Immagini 3

These images are from Bastagna in Umbria.

(Yes, that means in Italian what you think it means in English)

The following images are from Bologna.

Not Bitter, Sweet

When I arrived in Modena, I immediately went to the tourist office and arranged a tour for the four of us at an acetaia, vinegar factory, south of Modena, in the heart of balsamic vinegar country, to see how the stuff is made.

The day was very hot, almost oppressive. It was nice to wend our way through the countryside. Well, we ended up doing a lot of wending as I got lost and drove in circles until we finally found the little town of San Vito. I did get a lot of practice using roundabouts. We seemed to be driving through a village residential area when we found the sign for the factory, Caselli.

It turns out the ‘factory’ was the size of a modest house behind a family homestead. We were met at the gate by a very amiable gentleman, Simone, who was able to speak English well enough to explain everything. He, his parents and wife operate the business that his grandfather founded in the 1920s. The first thing you are hit with as you approach the door to the factory is the sweet smell of the vinegar that pervades everything. It is a rich, deep complex smell that matches the very complex way it is manufactured. It actually is less about complication as it is about time. Simone makes two kinds of product that can receive the tightly controlled designation of Aceto Balsamico di Modena: 12 year old and 25 year old. They both start with Trebbiano grapes grown by Simone’s family that are crushed and the resulting juice, or must, is boiled for 24 hours until about half the water is evaporated. The liquid is then stored in a barrel for a year, then transferred to another smaller, barrel; after another year to another, etc. This goes on for 12 or 25 years.

The barrels are made of nine different woods which impart different complex characteristics to the vinegar. The barrels themselves are reuseable, and they actually have great importance in the history of vinegar production. A ‘line’ of barrels traditionally would be built on the birth of a daughter to be used as a dowry and it is of much pride for families such as Simones to have several active lines.

Simone produces about 2500 small bottles of the vinegar, all carefully monitored by the government for quality. The small production guarantees that the stuff is expensive. But the mass produced stuff does not hold up to the traditional vinegar.

The tour ended with tasting the varieties and Simone explained what you should look for in the taste. I have a newfound appreciation for balsamic vinegar- the truly fine authentic stuff is sweeter and more delicious that the best chocolate by far- this defines the whole idea of slow food.

And I bought a few bottles of the 25 year old stuff to prove it to the folks back home.

A Party in my Mouth

Lunch in Montefalco, Umbria

This trip has been very much about eating and drinking. Traveling with Suz, a chef and two other gourmands who really appreciate food, has made Italian cuisine an underlying theme.

We are in the middle of a four day swing through the province of Emilia-Romagna, the food soul of Italy that encompasses the vast floodplain of the lower reaches of the Po River. It has been my job to coordinate the driving and get us to the best places to try local foods.

Wine tasting in Assisi, Umbria

Places like Bologna, Forli, Rimini, Modena, and Parma are historically important cities dating back to Roman times and in some cases earlier. On the map, they form a straight line along the foothills of the Appenines, having formed as trading post along the venerable Via Emilia, the original Roman road laid out traversed by Caesar himself. But these cities also lie in the vast area of farms that feature grains, vineyards and orchards that feed the country. Here also lies the best food that Italy offers. Not as many tourists, particularly Americans, hit this area, opting for Rome, Florence, Venice and the Amalfi Coast. It’s a shame, because one’s idea of Italian food changes radically.

Bologna is called ‘Il Grasso’ by the Italians: ‘the Fat,’ because of the culinary tradition of the best cuisine. The first night we ate at an old traditional restaurant that first opened its doors in the 1920s, Ristorante al Papagallo, to see what this food was about. We were not disappointed.

Dinner at Il Papagallo

My starter salad of arugula, pear and gorgonzola was light and flavorful, dressed with only the finest olive oil; the gorgonzola was creamy and strongly flavored and the pear slices were so thin, they were transparent, but added just the right amount of sweetness. For the primo piatto (the first course in an Italian meal, which almost always is a pasta dish) I had the taglietelle alla Bolognese, the classic pasta dish with the slow-cooked meat sauce; this ragu is unlike any meat sauce I have had in America- no pasta drowning in a sea of sweet tomato red sauce, just light and meaty.

For the secondo piatto, main course, I had carpaccio (raw beef, thinly sliced and marinated) with greens and thin slices of Parmesano-Reggiano. Again, simple but excellent: each flavor was strong and individual. The parmesan had a fine, almost crystalline grain with a heightened nutty flavor- this was top of the line cheese.

