Woodswoman Abroad

Italy Women - September 6-23, 2012

2011-12-27T13:51:00.004-07:00

Italy Women 2012

Rome, Siena, Florence, Lucca, Venice

Ah, Bella Italia! Wouldn’t we love to explore her majestic art, architecture, and cuisine, her serene villages and vineyards, her romantic coastlines and waterways for half of the rest of our lives? Well, on this Women’s Adventure, we’ll have to settle for just a bit less than that, taking in some of the spectacular sights in the top half of “the boot”.

We’ll begin in Rome, one of the most cultural cities in the world, and we will stay four nights here. We’ll visit the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Vatican. Throw your pennies in the Trevi Fountain and make your wishes come true. Spend a leisurely evening eating dinner on the edge of the Piazza Navona or the Campo di Fiori (or both!). Shop on the exquisite Via Condotti, sit on the Spanish Steps, and spend an afternoon at the Borghese Gallery, where Bernini’s statue of Apollo chasing Daphne will take your breath away.

Then we’ll travel by train to begin our stay in Tuscany, beginning with one night in Siena, where the Palio is held each year at the Campo. We’ll have a half-day private tour with my friend Viviana Girola, and explore the walkways, churches, shops and alleys of this old world town. We will then stay five days in Florence, strolling on the Ponte Vecchio to the other side of the Arno, listening to the monks chant their 5:00 Mass near the Piazale Michelangelo, stopping at a frutta e verdura market for a fresh afternoon snack. After a half day private walking tour to get a feel for the history of Florence, we will visit the old masters in the Uffizi Gallery and the exquisite statue of Michelangelo’s David at the Accademia. Franco treats us like queens at Il Porcospino, a local ristorante near the Medici Chapel. And always there is espresso, cappuccino, gelato and other delicious culinary delights.

Day trips to Fiesole and Vinci will give us a taste of some northern Tuscany towns, and are easy to reach by train or short bus. If we have time, we might even have a language lesson or two, taught by my Italian tutor, Leonardo d’Amato.

After kissing Florence goodbye, we will head to one of my favorite old Tuscan towns, Lucca. Nestled just near Pisa, our Lucca stay (two nights) will allow us time to stop in Pisa on the way, to see the Leaning Tower, of course, as well as the Baptistry and the Duomo. Siena and Lucca have become the happy substitute for Cinque Terre, since quite a bit of the Cinque Terre villages were damaged or destroyed by flood and mud slides last month.

Finally, we will again travel by train to the waterways of Venice, where the common substitute for a car is a long boat called a vaporetto. Walking in Venice across the hundreds of footbridges is a treat, and easier with your StreetWise Venice map, a must in this maze of canals. We’ll have a half-day tour here, through the Church of San Marco, the Ducal Palace and the Bridge of Sighs. Mask shops abound, and I’ve discovered a little place that makes and sells wonderful journals for those of you who like reflective writing.

If you choose, you can take a boat to Murano and Burano, famous for beautiful Venetian glass and lace. Or you can just sit in any café that appeals to you and watch the people go by. After four nights in Venice, we’ll bid farewell to the welcoming residents of Italy and head for home.

Our trip will include AIRFARE FROM DENVER, sixteen nights’ lodging (double occupancy), RailEurope passes, other private transportation and/or transfers to and from our hotels, Roma Passes for major sights, A Vatical visit, walking tours in Florence and Venice, vaporetto tickets in Venice, a half-day trip to Pisa, sixteen breakfasts, three lunches, seven dinners, Rome, Venice and Florence Street-wise maps, travel journals, and ME, your planner, guide, and all-around fire extinguisher!

Cost for above, (including airfare from Denver) is $5950.00** A $500 non-refundable deposit holds your space. A referral discount of $250 is yours for early registration by December 1 OR for bringing a friend not on my list . . .

For questions, please contact Joannah L. Merriman, Lifeprints, 970-481-6339 or 970-226-5676. E-mail me at jetlost@lamar.colostate.edu and check out this blog, www.woodswomanabroad.blogspot.com for samples of previous trip adventures!

Arrividerci!

**Double occupancy. Single occupancy available for additional cost. If you are flying from somewhere other than Denver, or if you have miles you’d rather use, please talk with me about arrangements. Travel insurance is a must, I’ve found, but I will offer a group rate or individual policy for the full value of your trip as well as for lost luggage, trip delays, medical coverage etc. Details about that upon registration.

SPRINGTIME IN FRANCE: PROVENCE AND PARIS

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May 4-20, 2012

Imagine the smell of lavender, herbs de Provence, the baked goods waiting in the shop on the corner. Antiques at the market in Isle de sur La Sorgue. Visits to castles, abbeys, picturesque towns in the Provencal hills. Cafes and shops abound.

A week at a beautiful Provencal villa in Robion awaits you, with heated swimming pool, and garden benches. Day trips to Aix-en-Provence, St. Remy, area wineries, the red hills of Roussillon. Springtime in Provence brings wildflowers, and the cherries are in season. Longer daylight allows for an evening’s relaxation outdoors with a glass of wine. Delicious meals are prepared with ingredients fresh from the village markets, enjoyed at area restaurants or by a personal chef at our own villa.

After our week at the villa, we will spend one night at Les Florets, a

favorite and beautiful little inn just outside the town of Gigondas, north one hour from our villa. Thierry will serve us wine his family makes on the property, cheeses to die for, and a dinner that will leave your palate watering for a week. On our way there, we will stop in Sault, the lavender capital of Provence, and though it will be early for the lavender, it is in the air, everywhere.

At the end of our time in Provence, we will board the TGV, the “fast train” to Paris, and spend the next week immersed in the beauty, excitement, tranquility (and food!) of one of the most stunning cities in Europe. With museum passes and metro passes, you are free to wander wherever you want, whenever you want, visiting some of the most famous paintings in the world, or finding the tiniest galleries in back streets. Paper stores, button stores, bookstores, artwork sold on the Pont Neuf. Just sitting outside the Louvre transports you to a different world.

We will stay in a small hotel in the Rue Cler district, the 7^th Arrondissement. From there, your feet or the metro or a cab will take you anywhere you want to go. The Hotel Muguet is just a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Sometimes lit in red, sometimes blue, the tower is an especially spectacular vision at night, walking through the park from our hotel!

Our trip will include AIRFARE FROM DENVER, all lodging (double occupancy), train from Paris to Avignon and back, rental cars, gas and tolls, transfers to and from our Paris hotel, 5-day museum pass, metro pass, seven dinners, eight breakfasts, Paris Street-wise map, travel journals, and ME, your planner, guide, and all-around fire-extinguisher!

Cost for above, (including airfare from Denver) is $5800.00* A $500 non-refundable deposit holds your space. A referral discount of $250 is yours for registration by October 15 OR for bringing a friend not on my list . . .

For questions, please contact Joannah L. Merriman, Lifeprints, 970-481-6339 or 970-226-5676. E-mail me at jetlost@lamar.colostate.edu and check out my website, www.lifeprintsjournal.com as well as my travel blog, www.woodswomanabroad.blogspot.com for samples of previous trip adventures!

Bon jour!

Joannah L. Merriman, M.A./Lifeprints

*Single occupancy available for additional cost. Travel insurance is a must, I’ve found, but I will offer a group rate policy for the full value of your trip as well as for lost luggage, trip delays, medical coverage etc. Details about that later.

Activity level: On our Lifeprints Journeys to France and Italy, we walk a lot. You don't need to be a hiker or a runner, but you will be happier if you are in fairly good shape for strolling along the streets both in hill towns and in Paris. There are plenty of cafes that afford us a bit of a rest here and there, so if you can be on your feet for more than a couple of hours at a time some days, you'll have great fun with us. Ask me for more specifics if you have health issues.

Paris Days

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Monday, October 18, 2010. Last night we walked quickly to the Rue Cler, at least six of us did, looking for a quick meal. Kay, Marie and I found Chinese food appealing, while Anne, Tonda and Sue decided the next-door restaurant looked better to them. One way or another, we were all exhausted from our day of driving the French highways, and we were very glad to tumble into our respective beds at the Hotel Muguet.

On to Gigondas and Paris

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Saturday, October 16, 2010. Today we pack up for one more Provencal destination, the lovely Rhone Valley village of Gigondas. But first, the drive over the mountain, which is quite spectacular and a diversion from the kind of terrain by which we've been surrounded. We began by loading our two cars at Fontaine du Faucon and heading toward Apt. All week, we've been "heading toward Apt", and never quite get there because our real daily destinations are elsewhere, but this morning, we were able to actually drive into that small city, and found that but for the village center, it was just an ordinary town, with light industry on the outskirts and the usual lovely Provence architecture in the center.

Our first stop was perhaps 20 minutes past Apt, in the village of Sault, known as the

Lavender Capital of Provence. I'd surely love to be here in late July, when the lavender harvest is in full swing, because what we could see as we drove were fields and fields and fields (get the picture) of cut la

vender mounds. I can only imagine the gorgeous vistas of purple during the summer.

As is our group habit each time I visit this area, we park the cars just in the center of town, walk to one of the two very available bakeries, grab the sweets of our choice, and take them to the Tabac across the street, where we can sit with coffee and our goodies for a nice break. Today we met a delightful young French woman who grew up in this town and is at university in Marseilles, but was home for the weekend. H

er parents are lavender farmers, and they are preparing some housing for visitors which might be completed by next summer. Hmmmmm . . .

After wandering through the little shops, purchasing lavender sachets, lavender honey, etc., we are back on the road again, headed over Mont Ventoux. There are many bicyclists on this road toward the top of the Mont, which is always baffling, because the hill is so steep, the terrain becoming more and more ghostly, but there are hardy folk around here, apparently. Thus the Tour de France . . . On the way to the top, there is an eerie forest, and then Sommet Mont Ventoux, 1912 meters. One would think we'd arrived in Alaska or the Arctic Circle. But we are only one hour from the lush fall foliage in the Luberon Valley, Provence.

After a stop for a few photos, and a chance to watch the cheering cyclists as their buddies arrived at the summit, we got back into our cars and headed down the Mont. Another stop in Malecene for lunch and then on to Gigondas.

And to be accurate, we're not really going to the village of Gigondas, we're going THROUGH the village to our next eating-and-sleeping stop: Les Florets. See http://www.hotel-lesflorets.com

Our hosts, Thierry and Dominique, are always so welcoming, and their inn is enhanced by a beautiful stone area (it’s too large to just be called a patio), with tables, a dry well (cats and kittens are often found there, playing together in the sun), and a most magnificent view of the valley below. Thierry’s family grows grapes, makes delicious Rhone wines, and we choose one or two of them to accompany our exquisite dinners. You read the superlatives in this post, but it is because Les Florets and its charms are hard to describe without those words . . . delicious, beautiful, exquisite, magnificent . . . (and yes, I'm using photos from 2008, because our arrival this year was not accompanied by sunshine. It was a bit cloudy and darker than last time, but you get the picture!)

We began the “routine”, if you can call anything in Provence routine . . . we parked the cars, checked into our rooms, took a breath, and headed to the dining room for what we knew would be another mouth-watering meal. Only one wrinkle for me . . . a tiny detail . . . the TGV trains were on strike, so our planned car rental return the next day to Avignon and what we had hoped would be a long and leisurely train ride through the countryside to Paris was now disrupted by the strike, and though one in three or one in four trains were still running, ours was not, with no alternative times that made sense. So that little wrinkle cost me four hours of phone conversations and exploration of alternate plans with Travel Guard throughout the night.

Sunday, October 17, 2010. Our final “best plan” was to keep our cars, drive to Orly airport on the south edge of Paris, and have our ATS Paris shuttle driver pick us up there, rather than at Gare de Lyon. A much more nerve-wracking proposition, but better than sitting at the Avignon train station all day hoping to get out. As it stood, the drive was relatively uneventful for both cars, though of course as soon as we were off the A road, we lost the signs to Orly and wandered through two towns past our destination. But after all of that, we arrived at our Hotel Muguet only three hours later than originally planned.

I have never been more grateful for Travel Guard insurance than I was during that weekend. Leslie at the Concierge Services for TG called me over and over, checking to see that we were doing well on the roads, making sure we got to our hotel, and offering all manner of other help as we determined how best to get out of Provence. Thanks, Leslie!

Last days in Provence

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Friday, October 15. Today was a day to stay near the villa town and its neighbors, do short visits here and there, do laundry, pack up and get ready to move on to the second half of our France adventure.

We slept in, made breakfast and headed out toward Roussillion again to check out the color, the shops, and the countryside. Gordes was also on our list, a beautiful hill town north of our village of Goult. Again, walking the town, stopping into bakeries and lavender shops, gathering fresh bags of herbs de Provence, and finally lunch at a little cafe, L'Estaminet Cave a Vin, where we ate outside in the glorious sunshine. I had the most delicious pate foie gras, buttery and rich, accompanied by toast points, a fresh Mesclun green salad, and sweet onion chutney, chased down my throat with lots of water and a delicious glass of local red wine! YUM . . .

My car, with Kay, Ellen and Gena as my passengers, then nosed its way down the hillside to the Village des Bories, a renovated ancient stone site, with the most amazing dwellings, all out of stacked stone without any mortar.

A final stop to LaCoste, where Gena was determined to see the Marquis de Sade's castle, and though we couldn't drive to it, no matter what the signs said, we parked and she took her determined self up the hill to get more than a glimpse of the crumbling facade. Pierre Cardin is said to be restoring the castle to its original sadistic brilliance, and we'll see how long THAT takes!

Back to the villa, everyone was finishing the last of the soup, cheeses, olives, and all manner of bread goodies. We have to be up and out of the villa before 10:00, headed north over Mont Ventoux to our next stop, Gigondas, in the Rhone Valley.

More of Our Villa Week in Provence

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Saturday, October 16, 2010

Ah, the best laid plans . . . I know, I'm behind on my Provence details, because we've been having such a lovely time, though the weather hasn't been as warm as we had hoped. Yes, we've been eating, drinking, talking, reading, walking, laughing, etc. Wonderful villages, beautiful countryside, not any real progress learning any French. We try, but it's a hilarious effort!

I left you in St. Remy on Monday, walking around with the Van Gogh "stations of the cross". Tuesday, we drove to Aix-en-Provence to the market, met our Chef Daniel and walked around the mouth-watering stalls of food, while he carefully chose the ingredients for our dinner that night. Small shiny aubergine, my favorite color. (Eggplant, that is). And zucchini. Girolles and sep (mushrooms to die for), some sea bass, goat cheeses, pears, and honey. Then he went off to the villa to begin preparation for our evening meal while we found a lovely restaurant for lunch (I'll get the card from my stash and enter the name here soon) and agreed to do a bit more market looking/shopping before we met at the cars at 3:30 to return to the villa.

Later that afternoon, Daniel set out cutting boards and sharp knives for each of us and we chopped and sliced, stirred and tasted, according to his direction, finally sitting down to our evening meal, accompanied by sparkling wine, white, rose, and red.

Of course we again went to our bedrooms stuffed to the gills, I with a cup of tea in my hand.

