Distracted1

Day 5 – Cremona and Lake Garda…

As we leave the hotel we first head up the street to the piazza where there is quite the ceremony going on. Ah … June 2 that would be Festa della Repubblica, basically the Italian 4^th of July. There are speeches by people wearing sashes, there is a band and soldiers and firemen and policemen and nurses(?) and old veterans in old uniforms… lots of pomp and pageantry… in a charming local kind of way.

Today we head for Lake Garda. The lakes region of Northern Italy is really quite beautiful and very popular… on a national holiday the lakes region is EXTRA popular. We left early because we knew it would take a good hour and a half to get there and then if we wanted to find a tour boat for that water side perspective of the famously beautiful shore line, that would take some time too. What we hadn’t counted on was the new roads and poor Sean the GPS thinking that we were going 4 wheeling through the farm fields and across the countryside. “In … meters… in … meters, turn… in meters… “ It would have been funny if the thing didn’t sound so oddly distressed. Ok, it was funny.

We head for Sirmione, a little town at the very end of a little peninsula that sticks up into the lake from the south end of the lake. Kinda like Leelanau up by Traverse City except way smaller. It turns out about half the population of the the north half of Italy thought this might be fun too. We fall into a line of cars that basically has no chance of ever ending. Streams of people , strollers, dogs and children are making much better time as they walk past the creeping cars. We bail on the Sirmione idea and head up the east side of the lake towards Bardolino. When we get there there isn’t nearly the crowd but parking is still tough. Jack suggests we grab some lunch and leave the car in the parking lot while we walk to the shore and explore a bit. He says he saw a place about a block back… “Left here!” he says… and we arrive at Walle’s (“American burgers with Italian taste.”) Uh… hmmm… but there IS parking. I’ll not embarrass the others, but I had a bacon cheeseburger and a Sierra Nevada beer. It was actually pretty good.

Nuf said.

The lake is beautiful and there is a loooooong boardwalk. We skip the tour boat and just enjoy the walk and the water and the people watching and a bit of gelato. They have some weird looking ducks here… It turned into a nice day at the shore.

Back to Cremona for our final night in the city of violins. It rains for a little while which cools everything down a bit. I go for a walk. I Meet a violin maker named Adriano who is beginning to carve the arching of a viola back. His door is open so I strike up a conversation. Between his limited English and my limited Italian, we actually get on pretty well. I learn that there are about 140 violin shops in Cremona and probably upwards of 500 makers. It’s tough competition. I ask about his materials and he brings out some top blanks that he tells me are between 20 and 30 years old that are absolutely beautiful pieces of wood. I ask what he has to pay for such material and tell him a blank like that in the states would cost upwards of $250… he paid about 40 Euros… about $50. Sigh.

Cremona is swarming with bicycles. Kids, students, shop keepers, old folks… bicycles everywhere. I’m not talking racing bikes or mountain bikes or fat tire bikes, I’m talking your classic basic sit up straight, wicked witch of the west bikes. And, if you look at a bike rack only about half of them are locked up! There are a lot of electric assist bikes. Several different brands. I might be persuaded to ride a bike if I could get one of these cool electric ones. They really know how to do bike baskets here too.

Dinner (Yay) Tonight we eat at Osteria La Sosta. Not as fancy as last night.. but that’s OK. Donna and I both have the … ready? Coscia d’Oca cotta a bassa temperatura alle Erbe aromatiche con patate arrosto. Crispy baked goose thigh with aromatic herbs etc… It was amazing. Chef Claudio Nevi, his son Alessio and his daughter Maria Laura have created a very special restaurant. GO THERE!

Oh… and anyone who knows me knows that I’m fond of my coffee. I was served, hands down, the best cup of coffee I have ever had… I cried.

http://www.osterialasosta.it/en/

Day 4- Wednesday 6-1

Up early to get on the road for Cremona. Donna, Jack and Lynn have a last magnificent Jeanette breakfast… I have… you guessed it! CAFFE DOPPIO!!

We start by staging the suitcases in the hallway at Jeanette’s and I head down the hill to the parking lot to bring the car up to the piazza so we don’t have to carry everything down the 150 steps and the stone ramps which, not thinking very clearly, we didn’t do when we arrived therefore carrying everything UP the stone ramps and 150 steps from the parking lot to the piazza and down the street Jeanette’s. Ugh.

