Bologna and Baloney

Bologna always makes me think of baloney.  This connotation coloured my imagination of the city.  I pictured a small dirty city with a plentitude of bloody meat shops.  I know this isn’t a very realistic image, but tell that to my subconscious. 

In reality, Bologna is a cultured, international city with a boot fetish.  It has purportedly the oldest university in the world and is known for the amount of covered walkways lining the streets.  Every other store sells boots that make me feel broke just by looking at them.  Also, there is a world-renowned violin making school that has close ties with the Cremona school (home of Stradivari, Guarneri, and Amati).  Food, always varied in Italy, takes on new levels of complexity with the addition of tofu and vegetarian menus.  By the end of our one night and day in Bologna, I had decided on my new favorite Italian city. 

Norwegian Violin

Our major activity in Bologna was meeting Alessandro, a friend of Paul’s who’s a violinmaker.  Alessandro can trace his violin-making lineage back to the founder of the Bologna Violin School.  We met in his shop where he could give us a tour of his violins.  I had been looking forward to this meeting for days and was hoping for a violin tasting, similar to wine tasting.  This is what I was imagining: this violin is three years old, has this type of varnish and a ringing sound, compare to this violin which has been aged 10 years and is much more mellow.  Even though what I wanted was to “taste” (play) a sampling of violins, I was not expecting to do so. 

When we arrived to Alessandros’ shop, I pushed open the door and entered a string player’s dream.  The tiny room was stuffed full with violins, cellos, and bizarre mutants that were commonly played in medieval times.  Lutes, ancient Norwegian violins, six string guitars with resonator strings and viola da gambas hung from the walls.  My eyes grew wider and wider as we got a detailed explanation about each type of instrument.  I saw more varieties of violins than I had thought existed crammed into a room 5m x 10m. 

Early Italian Tenor Viola de Gamba

Then came the modern violins that Alessandro made. Each violin was made slightly differently.  In one, the back piece was made from one piece of wood, instead of the normal two.  Another was made with wood that was 100 years old.  Better than my imagined “violin tasting”, we were actually permitted to experiment with the different violins.  My dad and I played three instruments; each felt different and had it’s own character that was apparent from the first note we played.  Each also felt different underneath my fingers.  I think these Italian violins had a wider neck than I am used to, so my fingers kept landing slightly off the strings. 

Each violin had a different voice.  The first violin we tried was 13 years old and had been owned previously.  That violin was very responsive and mellow; it was easy to create a beautiful sound.  Also, it was easy be accurate while shifting positions on the lower strings.  My father and I kept passing it back and forth each trying to hear how it played blues, folk, classical, and it’s dynamic range.  It was kind of like driving a Ferrari that only goes as fast as is good for the driver. 

A Beautiful Image from the Web

The next violin was like sitting in the back of the winning racecar during a race.  Sound just poured out of it and echoed across the room.  It was loud, vibrant, and rich.  I felt like it was louder than a horn, but of course the sound was right under my ear.  Musical ideas were hovering just beneath the fingerboard and were waiting to be tapped by my fingers.  This violin “did powerful” very well, but it didn’t like the gentler notes. 

The third violin made the entire room of string instruments ring sympathetically.  Each note was extended and echoed across the room and in the body of the violin.  When my father played this violin, the sound was powerful, it was soft, and it was all the colours in between.  When I picked it up, I expected to be able to create the same sound variations.  However, I was unable to bring out the more beautiful aspect of the tone.  I wanted an afternoon with this violin just to learn how to play it so the sound echoed and shimmered.  Unfortunately, we had to go after this and we didn’t get to “taste” any more violins.  My father and I will treasure the memories of the individual instruments.  I hope that one day I will get a chance to play violins like this again.

Original sources for these pictures:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Viol_Raphael_St.Cecilia1510.jpg/800px-Viol_Raphael_St.Cecilia1510.jpg 
http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/Norwegian.jpg 
http://www.leoneardo.com/images/violins.jpg

Errata

I have been notified by my most diligent editors that my last post on the Amalfi Coast did not send correctly.  If you are following me by email, then the post will be missing two or three mouthwatering paragraphs about food.  Please read this post online to get the whole story.  Sorry about the hassle. 

