We chose L’Accademia as our first museum in Florence. We moved quickly past what have now become the “usual” paintings of crucifixions and saints, and entered a long hallway lined with large marble statues. Signs in English explained that these were unfinished works by Michelangelo. I could see the figures emerging from the rough, light grey stone, as if they were climbing into life. I felt an intimate and emotional connection to the master who, rather than building up a figure as you would with clay, was revealing him by chipping away the stone.

At the end of the hall rose the David. Much bigger than I expected, the statue is framed by the familiar white half dome structure, and stands there on a pedestal, seventeen feet tall. His beauty brought more tears to my eyes and a warm feeling to my chest. We were able to walk around him and see the physical details; the feet, the leg muscles, the slingshot strap around the back. I was surprised at how moving and powerful it is to see such a familiar cultural icon up close.

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Later we walked by a modest church facade that was included in the Firenze Card, and decided to go in. It turns out that it was The Museum of San Marco, housed in a cluster of buildings that was once a monastery and home to Savonarola. We enjoyed a peaceful rest in the cloister.

We looked at simple chapels and small visitor’s cells (each with a fresco), but my favorite was the library. In Renaissance times, monks would copy and illustrate their manuscript in this sunny room. Today it’s lined with cases of the large books and a display about how the books were made. Parchment made from animal skins and samples of pigments, gold leaf and thick buckles to hold the giant books closed fascinated me.

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Art for the Day

Last night I started rereading Robert Hellenga’s the Sixteen Pleasures, a novel I read years ago. All I could remember is that it’s about rescuing books from the 1966 flood in Florence, and that I loved it.

We left the Umbrian olive farm this morning, traveling down the mountain by taxi to the train station in hazy sunshine. Even the quiet art nouveau station seemed hectic after our days in the country. The local train made a dozen stops in small towns. I looked at peoples’ apartments with laundry and geraniums on the little decks and wondered what high density life would be like in this Mediterranean climate. It got warm in the train; I look off my sweater and the air conditioning came on. As we neared Florence, more and more people boarded and soon our car was totally full.

We hurried out of the massive Florence station, rolled our bags to our guest house and then lugged them up 92 steps to the fourth (top) floor of a 15th Century palazzo. It’s not fancy, but the ceilings are high, it’s quiet and comfortable, and the innkeeper spent a half hour explaining to us where to eat, do laundry, find a charger and so on.

We were anxious to see the Duomo after reading Brunelleschi’s Dome. We headed out to get oriented. The major sites in Florence are all pretty close together, so as we walked in the late afternoon we planned for tomorrow when we will have our Firenze Pass that gets us into the churches, museums and bathrooms.

The Duomo, rising huge above its very small square, astonished us. Tomorrow we’ll go inside. We will cross the Ponte Vecchio, covered with houses and shops, to climb the hill and see the view.

The streets were very crowded; walking side by side was difficult and I actually saw a woman knocked down by a surging crowd. Luxury stores line the narrow streets. Buses, motorcycles, bikes and cars compete with pedestrians. Exhausted by all of this, we decided to have supper and turn in early. A little cafe directly across from our guest house had inviting tables out front so we took our seats under the awning and ordered soup and salad.

The wind started blowing. I held the menu down with the bottle of water. The soup came out. Rain drizzled onto the silverware. We moved closer to the center of the awning. All of a sudden a couple dozen people ran into the restaurant as the rain broke loose. Umbrellas opened. The waiters cleared the other outside tables. Thunder and lighting commenced. We finally aborted and carried our food, drinks and cutlery into the dining room.

Cozy and warm inside, the cabbage soup was comforting. The staff kept checking to be sure we were ok. The rain didn’t stop and out the window a guy hawked colorful plastic rain ponchos. The maitre d explained that these storms are common in Florence and I thought about the flood. After we paid the bill, a waiter asked if he could give us a limoncello, a yellow liquor that appears to be a traditional Italian gesture of kindness. We toasted each other, drank it down and ran home across the street.