Sean the GPS tries to take us down that same tractor path as yesterday but ha! We saw that coming and he doesn’t say anything else until we get to the point where we head off in the direction of the A1 Autostrada… Now we would normally go a wee bit south to get on the northbound A1 quicker but noooo, not Sean, apparently if your destination is north, you will only go north. So we go through some pretty countryside, again, on some really tiny roads, again, and finally the A1 northbound. (Sean is kind enough to warn us that the route has a “congestion charge”. ?!?!? We all blow our noses and shrug our shoulders and carry on. It turns out it just means the A1 is a toll road. Sean is weird.)

The Renault is a diesel. It has pretty good acceleration, (for a diesel), it is very comfortable and it gets very good mileage. In 3 days, including the drive from Rome to Tuscany, we used about ½ a tank. About half way through the 4 hour drive to Cremona, with a little less than ¼ tank left we pull in to a self serve (no attendant of any kind) station. Easy enough. We find the diesel option, we watch the guy who got there before us put his money in the kiosk thing, get his gas and drive away. We approach the machine. For some unknown reason the machine does not like any of the 3 credit cards we try to use. As we stand there studying the instructions on how to pay cash at this particular machine (WARNING… self serve gas station kiosks are happy to take your cash but they do not give change. If you fill up before you have used up the amount you put in the machine. HA! You just tipped the gas company. Thppt.) a lovely young lady in a bright yellow tiny car pulls in and in very good English (learned in Texas as a Rotary exchange student) asks if we need help and without waiting for the answer proceeds to explain the procedures. We thanked her very much and put 40 Euros in… about 5/8ths of a tank. Good enough for now. Off again.

Sean was pretty accurate and got us to the center of Cremona without incident… mostly. We did end up at the end of a dead end road that we couldn’t turn around in and had to back up about a block (but that wasn’t Sean’s fault really. Then we kind of drove through the middle of the main piazza looking for the street the hotel is on. We ask a couple of people who don’t know and then realize that we are about 100 yards from the front door. There are 3 cafes on the same street as the hotel, including one that belongs to the hotel and they all have tables and chairs set up well into the street… at least half way across. We pull in at the end of the street and walk our bags to the hotel to check in. The girl at the desk gives us a map to find the parking area which is basically at the other end of the street and around the corner… I ask if we can just pull through instead of going around and she says “It’s possible…” I took that for a yes and as Jack and I went to go move the car, one of the bellboys trotted up to go with us and show us where the parking was. (This was good… it was not as simple as the map led us to believe.) Now there were people sitting at some of the tables in these cafes but hey… she said it was possible right?? As we began to inch forward waiters scurried out and moved the outer most tables and chairs in towards their respective doors, someone angled the bikes at one end of the bike rack so they didn’t stick so far into the street and diners stared in disbelief… disapproval… despair… as we motored through their lunches. She was right, it was possible. I think Sean the GPS was too embarrassed to comment.

A quick lunch in the hotel cafe, yup, that one, and off to the Museo del Violino. I went to The Chicago School of Violin Making in the early 1980s. I have wanted to see Cremona for a very long time. Standing in front of a room full of instruments made by the Amatis, Guarneris and Antonio Stradivari was inspiring to say the least. Seeing the very tools that Stradivari used and the templates he made and his sketches and notes was humbling. But…. it was also reassuring. I looked long and hard at those instruments and they were not perfect… they were made by men, not gods, they had quirks and they weren’t, any individual one of them, the distilled perfection of all of them together that has become the goal and definition of what an instrument should be. It was something of an epiphany… I can’t wait to get back into my own shop.

No photos were allowed. Mrmph. except Donna’s iced coffee…

The duomo in Cremona is an odd combination of over the top baroque and dark and ominous. It is large for a town of only 60,000. I have an odd appreciation for annunciations. This one for some reason really appealed to me. (“Do you mind? I’m reading here.”)

Dinner at Ristorante Il Violino (of course). Interesting menu… risotto with asparagus and frog legs? Nope. Pigeon and snails? Nope. King crab gnocchi? YES! Lemon sorbet? YES! Happy? You betcha.

