So Friday we drove our little Smart Car down to Orvieto for a quick look-see at a town we'd never been to. Tammi's Italian teacher has cousins who live in the area and we had gifts to deliver. We thought a couple hours would be enough time to explore. Boy, were we wrong. That's a night or two kind of place so we'll be going back on our next trip (yes Mark and Joe, you heard right). The cathedral alone took two hours. Francesco and Francesca (Rosie's cousins) had invited us to stay at their villa in Fabro, so we headed north on the autostrada for the 20 minute drive. Note to self: accidentally putting the toll ticket in the money slot costs 50E and requires a special trip to the PuntoBlu office to clear the mess up.
Our host's villa is amazing. It was an abandoned old farmhouse they've been working 25 years on that now has the main house and 5 or 6 separate apartments, a huge recreational room, outdoor patios and BBQs, a pool, sun deck and 35 acres of fruit and olive trees. They rent it out for large groups. The apartment they put us in was WAY better than our Florence one and didn't smell like something died. Francesco and Francesca cooked a delicious dinner in their wood burning fireplace and we visited for quite a while over Umbrian wine and a cherry liquor with dessert. They were very gracious and welcoming and insisted we speak only Italian for practice. A very nice night and we woke up chipper despite the wine. We just don't get it. As we were leaving Francesco gave us a tour of the grounds and had us try figs from all his varieties. Tammi and I loved them but frantically started calculating how many bathroom stops there were on the autostrada. He had a lot of figs.
We drove back to Florence Saturday afternoon certain we'd have no trouble finding the rental car office coming in from a different direction. We're getting pretty good at driving here and Matteo, our trusty new friend at Sixt, mapped it all out for us. Sixt Florence, by the way, is the best car rental office ever (sorry Katy). It WOULD have been nice if Matteo had remembered that last little roundabout and jog across the river you have to make when he drew the map. That was critical and caused Navigator Tammi more than a little stress. Poor Matteo got a good ribbing for that one but Tam felt a whole lot better once he admitted it was HIS mistake. Anyway, dinner was at Gusta Osteria so we could say goodbye to Marizio, one of three brothers who run eateries in the piazza. Pascuale has Gusto Panini and we never made it to Gusta Pizza. As if we needed another reason to go back!
Sunday we decided to check out the international market in Piazza Santa Croce. It was only there for the weekend and showcased food and crafts from all over the world. Mom, you would have been in heaven. It wasn't on a stick but there was pork everywhere. The German section alone was mouthwatering and Spain was stirring up huge pots of paella. Poland claimed us with their sausage and roasted potatoes. It's a good thing we walked about 5 miles to get there. It's really less than a mile from the apartment and normally my internal GPS is spot on, but that morning we got stuck in the middle of about 5,ooo Asian tourists off the cruise ships and I think it jammed my radar.
Sunday night was our last opportunity to eat at the Borgo with Miguel, Andrea and Emelie. We both tried a new pasta dish, mine with clams, and I put Parmesan cheese on mine. Apparently putting parm on clams, even if they are over linguine, is a big fat Italian no- no. Just as I finished sprinkling the cheese Miguel walks over, sits down at our table, wags his finger at me and says " mai, mai, mai" and stopped just short of tossing my plate in the garbage like he did with our pizzas. Italians never, never, never put cheese on "fish". Remember Seinfeld's soup-nazi? That was Miguel with the Parmesan. Anyway, it was a perfect night and those guys were so great to sit with us throughout the evening, despite being so busy. It was hard to say goodbye. We are REALLY going to miss them and hope they find their way to Florida or Idaho one day soon. They have friends there now.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Italian leather bag?... $$$...Tuscan olive oil?...priceless!
Monday we headed up to the center of Florence to buy gifts. The markets are fun if you're savvy so we're bringing home goodies to share with some of you (you know who you are). We got the idea to try making pumpkin risotto, a Florentine specialty and bought all the fixings at the open air market. We can't yet speak Italian but we can cook it! It was a great dinner at home with a nice Chianti. Yumm.
Tuesday we broke down and went to Mama's bakery, a place down the street that caters to American clients. They sell bagels and muffins and large cups of American style coffee. We've been avoiding it like the plague. Turns out we should have gone there weeks ago. It was filled with ladies who've lived here for years and speak Italian at a speed we can understand. They had suggestions for everything, including the best way to mail packages back to the states. That one was key...we've bought a lot of olive oil. We went to the post office to check prices. That's an interesting system. You use a machine to select a specific activity and it gives you a number and letter combination. It's like Bingo because you wait for that combination to come up on a board and you go to the designated window to transact that specific activity. I wonder what happens if you want to do TWO things? Anyway, we understood enough Italian to realize shipping all that oil home meant we couldn't eat for two days, which might not have been a bad thing given the calories we're consuming. The average cost of each bottle is now about $100 but we had to buy it. You just can't get the same stuff at home. That's our story and we're sticking to it.