Back Home in Dragodena

Walking in the Fall Colours

Fog Flowing over the Hill

They’re not Russian, they’re not brothers and they don’t fly—they are the Flying Karamazov Brothers!  Paul, the troupe’s founder and leader, has been my father’s friend since they attended high school together 40 years ago.  Paul (when he isn’t in New York, Madrid, or England) is the friend who lives in the house in Dragodena, where we stayed with my grandparents three weeks ago.  After visiting the Amalfi Coast, we hopped a train back to rural Emilia-Romagna to visit Paul, or as they call him in Italy, “Pol”. 

We had intended to only stay with Paul for a couple days, but the relaxed mood in a rural Italy covered in autumn colours ensnared us.  For all of us, the last week in Dragodena was a time when we relaxed and caught up on our writing (in theory anyway).  When we were in Dragodena three weeks ago, the days were warm and sunny.  But this time, there was a brisk wind and the nights were very cold.  The sun still shone, but not consistently.  Each morning the hills were cloaked in a thick fog.  One day, we collected chestnuts in a torrential downpour.  Each day my mum and I walked into Tole, so I got to experience the fall/winter transition intimately.  The leaves were gold and red, the fields were plowed a second time, and smoke rose from every chimney.  

Italian Teletubbies

In my eternal quest to procrastinate, I spent much of each day helping Paul to repaint the stalls inside the old barn.  The paint we used had the same consistency of pudding and promised to cover up mold, rot, uneven plaster, and also to add a structural element to old walls.  By the time we left, the gray, peeling, moldy walls were a gleaming white.  It looked like an entirely new room. 

Me up on a Ladder

October 26^th was a particularly special day for us—it was my mother’s 53^rd birthday!  Emilia-Romagna is the chestnut center of Italy, so with that in mind, I chose to make a chestnut-flour birthday cake.  I had found a recipe online, but our friends in Tole told us the proper method: use ⅔ chestnut flour and ⅓ regular flour.  To that I added chocolate, sugar, eggs, and grated orange rind in arbitrary proportions.  The result tasted so good (surprisingly), I made a similar cake again the next day. 

Happy Birthday!

The day after my mum’s birthday, we went out for a celebratory belated birthday dinner at a local agrotourismo (like a rural hotel, but focused on local agriculture).  We had a magnificent meal—one of the best in Italy—that included three types of pasta (for instance, gorgonzola gnocchi) and a variety of roasted vegetables and a melted Parmesan porcini sauce.  After dinner, my father and I played our usual mix of violin duets: Mozart, Bach, assorted Irish fiddle tunes, and blues.  I enjoyed the atmosphere of the agrotourismo so much that I am strongly considering going back to work there in January.  If I were to do that, I would probably do a mix of waitressing, cleaning the rooms, and looking after the animals.  

We have spent our whole time in Italy trying to learn Italian cooking.  There are some rules that can never be broken, like the blasphemy of eating Parmesan on fish pasta.  There are other rules that can be bent, like which spices to put in Bruschetta (but not how you pronounce Bru-sketta).  The trick is knowing how much to bend the rules.  We have also learned that the way to make friends is to ask for their method of preparation of a certain dish.  Then you have a friend and a secret method for the perfect artichokes—if you can understand the Italian of course. 

My mum is a champion of the “authentic” Italian recipes that we learned this way.  After an intense discussion about garlic and bread, I would be very surprised at how much she seemed to actually understand.  Then my mum told me that she couldn’t understand the specifics either, but she couldn’t tell that to the enthusiastic Italians.  Regardless of the specific recipes, the meals she made were fantastic.  My mum made some of the best meals of the trip in the kitchen in Dragodena using the fresh ingredients we had just bought in Tole. 

The Amalfi Coast: October 20th-23rd

There were four major historic trade empires based in Italy.  One was Venice—this is the one I have had the most exposure to, perhaps it was most focused on expansion.  Pisa and Genoa were two other major empires.  The fourth was the trade empire of the Amalfi Coast—the Amalfitani.  

After our two days in Rome, which was not long enough for me, we took the train to the Amalfi Coast.  My mum has an ethnobotanist friend and colleague in Rome who did her masters and PhD in the steep, little valleys that make up the Amalfitani landscape.  The friend, Valentina, offered to show us around and promised to tell us the traditional uses of each plant we could see.  My parents, who had been starved for a scientific analysis of plants, were like little kids in a candy store.  “What’s this plant?  This one?  Ooh, I recognize it now!” 

