Traveling from Siena to Naploi and Sorrento

10 gennaio
We finished our evening early, and had most things packed and ready to go before going to bed last night. We also (like good Italians!) packed a bag of food—made prosciutto/pecorino/olive mix/olive oil sandwiches on baguettes, plus water and leftover cookies and mandarins, and a bar of hazelnut chocolate… Yesterday we went to the post office to ship a box each to our homes… things we bought for ourselves and others, and some of the things we brought that have been replaced by new things… mostly just new cotton tops, and a couple of sweaters (I found a great chartreuse mohair sweater at Sisley that I tried to resist, but when I went back to the shop after first trying it on, it was still there waiting for me—the only bright color among the dark blacks and browns—and it—along with much of the past season’s fashions—was on sale!) Anyway, at the post office it was a cumbersome process to send the packages, complicated by having both the “to” and “from” addresses in the US, instead of the from being from Italy and the to a US address… the very nice clerk at the post office said that she thought it “may be a problem,” but took the packages and our Euro anyway, and we can only hope for the best and will await the arrival of our boxes in 1 to 3 weeks…

We planned a 8:47 train from Siena to Firenze, then a 10:49 Eurostar that would go directly to Napoli with only one stop in Roma and would arrive in Napoli at 14:05. That would give us plenty of time to get to the lower platform where the local Circumvesuvia runs from Napoli, past Pompei, and ends at Sorrento, a 70 minute trip, and to arrive in Sorrento before dark. Napoli is known for its petty theviery and pickpocketing, targeting tourists at busy terminals, and I remember at the platform for the Circumvesuvia in Napoli there are signs warning of such things… On that train to Sorrento in 2005 I was very careful, and I remember a man sitting in the seat right next to me, even though there were many open seats on the car… impossible to know whether he was a thief, ws just jsing the Italian concept of space as opposed to the US concept, or was trying to pick me up… anyway, we did want to get to Sorrento in the light.

The morning started out just glorious, with the first day of clear blue sky since I arrived in Italy. Just as Trudi andbI got to the outdice door of the apartment, Pino pulled up in his Renault and we loaded our things. A couple of days ago he had problems with it starting and bought a new battery, but when he tried to start it it wouldn’t cooperate, so Trudy and I got out and gave it a little push and it quickly started… we were laughing and Trudy assured Pino that in our younger years we had done this many times with old VW bugs—how true! We stopped at a bar on the way to the station and had quick cappucinni and caffe and brioche. Oh, I have figured out this brioche/coronetto issue… a coronetto looks just like a croissant, with the turned up ends, like horns. A brioche looks like a croissant, but without the ends being turned—they are more chopped off. Pino also gave us another package of riciorelli, wrapped like a gift—he brought one to the apt a couple days ago, so now we have plenty of the wonderful almond cookies to eat in the next week!

We arrived at the Siena station in plenty of time, and said our very fond goodbyes. Trudy expressed her appreciation of Pino’s hospitality and he assured her that she always has a place to stay in Siena. I will never forget his wonderful friendship and warm cordiality while we stayed in his beautiful apartment, and I will dream of returning many times, and surely will….

In Florence, our connecting train was cancelled—first it showed a 25 minute delay (“rit.” for ritardo on the Partinze sign) then showed a 2 hour delay, so I went to the ticket window and got a new schedule. The clerk (another very helpful clerk!) gave me a printout of the next train connection, and I asked her about a refund, and she gave me a paper to bring to an office in the Naples station, and said that since our train was cancelled, they would refund 50%. At 122 euro for the two of us, that will be worth finding the refund office!

So we are on the train to Rome, where we will switch trains for Napoli. Both are Eurostar, non stop, but this will get us into Napoli at 15:38, still in time to catch the local train and get to Sorrento by about 17:00. The countryside from Firenze to Roma began with beautiful rolling hills with large homes on them, to large expanses of rolling farm land interspersed with homes and barns, and now as we are closer to Roma, modern buildings, and apartments. When ever I have ever been on a train in urbanized areas, there are always small plots of farm land with sheds, and small greenhouses all along the train line. These must be plots that people living in the apartments and homes, who do not have their own land to farm so use these plots.