^{Day 3}

Ok… you know something is special when I get up for breakfast before I have to while on vacation but this morning, there I was, at the breakfast table gazing adoringly at my first doppio of the day… and it wasn’t even 9AM. I like to think that it has something to do with being someplace I belong and my body instinctively reacts and wants to be up and a out and enjoying the the Italian sunshine and appreciation for the simple good things. It’s probably really just jet lag but until you can prove it, I’m right where I should be. The last of our party arrives for his eggs and melon and cinnamon roll and I order another caffe doppio .

Today we are off to Pienza.

Blind faith is not one of my dominant traits and certainly not a part of Donna’s psyche but we decide to again entrust Sean the GPS with our route. Donna is still not convinced so she has her trusty map in her lap as back-up. Jack is convinced that Sean the GPS will get us where we need to go and show us a new way to get there. It is dodgy at the start as Sean the GPS seems to want to take us straight down the mountain on what looks like a tractor path…. Even Jack who is generally up for ANY adventure thinks maybe we should go down the mountain the way we usually do. Sean the GPS makes his adjustments and we forge on. Sure enough, even though we continue to question him, Sean the GPS finds us a route that we never would have tried. .. and we arrive pretty much in the same amount of time our route would have taken .

Pienza in known for pecorino cheese and there are cheese shops all over. The fragrance of the older, riper cheese wafts through the streets and for some reason reminds me of work.

The town is also notable for the Palazzo Piccolomini. Built in the late 1400s by Pope Pius II, It is one of the first true examples of renaissance architecture and today is a remarkably well preserved walk through time. Well worth the effort. Unfortunately … no photos allowed. Here are a couple over looking the valley from the garden.

oh, and there was a cat in the garden.

After a relaxed and simple lunch, we decided to scoot out of town and head for the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore.

This time Sean the GPS get’s really creative and takes us on some of the smallest one lane (two way) roads we have been on in years. He seems to really hate the freeways. The scenery is Tuscan stunning and somehow we get there without incident. We are getting close to actually believing in Sean the GPS… even Donna.

In continuous operation for some 700 years, the abbey is one of our favorite spots in all of Italy. We arrived as the rain stopped and the skies turned blue and bright. We wandered through the cloister grande and the library and the church. We happened to be there just as the monks came bustling in to begin a Gregorian chant. It is amazing how 20 guys could sound like 100 in that huge space. Very moving. One of the most beautiful spaces is the library… with the large windows spilling light into the spare but elegant room it is hard to leave.

So…back to Cortona for dinner at Ambosia. A wonderful little place owned by the very talented chef Matteo Sciarri. It is a small place with only 7 tables. Matteo and his girlfriend do everything themselves and it is outstanding. From the opening bit of complimentary prosecco, to the fried rabbit and vegetables, D’s salmon, Lynn’s gnocchi. Jack’s pici to the homemade lemon sorbet I had for desert, it was a treat.

Tomorrow we are off to the north of Italy and Cremona, home of the violin as we know it today and Stradivarius, the greatest maker of them all.

Monday morning! Remarkably rested and ready to hit the breakfast room. Now, I’m kind of a traditionalist when it comes to breakfast. Coffee. That’s my breakfast. If possible, a good Italian espresso…. which IS possible today! So while the others start with cake and eggs and melon and Jeanette’s home made croissants. I have an espresso dopio. Then, I have another. Just because it’s a special occasion (first full day of vacation) and because Jeanette made them and she is AMAZING , I have a buttery… flaky… fresh croissant with honey.

We’re off!

First on the agenda is a nice walk up to Basilica di Santa Margherita. A lovely day, sunny and warm. About 1/3 of the way up I stop to take a photo of a cat. (really? How odd… I know) A little old lady pops out of her house and starts chattering away at me and smiling and pointing at the house across the tiny street that is being renovated into which the cat disappeared. As far as I could figure out, the building was purchased by a American drummer (picture a little old lady in an apron miming a rock and roll drummer) who paid way too much and meanwhile the house has been taken over by cats. She thinks this is hysterical. Cortona as you may or may not know is a Tuscan “hill town.” So, that nice walk up to pay our respects to the beautiful basilica and the rather dusty, shriveled little mummified Ms Margherita who has been sleeping in a glass box on the alter for… a while, is about a mile and a half of stairs … up. It’s worth it though, she told me she was glad to see us. Did I mention it was hot… and I was thirsty… and I had a lot of espresso?