The critical element you find in great Italian cooking is the excellence of the individual ingredients. Put together the best you can find and the combination can only be amazing. This has been true for almost all places we have eaten (as long as you remember to avoid the obvious tourist places, and get a sense of where locals eat; also guide books are invaluable). The cheeses, salamis, fruits we have eaten have seemed to have a hightened flavor to what I am used to back home.

A visit to the market in the city center of Modena showed the variety of great local products. It is a bustling place where stalls sell everything you need for a meal- all of high quality and a range of choices. I counted ten types of mozzarella, six kinds of local cherries, eight kinds of tomatoes, etc. They sell prepared foods like roasted vegetables and meats and pastas, which we bought for a picnic along with fresh apricots and cherries.

Scenes from the Central Market in Modena

Lunch in the Gardens of the Duke of Parma

Immagini 2

Sunday today, don't feel like writing much, so here are some pix.

Looking toward Piazza della Commune, Assisi's central square

In the Piazza della Commune

Upper Assisi

Waiting at the Basilica, Assisi

Residential Street, Upper Assisi

Doves of Peace sculptures, Assisi

Duomo, Orvieto

Pienza

Piazza San Francesco, Perugia

La Passageiatta (the evening stroll), Perugia: Cruising Italian Style

Fuori Le Mure (Outside the Walls)

Today, we drove west from Assisi out of Umbria and into Tuscany for visits to Montepulciano, Pienza and Montalcino. A welcome change, we decided to leave the cities and focus on the country.

A front had moved through in the early morning with violent wind and driving rain, waking us with clattering shutters (their shutters really work here) and laundry that had to be taken off the clothes lines. But the next morning was fresh and renewed with a blue sky and puffy clouds. Excellent day for a country itinerary.

The region of Southern Tuscany called the Val d'Orcia, is the picturesque Tuscany that we think of when we think of, well, Tuscany. Rolling hills dotted with farmhouses. Tall cypresses, olive trees and acres of vineyards. Hill towns. Great vistas.

Two great wines come from this region: Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino. We stopped in Montalcino for wine tasting in a 14th century fortress. But the star of the day was la campagna, the countryside. A perfect day all around.

Impossible Towns in Impossible Places

Civita di Bagno Regio

Simple houses, churches, palaces cling with a barnacle’s grip to bare rock. The colors are all the same shade- they pull materials from centuries-old quarries that have served the Italians, Romans, as far back as the Etruscans.

Civita di Bagno Regio is almost laughable in its ridiculous predicament. Built on a disintegrating sandstone mesa, the town loses its outer rings over the course of centuries like an umber-shaded onion. Of course it will eventually meld into the valley below, but for the visitor today, it gives a great unvarnished glimpse of medieval hilltown character. A narrow arête of a ridge once connected the town to the adjacent bluff where you leave your car. But this too had melted away. A footbridge had been installed and the climb to the lofty old town is difficult, but well worth it.

Inside the Main Gate

The views are spectacular, of course. We as 21st century travelers appreciate them, but our context in appreciating these hill towns are far from those who first set up these aeries in the distant past. Central Italy has always been awash with invaders, marauding barbarians, warring factional states. So it was a defensive reaction to gather up on top and hunker down when Hannibal, Charles V or the Florentines came down your way and not just to have beautiful views into the countryside. It was prudent and economical to build densely on rock outcrops to minimize the amount of defensive walls and not to create picturesque urban scenery.

Stoop

***

Orvieto is a far different feel from Civita. It is actually a more ancient city that was important 2,500 years ago for the Etruscans. It sits on a thousand foot high volcanic plug with sheer cliffs all around. But it is still a lively, bustling community with it's main attraction being a striking Gothic façade unlike anything in Northern Europe.

The Cathedral of Orvieto

Gothic ecclesiastic architecture never really gained favor in Italy; the most true example being the Cathedral in Milan. The 14th century Orvieto façade is an Italian version of that dour, somber Northern European style. The façade shimmers with polychromic marbles, gold and bright colored mosaics all set in a stark white marble framework. It is overdone, overdecorated, overstimulating: Italian gothic?... bring on the Renaissance.

Driving in Italy

Our Ford.

The next phase of the trip has begun. We are heading back about 2 hours south towards Rome to Fiumicino Airport to pick up the fourth and final member of our group, Linda Roos. On the way back we will stop at a couple places of interest: Civita di Bagno Regia, which is a crumbling medieval hilltown and birthplace of Saint Bonaventure and Orvieto, an ancient city dating back to the ninth century BCE.