The train from Rome to Napoli was uneventful, with glimpses of the Mediterranean as we approached. In the stazione we followed the signs to the Circumvesuviana, the local train that connects Napoli to Sorrento, with about 20 stops, and takes 70 minutes… More later from Sorrento!
Ciao tutti!

Above pictures of the Duomo and the Piazza around the main entrance of the Duomo

9 gennaio

As composed by Trudy and Connie…
As we prepare to leave Siena, another chapter begins… we are in the kitchen in S. Francesco, still in Siena, and as I type Trudy is preparing dinner… salads of baby greens, tomatoes, walnuts, and green onions, laced with aged pecorino from this area, drizzled with local extra virgin olio di oliva, a splash of red wine vinegar (aceto di vino rosso) and a dash of sea salt from the region. For our primo we will enjoy bowls of last night’s minestrone (zuppa di verdure e fagioli) and the last of the Rosso di Montalcio that Pino has provided, individually bottled from the large fiasco that he gets from his wine maker friend in Montalcino. As he tells it, in places like Montalcino, where the Vino Nobile di Montalcino (different but no less a wine than the Brunelli) are made, the regulations of wine making from the state level prescribe exactly how much of the Vino Nobile can be produced, so the remaining wines must be labeled Rosso… which is to the winemakers’ detriment, but definitely to our delight!

The exterior door to the S. Francesco apartment

Last night we had a lovely cena (dinner) with Pino and Catherine, the only other roommate (she is a student at the Scoula di Lionardo di Vinci-Italian language school). Trudy set the table with the joyful yellow, blue, and green tablecloth covered with olive branhes, and plates and placemats… we had minestrone, bread, and had sliced aged pecorino, olives, and pears, plus a small amount of broiled bruschetta left over from the aperitivi that Trudy and I ate at about 18:00 to ward off our hunger as we prepared for a 20:00 dinner. The zuppa was delicious and we ended the meal with cantucinni (both the traditional mandorle (almond) and some made with chocolate), that we dipped into Vin Santo (which Trudy now calls “the dipping sauce”). I started the evening saying that we would talk only in Italian, but that didn’t last too long and we all enjoyed great food, laughs, and interesting conversation—sharing stories and learning more about each others’ cultures—especially Italian culture from Pino..

Tomorrow we will travel to Sorrento…

Ciao Tutti!

Siena

These are from the day we traveled from Florence to Montalcino, with a couple hour stop in Siena to see my friend Pino!

From Siena

8 gennaio

I am sitting in the kitchen at the beautiful table, with the armadio full of dishes in front of me, and the other full of pots and pans behind me… most of the furniture and pictures and fixtures and lights and mirrors in this house are either old or antique… there is a woven fabric framed wall hanging, about 8 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide in the living room that is from the 18th century… all mixed with a modern kitchen and a balcony with a view of Siena and beyond… you must experience this to understand how well appointed this apartment is.

Trudy and I spent the morning cleaning up some cupboards in the kitchen—after a season of students living here, and with the last couple weeks of construction in one of the bathrooms (tile cutting in the living room!!?!) we decided to pitch in and earn our keep by cleaning up some of the kitchen… then I started a soup from some beans I soaked last night. I made a minestrone, and the dark green kale/cabbage that I bought was unlike any I’d seen, so prepared it like I would kale, and it added a nice touch to the soup. Tonight we will have a cena (dinner) at the house as we have the last couple nights—it’s great to cook in after so many restaurants! Pino will come for cena, and if the other roommate Catherine is here and wants dinner we will invite her. I will make some simple bruschetta with tomatoes and olive oil, and we will eat the soup with some wine, and for dessert some vin santo with cantucci, and basta! There is a supermarket in the middle of the old town where you can get anything you want, and then there are the meat, cheese, vegetable, salami markets within the town, as well as several small markets, some very close to the apartment.