Tuesday night was our much anticipated pizza making lesson. Miguel prefaced it by stressing how hard it is to make good pizza, takes years of practice, it must be in the blood, etc. Seriousamente, how hard could it be? After watching him deftly hand shape, dress and bake a pizza in the wood oven in under three minutes we gave it a whirl. Twenty minutes later Miguel dramatically threw our efforts in the trash, handed us a rolling pin and said try again. He was right. Good pizza is hard to make but it was really fun to try. We finally turned out a couple good enough that Tammi ate an entire pizza by herself. Needless to say she walked halfway to Rome the next morning.
Wednesday was Bronzino day. Bronzino was a Renaissance painter and there was a showing of his work at the Palazzo Strozzi we wanted to see. It was awesome because the collection included works from here in Florence and others flown in from private collections and galleries around the world. What a great opportunity to see his paintings all in one place. Beautiful! After Bronzino we met Adri and Stefania for dinner at the Borgo, where we had another fabulous meal and practically closed the place down. Emily, our favorite waitress (and Andrea's girlfriend) is from Sweden. When Adri learned that, she started chatting with her in Swedish. Swedish? Are you kidding? We hate her.
Thursday we bought beautiful purses designed by Alessandra. At dinner the night before Stefania and Adri told Tammi her Ameri-bag travel purse, which she shamelessly carries at home, had to go and I should get my haircut here in Florence. They're determined to make Italian women out of us yet. A haircut was going to cost more than the olive oil but Alessandra gave us such a good deal on the purses we had to buy one. Tam's walking pretty proud now.
Friday we visited Palazzo Davanzanti and then stopped by a profumeria to see if they might have anything strong enough to tackle our apartment smell. Why didn't anybody tell us about THAT weeks ago? It smelled so good in there we could have moved in. We found sheets of paper you burn in a bowl. Good thing these old apartments don't have smoke detectors. You can't see across the room after you burn one but the smell is gone. Later we picked up the cute little Smart Car and headed to Orvieto. More on that later!
Tuesday we broke down and went to Mama's bakery, a place down the street that caters to American clients. They sell bagels and muffins and large cups of American style coffee. We've been avoiding it like the plague. Turns out we should have gone there weeks ago. It was filled with ladies who've lived here for years and speak Italian at a speed we can understand. They had suggestions for everything, including the best way to mail packages back to the states. That one was key...we've bought a lot of olive oil. We went to the post office to check prices. That's an interesting system. You use a machine to select a specific activity and it gives you a number and letter combination. It's like Bingo because you wait for that combination to come up on a board and you go to the designated window to transact that specific activity. I wonder what happens if you want to do TWO things? Anyway, we understood enough Italian to realize shipping all that oil home meant we couldn't eat for two days, which might not have been a bad thing given the calories we're consuming. The average cost of each bottle is now about $100 but we had to buy it. You just can't get the same stuff at home. That's our story and we're sticking to it.
Tuesday night was our much anticipated pizza making lesson. Miguel prefaced it by stressing how hard it is to make good pizza, takes years of practice, it must be in the blood, etc. Seriousamente, how hard could it be? After watching him deftly hand shape, dress and bake a pizza in the wood oven in under three minutes we gave it a whirl. Twenty minutes later Miguel dramatically threw our efforts in the trash, handed us a rolling pin and said try again. He was right. Good pizza is hard to make but it was really fun to try. We finally turned out a couple good enough that Tammi ate an entire pizza by herself. Needless to say she walked halfway to Rome the next morning.
Wednesday was Bronzino day. Bronzino was a Renaissance painter and there was a showing of his work at the Palazzo Strozzi we wanted to see. It was awesome because the collection included works from here in Florence and others flown in from private collections and galleries around the world. What a great opportunity to see his paintings all in one place. Beautiful! After Bronzino we met Adri and Stefania for dinner at the Borgo, where we had another fabulous meal and practically closed the place down. Emily, our favorite waitress (and Andrea's girlfriend) is from Sweden. When Adri learned that, she started chatting with her in Swedish. Swedish? Are you kidding? We hate her.
Thursday we bought beautiful purses designed by Alessandra. At dinner the night before Stefania and Adri told Tammi her Ameri-bag travel purse, which she shamelessly carries at home, had to go and I should get my haircut here in Florence. They're determined to make Italian women out of us yet. A haircut was going to cost more than the olive oil but Alessandra gave us such a good deal on the purses we had to buy one. Tam's walking pretty proud now.
Friday we visited Palazzo Davanzanti and then stopped by a profumeria to see if they might have anything strong enough to tackle our apartment smell. Why didn't anybody tell us about THAT weeks ago? It smelled so good in there we could have moved in. We found sheets of paper you burn in a bowl. Good thing these old apartments don't have smoke detectors. You can't see across the room after you burn one but the smell is gone. Later we picked up the cute little Smart Car and headed to Orvieto. More on that later!
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