Everyone says that the Amalfi Coast is beautiful, but I had no idea what to expect.  I pictured a demure little coastline with pretty sand beaches and quaint seaside villages.  However, there is nothing demure or subtle about Amalfi.  Mountains with vertical cliffs rise straight up out of the ocean and extend into the clouds.  Fog drifts down off the mountains and wraps the whole coastline in white and then pummels the landscape with a tropical-force storm.  Where the mountains meet, there are steep sided canyons, streams, and tiny coves surrounded by cliffs.  These valleys are a hotspot of plant diversity and are designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Harvesting Feral Lemons

The towns are perched improbably on mountainsides and seem like they will slide into the ocean at any moment.  Between the towns, the narrow road winds above the sea and follows every crevice and bulge of the mountains.  This is not a road for the faint of heart or people who get carsick.  This road basically has one lane, except that huge busses regularly squeeze past each other on their paths from town to town.  Most people take the bus in Amalfi and it is not surprising—the roads are terrifying and the views are a breathtaking distraction from the road. 

Lemons Growing on a Hill

This seems to be a trend throughout the Mediterranean: human habitation and cultivation extends way up the mountains.  In Amalfi, every cultivatable space is occupied.  Extreme terraces divide the landscape horizontally.  The lemons and oranges that are cultivated on these terraces are swathed in black shade-cloth as protection against the elements.  Traditionally, grape arbors acted as the sunscreen.  When this was an empire, the Amalfitanis used to export wood and wood products around the Mediterranean.  It’s a wonder, but much of the Amalfi Coast is still forested. 

Our travels in Amalfi would have been impossible without Valentina.  She knew where to hike, what to see, whom to talk to, and where to eat.  With Valentina showing us around, I feel like I got a real sense of the Amalfitani culture. 

Sugar!

On our second to last night, we held a party for ourselves.  That morning my dad and Valentina went to the town’s pescheria (fish store) and chose for us some of the local, fresh caught seafood.  They came home with bulging bags of mussels, about 60 fresh anchovies and three other species of fish about 15cm long.  At dinnertime, we shut all the interior doors so that the kitchen was sealed from the rest of the house and we started cooking.  The mussels were first steamed in a light tomato-wine-olive oil sauce and the aroma of cooking tomatoes filled the room.  When these were cooked, we devoured them as finger food exclaiming over their magnificent flavor. 

Frying Fish with Garlic

Next up were the anchovies.  Half a liter of oil was poured onto the pan and then all the little fish were poured in.  I guess technically they were deep-fried.  However, I have never tasted anything fried that tasted so light or healthy.  They weren’t greasy or fishy, they were delicious.  These are eaten from head to tail and are partly delightful because they need to be eaten using our fingers.  This was my favorite part of the meal.

The other fish was also fried is the same manner and also eaten with our hands.  It was astonishing to me to be able to taste the different flavors in each type of fish all prepared the same way.  Georgie is the stereotypical teenage boy and is always hungry and eating constantly.  That evening he ate, and ate, and ate, and the rest of us just watched him in awe. 

Fried Fish

There seem to be a higher ratio of 

pasticceria's (pastry shop) in Amalfi than anywhere else I’ve been.  Perhaps this is because most of the businesses cater to tourists and sell gelato, pottery, souvenirs, and sweets.  My favorite shop was one that existed before the waves of tourists and exists mainly for the locals.  Inside the store there are tables and tables showing cakes, pastries, and regional specialties.  The Rum Baba is a puff pastry shaped in a cone that is served in a puddle of rum.  There is a ricotta cheese cake with a layer of pears, this is something they invented.  In fact, this pasticeria is so good, that the previous Pope ordered his cakes here. 

The Pope's Pastries

When George had finally finished all the fish, and after a suitable period of digestion and conversation, out came the dessert.  Our dessert was a selection of the specialty cakes from that excellent pasticceria patronized by the Pope.  There was a light and fluffy chocolate cake, a Rum Baba, which I strongly disliked but my father adored and two other absolutely mouthwatering confections. 

If I end up staying in Italy any longer, I am going to leave round like that girl in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  I don’t have such a sweet tooth, at least, I am discerning in the sweets that I do like.  They can’t be too sugary, they need to have an interesting flavor and they have to be special in some way.  Unfortunately, (or fortunately) all the baked goods in Italy fit these criteria.  Also, each town has a specialty that I always need to taste.  For once, I am eating as much sugar as my brother. 

