Il Giorno Italiano Sogna

We've moved!!!

2008-07-13T04:16:00.001+02:00

You can find us here now:

http://ashleyreedandoliver.wordpress.com/

Nobu San Diego: No Bang for our buck!

2008-07-09T00:50:00.017+02:00

We headed downtown to eat at Nobu San Diego on Monday night. All three of us opted to try the Omakase, the multi-course chef's tasting menu. We were really excited to try the omakase at Nobu since we had tried and really enjoyed the omakase at Makoto in Washington DC. Needless to say, the omakase at Nobu was not worth the money. Even though the restaurant was fairly empty (it was a Monday night) they seemed to rush us; we were also the only three people sitting at the sushi bar! All of the courses were decent, but overall nothing special like you would assume for the price! The first few courses were the best part of the dinner.

Course 1: Lobster Ceviche with Avocado

This was our first course and a great way to start out the meal. Definitely one of my favorites, even if it was only a bite!

Course 2: Fatty Tuna Sashimi in a ponzu/soy broth with a Japanese peach

This, while only a bite, was also very good. I wish there had been a little more....Even though it is a tasting menu! The tuna was topped with caviar.

Course 3: 3 piece sashimi platter with traditional Japanese broth

This was one of the other good courses featuring a traditional Japanese broth which was very flowery and three sashimi dishes: red snapper, fluke, and hamachi.

Jaime's favorite was the hamachi which was served with serano chilies:

Reed and I preferred the fluke:

Course 4: Hamachi and Salmon Sushi

The presentation on this dish was nice. There were two pieces of hamachi sushi (yellow tail) and one piece of salmon which was wrapped around rape (broccoli rabe). The salmon was excellent and one of the highlights in my opinion. For garnish there was an anchovy crisp and a traditional Japanese herb (can't remember the name).

Course 5: Lobster with Asparagus and Mushrooms

This was our first "warm dish." It was ok. Not my favorite. There definitely was a decent amount of lobster meat; it was however a little difficult to eat with chop sticks! Reed really liked the mushrooms but we all agreed that the sauce was kind of heavy and really dominated the dish.

Course 6: Seared Kobe Beef with Asparagus, Mushrooms, and Yuzu

Another ok, but not great dish. I think we all enjoyed this dish more than the lobster but it was disappointing to see the same asparagus and mushrooms that we had in the previous dish. We were looking for some originality and diversity that seemed to be missing in these dishes. Reed felt that the citrus aspect of the yuzu was a little too much in the dish.

Course 7: Miso Soup with a submerged clam

The miso soup was good and a pleasant break from the two previous courses which were quite heavy, but nothing really spectacular.

Course 8: Sushi

We probably had about 6 pieces each of sushi (some we were told to eat with soy sauce and others without). I can't remember all the pieces we had but we had a tuna, a few different white fish sashimi, Uni (or sea urchin which I thought was interesting...but Jaime and Reed loved!) and Unagi (or eel...aka EEK!). I enjoyed the majority of it (Reed's favorite was the white fish pictured below), but somehow I could not get past the "swimming snake" image and enjoy the eel.

Course 9: Fruity Granita with Orange

Course 10: Dessert

I somehow managed to forget to take a picture of our last course which was a cake with chocolate and cherries along with a frozen cherry slush. Not bad.

With our meals, Jaime and Reed enjoyed a bottle of Nobu Sake and I had a bottle of Nobu Beer.

Nobu San Diego
207 5th Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
619.814.4124

Highlights of San Diego: Balboa Park and a Padres Game

2008-07-06T12:06:00.001+02:00

With my sister in town for a few weeks, we decided to enjoy our proximity to San Diego and head head downtown a few times, once to Balboa Park and once to a Padres game.

Balboa Park is one of the country's largest urban parks with 15 museums, gardens, and the San Diego Zoo! The origins of Balboa Park go all the way back to 1868 when 1,400 acres of land on a mesa overlooking the "New Town" (the current downtown) and the Pacific Ocean were set aside. Throughout the early 1900s, there were many plans created for the development and beautification of the park. In 1910, roads were created throughout the park, many of which still exist today.

Balboa Park circa 1910:

(Image from the Balboa Park Organization Website)

It was also during 1910 that the park's name was changed from "City Park" to "Balboa Park" after a city-wide naming contest. The name was chosen Harriet Phillips, the winner of the contest, because the Park offered a wide view of the Pacific Ocean and explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa was the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean.

The Park was the site of the 1915-16 California Exposition which commemorated the opening of the Panama Canal. The exposition created a major impetus for the creation of the Park as it is seen today with a number of the Park's current buildings, including the Spanish-Renaissance style buildings along the El Prado pedestrian walkway being built at this time.

Poster commemorating the 1915 World Fair at Balboa Park:

(Image from the Balboa Park Organization Website)

The park is a great place to visit while in San Diego with so many attractions......

.....and one of my very favorite restaurants ever: The Prado at Balboa Park. Check it out next time you are in San Diego!

We were also luck to procure two free tickets to the San Diego Padres/Minnesota Twins game. Too bad the Padres lost!

July 2, 2008 Palio Winner is......

2008-07-02T23:38:00.003+02:00

......Istrice or Porcupine!

The Istrice contrada won the July 2 Palio; the first Palio of 2008. The second and final Palio race will be held on August 16.

We were really hoping to be able to see a Palio race after living in Siena and seeing all of the festivities that occurred months and months after the race day. I can say that after having lived in Siena, the Palio is VERY important to the Sienese: there is even a local TV station devoted almost entirely to replaying Palios of the past. Many a night was spent watching this channel! The Oca (Goose) and the Lecorno (Unicorn) won last years Palios and there were festas, dinners, and decorations throughout the entire fall commemorating their victories!

Decorations in the Oca contrada commemorating their victory in the July 2, 2007 Palio:

Our contrada, the Onda (or Wave), for some reason seemed to be less active than the other contradas. Only on a few occasions did we see the contrada practicing with their drums and flags and only around Christmas time did the contrada hang their flags and light fixtures.

The Onda flag and light fixture decorations:

Although the Palio itself is a simple bareback horse race around Siena's Campo, there is nothing simple about it. Not all the contradas compete during each Palio and there are races prior to the main race which help determine which contradas compete. Scheming and plotting by the contradas occurs all year, culminating in a 90 second race around the Campo! The winning jockey and horse are heroes; the runner-up is the biggest loser of all!

One day we hope to make it to the Palio. Hopefully the Onda will win that year!

Matera: The magical city of the sassi

2008-05-13T00:57:00.028+02:00

(Actual date....January 5, 2008)

We were on our way to Basilicata, the region in the "instep" of the boot. We were sad to leave Puglia and Ostuni behind but we were excited to see Matera as well.

Basilicata is often described as Italy's last true wilderness. As described in Lonely Planet, Basilicata "is a chaotic landscape of tremendous mountains, dark forested valleys, and villages melded into the rockface...." It is a remote and poor region. We didn't not have too much time in Basilicata so our only stop was Matera, a unique city that is the backdrop for Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ. Matera is famous for the sassi, or stones of Matera. The sassi are cave dwellings that people lived in for thousands of years, until the 1950s. During the 1600s Matera served as the capital of Basilicata but by the 1950s, half the population lived in the sassi and there was an infant mortality rate of 50 percent. Carlo Levi wrote about the situation in Matera and in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the inhabitants of the sassi were forcibly relocated to government housing. In 1993, Matera's sassi became a UNESCO World Heritage site. Today, many of the sassi are being refurbished and it is possible to stay in one: We did! There are two sassi districts: Sasso Barisano, which is the more modern section that we stayed in; and Sasso Caveoso, the more impoverished section that gives you an idea of what the city was like at one point.

Our guidebooks recommended stopping at a panoramic overlook to get a good overview of the city. The overlook is on the Taranto-Laterza road and you follow signs for the chiese rupestri. The road takes you to the Murgia Plateau, which is separated from Matera by a giant ravine.

The ravine......

Across the ravine are great views of Sassi Caveoso. Despite the gale force winds and freezing cold, we got some great skyline views of Matera.

The many caves in the area....

After seeing Matera from a distance we were even more excited to see the city up close. We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at our hotel: B&B Del Casale, a great find (see contact info and the end of the post). We highly recommend this place if you want to stay in a sassi. What a deal for 65 Euros!

After finding a map it was time to explore!

There are a decent number of stray dogs, however, all strays are rounded up one a year and neutered which apparently helps with preventing fights.

Most stores were closed but we enjoyed just wandering around and getting the feel for the area. Reed quickly decided that Matera was his favorite place!

Near the main piazza, we found a great bakery and bought a bread that was loaded with olives! We decided that we would stop there the next day to get some snacks for the long trip to Sicily. We also found a restaurant that looked like it would be good. It turns out it was one of the worst, most expensive meals. Not even worth writing about. What a disappointment!

Even though dinner was horrible, we still had a great time. Heading back to our own sassi, we tried to absorb the atmosphere of this very special place!

For your own sassi experience:
Bed & Breakfast del Casale
Via Casale 43 Sasso Barisano 75100 Matera
Tel: 0835 337304
Cell: 3397362067

Next we head out of mainland Italy and get our first taste of Sicily, not to mention some amazing foccacia!

Ostuni Highlights

2008-05-13T00:35:00.015+02:00

(Actual date....January 5, 2008)

I love Ostuni! It is by far one of my favorite Italian cities. Before leaving, we walked around the city one last time to get some more pictures. This is one place I can't wait to go back to!

As we were walking around out of nowhere came a pack of 6 or 7 stray dogs. Ollie who is not submissive started barking. We were able to quickly step into a tabacchi and avoid any confrontation. We were not so lucky in Sicily...thats for later.

One of the best things about living in Italy is that we were able to go to places that you might not pick if you were only going for a week or two. Ostuni being one of them. The city itself reminds me a lot of the island of Mykonos in Greece, just more subdued.

The Highlights of Puglia: Alberobello and some Trulli

2008-05-12T19:28:00.001+02:00

(I'm behind posting....Actual Date: January 4, 2008)

On Friday morning we woke up early to a cloudy day with weather forecasts predicting rain!

I was disappointed since this was our only day to head to Alberobello and visit the trulli. The trulli are traditional stone structures with conical roofs that can be found in the Valle d'Itria in the Italian region of Puglia (the "heel" of Italy). One of the theories behind the origin of the design is that these structures is that they were built so they could be easily dismantled when property inspectors were in the area. (To read more about this area, check out two of our other posts: Alberobello and the Famous Trulli and Our First Taste of Puglia: Trani and Ostuni).

We grabbed a quick espresso at a cafe in the center of Ostuni before picking up the car for the 40 minute drive to Alberobello, our first stop.

We had a little trouble finding the exact road we were supposed to get on, but in no time we were heading on our way. Within a few minutes we had spotted our first trulli! We pulled off the side of the road and took some pictures.

The trulli are really amazing and the landscape is breathtaking. Even though it was January, was overcast, and was cloudy, the colors were amazing. I am sure that on a sunny spring day with a bright blue sky it would be even more stunning. As we rode along towards Alberobello, passing through the town of Locorotondo, there were more and more trulli!

As luck would have it, just as we pulled into Alberobello it started to rain. We quickly found a parking spot (benefit of traveling during the off season) and headed off to see the highlights of the town, not before stopping at a bakery to get some traditional bread from Puglia: bread stuffed with olives. We took our time wandering the streets but were kind of disappointed with how touristy the town was. I had read how signs throughout Alberobello are written in English, German, and Japanese, but was stilled shocked at the "Disney-esque" aspect of the town. Every few steps we took someone was asking us to come into their store or to see their trulli. After about an hour, we felt we had pretty much exhausted Alberobello. Before leaving, we stopped back at the bakery to pick up another loaf of olive bread...it was that good!

In our guidebook I had read that there was a panoramic overlook where there was a great view of the trulli. We searched but with no luck! We decided to head to our next stop....the city of Martina Franca.

In my exhaustive internet searching for our trip, I had read on the SlowTravel forum (a great website for travel planning!) that the best trulli were on a secondary road between Alberobello and Martina Franca and that in order to find this road and the trulli, you follow the signs pointing to the agriturismo Green Park. This is definitely the road to take! It was very scenic and we got\ to see how spectacular the trulli are! We both definitely agree that a visit to the trulli is a must, but that the experience of seeing the trulli in the countryside is far better than in Alberobello. A car is also a must because without one there is no way to experience it!

Inside of a trulli

We found ourselves in Martina Franca as it began to rain harder! Martina Franca is an amazing baroque city, completely different than Alberobello. It was founded in the 10th century by refugees fleeing the Arab invasion. It only became really prosperous during the 14th century when Philip of Anjou granted the city a tax exemption. (Franchigie being the French word for tax exemptions, hence the name Franca). In addition to wanting to wander the baroque streets of Martina Franca we were looking for capacollo di Martina Franca: a D.O.C. meat that is cured in brine and soaked in mulled wine.

Martina Franca details

Martina Franca's duomo

In the main piazza with the duomo, we found a great store selling all handmade cheese and meats including the capacollo and burata cheese, a specialty of the area. The lady was really nice and helpful and we bought some mozzarella and burata. It was getting close to pausa during which everything shuts down so we decided to head on to Locorotondo, wishing only that we had more time to wander the streets of Martina Franca. Next time!

We easily found a scenic secondary road dotted with rolling hills and trulli. We stopped many times to take some great pictures. We later decided that this was the best route for seeing the trulli, but unfortunately the next day we tried to find this road again and were unsuccessful.

As we were approaching Locorontondo we happened upon three very large (but lean!) pigs that were just hanging out. Oliver went ballistic when he saw the pigs. I have to admit, they were a lot faster that I thought pigs were!

When we got to Locorotondo, it was pretty much deserted; the daily market had just finished and it was pausa. We had wanted to try some of Locorotondo's moscato but no stores were open. Bummer. Next time hopefully! We wandered the streets for awhile looking for a place where we could get a quick bite. There were not a lot of options! We finally found a place and had a quick bowl of pasta. Considering that it was rainy and getting late, we decided to head back to Ostuni.

Once back in Ostuni, we debated going back to the restaurant from the night before, but decided against it seeing we had bought so much cheese in Martina Franca!

After dinner, we wandered around Ostuni's labyrinth streets. As we took turns opera music radiated from speakers. It was a great time, wandering through one of my very favorite cities in all of Italy. I was glad I got to experience it with Reed and Ollie but wished we had more time there!

