SiMonica’s Voyage

Yesterday, August 28th, we left Tonino and Rita’s house and drove to Rimini. Rimini, of course, is known as the birthplace of Federico Fellini and was comically depicted in Amarcord. We came there because we were hot and wanted to take a swim in the Adriatic Sea. We walked through the Fellini Park close to the boardwalk, which contained a giant fake old film camera, and a fountain with four horses spewing water out of their large nostrils. I couldn’t figure out if it was some sort of a message for the public, to keep their noses clean, or just an artistic expression. The main beach of Rimini, which stretched for a while, was mostly deserted due to the abrupt end of the traditional Italian vacation season. The sea was shallow for about 100 meters. It was warm. Due to the steady wind there were a fair amount of kite-surfers doing flips in the air. €200 for a three or four day lesson.

After that, we headed to the Republic of San Marino, which is about 25 kilometers inland from Rimini. The Republic consists of a few small cities, and the main city of San Marino perched majestically on a high cliff. We didn’t need to bring our passports to get in, as there was only a large sign announcing our entrance to the oldest republic in Europe. Despite not needing your passport to enter this strange blast-from-the-past, the tourist office in the center of the old city of San Marino will gladly stamp a visa in your passport for €2.50. I really wanted to get this curiosity in my passport (I do now have 50 extra pages in my passport), but alas, I did not bring my passport on this short journey. We drove all the way up to the city of San Marino only to find out that the bungalow that we rented at a campsite is located down the hill. We found this campground/RV park/bungalow complex, settled in and then returned to San Marino. We were lucky enough to witness the changing of the guard at the public palace which involved three soldiers in beautiful uniforms following their sergeant’s orders to turn right, turn left, unload their bayonets, and turn left, and march inside the building. The guards were the most relaxed that I’ve ever witnessed, but then again they have a completely volunteer army to which men aged 16 to 55 can be called up for special occasions. We walked around some more, took in some magnificent sites of the valleys below, climbed to two of the three towers that appear on San Marino’s crest, and had our first mediocre meal. At the end of the meal we came to the conclusion that next time we should try to avoid restaurants that are in the back of liquor stores. We did get to taste San Marinian grappa and amare, though. Despite the shops lining most of the major streets of the city, we liked it for the few hours that we spent there. More time, and in high tourist season, would probably have been too much.

We spent the next day in Ravenna which was the last capital of the Roman Empire and the provincial seat of the Byzantine Empire. Due to this the city has some amazing mosaics in various old churches. The city was largely empty, and we visited the sights, had a piadina (a Romagnian specialty). Ravenna was a pleasant surprise, since we didn’t really know much about it, aside from the strong recommendation from my grandfather to visit it. We visited all the recommended spots and were very pleased.

The road back was just as bad as getting to the coast since the particular highway that crosses the mountains, the E45, is popular with trucks, has only 2 lanes, and is in a high state of disrepair. Our little Smart ForFour did not have solid shocks and every pothole in the road reverberated strongly through the car. Also, we noticed that Italians, maybe Europeans in general, prefer to build tunnels through mountains. Americans, on the other hand, prefer to drive around the mountains, or over them, or simply demolish them, if they’re just hills.

I bought shoes today for the wedding. They’re tan with shoelaces. I like. Monica got some shoes as well. They’re light-colored with a low heel. Now I just need to buy a belt to match my shoes and some socks. As Matvey said, I’ll be the Jew in the blue linen suit in the Vatican. Way to go, dude!

We’re going to attempt to post a new batch of pictures on our photo website soon.

I’m writing this post from Rome. We drove in today and said our goodbyes to the car. We will not miss it much because it was quite a hassle to drive it, especially the last hour in Rome. We made it to our studio apartment that we’re renting for the week near the Villa Borghese. It’s very nice and would be considered a spacious one-bedroom apartment in New York. That’s all for now. We have to get situated.

We stopped by Genoa on the way to La Spezia on Thursday, August 17th. Genoa, an industrial city built on hills that descend right up to the water, used to be a great cosmopolitan port. Christopher Columbus was born here. We came to Genoa to eat, and had a wonderful seafood lunch of fried cod fillets, and stuffed calamari, as well as the local specialty of pasta with pesto. After all, this is where they invented pesto. Then we walked to the old port, visited an early 1800’s Tunisian 3 mast wooden ship, pretended to be pirates, realized that life on this ship with 300 other people and 70 canons was not that sweet, even for the captain, and went on our way to La Spezia.

La Spezia is also a port city on the Ligurian Sea, a part of the Mediterranean that borders the Italian region of Liguria. We chose to stay there because it is only an eight minute train ride from there to the five villages of Cinque Terre. These villages are built on steep cliffs and have been there for hundreds of years, surviving on anchovies and other creatures of the sea. They also have their own variety of grapes from which they make wine and grappa. We came to the southernmost village on Friday, walked along the trail on the cliffs of the Sea to the middle village, and took the train to the northern-most village. There we had lunch, swam in the sea and tanned on the beach. This is the life. We decided that we could see ourselves doing this for a while.