The Vatican: October 19th

Millions of people, religious and not, flock to the Vatican each year.  In fact, 22 000 people pass through the Vatican each day and tourism is the Vatican’s single biggest source of income.  Individual travelers stand in a line for up to two hours waiting for admittance.  However, the cruise ship tours bypass the lines.  They pay five euros more per person and have a direct access point into the Vatican.  

We were told by friends and “The Lonely Planet Guidebook” to get to the Vatican early.  “Arrive early” is even plastered all over the Internet.  However, nowhere is it written why one must arrive early or when “early” starts.  So, like most days when we get up early and move quickly, we arrived to the Vatican after noon.  And, predictably, it was crammed with people. 

When we arrived to the Vatican, I was stunned by the line that snaked around St. Peter’s Square.  Our bewildered group of four was immediately pounced upon by an advertiser for a guided tour saying that we could bypass the milling mobs.  We skeptically took the tour and “prayed” that our guide would be interesting. 

The Line

I am saying this now for other similarly disorganized travelers: arrive early to avoid the crowds!  And if you can get a good guide, it is worth it, or else the antiquities are endless, without meaning, and the Sistine Chapel has too much art.  We had an excellent, very irreverent tour guide.  From her, we heard the rough side of Vatican history and learned many new details that aren’t present in other straight historical tours.  

The site of the Vatican has been sacred since pre-Christian times.  First it was a place where one could receive prophecies by the banks of the Tiber River.  Then it was a Roman Temple and a place where the Romans martyred Christians.  St. Peter was killed on the site of modern St. Peter’s Square and was buried in a pagan cemetery underneath a smallish rock.  St. Peter = St. Pedro = St. Rock.  The original St. Peter’s Basilica was 1200 years old and decrepit, when Pope Urban VIII had it replaced with the new, grander cathedral that we see today. 

St. Peter's Basilica in 1630

To enter the Sistine Chapel, one must first go the through the Vatican museums.  These are not, as I had thought, museums of the Church’s history, but are instead the private art collections and buildings of the Popes.  Each Pope had different artistic sensibility—one liked Greek statues, another had people make him maps.  Pope Pius IX had all the genitalia knocked off the statues because they were too suggestive.  Now there are restorers trying to affix the offending pieces back to the poor marble men. 

Like the Louvre, each room of the museum is a piece of art itself.  The ceiling of one is completely flat, yet I could not make my eyes believe it.  According to optics, the columns were “real”, they were casting a “shadow”, and that was “definitely” a bas-relief.  Yet all this was created just to house the art inside. 

Mosaic of Minerva

Red porphyry marble columns stand as sentinels at the doorways and gold glitters on the walls.  The sources for red porphyry marble are now exhausted.  The floors are as vibrant and textured as the ceilings, even while covered in feet.  We were walking on priceless mosaics.  Many of these mosaics were originally found in other places and brought to the Vatican.  Each stone was numbered and ordered in relation to its surroundings.  Then the mosaic was dismantled and reset in the floor of the Vatican according to the numbers.  The stones extend an inch down into the floor, thus feet pose no threat of rubbing away the colorful marble. 

In 1861 AD, Italy became an independent country and all the city-states lost their autonomy—including the Vatican.  It was still a city, but it was under the control of the Italian government.  When Mussolini came to power in the 1930’s, he made a deal with the Vatican.  They could become completely autonomous with one condition: the private art collection and their buildings had to be opened to the public. 

The Room of Maps

Before 1932, what is today the Vatican museum would have been empty of people—all the art was the Pope’s private collection.  The Pope and his friends would have seen all these rooms still, silent, and with dust motes hanging in the sunshine (well maybe not, but I have always wanted to write that).  The long chambers would have echoed with his footsteps.  I would find the empty museum slightly creepy, but I can see how it would promote quiet contemplation of life. 

National Geographic estimated that if you looked at each piece of art in the Vatican Museums for 20 seconds, it would take 12 years, day and night, to see everything.  Yet the art does not seem to be preserved carefully.  Measures are taken to promote tourism, but the tapestries hang in full sunlight.  The map room is also flooded with direct sunshine—presumably so that tourists can see well.  The art itself is also disorganized.  The room of busts is long chamber with rows of heads extending down the walls.  They are organized, somewhat arbitrarily, based on their size, hairstyle, and facial expressions. 