Tomorrow we leave Puglia and head to see the sassi of Matera in Basilicata. Plus, Oliver gets his first taste of Italian Dog Gangs!

To read more about this fascinating region, check out the New York Times article The Heel is Rising

Easy Tortilla Soup

2008-05-11T22:15:00.004+02:00

Tortilla Soup
(adapted from a recipe from Simply Recipes)

I was searching for dinner possibilities today on the internet and came across this one. I made a few changes and the result was great. Not only was it easy to make but it was really tasty too!

6 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1/4 cup oil
1 onion, chopped (can use red or yellow onion or a combination of the two)
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 T cumin (less if you are not as fond of cumin as I am!)
1.5 jalapeño chiles, seeded, veins removed, chopped
4 cups chicken broth
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained (preferably fire roasted)
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt (kosher or sea salt)
1 pound chicken (boneless and skinless), cooked then shredded
1 ripe medium avocado
1/2 cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese (2 oz)
Chopped green onion
1 lime, cut into wedges

1. The recipe says you should try to use old, dried out tortillas. If not put them on a baking sheet in the oven at 200°F for 10-15 minutes . Cut tortillas into 1/4-inch strips. In 3-quart saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Fry strips in oil, 1/3 at a time, until light brown and crisp. Remove from pan; drain on paper towels. Reserve.

2. To cook chicken, place in a pot with 6 cups of water. You can flavor the water with whatever you have on hand. I used some spices (thyme, oregano) and 3 vegetable bullion cubes. Cook chicken until done. Remove chicken and shred after it has slightly cooled. Reserve 4 cups of liquid.

3. In a large pot saute onion, garlic, and jalapenos for 3-4 minutes. Add cumin and mix well. Stir in reserved chicken broth, canned tomatoes, and salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.

4. Using either a blender, cuisinart, or immersion blender, puree soup. Add chicken to the soup and heat through.

5. To serve garnish with sliced avocado, green onions, pepper jack cheese, corn tortilla strips, and a lime wedge.

California Strawberry Cinnamon Muffins

2008-05-11T09:43:00.003+02:00

One thing that is great about living in California right now is the abundance of strawberries. The other day while at the store I got 4 pounds of strawberries for $3.99. What better way to use them up then to make some muffins.

Strawberry Cinnamon Muffins

(adapted from a Cooking Light recipe)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup plus 3 T vanilla fat-free yogurt
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Cooking spray
2 cups chopped strawberries
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375º.

2. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 4 ingredients (flour through salt) in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Make a well in center of flour mixture.

3. Combine yogurt, butter, milk, and egg in a bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add yogurt mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

4. Add chopped strawberries.

5. Place 12 foil cup liners in muffin cups; coat liners with cooking spray. Spoon batter into muffin tin. Sprinkle with ground cinnamon.

6. Bake at 375º for 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove from pan; place on a wire rack.

A Day at Del Mar Dog Beach

2008-05-10T21:26:00.008+02:00

On both Saturday and Sunday Oliver and I headed out to the dog beach in Del Mar which is only 13 miles from Carlsbad. On one portion of the beach, dogs are allowed off leash. The other two miles or so, dogs are allowed but they must be leashed (these rules apply from Labor Day until June). Oliver has become quite the ocean dog!

Proof of a fun day!

Southern California: Trading Pizza, Pasta and Vino for Tacos and Margaritas!

2008-03-19T00:54:00.013+01:00

So it looks as though the next stop for me, Reed, and Ollie is going to be Carlsbad, CA, in sunny Southern California! Hopefully by the beginning of May we will be moved in.

The other day when I walked down to the beach from the hotel, I found a beach where dogs are not only allowed but also allowed off leash. A great find as the majority of beaches in Carlsbad are state beaches that do not allow dogs! This is the beach:

I know Mr. O is going to enjoy the walks along the beach!

I'm way behind in posting about the rest of our travels through Southern Italy. Hopefully soon I'll get them all posted in the January archives!

Stay tuned for posts on:

Alberobello/Martina Franca
Ostuni
Matera
Messina
Siracusa
Palermo
Capri
Napoli

We are back in the U.S!

2008-02-01T22:12:00.000+01:00

Reed, Ollie, and I arrived in the U.S. two weeks ago today after a less than impressive flight on Lufthansa from Munich to Boston (more to come). We had a great time traveling together, had a few minor mis-haps, and were able to take some great pictures along the way! We hope in the next few days to write some posts about our adventures through Southern Italy. Meanwhile, we are busy planning our next move.....

Back in Sorrento: A ferry later and all the wiser

2008-01-11T03:35:00.002+01:00

I awoke early on Friday morning, around 5:30 am, before the alarm had a chance to go off. We were scheduled to arrive in Naples at 7 am, but what do you know, we were early. Sure enough, we were pulling into the port. We hastily got everything together, during a time like this it was hard not to wish that the ferry ride was longer. Longer ride=more sleep! We got off the ferry, passing carabinieri who did not seem to care that Ollie had obviously spent the night in the cabin. It was pitch dark outside and we had no idea of our exact location and where we needed to be in order to catch the hydrofoil to Sorrento. I'm not going to lie, the next half hour was quite stressful. It involved trying to speak with a cop who was all drugged out and insisted on repeating "F-E-R-R-Y" over and over to us in English, being surrounded by more stray dogs, and finally Reed having a cab ride from hell to an ATM machine. By the time we got to the hydrofoil office it was around 7 and we learned the first hydrofoil for Sorrento was at 9:30. It started to rain, which made the long wait even longer.

By 12ish we had arrived back at Casa Mazzola and were glad to take a shower and go to sleep!

Saturday was pretty uneventful. We were still tired and the weather was pretty bad: cold, cloudy, and rainy. Reed and I went down to Sant'Agnello to drop off some laundry and then walked around Sorrento for a bit. We went to dinner at La Rosa for dinner with two other guests who were staying at Casa Mazzola who were from Virginia. Ironically, the guys name was also Reed spelled the same way! What a coincidence!

Tomorrow we head to the mystical island of Capri, braving wind, waves, and storms!

Palermo Day 1: Are we in Italy????

2008-01-10T02:05:00.041+01:00

We woke up Thursday morning and had a busy day ahead of us. Considering that we only had one day to see everything we wanted to see we were going to be busy! The one thing that I was interested in seeing after doing my research but we had to eliminate was the catacombs. Maybe next time if we ever make it back to Palermo. On our list of things to do, was check out the markets; Lo Spasimo, the church without a roof; some really interesting trees; and Palermo's cathedral. Along the way we were also hoping to find some goodies to bring back with us!

Our first stop of the day was the Ballaro Market in Palermo's Albergheria district. Along the way, we passed the Quattro Canti, or the "Four Corners." It is located at the intersection of Via Vittorio Emanuele and Via Maqueda and is a quartet of baroque palaces left over from the heyday of Spanish rule. Each of the corners is decorated with a niche in three tiers. The first tier of each niche contains a fountain and a statue representing one of the four seasons. The second tier of each niche displays a statue of one of the Spanish viceroys. The third tier of each niche is dedicated to a statue of one of the patron saints of the city: Christina, Ninfa, Olivia, and Agata. If there was not so much traffic it might have possible to get a better picture!

The Ballaro market was not a disappointment. It was almost worth the trip to Palermo to get to walk through here, especially for Reed! This old market is where the Saracens did their shopping in the 11th century -- joined by the Normans in the 12th century. Talk about history. We asked a number of people, and this market is now considered one of the best in all of Palermo. We wandered for more than an hour easily, just amazed at the sights, finding some time to buy some pistachio pesto.

From the Ballaro market, we headed towards Lo Spasimo, cutting through the older parts of Palermo while commenting on how we seemed to be in a different country other than Italy!

Along the way, we found this great coffee shop and bought some of Palermo's finest coffee beans to bring back to the U.S.

They grind everything at the store.

These are the two types we purchased.

Lo Spasimo is located in a fairly derelict area of Palermo that had been heavily bombed during WWI. Construction began on the church in 1506 but was never completed. As time went on, the the church was used as a theatre, a lazaretto (quarantine station) after the plague epidemic in 1624, a wheat storehouse in the mid-17th century, a theatre again in the late 17th century, and a poorhouse in the 18th century. In the 19th century other premises were built for use as a hospital, which functioned until 1986, while the church continued to be used as a storehouse, especially for works of art. Today it hosts a wide variety of major cultural events, including concerts, plays and exhibitions.

Lo Spasimo is characterized by the fact that it does not have a roof, and large trees grow from the interior. I bet it is even more spectacular at night!

Check out the scale!

We stopped briefly for lunch and to grab some "supplies" for our ferry ride before heading off to the park to take some pictures of the special trees that grow there. I can't remember the name of the trees or the park but the trees are quite amazing!

The park is a really nice urban oasis, away from the smog and noise of Palermo.

Hi Reed!

The trees are really massive! It is hard to get a sense of the scale.

By this time, the heat and pollution were getting to us and we were quite tired. We had about an hour to spare before we planned on heading back to the hotel, collecting Ollie and our stuff, and leaving. We had one last stop in mind: the Cathedral.

Check out the haze!

One thing that clearly sets Palermo's duomo apart from all others is the Arab/Islamic style. Nothing like anything we had seen in all of Italy.

I thought the duomo was very reminiscent of the style of architecture you find in Barcelona.

The interior was quite ornate as well!

As we headed back to the hotel, we passed through one of Palermo's other markets, Vucceria. There is an interesting article on the decline of the Vucceria market in the New York Times that can be read here.

There were lots of interesting smells that actually smelled quite good. However after a day of seeing miscellaneous parts being thrown in pots and cooked to make sandwiches, I'm not sure I'm adventurous enough to try anything!

We made it back to the hotel without about 15 minutes to spare before the cab that we had prearranged would be arriving. Marjolein, the hotel owner was completely inappropriate when Reed told her we were leaving. One more reason not to return! As we stumbled out of the apartment, the nasty children above us screamed profanities at us. We could not wait to get out of there!

We made it to the dock with plenty of time to spare. The one last thing on our agenda was to figure out away to get Ollie into our cabin. Dogs are supposed to stay in the kennel on the top deck of the boat. It was filthy and disgusting. Luckily Reed is brave and we mapped out a route from the top deck to out cabin, three flights down and were successful and evading all ferry workers and getting Ollie into the cabin.

After spending the day in Palermo, we did both agree that the city is quite intriguing and it would be interesting to come back one day, making sure to safely leave Mr. O behind! We celebrated the end of the day with a glass of wine!

Palermo, Sicily: Kebabs, a horrible hotel, and a really expensive glass of wine

2008-01-09T01:20:00.012+01:00

Wednesday was a long hard day! One of those days that makes you wish you could snap your fingers and be back home. We awoke early in the morning eager to leave Siracusa behind and ready to try our luck in Palermo. I had read a decent amount about Palermo and we had opted to stay there for three nights and were at this point hoping it was not a huge mistake! Because we both refused to have a train "lay over" in Catania after Monday's incident there, we were forced to change trains back in Messina and therefore were looking at about 8+ hours on a train. Yikes! We were glad we had made this decision after we pulled into Catania and saw that all the stray dogs that had attacked Reed and Ollie on Monday were barking at the people getting off of our train and running along the platform. That would not have been fun!

The train ride from Messina was long and slow. There were some pretty views of the Aeolian Islands off of Sicily's northern shores. Besides that, it was pretty much one small unimpressive town after another. Like I said, we had pretty much had our full of Sicily by this time!

We arrived in Palermo around 4:30 pm with high hopes off enjoying the rest of our time in Sicily. We had already decided that we would take a cab to our hotel/B&B, Arte Palermo. I had read some reviews of the B&B and one of the reasons we chose it, besides the fact that they allow dogs, is that the B&B claims to have a kitchen that the guests share. We were eager to head to Palermo's markets and were looking forward to spending some time in the kitchen. This is far from the truth. This hotel is horrible! It made such an impression that we wrote a review that is posted on Trip Advisor here.

Question: Would you be happy if this is what greeted you after 8 hours on a train?????

Answer: Probably NOT!

Anyway, the cab pulls up to a very small side street that was basically an ally. We get out, and all I can think about is the smell: the ally was covered in dog crap and smelled of that and urine.

I thought that there must be some mistake! The entrance to the hotel was shabby and a used pizza box was the "welcoming mat." We hiked up to the top floor to find our hotel. We were greeted to the owner who was fairly unwelcoming. Within the first few minutes she had totally turned us off to her and her "hotel." Not only was her dog unfriendly and mean, this "hotel" was her home. We were to share the bathroom and the "kitchen" with her and her Tunisian husband, who we only saw in his bathrobe. People have better "kitchens" when they camp then what we had. And the bathroom.....was a tub with no curtain or anything. The owner made us sit through a long explanation of what there was to see and do in Palermo even though we were exhausted from 8+ hours on a train. She also told us in great depth of how mean the street dogs were here and how it was best for us to carry a stick for defense as she was frequently attacked while walking her dog! Very nice of her to mention all this when I made the reservations.

At this point, the disappointment over the hotel room and the general fear of taking Ollie outside, made it blatantly clear to us that we had to get out of here! We had ferry tickets and a cabin reserved for Saturday night's ferry from Palermo to Naples and we decided to walk down to the ferry and try to change the tickets to tomorrow (Thursday) night. Luckily, for a fee of less than 1 Euro, we were able to change our ticket! Yes!! We planned on using Thursday day to see the highlights of Palermo before our ferry left at 8:30 pm.

On the way back to get something to eat, we stopped into a bar to grab a glass of house wine, which normally costs around 2-4 Euros. The guy proceeds to pour the whole bottle into 2 glasses and then charge us 20 Euros. At this point we were exhausted and probably should have just left or not paid but the guy was freaky, seemed high on something, and we had already had enough bad luck in Sicily. This was just one more reason on our "Do Not Return" List.

The only highlight of our night was a really good dinner of Kebabs at a Tunisian restaurant in the old part of Palermo. We were able to sit outside and enjoy good food and surroundings that reminded me a lot of the old part of Athens. Best of all, our meal was really cheap!!

Over dinner we debated saying something at the hotel about leaving early but I eventually convinced Reed against doing it, figuring it would somehow come back to haunt us if we did. Plus, we felt we had been mislead by the owners of the "hotel" so it was our turn to do some misleading of our own.

Tomorrow we make the most of our day in Palermo and see the sights including the markets, a church without a roof, and the cathedral. We also squeeze in some time to eat a cannoli!

