Italy 2024

May 16

Headed for Cortona today…

Up and coffee’d and packed and out of the apartment in Lucca by 10:15. I don’t remember check out times being as early in the past. We wonder if it is because it is harder to find cleaning services post covid so they have to provide more time between check outs and check ins for all the units in all the VRBOs and AirB&Bs and Guido’s Rentabeds to get done.

Farewell Lucca…

The early checkout does however give us time to take a detour between Lucca and Cortona for lunch and a little wandering. We decide on Monteriggione.  Monteriggione is a tiny little medieval walled town, with a population of about 9000 people. You have to park outside the walls of course and when you walk in through one of the two gates, the front gate or the back gate, you can look up and see the holes where they would pour boiling oil on your head if they thought you were selling replacement windows, vacuums or termite protection.

We decide on a restaurant called Ristorante Le Torri. It didn’t exist the last time we were here. But, it is perfect for us. The waiters (I think we were served by 3 different servers at any given point in the meal) were friendly and one of them just couldn’t help but sing… dopey little ‘dad songs’ based on what you were ordering.

The menu had some items I hadn’t seen before. The dish that really jumped out at me was the roasted pigeon with chocolate sauce, sultans and pinuts. I was sorely tempted to try this one… but this guy gave me a side eye that said ‘just don’t’.

So noodles with lobster and artichoke sauce instead. I need to find a good artichoke sauce recipe. Donna and Lynn had the risotto, Jack had ravioli. Everything was delicious, as always. Check out Monteriggione if you get a chance. It’s very charming, good food, off the beaten path for the most part and just plane cute.

After about 10 minutes to walk the entirety of the rest of the town, back to the car and load up for Cortona.

In the time since we were last in Cortona in 2022, our favorite parking lot, Parcheggio Santo Spirito, (parking lot of the holy spirit… I kid you not) has gone from free to 1.50 euro per hour between 8am and 8pm. About $18/day. Sounds expensive but it’s still $7 cheaper than a day in the lot under DeVos. Installed the app and we’re living in the 21^st century.

New rooms this time, just across the alley from Jeanette’s kitchen. I have to say, the new bed, a tempurpedic type mattress, is a very welcome change from the monastic pallet we had in Lucca.

By the time we get there, get checked in, catch up with Jeanette and settle into our rooms, it’s about time for a short walk and finding someplace for dinner.

A new place called La Dispensa. A strange little place off the main piazza and down the hill a little. Street food and dining room fare. Very eclectic menu and décor. Donna had ‘Naked Ravioli. Ravioli with no pasta around it. ?! And, everything on display, all the pepper grinders, teapots, do-dads and geegaws has a price tag on it and you could take it with you. Food was good though.

May 17

Goooood Moooorning Coooortona!

Breakfast at Jeanette’s fabulous Casa Chilenne… for the others anyway. Caffe Doppio … doppio! For your’s truly.

A few minutes to freshen up and then off to Panicale. We turned on the GPS that came with the car this time as well as using Jack’s Waze app on his phone. I don’t know why but the gps in the car has a much more pleasant voice and didn’t seem to be as much of a nag… repeating herself and warning multiple times about upcoming turns.

Panicale, as always, was charming and quaint. Still somehow quiet throughout the explosive touristic invasion of the area since Mayes and Steves came on the scene. When we first started coming to Italy, 25 years ago, when we were looking for a little place to buy, Panicale was near the top of the list of locations. But then blah blah, housing bubble bust, blah blah recession… never mind.

Lunch. A lovely pea and cheese flan! pate, salad and lot’s of just chillin’ in the sunshine in the piazza. Nourishing for the body and the spirit.

AND, cats!…

Back to Cortona for a little rest and then a leisurely walk in the memorial park. Somehow the parterre (memorial park) with all it’s strolling couples, ambling pensioners, children with zoomies and miscellaneous doggos, a remarkably peaceful place. Always worth a late afternoon stroll when you find yourself in Cortona.

Dinner!