We got back to La Spezia in the evening and drove to Lucca. The next day, we walked around Lucca which turned out to be a walled in city with a thick and tall wall in great condition, because it was only 500 years old. The city also had the distinction of being a present from Napoleon to his sister Elisa who was the Princess of Lucca. Shortly before noon, we departed from Lucca, having covered the walled-in city in a few hours, and went to Pisa. Surprisingly we were able to park very close to the Piazza dei Miracoli which contains most of the “miracles” of the city including the leaning tower of Pisa, the Duomo and the Baptistery. There were tourists galore, especially French and a good number of Russians. The stalls that hawked Pisa related goods sold leaning desk lamps, leaning cups, and other askew items. Pisa, check.

After Pisa, we sweated for some time in the car and finally made it to the little town of Tegoleto in the region of Tuscany, province of Arezzo, community of Civitella in Val di Chiana, where we were greeted by Monica’s mom’s cousin Tonino, his wife, Rita, and their daughters, Elisa and Anna Maria. Rita and her daughters are great cooks, and all the food that we’ve had in this house has been outstanding. They decided that they’re going to attempt to introduce us to as much of the varied cuisine of Tuscany as possible, and it has all been fantastically tasty. In no particular order we’ve had, pasta with pesto, grilled Florentine steaks, grilled sausages, grilled pork ribs, homemade foccacia, homemade pizza, barley salads, bean soups, roast beef, pecorino and other cheeses, and other zesty dishes that I now do not recall.

The day after we arrived, on Sunday, August 20^th, we walked around Arezzo, took in the cathedral and churches, the piazza grande, and the gelato. Wonderful city with an interesting history. The city was the birthplace of Petrarch and Vasari. Additionally, Piero della Francesco painted the Story of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco. Very nice city overall.

On Monday, we visited the town of Cortona with Elisa. Cortona was once an important Etruscan city called Corton. On Tuesday, the three of us boarded a train and zipped to Florence. We were staying on the street crosses the Arno River via the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) on the south side of the city about one block away from the Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens. Funny enough the hotel was called “Florence Old Bridge” and we would recommend it to others. Before leaving Arezzo, Tonino asked us whether we reserved tickets to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence because the line are generally quite long. We didn’t, and so when we approached the gallery after checking into our hotel, we found tremendously long lines around the piazza leading to the gallery. We asked a couple in line about the amount of time they’ve been waiting, and they replied that they’ve been standing there for about one hour, and expect to stand for one more. We decided that the art of the High Renaissance will have to wait for another day to meet the gaze of our eyes. Instead, we walked around the beautiful Boboli Gardens behind the Palazzo Pitti and saw an exhibit on the art of the Medici laboratory which seemed to be experts in creating furniture and surfaces with inlaid semi-precious stones. The coolest thing about that exhibit was that they would show the sketch of a painting, then the oil painting, and then its version made out of the inlaid stones mosaics. Quite a sight. That evening I was able try Monica’s favorite dish from her first visit to Italy when she was six years old – vitello tonnato (thinly sliced veal covered in a tuna sauce). Mmmmmmmmmmm, it was very good. The next morning, my dad and I checked visited the Duomo di Santa Maria del Fiore, which was rather barren inside, because most of the original statues and paintings were now housed in the museum behind the Duomo. Monica, who had already been to Florence and seen the sights, went shopping for shoes for the wedding. The dome of the cupola was beautiful though, and we visited the museum afterward. I highly recommend this museum. It housed the original Doors of Paradise (the ones that you see on the baptistery are replicas), contained a lot of beautiful sculptures, and told the history of façade of the Duomo. It took about 150 years to build the Duomo, and the façade was only finished 3/4 of the way. Then some time passed, and when enough money was finally collected to complete the façade, tastes changed and they could not agree on a façade until the late 19^th century. What you see now was only completed in the early 20^th century. The building was incredible, and the number of people that worked on it was also astounding. It is no wonder that there’s so much great stuff in Florence. They had a lot of churches that needed to be decorated, and they had a lot of money. If it takes this long to build a structure, a lot of great artists can be employed full-time decorating it. This seems true of a lot of other cathedrals and churches across the more important Italian cities. There are so many of them, and they all need decoration, otherwise it will be empty and without feeling like the barren church in the Venaria (see previous post).

We covered a good portion of the city in those two days, but I feel that it is better without the hordes of tourists in a colder season. As an aside, I discovered a new form of communication between the tourist guide and their herds. Before, a tourist guide had to stop his listeners, gather them, and speak loudly. Now, everyone in the group wears a walkie-talkie around their neck, tuned to the same channel, and has headphone in one ear. The guide just walks around and transmits his voice to the tourist’s headphones. I thought that it was ingenious.

Also, while in Florence, we visited the famous market located around the San Lazarro church. I found a light linen shirt that I considered buying. I asked for the price, and the seller quoted €25. Then Monica started talking to him in Italian, and he said €15. We left without the shirt.

We returned to Arezzo on Wednesday evening, and on Thursday we visited Perugia and Assisi. Perugia, where Monica studied Italian in the spring of 2001, was quaint and located on a steep hill. In order to placate visitors and Perugini, the city has built escalators to reach the top of the city where the old center is located. We found a Roman aqueduct that was converted into an elevated walkway, and walked a while in the heat of the sun. Assisi, where San Francesco was from, looked like Jerusalem from afar, due to the light-colored stone used for its buildings. Additionally, instead of being situated at the peak of a mountain, like other medieval fortified Italian cities, it was all on a slope of a hill. We walked around, but didn’t take much in. I think our heads were too full of beauty. Instead we walked up to a castle situated at the top of the town, called the Rocco Maggiore, and looked out at the vast fields of Umbria. They looked rather like the fields of Tuscany.