Our First Taste of Puglia: Trani and Ostuni

2008-01-03T22:35:00.001+01:00

*** A series of posts about our travels through Southern Italy****

January 3, 2008

Puglia was probably the place that I was most excited about visiting...I was not disapointed. My only regret is that we did not have enough time there...we'll just have to go back! The writer, Carlo Levi, who was exiled in Puglia referred to the region as "that other world...which no-one may enter without a magic key." It is a very special place that should not be missed and we look forward to exploring it more in the future. If you are planning a trip to Italy in the near future, check out Puglia! If you want suggestions, contact us!

We got up bright and early on Thursday morning to go into Sorrento to pick up our rental car from Avis (FYI: stay away from Avis in Sorrento!! We are currently battling them over incorrect charges on our credit card!). Within an hour we were on our way, heading east towards Puglia, Italy's heel! One of the reasons why I was really interested in visiting Puglia, is that it seems to be gaining popularity; in the past year almost all of the main newspapers, including the New York Times, has featured Puglia in at least one article. With beautiful landscapes and charming cities, Puglia has it all. It doesn't hurt that Puglia is a wine and food lovers paradise and we definitely ate well here, having our best meal in all of Italy in Ostuni!

Within 3.5 hours we had left Campania and were in Puglia, the drive was quite beautiful: rolling hills (that look similar to Tuscany) some of them with huge windmills covering them. It was amazing to see the colors, especially the greens! We also learned Ollie hates windmills as much as hot air balloons!

Trani was our first stop....

Trani is known as the "Pearl of Puglia" and has a magnificent portside cathedral. During the Middle Ages, Trani rivaled Bari, another city in Puglia, for importance, and Trani became a major point of embarkement for merchants going to the Near East. The town's business interests grew so much that Trani devised the first maritime code, the Ordinamenta Maris, in 1063 to help regulate their business interests.

Trani port

We were hoping to make it to Ostuni before dark so we stopped in Trani only long enough to snap some pics of the cathedral (a great example of the Norman style of Architecture), and to have a quick lunch of cavatelli con fagioli e cozze (pasta with beans and mussles) at a portside restaurant.

Cats in Trani

The port and Adriatic

The cathedral

It really was interesting to see this cathedral, which is completely different than any other in Italy that we have seen. The ocean makes a beautiful backdrop!

It was just starting to get dark as we approached the city of Ostuni. Ostuni is known as the "White City" and is perched on three hills surrounded by olive groves. The view on the approach is absolutely stunning and I'm sure much more beautiful when it is not as cloudy. We were staying for two nights in an apartment right near Piazza della Liberta. Although the lodgings were merely adequate, we both fell in love with Ostuni and hope we have the opportunity to return some day!

We spent some time wandering around the maze like streets up the cathedral.

The duomo

During the day from the cathedral there are views of the olive groves at the blue adriatic.

Piazza del Duomo

The owner of the apartment we were renting, Francesco, also owns his own restaurant. He told us to stop by for dinner and I am so glad we did; it was the best meal we had in all of Italy! Locanda dei Sette Peccati (Seven Sins) is fantastic. For a starter we split a mixed antipasto platter that was superb. We did not know what half the things were, mainly vegetables, but there was not one bad thing. We ordered two pasta dishes to share, both specialties of Puglia: orecchiette ortolane (with mixed vegetables) and orecchiette pomodoro cacio ricotta (with tomato and cacio ricotta cheese). Cacio Ricotta tastes nothing like ricotta that we know in the U.S. It is firm and is most comparable to feta. Francesco is the host, waiter, and cook for the entire restaurant!

Our antipasto (we were too hungry to take pictures of our pasta!)

We went to bed tired and full and excited about exploring more of Puglia!

Goodnight Mr. O!

Tomorrow: We head out to visit the trulli in Alberobello and Martina Franca, a baroque city that makes a special kind of meat!

Locanda dei Sette Peccati
Via F.sco Campana 3
0831 339595
72017 Ostuni (BR)

Naples, In the Shadow of Vesuvius: Pompeii and Pizza

2008-01-01T15:57:00.001+01:00

****A series of Posts about our travels through Southern Italy*****

January 1, 2008-January 2, 2008

We arrived in Napoli on New Year's Day after seven hours of traveling on trains only to find out that the circumvesuviana train (the metro system in Naples) was not running. Just our luck!! Our hotel, Casa Mazzola (which our friend's Lawren and Steve from Verona had recommended), was in Sant'Agnello, a hill top town near Sorrento and 50 km from Naples. We had many bags and Ollie, so taking a bus was out of the question! We ended up taking a taxi for 150 Euros that took nearly 2 hours! We were so glad that we had agreed upon a price before the taxi driver saw how much traffic there really was (heading back towards Napoli)! Our taxi driver was really friendly, albeit sexist, and many times wanted to pull off the highway so we could take pictures of Vesuvius or the coast. He was so proud of Naples, which was really nice. As we came to find out, our taxi driver was only interested in what Reed had to say and could care less what I had to say! At one point he asked when Reed's birthday was and also when Oliver's birthday was (he knew Ollie was a boy), commenting on both of their astrological signs (something that a lot of Italian seem to be interested in) but never once asking about my birthday! Just an observation.....

We were a little worried when we arrived at Casa Mazzola because it was definitely not near the Circumvesuviana train line, like the owner had said. Instead it was about 2 miles up a winding road. (A Note: Casa Mazzola is def. budget friendly at 50 Euros a night, however without a car it can be difficult. There is one bus with infrequent service down to the Circumvesuviana. In addition, without a car it is necessary to get a ride from the owner to get to any restaurant.)

We were not quite sure that anything would be open for dinner or even sure how we would get to a place if it was open. The owner, Luigi, found a restaurant that was open, La Rosa. This place was great and cheap. We were the only people in the restaurant and we shared an order of gnocchi alla sorrentina (with bufala mozzarella) and both had a margherita pizza (Reed's had sausage and onions). After a long day it was time for bed!

Wednesday, January 2, we woke up early to head to Pompeii. The views from out B&B out towards Naples and the Gulf of Naples were spectacular.

Mt. Vesuvius and the sunrise

Gulf of Naples

Vesuvius and vineyards

The circumvesuviana train was running and in 30 minutes we had arrived at Pompeii. We planned on spending a few hours at Pompeii touring the main sites (The Basilica, Casa del Poeta Tragico, Lupanare (brothel), and the Terme Stabiane (thermal baths)) before heading to Naples for lunch.

Mt. Vesuvius behind Pompeii

Some of the more interesting things we learned from the audio tour was that the basilica was not used for religious purposes; instead it was the center of law and home of the tribunal. It's name, the basilica, was adapted later because of the similarity in appearance to Christian basilica's. The Lupanare was one of 25 brothels in Pompeii. The name, Lupanare, comes from the Roman word "Lupa" which means prostitute. The lupanare had 10 rooms and the price for a prostitute was equivalent to 2 glasses of medium quality wine!

Ruins of the Basilica

We were shocked when we got to Pompeii and saw that dogs were allowed at the ruins. Not limited to the stray dogs that make Pompeii there home, but also a number of tourists had brought their dogs along!

Preserved human

Preserved dog

One of the other interesting things I learned from the audio guide was that Pompeii was pretty much under construction at the time Vesuvius erupted. An earthquake 10 years earlier had pretty much leveled the city and at the time of the eruption construction was under way!

Pompeii street

Orange and Lemon stand outside the gates of Pompeii

The lemons were huge!

The weather was really cold and windy so around 12:30 we decided to head back and catch the circumvesuviana train into Napoli so we could sightsee and have some great pizza! We really wanted to have pizza at Da Michele in Naples, which is supposed to be the oldest pizzeria (having made pizza since 1870!) but the line was crazy and it looked like we might have to wait for a long time and it was already 2. Instead we headed over to Trianon, which is right across the street and we only had to wait 30 minutes.

Ttrianon has been tossing pizza dough since 1923 and the walls are covered with black and white photos of old Naples. We both had the margherita pizza con bufala but were kind of disappointed that the pizza was not as good as it had been the night before!

Waiting for Pizza!

The menu

The pizza!

After lunch we wandered around Spaccanapoli, the ancient heart of Naples. Spaccanapoli is really interesting, having a number of alimentari (food shops) and restaurants nestled in narrow winding streets.

It even has a doll hospital!

Naples has a lot of charm and a lot of potential. Of course we took all the precautions with our money etc., but we never felt threatened or unsafe. The buildings were beautiful and if you take time, Naples is a city worth visiting and exploring.

As we were walking around we came across a lemon store which sold lemon liquors and other lemon products including lemon pasta! The very nice man inside, invited us inside to see his production of limoncello and gave us a taste! We also found an alimentaria/salumeria located at Piazza Luigi Miraglia (in the heart of Spaccanapoli) that has been opened since 1895! We bought some bread, olives, Mozzarella di Bufala, and salumi for dinner. The store owner told us that in order to have the best mozzarella we needed to soak it for 20 minutes in warm water. We later found out that this is done in the winter because the cold temperatures change the texture of the cheese.

Lemon rinds used to prepare Limoncello

Before heading out we stopped by the cathedral, which is fairly plain on the outside but very ornate on the inside.

Exterior Facade

Interior Facade

The 17th century baroque Capella di San Gennaro is one of the highlights of the interior. Inside the chapel you can see the skull and a few phials of the saint's congealed blood, St. Gennaro, the city's patron saint. St. Gennaro was maryred in 305 AD and legend has it that his blood liquified within the phials when his body was returned to Naples. On the 1st Sunday in May, September 19, and December 16 thousands of people gather in the cathedral for the Festa di San Gennaro to witness the saint's blood liquify: a miracle believed to save the city from potential disasters.

Capella di San Gennaro

Ceiling in the Capella di San Gennaro

We finished off the day by eating some of the great food we had bought in the city!

Soaking the Mozzarella di Bufala in our bathroom sink...

Preparing dinner

Wine, bread, cheese, olives, and salumi all from Napoli!

Tomorrow: We head out of Campania and visit a majestic seaside cathedral in Trani and then off to Ostuni, Puglia's white city where Opera music is played in the streets!

Ristrorante La Rosa
Via Nastro Azzurro, 28
80063 Piano Di Sorrento (NA), Italy
+39 081 8083556

Last Post from Siena

2007-12-28T15:35:00.000+01:00

Our Last Post from Siena. We are handing in our internet cable box later this afternoon and on Tuesday heading to Napoli. From there we head to Puglia (Ostuni), Matera, Messina, Siracusa, Palermo, Sorrento, Lucca, and then to Milan to head out. Hopefully along the way we will have some internet access and will be able to post some pictures and notes about our trip!

Ciao,

Ashley, Reed, and Oliver

Back in Siena: Oliver will not be getting a pet passport

2007-12-20T11:07:00.000+01:00

After coming back to Siena from Cortona, one of the main priorities of the week was to figure out how to get Oliver a pet passport, which would facilitate travel back to the U.S. We were able to find out where the office of the Azienda Sanitaria Locale per Veterinaria was in Siena, and luckily there was a very nice vet who spoke English that I was able to talk to. He told us to come in on Thursday morning with all of Oliver's paperwork.

Thursday we took a 12 Euro taxi ride out to the ASL only to find out that Ollie could not get a pet passport because he was born in the U.S. and they only give pet passports to dogs born here in the E.U. or to dogs which are owned by people who are residents of the E.U. Luckily the vets looked over all of the paperwork (his E.U. entry form, rabies certificate, microchip information) and said this was all acceptable and that they would sign an export certificate for us. The catch is that this needs to be done within 48 hours of our departure! We were originally planning on completing this at the ASL office in Verona but they could not confirm that the office in Verona would not require more-such as a trip to the vet! So, we have decided that we will have these forms completed here in Siena instead of Verona.

Thursday night I also had one last dinner with Anna and Cristina at a restaurant near the Duomo!

Cortona: Wine and Food. And then more wine and food!

2007-12-15T20:37:00.001+01:00

On Friday we headed off to Cortona for a long weekend visiting Tania and Keith. We had a really great time and ended up spending an extra day and only coming back on Tuesday! There was lots of food and lots of wine! A great weekend all around.....

Cortona is in eastern Tuscany on the border of Umbria. It is perched high on mountain overlooking the Valdichiana. On Friday night we headed into town to have dinner....the Christmas lights were up and it was quite festive!

We headed to Osteria del Teatro for dinner. The restaurant was really good!

Reed had the fagottini al caprino e carciofi (pasta with goat cheese and artichokes) followed by the caramelle al radicchio con pancetta e pesto di pinoli (hand-made pasta made into "caramel candy" shape with radicchio, pancetta, and pine nut sauce). I had the ravioli al ragu di chianina e funghi porcini followed by the same caramelle pasta.

Along with dinner, we all shared two bottles on wine: one from Basilicata and the other from Puglia (both regions that we are about to visit!).

For dessert we opted for the il mio tagliere di cioccolato where the serves comes and shaves a number of different chocolates tableside. There were to many to count but there was one with black peppercorns and another with balsamic vinegar! As we left the restaurant we noticed that it had started to snow!

Saturday we headed out to a vineyard, Faralli, that Tania and Keith had learned about at a wine festival in Arezzo.

We tried quite a few wines, all were really good. The interesting part is that it is a very small vineyard that produces about 3,000 bottles annually, but they have their own bottling machine (something small vineyards rarely have).

Ollie got a chance to play with Murphy too! It snowed on and off the whole weekend and you can just make out some flakes in the picture.

Sunday we headed to Torrita di Siena for the Christmas Market. Every year Torrita has a "Palio," in mockery of Siena, in which they race donkeys instead of horses! The main piazza was all lit up with Christmas lights and we stopped by to see a huge indoor nativity scene that had been built.

After getting back from Torrita, Reed made a non-Italian dinner: Shrimp and vegetable tempura and Thai Red Curry.

Monday Reed and Keith decided to cook one last meal, using a huge piece of pork.

They grilled it on the fireplace upstairs....

Final product:

We have been really busy and have lots more to post about in the next few days as our last days in Siena and trip to the South quickly approach!

Trucker Strike!!

2007-12-12T18:55:00.000+01:00

There is officially a full blown trucker strike going on here in Italy! The 5-day strike began on Monday as a result of truckers protesting the high price of fuel. Some drivers blocked highways and roads with their trucks, while others formed convoys that deliberately slowed traffic on major highways. This is causing a crisis as no food, merchandise, gas etc. can be delivered anywhere! With more than 70 percent of Italy's merchandise delivered by truck, this is a huge problem! By this morning, almost all gas stations had run out of gas and the ones that did have gas had huge lines on people waiting (even emergency vehicles-ambulances, police cars, fire trucks-are running out of gas).