Wednesday, October 13. The winery St. Esteve de Neri, owned and operated by our villa hosts, Allan and Alexandra (Alex) Wilson, was our destination today. This morning we didn't have to leave very early, and we took the opportunity to lounge around the kitchen table in our pajamas before heading to St. Esteve. The winery is located outside Ansouis, so we drove through a charming two-level village called Bonnieux, then Lourmarin, and finally approached Ansouis and turned into the vineyard property.

Allan was awaiting our arrival and we got a short tour of the lower levels, where the enormous stainless steel vats hold the wine before it is bottled. We then had a bit of a lesson in tasting, with one white wine, one rose, and three reds. Just as we finished our tasting, Helen, Alex's sister and our chef from last Saturday evening, rang the tasting room to say that our lunch was waiting for us on the patio of the Wilsons' home.

Walking from tasting room to home patio, we passed the vineyard again, complete with turning leaves, garden cats, and that smell of the countryside nothing else can duplicate. Our table was set with delicious fresh tomatoes from the garden, olives, fish cakes, roasted chicken and fingerling potatoes, and the richest chocolate mousse I've ever tasted. Since I'm not a chocolate fan (I know, I know . . . ) I bestowed my portion of dessert on a chocoholic fellow traveler!

Later in the afternoon we stopped in Rousillon for a short visit, and marveled at the red and ochre cliffs surrounding this picturesque village. We decided we'll have to return tomorrow.

Dinner on this night was light, since our lunch stuck to our ribs nearly until bedtime. Sle
ep and a new day of adventures tomorrow, this time to the seacoast!

Thursday, October 14, all but one of our group headed south again, this time in brilliant sunlight, toward Cassis, a small town on the French Riviera. The coastline is gifted with calanques, the fjords of this area. You can take a boat ride to visit the calanques or just sit on the boardwalk at a restaurant and watch the water. I chose to do the latter because I've seen the calanques from the water, and I'm a bit motion sick to say the least. So while the women embarked on a five-calanque ride, I sat at an outside table with a delicious plate of boef tartare, its presentation deserving of a photo or painting, but alas, I dug into it before I remembered that I had a camera.

I took out my Kindle, sipped my red wine, and savored the most delicious tartare I've ever eaten. It came as a ground up raw patty of beef, with a trio of minced onions, capers and parsley surrounding it. A raw egg topped the beef and I mixed all the ingredients into a most tempting mess on the plate. Then lovingly slathered bits of the tartare on fresh crusty bread and closed my eyes, savoring every bit of my light lunch. The waiter asked about dessert and I began to shake my head, but then asked what he had to offer. In the list of possibilities, the words "flan caramel" caught my attention and I ordered a slice. Exquisite!!! With a generous dollop of fresh whipped cream, drizzled with the same caramel sauce that bathed the flan.

When my traveling companions returned on their boat, THEY were hungry, though I was now completely stuffed, and happy. So I sat with all of them while they had their share of real French Fries, crepes, and salads. Another hour of exploring shops through the harbor walk, a cafe au lait with Kay, and we were back in our cars, negotiating the roads from Cassis through Aix to our sleepy town of Goult and down the long dirt road toward our villa.

No one was famished that evening, but I made a huge pot of chicken vegetable soup, with herbs de Provence right from the source! Salad and some of that incredible crusty bread and we were full, warm and happy.

More later.

Bon nuit!

A Bit of Van Gogh

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Monday, October 11, 2010 - Provence

Today is a rainy day, hazy, a bit cold, not pouring, but certainly not sunny, as we are promised it will be tomorrow. So we opt to go to St. Remy to see what I call the Van Gogh Stations of the Cross. Eighteen reproductions of Van Gogh's paintings on panels outside, throughout a walk down the pathways he wandered when he committed himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum. In about a year, he created over 100 paintings, and you can walk through the eighteen outside panels, enter the asylum and walk up a flight of stairs to Van Gogh's bedroom, his sitting room, the room in which he was administered his shock treatments, etc.

Reading some of the information, in one case exquisitely written by a psychiatrist at the hospital, I feel as though I am almost there, watching Van Gogh paint as he gazes out his barred windows. The courtyard in the back of the hospital has a beautiful lavender garden, bordered by flowering rosemary bushes. Two small stone structures are nestled against the stone walls of the property.

Returning to the "centre ville" of the town, walking past modern shops in the ancient buildings, one could almost forget the man who spent a tormented and yet productive year in a mental hospital over a century ago.

A wonderful way to soak up some of the Provencal art history!

We Are In FRANCE!

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

Well, our France Women's trip has begun, and we are settled into our wonderful villa, Fontaine du Faucon, just outside of the lovely village of Goult in the Luberon Valley in Provence!

We all met at the Denver airport on Friday morning, and amazingly enough, our check-in, boarding, flights, connections, customs drill in Paris, luggage collection (NO ONE lost a bag!), and Rail Pass validation went off without a hitch! In fact it was such a smooth transition from one thing to another that we actually had too much time in the TGV terminal, waiting for the train.

We boarded the "fast train" at 11:30, wrestling our luggage up and down the few platform steps, and settled in. Despite the beautiful sunny day and the spectacular scenery in the countryside, most of us slept all the way through the rail journey to Avignon. But we laughingly reminded ourselves and one another that we will be able to pay more attention on the way back to Paris.

At the Avignon rail station, we rented our two cars and again, without a hitch, found our way to this amazing villa. Helen, the owner's sister, greeted us with a warm kiss on each cheek, while the smells of dinner comforted our senses. The herbal mixtures for sauce, and the sauteed garlic made my mouth water, and I was so thankful that we arranged for Helen to prepare our first meal here, rather than going to a restaurant somewhere or cooking ourselves. We're all still cheery but very tired, and I'm sure we'll be happy to settle in for the week.

I gave the women a tour of the bedrooms, let them arm wrestle one another for choices, and settled into my "apartment" across the small courtyard. Ellen took first advantage of the swimming pool and it must have looked more inviting to Sue and Marie than to me, because they soon were wet and laughing with Ellen, while I drove Kay and Gena up to the village of Goult, where we laid in a few supplies for breakfast this morning.

By 7:00 p.m. last evening, Helen had set out some cheeses and tapenade on toasted baguettes, accompanied by sparkling wine. We draped ourselves across couches and chairs in the living room and rested, talking, sipping, crunching until we were called to the main meal in the formal dining room. No, it was too tiring to even think of pictures, but I surely wish I had had a photo of the Wild Mushroom Crostini (chanterelles, sep, and something else) and arugula slightly wilted in olive oil. Next came Duck with Balsamic Sauce, Green Beans and Roasted Potatoes. And as we grazed over our plates, Helen was preparing a mouth-watering dessert of Red Wine Poached Figs with Panna Cotta and Almond biscuits. the Balsamic Sauce even had black cherries, and the entire sumptuous meal, accompanied by red, rose and white wines from the owners' vineyard (St. Esteve de Neri), coffee, tea, and chocolate truffles. Now don't all of you feel SO sorry for us???

This group, already connected by couples and trios, melted into instant friendships, and we finally made our way to our respective rooms by 10:00 p.m., having traveled many many hours across the globe. This morning, I walked across the courtyard to the main house by about 8:30 to make our first breakfast, and found only Ellen and Sue awake, talking over tea in the living room. Bit by bit the others came alive while I mixed up batches of scramble with mushrooms, peppers, onions and herbs. Coupled with fresh baguettes from the local bakery, fruit and cheeses from the village grocer, and apple pastry, we began our week here, lazy at first, but it will fill with activities soon.

Today we'll all go into Goult and explore the little streets, cameras in hand,and I'll try to post some photos along the way. Later we will drive to Isle de sur la Sorgue for Sunday Antique Market. Our first full day in Provence begins and ends with eating delicious food, sandwiched with the local color and the sound of our own laughter.

France, here we come!

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It's nearly 1:00 a.m. and in a bit more than four hours, I will be up again, departing for Denver International Airport with seven women. Tomorrow afternoon we will be driving from Avignon to our villa, Fontaine du Faucon, near Goult, in Provence.

For the next two weeks, we'll relax and soak in all that we can of the Provencal countryside and the magnificence of Paris. We hope you will enjoy your third-party ride with us!

Bon nuit!

Joannah

FRANCE IN THE FALL: PROVENCE AND PARIS

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France Women 2010

Provence and Paris
October 8-24, 2010

Imagine yourself strolling through streets in villages in the Luberon Valley of Provence. Goult, Gordes, Lourmarin. Imagine sipping a lovely wine from the region, crumbs of a fresh croissant on the tip of your tongue.

Imagine the smell of lavender, herbes de Provence, the baked goods waiting in the shop on the corner. Antiques at the market in Isle de sur La Sorgue. Visits to de Sade's castle, to an abbey nestled in the isolated hills. Cafes and shops abound.

A week at the beautiful villa Fontaine du Faucon awaits you, with heated swimming pool, and garden benches facing the Provencal hills. Just outside of Goult, a small village, this location allows us to easily make day trips to Aix-en-Provence, St. Remy, area wineries, the red hills of Roussillon. The vineyards are in their fall splendor, grape vines the color of the wines they produce . . .

Delicious meals created with ingredients fresh from the village markets, prepared at area restaurants or by Chef Daniel at our own villa.

After our week at the villa, we will spend one night at Les Florets, a lovely little inn just outside the town of Gigondas, north one hour from Goult. Thierry will serve us wine his family makes on the property, cheeses to die for, and a dinner that will leave your palate watering for a week. On our way there, we will stop in Sault, the lavender capital of Provence, and though the lavender will have been cut by then, it is in the air . . . everywhere.

At the end of our time in Provence, we will board the TGV, the "fast train" to Paris, and spend the next week immersed in the beauty, excitement, tranquility (and food!) of one of the most stunning cities in Europe. With museum passes and metro passes, you are free to wander wherever you want, whenever you want, visiting some of the most famous paintings in the world, or finding the tiniest galleries in back streets. Paper stores, button stores, bookstores, artwork sold on the Pont Neuf. Just sitting outside the Louvre transports you to a different world.

We will stay in a small hotel in the Rue Cler district, the 7th Arrondissement. From there, your feet or the metro or cab will take you anywhere you want to go. Our hotel is just a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Sometimes lit in red, sometimes blue, the tower is an especially spectacular vision at night, as we walk through the park from our hotel!

Our trip will include AIRFARE FROM DENVER, all lodging, train from Paris to Avignon and back, rental cars, gas and tolls, transfers to and from out Paris hotel, 6-day Paris museum pass, Paris metro pass, seven dinners, eight breakfasts, Paris Street-wise map, travel journals, and ME, your planner, guide, and all-around fire-extinguisher!

Cost for above (including airafare from Denver) is $5600.00**. A $500 non-refundable deposit holds your space. Discount of $250 for referring a friend not on my list (one discount only, for the referring traveler).

For questions, please contact Joannah L. Merriman, Lifeprints, 970-481-6339 or 970-226-5676. E-mail is jetlost@lamar.colostate.edu

Bon jour!

WEEK THREE - Part One

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Saturday, May 22 - Tuesday May 25 – Manarola, Cinque Terre. We arrived in Cinque Terre in the late afternoon and Gabriele awaited us at his simply luxurious La Torretta “Charme and Relax” establishment. This is a boutique hotel/B & B, with the rooms built into the mountain, all with views of the Italian Riviera. Exquisite sights from one’s window are accented by all the delicate niceities of Gabriele’s efforts in each room.

Awake Spa shampoo, lotions, soap, sewing kits, tooth care packets, and much more are scattered all around each room. The tie on one’s terry cloth robe has a small daisy tucked into it. Each room is equipped with an iPod docking station, a mini-fridge with free contents, a Nepresso espresso machine, and all the lovely touches you don’t expect, and usually don’t get from hotels. This place gets better every year.

After getting settled in our respective rooms, we agreed to meet at the tunnel to the train station, the opening to the Via dell'Amore, the Way of Love. Strolling through this easiest Cinque Terre "hike" takes us to the southeastern most village in the Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore, where we had a less than wonderful meal at a restaurant near the edge of town. But we know this was just an exception to the general rule that has offered us delicious food for many years. We bought our passes for the Park, train, and hiking trails, and returned to La Torretta for some sleep.

The next morning, Sunday, after being served a wicker breakfast tray in our respective rooms, we again met at the tunnel to the train station, boarded the little milk train that runs between these five villages, and disembarked at the "top" town, Monterosso al Mare. Jan and Cyndy headed for the old town and then on to their hike, while Paula was longing for the beach, which was right in front of us!

We rented beach chairs and umbrellas (thank you, Paula) and enjoyed the glorious sunshine for a few hours, reading and people-watching. We returned to Manarola and prepared to eat dinner at Billy's, a delightful restaurant layered on the face of the Cinque Terre hills. Freshly caught fish, delicious desserts, and the most magnificent views as the light faded over the Italian Riviera.

Monday, we headed down to the train station again, this time for a longer ride. A train change in Sestre Levante, and our almost final destination in Santa Margherita, where we hailed a taxi to take us to Portofino, the Italian Riviera town for the rich and probably famous. Portofino resembles many of the other oceanside towns, except that the names on the shops are much more recognizable . . . Gucci, Hermes, and the like. Still, I avoid those high priced places and head for the piazza on the water, where yachts are anchored rather than fishing boats in the Cinque Terre villages.

I visited my favorite artist's gallery, that of Lorenzo Cascio, and his daughter greeted me with the two-cheeked kiss as always. Neil and I have three pieces of her father's artwork, and I'm always so pleased that she remembers me when I show up every two years.

The day was another magnificent one, blue skies reflected in the sparkles of the water, and we took a boat back to Santa Margherita, boarded the train and headed for Manarola for our last fresh-fish dinner, this time at Marina Piccolo, right on the edge of the sea.

Tomorrow we leave the sea and head for a tiny lake near the Swiss border . . . Lago d'Orta.

THE END OF WEEK TWO - Part Four

2010-05-24T15:15:00.004-06:00

Well, at this rate, I will never finish with our story, will I? So do I skip over the details and summarize, or just keep it long and true? Maybe a bit of both. Okay, when we left our heroines (my group and I!), we visited the Giardino Tarocchi.

Wednesday, May 19. We awoke to mist and clouds again, and were grateful we made our decision yesterday to head for the sea and the Tarot Garden. Today's destination is Montepulciano, and we spent the entire day tromping around this medieval town with our umbrellas up, our feet soaking wet, and our spirits disgruntled. Waited over two hours for an internet cafe to open, because their lines were down, but still managed to find one of our favorite leather and journal stores, a very nice cutting board store, and have a delicious lunch at Caffe Poliziano (I continue to thank Jeanne Carnes' friend for that recommendation in 2004!). And we went to the store whose name I can never remember, to buy the pasta mixture I love. Five jars of it this time, and I'll use one of them tonight to make pasta for the women.

We were glad we went to Pienza on Sunday afternoon, because today was no day to gaze out at the countryside over the Pienza wall. Too too wet and gloomy! Home again home again, to the villa for dinner della casa, prepared by Chefina Giovannah Merriman.