We’ve been in seven different hotels so far. They are moderately priced and charming. Each room has had an en suite bathroom and each bathroom has had a bidet!

The bidet must be important for hygiene because space for a human-sized shower is sacrificed to make room for it. It sits next to the toilet, shiny clean and sparkling.

I have encountered these fixtures before in France and I know what they’re for. But I’ve never taken the time to learn to use one. So I consulted YouTube for instruction. I found an excellent and tasteful video where a fully clothed young woman demonstrated both the wall facing and the more conventional forward facing positions. (Search “how to use an Italian bidet” by Nima Ghods. You will find some other funny ones there too.) Please watch Nima’s video before you read on.

I gathered my equipment, soap and the special thin towel, ready to attempt the “girls” position. The bidet was as low as a preschool chair and there was just no room for my long legs. Straight on they hit the wall and I was not on board. There was no room to fan my legs out to the side either. This was a no go.

Thankfully the conventional toilet position worked great. I had to get used to the low seat and the warm spray but now I’m a believer.

After fifteen minutes on a winding mountainside taxi drive we arrived at La Mandrie. Since it was Sunday, the host advised us to reserve a table because the restaurant would be full for lunch. An Italian sort of farm-to-table operation, we had chosen this place for a two day rest and to enjoy some rustic Umbrian food. Nestled in an inholding in a park, the owners resurrected a thousand year old olive farm and now produce world class oil from 8,000 trees. Their sheep, cows and pigs graze in the orchards. They make cheese, prosciutto and salami. They bake their bread and create their pasta from their own wheat, and serve fruit, vegetables and herbs from their own garden. Their own honey sweetens the desserts.

At one o’clock the cute English speaking waiter seated us at a small table in the middle of the outdoor seating area. Sunlight dappled through the grape arbor above. I looked past other diners at a sweeping view from 600 meters above the green valley floor.

Soon the veranda and indoor dining room filled with beautifully dressed Italian families. I imagined that they had just returned from mass, but more likely they were just enjoying a special Sunday lunch together. At least twenty people sat around an L-shaped table to my right. I noticed at least three generations; no black clad nonnas though. The older ladies wore stylish silk blouses, chic hairdos and gold jewelry. The well behaved children and teenagers seemed to be having fun. One older guy looked dashing with a soft blue scarf draped artfully around his neck.

Talk and laughter filled the dining area. I heard the occasional honk of a goose and cackle of a chicken, and even a donkey braying! People gestured and moved freely and affectionately around the tables. Mike and I had plenty to talk about but I felt a little lonely amidst all these families, and wished I knew a little more Italian.

Black clad waiters rushed around keeping the courses coming. The Italian menu includes at least four courses: antipasto, first plate (pasta), second plate (protein) and dessert. Drinks, salads, vegetables, cheese plate, and after dinner coffee and liqueur might also be offered. Maybe it was gauche but in our case we just ordered wine, pasta (ravioli in white truffle sauce for Mike and gnocchi with chanterelle mushrooms for me) and ricotta based desserts (our protein.)

I couldn’t help but look at what others were eating. A young couple sat down at the table next to us. We smiled and nodded, unable to say much to each other. They started with a large plate of cheese, olives and honey and a plate piled with charcuterie. They asked for more bread. Noting how slender they were, I figured they were doing the truncated version of lunch like us. However, after an hour of slowly working through their appetizers with knives and forks, I was surprised to see the waiter deliver a full plate of pasta to each of them. They ate that quickly, in time for a platter of lamb chops and a pile of roasted potatoes studded with rosemary.

By this time, two hours had passed. We finished our coffee and prepared to go. I wondered what more the young people could possibly eat. Stuffed, we headed out for a little walk, knowing we had four more meals to go at La Mandrie! I was already thinking about lamb chops for dinner.

PS. I did have grilled lamb for dinner (8 pm). It was chewy and rich with salt, oil and herbs, and accompanied by a plate of roasted vegetables.