The next day, Rita took us to San Gimignano and then to Siena. San Gimignano, which had the misfortune of being recently mentioned in the International Herald Tribune as a victim of its own charm, is on the so-called “Tuscan Trail.” The city is known for the 14 towers that remain within its walls. Originally, there were 76 towers in the town, because competing families had to outdo their neighbors. Now it is overrun with tourists from all over Europe, and the main street is like a giant mall. We didn’t stay long.

Siena was nice though. It was relatively small, not too many tourists, and the Duomo is magnificent. The striped columns inside create and expand the inner space, in a way similar to the feeling inside a mosque. We bought a hunk of the pan forte, a local specialty. It is a dense sweet bread with sugar, honey, candied fruits and almonds.

Check, check, check. Now we’re resting in Tegoleto after an exhausting week of impressions. We apologize for the length of the recent posts, and hope they were somewhat interesting to read. Next stop is San Marino, Ravenna, and Rome with a wedding in the Vatican.

One last thought. We were talking with Tonino after one of the wonderful dinners at their house, and he was talking about the mayor of Turin, who is credited with bringing the Olympics to the city, and prettied it up, etc. Then he said, “You know, he was a pretty good mayor – he only stole a little money.” Now that’s a sober view of politics and politicians.

Continuing from where we left off in our last post, we were picked up from the train station on the 9th of August by Luigi, the husband of Teresina, and son-in-law of Zia Tersilla. Luigi and Tersina live in Torino during the year, but spend their summer either at their daughter’s house in Luano on the Ligurian Sea, or in the town of Castelnuovo Belbo, where Zia Tersilla lives year round. Castelnuovo Belbo consists of a town part, where houses are built near each other, and the streets are paved, and a the farming part of town, colloquially known as “La Collina” (The Hill) where most of the farming is done. The town’s population of about 900 people at peak season in the summer drops significantly in the winter as the skies are grey and there is hardly anything to do. The permanent population seems to be aging, but a younger generation is buying up property to use as their summer homes. It is very tranquil there, and life is slow. The days seem to stretch for a long time, with naps and eating and more naps. Up until the 1960’s, life was rather difficult, and people didn’t have much money or food. If you were lucky enough to own a farm, you had more food from the livestock and crops that you kept. However, according to Monica’s grandfather, who didn’t inherit the land, they seldom saw money after the war and they couldn’t find jobs because they were not allowed to move to the city. So, that’s why Monica’s grandparents left. Others, who came of age later, were allowed to move to the cities and work there, which is inevitably what they did. That was in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Then, the economic miracle that occurred in the 1950’s in Italy, finally spread out to towns near Castelnuovo and factories were built. More people stayed in the towns, and now life seems to be good. However, Castelnuovo Belbo in itself does not have any factories, so there are worries of a declining population. That is all for the history part.

We were greeted with the utmost fanfare, had a relatively light lunch – by Italian standards, and went for a bike ride around town with Tersina’s 7 year old grandson, Frederico. The bike ride took us as far as 100 feet from their house, because we stopped off on the next street to greet Mario (Monica’s grandmother’s oldest brother) and his family. His son Tonino and the family were also there visiting from Arezzo, so we had a drink with them, and talked for a little while. Frederico was getting a little antsy from all that sitting and talking, so we raced up and down a street and came back to Tersilla’s house. Frederico, of course, won the bike race.

The house where Tersilla lives by herself is the house where Monica’s mother was born and the shed in the backyard is where her husband had his blacksmithing operation. All the tools are still inside. Despite her advanced age, Zia Tersilla is very active; plays cards with her neighbors every afternoon, takes care of her sizeable garden, walks around, and gossips with her girlfriends. She is a strong and amazing woman.

Around five in the evening, we were driven to the Collina, where Zio Giuseppe was awaiting us with dinner. Zio Giuseppe, known to his friends as Dorino, and to his family as Giuseppe, due to a difference in opinion between his parents when they named him, lives in the house that his relatives have occupied for at least 200 years. It might be more, but town archives are sparse due to a fire some decades ago. Zio Giuseppe’s house is large, having been expanded about 100 years ago to house a whole family and sometimes their wives or husbands. On the first floor of the house-proper, there is a kitchen with a table, a couch, a gas stove, and a wood stove for the winter, and a dining room. Between the two rooms there is a steep staircase that leads to the second floor, where there are three large bedrooms and one small bedroom, and a bathroom. Zio Giuseppe, due to his eternal bachelor status, uses only 2.5 rooms of the house, the kitchen, his bedroom upstairs, and the dining room where he keeps his numerous papers. We moved into a large room right at the top of the stairs with a grand view of his and his neighbor’s sprawling vineyards on gentle rolling hills. The rest of the structure that made up the house was a barn, a garage, and a cantina where he makes vast amounts of wine. In the shed behind the house there was some farming equipment and a Lamborghini tractor (see the pictures on the website).