The waiter (owner?) is a hoot. He has a friendly patter and amazing baritone voice. We are informed that there will be a pronunciation test containing the menu items at the end of the meal. 

Prociutto e melone for the first time this trip and it was delicious. Pork with pineapple sauce… shrimp in champagne sauce… ‘tuna salad’ and ribollita. The wine was a local small vineyard and absolutely charming. Not complicated but balanced, flavorful and just enough character.  Sigh. It’s so hard to find good food here.

Again… why don’t I live here?

Back in the room at about 10… checking email and FB… we hear bagpipes in the distance. Well, that’s new. A lone piper marches up the street towards the main piazza, then a few minutes later, back down the street towards the gate… playing Bella Ciao!

We find out later that it has something to do with a wedding. Cheers!

May 18

Morning #2 in Cortona. Feeling so suddenly normal to be here. Caffe Doppio for breakfast, and it’s market day! Cheese? Veggies? Fruits? Meats? Socks? Hats? underpants? Cooking pots? Come on down! We have something for everyone!

Mellow day trips to various small towns and sights. No agenda this time. Just winging it as we go. I like not having a schedule or plan. Donna, not as much of a fan of that approach.

So today, to Pienza. After a lovely drive through the Tuscan countryside, we embark on a ½ hour parking space search. At lunch we are told that we are lucky it’s ‘off season’ and parking is easy! Things have certainly changed in the last 25 years. We ate at a little place called Panne e Vino. Yet another place called Panne e Vino. I think there might be one in every other town. This one was a delight. The waiter/owner? Was upbeat and enthusiastic and attentive.  After we ordered, he brought over a little amuse bouche that was like nothing I’d ever had. It was bread made with what he called ‘carbon flour’.  From what I could figure out, it is a charcoal /flour mixture. It was absolutely black but was chewy and tasted very bread-y. It was topped with a mild cheese and truffle dollop with a strawberry slice topper. Absolutely lovely. A perfectly blended little chamber quartet of flavor.

Pici with duck sauce, a blend of baked veggies that just melted… somehow we found another good meal. What are the odds?

On to Monte Oliveto Maggiore. One of my mother’s favorite places on the planet and where a little bit of her rests to this day. If you are at all interested in cathedrals, abbeys, monasteries, etc., Monte Oliveto is a must see. It is a personal favorite, and we return as often as we can. The faces of some of the monks have become familiar and the library and cloisters are a comfort.  They have opened the wine and olive oil cellars under the abbey and the wine on offer is delicious. The pharmacy has all the herbals and salves and tinctures that a good Benedictine abbey should and is definitely worth a browse.

A leisurely drive back to Cortona for a little rest up before venturing back out for dinner.

Panne e Vino tonight. Another old familiar place. Everything is pretty much booked solid for the evening because there is a Spectacolare! on the schedule for this evening in the piazza. Most of the piazza is barricaded to provide a big open space in the middle. If there is one thing that these little medieval walled hill towns know how to do, it’s how to throw a Spectaculare!  And, this is the best kind of Spectaculare! There’s going to be a medieval crossbow tournament. Who doesn’t love a good crossbow contest. What they don’t know how to do is start at a reasonable hour. So at about 9:30 pm, with the crowd gathering, everyone from babes in arms to toddlers, to very wound up kids of all ages, and lots of well behaved doggos, let the wild rumpus begin!

The drum and trumpet parade is always stirring. You can feel it in your chest as they enter the piazza. Then a little speech. Then the big banner/flag people! Then a little speech. Then the first string flag throwing team! Then a little speech. Then the varsity flag throwing team! Then another little speech… and a politician… which is when my batter started to fail and so did I… 10:45 or so and well, I hear there was a crossbow tournament.