The poppies are everywhere this year. Great fields of them and little patches whereever you look. Lots of other flowers too but the poppies are my favorites. On the way down we see lots of wild flowers and the attendant buzzy flying things. Something struck me as odd though. There were all these critters flying from flower to flower, sticking their faces in and moving on, but they weren’t making any sound. No buzz… about the size of a healthy american bumble bee I moved in for a closer look. Hummingbird hawk-moths! (Macroglossum stellatarum for you Nancy) I’ve seen them before but only in ones or twos and never so small… there were bunches of the little buggers. Hard to photograph though.

Back into town for a little lunch. Pizza… it’s what’s for lunch. Prosciutto, ruccolo, and grana padano. I am fortified.

Off to Sansepulcro for the afternoon. A nice town, they have some pretty churches, we somehow found the shopping district and the Museo Civico Sansepolcro, Museo di Piero / Palazzo della Resistenza was very interesting. You could watch an art conservator working on restoring a fresco, there were may very nice Pieros and a very odd but cool display of locks and keys.

The Renault has a GPS in it. We’ve been using the same map of Italy since 1999. never been lost. We’ve discovered some creative routes to some of our destinations, but that’s a different story. Today we decide to give Sean, the Irish male voice of our GPS a try. He did pretty well. Not necessarily the route we would have picked but he got us where we needed to go and we got to see more pretty countryside his way. Something to be aware of in the future though… if you use a GPS and all you put in is the name of the town you want to get to, it will take you to the middle of said town. If you put in the name of a Tuscan, walled hill town, it will take you where cars, especially cars with tourists in them, ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO GO. Ooop.

Back to Cortona to freshen up, a bit of wine on the rooftop patio and off to dinner.

Tonight …. slow roasted duck with grilled eggplant, peppers and sauteed spinach. A simple Sangiovese house wine and another perfect Italian day.

Oh… and lemon almond mousse, a very light fluffy ‘cheesecake’ with strawberries and tiramisu for desert.

We’ve started looking at real estate ads…

The older I get, the simpler, and yet, more confusing travel becomes. I am now familiar and comfortable with the rules and the procedures of international air travel. It’s really not that big an issue if I can’t bring my Costco sized containers of shampoo and foot cream. You would be amazed how much you can squeeze into a quart sized clear zippy bag. And, this seems to be news to a lot of folks but they have stores in other countries… I actually enjoy the crazy traffic and tiny twisting country roads of Italy. I know how to order coffee and get gas for the car and I know how to buy groceries without offending anyone. The paradox is, I have a harder time leaving home. It has all turned backwards. The questions and anxieties of finding myself up to my eyeballs in the unfamiliar has flipped to; do I have everything ? Did I turn off the light in the basement? Did I check the burners on the stove? Did I feed the cat? The cat! Hun?, did you actually SEE the cat before we left? Do I have enough socks? Did I accidentally close the cat in the sock drawer?

It is odd, to be sure

.

But none the less, here we go, back to our adopted Italian home town for the something-teenth time and I can’t wait to get there. (Must remember to email the cat sitter to check the sock drawer).

We upgraded our seats this time to something, very suspiciously called “Comfort Plus”. It added about 1/2% to the price of each ticket but promised more leg room, a wee bit wider seat, free adult beverages, designated overhead bin space… and perhaps most attractively, being only 4 rows back from the exit when we arrive in Rome. Well, in contrast to my normal cynical attitude towards the airlines, I must say that the extra money was well spent for the extra space… not that I was able to sleep mind you, but I was far more comfortable in my misery.

So eight hours and 27 minutes after leaving the ground in Detroit, we descend into the eternal city.

Ah, Rome. It’s good to be back. Except we’re just here to grab a rental car and bug out for Tuscany. No BMW or Alpha Romeo this time ( sad face). This time it’s a Renault Scenic. I can almost here you all gasping with envy. It’s a comfortable car with plenty of room, good visability and it’s the first automatic transmission I’ve had in 13 or so trips. It’s kinda nice. It also has a GPS. More on that in a little bit.