Before the wonderful dinner consisting of prosciutto with melon and ravioli with meat sauce, Zio Giuseppe showed us his vineyards, talked about his neighbor who apparently doesn’t know what he’s doing (with regard to his grapes), and about the disease that is spreading throughout the region and is destroying part of the grape crop. He said that he spent the last few weeks chopping down the diseased grape bushes so that it doesn’t spread to other plants. Apparently, they had a similar problem in France a few years ago, but the government was able to spray pesticide over a whole region while the farmers covered up their other crops and stayed inside for a whole day. This is not the case in Castelnuovo, and from talking to some other people, it is not as widespread as it was in France. Apparently, grapes in other parts of the country are not as susceptible to this disease because they’re stronger. In addition to this problem, the summer had been quite dry, thus leading to smaller grapes with higher sugar concentrations. The vineyards looked nice and well kept but I felt overwhelmed. Here was a man who worked on this land most of his life, was a bachelor, and was thinking of retiring in a few years – he is now 74. While he has a brother and a sister nearby, they are not able to visit as often as they used to due to health problems. In addition, the harvest was worrying me. (I was consoled by Monica who said that a farmer is not happy until the harvest is finished.) Yes, Zio Giuseppe has friends, but will there be someone to take care of him in his old age? Yes he had other investments and sources of income, but life was not easy. All of this ran through my head as I heard more about his life. It turned out that when he completed his military service in the mid 1950s, he was thinking of emigrating to the US to join his older sister (Monica’s grandmother), but then his parents got sick and he stayed to take care of them and the farm. He used to make a fair amount of wine and would sell it to his friends and friends of friends. But over the years his friends have slowed down their consumption, so now he makes much less wine and sells the grapes to a middleman. The price of grapes this year however, is half of what it was last year in the region, because there is an oversupply of them. All these concerns and problems really took me by surprise. I guess I’m a city kid. Over the week that we spent there I got used to his lifestyle, and was likely initially overwhelmed to my unfamiliarity with the rural way of life. While we stayed at his house, we saw him sporadically, as he was working and sleeping. We had a good time with him, and he is a kind and genuine person.

The next few days were a haze of eating and drinking as we were wined and dined by various relatives. My understanding of Italian was getting better, especially considering that some stories were repeated numerous times. Despite a warning from Monica’s parents and grandparents that we should not expect large feasts in our honor because the relatives were getting old, they did not disappoint in the quality or quantity of edible goodies. It is hard to describe everything, and I stopped recording our every meal. We took pictures of most of the food, so you can see it on our photo website.

On Saturday, the 12^th of August, we spent the evening with Rosemary Soave, her husband Giacinto, their daughter Catherine and Rosemary’s mother, Teresina. Despite the same last name as Monica’s grandmother, Rosemary is not related to her, but is a good friend of the family and lives in New Jersey. She grew up in Hell’s Kitchen where she met Angela and Egle (refer to the post about our time in Como). She is still great friends with them. Rosemary’s mother and father moved to the US before she was born, from Castelnuovo Belbo. They also built a house on the family property in Castelnuovo, across the street from Rosemary’s aunt, Maddalena, who is now 94 years old and still tends to her garden. Maddalena also was a good friend of Zia Tersilla’s sister, who is of the same age. Rosemary and Giacinto took us around the little towns in the vicinity of Castelnuovo. All of the hills are covered in vineyards. We also visited the town of Mombaruzzo, that is known for the amaretti cookies. These are apparently the healthiest sweets that one can have, because they contain only natural sweets. However, they are best fresh and are not really transportable to other regions or countries due to the lack of preservatives. At the end of our ride we stopped in Castel Rocchero, at their festa which was taking place outside of the city center in a large concrete hangar-like hall. For a fixed price you were treated to the wine of the communal cantina (the communal cantina presses grapes from local farms and makes wine and sells it to local businesses), antipasto, insalata russa, lasagna, a fruit salad, and a cheese plate. At the end of the dinner there was a boy of about 12 singing songs at the front of the room to background music. Impressive.