Google News picture

Being that we don't have a car, we actually did not realize this was going on to be honest until today. Yesterday we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and sure they were out of a few things but nothing to really take note of. Today we walked down to the new huge grocery store near the train station and it was empty! Almost as if they were going out of business. Reed went in and said that there was barely any food, and what was left (spinach and tomatoes were the only vegetables) was about three times as expensive at it usually is!

This is what a lot of the grocery stores look like here:

No joke! And there is still two more days of this strike to go!

There are more consequences....The pharmaceutical association is warning that there could be drug shortages if this strike continues and Fiat, the Turin-based car manufacturer temporarily closed a number of it's factories and laid off 22,000 workers because parts were not being delivered.

Only in Italy!

A Taste of Puglia: Orecchiette with Garbanzos, Tomatoes, Arugula, and Feta

2007-12-11T20:05:00.000+01:00

One of the stops on our Southern Getaway is Puglia, also known as Apulia. This region is the heel of Italy and has only recently become a tourist destination. It looks beautiful! It is very Greek and very Italian at the same time (it was actually part of Greece at one point). On our trip we are heading to Alberobello, Trani, Locorotondo, and Ostuni.

Alberobello- the trulli

Trani

Locorontondo

Ostuni

Most people know little about the region or it's products. In fact, Apulia produces 20% of the world's olive oil and 43% of Italy's olive oil! As a region, it also produces more wine than any other region and has 25 D.O.C. wines. I guess the Tuscans have just been more successful at marketing their product and their region!

The cuisine of Apulia is known as the poor man's cuisine. Vegetables have the leading role in the Apulian diet, including pasta sauces. Most sauces are simple, barely cooked and usually made from vegetables-barely cooked tomatoes; creamy ricotta; toasted breadcrumbs and garlic; broccoli and cauliflower, beans and chickpeas, fennel and arugula.

This recipe utilizes orecchiette or "little ears," the typical pasta of this region. It's made with hard flour and water rolled into sausage shapes and then cut into little disks with a knife.They are then pressed with a thumb to resemble little ears that catch and hold the pasta sauce.

Adapted from an Epicurious Recipe:

Orecchiette with Garbanzos, Tomatoes, Arugula, and Feta

1 pound orecchiette (ear-shaped pasta)
1 pound tomatoes diced (liquid reserved)
7 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 small thinly sliced red onion (can also use green onions)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley plus sprigs for garnish
4 garlic cloves, minced (or to taste)
4 cups Arugula
1 15 1/2-ounce can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained, patted dry
2 cups feta cheese, coarsely crumbled

Preparation:
1. Combine diced tomatoes (and tomato juice), garlic, onions, oil, and parsley in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Let sit at least 30 minutes.

2. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain.

3. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add garbanzo beans and sauté until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add garbanzo beans, arugula, and pasta to tomato mixture in bowl; toss to coat. Add feta; toss briefly. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with parsley.

Serve warm or let stand at room temperature up to 2 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Bring to room temperature before serving.)

This came out quite good. Stay tuned for more information about our trip to Puglia and what we specifically plan on seeing while we are there!

Further reading: To read more about Apulia check out this post or the New York Time's article The Heel is Rising.

Christmas Time Has Arrived in Siena and a few other things of note

2007-12-11T19:13:00.000+01:00

Christmas time has finally arrived here in Siena. Yesterday I happened to be walking by Palazzo Salimbeni (the home of Monte dei Paschi bank) and noticed that they were putting up the Christmas tree. Today as I walked home with Mr. O, they were putting the finishing touches on the lighting. It is quite nice...

...even if it is a little scraggly. We've seen a few other "public" trees around town set up in piazzas or on streets. We joked the other day that they were worse than Charlie Brown's Christmas tree! They are really small! I walked by a stand tonight on the side of the road selling Christmas trees and the majority of them were about 3 feet tall-and that's being generous.

Still, it is starting to be quite festive around here which is great! Not to mention there is a chance for snow this weekend.....!

We have had a mildly successful week so far accomplishing a few things that we need to get done. We have basically booked all of our hotels for our 2+ week trip in January and because it is low season we are paying less than the advertised price at almost every hotel-yippee!! That means more money for food! I've had quite a good time planning out our agenda and I know we will barely see (or taste) all that the regions have to offer, but we are looking forward to many more trips here in the future!

We have had slight success in trying to figure out exactly what forms we need in order to bring Mr. O back (not going to leave him here)! Yesterday we hiked out to the closest vet...took about 30 minutes to get there (very reassuring if there was an emergency) only to turn back around again. I had my first real taste of the "Italian System." First of all, there was one waiting room but NO receptionist (this is apparently what all doctors offices are like as well-I'm just glad we have not experienced this in person!), just a bunch of other people waiting to be seen by the vet. All I wanted to do was ask about getting Mr. O a pet passport (which is apparently free) but the room was filled with people and pets and who knows how long it would take to get to ask this simple question! So back home we went.

Our trip to the vet being a bust, today, we decided to try to find the Azienda Sanitaria Locale because apparently (from my research), this "mysterious" organization can give you a pet passport as well as issuing you your export certificate which allows you to export your dog after you pay a $30 fee at the post office! I find it quite ironic that I need to pay Italy to be allowed to leave with Mr. O! Anyway, I say that the ASL is mysterious because on one hand they issue these export certificates but they are also the organization that is equivalent to 911 in the U.S. Weird. Anyway, the ASL main office is located in the old psychiatric hospital here in Siena (great!). We head over there and they are actually quite helpful. But of course, this is not the right place to go. They tell me we need to go to a different office which is outside the walls and you need to take a bus to get there! AHHH!!! We'll be doing that soon....

The other thing I really wanted to do this week was look into trying to take a tour of the bottinis (especially since we have a bottini in our apartment). I had read just the other day on the internet how it is possible to take a tour and I thought it would something that would be really neat and interesting for me and Reed to get to do. So today we headed over to the information center. They told us that there is a waiting list but to head over to the museum in the tower because they would have more information. Long story short we will not be going on a tour of the bottini. Apparently there is a very long list...How Long? Two Years! So maybe in 2010 it will be our turn!

On a very positive note, this weekend the three of us our heading out to Tania and Keith's house in Cortona (Tania has a great blog that is worth looking at- Check it out here). I think it is going to be a great weekend because it seems like we have a lot in common! We are already planning an Asian themed meal! And Ollie, he is going to have two new friends to play with and keep him busy!

In the spirit of heading south, we've made two really good meals that are Southern Italian. I'll post the recipes later.

Siena, It's Like Living in a Museum.

2007-12-10T07:46:00.000+01:00

Two Italian girls that I know here (both from southern Italy) always describe Siena as a museum and say that living here is like living in a museum. It is kind of true. There is so much history within the walls and when you stop and read about the city it is quite interesting. On Saturday (while Reed was working), Ollie and I took a walk around the city to get pictures of some of the more interesting buildings around Siena.

Siena was on the main pilgrimage route from Northern Europe to Rome and the south and was a frequent stopping point for pilgrims. The constant influx of of pilgrims helped establish the Monte Paschi di Siena bank and also was responsible for the establishment of the Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala, the hospital. Although this is no longer the hospital (thank god!) it served as the city's hospital for more than 800 years and was in use until the 1980s-Yikes! Today it functions as a museum.

Santa Maria della Scala is part of Piazza del Duomo and is right in front of the Duomo (the Duomo faces the spedale). Santa Maria was one of the first hospitals in all of Europe! Legend says that the hospital was established in the 9th century by a cobbler turned monk who took care of orphans. However, it is more likely that the hospital was established by canons from the cathedral (duomo) to provide hospitality and medical care for pilgrims (the hospital also was an orphanage, taking in gettatelli, abandoned children).

Siena was on the Via Francigena, the trade route between Rome and Northern Europe. The route passed right below the city walls of Siena. As a result, numerous rest stops (ospedali) sprung up around Siena. There were more than 40 ospedali within the Sienese territory and Santa Maria della Scala was one of the most important ones.

These ospedali were established with the intent of serving as an abode and shelter for pilgrims, not necessarily a hospital by modern terms. Santa Maria and the other ospedali were to function as a hospital that looked after the sick, but also could serve as refuge and a food kitchen for the entire town during periods of plague and famine. The credo of Santa Maria was "hospitality rather than hospitalization."

The church controlled the hospital until the 14th century and used donations to support itself (the earliest recorded donations are from 1090!). By the 14th century the city had taken control of the hospital.

Some of the funds donated to the hospital were diverted away from humanitarian purposes to artistic and architectural commissions. During the 1500s, the exterior facade was frescoed (these works were destroyed by the elements) and an interior room, the Sala del Pellegrinaio, was also frescoed.

The Basilica di San Domenico was built in the 13th century by the Dominicans and dominates the area surrounding it. Saint Catherine, the patron saint of Siena, was said to perform miracles here. If you go inside the church you can see Saint Catherine's face and thumb preserved (although ironically her face and thumb are on opposite sides of the church!). It is a little freaky!

A crumbling old building....

The Loggia Mercanzia is located at the intersection of Via Banchi di Sopra (the main street in Siena) and Via Banchi di Sotto (which leads to a Porta Romana, and onwards to Rome). It was designed as a tribune house for merchants to do their deals and also a site where the daily exchange was established.

It was also at this place where traveling pilgrims had to decide whether to continue along Banchi di Sotto to Rome or continue along to Siena's cathedral. All the faces of the statues on the Loggia (pictured below) face North, up Banchi di Sopra, indicating to the pilgrims that they should stop in Siena.

The ornate ceiling in the Loggia.

Continuing down Banchi di Sotto (towards Porta Romana) you come across Palazzo Piccolomini. This is one of my favorite buildings, especially at night. It was commissioned in the 1460s by Pope Pius II, who was one of the city's great Renaissance patrons. It was built to be one of three palaces that the pope built for his family in Siena.

The palazzo now holds the Archivo di Stato, the city's archives, and a few stores and enotecas.

Details on the building.

Ollie and I continued along snapping a few more pictures as we went...our apartment is somewhere over there.

Reed and I have also managed to take quite a few pictures of interesting pictures of fountains and statues-thats for another time.

Today we need to finish making hotel reservations for our upcoming trip and try to get Ollie is pet passport!

Wurstel, Brezen, and Plans for January

2007-12-09T09:12:00.000+01:00

Since getting back from Verona on Monday night, we've had a busy week. Our number one priority has been trying to plan our time once we leave Siena (at the end of December). We thought about trying to spend one or two more months elsewhere (one in the South and/or one in Verona) but realized there are a lot of places we want to travel to and we could either travel for a short period of time (three weeks) and see the places we want to see, or choose one of the many places and move there and not travel. We chose to travel!

We've been working hard to try to create an itinerary that works with our budget and our time constraints (we are looking to fly home around January 18th-flights are very reasonable at that time!). We've even been able to be in contact with a few hotels and have one confirmed reservation already! Our tentative plans include heading to Sorrento (near Naples) for a few days; Ostuni and Alberobello in Puglia (to see the trulli); Matera (a crumbling old city where Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ was filmed); on to Sicily to see the Greek temples in Siracusa and the fabulous food markets in Palermo; then back to Verona for a few days before heading out of Milan)

I've also been working on figuring out the requirements for bringing Ollie back. Luckily the U.S. only requires that the dog been given a rabies vaccination within one year. Italy though, apparently has a few requirements for you to be able to export your dog.

With all this planning, we have still had some time to do a few things. On Wednesday (in between dealing with our landlady) we stopped by the weekly market:

We did not end up buying any artichokes-maybe this Wednesday. On Friday we headed over to the Christmas market that they had set up the week before in the park near the Fortress.

They have a weird mixture of stands: a spice man, people selling trinkets, and food stalls including crepes, wurstel, pretzels, beer etc. Very little Italian Food. Someone told Reed that it was a Northern European Christmas market.

Reed opted for a wurstel con crauti.....

It was huge!

Not being the biggest sausage/wurstel (hot dog) fan myself, I opted for a Brezen. At the time I thought it was like a pretzel (shape) but it tasted a lot like a doughnut.

There were many options to choose from....

In the end I chose the Brezen Krapfen.....

It was huge too!! And sweet!

Then it was back to more trip planning....

On a side note, Reed got to meet Al Gore at Osteria Le Logge on Wednesday. Al Gore was in town to celebrate the birthday of the restaurant's owner. They all got to drink a really old Brunello too!

One Last Day in Verona: 225 pictures later and an 8 hour train ride home

2007-12-03T20:12:00.001+01:00

Monday morning we headed out with Oliver and Mary to see a few more sights before it was time to head on home. We decided to head in the direction of Ponte Pietro so we could take the dogs up to the castle dog park. Along the way we just happened to pass Verona's 12th century duomo.

It is hard to see on the picture but the cathedral combines two styles: Romanesque (lower section) and Gothic (upper section).

Piazza del Duomo.

We crossed Ponte Pietro and it was time to head up to Castel San Pietro. There were quite a few steps....

A door along the way...

We are still climbing...

And we have arrived at Castel San Pietro. I actually did not get a picture of the castle (it was quite foggy). Castel S. Pietro was built by the Austrians on the site of an earlier castle. Behind the current castle is a park amidst some of the ruins of the original castle. It is small, but picturesque and dogs are allowed!

Unfortunately it was time to go back home to Siena. We had such a great time and are definitely looking forward to going back to Verona. Of course, we still had to endure a journey home of three trains and almost 8 hours (it only took us 5 hours to get to Verona). But at least we had 225 pictures from our weekend to look at!

Verona to Venice: 117 Islands, 150 Canals, and 409 Bridges

2007-12-02T19:43:00.001+01:00

***Lots of Pictures in this Post****

Sunday mid-day we headed out from Verona to Venice. Venice is made up of more than 117 islands, 150 canals, and 409 bridges. The Grand Canal weaves for 3.5km through the city from the train station all the way to Piazza San Marco. Only three bridges cross the Grand Canal: Ponte di Rialto, Ponte dell'Accademia, and the Ponte dei Sclazi (pictured below).

We decided to head towards San Marco. We considered taking the vaporetto but it cost 6 Euros per person one-way. Instead we opted to to walk!

First Images of Venezia from the train station:

Grand Canal looking from the Ponte dei Sclazi.

Oliver enjoying his first trip to Venice.

