries have stripped large slices from the sides.  Earlier we had passed the Regina plant where they make the red wine vinegar we use at home and later we go past the Barilla Pasta plant which we also use.  This two hour part of the drive is very scenic with tunnels through the mountains and great river and valley views.  Eventually we start down into the flatter landscape around Parma.  This is a food excursion (as if this whole trip wasn’t) and Parma in Emilia Romagna is ground zero for Italian food. Can’t wait.

We have dueling GPS systems, one on the phone and one built into the car.  The car has a British accent and Sami on the phone is obviously American.  Most times they agree but they express themselves differently.  Both are right on getting us to Villini di Porporano in the little village of Porporano right outside of Parma.  This is a five room B&B with nice facilities and beautiful fenced grounds.  Our hostess, Elena will show up later but her teenage son Niccolo gets us settled in and says all the right things.  Good coaching.

Elena eventually comes knocking on our door and she is a bubbling teapot of energy.  She calls our guide for tomorrow, her close personal friend Alice (Ah-LEE-che) and then she calls the restaurant in town for reservations tonight because they are her close personal friends.  She is dying to do more for us but we don’t need anything else.  She seems disappointed.  We are her only guests tonight so she is taking all of her customer service out on us and we sort of like it.

The restaurant, Mora, opens at 7:30, maybe 7:45 or whenever they’re ready.  This is real small town stuff with family doing all the jobs, good food, low prices and not a tourist in sight.  They do have English menus so Elena must send all of her customers there.  We start with a cheese plate, a selection of Parmigiano cheeses both hard and soft as well as a nice gorgonzola. It comes with a big bowl of bread puffs—don’t know how else to describe them—that are hot and airy like popovers and get cold and soggy just as fast as popovers.  Mary then gets the spinach ravioli, a local specialty and John has the rabbit stew, spicy and good.  Each of the plates is 9 euros but the wine is less so we can afford it.

When we leave we walk down one of the little country roads that branches off of what passes for Main Street and in 50 feet we’re out in the country.  We are greeted by a couple big dogs (behind a fence) that seem happy to have the company.  They are black with German Shephard heads but all the moves of some sort of sheep dog.  We’ll have to look them up.  They run along the fence herding us for a while before losing interest.  Back to read for a minute and off to bed.

What did we learn today?  The ever-changing topography of Italy is the greatest influence on the localized way of life from one valley to the next.

November 11, 2015

 

 

Putting a Bow on Florence

We wanted to have plenty of time to devote to Florence and so gave it five nights, same as our vacation on Santorini.  Our last time in Italy we drove right past on the highway because we didn’t think we had time to do it justice.  We always believe we are going to return and this time we actually did.

Today is day two of our tour of the Florence art scene, this time at the Uffizi Gallery.  We have a 10:30 ticket which means we have an extra few minutes this morning to get going (and no Pope).  On our walk through “our” square there are about 30 chefs, all with their big hats and fancy jackets and medals hanging around their necks gathered in a big group.  They are holding some sort of banner that seems to announce a culinary organization of some sort.  In the U.S. there are organizations of Master Chefs and that’s what this looks like.  They aren’t really doing anything except taking selfies so we get bored and move along. 

Our first challenge when we arrive at the Uffizi is that the first gallery room is 4 flights up big stone stairs.  As the famous Italian lawyer, Giovanni Cochrano, would say, ‘You ain’t burnin’ calories if you’re hangin’ in the galleries.”  The Uffizi is a walk-through of renaissance art starting in the 12^th century and ending in the 18^th.  The gallery is organized to show the evolutionary process from flat two dimensional blah colors to fully formed three dimensional high color masterpieces.  All of the big Italians are there including Botticelli, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael and Da Vinci, and another separate area for “foreign” painters (Dutch) in the later years.  The sculptures are also very impressive filling several rooms.  At the risk of saying, “there was a lot of purdy pitchers,” we will readily admit to our art illiteracy but we were intrigued enough to spend 3-1/2 hours inside which is a new record for either of us.