On Sunday, August 13^th, we went to Turin, where we spent the afternoon with Tonino and Rita, who used to live in this city before moving to Arezzo 18 years ago. We walked along the river Po, walked in the downtown, went to the church that houses the Shroud of Turin (it’s housed in a large fireproof container, covered in a nice cloth, and over it hangs a large photo of the shroud), and enjoyed a dinner followed by grappa. I liked Turin more than Milan. It was more alive and prettier. The royal Savoy family, who lived in this city for hundreds of years, left their mark on the center with beautiful baroque architecture and wide boulevards. The next morning we were picked up by Tonino and his father-in-law to be driven to the airport to pick up my dad who was supposed to fly in at 10:30. On the way to the airport, however, my dad called our cell phone to inform us that he missed his connecting flight to Turin because his luggage was lost on the way to Rome by American Airlines and he had to sort out a way for his little suitcase to get to Castelnuovo or Turin. The next flight was to arrive in Turin at 3 in the afternoon. Having time to kill, Tonino and his father-in-law, Brunelli, suggested that we visit the hunting palace of the Savoy’s, the Venaria Reale, which was located a few kilometres from the airport. The Savoy’s, due to great jealousy of the French Versailles, built this grand palace and a town to house the servants. In the back there is a huge park with a rose garden, a forest, a pond, and other royal knick-knacks. The Venaria was originally used only as a hunting lodge when it was first built in the late 17^th century. But it was such a nice place, that the Savoy’s started spending increasing amounts of time there. At some point, for one reason or another, the Venaria stopped serving as a royal palace and instead housed soldiers and their provisions. As one can imagine, the military didn’t look after their residence as well as the royals, and probably didn’t have the resources to maintain the beauty that was around them. It fell into disrepair, but after World War II, one could take a tour of it for a fee. Brunelli, who resides near Turin, said that he’s visited the palace about a dozen times. In 1998 the European Union allotted €200 million to restore the palace and the park to its original beauty, to found a university for restoration, develop programs for the public, open a restaurant on the top floor, and a small hotel, as well as provide the ability for people to visit and learn about this magnificent palace. While that sum of money is large, after taking the tour of the semi-restored palace, it seemed like a reasonable sum. The university is supposed to open this fall, and some other programs will be started in the next 12 months. The tour took us through some of the restored rooms of the palace, and one room that was intentionally left in its original state of disrepair to show the progress that had been made. They frescoes on the walls were taken down to be restored, the walls were repainted, statues rebuffed, and new marble tiles laid on the floor. The most interesting part of the tour was the visit to the royal church. It was also in its final stages of restoration, having been completely repainted. However, the interesting thing was that all the religious regalia was taken out, thus rendering the space simply into a beautiful structure and nothing else. If you happen to be around Turin do not hesitate to go to the Venaria!

Afterward we went to the Turin airport, which turned out to be quite small, and waited for my dad. He arrived, we picked up our rental car, which was a cute Smart ForFour (see pictures on the website) and drove to Castelnuovo.

The next day, the 15^th of August, was a national holiday called Ferragosto, celebrating the Assumption of Mary. No one works on that day, but there are festas around that time held by different towns all around Italy. We went to the festa in the neighboring town of Incisa where we ate local food and watched people dance to traditional songs. We were going to dance as well, but were slightly intimidated by the skill of the other dancers who had an average age of about 77. It was great to see all the locals. Everyone knows each other, seeing as it’s a small place. Back in the day, these festa were where people would meet their girlfriends and boyfriends, and where courtship would happen during the dancing, which was the main attraction. Now, they’ve apparently turned into eating celebrations. Not bad either, but different.

Now begins the story of the lost baggage. The next day, on Tuesday, we received a call from American Airlines informing us that suitcase had successfully arrived to Rome and inquiring about what we would like them to do with it. Delivery to Castelnuovo Belbo was out of the question when they could not find it on the map. They offered to send it to the airport in Genoa, and we would pick it up on Thursday on our way from La Spezia. This, we thought, would work out well for us, seeing as we were going to stop in the famous port city anyway and the airport was easy to find. We returned to our lunch at Zia Tersilla’s house. The next day, while driving through the vineyards of Canelli, we received another call from American Airlines in Rome. They informed us that unfortunately the suitcase did not make it to Genoa, because the pilot could not take it on the plane, so AA decided that they’ll make our life easier by sending it today to Turin. To our question about the possibility of placing the suitcase on the next plane to Genoa, we were told that that is practically impossible because there is a lot of paperwork that has already been filled out to place the suitcase on the next Turin-bound plane and she would not like to do it again. Fine.

“What time does the plane get to Turin today?”

“By 2:30 in the afternoon, the Alitalia plane should land in Turin, and your bags should be available to you by 3:30.” (AA does not fly to Turin, thus they have to use other carriers.)

“Fine. So how do we get our bags?”

“Just go to the lost and found, give them the tracking number and they should be able to give it to you.”

Monica decided to stay behind to spend time with relatives, while my dad and I embarked on our 300 km round-trip journey to Turin. We got stuck in some traffic, and finally made it to the airport. We found the door for the lost and found, called the Alitalia desk, and were told to wait by the door because they can’t answer any questions right now, because they’re very busy. Additionally, the phone number that we were given for the Alitalia lost and found was not responding. We waited for about 10 minutes, then a policeman came to pick us up, we went through the metal detector and ended up in a large hall. The hall had 6 carousels for luggage, and an Alitalia lost and found office with three lines of frustrated people waiting to be serviced. We waited and waited, and finally when our turn came and we presented them with the baggage tracking number, it turned out that it does not exist in their computer. To boot, all of the luggage that was on that flight was somehow lost and they don’t know what to do or where our suitcase might be at this time. We happened to ask whether there was another flight from Rome to Turin that was coming later that day, and to our surprise, there was, and it was landing in about 25 minutes. To our question about their phone number, in case we wanted to reach them, they gave us the one that we already had. However, it turned out that they turn it off when they’re busy, and they’re usually busy. There’s no other way to reach them though.

We called the AA office in Rome, and it was closed, because it only worked from 10:30 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon. They would call us back if we left a detailed message. We left several angry messages, but to no avail. Finally, the flight from Rome arrived, and the luggage started flying onto the carousel. No sight of the bag. Why would it be on this flight if it didn’t make it on the other flight and the paperwork required to send it anywhere was enormous? But the bag did arrive on that later flight, and we left the airport, only to get lost on the way back to Castelnuovo where a wonderful dinner at Zia Giuliana’s house was awaiting us.

The next day we said goodbye to some more relatives and to Zio Giuseppe and left Castelnuovo Belbo.