Today is Columbus Day in the U.S. but for me it’s a day to learn from Saint Francis. We are in Assisi, the first place in Italy where we’ve seen lots of people practicing their Catholic faith.

I’ve never seen a monk in a brown robe and sandals, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen groups of little nuns in habits. Assisi is an important pilgrimage for them, and for me too.

We have visited so many churches. Since I was not raised with a strong religious education, and I consider myself a nonbeliever, I feel a little left out of the mystery. I have to look for meaning in these churches, and it comes via art and architecture. In the ornate and ostentatious basilicas and the humble chapels, I’ve seen visuals of the sacred stories and saints, and realized that these paintings and statues tell and keep the stories alive, even for those who could not read. Rick Steves calls the Giotto paintings in the Basilica of St. Francis “Bibles of the Poor.”

We toured the upper level of the Basilica, looking at the sequential paintings of St. Francis’ life. We were both attracted to “St. Francis Sermon to the Birds.”

My knowledge of St. Francis was limited to those garden statues where he communicated with the animals but the frescoes showed his other adventures and good works. I learned that he tried to follow Christ through obedience, chastity and poverty, and that he added nature to the religious experience. But my big surprise came in the English section of the bookstore when I looked at prayers written by St. Francis that are so familiar:

Lord make me an instrument of thy peace…

And

The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and give you peace and mercy.

A friend recently shared the idea that a prayer is any wish for the well-being of others, forgiveness, or a good work or kindness. I realized that I make these prayers every day. So while I’m not a person who would conventionally be called a Christian, I’m in good company with Saint Francis and all of these pilgrims here in Assisi.

Bagno Vignoni is a tiny hill village. Internet says Population: 30. We spent the night in a stone villa constructed in the 1300s, beautifully updated as a B&B.

The purpose of staying here was the bagnos, hot spring baths in use since pre-Roman times.

We paid admission to enter a private spa. We also had to purchase bathing caps. The dressing rooms were state of the art, though I was surprised when a man walked right into the ladies’ changing room to discuss something with his wife.

The hot baths were in a lush garden with chaise longues for easily a couple hundred people. Hot water poured into a stone and tile pool with stairs and railings for easy entry. The water seemed jade green and was very hot. Water from this area was diverted into a very large “cool” pool where the water was milky green. The place was almost empty and very luxurious, a perfect start to our Tuscan day.

Capella de la Madonna di Vitaleta We started our day’s walk at the “most photographed church in Tuscany,” a tiny chapel on a hill.

From there we followed a well travelled path through fields and olive orchards. This was the Tuscan landscape that takes your breath away: miles of randomly rolling hills in every direction, in greens, golds, every shade of brown and even black. All against a deep blue sky and punctuated with the occasional tower or cypress tree.

We rested in a olive orchard. I picked a couple of mottled green to black olives. I knew better than to just bite in, but I squeezed and out came greenish, pulpy, raw olive oil! It tasted green and a little bitter so I rubbed it on my face.

Pienza is a larger hill town surrounded by a wall. As you near the town you come to a church built in the early 8th Century. The inside was bare with little decoration. I thought of people worshipping here for 1,300 years, and lit a candle.

Supper was at a wine tasting bar. We tried three reds and some Tuscan meat and sheep cheese.

When I started this blog I promised myself to focus on one thing a day. I broke my promise because there was just too much in one perfect Tuscan day.

For most tourists in this little section of Tuscany, the purpose of the visit is to sample the wine. I don’t know much about wine and I don’t have a palette to taste nuance, but I do like red wine, so we were eager to taste and learn. We had prepared for our visit by sampling Brunello wine, available at Costco for $26. If Costco sells it, it must be good.

Our Italian driver Gabrielle gave us a little intro to Brunello. It’s made from a deep red Sangiovese grape with a thick skin. It is aged for at least four years in wooden casks or barrels, and the 2014 was a good year! Gabrielle is on his third year of sommelier study, not to get a job as a wine steward, but just because he loves wine.