When we finally emerged at 2:00 we found ourselves a block and a half from the take-away sandwich version of our restaurant from last night, All Antico Vinaio.  There is of course a line out the door on both sides of the street for these mirror image restaurants.  They have their specials displayed on a board outside and Mary picks the “Summer Sandwich” which consists of stacks of parma ham, tomatoes, mozzarella and basil on focaccia.  John goes for the l’inferno, a mouth tingling assortment of porchetta, shredded lettuce, mushroom spread and red pepper jam.  These are not your normal Italian skinny-slice-of-meat-between-bread type of sandwiches.  These are stacked like a Jewish deli.  Wow, are they good and 5 euros apiece.  We found a couple stools at the end of the counter, the only ones you could actually sit at, and devoured lunch and watched the never-ending procession.  We later found out that this restaurant has more Tripadvisor reviews than any other restaurant in the WORLD!

We take one more hour long stroll around the city to see if there is anything we missed.  There is no line at the Duomo so we stick our heads in there.  There are a lot of chairs set up from the gathering of the Italian Catholic conventioneers but not much else.  The altar area is blocked off and we can’t get a good look at the inside of the dome, supposedly the highlight of this site.  We keep moving for a little while longer and decide that we have finished Florence.  There are another dozen art galleries and as many churches and museums each with their own masterpieces from the last 700 years but we have had enough.  “Basta” as the Italians say.

As always a little nap before dinner is in order.  We have debated going back to our “forgot the wallet” restaurant which we really enjoyed but opt instead to hit another of the Miki and Franco recommendations, La Spada.  They have a big rotisserie just inside the front door with lots of roasted specialties on the menu.  John goes for the ribs and roasted potatoes and Mary is in for the truffle risotto.  No dice on the ribs for John, they just ran out, so he picks the rotisserie chicken instead.  Mary’s risotto is very good with great truffle flavor while John’s chicken is bone dry.  This time there is no sauce to save it.  Mary dumps some risotto on his plate to add a little bit of moisture.  It is not a good sign if an Italian restaurant can’t cook chicken as well as Costco.

A short walk home to bed and that’s a wrap.  It’s a wake up and gone tomorrow morning.

What did we learn today?  Smiling faces, good value, great product prepared with imagination and care will always have lines out the door. Maybe we already knew that.

November 10, 2015

 

 

 

Hello Papa Francesco!

The sky is full of helicopters this morning when we open our balcony doors.  Pope’s coming.  The annual national convention of the Italian Catholic Church is being held in Florence this week and their keynote speaker is none other than the boss.  No Pope has visited Florence for thirty years so this is a big deal with the locals.  The convention itself is noticeable as there are priests and nuns all over town eating gelatos and taking selfies. 

Florence is a very concentrated city.  There are “only” 400,000 residents which makes it medium sized, but the center of all the action might be a square about a mile and a half on each side.  It you’re in the middle of it as we are you can walk anywhere in 20 minutes.  Throwing the Pope into that with appearances at three different venues in the center means that the city will basically be shut down today.  We saw a lot of barricades going up yesterday to close major streets and squares.  At least we don’t have to drive in it.

Of course this is the day that there is somewhere we have to be.  We have 10:00 AM tickets for the Accademia Gallery which must be reserved well in advance, long before we knew about the Pope.  We can make an end run to avoid the big crowds but we can’t resist getting a peak at the action near the Duomo where he will be later this morning.  Our destination is on the other side of this big square but we think we have time to duck in and duck out if it looks like we will be stuck.  The crowd is huge and you can see the Pope’s route by which streets are barricaded in and out.  We get temporarily trapped and have a bit of a time trying to move past with every intersection lined with multiple cops, local and caribinieri.  We make it through by the skin of our teeth and arrive at our reserved ticket entrance right on time.

The superstar of the Accademia is Michelangelo’s sculpture of David, the Israelite lad who volunteered for the job as Dave the Giant Slayer.  When entering the gallery you make a quick turn left and then look right and hello David.  He occupies a distant end of a hall lined with other Michelangelo sculptures, some finished some not, so he captures the visual center stage.  David is a big guy, 17 feet tall, and the detail on every inch is absolute perfection.  Some have quibbled about the oversized right hand while others claim it was intentional to show the hand of God at work.  We are amazed when looking at the veining in his hands and arms down to the details of the toenails.  How do you do that with a slab of marble? Michelangelo was a local boy who grew up near and went to church at Santa Croce.  He completed this piece when he was 26 years old, already a force in the Italian art world.