We had picked up a Ford minivan in Rome. I had rented a car here back in 1989 and I noticed that not much has changed except for the increased traffic volume. Italy is still a nation of wannabe Andrettis and this is really evident in the cities where jostling for a better position is a manhood-challenging sport. The lines in the street are routinely ignored and the huge volumes directed down narrow passages are not unlike great pachinko games with clattering cars and tires thok-thok-thokking on cobbled roadways. Add to this large city buses that weave sinuously between curb and middle of the street and can stop suddenly with no regard to anything. Add to this huge tourist buses that lumber along like whales on steroids. Add to this the swarms of Vespas that fearlessly ply the narrow spaces between the bigger vehicles. Add to this fearless pedestrians distracted with cellphones or clueless tourists with their heads craned upwards at a nearby monument and you have a maddening, cacophonic, dangerous game of chicken that is not for the faint of heart.

A favorite sight: when the occasional red light crops up (Italians do obey traffic signals) you can watch the Vespas sheepishly creep out from behind the stopped cars and buses as they slowly form a motley row jostling position and toeing the line. When the light changes, there is a high-pitched roar and the insect swarm drives on.

Fortunately, by design, we will be avoiding large cities over the next week as we make forays to the hilltowns of Tuscany and Umbria and then head north to Italy’s breadbasket, Emilia-Romagna and the culinary centers of Bologna, Modena and Parma. The only difficulty we anticipate is deciphering the maddening Italian methodology of signposting, a cruel joke inflicted on even the most seasoned motorist.

Think Fast!

Iconic

The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

The architecture of the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi is Gothic austere, of no real significance except for the unusual design of an upper and lower church stacked one atop the other. The phenomenal beauty of this church is in the decoration. It is a who’s who of late gothic artists including Cimabue, Giotto, Lorenzetti and Martinii. The rich frescoes cover almost all surfaces- it borders on suffocating in the lower church, which already is vertically challenged. Francis was revered even in his own lifetime: he was canonized only 2 years after his death and a couple of centuries of work on his basilica began.

When I visited, during the 7:30 a.m. mass, I sat waiting for it to end to continue my tour. I contemplated the myriad of images of Saint Martin of Tours. And the crowded allegorical images of the vaults over the altar. I remember the times as a child when I was bored in Church, Immaculate Conception Church back in Monrovia to be exact, and I would stare at the stained glass images of the apostles or the Madonna panel over the altar with the strange-sounding ‘Ave Maria Gratia Plena’. Icons, rendered in great detail in stone chips, colored glass and painted scenes may have been created to reach an illiterate and unimaginative rabble, but I find them comforting in the depictions of the proximity of humanity and divinity. If I had attended a Protestant church when I was little, I probably would have been doodling in the hymnals as a way to keep my aesthetic sense on.

By the way photography isn't allowed inside the Basilica.

Early morning in any place is a calm, contemplative time. A city without the bustle of its daily life is like taking a closer look at a finely crafted container free from the distractions of its actual utility. So I often wake up early to explore a place. Rome is one of those cities that simply calms a bit but does not stop. Assisi does seem to reset itself every morning.

Assisi is a large medieval town that clings fortuitously to the west flank of a great bulging arc of a mountain, Monte Subiaso. It is hemmed in by a tight ring of serviceable walls that act today more to contain the burgeoning rosy white stone walls of the City than in keeping warring city states out.

I left the apartment at 5:45 this morning to watch the sun rise and begin to paint the towers and domes with light. Had I thought of Assisi's geography sooner, I might have enjoyed more sleep: being on the west side of a mountain, the light would not hit the City for a couple of hours. Determined, I decided to climb to the pinnicle of the town, the lofty citadel called the Rocca Maggiore, to greet the sun where it would hit Assisi first. I was not disappointed. The beauty of the early morning dim light against a lightening sky was exactly what I was seeking. All alone on the ruins of the castle, with only the birds to be heard (is this where St. Francis started to preach to our winged friends?), I spent an hour watching the Sun come up and over the mountain. It washed the great valley below Assisi first, and I watched the light race up toward the town below like a rapid high tide. Finally the light hit the town and ultimately the great, austere Gothic facade of the Basilica of Saint Francis. Roosters everwhere were crowing as the light filled the hills and valleys of the surrounding countryside.

I have explored many places in the early morning, but Assisi was the most spiritual. St. Francis may have set up the feeling for this place, but for the visitor to Assisi to truly sense it, they must find this time for solitude and contemplation. It can be exhilirating.

The view of the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi from the Rocca Maggiore.

The view of the Basilica from the Piazza Inferiore.

A Franciscan on the way to the Basilica.

The flags of a contrada in the Upper City.

Immagini 1