You can buy a quorto, a little pitcher that holds about two glasses, of Brunello for a few Euros. The wine is poured into large, almost diamond shaped glasses that maximize the wine contact with the air and then funnel the fumes into your nose as you drink. I’m no connoisseur, but I like it very much!

Today’s walk took us through field after field of neat rows of grape plants. The harvest has passed and I’ve only seen a few bunches of grapes left on the vines.

The leaves at the tops of the plants are rusting. Cheerful farmers who smile and wave from their tractors are turning the soil between rows, aerating the soil and adding fertilizer.

Sitting beside a dusty field for lunch, flies buzzed us and sour smells of fermentation and fertilizer wafted through. This was a farm, smelly and dirty, not a pretty tourist picture. We were grateful to be in, really in, the vineyard, the source of that delicious wine.

I found a few lonely grapes that were left on the vine and tried them. The grapes were smaller than our store grapes, perfectly round and deep purple. The skin was tough and the seeds were big. The juice, though, warmed in the sun, was thick, sweet and condensed.

The last part of our walk today was in another ancient pilgrim’s path. I imagined the thirsty travelers having a beaker of Sangiovese wine at the inn where they spent the night. And that’s exactly what we did too!

We were limping down a steep, rocky path through the woods. My trekking pole stabilized the descent but my knee, my hip, and my toe hurt. “At least we’re not doing this on our knees,” I quipped. That thought brightened me up. We were on the Way to the Abbey of Sant’Antimo deep in the Tuscan Hills. This ancient church has been a pilgrim’s wayside for over a thousand years and we were on the pilgrims’ trail.

The trees opened up and there, nestled between wheat fields, rows of grape plants and occasional olive orchards, rose a tall, plain, tan colored church. End in sight, I picked up my lagging pace.

A few tourists milled around the door. They were the first people we’d seen in our last three hours of hiking.

Entering the abbey I felt both relief and the sense of a holy place. Unlike the highly decorated cathedrals in Venice and Siena, this place was plain and serene. Gregorian chants over the sound system added to the feeling of mystery and awe. Mike moved to a pew at the front: I left him to his praying or recovering, and walked the inside perimeter of the church.

Maybe at one time it was brightly decorated with frescoes, but only a few soft and faded paintings remained. These two holy men were inside small arches.

The simplicity, the stateliness and the isolated hillside setting made this my favorite church so far. Here was a place a humble person could be close to their God. Maybe for me it was the work it took, ten miles of fairly rugged hiking, that made this place so welcoming to me. With a peaceful feeling, we moved on to find our bus back to Montalcino.

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Food Note: We were thirsty and starving. For supper I had pappa pomodero, a lukewarm soup made of tomatoes and bread. It looked sort of like condensed tomato soup, but the consistency was more like baby food or the smoothest tomato paste. The flavor was deep rich tomato, like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. Like the Abbey, it was pure, simple and divine.

Our hotel here has a balcony. My view right now includes the soccer stadium and a large Ferris wheel. Yesterday we got here from the train station on a really long, really steep series of escalators. Our walking in hilly Port Townsend has prepared us for the Siena terrain.

We bought an inclusive pass for the town center of churches and museums. One attraction included was called “Panorama” which sounded like a sweeping view so we were in! After a long wait we were allowed into a corridor. I was first. Quickly I was leading the line up a narrow passage that turned into a narrower circular stair. The kind with about nine inches of step to put your foot on tapering to the point of a triangle on the inside. No railing just the wall to hang on to. Oh oh. This was not my thing but I was line leader so I gamely headed up. It was dark. It was about 30” wide. It was a long way. Finally with relief I saw light and arrived at the landing. “Half way!” the guide said cheerfully. The next passageway was narrower so I let everyone pass me. I just couldn’t do it so I spent ten minutes alone on the landing and tried the pano function on the iPhone. Here’s what I got:

Dear Mike was waiting for me at the bottom. It was only 60 steps in the dark but I was ready for a calming Campari-soda with him.