We wind up spending a couple hours wandering the gallery.  We’re far from art experts so any clues of our visit will have to come from the related websites.  Back outside we circle around the gallery a little after noon to approach the Annunziata Basilica where the Pope is now feeding the poor.  We’re about a half block away down the street he will take this afternoon on his return to the Duomo.  We can hear an occasional cheer from the end of the street but he isn’t scheduled back this way for an hour and a half.  We have a lot of room right now, but we know as the time nears the crowd will compress around us like a boa constrictor.  Time for us to move along.

We take a little stroll around the center to keep up with all the activities.  It is always busy in the streets but today is crazy.  We pass the Duomo and the big square by the Palace and everywhere is packed with big screen TVs showing constant news updates on the visit.  We finally escape to a little panini sandwich shop down near the river where Mary gets a tomato-mozzarella on a dark seeded bun and John gets a ham, cheese and mushroom sandwich and both are pressed and heated.  Very good and washed down with a couple beers.

After lunch we return to the Piazza Della Signoria (the Palace square).  It is crowded but not pressing.  We sort of know the Pope’s schedule and we think he returns through here before heading out to the big stadium for a late afternoon mass.  It’s after 2:00 and that’s when his last event is scheduled at the Duomo.  Sure enough there is screaming and cheering up the street and in a couple minutes the Pope Mobile is pulling into our square.  The crowd erupts in cheers and he passes probably 50 feet from where we are standing.  He’s moving pretty good so the photos won’t be any good but it is still pretty exciting.  We stand there for another half hour just watching as the people filter out of the square off to whatever else is on their schedule for today.  Everyone is smiling.

Now on to important things, dinner plans for tonight.  All Antico Vinaio has been recommended and is right around the corner from where we are standing.  We pop in to make reservations for tonight and can’t help but notice a little sandwich shop next door and another across the street both with long lines out the door.  They are All Antico Vinaio too, sandwich version.  Wow, this place might be good and we know where we are coming for lunch tomorrow.  We take the walk a little farther to the Piazza di Santa Croce (Michelangelo’s church) where there is another big screen TV set up and they are showing the procession at the stadium for the Pope’s 3:30 mass.  The crowds are smaller but still substantial and we soak it up.  We suddenly realize that we are 20 minutes from our apartment and well into break time.  Well, we’ve had things to do.

We take our two hours and sip a bottle of wine the hosts here left for us.  Going to dinner we have to wear jackets for one of the few times in the last couple weeks as the temps have gone down a little after sunset.  We get to the restaurant right on time for our 7:30 reservation and they are still setting up—this is their opening time.  They have an appetizer of a meat (which is all sliced near the front window) and cheese plate with John’s favorite porchetta as well as hams and sausages and hard cheeses as well as a little bowl of some sort of berry condiment.  We get that with a basket of focaccia, a tuna and tomato pasta for Mary and a fresh porcini risotto for John.  All of it is fantastic and we have a good time with the staff.  Everyone is loose and having a good time.  Another winner.  Can’t wait for lunch tomorrow to have that meat plate turned into a sandwich.

We have to pass through two piazzas to get back home and the usual band of entertainers are out and about along with the well-dressed Florentine locals.  We enjoy the evening paseo.

What did we learn today?  There is nothing quite like a papal visit to a very Catholic Italian city.

November 9, 2015

 

 

Filling Florence Gaps

We avoided the biggest of the tourist sites over the weekend because we have three more days to fill in all of the blanks.  The unfortunate gap we are filling this morning is laundry.  The little European apartment machines are small to begin with and then there is no dryer so everything has to go on the line.  Mary takes most of the morning to make sure we get a load washed and hung out before we leave so it is after 11:00 when we hit the street.