Thursday, May 20. A better sky this morning, and we must be doing something right, because as we drove toward Lake Trasimeno, the clouds separated and at least allowed us to see SOME blue. A short boat ride to Isola Maggiore, and a very long wait for lunch, thus not much time to wander this tiny island before getting back on the ferry for the mainland (Passignano) again. But we wanted to spend more time in Cortona today, and that is what we did.

Every time I go to Cortona, I love it more. Under The Tuscan Sun (the book is the factual story, the movie a delightful transmutation of Frances Mayes' life) tells the story of falling in love with a house and a town, and if I had less pride, I would actually walk the 4K and find the house Ms. Mayes purchased before she wrote her first Tuscan book. Instead, we wandered the streets and shopped.

I'm surprised, but I'm only window shopping this trip. I have enough stuff. More than enough. And will have to be moving all of it in the next three weeks, so I point and smile and watch my fellow Italy women pick up very nice mementos of their trip here.

The requisite cappuccino and a pastry at a sidewalk cafe, a bit of people watching, and more wandering these cobblestone streets for buried treasure. To be a part of a community like this would send my heart soaring! But alas . . . it is not to be.

I met an American woman who has been living in Italy for 40 years, now in Assisi, and she told me she will be in Fort Collins to teach some Italian cooking classes in March. She encouraged me to offer writing workshops in Italy, and we exchanged cards. It always amazes me when these little bits of networking pop up! More of these later in the trip . . .

Friday, May 21. This is our Chianti day, and while Jan and Cyndy opted to stay at the villa, lounging, reading, and doing laundry, Paula and I drove up past Siena, through Castellina in Chianti, Radda in Chianti, Panzano in Chianti, Gaiole in Chianti and stopped for lunch at Badia a Coltibuono (delicious!) before ending our day in Greve in Chianti. Just for a couple of hours, we did what one does in these towns. Look in windows, shop a bit inside, grab another cup of espresso or cappuccino, go to the internet cafe, and back to the car, headed for the villa.

Packing up is our task tonight, as well as finishing the food in the fridge, because tomorrow, we return the car to Florence, meet with our private transportation driver, and head for Cinque Terre, via Pisa for a few hours.

The weather is definitely improving, and we look forward to magnificent skies and temperatures on the Italian Riviera . . . more to come.

THE END OF WEEK TWO - Part Three

2010-05-23T16:08:00.000-06:00

NOTE: I realize I am writing some of this in present tense and some in past. Rather than go through to correct or create a consistency, I'm choosing to go with the flow of my mood. I guess I'm allowed, since it's my blog and I definitely notice that some of my postings seem to be in the past, while others are right there in the present with me. Go figure!

Tuesday, May 18 - The day dawned with SUNNY skies, for the first time since we arrived. So we grabbed our opportunity to visit the sea and Niki de St. Phalle's Giardino Tarocchi (the Tarot Garden) near Capalbio in the southwestern part of Tuscany. This is NOT a trip for a rainy day. We hope the sun will hold.

Our drive out to the Promenade d'Argentio (I may not be spelling that correctly . . . can't find my map at the moment) was simple, uneventful, and took us past the many many vineyards in the Montalcino area, where the best Tuscan wine is made . . . Brunello di Montalcino. It's fascinating to note the wide variety of vineyards, in terms of the sheer size of the field, the age of the vines (judging by the thickness of each vine trunk), the leafy green vine tops shimmering in the sunlight, quavering in the wind. And each vineyard owner plants roses at the front end of every vine row . . . I know there is a reason for that, but I'll have to ask Neil when I get home. So beautiful roses introduce the vineyard to any observer who passes by.

When we passed through the Montalcino area and headed for Grosseto and the coast, the terrain changed dramatically. Now the views were much flatter, and I must say less appealing. Is there anything unappealing about Italy? Sure there is, just as in any country, but simply a bit boring is as bad as it got on this ride. Within another 45 minutes, we began to smell the sea and around that next curve, there it was in all its beauty. Sparkling shards of sunlight on the water. White dots of boats out on in the harbors, even the hint of a cruise ship or two.

As we got closer to our first destination, Porto San Stefano, we began to pass "camping" facilities, which were really rows of delightfully colored cabins, presumably on the beaches behind all the buildings and foliage on each side of our road. Then the restaurants, small alimentari (little grocery stores), and an occasional "regular" grocery store (designated by the words COOP in capital letters) began to show themselves, and finally we were on the strip bridge that linked us to "our" island and the Porto. It was easy to find a parking place and we drove past many before we settled on an area that appeared to have several restaurants right on the water, waiting to serve us the freshest fish in this area of Tuscany.

We walked along the water to the restaurant area, even stopping in a small dress shop where the young man was delighted to find four women from Colorado entering his store. He had lived in Loveland for some of his childhood years, and felt as though he had made a connection from his past. I shook my head, marveling at another little synchronicity popping up in my travels. There are many of those here and there if I just pay attention.

The young man at the store pointed us to his favorite restaurant just across the street from his shop, whose name I have forgotten in these wee hours of the morning, and we sat out at the water's edge, eating fresh branzino (sea bass) in the brilliant sun.

After a leisurely lunch, we made our way to the Tarot Garden, a most amazing collection of mosaic representations of the artist's Major Arcana. de St. Phalle takes her inspiration from the Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi. The way I have to explain the visual is to say that it is a sort of Moroccan Disneyworld on psychedelics. Incredible, unbelievable, imagination gone fantastic. Check out the website, http://www.nikidesaintphalle.com, for some photos that MIGHT begin to give you an idea of what you've missed on this day.

After the visit to the garden, everything else for the rest of the day was anticlimactic!

THE END OF WEEK TWO-Part Two

2010-05-23T01:05:00.003-06:00

Monday, May 17 - A grey day, but at least it isn't raining. Our destination today is San Gimignano because even if it rains, there are enough churches, shops and museums to protect our wet heads. We'll wait for more sunshine before we venture to the Tuscan coast.

I am on a mission as well, finding an internet cafe so I can sent a message to Neil and my good friend Carole, a tribute to Marcia I wrote in lieu of my presence at her memorial service later today. I am still stunned by the reality of her death, and probably won't really deal with it completely for a long time to come. But I must get this eulogy to someone who can read it in my absence.

While the traveling women wander here and there, through the many ceramics shops, jewelry shops and stores displaying beautiful stacks of olive wood cutting boards, I hunt for the internet cafe. I have brought my own computer today, making my backpack twice as heavy as it might be, but by the time I find the Bar Boboli, I see that it was to no avail. They do have computers but not wireless, so I type my entire piece of writing into their computer, sending it through the g-mail airwaves. With all the funky keyboard changes on European computers, it takes me twice as long, but I'm happy to have sent it so I can relax.

My favorite store in San Gimignano belongs to the potter Franco Balducci and it is tucked away behind the right side of the Duomo down a smaller cobblestone street. Franco is at the front of the tiny space, making bowls and cups and other vessels as his customers browse among his finished products. I have bought many of his wares in the past and this trip I'm not collecting. I'm thinking about my home and the packing that awaits me, and I know the last thing I need is MORE of anything. Less and less will do nicely. But it's comforting to visit this artisan every two years, in the same space, with new versions of the same quality items. And I still pine for one or two of his larger vessels, the ones you couldn't possibly hope to ship home in one piece without a lot more trouble than I'd like to take at the moment.

The day turns out to be quite nice, with cloud cover in part, but no rain. No umbrella time for a change, and we wander up and down the streets until 5:30, when we begin to make the long haul down the "hill" to the parking lot, trying to find our car. Somehow the shuttle bus to the parking lots has inconveniently disappeared or stopped running for the day, and the walk is good for us.

We return to the little town just before our villa, Torrinieri, and stop at a local restaurant, La Compania, for spaghetti al ragu, Caprese salad (tomatoes and mozarella), a glass of the local red wine, and for me, a dessert of Grand Marnier. Stefano, our waiter and probably the owner of this establishment, seems delighted by my meager attempts to speak Italian to him, and is kind and attentive to our table. He is a bear of a man, whose front teeth stick nearly straight out of his mouth, with a wide gap in between. He would have benefited from some attentive BRACES during his youth, but his hospitality is unaffected by this lack.

Home again, home again, to think about Marcia's service coming up in Fort Collins, starting at midnight, Italy time. A bit of writing and reading in bed before sleep.

More in Part Three

THE END OF WEEK TWO - Part One

2010-05-22T16:09:00.004-06:00

I am in Cinque Terre, specifically at La Torretta in Manarola, with a wi-fi connection in my room for the first time in a week, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

The last time I posted, we were leaving Siena, headed for our villa in the southern Tuscan countryside, and it was pouring outside. We were hoping for better weather, and slowly we have gotten what we asked for. Slowly, I said.

Saturday, May 15, we arrived at Podere Camera in San Giovanni d'Asso, greeted by the owner, Mary, and her daughter Sara. We could smell the aroma of the delicious dinner Mary had prepared for our arrival. Local cheeses (such as Pecorino) and bread, ribollita (a delicious Tuscan bread soup), and herbed roasted chicken, followed by sauteed spinach and an enormous serving bowl of tiramisu! Wine from the vineyard at which we were staying . . . and we gratefully found our way to our rooms, leaving the unpacking for the morning.

Sunday, May 16 . . . we had stopped at a local grocery store in Torrinieri so we had coffee, bread for toast, jam, fresh strawberries, eggs, and all the usual fixings for breakfast. I made a big omlette and we settled in for most of the day. Overcast skies did not invite us to venture far from the villa, and we unpacked, read a bit, and studied the maps, planning for the day-trips for the following week. By mid-afternoon, the sky had cleared a bit, and I suggested that we try a short trip to Pienza, perhaps 30 minutes away by car. It's one of my favorite spots, the countryside full of those amazing houses with a cypress-tree lined driveway. They make wonderful postcards, and I've bought plenty of them (cards, that is, not cypress trees OR the amazing houses) over the years.

The English Patient shot a couple of scenes in this little hill town and I always love coming to Pienza. We visited Mezza Luna, a local ceramics shop, two churches, a gelato shop and the internet cafe, though I didn't have enough time to actually post to this site. If I ever really fulfilled my dream of owning property in Italy, it is near Pienza I would look first.

We returned to the villa and finished the dinner from last night. More chicken, more cheese, more tiramisu! Yum . . .

MOURNING BEFORE SIENA

2010-05-15T03:54:00.003-06:00

Thursday evening, May 13

When we returned from our last dinner in Firenze, the desk host, Pamela, asked whether I had seen the message she had written and placed on the pillow in my room. I had not. She said that a man had called and wanted me to call home. Odd . . . I have a phone with me all the time, and I had sent the number to Neil, my sisters and my children, in case they needed or wanted to talk with me while I'm here.

I went into my room and called Neil. He said, "I have some very bad news for you. Are you sitting?" My heart sank. My mother, I thought. The most logical death, one I've been dreading and anticipating for years. I spoke my thought and Neil said, "No, not your mother. It's Marcia. She died sometime in her sleep Tuesday night."

I am stunned. Marcia . . . my friend of 35 years, my beloved "sister". Marcia who eight years ago, while I was on this very trip, in this exact same spot, on the same day of the trip, underwent a kidney transplant which continued to function perfectly all these years. Marcia, who was hosting book group Wednesday night, one which Cyndy and I would miss since we'd be over here, thinking about the rest of our women discussing The Help.

The women began to gather and no one came to Marcia's door. It was clear, peeking through the windows, that nothing had been prepared for hosting this event, but for five bottles of wine chilling on the back porch. One friend called the police, they all huddled in the cold and fear, shivering against the possibilities, until the worst was confirmed.

Since this is meant to be my travel blog, with delightful tales daily, I won't venture into all the details here, but will put more thoughts in my "Checking-In" page on my website, http://www.lifeprintsjournal.com Suffice it to say that we are all shocked. And that I will not be there for the memorial service. And that I will light a candle in every church I enter here in my bella Italia as I have always done for my mother, and now for Marcia.

I walked down the hall of the Hotel Pendini to Cyndy's room and told her the news. We sat on the beds and tried to get our brains around this unexpected death. Finally I went back to my room, packing for the morning's departure, grabbing perhaps two or three hours of sleep in the early morning.

Friday morning we all met in the dining room of the Pendini for breakfast, did the ritual check-out at the desk, Lando took our bags down to the street while Pamela called our taxi. On to the rental car place, where there was an hour's worth of difficulties (surprise surprise), and then we were on our way to Siena, our next stop. That trip, thankfully, was uneventful. We dropped our bags at the Palazzo di Valli, bought shuttle tickets for the old city (a ten-minute shuttle drive), waited at the shuttle stop, disembarked at the Piazza de Mercato and walked to Il Campo, where we met my guide and friend, Viviana, for our three hour private walking tour around Old Siena. A candle now stands in the tray at the Duomo, lit brightly for Marcia.

After our tour, we found a table on the Campo to sit, have a drink of coffee, hot chocolate, spremuta (fresh squeezed) of orange juice, etc. We taught the waiter a new word . . . "grapefruit" and he taught us one . . . "pompelmo". Grapefruit. I watched his face while he tried to picture "grape" and "fruit", but we explained that a grapefruit is like a very large orange, but not sweet. He understood. Pompelmo. Grapefruit.

A walk back to the shuttle piazza and then to the hotel, a quick change of clothes, checking e-mail for more news about Marcia, and we headed out again, shuttle shuttle shuttle, walk walk walk to Antica Osteria da Divo, the restaurant built into a cave, where we had a predictably fabulously tasty meal. Canneloni stuffed with vegetables and melted pecorino cheese, a variety of bruschette topped with oil, tomatoes, and pate, a leek and potato tart atop a creamed broccoli sauce, with scallops over the whole thing. And that was just the first part of the meal. Sea bass, a "wreath of sole" with minced vegetables, rolled pork with a delicious filling, followed by more desserts. My, my. Though this group is not a wine-drinking one, Paula and I did have a half bottle of Chianti Reserva Mona Lisa, and we all toasted to Marcia at the beginning and the end of the meal. A taxi back to the hotel was in order, rather than the schlep to the shuttle.

It is raining, and that's been a part of each of our days in Italy so far, the wettest I have ever experienced. But we do have umbrellas and at least they're being put to use. Before I put my exhausted body down on the bed for the night, perhaps to get a better stretch of sleep, I called Ryan, Marcia's son, and talked with him for quite awhile. I met Marcia just as she learned she was pregnant with Ryan, so I have literally known him all his life. When he was little, he called my daughter "Ashala" instead of Ashley. I will try to be a second mom to him and his sister Lara, because Marcia IS like my sister, and the kids have known one another forever. I felt better having talked with him.

Saturday morning, May 15

I am in the sitting room at Palazzo di Valli, writing this before we head out to our villa later today. I doubt very much whether the villa has internet, and I'm not sure I want to carry my computer into each town we visit, hoping I can use it. But I will check e-mail and post to this blog from the many internet cafes we will encounter along the way, and keep a good record of our group adventures. From the villa, one of the many named Podere Camere in this country, we will do day trips to Chianti, to Montepulciano and Pienza, to Cortona and Lake Trasiemeno, to Porto San Stefano and the Tarot Gardens in Capalbio, to San Gimignano, and perhaps explore a bit of Montalcino, only 12 km from the villa.