God and Adam

We had originally gone to the Vatican just to see the Sistine Chapel.  I seem to remember learning in school that the Sistine Chapel was the epitome of the Renaissance and the magnum opus of an artistic genius.  Images from the Sistine Chapel are used as synonyms for perfection and beauty, in particular that of God creating Adam.  

Michelangelo was a sculptor in Florence, until he was commissioned by Pope Julius II to repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  He originally refused, but was ordered by Florentine officials to obey the Pope.  When Michelangelo arrived to the Vatican, he was presented with Pope Julius’ grand scheme for the ceiling consisting of many life sized figures and intricate details all done as frescoes. 

Part of the Sistine Chapel's Ceiling

Fresco means “fresh”.  One paints fresco by laying seven layers of plaster and then painting into the top one while it is still wet—but not too wet.  It is a difficult technique that takes experience to gauge the proper dampness of the plaster.  

The chapel’s ceiling was the first time Michelangelo had ever attempted to paint fresco.  Furthermore, he had to paint standing on scaffolding five-stories off the ground.  After working steadily for a couple of months, he examined the work from the perspective of someone standing on the ground.  The heads were too long, the feet were too wide, and the angels were fat.  Michelangelo threw a fit; he fired his expensive advisors, spattered paint all over the ceiling, and left for Florence vowing to never set foot in the Vatican or to paint fresco again. 

Well the Pope wasn’t too happy about this.  He complained to Florence and they sent a protesting Michelangelo back to the Vatican.  I picture the next conversation between the Pope and Michelangelo happening in the Sistine Chapel.  I think they stood meters apart, feet spread, and with fire shooting out of their eyes.  Perhaps Michelangelo was covered in rock dust, and presumably his hair was standing on end.  By the end of their “conversation” Michelangelo had agreed to paint the Sistine Chapel again, on two conditions.  One, Michelangelo would never have to paint fresco again, and two, Michelangelo could choose the subjects and design of the ceiling. 

Missed it by That Much

The Sistine Chapel’s ceiling is organized in a series of panels, or scenes from the Old Testament.  Michelangelo apparently studied Greek statues for inspiration of the perfect human form and the incorporation of motion into art.  Therefore, Michelangelo’s frescos seem to be caught in the midst of an action and seem like they pop from the ceiling.  There are so many fine details that reflect Michelangelo’s genius.  In the first panel, God seems to be one-dimensional while the angels and world he is creating are full of life.  The creation of Adam is also brilliant.  Adam is still and doll-like while God is vibrant and bright.  Yet as Adam reaches for God, his skin takes on more details and appearance of life. 

The Chapel Sans People

As single images, the panels of the Sistine Chapel are spectacular.  However, the combination of the ceiling and walls was too much for my eye to absorb.  I expected to love the art and to want to stay in the chapel indefinitely.  However, after a mere ten minutes of awe I was ready to leave.  If there had been less people, or a more reverent crowd, I think I would have been more inclined to stay.  But as it was, I like the Sistine Chapel more as an idea and as a memory than I did in person.  

The images are from these links, in order of appearance:

http://www.roninrome.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/stpeter.jpg

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-st-peters-basilica-photos/slides/1630-painting-by-viviano-codazzi.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o3/67/871967/1/117176693.5aVzoutj.vaticanmosaic.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Vatican_Museum_-_Gallery_of_Maps.jpg/450px-Vatican_Museum_-_Gallery_of_Maps.jpg

http://riflettiamo.eldy.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/god2-sistine_chapel3.png
http://www.destination360.com/europe/italy/images/s/italy-sistine-chapel.jpg
http://www.emotiontours.it/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/sistine-chapel.jpg
http://mahan.wonkwang.ac.kr/lecture/renaissance/art/michel/1chapel.jpg

Trouble with Truffles

The Unprepossessing Fungi

We were searching for the elusive truffle—in a small grocery store.  After we had compiled our assorted groceries on the counter, we bravely used our phrasebook Italian to ask if they sold any truffles.  I understood the answer to be “of course”, but I know that her rapid Italian was accompanied by a large smile.  She bent down and pulled out a little box lined with paper.  The box was opened lovingly and 5 truffles were proudly shown.  They were dirty white, knobby, and (oh, blasphemy) kind of ugly blobs.  Their pungent smell, kind of like old cheese, started to permeate the store.  A blistering demonstration of cooking methods ensued and when we shook our heads in bewilderment, she only talked louder and faster.  Then we asked for the price for one truffle.  Tartufo, apparently, are measured on high precision scales that resemble fancy silver calculators.  The scale showed 42 euros—for one!  We opted to give this Tuscan specialty a miss and to save our money for a cheaper variety of fungi—like my new favorite, Porcini. 