We decided to head towards San Marco by walking through the Santa Croce sestieri (district). It is quite fun to just wander the through Venice especially if you have lots of time. It can sometimes get a little confusing though.....

Which Way? In Venice they use different terms to indicate streets etc. For example, in Italy a street is called via but in Venice, calle. Still it is very relaxing to be able to wander the streets and not to worry about cars or scooters. We were heading in the direction of Rialto because we wanted to head over to the Rialto Markets, hoping that they were open on Sunday (they were not). Apparently they have a giant seafood market 5 times a week and a produce market 6 days a week. That will be for next time!

A Venetian door. One thing that is charming about Venice is it's uniqueness. I read that the best way to see the nicest parts of Venice is to take a Gondola (too bad the going rate is 100 Euros for half hour!) or a vaporetto because Venetian homes/buildings have two entrances: the canal entrance and the street entrance. Because so many people traveled by boat, the canal entrance is often a lot nicer than the street entrance....

Even though this door is falling apart you can see that the canal entrance pictured below is quite ornate. It is also interesting to notice that the steps are submerged under water: an indication of either the rising tides or the sinking city!

Ollie with the Grand Canal near Rialto and the Campo di Pescheria (fish market).

The Rialto Bridge was for many years the only bridge that crossed the Grand Canal. Rialto or rivo alto means high bank and this spot was considered one of the safest in the lagoon and consequently was one of the earliest settled locations in Venice. Today, there is a produce market and there has been a market in this location for almost 1,000 years!

View from the Rialto Bridge.

One of things about Venice that I like is the different colors. The colors seem a little brighter, possibly because there is little pollution from cars!

After crossing the Rialto we were headed to San Marco. A very ornate light fixture on a street corner: a dragon and umbrellas. We are not sure if this has some sort of meaning.

In this particular area (between Rialto and San Marco) there were loads of stores (more high-end then near the Ponte dei Sclazi and the train station). There were tons of masks for Carnevale, which is held this year from January 25-Feb 5. Some of the nicer masks were over 400 Euros!

The word carnival comes from the Latin word for "Farewell Meat!" Since lent required people to fast, during the period leading up to Ash Wednesday, all the meat, butter, and eggs needed to be used up.

The history of the Venice carnival tradition dates back to 1162 after the Venetians defeated Ulrico. At this time, a tradition of slaughtering one bull and 12 pigs in San Marco began to commemorate the victory. Over time, the tradition became more popular. The first documented use of masks during this celebration was in 1268!

The 18th century was the heyday of the Carnival. Venice's decline in power was accompanied by a conspicuous consumption of pleasure.

The Carnival declined through the 1930s when Mussolini banned it. In 1979, a group of Venetians revived the tradition.

Masks made the Venetian Carnival unique. If you could not identify the wearer of the mask, you did not know that person's social status. In this way, the social order in Venice was temporarily overturned, even if it was just for a few days.

Gondolas and Gondoliers: At almost every turn you can see a small canal and gondolas docked, ready to take someone for a ride. Because this is one of the low-season periods (right before Christmas) we saw more gondoliers sitting around than working! A gondolier under Venetian law, must have been born in Venice to practice this trade. During the 18th century, there were as many as several thousand gondoliers; today there are a few hundred (425 according to a recent NY Times article). Recently there has been controversy over the fact that a woman has won the right to operate a gondola in Venice. To read more about this, check out the New York Times article On the Canals, a Woman Paddles Against The Tide. An interesting aspect of the article is the sexism that exists in Venice. Up until 8 years ago, women were not allowed to wait on tables at cafes in Piazza San Marco, only men were allowed to!

Gondolas are traditional Venetian boats that for centuries were the main form of transportation. Today when you walk around Venice all the gondolas are black. Prior to a decree by the Doge (chief magistrate) in 1562 gondolas were muti-colored; the colors and materials used showcased the wealth of the owner. The decree of 1562 said that all gondolas must be black except those that were "transporting important people." To this day, all gondolas are black.

An interesting aspect of gondolas is that they are asymmetrical; the left side is wider to counter balance the gondolier standing of the left and the use of the oar on the right.

The Torre dell'Orologio stands at the entrance to Piazza San Marco. It was built in the 14th century and displays the hours of the day, the phases of the moon, and the movement of the sun through the signs of the zodiac.

Basilica San Marco: the original basilica (which was quite small) was destroyed by fire in the 10th century and then rebuilt in 1063. The basilica is built on the plan of the Greek cross and has 5 large domes, some of which are unfortunately under scaffolding right now. San Marco did not become Venice's cathedral until 1807!

In the picture below it is possible to see replicas of the gilded bronze horses which were stolen and brought to Venice after the fall of Constantinople. The originals are on display inside the basilica.

Once again, the lion, the symbol of the Venetian republic.

The facade of the basilica is adorned with colorful mosaics, some of which depict events in the life of Saint Mark, including bringing his body back to Venice.

The story of St. Mark and the basilica is quite interesting. According to legend, when the evangelist Mark was in Venice (the actual city did not exist), a winged fellow told Mark, the future saint, that his body would eventually rest in the city of Venice. When Mark died in Egypt, two Venetians persuaded the guards at Mark's tomb to allow them to take him back to Venice so that he could become the patron saint of Venice. There is speculation that the doges may have been behind this and even more speculation that the body that was brought back to Venice might have not been that of St. Mark. Regardless, everyone believed that it was his body and the doge ordered the construction of a new basilica to hold his remains. In the book of Revelation, Mark is symbolized by a winged lion, and this same symbol became synonymous with that of Venice.

Outside the basilica there are numerous columns, all made of different marble.

On the side of the Basilica is the Palazzo Ducale, also known as the Doge's Palace. It served as the doge's official residence, and the seat of the Republic's government, bureaucracy, and prisons.

The term "Doge" was used for the chief magistrate in the city of Venice. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the aristocracy of the city-state. The doge was frequently the shrewdest elder in the city.

In the picture below it is possible to see some of the domes of the Basilica of St. Mark.

The Palazzo Ducale has a Gothic facade, with the two most visible facades facing the Venetian Lagoon and Piazza San Marco. The building is quite impressive!

For centuries, the Palazzo Ducale was the only building in Venice that was allowed to be referred to as a palazzo. All other buildings were called Ca', short for the word casa.

The Doge Palace was also a prison; Casanova was imprisoned here and escaped in 1755. Today there is an interesting tour called Itinerari Segreti (Secret Itineraries) which takes you through the palace to lesser known parts, including the civil servant's offices, the torture chamber, and the Piombi (prison cells beneath the roof of the building). It was in the piombi that Casanova was imprisoned. Both Reed and I really want to do this on our next trip to Venice!

Behind the street lamp it is possible to see one of the two columns that dominate this end of the piazza that bear the statues of the lions of St. Mark and St. Theodore, the two patron saints of the city. This area was originally a marketplace and was also the common site of executions.

Gondolas in the Venetian Lagoon.

This is the Bridge of Sighs, also known as the Ponte dei Sospiri. The bridge was built in 1600 to connect the Doge's prisons (prigioni) with the inquisitor's rooms in the main palace. The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before being imprisoned. The bridge was built by Antoni Contino and the name "Bridge of Sighs" was only invented in the 19th century when Lord Byron helped to popularize the belief that the bridge was inspired by the sighs of condemned prisoners as they were led through it on their way to be executed.

Ollie and I with the gondolas.

After seeing the sights in San Marco we decided to head off to find the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, which is quite unique. On the way we passed Harry's Bar (we did not stop in).

A very ornate church along the way.

I had to get a picture of this: A street with my birthday as the name!

This canal was super stinky. Even though it was a cool December day, every once and a while it smelled quite horrible. I can only imagine the smell in July or August!

We finally arrived at the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo - a small palace in Venice best known for the external spiral staircase with arches.

The palace dates back to the 15th century and is a less touristy area, near the Campo Manin and the Rialto bridge.

The palazzo gets it name from the Venetian word bovolo, meaning snail shell.

Ollie in front of a delicatessen while Reed went in to buy a bottle of Prosecco for dinner at Lawren and Steve's.

Napoleon once said that Piazza San Marco is the "finest drawing room in Europe." Because of this, he declared that Piazza San Marco is the only square worthy of the name Piazza. Consequently, all other squares are called campo which means field.

The decorations were all up for Christmas.

Before heading home, we headed over to a Christmas market that had just been put up. It was quite festive.

We were hoping that there might be some venetian treats such as mandolato, a Venetian dessert that is a cross between toffee and nougat that we were interested in trying but had not been able to find. It seemed that this particular market had more tuscan food than venetian-go figure!

It was nice to see all the lights and Christmas decorations up! Hopefully Siena gets in the spirit soon!

With so much left to see in Venice, we will have to just go back!

"Venice is not only a city of fantasy and freedom. It is also a city of joy and pleasure."
Peggy Guggenheim

Verona: A dog walk and a Medieval castle

2007-12-02T18:35:00.001+01:00

Sunday morning we headed out early to grab a caffe and then head over to the park with Ollie and Mary. This park was huge and there was so much open space! Ollie was a little grumpy but thats ok!

The old medieval walls of Verona run through this park. In fact, it is possible to walk almost all around the city by walking around the walls! It is really neat! One more reason to love Verona.

On our way back to Lawren and Steve's we passed through the imposing medieval castle, Castelvecchio, a 14th century castle. It stands on the banks of the Adige River.

The castle was built between 1354 and 1356 by the orders of Cangrande II della Scala. The design of the castle was conceived by the della Scala family as a defense against both outside invasion and popular rebellion. The "plan" of the castle allowed for easy and safe escape in case of attack.

In 1404 when Verona became part of the Venetian empire, the castle was used for mainly military purposes. In the days of the anti-French revolt known as the "Pasque Veronesi" (circa 1797), the castle was the site of numerous armed engagements. Only after 1923 did the castle cease to serve an exclusively military purpose.

A view of the Adige river through the opening in the castle wall....

This "path" takes you through the center of the castle.

The castle was heavily damaged during WWII and restored in the 1960s by Carlo Scarpa. Today it houses a museum and it's inner courtyard is filled with sculptures.

Now it was time to head to Venezia. Check out our day in Venice here!

Verona: We ate Horse and Donkey!

2007-12-01T09:11:00.001+01:00

Verona is such a great city! We loved getting the chance to see it! We probably would never have gotten to see it if Lawren and Steve did not live there and if they had not been so kind and let us stay with them! The guidebooks seem to overlook the majority of the cities in the Veneto and focus solely on Venezia. Hmmmm. Either way, we are glad we got to visit and look forward to possibly using Verona as a base in February to explore the Veneto, the Dolomites, and much more!

Verona is known as piccola Roma (little Rome), and it is easy to see why. The city is very orderly (i.e. streets on a grid) and we really were reminded of Roma when we were there (Verona even has it's own River-the Adige). The city's golden age came during the 13th and 14th centuries (this is the time period Shakespeare wrote about in Romeo and Juliet). This period was also known for the savage family feuding that Shakespeare portrays.

Below is S. Giorgio, a church and a park. This is the first dog park we took Ollie and Mary to. It seems that when the city of Verona was being planned, space was set aside for parks which is really nice! This particular dog area was set within a larger park. I don't think there is this much green in all of Siena!

Close up of S. Giorgio.

Another church. I'm not quite sure the name of it. Possibly S. Stefano.

A view towards Ponte Pietro. To the right is the hill that leads up to the ruins of a castle which is a park and dog area now. You can just make out the castle walls, which you can walk along and let your dog run. We went up to the castle park on Monday but did not make it around the walls on this trip.

Ponte Pietro is a foot bridge that leads to the centro of Verona. Hitler bombed all the bridges as he retreated from Verona. The large, lighter bricks that are visible in the picture below is the original bridge.

View along the Adige.

Another church. Name unknown to me!

Street corner in Old Verona.

Street in centro. Lights had already been put up in the centro and it was really festive. The streets are quaint and have all sorts of neat little stores and shops.

It is hard to see in this picture but hanging from ropes tied across the street were little white cherub angels. We tried to get a close up picture but were unsuccessful.

Vegetables at a fruit stand. Even though it was pretty cold, all the vegetables and fruit were outside.

Piazza delle Erbe (pictured below) was once the sight of a Roman Forum. Today it is the center of the city and there is a market almost every day. In the center of the photo is the Madonna Verona Fountain, which was designed in 1368. The statue is however, a Roman statue that is much older and was added to the fountain.

The tourist office is now in Palazzo Maffei, which is at the North end of the Piazza. This is one of the few Baroque buildings in the town. Along the top of the building you can see sculptures of the six pagan divinities (only 5 are shown in the picture): Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Apollo, Hercules, and Minerva.

Close up view. Verona was for a long part of the Venetian Empire, whose symbol was the lion.

Buildings surrounding Piazza delle Erbe.

These are the arches that separate Piazza delle Erbe from Piazza del Signori. The one furthest away is Arco della Costa and if you look closely (click on picture) you can see a whale bone suspended from the arch. According to legend, it will fall on the first "just" person to walk beneath it.

Piazza dei Signori. Just beyond the piazza in a courtyard you can see excavation work that has been done to reveal parts of the old Roman city. It is quite interesting. Also part of this piazza is the Palazzo degli Scaligeri, the home of the Scaligeri family which ruled Verona for a number of years.

The Roman Arena is one of the biggest and best preserved arenas. It was built in the first century and now houses Verona's opera. The arena, made of pink marble from Verona (similar to the baptistry in Parma) is the third largest Roman amphitheater in existence, capable of seating 20,000+.

After walking around we decided to grab a few drinks. We stopped at 2 different enotecas. At the first one we had a really good Valpolicella, a red wine from the Veneto region. It ranks just after Chianti in total Italian D.O.C. and is made from three grape varietals: Corvina Veronese, Rondinella, and Molinara. We also tasted a few antipasti including polenta that is served with gorgonzola and some salumi and lardo. We moved on to another enoteca where I was able to have a glass of Moscato for 2 Euros- not bad!

After all that, we headed off to Caffe Antica Osteria al Duomo, one of Lawren and Steve's favorite restaurants. It is really rustic and really good. Reed and I split two primi: a thick pasta (very similar to pici) that had a ragu made with asano (donkey) and a gnocchi with horse and ruccola which was also really good (I liked the donkey more and Reed liked the horse). For a secondi we split bresaola that was served with ruccola and lemon. This was probably our least favorite but still really good (bresaola is an air-dried salted beef). We were too hungry to take any pictures of the food-next time!

Osteria al Duomo
Via Duomo, 7
Verona
045 800 4505

Tomorrow we head to Venezia to see some gondolas and canals!