It will be a diverse week but we won't have to pack up our suitcases every day or two, and that is always a relief. More later . . .

THE END OF WEEK ONE

2010-05-15T03:50:00.002-06:00

Friday, 11:45 p.m.

I can't believe our first week in Italy is nearly completed, but we have been very busy, so I'll shorten up all the details. The women on this trip are a great fit . . . kind, adventurous, ready to eat anything and to consider one another in every decision. Grown ups! That's what I love!

On Wednesday, we visited the Accademia to see the magnificent David. I never get tired of just sitting and looking at him, walking down the long hall with Michelangelo's Prigioni (The Prisoners) lining each side of the entrance to The David itself. Next we headed to the Medici Chapel and studied the restoration of the mosaics there. A lunch at Il Porcospino and then another walk to the CLIC school for our second language lesson with Leonardo! Are we fluent yet?

Dinner at Il Latine meant sitting at a table constantly being replenished with piles of food . . . bruschetta of all sorts, potatoes, spinach, a platter of beef, veal, rabbit, chicken, pork and a slice of lamb, lots of good bread, a basket/bottle of Chianti, and of course dolci . . . a mixed plate of delicious desserts. Several bottles of water, some cantucci (biscotti) and vin santo for dipping, and a tasty moscato to finish everything off . . . much too much for us. So we bagged up the leftovers and deposited them with a beggar and two dogs a half-block from our hotel. I hope they all went to bed with full tummies.

On Thursday, we were up again and out by 9:00 in order to get to the Uffizi Galleria at our reserved time, 9:30. So much art, so little time . . . actually, I think I've seen enough at the Uffizi by now, but there is always an interesting exhibit beginning JUST after we leave town! We grabbed a casual lunch at an outdoor cafe behind the museum before going our separate ways. Cyndy and Jan decided they would spend the rest of the afternoon at the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens. Paula was exhausted and wanted to go back to the hotel to rest. I decided to see how many old haunts I could find without using my Streetwise Florence map. With my trusty pedometer on my right hip, I set out past the Duomo and a bit to the right (that's the kind of directions one gets here anyway!).

Ah, there's the restaurant one of our groups went to a few years ago . . . and there's the internet cafe I visited regularly over the last few years (though there are many many more these days, and our hotels now have wireless in the rooms . . . both a blessing and a curse). And THIS alleyway looks familiar, and this . . . in a surprisingly short time, I could see the facade of Santa Croce through the opening down a street to my left. Another two curving blocks and there is was, at the end of a favorite piazza, and for the first time in twelve years of visiting Florence, the church at Santa Croce was without scaffolding across the front of it. The restoration of the outside is completed, and the facade is beautiful! (I have a photo, but I'll have to load it when I get home . . . technical difficulties.

I found one of the benches with enough room to give me space from the other "sitters", and sat down, opened my umbrella, dug my book, The History Of Love, out of my bag, and read for an hour or so. A young man was playing a guitar on the square across from me, the carabinieri (one level of Italian police) were checking his permit to see if some official in Florence had allowed him to sing, pidgeons scuttered across the old stone blocks of the piazza, and the visitors moved to and fron in front of me, behind me, all around me.

An old woman with a fisherman's hat on her head sat on her walker seat and screamed over and over again, something about her "chapeau", while a frantic younger woman tried to quiet her. Another car full of carabinieri sat on the sidelines, the uniformed men and one uniformed woman getting out of the car, ready to see what the old woman was yellling about, but of course, they didn't do anything . . . they are fairly ineffectual much of the time, or at least that's been my experience. Sorry, carabinieri . . .

After my Santa Croce time, I wandered back toward the direction of my hotel, down a different street . . . I sighed. A straight shot from a slightly different direction would have brought me to this place in much less time, but without the adventore or the sense of accomplishment.

Back at the hotel, I knocked on Paula's door and we went back out to the streets to see if the button shop was now open after the afternoon closure, quite typical in Italy. Samba was indeed open and I bought Euro 40 worth of beautiful buttons to add to the ones I've gotten here every visit. ONE OF THESE DAYS, I'll make those fabric bags that I'm always planning in my head, and use the buttons to close the flaps on the purses. But not today. Today is Paula's birthday, and we hunted for gelato for her. I found a Ben and Jerry's and got regular, harder ice cream, then met with Cyndy and Jan after their Giardini Boboli, Giardini Barbino, and Pitti Palace experience.

Before dinner, we finished off the exploration sequence with a walk to Ferragammo's side entrance, where down in the lower stone level is a shoe museum. The exhibit that had just opened honors Ferragammo's longstanding relaetionship as the shoe designer and craftsman for Greta Garbo. A documentary video, three rooms full of Garbo's dresses, and displays everywhere of the shoes she purchased from this old building in the last century fulfilled our haute couture desires for today and we departed hungry and looking for a nice sidewalk cafe.

It was a very long, diverse, fulfilling day, and we were all ready for bed. But it was not to be, at least not for me . . . another story for the next post. Now I have to get ready to check out of the Siena Palazzo di Valli . . . but I get ahead of myself.

Next time.

MI PIACE FIRENZE!

2010-05-11T14:36:00.003-06:00

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Well, we arrived in Florence yesterday, and yes, it pleases me! I brought my own computer so I could do a better job of tracking our activities for this Italy Women 2010 adventure. My photos, as usual, will have to wait until I have a more compatible way to download them to this site. Mea culpa!

Our flight was NOT canceled Sunday as I had feared, but we did fly north of Greenland to avoid the ash from the unpronounceable volcano in Iceland. Added an hour to our flight from Montreal to Munich, and gave us a very close connection to Florence, but that little airline, Dolomiti, waited for those who ran like wildfire through the Munich airport, and we arrived on time in Florence.

After dragging our bags up to the 4th floor lobby at the wonderful Albergo Pendini (a very tiny elevator, holding two of us at a time), I took my small group for an orientation around the area. We are on the Piazza della Repubblica, so we walked to the Piazza Signoria, through the arch of the Uffizi, and on to the street bordering the river, across half of the Ponte Vecchio just for a taste of the view up and down the Arno. A bit of a late lunch at one of the many cafes surrounding us, and then back to the hotel to check in, unpack, and take a NAP before dinner.

Our first real meal in Florence was at Il Porcospino, in the capable and flattering hands of Franco, who greeted me warmly and showed us to our outdoor table directly across from the Medici Chapel. Complimentary prosecco and bruschetta (they pronounce it properly over here, of course!), followed by a wide variety of delectable treats: crostini with pate, tortelli with porchini mushrooms and meat sauce, insalate caprese, a shared tiramisu, ending with another complimentary drink . . . limoncello. I'm not crazy for that stuff, but the other women lapped it up!

We walked back toward our hotel, but wandered instead into the piazza again, lured by the strains of a fabulous operatic voice . . . a young woman singing brought tears to my eyes. My room is just over the piazzza, so I dragged my exhausted body upstairs and opened the window, assured that this unnamed woman would sing lullabies long after I closed my eyes.

This morning we all met in the hotel dining room for their complimentary and quite sufficient breakfast. Promptly at 9:30, our private walking tour guide, Elena, was waiting for us in the lobby and we walked out together under an overcast sky, ready for whatever information Elena presented to us. The fancy shopping street, Tournabuoni, offered many historical buildings, the church of the Holy Trinity (where I, the heathen, lit a candle for my mother . . . something I do every day when I am in Italy), and storefronts with names like Gucci, Ferragamo, Bulgari, etc.

Crossing the Arno at the Ponte Santa Trinita, we wandered back streets full of antique stores, until we were in the square in front of the Pitti Palace. Elena told us stories of underground and overhead passages constructed for the old families in power in the 1500's through the 1800's. Mistresses, disowned family members, and all the details to fill any Italian scandal sheet!
After three and a half hours, we were back in front of our hotel, and we walked to our lunch spot, the Cantinetta Antinori. The Antinori family is the largest wine producer in Italy, and their little Cantinetta is intimate, with impeccable service and exquisite food. We ordered a bottle of their Bramasole Syrah from the Cortona area. Fresh pea soup, cold veal with salmon sauce, baked branzino, warm pear tart, and a basket of delicious bread sticks filled our table and ultimately our innards.

When we finished our meal, we walked out into pouring rain, opened our umbrellas and made our way to the CLIC, the language school I attended in 2007. Waiting for us when we arrived on the 5th floor was my private teacher, Leonardo, wide smile as usual. For the next hour he patiently talked to us (and coached us to respond) only in Italian. Some of my former language skills returned, painfully slowly, and Cyndy, who had been my fellow Italian student in Fort Collins, came up with some phrases from the past as well. We'll do it again tomorrow, but it will be short and sweet.

A wander around the area near a wonderful leather journal store, a dry run past Il Latine, our dinner destination for tomorrow night, and we were ready to head back to our hotel. A quick bite at Paskowski's, right on the piazza, filled us up and emptied our pockets. Fairly reasonable solid food, but the tea AND the bottled water were 7 Euro each. Yikes!

Time for bed. The serenaders are in competition tonight. A less talented opera singer opposing a young man singing Sting's songs, among others. Not as soothing, but I'm in the middle of the night action, that's for sure!

A full day tomorrow, and I am awaiting my next magnificent view of The David in the morning.

Buono notte . . .

TO PARIS AND PROVENCE!

2010-03-16T21:48:00.013-06:00

France Women 2010

Provence and Paris
October 8-24, 2010

Imagine yourself strolling through streets in villages in the Luberon Valley of Provence. Goult, Gordes, Lourmarin. Imagine sipping a lovely wine from the region, crumbs of a fresh croissant on the tip of your tongue.

Imagine the smell of lavender, herbes de Provence, the baked goods waiting in the shop on the corner. Antiques at the market in Isle de sur La Sorgue. Visits to de Sade's castle, to an abbey nestled in the isolated hills. Cafes and shops abound.

A week at the beautiful villa Fontaine du Faucon awaits you, with heated swimming pool, and garden benches facing the Provencal hills. Day trips to Aix-en-Provence, St. Remy, area wineries, the red hills of Roussillon. The vineyards are in their fall splendor, grape vines the color of the wines they produce . . .

Delicious meals created with ingredients fresh from the village markets, prepared at area restaurants or by Chef Daniel at our own villa.

If we can arrange it, we will spend one night at Les Florets, a lovely little inn just outside the town of Gigondas, north one hour from our villa. Thierry will serve us wine his family makes on the property, cheeses to die for, and a dinner that will leave your palate watering for a week. On our way there, we will stop in Sault, the lavender capital of Provence, and though the lavender will have been cut by then, it is in the air . . . everywhere.

At the end of our time in Provence, we will board the TGV, the "fast train" to Paris, and spend the next week immersed in the beauty, excitement, tranquility (and food!) of one of the most stunning cities in Europe. With museum passes and metro passes, you are free to wander wherever you want, whenever you want, visiting some of the most famous paintings in the world, or finding the tiniest galleries in back streets. Paper stores, button stores, bookstores, artwork sold on the Pont Neuf. Just sitting outside the Louvre transports you to a different world.

We will stay in a small hotel in the Rue Cler district, the 7th Arrondissement. From there, your feet or the metro or cab will take you anywhere you want to go. Our hotel is just a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Sometimes lit in red, sometimes blue, the tower is an especially spectacular vision at night, as we walk through the park from our hotel!

Our trip will include AIRFARE FROM DENVER, all lodging, train from Paris to Avignon and back, rental cars, gas and tolls, transfers to and from out Paris hotel, 6-day Paris museum pass, Paris metro pass, seven dinners, eight breakfasts, Paris Street-wise map, travel journals, and ME, your planner, guide, and all-around fire-extinguisher!

Cost for above (including airafare from Denver) is $5600.00**. A $500 non-refundable deposit holds your space. Discount of $250 for referring a friend not on my list (one discount only, for the referring traveler).

For questions, please contact Joannah L. Merriman, Lifeprints, 970-481-6339 or 970-226-5676. E-mail is jetlost@lamar.colostate.edu

Bon jour!

THE NEXT ADVENTURE - ITALY WOMEN 2010

2009-11-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

Tuscany, Cinque Terre, and
The Lakes of Piemonte
May 9-28*, 2010

Ten women, 19 days:
Florence, Siena, Tuscan countryside villa,
Cinque Terre, and the northwest lakes

Included: 18 nights’ lodging (4 nights in Florence, 1 night in Siena, 7 nights in a Tuscan villa, 3 nights in Cinque Terre, 3 nights at San Giulio d'Orta), most breakfasts, 2 lunches, 3 picnics, 10 delicious dinners, 2 Italian language lessons in Florence, private walking tours in Florence and Siena, entrance to the Uffizzi, Accadamia, and Medici Chapel in Florence. Day trips to Cortona, San Gimignano, Lake Trasimeno, Isole Maggiore, Montepulciano, Pienza and Chianti.

You will enjoy a train and boat ride to Portofino for a the day, and ME for your enthusiastic travel coordinator, guide, and all around firefighter. Facilitated reflective/travel writing is included for those who would like to participate. An expanded way for you to anchor your experiences on paper.

Cost of $5500 double occupancy, including airfare from Denver. If we get a better price on the airfare, I’ll adjust downward. If the Euro rises to more than $1.50 exchange rate, I will make whatever adjustment is necessary upward, but it should be minimal. Ask if you need a single supplement. NOTE: We do very well matching or rotating roommates.

A $500 deposit secures your space, non-refundable unless we can fill your spot if you need to cancel. Bring a friend not on my list and deduct $250 from your trip cost. Send payment to Lifeprints Journeys, 887 Blue Heron Lane, Fort Collins, Co. 80524. Questions? Call me at 970-481-6339.

Lago d'Orta - Our Final Three Days

2009-10-28T11:37:00.004-06:00

Thursday, September 24: A drove back to Ancona, returning the rental car (a nightmare!), a stop at the post office to mail two fat envelopes of no-longer-needed maps and guide books, before boarding our first of two trains for the day. From Ancona to Milano, we were comfortable in a EuroStar express, with wide seats and places to put our luggage without having to lift them up to overhead racks. The Milano-Stresa regional was a bit more choppy, but still . . . train travel is certainly efficient. When we arrived at the Stresa station, we saw our driver holding a sign with my name on it, and we lugged our very heavy suitcases down the stairs, under the tracks, and up again on the street side. Our driver loaded the bags in his trunk and we began the hour-long ride from Lago Maggiore to our final destination, Lago d'Orta.

Dropped off in the little village of San Giulio d'Orta, we checked into the Albergo Leon d'Oro, settled into our beautiful rooms overlooking the lake, and headed out for espresso, cappuccino, and some light dinner. For the next 2-1/2 days, this familiar setting did more to relax me than anything else on our trip . . . and that's exactly why I always make sure we have three nights here before we arrive back in the U.S. It's good to settle down, ease back into our normal lives and gather that last taste of Italy by wandering serenely up and down these cobblestone streets.