So, straight to Cortona to settle in at Casa Chilenne. Ah, feels like home. We get there early afternoon and go for a leisurely wander about, a couple of slices of pizza sitting on the steps in the piazza Republica and a good bit of just watching the people come and go. Dinner at Panne e Vino (Donna and I had the Tagliolini con ragù bianco di Faraona e Tartufo Bianco … Noodles with white truffles and guineafowl in a white sauce. YUM!

Then off to bed… it has been a loooooong day.

Day 5, first full day in Cortona,

Cortona is our adopted Italian home town. It is the town that called us to Italy in 1999 and to which we have returned 10 times in 11 trips. We know people here now. We even know some dogs here. We have friends. We have watched as the town has become a destination. We have seen the crowd grow and the businesses change but there is something about the feel of this town that is absolutely comfortable for us. Today we just wander around and enjoy being back. The weekend tourists are gone, the streets are open and welcoming.

We visit the Etruscan Museum to see a special exhibit called Seduzione Etruscan. It is our big excursion of the day. It is an exhibit in conjunction with The British Museum focusing on the British fascination with and contribution to the rediscovery of the Etruscans starting in the late 1700s. I am fascinated by the workmanship of the Etruscan artifacts going back to 600 bc or so. Being a “maker” of things, I can’t imagine the skills and patience it took to fashion things out of metal and stone with such intricate detail with the tools and techniques that they had at the time… mind boggling.

There is also a 17^th century strong box at this museum. Being the something of a gear head that I am, for years I have thought the lock mechanism on the thing is one of the most elegant pieces of mechanical work I have ever seen. I know, I’m a goober.

Then we got lost and couldn’t finds our way out of the Museum. Sheesh. We’ve driven the back roads of Italy from the Swiss border to the southern shores of Sicily and we get lost in a stinkin’ museum.

The rest of the say was spent wandering around town, eating gelato and soaking in the Tuscan sunlight and ambiance. Our friend Jeanette recommended a new restaurant that specializes on wood grilled food. When we got there they were having a grand opening party. They invited us in to show us the new place and then offered us wine and a huge buffet. It was reeeealy yummy. Roast pork, salmon, sausages… lots of prosciutto with shaved cantaloupe, fresh fruit and cheese. We just hung out and enjoyed the buffet and called it dinner! And, it was free! A gelato in the Piazza Signorelli and sunset in the Piazza del Duomo overlooking the valley.

Home. Cortona.

Travel day today.

Showers, packing, and breakfast before the car arrived to take us to the airport to pick up the rental car. Yes the airport. As backwards as it seems, picking up a rental at the airport is less expensive than in town here. The opposite of the US. Also, the airport is a pretty straight shot on to the A1 Autostrada… no driving anywhere near the fun of the streets of Rome itself.

I ordered a Ford… I got a Giullieta! I love Alpha Romeos, I don’t know why but I do. This one has lots of zip and on the Autostrada it glides along at 150kph as smooth as a good panna cotta.

But soft, what light through yonder windscreen breaks? it is the east and the Giulietta is too much fun…

One stop at an Autogrill for a bit of lunch and we get into Cortona in the early afternoon. There was a parade when we arrived!

At first I was flattered but then I was told it is the last day of the crossbow festival! Teams from the five neighborhoods of the town compete. There’s medieval-ness everywhere. The drum corps and the flag throwers are very impressive. The falconers were cool and for once there were no pigeons in the piazza. Huh.  Layers and layers of velvet and everyone in tights and cloaks. It’s 90 degrees. I wonder if it wasn’t pestilence and fighting that killed people back then but actually it was heat!

The final competition finally starts, there are probably 2000 people watching. The first archer is up and the crowd gets quiet. Boing! I am flabbergasted. All five of the archers on the first round put their bolts (arrows) in a square about 4 inches across from about 100 feet away. I wouldn’t want to piss off a medieval crossbowman, that’s for sure.

Best part? Our neighborhood team won!

Dinner at an old familiar place… one of the first places we ever ate in Corona, La Grotta. D has the picatta Limon and spinach, I have the grilled lamb and asparagi. All is right with the world.