Ollie and Mary: Reunited at last!

2007-12-01T08:08:00.000+01:00

This past weekend we headed up to Verona to visit Lawren, Steve, and Mary. We had such a blast! It was so great to see Ollie and Mary together. They definitely are related! Ollie is a little smaller than Mary and his coloring is lighter. They seem to have similar markings and definitely have similar expressions and mannerisms. We are looking forward to hopefully spending more time in Verona in February.

We LOVED Verona! It is such a charming city and has so many places to walk the dogs!

Ollie and Mary at one of the dog parks in Verona

Ollie and Mary at another dog park!

Look at all the grass!

Reed, Ollie, and Mary at the castle park!

A Night in Siena: Pizza, Sushi, and Christmas

2007-11-30T18:36:00.000+01:00

Since we had leftover pizza dough from yesterday, we once again had pizza for dinner, this time changing it up a little. Our topings included: Cipolla rossa (red onion), aglio (garlic), basilico (basil), prosciutto, carciofi (artichokes) and mozzarella (not mozzarella di bufala because we ate it all already!).

Pizza dough with a little sauce.....

....and some prosciutto and cheese.....

a few more topings.....

Fresh out of the oven!

This evening after Reed headed off to work, I took Ollie for a walk around Siena. I came across this sign for happy hour:

This was the first time that I have seen anything about sushi since we got here. Judging from the way all the fish smells around here, it is not that fresh. The ironic thing is that the place having the above mentioned happy hour, Nannini, is more of a pastry shop known for it's panforte, not a sushi-type place. Oh well.

Walking around it is starting to see like Christmas here. They have begun to hang Christmas lights on the streets (although they are not lit yet) and a lot of stores already have Christmas decorations up.

They have also been putting up new light fixtures all along the streets, like the one pictured below. All these decorations make Siena really look beautiful. We have been told that they also put up a giant Christmas tree (possibly with yellow and green lights?!?!)!

I was finally able to take some nice pictures at night so I thought I would post them up here as well. Below is Piazza Salimbeni (Reed's favorite building(s) here in Siena). The piazza is formed by three palazzi (only 2 are really visible in this picture) and has been the headquarters for the Monte dei Paschi di Siena since 1472 (Monte dei Paschi di Siena is likely the oldest bank in the world!).

The bank grew from the practice of charging shepherds to graze their sheep on the pastures (paschi) in the Maremma region of Toscana (Southern Tuscany). The money the bank earned from charging the shepherds was then used to make loans.

Banking was integral to medieval Sienese wealth, in part because Siena was able to capitalize on it's position on the Via Francigena, the "French Road," between Rome and northwest Europe (also between Rome, Florence, and Bologna). The Via Francigena brought thousands of visitors to Siena, increasing the banking trade even more. A lot of the banks and moneylenders charged high interest, but Monte dei Paschi charged less, and therefore was more popular.

Monte dei Paschi was originally established in 1472 as a lending and charitable institution. Under Medici rule (16th century), it's role was consolidated and the bank began to focus solely on banking activities. In the 20th century, it merged with other Tuscan and Umbrian banks to form one of the key financial institutions in all of Italy.

The first Italian bankers worked from a bench (banco) in the street. If the city decided to stop them from trading, the bench was broken (rotto); hence the Italian for bankrupt (bancarotta).

I was also able to take a few nice pictures of the Campo at night:

Up Next: We head to Verona tomorrow, the city of Romeo and Juliet. I read something yesterday that said that the play Romeo and Juliet was originally set in Siena, not Verona. Hmmm. We also booked train tickets into Venice for Sunday, since Reed has never been. We are hoping to go on a Gondola ride and do a little sightseeing too!

When we are back in Siena next week I hope to take a few more pictures of some of the highlights here so that I can post about them!

What's for dinner: Pizza!

2007-11-29T22:15:00.000+01:00

Pizza! Using some (actually the rest...ooops!) of the fresh mozzarella di bufala that we got a the market on Wednesday we decided to make Pizza Margarita for dinner tonight. It came out great!

Step 1: Pizza dough

Step 2: Some high quality ingredients (aglio, pomodori, mozzarella di bufala, e basilico)

Step 3: Time to eat! Tasted just as good as it looks.

And for dessert....some Prosecco with Basil!

Luckily the frozen pizza dough comes in a 4-pack here. Tomorrow we are going to have pizza with prosciutto e carciofi (artichokes) which we also purchased on Wednesday at the market.

I can't believe we have not seen this before....

2007-11-28T18:10:00.000+01:00

Success!!! Today we headed over to the mercato near the Medici fortezza that is held every Wednesday. As I mentioned before, it is mostly clothing and household items (curtains, sheets etc.). Neither of us being the types to buy clothing from a man selling underwear out of the back of a van or having our own apartment to furnish, we have only been over there a handful of times. Today we went over with the purpose of buying some mozzarella di bufala from the men from Napoli (Naples). Sure enough, in an area away from the main market there were a number of vendors selling various kinds of food products: cheeses, olives, vegetables, fish (smelled a little fishy), as well as already cooked products (porketta, rotisserie chickens, calamari, french fries). We couldn't believe that we had never seen this before!! Of course I forgot the camera, but we plan to go back next week. It is no where near as big as the markets that every other town/city in Italy have but it is better than nothing!

The mozzarella di bufala was sooo good (as it should be for 14 Euros a kilo!!). We did however splurge on the D.O.P. (Certified Provenance Brand EEC) version. The bag pictured below is 500g so it cost us 7Euros......

.....But look at the size of it!........

According to my grams to pounds converter, this is more than 1.1 pounds of cheese!

It was seriously one of the best cheeses I have ever had. Not at all like the regular Mozzarella that you get at supermarkets which is rather tasteless. This has a salty taste to it. I was reading here, that two distinguishing characteristics of mozzarella di bufala are 1) it's unique distinct taste and 2) it's soft moist texture. This particular mozzarella is a lot more flavorful than other types because of the high amount of milk fat.

For dinner tonight, we had a Caprese salad that I made along with some steaks that Reed made.

We have tons of the mozzarella leftover which is a good thing since we have some pizza dough thawing. That will be for tomorrow! Tasting the cheese today, we can't wait for our month in the Naples area. We are still trying to figure out the best place to stay since we do not want to be living in Naples and we won't have a car. We are leaning towards the Sorrento-area. One thing is for sure, we can't wait to have the pizza from Naples. One place I really want to eat at is L'Antica Pizzeria Da Michele which has been in business since 1870 (and happened to be featured in the book Eat, Love, Pray).

Tomorrow: train tickets to the Veneto and home-made pizza!

Sienese daily life in 7 parts

2007-11-27T19:43:00.000+01:00

Sienese Daily Life.....

1. A morning trip to Caffe Fiorella; un cappuccino for me, un caffe doppio (double espresso) for Reed, and nothing for Mr. O (because coffee is not good for dogs!).......

2. Most likely a trip to the grocery store........in fact, today we walked 45 minutes each way to Coop so we could get large potatoes to make baked potatoes and light bulbs (the grocery store near us does not have light bulbs-go figure). Too bad we forgot to get the light bulbs! But we did manage to pick up some taco sauce (which is really salsa not taco sauce) and some sour cream. I think we might be having Mexican food in the near future. Just a guess.......

3. Have a little wine...sometimes really great wine and sometimes, well....straight out of a water bottle! Honestly, it is not as bad as it sounds. There are a number of small wine shops that sell vino sfuso (unbottled wine). Sometimes it is actually a lot better than the stuff you get at the store (for a comparable price). Today, we went to one place and it was BYOB-Bring your own bottle: they fill it up, it costs somewhere around 3-4 Euros for 1.5 liters and you are good to go!

4. Take Mr. O to his park which is quite beautiful and has breathtaking views looking south (pictured below at sunrise)....

5. Reed heads off to make desserts at Osteria Le Logge.......

6. I practice my Italian a few days a week with my friend Cristina.......

7. And, we're busy taking advantage of this great opportunity to travel, including meeting up with some fellow expats here in Italy. We leave bright and early on Saturday to head to the Veneto to meet up with Lawren, Steve, and Mary (fellow Charlottesvillians!!!) and to get to see Verona and Venice! And Tania and Keith have invited us out to Cortona later this month to stay with them in their very own newly purchased Tuscan farmhouse. Oliver will be busy playing with their two dogs, Porter and Murphy!.......Can't wait!

On a note unrelated to Italy......before we left Charlottesville, Reed filmed an episode for public television. It just aired but can be seen online. If you want to watch him make his Tuna sashimi and Avocado pizza check it out here! (He is episode 120.) I think he did a great job!

Tomorrow we head to the market that is held every Wednesday near the Fortezza. The market mostly has household items, clothing, and misc. stuff. I was told that it also has food (we've never seen any! Hmmm!) and that supposedly some men drive up every Wednesday from Napoli to sell fresh mozzarella. Hopefully we are successful because we have some pizza dough thawing in the fridge right now!

Italy, From Head to Boot and how two little dogs from Lynchburg, VA, might finally get to meet!

2007-11-26T21:10:00.001+01:00

Reed and I have decided to leave Siena at the end of December/beginning of January and move on South to travel! This has been in the works for awhile and we still have a lot of work to do getting everything in order. Siena, we realize, is a hard city to live in. It is beautiful and charming and medieval....

...but not the best place to live here in Italy, especially if two of your goals while being here is to eat good food and to travel! We have decided that we want to spend the month of January in Sicily-basing ourselves most likely in Palermo and then the month of February probably in the Napoli-area definitely making sure to make it out to Puglia (the heel of Italy) for at least one week. Reed wants to see Pompei and I want to get to Alberobello to visit the trulli.

This weekend we are heading up North to Verona, the land of Romeo and Juliet, and Ollie's sister!

Ollie? Mary?

Mary? Ollie?

Ollie is the first picture. He hates trains and is a little freaked out in the picture. But anyone who knows Oliver and looks at the picture of Mary below would realize that they have to be siblings!

Cibo, that's Italian for food!

2007-11-26T20:18:00.000+01:00

So maybe you are wondering why we have not really talked that much about the food we've been eating seeing that we are in Tuscany and we created a whole other blog so we could write about what we have been eating. Well, the simple answer is that the food is not that great here. Granted we don't have an unlimited budget where we can afford to spend 100 Euros a night, but in general (this may be a generalization!) the food is just not living up to our expectations. Of course, we have mostly dined here in Siena, short of a few trips here and there, and I believe it is safe to say that Siena is not a dining metropolis.

In the book "Eating in Italy" by Faith Willinger, she describes the cucina of Toscana as simple: Bread and Oil. That would be great but the bread is salt-free. We miss salt in our bread! She goes on to write that "The food in Siena's restaurants is miserable.....Most tourists who come to Siena stay only for a few hours, and restaurants haven't gone out of the way to make this brief stay memorable...." I couldn't have said it better myself! Back in C'ville when we were planning this move we were a bit dismayed by this and did not think it could be possible, alas, it is!

We have found two restaurants in Siena that we do enjoy very much and therefore have decided to solely frequent these two restaurants: Pizzeria Carla and Franca and La Chiacchera. We have tried other places to eat and just seem to be disappointed.

The simple option seems to be that we should cook for ourselves considering that both of us are capable of cooking. The problem is the grocery store and selection of food. Different cuisines aside, the grocery store closest to our apartment, Conad City, does not even have large potatoes to make baked potatoes or pizza dough for that matter! It is unbelievably frustrating to go there especially having been used to a greater selection at home; it is almost like trying to shop at a mini-mart.

We have made a few Italian dishes that have been good including our meal from the goods we brought back from Rome, a few decent lasagnas (including a spinach, sausage, and pumpkin one that was pretty darn good), and some pork dishes. There is a fish counter at Conad but it smells horrible so we have not had any seafood!

Occasionally the urge hits to have something other than Italian food: i.e. Indian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican. ANYHING. We have had relative success with Mexican, especially after finding sour cream and taco shells, and our supply of taco seasoning (thanks Lilly!). When we first moved into our new apartment, we found that someone had left taco seasoning packs behind-Old El Paso. And it was even in English! We ran out to the store to get ingredients for tacos. Imagine our disappointment as we cooked the meat and it smelled and tasted like Indian Curry-Yikes! So, curry.....We bought some curry powder at the store and had some high hopes for some Indian food, especially after the taco incident. I mean, if Old El Paso taco seasoning in Italy tastes like curry then the curry most be really great! Not really. We attempted to make a curried pork and cauliflower dish and needed to use about half the jar to even achieve a slight curry flavor thus rendering the sauce kind of pasty. It was ok. Chinese has just been a disaster!

That leaves Thai. I love Thai and greatly miss Thai 99 in Charlottesville. What I would give for a Krapao Tofu. A long time ago we found the Asian market in Siena. It is about the size of a closet and has all types of asian food. We had been wanting to make (and I to eat) Thai food for a long time now and tonight was the night. Well folks, it was a success!!! Yippee!!

Dinner tonight was: Red Curry Pork with Eggplant, Peppers, Onions, and String Beans. In fact, Reed said he thinks that the curry paste we got today was better than anything you can get at home, even at the Asian market in C'ville! It was great to finally have something other than Italian food!

The Recipe:

1. Some red curry paste and coconut milk.

2. Some pork and vegetables.

3. Some rice noodles.

4. Voila!

It made so much that we get to have the same thing tomorrow!

Coming up: Ollie's sister and travels around Italy.

Montalcino: An Ancient Abbey and Brunello di Discrimination

2007-11-26T11:54:00.001+01:00

On Sunday we headed back to Montalcino, having previously visited back in September. We originally were planning on visiting either San Gimignano (to visit for the first time) or Radda (there is a picture we want to buy) but unfortunately there were no buses to either city on Sunday. Go figure! With those to options impossible, we considered Montepulciano but there also was no bus, and the train service was very spotty. Therefore, we ended up back in Montalcino. This was ok, because we wanted to buy a bottle of Brunello to bring back and I really wanted to make it out to Sant'Antimo, an old abbey, that I had yet to visit even though I had been to Montalcino twice before.

Being that it was Sunday and that we live in Siena (few buses), we headed to the train station to catch the bus. Why the train station? Well, here in Siena, the bus to Montalcino does not leave from the bus station (which happens to be a 10 minute walk from our apartment), but instead leaves from the train station (which is a 45 minute walk away). Our bus left at 10:50 and we were in Montalcino a little bit after 12. Those 24km sure do take forever!