Friday, September 25: I realize I have friends in San Giulio, people who recognize me, give me great huge hugs, and are happy I have returned again to their town. Elio, the owner of Cerri, a small gift shop. Luca, proprietor of Il Buon Gustiaio, a delicious shop full of cheeses, salami, exquisite specialty breads, and other delights such as 15-year old balsamic vinegars and special bottles of amaretto, fig jams and sauces. Georgia, the American owner of the small herbal soap shop in the piazza, was delightful and in bits and pieces told me her story, from being a designer for Mattel, running an office in Milan, through her decision to buy two little businesses in Orta, marry an Italian man, become an Italian citizen, and settle here for the past 16 years.

My group and I wandered these streets, sometimes together, sometimes separately, and I am always amazed at the displays and varieties of pasta and porcini mushrooms, in the shops here.

My favorite hotel, Albergo Orta, has been sold after five generations of family ownership, and is closed for renovations for the next two or three years, but Elena, who was a 30-year employee of the Orta hotel, met me for a bit of conversation one morning, and was a great help in arranging our transportation while we were in the area.

We made time to take a boat over to the Isola San Giulio, the island in the middle of the lake, which houses a monastery/abby for 70+ nuns, one beautiful church, a meditation walkway around the island, and one restaurant which served delicious lunches at the edge of the water.

Saturday, September 26: And when I wanted a break from
walking through the cobblestone pathways, I always headed for the main piazza to sit at one of the outside tables belonging to the three little restaurants nestled next to one another, with beautiful "front porch" views of the lake. I ordered cappuccino or a glass of wine, and on this particular evening I was especially delighted as I watched as at least thirty friends and family members gathered after one of the many weddings that took place in the town that weekend. These wedding guests pulled nearly all the tables together, and each ordered the same thing, an aperitif whose color rivaled that of the sunset that evening. For two hours, I read, sipped my wine, and watched the wedding celebrants come and go, while the waitress filled her tray with more of these beautiful drinks.

Our group dinner in this serene lake village was an especially delicious one, at the Ristorante Olina, which doesn't have a water view, but everything else about a dining experience here is exquisite. From the very attentive wait staff to the aperitif delivered immediately to your table, followed by a delicious palate-cleanser. And that is before you even begin to order from the menu! I took one last opportunity for the freshest fish around, and ordered a grilled branzini, accompanied by delicious potatoes and a small salad. The dessert case settled just behind our table meant we couldn't avoid tempting glances toward the homemade dolci, and we each had "just a small one, per favore" before we paid our bill and walked slowly back to the hotel.

Sunday, September 27: Well, we know this drill well enough. Pack up, check to make sure we didn't leave a precious journal or souvenir in a corner or under the bed, and head down to the lobby to wait for our driver again, this time headed for Malpensa airport for our departure to the U.S. again. Needless to say today was filled with travel, and we arrived in Denver at 10:00 p.m., though our bodies were still operating on Italian time, 6:00 A.M. the following day.

I had driven down to DIA, so my car was waiting in the parking lot, and by the time I started the engine, it was midnight. I listened to loud radio so I wouldn't fall asleep on the highway going toward Fort Collins. Returning home is bittersweet, because my familiar bed always greets me, as do my loving partner and four pets. However, Italy is already calling to me again, and perhaps some of you might join me in May 2010 for the next Italy Adventure!

Scroll along the left menu for my post about the details of that trip, and dream of bella Italia.

LeMarche Catch-Up #4

2009-10-28T10:35:00.006-06:00

Wednesday, September 23: Today we prepare to pack our belongings and return our car to the Ancona train station, but first, we want to taste a bit of LeMarche's wine firsthand, at a highly recommended vineyard outside the town of Staffolo. The winery is Zaccagnini, a small family owned piece of grape heaven outside the village itself. When we arrived, Davide greeted us, gave us a short tour in the midst of his busy day, and set up some tastings for us. They have a wide array of delicious wines, both white and red, as well as some Bruts. The bottles, the labels, the taste and the vineyard vistas all made for a delightful way to spend our last afternoon in this region. I purchased two bottles to bring home to Neil, and we made our way back to the villa.

In the early evening, we drove back into our little villa village, Avenale, where we ate at the highly recommended little pizza restaurant, The Belmont, before returning to our last night in our own little house to finish gathering all our stuff for the voyage north tomorrow.

LeMarche Catch-up #3

2009-10-10T15:21:00.005-06:00

Okay, at this rate, I'll never be finished writing this for your perusal! Let's see . . . where were we?
Oh yes, completing our trip to Serra de Conti, to the Rooms of Suspended Time. And then I guess I suspended the time for awhile . . .

So - Monday, September 21: A rainy day at the villa, where we slept late, shuffled to the kitchen in relaxed fashion, munching on bread, fruit, cheese and prosciutto, sipping coffee, writing and reading and planning the rest of our time here in Avenale at Casa Frances. If I remember correctly, we did go back to Cingoli, found a bigger "supermercato" and collected some fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese and very fresh fettucini in preparation for a dinner I promised to prepare for our little group that evening. We had plenty of wine, and I bought another two bottles, which should last us the rest of the week.

Tuesday, September 22: Our plan today is to visit the southwest part of LeMarche, beginning with the Grotte di Frasassi, an enormous, incredible complex of caves with a collection of stalactites and stalagmites the likes of which I've never seen. Discovered by a group of climber/spelunkers in the late 1970's, Grotte di Frasassi is one of the most well-visited natural phenomena and I can understand why. I'm told the Grotte could house the Milan Cathedrale!

We weren't allowed any photos there, but here are two from an on-line site. if you'd like to know more about this attraction, you might visit one of the websites you will find when googling Grotte di Frasassi. You can request that it come up in English, rather than Italian, which should be immensely helpful!

We wore our coats inside and listened to our English version of the tour guide's information, though I think next time I will wait for the English speaking tour guide, so we can ask questions and understand the responses of others' questions.

Our next stop was to the city of Fabriano, home of the famous watercolor paper manufacturer. Fabriano was one of the first cities in Europe to manufacture paper, beginning at the end of the 12th century. The biggest mill, Miliani, produces an amazing 600 miles of paper a day, and the watermark (filigrana), along with other papermaking techniques, were invented here. Fabriano paper supplies the Italian treasury with the paper for its banknotes, and is sent from Kashmir to the Congo. We visited the Museo della Carta e della Filigrana (paper and watermarks museum), watched a demonstration of hand-making paper, marveled at the intricacies of watermarks bearing the faces of famous world leaders, and purchased one or two beautiful hand-made journals, of course.

Tomorrow . . . a local vineyard and winery, and preparations to leave this lovely area, heading toward our final destination in Italia . . .

LeMarche: Catch-up Post #2

2009-10-04T12:22:00.006-06:00

Saturday, September 19, 2009 - A visit to a tiny country

LeMarche is an Italian province, similar to Tuscany, but wilder, less traveled, more varied in terrain. It is just south of Veneto, the province in which Venice and Ravenna are situated. LeMarche runs long, along the northeast coast of Italy and the Adriatic Sea.

And nestled into the LeMarche hills, just south of Veneto province, is a tiny country, third only in size to the Vatican as the smallest country in Europe (Monaco is second) and the fifth smallest country in the world. From About.com: Geography: " San Marino - 24 square miles - Located on Mt. Titano in north central Italy, San Marino has 29,000 residents. The country claims to be the oldest state in Europe, having been founded in the fourth century."

Described as "shamelessly touristy" (and that is quite accurate!), the town of San Marino sits as a medieval hilltown at the top of the country of San Marino, and once we got going on the A-road (the super toll road), we made it from our villa to San Marino in less than two hours. We parked in a designated lot and walked to the entrance to the FuniVia, a funicular (sort of a cable-car/goldola ala ski areas) that took us to the town at the top.

Beautifully situated, with wall-to-wall shops, mostly horrid souvenir shops, and some lovely stores sprinkled in to encourage those of us who wanted to wander without being assaulted by tacky pinocchio dolls and soccer flags, medieval guns and plastic toys at almost every turn. I know, it sounds horrid, but it's like going to the circus, and whenever we got a glimpse of what was beyond those medieval walls, we stopped to appreciate the decidedly lovely views.

One of the gimmicks is that since San Marino is its own country, it makes its own postage stamps and has its own passport office. We decided to play along (when might we ever get there again?) so we marched into the Ufficio Communale, paid our 5 Euro each, and had our passports stamped, not only with the typical rubber passport stamp, but also with an official San Marino postage-type stamp, though I don't think I could have used it to send a card back to my family. We chatted with the woman behind the plexiglass window and asked her if she had fun doing her job. She smiled. Of course she would . . . collecting 5 Euro from all manner of people, just so they could collect a stamp of her country in their passports!

We had a lovely lunch at a restaurant whose card is in the pile of receipts I have waiting for me, found a wonderful Lladros ceramic statue for Rebecca, and after a few photos of the area and a sculpture garden we discovered on the way down to the FuniVia station, we headed back to the villa. An adventurous day in yet another "country"! (I know, the photo is sideways, but I can't yet figure out how to switch it when it does this . . . I'm waiting for my daughter to return my call. She's the blog-whiz!)

Sunday, September 20: A lazy day at the villa, at least until mid-afternoon, because we have carefully checked to see when some of our "wish list things-to-see" are open. One has to remember we are in Italy, one of those civilized countries that take a break in the middle of the day. Today we are headed to The Rooms of Suspended Time Museum of Monastic Arts. In Italian, that's Le Stanze del Tempo Sospeso. They are rooms in the Convent of Santa Maria Maddalena, full of objects on display that were part of the manual activities of the Sisters, which have survived since the late 1500's. The display is set up in rooms with themses such as the pharmacy, the pantry, and the "workroom", with spinning embroidery, tinting equipment among other things.

This is a museum that sounded intriguing to all of us, but it is closed from noon-3:30 p.m., and is located in Serra de Conti, a town we estimate is an hour's drive from our villa. So by about 2:30, we are on our way, we arrive in a sleepy town and find an approved parking spot, just outside another of Italy's medieval walls, and begin our walk up to the "Centro", the old center, where most of these historical museums and churches are located. The entrance sign for Museo Monastiche leads us to a quiet, tree-lined patio before we walk through the doors of the quietest museum setting I've ever experienced. Of course, it's a monastic setting, and we are the only people in the place, which suits me just fine.

The rooms have simple displays, as though one had dropped into a Quaker or Shaker setting. The old implements - spools of thread, embroidery hoops, apothecary bottles, copper pans, etc. - are nested in their display cases or on tables, in what I can only describe as a spiritual setting. This is the kind of place to which one might like to bring a small suitcase, old and black leather in construction, sit with a candle or oil lamp and write in one's journal for days. There is a quietude here I never find at home. Maybe I'm headed for a monastery myself! I wish I could point readers to a website, but of course there is no such thing. Here are a few photos for you, and I hope they help capture your imagination.

See what I mean? Lovely old representation of life 500 years ago. When we finished in the museum, we wandered the streets for awhile, found a bar (these aren't just alcohol bars . . . more like a cafe, with coffee, drinks, and sandwiches) and sat outside with cappucchino, small sandwiches and dessert goodies. Next to us was a group of perhaps eight men, all speaking in some sort of Arabic tongue. Each time another man joined the group, several of the seated men rose up, kissed the newcomer on both cheeks, and they all sat down again.

The church bells clanged loudly across the piazza, every fifteen minutes, in two tones. On the hour, the lower toned bell would ring the number of the hour (in our case, five, then six o'clock). Then every fifteen minutes, the deep bell would ring again, the five or six tolls, and then a higher pitched bell would come in for one ring (5:15), two (5:30), or three (5:45). Since we sat for more than 90 minutes, we had lots of time to learn the bell code of Serra de Conti. By 6:45, we were ready to wend our way down the cobblestoned streets, looking for our parked car beyond the old walls. Then it was back to the Casa Frances for another night of reading, writing, and eating before settling into bed.

Septembert 18-24, 2009 – LeMarche area - Part 1

2009-10-04T09:12:00.000-06:00

Well, Day 1, Friday. We relaxed at the villa, enjoying a day of rest after the long day on trains, boats and automobiles. A short trip into Cingoli, twice, actually, to get provisions (we can’t seem to remember that everything is closed from noon or 1:00 p.m until 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. any day, no matter whether the store is filled with things we need or just things we want.) While we waited for the supermercato to open again, we walked down the street a block to watch a group of old Italian men playing bocce ball in the park. They seem to gather every weekday afternoon to throw those little Italian "bowling balls" down the course. Sort of a cross between bowling and pool.

At 5:00 p.m., the supermercato opened its doors, I wandered around with my list, trying to decipher the various commodities. Was this dishwasher soap or clothes washing soap? Was this really hot chocolate mix or chocolate pudding, as it seemed to appear on the box? Why is there milk on the shelves as well as milk in the cold cases? And which one is skim, which one is whole milk, which is cream? Often it's a matter of making an intuitive choice and hoping for the best, but as an adventure, it's worth any errors I make in my choices.

And the men and women behind the "deli" cases, where all meat, fish, and cheeses are selected and lovingly sliced and packaged . . . well, there are no errors there. I only have to point, say "Questo qui . . . " ("this one here"), pantomime how big a cheese wedge, or say in my numero-Italian how many slices, and my wish is granted.

Home after a visit to the farmacia for triple-antibiotic cream, to make one of my traveler's blisters heal more quickly, and I'm on the windy nearly-unpaved road back to Avenale and our villa, Casa Frances. For dinner . . . some of what I purchased today and some of the leftovers from our delicious dinner last night.

Until tomorrow . . . a visit to San Marino!

September 17, 2009 – On the train today

2009-10-03T22:02:00.002-06:00

Actually two trains. We left Venice by vaporetto, our luggage in tow, after I helped Erin find the place to get her VAT Tax refund form stamped. We had plenty of time, and I will remember that leaving later than the morning train is a very good idea. The extra hour or two or three allowed us to avoid hurrying through the narrow streets, roller luggage in tow, and we could afford the time it took to stop at each dock, rather than make SURE we got the #2 or N vaporetti, which only stops intermittently.

I think (it’s been days, so everything melts into itself, of course) the Venice to Bologna train was the one that was 20 minutes late, and then came in quickly, ready to depart again. We practically ran to the far end of the track, looking for our first class coach, which is often farthest from the station, so when it arrives at the next large stop, the first class passengers (my travelers and I) won’t have to walk too far to the switching place. But we hurried and had to hoist very heavy bags (never again) up to the racks above the seats or stashed somewhere in the train car.

Venezia to Bologna, then another switch and Bologna to Ancona in LeMarche, where we picked up our car (I make it sound simple, but it never is in Italy), load the luggage, and head to our villa in Avenale, about 5 kilometres outside of Cingoli, an hour’s ride from the Ancona station. If you don’t make any wrong turns. In a strange place, even with maps, is that possible? Not typically. And generally it’s half the fun, though when it begins to get dark and my excellent navigators are still reading about “hairpin turns down rural roads”, we all begin to get nervous. But we arrived at Casa Frances at dusk, and were greeted by the smiling faces of Marcello and Rita, the parents of our Villa owners. Rita had prepared a delicious meal, fit for a dozen, though we were only three. And I apologized to both host/chefs and told them in my broken Italian that we would eat the rest of the TWENTY pieces of chicken for lunch tomorrow (and the next day and the next and the next). The antipasti (three kinds of meat, three kinds of cheese), the pasta con pomodoro, the twenty (really!) pieces of sautéed chicken pieces, and the cherry tart, along with appropriate wines . . . pro secco, vino bianco, vino rosso AND moscato for dessert, were so much more than plenty for us, and we graciously thanked Rita and Marcello before we tumbled off to bed.