May 14-15, 2024

First morning in Lucca. Just out for a wander and a little bit of getting my bearings. Enjoy Lucca for the crazy narrow streets, multitudes of tiny piazzas, door knockers, 100 churches, Puccini… and the wall. Lucca is a walled city, like so many,  but at Lucca you can walk all the way around the city on top of the wall. It’s wide/thick enough for the most part for several carriages to pass each other going both directions. It’s not a very large town but it is packed. When you finally get to know your way around, or you are just good at following a map, you can cross Lucca end to end in about 15 minutes.

I overheard a tourist ask a local, “Can you direct me to the center… ‘centro’?  Most cities have a ‘centro’ district which is the oldest  historic part of the town. The local fellow looked at the guy, waved his arms around and said “is ALL ‘centro’!”

There is a famous tower Torre Guinigi, that has oak trees growing on top of it. (on purpose) They were first planted by the Guinigi family who built the tower and ran the town in the 1400s. I doubt they are the same trees but if you want to pay your 6 euro and climb the 233 steps to the garden on top. It is an amazing view… and worth it … once.

Lucca isn’t known for a particular product like a lot of Tuscan/Italian towns and cities, so you have a wide variety of interesting little shops selling all kinds of things instead of a lot of shops selling their version of the local claim to fame, and the restaurants have a more varied menu.

Pretty much everyone I know that has been to Lucca, comes away with a genuine fondness for the place.

Laundry day!! Now, they have about 12 bazillion different kinds of washers here and about 6 dryers. Mostly you don’t get a dryer. But we had both!  All of the different machines we have come across in the last 20 years seem to have their own secret symbols and hieroglyphics. How many people does it take to puzzle out these machines? Three! (Jack joined just after the picture was taken). How long does it take to do 1 load from stinky to clean and dry? 2-1/2 hours!

Later we wandered around and and got lost, enjoying it immensely. D. enjoyed her ice cream, and I had my… caffe dopio! I don’t think there is a single street in Lucca that is straight for more than about 25 yards.

Dinner was at Nonna Clara’s, again. I had handmade chestnut pasta with duck sauce… It was amazing. (so amazing that it disappeared before I got a picture of it. Oh… and the fried artichokes… sigh.

I think our waiter was Mr. Han’s brother. (IYKYK)

We found the long whispered about around the campfire, Church of Our Lady of ‘Oh No You Didn’t!’  A personal goal of mine since … a long time ago.

Still a disturbing shortage of cats… so here’s a cute little store doggo.

May 13, 2024

May 13,2024

All right then… the car that keeps trying to kill us.

The Ford Kuga (Kuga?! Wtf is a Kuga?) There is no translation from Italian. The car is actually the Euro version of the Ford Escape. In Croation, ‘Kuga’ means PLAGUE!  Ah ha!

First, it is a hybrid. The first I have had any interaction with… so trying to figure out what all the blinky symbols on the touch screen dash mean in English is … I’m old, give me a gas guage and a speedometer… leave me alone. I still have no idea how far we can go before we need to get gas.

So how is it trying to kill us you ask. Well, the first 5 times was as we were loading our bags in to the back. Suddenly the hatch would start to close and bonk us on the head! Finally we figured out that it had one of those wave your foot under the bumper sensors to close the hatch when your hands are full. Well… I defy you to load 4 suitcases and a couple of bags into the back of any SUV without sticking at least one foot under the bumper at least once. 

Then, after we hit the road, it kept deciding I was getting too close to the edge of one lane or the other. I didn’t think so, but it kept trying to turn the steering wheel, which felt weird to me like something was wrong so I tried to resist it and well… we got a little swervy a couple of times. Lane monitoring / correction mechanism. Safety “features” my left papilla!

Anyway we’ve come to an understanding with it now and seem to be OK.

Morning 5-13,

Lots of excitement today! Moving out of apartment 1 and pointing ourselves toward Lucca.

10AM checkout seems a like an early ask for people who are on vacation in Italy. We are anxious to get to Lucca so the garbages were gathered, the dishes were washed, and all the outlets checked for forgotten adapters. We through the remaining bottles of wind and chunks of cheese in a bag and hit the road.