We arrived in Castelnuovo Belbo on the 9th of August around mid-day and were whisked away to Zia Tersilla’s house. Here is the family tree:

Monica’s grandfather’s side, the Rattazzi’s:

Monica’s grandfather, Guglielmo was one of four children, and the youngest of them all. His sister, who was the oldest of the siblings was 20 years older than him, and moved to the US while still a teenager. Two of her brothers, Guglielmo included, joined her in the US to work at her meat plant in Connecticut, and that is how Monica’s grandparents ended up in the US. However, Guglielmo had one brother, Olimpio, who stayed in Castelnuovo Belbo, because he was the local blacksmith and was involved in local politics. Olimpio had a wife, Tersilla, who is still alive at the age of 91. Olimpio and Tersilla had one daughter, Teresa (aka Terezina), who married Luigi (the one that met us at the train station). Luigi and Terezina had two kids, Paolo and Gusie. Gusie has two kids, Frederico (7) and Chiara (13). Luigi and Terezina spend are retired and spend most of their time in Turin, and their summers in Castelnuovo Belbo with Tersilla and at the sea near Genoa with their grandkids. That is all for the Rattazzi side of the family, since a lot of them moved to the States.

Monica’s grandmother, Luigina Soave, was one of 4 kids as well, but she was the only one that left Italy. In order of age, the four siblings are, Mario, Luigina, Giuseppe, and Guiliana. Mario is married to Aurelia (Zia Elia) and they had one son, Antonio (aka Tonino) who is married to Rita and has two kids, Eliza (14) and Anna Maria (11). Tonino and Rita live near Arezzo in Tagoleto which is a part of Civitella in Val di Chiana. Giuseppe inherited the family farm, never married, and still harvest grapes like clockwork. Guiliana married a different Giuseppe, who also was a grape farmer, and they had a son named Bruno. Bruno lives with his wife, Silvana, and daughter, Ambra (19), in Turin.

Those are all the relations in Castelnuovo Belbo. We will write about our impressions on a different date, since we have to go eat a tasty lunch at Tonino and Rita’s house.

We apologize for the drawn-out silence on our end, but as it turns out, Italy is not as connected as we thought, and we were out in the country for a while. So, when we last left our heroes we were still in Bologna. Monica, and other people, were saying that Bologna was one of the nicest large cities in Italy, and in retrospect, I would have to agree. It was tranquil, there were not cars in the center due to the recent restrictions, and the porticoes that stretched for miles provided a nice respite from the heat. We were also fortunate to meet up with two of Monica’s friends. Mari and her boyfriend Daniele, took us to a wonderful restaurant outside of the city where I had the joy of eating a real Tagliatelle al Ragu (aka Bolognese), and then we finished off with fried dough bread and various cold meats. They really know how to eat, that’s for sure. In August, seemingly all over Italy, every town has a “Festa”, or a festival. This usually involves local food and music. On our last night in Bologna, we went to the festa in San Lazaro, right outside of town, where they had music, and numerous stalls with various foods. Also, people set up stalls where they hawked cheap Chinese-made goods, which was also interesting to see. Monica bought a t-shirt there proclaiming Italy’s win in the World Cup.

The next day, the 5th of August (so long ago), we arrived in Milan. We took the metro from the grandiose central train station, to our hotel, and then I went to the Brera museum of art, which housed a nice collection of painting, and was utterly empty. One interesting aspect of the museum was that in one of the halls, they had a live display of the process of restoring paintings. It was behind large panes of glass, but with set up tools, and I could imagine them doing it, when the restorers are not on vacation. After the museum, I walked around the fashion district of Milan, passed by the house of Armani, which contained stores for all of their numerous brands. The funny thing about Milan was that it was mostly deserted, seeing as locals left for vacation, and it is not a must-see destination on the tourist track. Yes we saw the Duomo which was magnificent in all it’s Gothic glory, and we did climb up on the roof where we observed a circular rainbow around the sun. We also visited the Visconti/Sforza castle. It was a castle. Enough said.

We shortened our trip to Milan from the planned two nights to one night, because we figured that there wasn’t enough to see and we were ready to go to Lake Como where a cousin of Monica’s grandmother resides.

We were met by Renata at the Como train station, with the lake right in front of us. Monica had never met Renata, but knew that her grandmother was best friends with Renata prior to leaving Italy in 1953, and is good friends with Renata’s sisters, Egle and Angela who now live on the East Coast of the US. Renata, who is the older sister of Angela and Egle, was married by the time the family moved to the States, and her husband, Coli, had a job at the Swiss border, which as it turns out is only 20 minutes away. They took us into their house in San Fermo della Battaglia, which was up the hill to the east of the city of Como. If you walked 20 minutes up the hill from their house, you were able to observe a great view of the lake, which is shaped like Boccioni statue called “Unique Form of Continuity in Space.” Renata and Coli built the house that they live in 35 years ago, and originally it was a two story structure. Renata and Coli have two daughers, Maria Grazia and Rosella. When they moved to their lot, there was nothing around them. Now, the area is full of nice gated houses with long driveways. Renata’s daughers are now all grown-up, and Rosella lives in Milan with her husband and three children, while Maria Grazia lives with her husband Winny and their son Luca on the newly-built third floor of her childhood home. Due to the fact that Maria Grazia and Luca were on vacation visiting their aunts in the States, we were fed a lot of great food. In no particular order we had lasagna, insalata Russa (similar to salat Olivye which is popular in most Russian homes), mandatory prosciutto with melon, slices of tomatoes with olives and insalata Russa, Ministrone soup, rolled roasted meats (prosciutto cotto, prosciutto, lamb, and pork) around prunes, garlic, and apricots, and a some other things that were delicious and coma-inducing. It seemed that the days stretched out forever, since after lunch and shortly after dinner we took long naps. While visiting Renata, Coli, and their son-in-law Winny, we also took a boat trip north to Bellagio and walked through their botanic garden and took a swim in the lake.