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Thanks to those of you who commented on the dinner review. Please feed me synonyms for “delicious!”

I wasn’t planning on food commentary today but I had an incredible salad for dinner: bitter greens and tomatoes with little black figs, Parma ham (yes perfect with the unsalted bread) and a chunk of fresh feta cheese. I’ve never had anything like it: slightly rubbery on the outside giving way to a creamy runny inside. Not salty at all, but tasting like rich sour cream. All this was drizzled with honey.

It was so simple: bitter, salty, sour and sweet.

Sunny Siena has been such a contrast from Venice which now seems murky and gloomy in comparison.

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Art for the Day possibly a new feature of my blog!

Always attracted to red, I liked this little picture of some holy persons by an artist with a limited sense of perspective.

I had to write about food sometime. Italy is not the place to be on a diet so I had to laugh when I found this:

Temptation is everywhere: gelato, bread, cookies, pizza, pasta. Elizabeth Gilbert gained 10 pounds in her Italian Eat section in Eat Pray Love. So if you love me, pray for me and have faith that walking 8 miles a day will mitigate the glorious Eat sections of our every day in Italy.

We wanted to sit down and enjoy a nice dinner after a long day of travel. Something Tuscan. Mike checked the guidebooks and found a place that specializes in truffles. We walked through golden medieval Siena streets to Tar-Tufo Ristorante but had to wait until 7 pm when they opened. We were hungry.

A lovely slender woman dressed in black warmly greeted us at the door, putting us at ease in the very formal restaurant….you know, white linens, a single tall candle, golden chargers and the most beautiful water glasses with pink on the bottom that reflected the diamond pattern cut into them. We had already read the menu outside but we asked her to explain all the options that included a tasting menu with 5 to 7 truffle choices with wine pairings. We placed our more modest order and she opened a bottle of 2013 local chianti that she poured into lovely fine crystal glasses. “Smooth but full bodied enough to handle the meat.”

The chef sent out an amuse bouchée…a tiny pile of vegetables topped with a white ball of fluffy egg white. A second waiter poured a white sauce on the concoction. It was crunchy, airy, creamy and smooth as well as delicious and cute.

Then came another gift from the chef, this time a little ball of pate in a smooth crunchy shell sort of like a salty M&M cover, and topped with a red current. Adorable. I wanted another one but there was also a bread plate with the crackers, breadsticks and the typical breads of Tuscany (“not salty because the ham and meats are salty.”) We each got a tiny ball of herbed butter to accompany.

Next the waitress placed a small clothed table by us. On it was a 6” glass jar holding….ta da!…the truffles. Brown balls about the size of walnuts. The appetizer we ordered (polenta with pecorino and tomato) was placed on the little table. With her bare hands, she scraped thin slices of the truffles with a grater apparatus built into the jar lid. I had never eaten truffles, really, so I learned how they made a rather pedestrian food combination into an amazing one…salty, earthy and a little chewy.

Time for the main course. Mike had Tuscan longhorn beef with three cuts cooked three different ways and covered again with more shaved truffles. The plate was easily 15” long. Mike was instructed to eat the lighter cooked meat On one end first (salty…good with the bread) and end with the “stewed.” I had wild boar! It was closest to venison cooked medium rare. Kind of chewy and a great contrast to the puréed carrots that were so sweet and creamy I considered passing on dessert. We cleaned our plates.

We were two hours into the meal at this point and both getting a little drowsy but how could we resist looking at the dessert menu? We did pass on the truffle panna cotta. Here’s my dessert. The brownish balls had hazelnut cream in them. The other little balls are merengue and the larger mound is cardamom ice cream. All of this on a little pile of something nutty and crunchy. (This was not the kind of place where you take pictures of the food but I snuck out my camera.)

End of a most memorable dinner

We were not stuffed. This was such a contrast to pizza pasta gelato. We felt energized walking home and have not stopped talking about our incredible Tuscan meal.

L