We have shopped a little and bought a few things at the sales—many of the stores have their last-season clothes on 20-50% off sales, so we have bought some tshirts, and tanks, and sweaters… now tomorrow we will pack up our boxes of things that we bought in Florence and some that we have been wearing but don’t need any longer, and we will each ship a box home.

The travel plans have been fluid, and although I keep thinking and planning to go to Puglia, and to Bari where my grandfather’s parents were born, and where he was raised, it is not to be on this trip. We will stay in Siena another day, and on Saturday will leave for Naples and stay in Sorrento… more later… ciao tutti!

About Montalcino

7 gennaio

I am in my favorite place in all of Siena—the apartment in P. S. Francesco where I lived the summer I came to language school… Trudy and I arrived here yesterday after spending 3 days (2 nights) in Montalcino and it is just wonderful to have a house and a warm bedroom with down quilts, and a heater that is so warm that it must be turned down at night, and a full kitchen, and a big kitchen table to sit and eat and visit with friends, and all the cooking and serving equipment you could ask for, and a tv that has all the fun Italian channels, plus one BBC … perfetto!

On Sunday morning we left Florence by bus, spent the afternoon in Siena with Pino, had some pizza, and took the bus to Montalcino. We arrived there in the dark, which was ok, since we would return to Siena in the light so that we could see the magnificent country side on the way back… anyways, Montalcino was really beautiful, but the pictures don’t do it justice—the light is flat and gray with this cold weather. It is a perfectly situated town perched on a hill with about 300 degrees of view down to the valleys below, and just a little bit of a hill to the southwest… it is in the Val d’Orcia and is completely surrounded by rolling, cultivated farmlands, dotted by homes and farm buildings on the hilltops… the rows of vines and olives and crops are in patches that have been cultivated for centuries to take advantage of each individual micro-climate that each slope and hillside, and ravine offers to the crops being grown… We are so used to the beauty of “wilderness” and of “natural” (not crafted or managed by our hands) in the US, and in Italy it is the beautiful, rugged, rocky land that has been sculpted by our hands to bring the most delicious wines and olive oil and vegetables and livestock that is the most beautiful thing here. The landscape has captivated people for as long as it has been cultivated, I think, and you can see some of the most beautiful photographs—tens of thousands, I suppose, but none can do justice like seeing it with your eyes, each field and stone house from a unique perspective that no one else has ever seen… The thought of leaving, and of not being able to pick out a house and a farm, and to move in and to live in this beauty… well, those are the thoughts I had riding on that bus coming back to Siena from Montalcino…

Back to Montalcino—we arrived in the dark with no map of the town (it’s tiny!) but with the phone number of the agent who we rented from… with some words on the phone, and with directions from a cute little old wine shop owner, we easily made our way up a street, took the first left, passed through two piazza, and found Camere del Bacco on our left. The woman was there in a couple minutes, and we went up two flights of stairs—the first floor holding a convenient and cute kitchen, to our room on the second floor with a window facing out to the street. I asked the agent for suggestions for dinner and she gave me two—one was Bacchanal, and when we left we went to Bacchus, which turns out to be right before Bacchanal, but in the end we had a delightful experience and a wonderful dinner… We first stopped in a café wine shop (EVERY shop in Montalcino, from the tailor, to the the cafes, to the souvenir shops, are wine shops!) and went into the back room, the brick ceilinged “cantina” and looked over the wine list and ordered two glasses of 2001 Brunello (can’t remember the winery off hand) and enjoyed those glasses immensely, accompanied by the plate of bruschetta that was brought to our table gratis—just a large slice of freshly toasted bread, rubbed with garlic, and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and a little salt, and a little chopped tomato… mmmm….. it really can’t get much better than that…