I got some practice with my lingua Italia, talking with Rita, who reported to her daughter that my Italian was “very good”. I told her daughter that my Italy was only "very good" because Rita’s English was limited to “hello” and “eggs”. But it was such fun to dig back into the recesses of my memory and have a decent conversation, very basic, but decent, with Rita and Marcello. I’m back in my heart country, dead center, with no English in sight tonight, but for my companions.

Buona Notte!

The trials of not having internet!

2009-10-02T17:17:00.003-06:00

Well, with the Internet nearly nonexistent in most of the Italian towns, I have resorted to typing these entries on my laptop at a bar overlooking the beautiful Lago d’Orta on our final two days in Italy, trying to recap the last eight days of our adventure.

September 16 – Venezia – the day of the deluge on the streets of this water city. We wander on our own, looking for stores we had each marked on our Streetwise Venice maps. My goal is to get to a bead store called Anticheta in Dorsoduro, over the Accademia Bridge. It is raining, but nothing my umbrella can’t handle. However, I arrive at the store I’m looking for, only to find that it closed 30 minutes ago and won’t be open again for three more hours, at 16:00, 4:00 p.m.. This is a long break for a store in Venice, but since the shop is in Dorsoduro, rather than in San Marco or the Rialto district, it is calmer, this shop is probably more legitimate, rather than touristy, and the owner can close for as long as he chooses.

I look for a place to have lunch and find one just two or three doors down from Anticheta. I have an excellent sandwich, a delicious peach and apple tart, and a cappuccino. I eat slowly and stay in my seat, grateful for once that the bars and restaurants don’t slam down the bill (il conto) until you ask for it, even if that is three hours from the time you finish your meal.

Unfortunately, I have hope that the rain will abate, even slightly, so I finally pay for my meal and begin to walk, taking advantage of this “killing time” task, believing it will afford me a chance to see this part of Venice, even in the rain. However, “rain” isn’t really what continues. How about torrential rain? How about deluge? How about . . . the streets are ready to float into the canals!

However, I walk, my favorite, dependable Primo Breeze shoes sloshing, holding me without sliding on the wet stones, but never to recover from their afternoon and evening of Noah’s Ark weather. I have kept them on every windowsill (windows open) for the past 10 days, but still, they throw off the scent of Venetian canal water mixed with a rainstorm the likes of which they’ve never seen. A new pair from shoes.com is definitely in order as soon as I arrive at a dependable Internet point.

And the beads? I return to the store at 3:30, pace a bit, go two doors down to the little lunch place, ask for a cappuccino again, and sit, writing in my journal for 30 minutes. Then I pace outside the store. A young Pakistani man asks in a sort of Italian pantomime whether I am waiting for the shop to open (no, I’m just pacing in the deluge for my health!). He makes a quick phone call, speaking in rapid sort of Italian, and hangs up, telling me “Quindici minuti” Fifteen minutes. At 16:20, an older, graying man appears at my sisde to open the store. Three hours and twenty minutes’ wait, then ten minutes in the store, and Euro 200 worth of beads for Euro 150 in a little red bag . . . truly, there ware probably fifteen beads – very old Venetian, some sort of old, and some he says were "newer". He’d throw those in for no charge. Wish I had known that! I would have gotten a few more. They are silver, and very nice. See the photo with the smaller beads. The second bead collection is one I purchased earlier that morning, before the deluge!

At any rate . . . my Venetian flood, from the heavens, not the walkways. And by the time I get back to the hotel and greet my travel mates, they have already changed their soaked clothing twice. We are all hungry and ready for some dinner. And the weather has cleared, so we walk the streets toward the Rialto Bridge until we find the Il Colombo Ristorante . . . very nice, lovely food, fresh fish, whole and waiting to be chosen, and the boast that Woody Allen has eaten here.

From Lake Como to Venice . . .

2009-09-14T15:31:00.003-06:00

Well, time does fly, and yes, we are having fun. Day two in Lake Como was spent in Bellagio, the most upscale busy little towns on the lake, in my opinion. And yes, the hotel in Las Vegas IS named after it, but don't hold THAT against the original Italian village.

Walking from any of the hotels to the ferry dock is easy, breezy, and a lovely stroll along the water if you choose to take that pedestrian boulevard. We did, of course. A short ferry across the lake to one of the three triangle points (Varenna, Mennagio and Bellagio are all towns at the "crotch" of the lake, just where the two "legs" of water meet the long body).

An afternoon of window shopping, cafe stopping, and photo shooting was just what we asked for, and the sky was bright blue, the day was warm, and the crowds weren't too bad for a Saturday at a bustling vacation spot.

When we'd had enough of Bellagio for the day, we hopped on a ferry back to our town and our hotel. We had made reservations at Albergo Milano for dinner, and enjoyed a delicious meal of tuscan soup, fresh lake fish with "Venus" rice (that's black rice, black from the squid ink, of course), and a wonderful dessert of panna cotta with berries. My favorite! I'd give up all gelato for an occasional dish of panna cotta . . . truly.

After dinner I spoke with the owner/chef, who told me the story of his purchase of the hotel eight years ago. Neil and I stayed at this little hotel in 1997, when we first came to Italy, and while the hotel's location can't be beat, the rooms were (at the time) shabbby with horrid mattresses . . . quite uncomfortable. But the price was right and it was a Rick Steves bargain, of course. Well, the current owner, Egi (pronounced edgy), had a "meant-to-be" narrative that's too long to write here, but perhaps someday I'll do it in an essay. Needless to say, he agreed with my assessment of the beds of a dozen years ago, and a year after the purchase, he and his wife completely redid all the rooms. Small hotel, ALWAYS booked. Wonderful meals . . . try it sometime!

Yesterday, our last at Como, we decided to head up to a small village "just 30 minutes' walk" up the "hill", to see a raku artist whose brochure Erin had picked up at our hotel. Don't ever believe hotel personnel in Italy who say anything is "just" a short walk. Nearly two hours later, after switchbacking up a road to Perledo, asking an old couple how to get there, climbing into their car after their offer to drive us, getting to the top of the mountain, only to find that there was no raku artist in Perledo, but just in Vezio, again, "just" 10 minutes walk down the hill and then UP again . . . needless to say, the whole trip was absurd. We were directed to here, and then there, and then down a tiny path through an olive farm, and then over the road, over a bridge, above a dry stream, through woods with a loose-rock and cobblestone pathway, up the mountain again, nearly climbing on hands and feet until we reached Vezio, where we DID find a lovely artisan shop with the raku we were looking for. And THEN, of course, we followed the signs (another mistake in rural Italy) that were supposed to lead us back to Varenna.

It DID lead us back, to be fair, but we ended up at the complete opposite end of the village from the place we began, and walked perhaps another mile back to our hotel. All in all, a story to tell our grandchildren, but would we do it again? Probably not.

A lazy rest of the day, a visit to the beautiful gardens of the Villa Montastero, a glass of pro secco, and back to the rooms to pack up for our train trip to Venice today.

This morning, we ate our last breakfast at the Hotel du Lac and climbed into the taxi driven by Rita Faggi, who got us to the station 30 minutes ahead of time. The train back to Milan was only an hour, and the EuroStar to Venice was just ten minutes late. Not too bad.

The day was gloomy and spitted rain here and there, which didn't ruin our vaporetto ride down the Grand Canal from the Venice Stazione, Venezia Santa Lucia. Our stop, San Marco Vallaresso, was the end of the line for this boat/bus, and we dragged our rolling luggage the short walk to our hotel, Dimora Marciana, a new hotel with very ornate Italian rooms.

Shedding all the luggagee was a relief, and my little group must have visited thirty mask shops just in the San Marco area. A gelato for the others, bruschetta for me, later a bottle of wine, and finally at 9:30 some pasta at an out of the way trattoria near the Rialto Bridge, and we were ready to "bread crumb" our way back to our hotel.

Here we have free wireless in the rooms, and that is a relief after the terrible wireless service at our Varenna hotel. But still, no downloading of photos. Inserting them later won't be as nice, but I'll try to do something!

Must go get ready for bed. I brought three books, two of which I have to read before I return home, and the third is the one I can't seem to put down.

Buona Notte, il miei amici!

Arriving in beautiful northern Italy

2009-09-12T10:42:00.005-06:00

I'm typing this just inside the balcony dining area of the Hotel du Lac on beautiful Lago di Como, in the village of Varenna (yes, there is also a Hotel du Lac in Bellagio), just as the sun is setting through the blue-grey clouds and settling behind the mountains that surround this most enchanting lake.

My small but mighty group of travelers arrived in Milano yesterday morning after an all-day flight. We loaded ourselves and our luggage on the mandatory bus that takes travelers to the Milano train station from Malpensa Airport. I've always wondered why an airport near this cosmopolitan city doesn't have a short train or metro between the airport and the train, but the answer has always been, "It just doesn't . . . ". So we buzz through the suburbs of Milan and arrive in the traffic, choked with auto fumes, arriving at the Stazione. Since there is construction near the entrance, we drag our suitcases around the large dark-blue wooden panels which close off the unfinished work from the pedestrians, and finally we reach the entrance to the station.

I spend the next hour securing my 5-day train pass, replacing one I received a month ago (don't ask . . . long story). My travelers have passes, and they join me at the front of the queue to get theirs validated, we move on a slanted ramp to the third level where the tracks are marked and the walkways are a-buzz with travelers. Boarding the train for Varenna, we settle in for the 50 minute ride to our little village at Lake Como.

When we arrive there, two taxis await the disembarking groups, and they scurry back and forth from hotel to train platform, loading and re-loading passengers and depositing each set of three visitors to their proper hotel, turning around again for the next group. We, fortunately, are second in line, and we arrive at the Hotel du Lac. Our rooms aren't quite ready yet, but we are just in time for a light lunch out on the balcony overlooking the lake. Don't you just love the combination of lake and mountains?

Bruschetta and insalate caprese are brought to our table, with tomatoes more colorful than I've seen in years (except in Italy, of course). Why can't we grow tomatoes like this in the United States? I remember them in my garden when I was growing up, but they are now faded remnants of those good old days, and I'm always grateful when I arrive in Italy and order my first caprese. I sprinkle those red chopped gifts with salt and close my eyes as I take my first bite.

Okay, enough of the swooning about tomatoes. When our rooms were declared ready for our arrival, we took the tiny elevator, taking turns, to our respective room levels and began the initial ritual of unpacking what we would need for the next three days.

Rebecca, my roommate, didn't sleep on the flight over, so she fell on the bed for a much needed nap. Erin decided she didn't want to screw up her internal clock anymore than necessary, so she opted to try to stay awake until evening, and I, having had a great six-hour nap on the plane, headed out to explore the cobblestone pathways along and above the lake, finally venturing up one of those infamous set of steep stairs that lead to the next levels of streets in this mountainous village.

Two stops to sit on stone stairs at the water's edge, a bit of journal-writing, photo-taking, more observations in my journal, and I climbed the stairs to the piazza, where the town's church was brimming with the families and friends of a bride and groom! There always seems to be a wedding in the village church, no matter where we arrive, and the church bells rang, announcing 5:00 p.m.

After an hour or two of exploring, I rewarded myself with one of the two gelato treats I will eat on this trip. I'm not really a fan of gelato (I know, HERESY!) but I do seem to feel the need to have one or two scoops during any trip. Today the shop I chose did not have my favorite, lamponi (raspberry), so I settled for fragola (strawberry), and did enjoy the cold creamy substance, atop a sugar cone. Maybe I kid myself about this dislike of gelato. Hmmm.

And . . . back to the room, where Rebecca was waking up from her second nap of the afternoon. Erin had left us a note that said she had lost the battle to stay awake, and she'd see us in the morning.

So Rebecca and I headed back out for the water walkway, found a nice little restaurant, Il Molo, as the skies opened for a 10-minute downpour before it cleared up enough to allow us to stay at a table outdoors while we had our pizza and risotto asparagi. A half-liter of the house red wine and we were set!

We returned from our casual dinner at 8:30, and I read for perhaps 10 minutes before I slipped into oblivion in a comfortable bed, the sound of waves my only lullabye.

Twelve hours later, I awoke to our second day on Lake Como.

More later . . .

THE NEXT ADVENTURE - ITALY WOMEN 2010

2009-08-05T23:04:00.014-06:00

Tuscany, Cinque Terre, and
The Lakes of Piemonte
May 9-28*, 2010

Ten women, 19 days:
Florence, Siena, Tuscan countryside villa,
Cinque Terre, and the northwest lakes

Cost of $5600 double occupancy, including airfare from Denver. If we get a better price on the airfare, I’ll adjust downward. If the Euro rises to more than $1.50 exchange rate, I will make whatever adjustment is necessary upward, but it should be minimal. Ask if you need a single supplement. NOTE: We do very well matching or rotating roommates.

A $500 deposit secures your space, non-refundable unless we can fill your spot if you need to cancel. Bring a friend not on my list and deduct $250 from your trip cost. Send payment to Lifeprints Journeys, 887 Blue Heron Lane, Fort Collins, Co. 80524. Questions? Call me at 970-481-6339.

WATER, WORDS AND THE WONDERS OF ITALY

2009-04-29T20:16:00.004-06:00

Well, the economic situation seems to be on a small teeter-totter, but I'm still getting those requests for more info about Italy Women trips, especially the one in September, so I'm gearing up for Italian Relief!

So here is the detailed information for the next trip:

September 10-27, 2009 - Water, Words, and the Wonders of Italy:
Lake Como, Venice, LeMarche, Lago d'Orta

Just a bit more than two weeks in northeast Italy, with a dedicated focus on reflective writing as we go. Remember that this "writing" is flow, not pressure, so for those of you who have not done writing with me in the past, please know there is no pre-writing criteria for this. Guided journal-writing, if you will. Travel-writing or memory scraps if you'd like to do that. And you can always opt out of the writing if you so desire, but it's a great way to remember what you've seen, eaten, and how your heart sings in the Italian countryside, lakes and mountains!

This is a Planes, Trains and Automobiles trip (and vaporetto rides in Venice!). We will fly from Denver to Milan, arriving September 11, and take a train to the Lake Como area. We will spend our first three nights at Lake Como, in the lovely and peaceful town of Varenna. Then three nights in magical Venezia where we will see the Church of San Marco, the Doges Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, walk along endless waterways, find our way from one end of Venice to the other on the water-transport system, the vaporetto. Seafood and fresh local fare will kiss your palate every day.

Then a train ride to the region of LeMarche, between Tuscany and the Adriatic seacoast. We will rent our cars in Ancona and drive a short distance to our villa, nestled in the countryside, surrounded by the Sibillini Mountains, close to the Adriatic ocean. A week of exploring the area and dedicated time for mini-writing workshops about the land, the food, the history, the buildings, our inner heartbeat, whatever strikes your pen's fancy.