Whenever we told people that we were going to go to Lake Como, we were reminded that George Clooney (a famous American actor) bought a house there a few years ago, and people actually go around the lake to find his residence, or even to see him in full flesh. We did not partake in this activity since we had no idea where to look. However, the villas and palazzo’s along the lake were impressive.

Three days was just the right amount of time to spend in Como, and on the 9th of August, we took the train back to Milan and then to Volghera, where we were picked up by Luigi who took us to Castelnuovo Belbo in the province of Asti in the region of Piemonte. Next post will be about Castelnuovo Belbo where I will explain how everyone is related to Monica’s grandparents.

Here are a few photos.  We are unable to upload them all to our smugmug right now, but we think we’ll be able to take care of that next week in Rome.

FYI: In August there are festivals in just about every city and town in Italy.  Ferragosto is August 15 and is national and Catholic holiday – although no one seems to know what the Catholic holiday is about.  We attended a number of these festas as they are a great opportunity to hear traditional music and eat local delicacies.

Ball at the Boboli Gardens in Florence.

Ferragosto Festa at Castel Rocchero, Piemonte.  We toured this countryside near Castelnuovo Belbo with our friends from New York.  In Castel Rocchero they were serving a fixed meal which consisted of Insalata Russa, two types of salami, lasagna, and macedonia (fruit salad).  They also served their Cantina Sociale’s local red and white wine.

Ladies in Castelnuovo Belbo, my mom’s hometown.(L to R: Genovese sisters, Esther and Lilly, Teresina (my mom’s cousin), and her mom, Zia Tersilla (my 91 year old aunt))  I think gossip is their fountain of youth.

The view from the bathroom of Zio Giuseppe’s farm house in La Collina, Castelnuovo Belbo. 

Dancing at the Ferragosto in Incisa.  The couple in the foreground is Maddalena and her husband Vinizio, my grandmother’s first cousin.  At this festival they served the traditional angelotti (ravioli) and various other things. 

Piadina stand at the Festa of San Lazzaro di Savena, near Bologna. Piadine are typical of this region of Italy.  They are made of soft bread that is folded over various fillings.  We had one with prosciutto, stracchino and spinach.  This festival was more about shops and eating than music and dancing.

Dentures made of marzipan, on sale at a pasticceria in Milan.

We’re still in Arezzo, but the beauty of Tuscany has kept us from being more diligent with our website. We have visited Florence, the historic center of Arezzo, and Cortona. Today we’re going to Siena and Volterra. Simon has bought a fantastic blue linen suit for my cousin’s wedding and I have bought a dress in Lucca. We’ll post photos after the wedding, which is taking place at the Vatican on September 4th.

I’m posting a few photos here because I don’t have the time to deal with smugmug this morning. We’re trying to work on our editing skills now that we’ve proven we can take a copious amount of pictures.

UPDATE – After an attempt to shrink the size of the four pictures I selected for this post, it appears that I am unable to do so at this time. I’ll have Simon take care of this and hopefully we’ll have the photos up tomorrow (Saturday).

As they say in Piemonte, aduma! This means andiamo in Italian or let’s go in English. After over a week visiting my family in the province of Asti we left Piemonte this morning and are now in Genoa. We’ll be heading to La Spezia tonight and then we’ll take the train to Cinque Terre tomorrow. On Saturday we’ll be driving down to Arezzo where we’ll stay with my cousins for about a week and explore Tuscany.

Internet cafes have been hard to come by in Italy… and especially in August when all the sane Italians are on vacation. We’ll catch up more on what food we’ve been eating and a more detailed description of our last few weeks once we reach Arezzo as my cousin’s office has internet. Look out for more photos too.

From Bologna we went to Milan where we spend one night and were able to see pretty much all we wanted…. the Duomo, the Galleria and the Castello Sforcezco (sp?). After Milan we escaped to the beautiful area of Lake Como where my grandmother’s cousin lives with her family. We took a boat up the lake to Bellagio and the funiculare up to Brunate. We also managed it eat an obsence amount of food as the cousin who was hosting us was missing her grandson for over a month so I think she thought we had the appetites of 13 year old boys. Luckily for my one pair of pants, we left after four beautiful days and took the train to Voghera where we were met by my cousin Luigi who drove us to Castelnuovo Belbo – a metropolis of barely 800 residents. We stayed with my uncle Giuseppe in La Collina, the hill part of the town, and we able to drive his peppy fiat punto around the area. We visited with all my relatives and of course were well fed every where we went. Simon’s italian has improved a lot so I no longer need to be an intrepreter…which is good after a glass of Barolo. We were able to walk around Giuseppe’s vineyard and see how all his grapes where coming along. A highlight of the trip was visiting my 91 year old great aunt Tersilla who hasn’t seemed to have aged over the past 18 years.