So then we went to Bacchus for dinner. The restaurant is two small rooms, the first with just a large deli case with mom and dad and son Alessandro standing behind it, and another room with about 6 tables, and the walls lined with Brunello di Montalcino, and Rosso di Montalcino, and probably a few Chiantis… the wines were available by the bottle, at the shelf price, with a 1Euro each charge to drink it at the table… sign us up! We first chose a Talenti 2003 for 33 Euro, and then ordered—tagliatelle with cinghale (wild boar sauce) and Trudy had some ravioli… Alessandro brought two big Brunello glasses, and one small wine glass, and a decanter, and a glass funnel and the wine… he opened the wine, then poured a small amount into one of the large glasses, swirled to coat the entire inside, then poured that wine into the other large glass, swirled again, then poured that wine into the small glass and gave it to me to taste… interesting, and the first time I had ever seen this done… at first I thought he was rinsing the glasses, and would toss that wine, but no—it was to taste… so I did and it was good:) He then poured us a bit in our glasses, and poured the rest in the funnel in the top of the decanter, which served to aerate the wine as it went into the decanter. Most delicious dinner and the Brunello was outstanding.

We spent Monday walking, starting with cappuccini and coronetti (I think I mistakenly called them brioche earlier, but in Italy the croissants are called coronets) which come either plain, or filled with chocolate, cream, or marmalade… usually when I ask for the chocolate ones they are “already finished,” so settle for plain or cream). Then we walked, starting with the fort at the upper end of the city. To enter and pay the 4 euro to walk up the stairs and to walk around the entire wall, you entered into a wonderful enoteca to pay, then going upstairs there were a series of large rooms with an art show… then up a series of stairs and ladders to walk along the top of the wall, and to climb to the top of the towers at each corner. Wonder views all around, to the town below, the newer outskirts with more modern buildings, then off into the horizon in every direction to rolling hills of farms… Back in town we went into some shops, and found a wonderful jewelry shop—the owner was working in the shop, and she is a Japanese woman, and she spends most months in Montalcino, and a couple in Japan, and one in Canada, and does her buying abroad… her husband is also Japanese but works in international marketing—I think for Italian wines, which she said he is “passionate” about.

We went into a wonderful trattoria and had a plate of pecorino with honey—slices of pecorino and pears, with a little dish of honey in the middle… then ordered two bowls of Ribollata (did I mention that it was still cold outside???) and had a couple of glasses of Rosso di Montalcino and I finished with a café… all in all, a lovely way to spend two hours… then back to the room to relax and write a bit and read. In the room the internet never really came up as being available on my computer, but it magically worked perfectly the two days we were there.

We finished the day with some more walking, and a light dinner at a restaurant in a hotel… it was the only time in Italy that I can remember the waiter being a little pushy about eating more than a pasta plate and wine… he kept asking if we wanted more, bringing the menu by, and we finally relented by sharing a semifredo of chocolate with orange… it was as beautiful as it was delicious.

The next day was Bafana and we planned to leave on the 12:30 bus to Siena. Most stores, and our travel agency, were closed, but the bars and wine shops and some of the tourist shops were open. I went out earlier than Trudy, found tickets for the bus on my second try at a Tobbachi (many important things, including bus tickets, postage stamps, lottery tickets, cards to charge cellular phones, and regular phone cards are sold at the tobacco shops… but take note—most of them close during the ~13:00-15:00 afternoon lunch break.

Bafana marks the end of the holiday season in Italy. On the eve of the holiday (5 January) children put up stockings, and a spirit who seems to be part witch on a broom, and part Mrs. Claus brings goodies for the children, but is also used as a tool to bribe children, as they are told that Bafana can see through keyholes, so they know when children are being naughty… like our Santa Claus, who “knows when you are sleeping, knows when you’re awake, knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake…). I imagine most cultures and religions have something similar to attempt to make children mind for at least part of the year.

The town was coming out to the central plaza, Piazza Popolo, and the fire department was doing some exercises in the plaza—they had a rope running from the top of the clock tower and tied off on the back of a jeep… They were rappelling down the tower, but no one was holding the other end of the belay rope… then they took that second rappelling rope and tied it off to the jeep as well. A couple of them were getting set up in rapelling harnesses, and were climbing up the tower as we had to leave… we grabbed some pizza “porta via” (to go) at a little bakery right by the jeep, and wanted to watch to see what the next move was going to be, but had to go catch the bus. I figure they were going to do a decent along those two ropes, but we didn’t get to stay to find out. The piazza was full of people and families watching—very festive and fun to watch!