Montalcino was a lot quieter than last time we visited and the streets already had Christmas lights up.

We were both hungry for lunch so we decided to head to a restaurant that had been very busy the last time we were there. The restaurant looked promising and it smelled great outside. We were really hoping to have a great meal at l'Angolo:

The meal started out fairly well. We ordered some house wine, water, antipasti toscano which had various cured meats and three types of crostini: chicken liver (blah!), porcini mushroom (very good!), and some other one (still not exactly sure what it was! It was the white one pictured below. I'm hoping it was not Lardo!).

Then the meal started to go downhill.....I ordered the papardelle with cinghale and Reed ordered the vitello di Brunello which was described as roast beef with a Brunello sauce. It ended up being pork not roast beef which was probably a good thing. Mine was good-nothing earth shattering but not bad. Reed's was....interesting. We did not take a picture but it was bright purple and according to Reed tasted like they used the house wine not Brunello. Reed said he should have known better that they probably would not have used Brunello since it would be somewhat sacrilegeous to use the Brunello. Regardless, not really worth the 8 Euros.

The real problem came when the only other table in the restaurant (which happened to be seated right next to us!) got their food. One of the ladies ordered the papardelle but she got about twice as much as me and one of the men got the vitello and his was piled high whereas Reed had three slices! Talk about discrimination! If they had been seated across the room it might have been different...different in that we would not have known that we had been gipped! So, if you feel like getting less food for the same price go to l'Angelo. This is all to common in Italy, especially in touristy areas like Venice. Susan, who writes from Venice, wrote here about how non-Venetians truly are treated differently.

[note: we are convinced that they sell some kind of "essence of food perfume" around here. I can't tell you how many times you walk by a restaurant here (by here I mean in the vicinity of Siena) and it smells amazing. You sit down and order and it is well....not that great. Hmmmm.]

For dessert we ordered the Tiramisu. It was actually pretty good and my first tiramisu since arriving in Italy. A double bonus seemed to be that the table next to us got the same size tiramisu. But that might just be because they were pre-portioned.

After lunch we headed over to Rocca, a large castle at the southern end of Montalcino. Inside is a park and an enoteca. You can climb up to one of the towers but only if you pay the enoteca 2 Euros.

One of the interesting things about the Rocca is that it only has one entrance (pictured below). You can also make out the shield above the door which is all over Siena. We have always thought that it kind of looks like a glass of wine.

We headed back towards the tourist office hoping that they could help us get to Sant'Antimo. A cute little doorway along the way.

This is Piazza Popolo.

We had to snap a picture of this but we are not really sure what it exactly is...

Finally we arrived at the tourist office. Apparently because it was Sunday, there were no buses out to Sant'Antimo which is a mere 10km from Montalcino. Not very far but too far to walk. The lady in the tourist office pretty much laughed at us when we asked how to get there and that we did not have a car. She gave us a list of taxi companies and suggested we give a few a call. Well, because it was Sunday none of the taxi drivers were working either! So, we went back to the tourist office to assess our options. Earlier in the day I had half kiddingly mentioned to Reed that we could bike out there (only 6 miles and it is flat). He said he hoped I was kidding. Now, maybe this was an option. But, again since it was Sunday there was no place to rent a bike or a scooter. Our chances of making it out to Sant'Antimo were kind of grim.

We went back outside and tried calling a few more times. Earlier, one of the numbers we had called said they were "occupado" (busy). This time we asked when they would able to come get us and they replied "Domani" (tomorrow). Great! Even if we could find someone to drive us out there, we were concerned that we would not find anyone who wanted to come pick us up. Finally someone gave us the name of a friend to call who was not a cab driver but was willing to drive us there and agreed to drive us back into town. Off we go!

The Abbazia di Sant'Antimo is beautiful and well worth the trek out from Montalcino. One of the things that made our visit better is that there was no tour bus dumping people there. I think if we had been able to take the bus we would have paid a lot less (!!!!) but it would not have been so beautiful. Both Reed and I, who are not church visiting people, both agreed how amazing it was.

Sant'Antimo is an isolated Benedictine monastery surrounded by vineyards that produce the famed Brunello wine and the small hamlet of Castelnuovo dell"Abate. A number of signs around the monastery claim that it dates back to the 900s. Some even say that Charlemagne began the construction of the abbazia in 781 while returning from Rome.

Over time, the abbey became more and more important because it was very close to a number of trade and pilgrimage routes. Sant'Antimo's heyday was in 1118. The abbey had become increasingly wealthy and the monks, who were looking to expand and improve the church, had the ability to look outside of Italy for ideas. The monks looked to the the Benedictine mother house at Cluny (Burgundy) France for inspiration in the designs. Thus, the abbey has a more French design than Italian.

Over the years, the abbey suffered many losses, especially at the hands of the powerful Sienese who in 1212 forced the abbey to give up nearly one quarter of its territory. By 1492, the monks had pretty much abandoned the abbey, choosing to live in Montalcino. A number of the outlaying buildings were destroyed so that the materials could be used in Castelnuovo dell'Abate and Montalcino.

A view of Castelnuovo dell'Abate.

The facade of the abbey (pictured below) was one of the last parts to be worked on, and thus suffered greatly from the lack of funds and is largely incomplete.

The interior of the abbey is very charming because it is very simple. Completely different from the ornate duomo in Siena. The inside of Sant'Antimo is particularly unique because it has an ambulatory and radiating chapels which is unique to Italy and Tuscany.

Below you can see the high alter of the church which has a statue of Christ that dates back to the 12th century.

One of the most celebrated aspects of the interior is said to be the capitals on the top of the pillars. The design of the capitals is said to be more Lombard than French indicating that it is likely that two separate groups, one from France (the Auvergne) and one from Lombardy (Milan/Pavia), simultaneously worked on the interior of the church.

A view from behind the high alter.

It is really hard to describe the interior of the abbey. Simple. Cold. Austere. Beautiful. We really were lucky to visit the abbey on a Sunday (even if it was difficult getting out there). I don't think it would have had the same effect had there been hordes of tourists.

Heading away from the abbey was a dirt road.

The view from this vantage point was really nice, although not as nice as other views. This also happens to be the exact picture that is on the cover of the current Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria!

The dirt road continues and continues..

It was getting close to our agreed upon pick-up time so we decided to head back out the main road to get a few more pictures. This is my favorite vantage point.

I think Reed did a great job with the camera!

It was time to head back into town. We still had about 1.5 hours until the bus left for Siena. We decided to stop in a few wine shops in search of some Brunello for us to bring home. Here are some really old Brunellos! Dusty, maybe, expensive, definitely! These were from 1955 and 1957 and ranged from 1,300 Euros to 2,500 Euros. Just a little too expensive for us.

We had wanted to get a Talenti because that is what we had last time, but we were convinced to try two others: Uccelliera and Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona. Ironically both these wines were cheaper than the Talenti!

We headed over to Enoteca Il Leccio where we went on our previous trip for a quick pre-bus apertif. I had a Prosecco...

...and Reed had a Brunello....

We had an uneventful bus ride home where I actually did not get sick! Then it was on to Pizzeria Carla and Franca, our favorite pizzeria (we actually had Thanksgiving there!).

We have more posts coming including some upcoming plans we have and some food adventures!

Firenze::Part 2

2007-11-18T14:31:00.001+01:00

Sunday we decided to head back to Firenze for the day since the last time we went our visit was cut short because of the rain. We wanted to get a fairly early start but ended up taking the 12:18 train which arrived at 1:50 in Firenze (unfortunately the train service from Siena on Sundays is not the greatest).

We arrived at the train station and awaited our train.....notice the lovely old trains that are used at the Siena train station! I think they are older than all of us combined!

"Ollie, Give Reed a kiss!"..........
Thankfully the sun was out when we arrived in Florence, even if it was quite cold. Last time we went to Florence we barely had time to see any of the sights before it rained so this time we walked around a bit (after getting a quick bite to eat).

The Ponte Vecchio.

At one point (prior to 1218), the Ponte Vecchio was the only bridge that crossed the Arno River, connecting the Oltrarno (literally meaning "beyond the Arno") area of Florence with the rest of Florence. Today, the bridge is home to expensive jewelry stores. The earliest "shops" on the Ponte Vecchio were butchers and fishmongers who used the river as a dumping ground for their waste. In 1593, Ferdinando I evicted the butchers and fishmongers and installed eight jewelers and 41 goldsmiths, and doubled the rents for each store!

One of things I really wanted to do was walk up to Piazza Michelangelo and San Miniato al Monte. Along the way (about half way up a lot of stairs), we snapped this picture:

At Piazza Michelangelo; Ollie never seems to cooperate with picture taking!

San Miniato al Monte:

Perched on a hill overlooking Florence and the Arno River, San Miniato al Monte is the oldest surviving church in Florence after the Baptistry. From the church there are great views of Florence:

We headed back down to Florence just as the sun began to set......

.....and just in time to catch the sunset over the Ponte Vecchio......

The Duomo at night......

And....the train ride home....

Oliver is not the biggest fan of the trains. We think he got really scared on the train ride home from Rome.

A few pictures of Siena

2007-11-14T14:01:00.000+01:00

A very tired little boy....

2007-11-13T21:01:00.000+01:00

****Note: we know that the comforter we have is horrible and looks even worse with the sheets on the bed! This comforter was the cheapest we could find without spending $150 for one. The only other option was a blue comforter which although better, was 10Euros more, we decided we would rather spend our money in other ways!!*****

San Miniato Truffle Festival

2007-11-11T19:00:00.001+01:00

On Sunday we headed off to San Miniato for the Mercato Nazionale del Tartufo Bianco which was being held for three weekends in November. We really did not know what to expect!

We hopped on a train here in Siena and within an hour and a half we had reached San Miniato, a small town in Tuscany half way between Pisa and Florence. We had brought Oliver along so he could enjoy the culinary adventure with us. San Miniato, like a number of towns in Italy, has two parts: Basso (lower) and Alto (upper). The Alto part is usually the older part of the town, while the Basso is the newer part, consequently the one with the train station.

We arrived to a deserted train station-you would not know that there was a large festival going on! I had read that it is a steep 4km walk from the train station to San Miniato Alto so we really were not keen on that option. After a number of phone calls to various taxi companies, we finally found one that was willing to drive us, and Mr. O, up to San Miniato Alto. All the roads leading up to San Miniato Alto were blocked and our taxi driver got screamed at by one angry cop. Nonetheless, in a few minutes we had arrived.

San Miniato is a very small town and all the piazzas in the town were selling various products in addition to the tartufo bianco, including: a number of various cheeses; olio nuovo (the new olive oil which is bright green); wine; pesto; and even a special liquor made of blueberries! It was all really interesting and so surprising that so many people turned out for this festival.

This person was selling pesto......(one of the best parts of the whole day were all the free samples!)

This is a picture of the cheese we bought: a special type of pecorino that is aged under hay. We bought two different types of the same cheese; one aged more than the other.

And the real thing! It was really amazing to see so many truffles. Apparently this year was not a very good year for the truffle, lack of rain, so there were fewer truffles. The cost for the majority of the truffles here ranged from 2,000 to 3,500 Euros per kg (so, about $1,500 a pound!). Yikes!

Below is Piazza della Repubblica and some of the tents....

After walking around for a bit, we headed to find something to eat. In Piazza del Duomo, there were large tents where you could order food featuring truffles. We ordered a sausage and truffle sandwich-big mistake! I can be a little picky about meat, but this was way beyond my limit: the sausage was 100% raw! Not cooked at all. Apparently this is the way, this specific type of sandwich is cooked: using raw sausage. Luckily, they agreed to cook the sausage for us. At least we will know better next time!

Sunset in San Miniato.......

Now it was time to hike the 4km downhill back to the train station!

A touristy day in Siena

2007-11-10T19:55:00.000+01:00

So my friend from London came to Siena for the weekend and we decided to spend Saturday in Siena. Reed and I made a lunch reservation at one of our favorite restaurants in Siena: La Chiacchera. In the summer and when it is warm out, they have tables on a hill outside the restaurant. This is definitely a no frills type of restaurant: they give you one menu which is handwritten and almost entirely impossible to read; the menu does not have one word of English on it (a definite plus); you frequently have to share a table; and there is no coffee or anything like that. The food is great, and the wine is cheap (4Euros for a liter of wine)!

Then it was on to see the Duomo......

I have to say that it king of irritates me that in order to see the Duomo, the Baptistry and the Crypt you need to pay to enter three times! And.....the floor of the Duomo (one of the highlights) is covered the majority of the year except for a few weeks in August. Talk about a rip off! We just went into the Duomo this time.

The duomo is very ornate and I can still remember learning about it in Architectural History 101 at U.Va. It is really dark and they do not allow any flash inside-one of the reasons none of my interior photos came out! The picture below is of part of the mosaic floor that they keep hidden!

One of the most interesting parts of the Duomo (that you actually get to go into with your 3Euro Duomo admission ticket for free *gasp*) is the Libreria Piccolomini. It was very colorful and was commissioned by Francesco Piccolomini (who for ten days was Pope Pius II).

This was the ceiling....can't imagine painting that.....

The walls are covered with large ornate books.....

I think every inch of wall space was painted a bright color, quite a contrast to the dark black and white theme of the inside of the duomo....

As we left, the sun was beginning to set. Below is a picture of what was supposed to be an addition to the Duomo. In the 1300s, the people of Siena set off to enlarge the Duomo, doubling it in size. The black death in 1348, which killed more than half of the population of Siena, suspended these plans. Had the duomo been renovated, the new structure would have been the largest church in Italy outside of Rome....

The sun setting behind the duomo...

As we were heading home, we noticed that one of the Contradas, Selva (the woodland contrada), was having a small chestnut festival....

This picture is dark, but here they are roasting the chestnuts in the big cylinders that rotate and turn over the coils...

Home made vin santo, also called holy wine. It is a typical Tuscan dessert wine that I think is ok. Not the greatest, but not horrible. It is typically very sweet and when we had it in Lucca, it was served with a biscotti type cookie that you dunk into the vin santo....

Chestnuts....

The street. It was all decorated with the Selva contrada flag....

Overall, a great day!!!

Il Nostro Apartamento

2007-11-06T18:37:00.000+01:00

I have been meaning to post pictures for a really long time of our apartment. Without internet in our apartment it has been very difficult to post anything on the blog, let alone pictures. We have been frequenting an internet cafe about 100 yards from our apartment but it costs so much money: 2 Euros an hour! I was really frustrated by this, until I saw that the majority of the other internet cafes around Siena charge on average 2 Euros for 30 minutes and 4 Euros and hour! $6 dollars an hour to use the internet is outrageous!