Ok, my internet time is up. I think my threshold for computers has gone down exponentially over the past two months… I’ll write more from Arezzo!

We have finally found an internet cafe in Bologna that allowed us to upload a bunch of our photos.  So here are the photos from Ireland, Venice, and Bologna.

You can see them by going to http://simonicavoyage.smugmug.com

Enjoy!

We are happy to say that we have safely arrived in Italy and are immersing ourselves into Italian life, by eating well, taking afternoon naps, eating ice cream, and drinking wine.

Before arriving in Venice on Monday morning, we woke up at 4:18 in the morning in Dublin, and hurried out to catch our cheap flight on Ryanair that departed for Venice at the ungodly hour of 6:15 AM. Ryanair, as some of you know, is a European no-frills airline. It is like a bus, whereby there is no assigned seating, just a sequence of when you got your boarding pass. Then, when the flight is ready to board, everyone rushes to form a line and then finds a seat on the airplane. The seats don’t recline, and they’re made of plastic. The inside of the airplane is predominatly a bright yellow color. However, the flight was on time, and they didn’t lose our luggage, and it was quite cheap. It cost another 10 euros to get from Treviso to Venice.

Venice is beautiful. As all the guide books will tell you, a lot has been said about Venice and its beauty and a whole slew of other superlatives that are not worth repeating here. Rather, I’ll tell you where we lived, and what we did. Thanks to Monica’s mom, we happened to find out about a small bed and breakfast in Venice that is run by a Venetian woman who rents out two rooms out of her apartment. We found the apartment building, which was in the Canareggio section of town, right on the southern border of the Geto Nuove, the Jewish Ghetto. It was a room in the attic, with exposed old wooden beams, a small kitchen, a nice bathroom, and a view of other houses. It was wonderful, and the privacy was much appreciated after spending a few nights in various hostels in Ireland. The woman who owned the place, lived with her family in the same building, half a flight of stairs above us, and her family owned this apartment for some time. She was very nice and welcoming and was relieved to find out that Monica spoke Italian. My Italian lessons in New York were very helpful, but while I understood enough to follow simple conversations, I have been unsuccessful in forming senteces correctly. After a small lunch, and a postprandial nap, we set out to explore Venice on foot. We tried to avoid the big streets and the tourists, and ended up at Piazza San Marco. I even got Monica to dance a little with me on the Piazza to the sounds of an orchestra. Afterward, we thought that we might be interested in taking a gondola ride, seeing as it was our official honeymoon. We approached a gondola stop, and were told that half an hour would cost greater than 100 euros. Then we started negotiating, and walking away, and were approached by other gondolieri who offered us 90 euros for a ride. We thought that it wasn’t that important, and left instead to find a place to eat. Our innkeeper recommended some restaurants around the city and we went around trying to find them. The first one was closed for the holiday, and the second one seemed to be nonexistent. The third one however, served wonderful Tuscan cuisine, and we had an appetizer of Tuscan salamis and entrees of ravioli with ricotta and zucchini, and spaghetti with pesto sauce, zucchini, and shrimp. We had a bottle of chianti. On our way out we noticed a photograph of a man with Fabio Cannavaro, the captain of the winning Italian world cup team. It turned out that the man next to him was the father of our waiter, and the owner of the restaurant, and he was the cook for the Italian football team. Monica and I wondered what kind of food he serves when the team loses. Luckily they didn’t lose any games this time, and only tied in one game.

The next day, Tuesday, we woke up and took the vaporetto (water taxi) to the Galleria dell’Academia. It had a wonderful collection of Venetian art, and we especially liked paintings by Tintoretto. While the Peggy Guggenheim collection was right next to the Academia, it was closed that day, and we decided that since we’re going to come back to Venice in the future – after all there are so many things that we’d like to buy here but we have no place to store them – and see the collection. We took the vaporetto back, got some lunch at a wonderful seafood restaurant, where we ate the best calamari, and tiny shrimp. We also split an entree of pasta Sarda cooked in a bowl of parmesan cheese served with a seafood sauce. The meal was huge, so we needed to relax with a little nap. At around 7 in the evening our innkeeper came by and using ingredients that she bought, she and Monica cooked a 3 course meal. The first course was an antipasto of cherry tomatoes and chunks of parmesan cheese. This was followed by a pasta dish of spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce and melted smoked mozzarella cheese. Lastly, we had breaded veal scallopine with sauteed zucchini, all accompanied by a bottle of Pinot Nero made by our innkeeper’s name. This meal required a short walk around the neighborhood, and then we took a ride on the vaporetti through evening Venice, to the Rialto bridge.

Venice seemed like a giant toy.

We left Venice yesterday, and stopped by Padua to see the Basilica San Antonio and the University. Nice and quaint city.

When we arrived in Bologna, it turned out that the tourist office did not know of the street where our bed and breakfast is located. Luckily we found it after taking a few bus rides, and spent the night relaxing and walking around the residential neighborhood of Santa Viola. Today, we walked around Monica’s old haunts in Bologna and met up with her friend Carolin.

Tomorrow we’ll try to post some photos.