At the end of our villa week, we will return our cars in Ancona, board the EuroRail train again and travel the rails to Lago d'Orta, where I end all my Italy Women trips. For three days and nights, we will relax, walk slowly from cafe to cafe, sit by the water with our favorite version of espresso or cappucino, and visit the amazing Sacre Monte. A ten-minute boat ride to Isola d'Orta allows us to walk a meditation path around the island, visit a beautiful tiny church, and wander past the private homes and monastic buildings that have been on this island for hundreds of years. At the end of our stay in San Giulio d'Orta, we will fly from Milan back to Denver, arriving home the night of September 27.

Cost of the trip will include 16 nights' lodging (double occupancy), airfare from Denver, multi-day EurRail pass, cars, gas and tolls, vaporetto pass, 16 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 6 dinners including wine (perhaps 9 if our Orta hotel still includes them), a walking tour in Venice, travel journals, Streetwise map of Venice, this trip cost will be $5500. Maximum number of travelers (including your guide): Ten, most likely nine.

The dollar is not too terrible against the Euro at the moment ($1.33-1.42), and the airfares vary wildly. The Euro is also fluxuating, but is much better now than it was last spring. If it stays below $1.50, we'll be great. If it goes below $1.30 while we're there, we'll add more meals, an extra tour, whatever seems appropriate . . . if you want single occupancy, let me know and I'll figure out the supplement. If the Euro zooms up past $1.50 to our dollar (not likely this year), there will be a slight upward adjustment. Haven't had to do that yet. NOTE: I am looking at some newly listed villas in LeMarche a few of which might offer most of the group a single occupancy opportunity. I need to get responses back from owners before I'll know exactly what inventory is available on our dates.

To hold your space, please send a $500 deposit made out to Lifeprints. This deposit will ONLY be refundable if we don't go on the trip for some unexpected reason, or if we can fill your place in the event that you must cancel. By May 15, I will need $2000 of the cost so I can get plane tickets when I find good ones. I will urge you to get travel insurance, because it's cheap protection for your trip cancellation for illness of you or a family member, terrorist attack, trip delays, lost luggage, stolen documents, etc. etc. I can arrange the travel insurance at a good price with a reputable company.

If you have questions, please call or e-mail me. If you're ready to commit, please send your deposit to the address below! You can go to my website and click on "Testimonials" to see some comments from past trip participants. The sooner we get our group, the sooner I can grab good airfares when they're available.

I do hope to see some of you on this new adventure. And yes, I know some of you are already planning to register for the May 2010 Italy Women group, my Tuscany/Cinque Terre/Lake Orta itinerary. YEA!

Ciao . . .

Another country . . . here we come!

2008-10-14T12:06:00.002-06:00

October 14, 2008 - Bonjour! I have just returned from six weeks at my retreat in Vermont, though the "retreat" turned into more of a convalescent home duty for my partner and one of our golden Retrievers! Back home in Colorado, I've barely gotten unpacked and am preparing my next LifeprintsJourneys Women's adventure, this time not to my beloved Italia, but instead to Provence and Paris!

One of my 2004 Italy women made a request nearly two years ago, wondering whether I'd be willing to put together a France Women trip for 2008, and as she and I know, once you set an intention, it so often comes to fruition. Manifestation! So at 3:00 a.m., Friday, October 17, nine of us begin our French adventure together. We will be spending one week at a beautiful villa in the Vaucluse area of Provence. Fontaine du Faucon is the villa, Goult is the nearest little village, and our British hosts are a gracious couple who now live in a neaerby area on a vineyard estate, producing their own wine.

As we leave the villa after one week, we will spend a last Provencal night in Gigondas at Les Florets, and then take the TGV back to Paris for five nights in that magical city! I will post as often as possible, and try to figure out a way to post photos as I go, rather than re-inserting them when I return home. Somehow that doesn't ever really pan out . . . too much to do in the moment.

So if any of you are following our trip, I hope you enjoy our adventures!

A bientot!

Woodswoman

The Final Week in Italy, May 2008 - Part 2

2008-06-04T10:54:00.004-06:00

Tuesday, May 20 - It's still raining in Cinque Terre as we get our bags ready for the hotel staff to drag up or down the stone stairways from our rooms to the Piazza near the yellow church.

We are waiting for our next private bus to arrive at the piazza to take my group and our luggage to Lago d'Orta, the last stop on our three-week adventure. The arrangements become complicated, of course . . . Nadia has sent a 30-passenger bus rather than a 16 passenger bus, and the larger bus won't fit on the small roads that wind from the top of the hill down to our hotel. So the La Torretta staff comes up with a creative solution, and we are taken, the women first and then the bags in three loads, and finally me! We settle in for the 4-5 hour ride to the lake.

Our bus driver speaks no English, but for "Hello", "Thank you", and "Goodbye", but he talks to me in less complicated Italian than I typically hear, because he wants to tell me about his life, where he grew up in Italy, where he has visited, and he asks me some simple questions I can answer.

The day is rainy and he tells me it will be rainy where we are going as well. I hope he is wrong, because the scenery is less beautiful with all the fog and clouds. No sparkling water on the Mediterranean, no emerald green glistening on the hillsides. And we're beginning to get soggy!

We arrive at San Giulio d'Orta, do the now-usual transport from bus to hotel, people first, then luggage. As I greet Elena and get our rooms sorted out, Colleen and Calla have already begun to wander the piazza and they've stumbled into a little shop with lovely jewelry. It's Cerri Flora, Elio's store, and he knows they are American women. He immediately asks if they're with "Joannah's group", and they are astonished by this question!

They come back to the hotel and tell me that the man in the shop across the way knows me. Of course he does. I've been bringing lovely women to this place for six years, and they always like the merchandise he and his wife Flora present to their customers. So we're off to a great start!

The Hotel Orta, owned by the same family for five generations, provides us with lovely breakfasts and dinners, and we prepare to dine in a beautiful dining room, overlooking the lake and the island, where 70 nuns are cloistered in the monastery at the top of the island's hill.

The view is lovely, the food is delicious, and Stefano, the maitre 'd, greets me warmly. We know we will be well taken care of here.

Wednesday, May 21 - One of the reasons we come to this lovely relaxing place at the end of our trip is that there is NO particular agenda for us at Lago d'Orta. Breakfast is served in the hotel until 10:00, dinner begins at 7:30. Between these two meals (and you can always skip eating if you'd like!) one may do whatever the heart desires.

We awake to the sounds of the street market vendors beginning to set up their merchandise stands, and the rain hasn't deterred the boatloads of day-tourists (this is very unusual for our little town) who show up at about 9:30 and leave mid-afternoon. Apparently THIS year, our visit coincides with some big holiday for the Italians, though usually we miss this event by a week. Today some of us have scheduled massages with a hotel down the street, and the rest are free to shop, sleep, read, write, sip cappuccino or espresso to our hearts' content!

And we do just that. I have opted NOT to get a massage, and instead, I wander the tiny streets, taking pictures of doors and views I know well. I try to check my e-mail, but the two very sketchy internet points are unavailable . . . one closed until further notice, and the other is just the personal computer of one of the rental agents in the village, and she isn't very happy about sharing it today.

Between the opening and closing of our travel umbrellas, we are grateful for the dry but cloudy skies. I make a reservation for all of us at the Hotel Leon d'Oro across the piazza for lunch tomorrow, our last day in Italy!

Thursday, May 22 - Today we again have no real agenda, but for the group lunch, which is delicious, expensive, and hosted by a rather crabby old woman, the owner of that particular hotel. When I enter the hotel and restaurant, a drawn woman of perhaps 40 greets me, if you could call it that. I explain that I have spoken to the owner of the restaurant about my group. She turns, sighs, and calls over her shoulder, "Mama!" and the old woman appears.

No wonder the younger woman looks the way she does. If the older owner has made arrangements for a group lunch for us, her attitude completely uninspired and grouchy, can you imagine what it must be like to be raised by such a woman? She is the first really austere, unpleasant person I have met in Italy. She has tried to polish her manners when she realizes I mean to add quite a bit of money to her lunch coffers, but she falls short of anything like enthusiasm! Oh well . . . we have only to go to the desk of our own hotel to receive all the nurturing and warmth we are lacking at our lunch restaurant.

After lunch, the rain looks like it has gone for the day, and we arrange to have a boat take us to the Isola San Giulio, where the monastery sits on top of the island at the center, the one beautiful little church is near the boat dock, and the meditation walk goes around the island easily, threading its way through the beautiful houses. The island's sole restaurant is closed indefinitely, but the tiny gift shop is still open next to the church.

We buy our round-trip tickets, go over as a group, and are on our own once we get there. One could never get lost on this tiny island, and no matter where you go, you always end up back at the dock, waiting for boats that return you to the village.

Last-minute shopping at the many lovely stores, a final trip to the Buongustaio, our favorite deli (that word doesn't even begin to describe this store), where the young woman, the owner Luca's only employee for as long as I have been coming here, vacuum seals great chunks of parmesan cheese and carefully wraps small bottles of 30-year old balsamic vinegar ("Don't EVER put this in salad!" Luca warns) for one of my former trip participants, and we are ready to dress for dinner.

NOTE: As I write this, I wonder whether my memory has confused and reversed yesterday's and today's activities, but no matter. Boats, food, shopping, cappuccino, walking, beauty. What could be clearer than that!

Our last night's dinner is bittersweet, and we gift our remaining bottles of Spumante to the staff. I settle up with the bill and tip the staff generously, receiving hugs from several of them, and we each return to our rooms to pack up. Our shuttle will take us to the private airport bus at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow for the ride to Milan Malpensa airport.

Friday, May 23 - Well, we were all out at the Piazza with our mountains of luggage by our sides at 7:00 a.m. The hotel staff made sure they began breakfast one hour early so we could have something to eat before we departed. After a bit of confusion between the bus company and the bus driver, we finally got on the road to the airport 45 minutes late!

When we arrived at Malpensa the driver parked the bus at least three departure doors away from the baggage carts and a VERY long way from our ticket counter, so we all ran like wild women with luggage shackles, hoping we would not miss our connections. But hey, this is Italy, where the Alitalia staff doesn't shake their fingers at harried, be-luggaged, LATE American women! They greeted us warmly, assured us that there was plenty of time before the flight departed, and generally made the whole morning's hassle go away.

The flights departed and landed smoothly, in Milan, Atlanta and Denver, the limo showed up on time to take us back up to Fort Collins, EVERYONE got all their luggage returned safely, and we were delivered to our houses in Fort Collins by 11:00 p.m. . . . that's about 24 hours after we checked out of our Orta hotel, and now we can rest, relax, and regroup!

Arrivederci, caro Italia . . . arrivederci.

The Final Week in Italy, May 2008 - Part 1

2008-05-31T22:42:00.004-06:00

Saturday, May 17 - We all got up very early this morning (see what we get for the pleasure of sleeping in yesterday?) to pack the cars completely and head back to Florence to return them. This is probably the most challenging part of our driving trip . . . just the part from the edge of Florence into the city to the EuropCar return office, but we made it with mystifying coordination, and we all arrived at the rental car office within five minutes of one another.

After we had unloaded all our luggage and the things we have purchased along the way (including 17 bottles of wine we expected to drink in the next six days!), our private transportation arrived in the form of a 16-passenger mini-bus, complete with Italian-only speaking driver. We settled in for an hour, arrived in Pisa for a three-hour stay, and walked into the walled city to view the famous Leaning Tower, as well as the other magnificent buildings in the complex . . . the Battistero, the Cathedral, and the Cimiterio - a truly beautiful mausoleum, and the accompanying grassy grounds around each building.

Despite the circus of souvenir hawkers on the walkway, these Pisa sights are worth seeing. The Baptistry has perfect acoustics, and contains sculptures from Nicoli Pisaro and his father (son? . . . I can never get that straight), and after all, how could we drive PAST the Leaning Tower of Pisa, no matter how many tourists surround it?

After our Pisa stop, we had a four-hour drive to Cinque Terre, the area of five little towns on the Italian Riviera, where we would spend the next three nights. Our town is Manarola, and we were staying at a new place for my trips, La Torrrette, owned by a young man named Gabriele Baldini. He was the perfect host, getting us settled in our various rooms scattered all over the rocky mountain side before leaving us for a week of business in London.

But what he left behind for us were lovely rooms, all with sea views, and in each room we found white bathrobes, neatly folded on our beds, a flower on each stack of towels, a bottle of Spumante and some lovely pastries, apples, pears. We unpacked and headed down the windy street to the sea, where everyone enjoyed . . . cappuccino, vino, and a bit of tasty food, of course!

Sunday, May 18 - Today it is rainy again, but we are each on our own to explore the Cinque Terre in any way we please. After a quick e-mail check at the train station in Manarola, and the purchase of our three-day passes, Donna and I head out to walk from Manarola to Riomaggiore, the Via dell'Amore . . . the Walk of Love. The walkway is through the mountain, with occasional glimpses of the Mediterranean and many wonderful drawings on the face of the rock wall. We're protected by the rain on most of the walk but our umbrellas come in handy.

We check train schedules for our trip to Portofino tomorrow, step into a bar for a cappuccino, and wait out the downpour. Our train is late (what else is new) from La Spezia, but it finally arrives, opening its doors to dozens of passengers who want to disembark and dozens more who are waiting to claim a seat so they can explore like we will do.

We spend much of our afternoon in Vernazza, having lunch and wine at the Gambero Rosso (The Red Shrimp or Prawn), shopping in little stores with interesting presents to take home, getting back on the train for Monterosso al Mare, where the sun has come out! Surprise! So we find another bar on the water and have a glass of wine. It's now 5:30 or so, and we are hungry, so back on the train, back to Vernazza, to be seated at my regular dinner restaurant in this little village . . . Gianni Franzi. The Moroccan waiter is still there, as he has been for the past four years, and I order fresh sea bass, caprese salad, and we split a bottle of wine!

Donna's trip to the rest room results in her meeting with the owner . . . Gianni of course, and he wants to buy us a drink. It is now 10:00 and we have to get a train back to Manarola, but one short Grand Marnier and we are on our way. Oops, the train left without us, but there is another one in 45 minutes, so we . . . order a cappuccino at a little bar near the train stop, get on our train and off in Manarola, walk back to La Torretta for a long sleep before tomorrow's train/bus/boat trip to Portofino and back.

It has been a lovely day and everyone else has hiked or napped or read or stayed in our town or explored in a similar fashion, but we're all tucked in bed.

Monday, May 19 - Today promised to be a bit less wet, and six of us boarded the little train going north/northwest, on our way to the beautiful village of Portofino. We changed trains in Sestre Levante and disembarked in Santa Margherita, another lovely town on the Italian Riviera. From train to bus in 10 minutes, and in another 15 minutes we were dropped off in the middle of Portofino, to spend the day wandering past VERY expensive clothing stores (one lovely scarf caught my eye . . . 450 Euro (that's about $720 with our ugly exchange rate!) and I settled for a good salad for lunch and a nice glass of Barbera right next to the water, where I could gaze out at all the luxury sailboats, the tourists getting around the large piazza, and talk with my friend Barbara L in the sun.