We were going to our little neighborhood church but the market is also on our agenda and that closes at 1:00.  We go straight there, and after fighting our way through dozens of leather vendors outside we go in for the grand tour of all the animal and fish parts that good Florentines cook at home.  After the last nine weeks and a dozen other markets we are no longer shocked by seeing piles of cow stomachs or stacks of octopi (we read something this week that said “octopuses” is proper—don’t know.)  Given all of the markets of the world this will fall into the second tier but the big deal is upstairs.

Upstairs is the mother of all food courts.  The Florence cooking school is up there for the budding chefs of Tuscany.  All of the big time chefs of Florence are participants in the school and the dozens of food outlets around the entire second floor of the market.  You can choose from soups here and salads there, and fish over there and burgers around the corner.  Elsewhere there is pasta, bruschetta, paninis and gelato, all staffed by students from the school and overseen by the chefs.  Behind a long glass wall is the actual school with dozens of cooking stations where we see about 20 bored students listening to some sort of lecture.  The upper classmen are all working the food booths where the action is.  We absolutely love this concept.

John has been looking for a whole hog porchetta since we got to Italy and we saw one at one of the food booths downstairs.  Mary has her eye on a veggie burger with fresh tomatoes, capers and a ricotta cheese sauce from one of the booths upstairs.  John runs back down to get his sandwich while Mary gets her burger, a bowl of riboletta and a couple beers and we meet at one of the tables in the food court.   This place is packed with the lunch crowd and it would seem to be the perfect blend of talent and labor to create a win-win for the guests and students.

After winding around the Church of San Lorenzo we restart our day by going back to the Square of Santa Maria Novella.  We walked past this square last night and really just enjoyed the grounds as much as the church.  There is a working pharmacy around the corner, the Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella, that has been operating since 1612.  Now it specializes in herbal treatments as well as cosmetics and perfumes.  It is pretty to look at but we are definitely not target market.

Speaking of herbal cures, Mary is now the latest recipient of our back and forth cold and is feeling miserable.  We decide to shut it down for a couple hours and resurface for a late afternoon sunset.  All the other Italians are off from 2:30 to 4:00 and we are going to join them.

We reemerge at 4:30 and walk down to the river for the twilight stroll.  It is always crowded and we find a good lean on the Ponte San Trinita to watch the world and the river flow by.  Mary spies a couple gondolas but they are really just racing sculls (she’s such a kidder).  Our walk continues up through Santa Croce square where plans are being put in place for a special guest tomorrow.  The Pope is coming.  It is the first time for a pope to visit Florence in 30 years and there will probably be more in our blog tomorrow.

We have one more little happy hour break before going to dinner.  Tonight it is La Bussola, another recommendation of hosts Miki and Franco.  This is their pizza choice and we are a little taken aback when we go in.  It seems a little too upscale to be the real deal pizza spot but we’re game.  We start with a basic tomato/mozzarella bruschetta which is very good (we’ve never had a bad one).  We break the mold of Anchovies and go for the parma ham and gorgonzola pizza.  It is rich and tasty, a perfect choice for people who are tired and really not feeling all that well.

We don’t dilly-dally after dinner but head straight to bed.  We actually have plans tomorrow so we need to recover.

What did we learn today?  If people are creative, the cost of education can be offset by the practical labor of the students.

November 8, 2015

Fondling Florence

The sun is shining, it’s a little crispy and we’re in Florence, Italy.  We fix a little pot of coffee and some fruit, cereal and yogurt and get organized, which means more loads of laundry for Mary.  There is a washing machine learning curve as there always is and the clothes are coming out very wet.  We figure out the recommended wash cycle has virtually no spin so a new plan is in place and working better.  Mary goes through the process of spreading drying laundry over our two balconies and an adjoining clothes line.  We’re almost locals.

It’s almost 11:00 by the time we get outside and the city is packed with people.  There are 400,000 residents in Florence and half of them are wandering somewhere in the center of the city.  Going away from the river we return to the Duomo to see if it was a mirage that we saw last night.  Nope, it’s the real deal.  There are literally thousands of people milling about in the square in front of the big cathedral.  It doesn’t open today until 1:45 and is closed tomorrow (the Pope is coming on Tuesday, we wonder if he is taking our train).  That means everyone here including us is just basking in the enormity and splendor of this building.