It’s about 3-1/2 hours to Lucca so we will need to get lunch on the way. We decide (because it happens to be the only option at the service area we got off at) To eat at a Sarni’s. There are two major players in the restaurant game on the Autostrada… Autogrill and Sarni’s.  Now Autogrill has been a favorite for years. You can get ANYTHING at an Autogrill. Salmon, pizza, burgers, pasta, sandwiches… beer, wine… cookies, toys, CDs… it’s kind of a Meijer mashed down to rest stop size but, with actually good food! Sarni’s are usually smaller, not as many choices but, the food is just as good. How do they do it? Fresh ingredients… good coffee… magic?

So, fat and happy and provisioned with cookies, on to Lucca. The rest of the journey was uneventful and the with the magic of the navigator in space, an hour -1/2 later we are parked in the train station lot outside the wall of Lucca. It’s a hike with suitcases but it only took about 10 minutes to get inside the wall and find our apartment.

The apartment is on the first floor. The first time that we’ve ever had a place on the ground floor. It’s weird. No stairs…

A quick reconnoiter of the neighborhood and then unpack and rest up for dinner.

We tried to make a reservation but it didn’t work. So we just showed up. Italy eats late. A lot of restaurants don’t even open until 7 or 7:30. We show up at 7 and get a nice table by the fish tank.

Lamb, spit roasted pork, fried stuffed zucchini blossoms, fried artichoke hearts, Pici pasta and wild boar ravioli. Oh my. It was all so good. Everything was just the right tenderness, cooked to perfection, not over seasoned but, not under seasoned. Welcome to Lucca. Oof.

For some reason I keep mentioning how good the food is… hmmm. There seems to be a serious lack of cats…. 😦

So random stuff…

May 12, 2024

Jetlag whiplash is a thing. Both D and I didn’t sleep a worth a $#!+ last night. I maybe got an hour total, Gads. But by some sort of Italian secret magic, it is 2:30 pm and I’m feeling fine. (?!)

Sunrise from the balcony… because most people don’t think I’ve ever seen one.

D decided to stay home and try to rest and just get past the meh of a bad sleep by sitting on the balcony overlooking lake Como with her book.

J&L and I strolled down the hill to Bellagio, photobombed a few people taking influencer picks on the main stairs into the town and headed for the ferry terminal. There are two main towns that are ferry destinations from Bellagio. Varenna and Menaggio. I’d been to Varenna before so we set out for Menaggio. The ferry schedule is unusually easy to decipher and we find ourselves on the next boat… in fair winds and on time. (Well, Italian ‘on time’, I mean we were only about 10 minutes late leaving the dock.)

Menagio wasn’t as charming as Varenna or as ‘quaint’, but it had some beautiful old hotels and public spaces, in spite of the road that runs right along lakeshore. There was a lot more motor traffic than Varenna but everyone was patient and well behaved. There were a lot of Gelato shops, which is never a bad thing. Lots of the typical pretty things where plain would do. The railings, the cobbles, the doorknobs … things that we see as completely utilitarian are just another opportunity to create something pretty. There was a classic car rally in town so that was cool for some of us anyway. There were TWO 1960s Jaguar XKEs! I almost fainted! A used book market was of course tempting. Probably a good thing Donna wasn’t with us or we would have had to buy another suitcase for the trip home. It was definitely worth the visit on a lovely late spring day… but probably not a second one.

We had lunch at Osteria Il Pozzo. Two veggie ravioli bowls in asparagus cream sauce and one Branzino (seabass with olives capers and stuff.) It was all very good. The waitstaff was the most friendly and cheerful bunch I’ve ever seen. There were almost creepy, they were so happy…

Didn’t see any cats today… but we did see whatever this is…

We caught the 4:30 ferry back to Bellagio.

Italy  2024

Prologue.

 For two of us our first trip was in 1997… it was a Christmas gift for Donna who was smitten with the book Under the Tuscan Sun… we went in February. You know, you pretty much have everything to yourself in February. Churches, museums, cafes, parking lots… everything that’s open anyway. It was magical none the less, though we did have to purchase a couple of warmer pieces of clothing.  