Finding Dragodena

Ca d’ Ricci and Our Van

Dragodena is located between the villages of Zoca and Tolé—at least, that was what our detailed directions told us.  However, upon arriving in Tolé and following the directions meticulously, we were unable to find the borgo.  In our large white van, we trespassed on countless private roads struggling to find Dragodena.  As the sun set over the cultivated and fallow fields the land seemed to have an added glowing dimension.  We admitted defeat when we could no longer see the road and vowed to try again in the morning.  The next morning, Dragodena was found with ease and we moved in sans mishap. 

Dragodena is a cluster of stone houses in various states of repair.  A completely restored whitewashed summer residence sits beside an abandoned stone structure with a sagging roof and heavily shuttered windows.  Ca d’ Ricci, the name of our villa, has character that oozes out of the peeling yellow beams, the green shutters, and the golden sunlight streaming through the windows.  We are delighted with this house and its history.  This is the oldest house in the borgo and was built in the 14^th century.  It was used as a base for the Nazis in the Second World War and was later abandoned in the 1970’s (except for the squirrels and bats).  There are bullet holes in the aforementioned shutters. 

Olives and Wine

From our base in Dragodena, we voyaged into the other areas of Italy.  Instead of visiting the major Tuscan cities like Firenze, Siena, and Lucia, we decided to explore the “wilds” of Tuscany.  Specifically, we were in Chianti, a region of Tuscany known for its… wine.  Tuscany is truly a land of cultivated rolling hills.  Olive orchards are interspersed with vineyards, which march in organized rows up and down hillsides.  The autumn light here is golden and to my eyes makes the hills glow.  I think I have thousands of photos all trying to capture that light through the vineyards. 

More Vineyards

Like everyone else who visits Tuscany, we wanted to tour wineries and taste copious quantities of wine and cheese.  While told that winery tours were impossible for small serendipitous groups, we held to our quest.  In our normal manner of operation, we arrived during the midday siesta of the tourism information center and consequently drove around aimlessly wondering what we were going to do.  We didn’t drift for very long.  Quite by accident, we had found exactly what we were looking for: a place to taste specialty wine—organic, no less!  We had found the summer residence and prolific winery of the Capponi Family. 

Grapes for Vino Santo

Cypress trees line the driveway.  They own 400 acres of land.  Their winter home is a mansion – a palazzio – in Florence.  The Capponi Family had been making wine for centuries, but until the 1960’s, like the rest of Italian wine makers, they were only producing for themselves.  Since the Capponi’s had such a spacious wine cellar, they may have historically also sold some of their wine to the surrounding countryside.  My favorite part of our winery tour was seeing a room laden with drying grapes destined for special dessert wine (vino Santo).  Three different grapes hung together created a mottled tapestry that filtered the soft Tuscan light through the dusky room. 

Next we saw the steel vats that separate the grape flesh from the skins and squeeze the skins to extract the juice.  The discarded skins are sent to a Grappa (the Italian version of Raki) still down the road.  The Capponi wines are aged in two ways: in cement casks and in oak barrels of varying sizes.  The smaller the oak barrel, the stronger oak flavor in the wine.  At the present, many wineries only use the cement casks or steel, as it is more efficient and cost-effective.  Aging in oak is the traditional method. 

Wine Barrels

We’ve been told that proper oak for wine barrels is disappearing, like good cork.  For barrels, wood has to be very dense and have a fine grain—both characteristics of old, slow growing, wild trees.  Since such trees are becoming rare, oak barrels are harder to obtain.  This is compounded because oak barrels are leached of their tannins after only three uses and are discarded to become planters.  The discussion made me worried that the world’s old oak trees are ending up as a discarded wine barrels.  While it is great for the wine makers to be able to produce wine in traditional ways, I think we need to figure out a way for this to be done sustainably, without depleting natural oak populations. 