After basking we go towards the river down a main pedestrian mall that is wall to wall with people.  We pass the Palazzo Vecchio and several blocks south (Florence is very compact) we cross the Arno River at the Ponte Vecchio towards the Pitti Palace.  Both of these palaces were part of the Medici compound under the theory that you can’t have too many palaces.  They built an overhead walkway between the two that is actually a second story over the Ponte Vecchio bridge so they could walk from palace to palace without encountering any of their unwashed subjects.  It’s good to be a Medici.

We take a quick stroll around the Pitti palace and then wrap around behind to get a peek at their gardens.  We spend 20 minutes walking straight up hill on a street with walls on both sides and when we finally puff our way to the top there are still no views.  There is another road down that is equally steep and at the bottom we still don’t know where we are.  There are groups of people going up a set of stairs that looks like it might be something of interest.  What the heck, we’re just exploring anyway.  Another 20 minute trudge up this stairway and, lo and behold, we emerge onto a large square sitting right on the bluff over the river with killer views of the city and the Palace gardens.  We eventually figure out that we are at the Piazzale Michelangiolo that Miki and Franco told us about yesterday.  They said take the bus, the walk is too hard.  You are right.

A series of paths and streets gets us back down to river level and we cross back to the center over the Ponte Alle Grazie.  It’s pushing 2:00 and our low-cal breakfast isn’t cutting it today.  We pull up a table at a little pizza place on the Piazza Della Signoria, get a couple beers, yet another anchovy pizza and all is right with the world.  This place has red-jacketed old school waiters who are competent and entertaining.  A nice combination.

After lunch we spend some more time wandering the streets of the center city returning again to the Duomo.  It is open now with a line that stretches around the square.  Our guide book says the line isn’t worth it—the treasures inside have all been off-loaded to the Duomo museum (which is closed for renovations)—so we keep moving.  Last night we had passed one of those gelato places with about a thousand flavors (really maybe 50) and amazingly we found it.  Saying “amazingly” is just cover, John knew exactly where it was.  We each get a double flavor cone—Mary amaretto and pistachio and John hazelnut and pistachio—grab a chair against the wall and watch the action.  The place fills up right after we got served and we enjoy the action.

Time for a little reading, maybe a nap and checking on the laundry situation before dinner.  Tonight it is Osteria Pastella which is about 4 blocks back towards the train station.  It was on Miki and Franco’s list and is getting rave reviews on Tripadvisor.  There is a 5-minute wait for a table and so someone hands us a flute of Prosecco to keep us happy and it works.  While we wait we watch a person in the restaurant window making pasta.  She is back and forth between the window and the kitchen which certainly gives the impression that she is making pasta to order.  Very impressive.

When we get seated a server brings a little savory fritter of some sort as well as a basket of bread.  The pasta prices are a couple euros higher than other places we have been but we have already had a glass of prosecco and a fritter.  We get it.  Mary orders a tortelloni with spinach and ricotta and John gets the pappardelle with cinghiale and porcini.  John’s is a delicious mixture of pasta, pork and mushrooms and Mary’s is an ethereal buttery creamy bowl of heaven.  Her noodles were just a hair crispy on the edges perhaps keeping the dish from moving into the top three of the trip.

On the way up to pay we chat for a minute with a couple from Denmark.  He is a politician here for an EU conference of some sort.  He gives us a few minute overview of the current problems within the EU, about half of which we understand so we excuse ourselves and move along.  But not very far.

At the front to pay John reaches for the wallet and it isn’t there, it is back in the apartment.  Mary carries a back-up credit card, but oops that is back in the safe at the apartment.  John hands Mary over as collateral while he rushes back to get the wallet.  They chain her to a table so she can’t get away.  (Actually they clear a table for her and give her a glass of dessert wine.)  It is a 15 minute round trip and Mary is disappointed that John is back so soon.

After that little routine it is 10:00 so no time for a walk tonight, just home to bed.

What did we learn today? Italians don’t sit at home, they get out (learned in Naples, Rome and now here).