The first trick was getting the rental car. The second trick was getting out of the Rome airport parking lot. Then, with paper map in hand and the excitement of a new adventure (in the biggest snow event in 15 years, (we’re from Michigan so… pfff), we pointed ourselves towards to Sienna… we hoped.

Now walled medieval hill towns have rules. The first rule of medieval hill towns is that they’re hard to get into. Duh. And, once you get in, they’re very confusing to get around in. Street signs? Nope, how about little stone plaques about 15 feet up in the walls of the buildings. Traffic directional signage? Lots. Makes sense? Nope.

We drove around and around and back and forth, looking for our hotel. Sienna is not a big town but you can drive in circles for a very long time and nothing looks familiar.  Now, I am not one easily embarrassed, so I decided to pull over, take the map, the information about our hotel and go to the first open establishment I could find and mime and point and use the 12 words of Italian that I was half confident with, to ask for directions.  I pulled over to the side of the road, left D. in the car and walked about 15 paces to the first business that looked open. I stopped at the door, looked at the little plaque with the name of the business and… it was our hotel.

It was the first sign, (so to speak) the first omen, the first of many, that we were meant to be in Italy.

The third thing to know about medieval hill towns, is that you are not allowed to park within the walls if you are not a permanent resident.

The first trip was amazing, if a little chilly. But it was the beginning of an pretty much semi annual pilgrimage back to what has become what feels very much like home. Sometimes just the two of us, sometimes with family, with 9 of our closest friends, my childhood best friend of over half a century,  or our bestie traveling partners the O’Ds… it varies.

We’ve explored the country from the border of Switzerland to the southern coast of Sicily. Venice, Florence, Rome… lot’s of the big movie star cities but our favorites are  the little towns, the out of the way historical gems and the places that we just stumble across when we’re pretending we’re not lost. Our favorite favorite is Cortona, as many of you will know. We’ve visited Cortona from the first trip and almost every one of the 15 trips since. We’ve made friends and we feel like we’re returning home in Italy.

So, it’s 2024 and we’re off again. Arriving Milan, then on to the lakes, Como and Garda. From there south, Lucca, Cortona of course, and all the little stops along the way.

Stay tuned!

May 9, 2024…

And we’re off again! It feels like we are missing something very important as we check the doors and the thermostat, turn off the water supply to the dishwasher and washing machine… make sure we have snacks in our carry on bags. And then it hits… there’s no little furry face watching us prepare to leave and making us feel so guilty for abandoning him, because that’s what we were doing, all you had to do was ask him. Never thought I would rather feel guilty for going on a trip than not.

So, first, it’s GRR to EWR. Always a lovely experience. Boarding in GR was right on time and free of the mad rush that we are looking forward to in Jersey. The plane though… what kind of nincompoop designed the layout of this plane?! The Embraer E175. If you find yourself booked on this particularly peculiar aircraft, whatever you have to do, avoid row 7 seats A and B. Seat B, my seat for this leg, is basically IN the isle, not on the isle. (see photo) Now, I could live with that I suppose… lots of leg room actually. The real problem is that there is no seat in front of me to put my pack under and no overhead bin to put our carry ons in. I’m not saying that they are small bins… they don’t exist. This means that your carry on ends up 4 rows behind you and your pack ends up in first class without you. But as long as I’m on my way to Italy, I suppose I can find a way to cope with the little weirdnesses (and weirdos) of the world.

EWR to MXP UA19 was on time and uneventful. The premium plus seats were not as nice or quite as roomy as the Delta premium plus version of economy but still well worth the extra bucks to get out of regular steerage.

A nice touch was the china dishes, steel flatware, glass wineglass and cloth napkin. The meals were pretty decent too. Of course manipulating the food and all was still like eating your lunch in your school locker. There was a decent selection of movies and, oddly, the cleanest and least unpleasant airplane outhouses I’ve ever seen I think,

The snow covered alps as the sun came up was pretty cool too.