Chianti Classico Reserva

I am not a wine connoisseur; while I like many white wines, I usually find red wines astringent.  However, tasting the Caponni Family’s Chianti Classico Reserva, I found a red wine I really liked.  It had a nice nose, legs, and undertones from the oak barrel it was aged in blah blah blah fancy wine talk.  All I know is that each wine I tasted became more “complex” and more interesting—ending with the Reserva.  Then the wines got “too interesting” for my palate and I was back to bemused ignorance. 

For the last year, I have accidentally been spreading misinformation about our trip in Italy.  It turns out that we are staying in the region of Emilia-Romagna, not in Umbria.  Emilia-Romagna is Tuscany’s less known, quieter northern neighbor.

Across the Valley From Dragodena

Tuscany is the land of fertile rolling hills, summer villas, and a thriving tourism industry.  As we drove north to Emilia-Romagna from Tuscany, the landscape became more rugged.  The hills rise higher and the slopes are steeper.  Large (comparatively) tracts of land are left wild and wooded.  The soil is rocky and has large clods of dirt that would foil any non-motorized tilling device.  Emilia-Romagna is historically a poorer part of Italy, probably partly because of its less fertile farms.  The local specialties are “peasant” food, like bread made with water and a thin gruel.  I like this wilder version of Italy better than the groomed and civilized Tuscany.  As we were driving back to Dragodena, the rugged hills and tough beauty seemed to say to me “Ah, home”. 

Bienvenuti à Venizia

Sundried Tomatoes

On our first day in Venice we wandered through a maze of winding alleys with no particular goal but to get a sense of Venetian culture.  We found, to my great delight, a vast fish market that was joined with an even more extensive fresh produce market.  Mounds of sundried tomatoes (four different types), grapes the size of the first joint of my thumb, various fruits, figs, peperinos (small peppers), and squashes spilled from rows of tables.  It seems that Venice, once the capital of an empire of traders, is still an affluent town of merchants. 

I am in love.  Not with guy, but with the culture of food adoration in Italy.  Every other store in Venice seemed to be a bakery or pasta venue.  And I have never seen so much pizza!  Pizza laden with mushrooms (like porcini and other “gourmet” varieties) onions, tomatoes and a dazzling variety of cheeses is the norm.  Even plain cheese pizzas taste interesting and new.  I would be happy eating pizza, especially with the ultra-thin crust, for every meal of the day.  Everyone we saw eating was having fun with their food—tourists and locals alike.  For once I am not alone in my quest for excellent, new food. 

The Grand Canal

There are some areas of Venice, like the Rialto Bridge that are literally swarming with tourists.  There is no room to maneuver and each sudden step catapults you into someone else’s face.  There is no personal space.  In the streets away from the famous sights, the city becomes comfortably empty.  We saw other people, but they were either Venetians or a more interesting, adventurous brand of tourist. 

Venice looks exactly like it does in movies and postcards.  14^th century buildings line the canals and are reflected in the water.  Reflections are broken by a gondola’s paddle stroke, sending ripples to the base of the bridges.  Beneath the surface of the picturesque city, however, environmental and municipal problems abound.  Garbage bobs along the edges of the canals and drifts in little eddies.  The water in the canals is a murky muddy colour that obscures half submerged steps. 

Bobbing for Garbage

As we have all heard, Venice is submerging at a faster rate today than in previous eras.  However, I had thought that the increased rate of sinking was due mainly to climate change.  Though climate change is a contributor, tourism seems to be the catalyst for this particular problem.  We learned that about 15 years ago, the channel in front St. Marco’s square was extensively dredged to enable cruise ships to sail past the square to give their tourists the famous view.  This dredging is apparently the main cause of Venice sinking—is

Finally, a Picture of My Parents Together

lands are eroding to fill in the deepened channel.  The local Venetian government did not make this decision; rather, a higher official in the tourism industry made the executive choice—quietly though, because money was involved.  

On our second day in Venice, we met my grandparents as they were coming off their cruise of the Mediterranean.  We have been looking forward to this section of the trip, but alas, we will only be traveling with my grandparents for a week.  The six of us will be staying in a 15^th century-partially-restored-villa in a borgo (hamlet) from where we will explore the rest of Tuscany and Umbria together.