Anyway, on to our apartment.......

A view from the entrance......... To the right is the hall to our bedroom and to the left the stairs to the laundry room and down to our own cave........

A close up view....Our kitchen is all blue Ikea......

A view of the entry way......

Our bedroom....Ollie's head is just visible on the bed......

The steps leading down to the bottini......

The gate to the bottini....

Our own bottini! The picture is very dark and I will have to take another. Neither one of us has ventured very far beyond the gate. The path seems to go uphill a little bit but it is too dark to see without a flashlight. I was reading the bottini are a 25km tunnel system underneath the city of Siena and were used to bring water into the city beginning in the 12th century.

A Roman Feast

2007-11-03T17:06:00.000+01:00

Last weekend we had the opportunity to go to Roma and had a blast. One of the great things was that we were able to bring back some stuff that we purchased at the market: Spices (Cayenne and Cumin for taco night); black beans (for taco night again!); artichokes; and squash blossoms. I was really excited to have the squash blossoms!

Rome is known for artichokes and we had artichokes at almost every meal when we were in Rome. In Italy, artichokes are grown in almost all of the 20 regions and Italy is responsible for 2/3 of the world population, followed by France, Spain, and the U.S.

The artichokes soaking in water....

The final product.......

The artichokes were great but my hands down favorite were the squash blossoms!

At the market........

We debated for a long time on what we were going to stuff them with and finally decided on a goat cheese/spinach/garlic mixture! Squash blossoms are really really delicate but definitely worth the effort!

Reed created a tempura batter (flour and sparkling water) so we could fry them up!

Roma again!

2007-11-01T19:17:00.001+01:00

A Few random pictures from Rome!

'Dog Parking'

Sunset in Rome

Street Lamp in Centro Storico

View from inside the Pantheon

Roasting chestnuts near the Spanish Steps

Roma::Monday

2007-10-29T18:58:00.000+01:00

Roma:Monday

Monday morning we headed to the vegetable market at Campo de’ Fiori, one of Rome’s most famous produce markets. In the middle of the square is the statue of Giordano Bruno, a monk who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1600.

The market was wonderful and we had such a great time especially since there is no market at all in Siena! Boo!! In addition to produce they had different spices: we stocked up on cumin and cayenne pepper for our Mexican food along with a giant bag of black beans. There are no black beans in Siena!

The market-Chestnuts

Pumpkins (zucca giallo) and garlic

Hot Chili peppers in a basket on a motorino

Reed and Ollie outside a salumeria

Above is a picture of a man sharpening his knife by biking! He did not want his picture taken so we had to quickly sneak one!

After the market we headed over to the Vatican so Reed could go inside St. Perter’s. Unfortunately there was something going on and the line was unbelievably long and we had a train to catch so Reed could not go in. Something for our next trip. We had a fabulous time and were sad to leave!

St. Peter's Basilica

The Forum-right near our hotel

Roma::Sunday

2007-10-28T18:30:00.000+01:00

Roma:Sunday

Sunday morning we headed out with Oliver to the Aventine Hill, one of the 7 hills of Rome. At the top of the hill is the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta and the Priorato dei Cavalieri di Malta. If you look through the keyhole in the door, there is a spectaculr view of the dome of St. Peters Basilica framed by trees (to read more, click here).

We dropped Mr. O back at the hotel and headed to the Colosseum where we took an audio tour. The Colosseum was once a massive amphitheater for fights held on holidays in Rome (at that time, more than half of the days in the year were holidays!). There were two different types of fights: those between gladiators and those involving exotic animals, including lions, panthers, and even hippos. During the reign of Trajan (98-117 AD), Trajan held a marathon 117 day killing spree involving 10,000 gladiators and 11,000 animals. I thought it was interesting that a gladiator usually only fought two times a year! At the time of the games, the arena was called the Flavian Amphitheater, and was only named the Colosseum during the Medieval Period in reference not to its colossal size, but rather to the giant statue – Colosso di Nero – which was nearby. After the 6th century, the Colosseum was abandoned and exotic plants, whose seeds were brought by the animals, grew within. The stone, marble, and other materials used to build the Colosseum were used to build other structures, including St. Peter’s Basilica.

We then headed off to the catacombs, some 300 km of tunnels used as burial grounds by the Christians. We went to San Callisto, the largest. The catacombs are located on Via Appia Antica, which once ran from Rome to Brindsi (a city in Puglia-the heel of Italy). No photos are allowed within the catacombs. To read more about the catacombs, click here)

Outside the catacombs::a heard of sheep!

Next we headed back to get a few pictures of the Colosseum and Travi Fountain at night. These are the work of Reed!

(I put our names on the two Colosseum pics so no one stole them off the internet. If you want a copy, let me know)

Roma::Saturday

2007-10-27T19:08:00.000+02:00

Roma: Saturday

Last week we decided to head to Rome for the weekend. We originally were planning on heading out to Cortona (Tuscany) and Orvieto (Umbria) but we would have needed to rent a car, and the rental prices were more than what it would cost us to go to Rome. Go figure!

We headed out very early on Saturday morning: we had a 8 am train to catch and the train station is about a 40 minute walk from our apartment. Oliver did very well on the train, especially the first train to Chiusi.

Ollie and Reed in Siena

The train from Chiusi to Rome was a lot noisier and Ollie got scared every time another train passed us or when we went through a tunnel!

Me and Ollie on the train to Roma

The train only took three hours and by 11 am we were in Roma (we kept telling Oliver he was in the big tomato!).

For lunch we headed over to Trastevere, which is across the river from Centro Storico. Originally it was a poor working class area but now is becoming more popular for foreigners to buy property. We decided that we would spend the day walking around the city and seeing some of the main tourist sites: Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps. The Trevi Fountain was my favorite!

Pantheon

Pantheon- interior

Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps

We are still alive....

2007-10-26T11:42:00.001+02:00

We are still alive...It has been a busy month. We finished up classes for the month of October yesterday and had our test in the afternoon. Overall, the whole experience with the Universita per Stranieri di Siena was rather disappointing. Not only is the school completely unorganized, but they don't really seem to care if anyone really learns anything (people come and go as they want etc). I was especially disappointed to see the number of people that were cheating yesterday during the test and nothing was done about it! Other than that, we met a few nice people from all over and we had a party last Saturday for our entire class which went really well!

This weekend we are off to Rome for a few days (Sat-Mon) and are taking Mr. O with us. Hopefully the weather holds out! The weather this past week has been cold and rainy-which is even worse since our heat will not be turned on until Nov 1.

We signed up for internet access and hopefully within the next few weeks will have the internet in our apartment so that we can post more!

Our Trip: Part 2

2007-10-05T16:39:00.001+02:00

We took three main trips when we were in Lucca: to the Cinque Terre, to Firenze, and up into Garfagna, specifically to Barga and San Pellegrino.

On Tuesday, after two days of relaxing by the pool, we headed to the Cinque Terre. Having done it before 5 years ago, I thought I rembered how hard it was! Yeah right!! It was quite hard. We took the train to Monterosso from Lucca and hiked the first two villages: Monterosso to Vernazza and Vernazza to Corniglia (the two hardest paths). After that, we took a break, had lunch in Corniglia, and were on our way back to Lucca! We learned later that the day we hiked the Cinque Terre, three tourists died by falling off the cliff! Apparently they went off the path to take pictures!

There were many steps to climb.....and then more......and then more......

Boats in Vernazza-Cinque Terre

Vernazza, Cinque Terre

Vernazza

On Thursday, the three of us, went to firenze (this was the first train ride for Oliver!). We debated going to Florence considering it was hailing at the Lucca train station, but in the end we went. The rain briefly held off, allowing us to walk by the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, and by Santa Croce before there was a giant soaking downpour! We headed to the Mercato Centale, for Reed to see all the goodies! I stopped paying attention after he made me look at a skinned calf head! Still there were lots of goodies, especially upstairs, where we bought some olives fresh from Sicily to cure-Some how we messed them up though :(. We plan on going back and taking the train because the prices are really low at the market!!!!!

Firenze-il Duomo

The Ponte Vecchio-Firenze

Santa Croce as the storm rolls in-Firenze

Sicilian olives that we bought at Mercato Centrale

The vegetable stands at Mercato Centrale

On Friday, we headed to the hotel that Gianlucca works out of so that Reed could help Enzo with a presentation for the Japanese students that are attending Gianluccas schools. It was a crazy morning but I got to stay in the kitchen and watch everything being prepared which was a lot of fun!

The day at Gianluccas-Enzo the owner of the restaurant Reed works at is right behind Reed.

Relaxing in the yard with Ollie

On Saturday we took the car and headed north. On the way, we passed three stands selling Tartufo Fresca (Fresh Truffles)- we ended up buying two different kinds of white truffles.

The truffles that we bought-both are tartufo bianco (white truffles)

The bigger white truffle pictured above is apparently used more for making oil. This is still the beginning of the season so they were small. The truffles we bought were from San Miniato.

After that it was on to Barga, a very small medieval village, and then on to San Pellegrino, which is more than 1000 m above sea level. The town is verrrry small. Below is the whole town! We had about 5 minutes there before the fog rolled in and it was impossible to see anything!

San Pellegrino

Before the fog.......

The fog starts to roll in........

The fog has arrived......

After this, it was time to head back to Siena and start school. We did manage to stock up on quite a few Mexican ingredients at the store in Lucca (I bought the last three boxes of Taco shells at the store in Lucca!)

Our Trip: Part One

2007-10-03T21:00:00.001+02:00

School started this Tuesday (Oct 2), and before we had class every day, we headed off to Lucca to watch Lina and watch the mill for Doris and Doug while they took a group up to the Dolomites and to Venice. We got the chance to got to a lot of places and see a lot of things. Here are the highlights from the first part of the week:

Saturday, September 22

The Vineyards on the way to Panzano

On Saturday we already had the rental car so we decided to head up to Chianti to visit Panzano and Radda in Chianti. Panzano was this really small town, about half way between Castellina in Chianti and Greve in Chianti.

Panzano

Panzano is most known for being the location of the Antica Macelleria Cecchini, one of the most famous butcher shops in all of Italy. For those who have read the book, it is also the butcher shop that is mentioned and talked about in the book Heat by Bill Buford. The place was absolutely packed but Darrio, the owner, came out and shook our hands so Reed was happy!

After that it was on to Radda in Chianti, a really cute small town, that is definitely worth a trip. The town is really small, including the doors. Oliver helps put it in scale!

Ollie in Radda

For dinner we headed off to the festa di Bistecca and Fungo Porcino in Certaldo, a 45 minute drive from Radda. It was fun, but not quite exactly what either of us was expecting. It was inside this large communal hall and we had to wait about 45 minutes before even getting through to order. We placed our order and sat down to wait for our food. The food was pretty good, just annoying that people who were in line behind us ate and left before we got half our food!

Fried Porcini (we also had grilled porcini-at the back of the picture)

Steak with Arugula

Sunday, September 23

Sunday we headed off to Lucca....We spent Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon lying by the pool which overlooked Lucca and the valley. It was quite relaxing!!

Hopefully tomorrow after school we will have time to post about the rest of the week, which included a trip to Cinque Terre and Olivers first train ride to Firenze!

We are back!!

2007-10-02T18:10:00.001+02:00

We are back in Siena and moved into our new apartment yesterday (oct 1)! It is great to finally have a place to call home. Classes started today (today was an afternoon class-tomorrow we have class at 9 am). It went really well and we are the only two Americans in the class, but English is the common language. Our teacher is really nice and speaks English as well! We had a busy week last week and are going to try to get our pictures from our trips and pictures of our new apartment on here as soon as possible!

Ciao

Ashley and Reed (and Ollie too)

And we are off....

2007-09-21T21:12:00.002+02:00

Tomorrow we are heading off to Chianti to go to Radda in Chianti and Panzano. Panzano is the home of Antica Macelleria Cecchini, one of the most famous butcher shops in all of Italy. After that, we are headed off to Certaldo (about 40 min north of Siena) for the Festa della Bistecca and Fungo Porcino. The sign below has been all over Siena for the past week and we are definitely looking forward to going. As you can see, you can get fried or grilled porcini mushrooms, and either a bistecca (which is about the size of your plate) or tagliata (which is sliced meat). Tagliata comes from the Italian word tagliatare which means to cut. Last week up in Montalcino we saw a bistecca that someone had ordered and not only was it huge (2+ inches thick but it was rare as it could come). I think I'll be having the tagliata!

This is a blurb from a newspaper article about the festa:

In Certaldo, a beautiful town in the Chianti countryside, next to Florence, starts the Beefsteak and porcino mushroom festival (Sagra della bistecca e del fungo porcino) from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd September 2007.

A chanche to taste the very good barbecued meat in this beautiful village in the green Chianti countryside along with the most appreciated italian mushroom: an entire menu based on the porcino with courses like the tortelli with mushrooms, the fiorentina steak with porcini, and so on...

Where: Centro Polivalente, spazio sagre - viale Matteotti
The festival will be repeated from 28th to 30th September and from 5th to 7th October 2007.
Info:
Centro polivalente Certaldo
Ph.: +39 0571667349

We probably wont have much time for the internet or possibly even an internet connection the next week. We are trying to plan a train trip up to Genoa as well while we are in that region to have some yummy pesto!

A few pictures from Siena taken tonight.......

This is a picture of Monte de Paschi di Siena, the oldest bank in Italy. It is always lit up at night.

This is what happens.............

2007-09-19T21:21:00.000+02:00

.........After three weeks in Italy!.......

.........Ollie is officially exhausted!!!

Three weeks ago today we got to Italy! It has been a long three weeks but we've had some great times. We are looking forward to finally moving into our new apartment on October 1st and heading up to Lucca this Sunday for a week. I've planned some day trips around Lucca: Cinque Terre, Portovenere, and up into the Garfagnana and the Alpi Apuane region north of Lucca. We are especially glad that we have only a few more nights in this apartment: Hooray for leaving San Martino 63!

We went over to our new apartment today and are even more excited about it (specifically that the girl who currently lives there describes it as too quiet!). A welcome change for the noise here: the ragazzo irritante (annoying boy), the neighbor who blares the TV past 1 am, and the other neighbor who is building something below us that requires heavy machinery very early in the morning!

We've been enjoying our days and taking Ollie up to his park where there are loads of Olive trees and great views.

HAPPY THREE WEEK ANNIVERSARY!!!!