After landing we had to wait for J&L  in the airport for their Delta flight. It gave us time to sort out our phones and connect with the apartment property manager on WhatsApp.

One thing that always strikes me about Italy is the smells. Even in the city or in the airport there are uniquely Italian smells. The kinds of cleansers and soaps they use in the bathrooms, the most popular colognes, there always seems to be a hint of woodsmoke in the air… these are all happy smells for me. Oh… and there’s the cigarette smoke, oh well. Like I said earlier, as long as I’m in Italy I can find a way to cope with the little thing.

Car rental this year was remarkably simple for once. We did spring for the Telepass for toll roads this year. We have been burned by the toll system in Italy in the past. Sometimes there are no plazas and there are no signs (that make any sense to me) and you don’t even know you owe any tolls until three months after you get home you get a letter from Italy with a bill in it for tolls, penalties, interest and a ‘convenience’ fee. You have to pay this because now you are in the system… you’re holding a piece of paper with lots of numbers and seals and official looking words like ‘violazione’,  and if you ever want to rent a car or drive in Italy again, you gotta pay up or else.

Ah the view. Lake Como from Bellagio

I crashed harder than I ever have after finally getting to the apartment. I guess I can’t do 20+ hours of travel across 6 time zones without any actual sleep, and then drive a strange car (that kept trying to kill us, more on that later) for about 2 hours … like I used to.

One of the unfair things about the time zones and how long it takes to get to Italy is that basically you lose a day. We got on the plane the morning of May 9 and we got off the plane the morning of May 10^th. Does that mean my birthday didn’t really actually happen?

May 11, 2024, Saturday

So, after a good 13+ hour nap, this morning broke clear and warm and I was almost back to normal. Following coffee and whatever the others had for breakfast, we head off down the hill into Bellagio proper.

Lots of people and their purse doggos. This little woofer was obviously helping with mama’s social post.

Of course gelato had to be had. First gelato decision of the trip… don’t mess it up.

Wandering aimlessly (which is one of our primary goals whenever we come to Italy), shopping for things we forgot or don’t need. Other than the wine stopper, we did need a wine stopper. We lunch in the shade of the wisteria by the water of Lake Como. It’s the best we could find so we had to settle for that view. 4 Caesar salads with chicken and one beer. Big spenders we are. The salads really were quite good actually. I’m sure they were not unhappy to see people with such expensive appetites leave what with the line that was forming along the sidewalk to get a table.

We resumed out aimless wandershopping and eventually found ourselves on a path called Salita Cappuccini. A lovely narrow cobblestone path winding up and down along the edge of the town, enclosed with by stone walls with all manner of things growing out of and on them. The word Salita means Climb…. Which would have played a part in our decision to take the charming looking path if we’d know that at the time.

It’s about a kilometer or so until the path leads you to a beautiful little village called Pescallo. Of course there is the return trip so, count on at least 2 kilometers of cobbley up and down stairs and paths…

We made it home for a bit of recovery and snacks on the balcony with prosecco to get us ready for dinner.

Dinner at La Bellagina. It’s about 5 minutes walk… just down the road, thank goodness. D and I ate here 2 years ago and thought it was quite good. And it was quiet, we were one of two occupied tables that evening. Not so tonight! The place was jumpin’!  Tables of 6,8,10,14! Babies and teenagers and tired looking tourists. All very festive in a way.

Dinner… J had a noodles with shrimp and zucchini in a saffron sauce, D and L had the scallopini al Limone and I had the pork paillard and grilled eggplant, zucchini and peppers.  It was all delicious. Deserts! Tiramisu for D and crème caramel for L, Jack went with a grappa and I had un caffe corretto sambuca.

Off into the sunset towards ‘home’ and hoping that maybe we’ll get to see a little of the aurora borealis tonight from here?

Oh… and of course, Italy 2024 CAT #1!