After a few hours, we took a boat back to Santa Margherita, boarded the train to Manarola and walked back to our hotel in the pouring rain. Somehow we didn't carry the sunshine back with us on the tracks! We met our whole group at 7:15, in time to walk to "Dal Billy Ristorante" for our last meal together in Cinque Terre.

Since it was raining, we were seated in one of the rooms "inside" his restaurant. Billy's is built on the cliffside, and is on four levels, all of them appearing to hang off the side of the rocks. Windows on two sides give us a view to the sea, and make us feel like we are suspended in the air. Billy himself greets us, takes our orders, and provides all the entertainment we need for a memorable evening. His sidekick, Eduardo, was quite taken with our Donna, and mournfully told me, "Tell her to come back to Manarola soon . . without all of you . . . "

After a feast of caprese, antipasti al mare, Billy's pasta, pesto, fresh fish of three types (Orato, Branzini, and some sort of sea bass, I think), we were presented with an after dinner wine and a tray of delicious desserts. Then we wandered back to our rooms to prepare for our departure the next morning to Lago d'Orta.

Buona notte!

The Villa Week, continued . . .

2008-05-28T22:02:00.002-06:00

Remember, I'm writing this after the fact, and am trying to catch up and finish before it's NEXT YEAR!

Wednesday, May 14 - Today's visit is to the eastern reaches of Tuscany and beyond. First we drove just over the border into Umbria to visit the lovely little Lake Trasimeno, specifically the town of Passignano, where we hopped on a ferry boat over to Isola Maggiore, a small island with about 100 people, five churches, a few restaurants, bars, and post-card shops, an abandoned monastery and a couple of small beaches. You can walk around this island in about an hour or a bit more, with some craggy paths on the back side.

After wandering around the right side of the only little street on the island, taking photos of all the doorways I had photographed each year I've visited in the past, I found my usual restaurant spot at Sauro, owned by a family at whose hotel we stayed on our first trip to Italy in 1996. The birds were everywhere, audacious enough to pluck bread right out of the basket sitting in front of me on the table . . . and I encouraged every bit of it!

Some of the women joined me after awhile, we had wine and some dessert, and slowly made our way back to the boat dock to return to our cars in Passignano. Once settled, after bathroom breaks and more gelato and water, we headed to Cortona, the site of Under The Tuscan Sun. It is a walled hill-town high high up on a hilltop, and I like it better each time I visit there. Neil and I spent one night in October right in the old town and I'd like to do that again some time, but not today. Today we wander through the main streets, onto some back roads, and into a favorite coffee bar, where we get bellinis and lovely appetizers.

Then it's back to the villa for the evening, through beautiful countryside, mist hovering over the Tuscan hills, and the sunlight streaming through distant rainclouds. We were fed at the villa with delicious leftovers and wine grown, made and bottled right on our villa property. Who could ask for more?

Oh yeah, and I drove through a little town I've never heard of, Bettole, that looks like a good candidate for a future purchase, if my lottery ticket comes up some year!

Thursday, May 15 - Today's road trip is to Chianti country, and there are six of us, the other four opting not to venture into this most famous wine country. Castellina in Chianti is our first stop, and I haven't been here for a dozen years. We found an Enoteca where we tasted some wine, discovered a beautiful small hotel right next door to the wine shop, complete with spa and stone swimming pool. A spectacular view out to the Chianti vineyards that make up 90% of this area of Tuscany, and the purchase of postcards and a few bottles of wine . . . then off to our lunch destination . . . Badia a Coltibuono, owned by Lorenza di Medici and her cooking school.

The restaurant is on a hill past a grazing pasture full of huge white cows. At the front of the restaurant are wisteria and the strangest rose bushes, full of small pink roses with petals almost carnation-like. On the same branches, sprinkled throughout, are huge yellow roses with pink edges! How do they do that???

Our four-course lunch, paired with appropriate wines, was exquisite as usual, and we spent half the afternoon gazing out to the views beyond the restaurant grounds. Then to our last Chianti stop, Greve in Chianti, with its wide piazza, little flower shops, and an excellent ceramics shop. Not the tourist fare, but actual artisan art. There is a ceramic mask hanging in my studio, purchased from this shop in Greve.

It rained on and off all afternoon, but we were undeterred. We made our way back through the outskirts of Siena during rush hour traffic, just barely arriving at the villa in time to sit down to Maria's delicious meal.

Friday, May 16 - Today is the day we all sleep in, sit around the lovely villa, and pack up for tomorrow's departure from the villa. But mid-afternoon, Donna, Jane, Barbara Due and I took off for Montalcino wine country . . . that's Brunello wine country, and the roads are full of invitations to visit one vineyard or another to taste the wine that has made this area famous! My goal was to get to Castello Banfi, a well-known name, even in the U.S., and as I suspected, the grounds were beautiful, the tasting room was like a castle, and we spent quite a bit of time with our two tasting hosts before reluctantly returning to our villa.

We packed up the cars before going to bed, so we would be ready to head back to Florence the next morning, to return the rental cars and get our private transportation to Cinque Terre. It's been a good week, and I think I will see this villa again soon.

The Villa Week in Tuscany, May 10-17, 2008

2008-05-26T13:59:00.004-06:00

Okay, I am now realizing that the date at the top of this post is the day I'm WRITING, not the days I'm writing ABOUT! So . . . while the date for this post says Monday, May 26, our Villa week in Tuscany was May 10-17. Last episode found us settled in, well fed on the first night.
So . . .

Sunday, May 11 . . . Carol and Kay opted to hang around the villa and relax, while the other eight of us got into two cars and went in search of the Giardino Tarocchi, a Tarot garden near Capalbio in southwestern Tuscany, very near the sea. Our first stop, though, prompted by our host's recommendation, was to head for Monte Argentario and Porto San Stefano, just off the western coast of Tuscany south of Grosseto. It was beautiful and seemed less polished than most of the tourist driven Tuscan towns, and we found a lovely little restaurant on the water that served fish fresh from the nets.

We tried to drive around the island, but found ourselves in very rough countryside, with the locals urging us to turn back . . . "Bruto, bruto!", so we took their advice, headed back the way we came, and down the coastline about 45 minutes to the Tarot Garden (www.niki-museum.jp/english/tarot.htm). This unique site was designed and constructed (for decades, mind you) by artist Niki de Saint Phalle, whose Major Arcana figures, brought nearly to life in gigantic mosaic figures, were inspired by the Spanish-born architect Antoni Gaudi. (See his Park Guell in Barcelona on the site www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Park_Guell.html)

Words cannot express the surreal majesty of Niki's creation, her life's work, and I had to buy a book to take home with me, so people would better understand my poor attempt at describing the figures in this Disney/Gaudi-on-psychedelics wilderness park. Half of our group was overwhelmed and headed off to the parking lot early, and the other half of us just wanted to stay for another day! I will definitely return to that haunting place . . .

At closing time, we piled back into our cars and found our way to our villa again. A new experience for me, and perhaps I'll work it into the next Italy Women trip in 2010.

Monday, May 12 - San Gimignano
San Gimignano is a Tuscan hill town whose spectacular skyline is formed by fourteen remaining towers of the seventy-two original medieval spires. Half of the group ventured a bit west to the Etruscan town of Volterra and the rest of us spent a day wandering in and out of shops, churches, and cappucino bars. The light rain didn't dampen (ha!) our spirits too much, and I visited my favorite potter, my favorite pasticcheria, and my favorite quiet little piazza tucked away at the back end of the main road.

Though we wandered individually through much of the day, six of us ended up at the same cafe in the middle of the town, sipping wine and espresso by 5:30 or so. And then the return to our lovely little villa for dinner.

Tuesday, May 13 - Montepulciano/Pienza
Pienza is one of my favorite towns in all of Tuscany, perhaps in all of Italy so far, and I love this little day trip. Montepulciano is one of those walled cities up on the hill, with churches, shops and restaurants, as well as the ever more popular internet cafes. There's also a leather shop there, where I've bought lovely journals in the past visits.

We ate lunch together at Caffe Poliziano, actually a recommendation from a friend of one of the 2004 participants, and it was such a good suggestion, I incorporated it into my bi-annual plans. Mid-afternoon we made our way to Pienza, just a few kilometres down the road, where the little piazza and the church were the sites of two scenes from The English Patient.

Pope Pius II (I think he's the one) was born here, he was baptized in the Pienza church, and there's a lot of historic hoopla sround him and this claim to fame! But that matters not a whit to me. What I love is to just stand on those broad stone steps leading down to the second tier of the town, where I gaze out on the Tuscan countryside below. It is a spectacular view, sweeping, green and glittering, with the staccatto and explamation points of the cypress trees lining long driveways up to farmhouses on the hillsides.

A cappuccino in the corner bar on a chilly day, a chance meeting with some people from London, Ontario, and the chatter of Italians in the area . . . all remind me that my "win the lottery" place is here in this area.

Ciao . . . to be continued . . .

A week in a Tuscan villa . . .

2008-05-24T19:54:00.002-06:00

Saturday, May 10, 2008: We spent most of the day in Siena, some of the group opting to stay at our hotel to sleep, wander the grounds, read, whatever we wanted. The birds and flowers are everywhere, and Carol had her binocs and Birds of Europe with her much of our trip. Colleen, Calla and I had a bit of a picnic in the sitting room of the Palazzo, and by about 3:30 we were ready to head out to find our private villa, nestled in the hills about 45 minutes southeast of Siena.

My plan was to make sure I stopped at a grocery store before arriving at the villa so we would have coffee, fruit, juice, eggs, and some other basics for food on Sunday. But of course our timing in the town closest to the villa was not great, and the grocery store, the InCoop, was closed for mid-afternoon naps. Gee . . . that meant that Barbara L, Kay and I just HAD to find a little bar that sold gelato . . . you know, just to kill the time until we could buy our groceries. And every little town, even those withOUT grocery stores have bars that sell gelato.

After all that, we drove up a dirt road toward Podere Camera, our half-of-a-villa on an agriturismo, a working farm that offers hospitality to travelers. This was a new villa for my groups, and I must say I was very pleased with the sight-unseen choice. Five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, dining room, several patios and terraces, a swimming pool, and all on the property of a winery!

We had arranged that Maria, one of the owners, would cook our dinner tonight, and were treated to a typically sumptuous Italian meal, complete with the true vino della casa, the wine of the house. Insalate Caprese, pasta, mixed meat dish, cheese, and a delicious fruit torte before the evening was over. With enough left to feed us the following night, we fell into our "new" beds with thoughts of the daily adventures ahead of us for the next week.

Italia and Week Two . . .

2008-05-24T19:44:00.002-06:00

Friday, May 9, 2008: We packed up all our luggage and after checking out of the Hotel Pendini, we went down to the street level to get our three taxis. The ride is short to the EuropCar office, but with luggage and ten women it is impossible to walk to the rental car section of Borgo Ognissante. Once settled at the EuropCar counter, we secured our three cars, registered the drivers (me, Colleen and Jane) and the three alternate drivers (Libby, Donna and Kay), and made sure the navigators (Carol, Donna and Kay) had their maps marked for the route to Siena, we began the most treacherous part of our journey . . . driving OUT OF FLORENCE!

We negotiated this assignment with varying degrees of success and timeliness, and all eventually found our way to the Palazzo di Valli in Siena, our home for one night. After parking cars, checking out our rooms and bring in just a bit of luggage, we caught the shuttle bus into the walled old city of Siena and met our guide, my friend Viviana Girola, who gave us a warm and informative tour of old Siena, including the Duomo, the side church which houses beautiful illuminated manuscripts, and the Church of San Domenico where I again was able to view the head of St. Catherine of Siena. I know . . . it's ghoulish, but it is truly her head encased in a glass compartment in that side altar. She was the saint of the people, no doubt about it!

Our dinner at Antica Osteria da Divo was exquisite as usual, and we walked happily through the Campo to our late night shuttle stop, finally returning to the Palazzo again for a good night's sleep.

Il Latine and beyond . . .

2008-05-10T04:33:00.002-06:00

Please note: I can't post pictures on these foreign computers so the photos will have to wait. And I must say I have taken fewer photos this time than ever before. More watching, less documenting, I guess. The other women will make sure I have plenty of their photo CDs to add to my trip files.

Okay, now where was I . . . ? Oh, yes . . . food, Wednesday night, Il Latine. How could I forget?

When I told Franco (manager at Il Porcospino) that we were going to Il Latine for dinner, he said, "Molto turistico . . . nothing special." But then our language teacher, Leonardo, said, "Well, it is touristy (remember, he doesn't talk with us in ANY English, but still, I could understand him . . . ) but it is an adventure, an experience, something special all on its own."

And it is . . . they now take reservations, but even at that, people line up in the little picturesque alleyway for an hour before the restaurant opens, trying to make sure there is room for them to come in for the 7:30 seating for dinner. We had our reservations for 10, and the manager led us up to one of the many rooms here and there, to a table for ten. I asked if we could please have dinner for SIX, not ten, because in the past, there is SO much food left over, the price per person is getting higher, the dollar sinking in value, and I thought I'd try it this way. To my happy surprise, they agreed to bring out food for six. So . . . first the antipasti . . . prosciuto, cheese, breads, bruschetta, then the soups, then the pastas, four different kinds, then huge plates of meat . . . chicken, pork, rabbit, lamb, beef in two types of cuts . . . and then the spinach and salad and potatoes, asparagus. And at the end, cantucci con vin santo (basically biscotti dipped in a sweet "holy wine") and two platters of mixed desserts.

This is not to mention the liquids. Prosecco to begin with (sort of an Italian champagne), then all the wine we wanted from their house jugs, lots of water (still and sparkling), and moscato at the end, a sweeter dessert wine. The amount of food for six people was PLENTY for ten of us, except for adding two extra orders of spinach for those of us who love it.

After dinner some of the women went back to the hotel, but I love to walk near the Arno River after dark. Several of the group joined me, and we crossed the Trinita bridge over to the Oltrarno district, walked up Via San Jacopo to point out to Donna the little yarn store I love, Beatrice Galli. A stop for bottled water and a bathroom, crossing the Ponte Vecchio lined on both sides with beautiful jewelry stores during the day, closed up at night, and back to the Piazza della Repubblica, where we almost went into our hotel, but were tempted by the music at a nearby restaurant with a large outdoor seating area.

There was a piano bar with a singer, and enough room to dance. We watched two or three older gentlemen do their steps with several younger women seated around the area, and we talked until after 1:00 a.m.!

THAT was the rest of Wednesday!

Thursday, May 8 - We began after breakfast by walking to the Uffizi Galleria, where we had reservations at 9:45 a.m. This is an enormous art gallery with old old masters' works in it, and it makes my eyes glaze over, but it is a must for any group trip. After I got everyone in and lugged my tired butt up the two LONG sets of stairs to the "first floor", I walked around for 10 minutes and decided my time needed to be alone and wandering. So I claimed my small backpack from the security area and exited.

So . . . first across the Arno to the yarn store, where I bought just a very few balls of yarn, enough to make a scarf while I am here. She had no circular needles and directed me to a shop I was going to visit anyway . . . Samba Mercale, a fabulous button and trim shop. An hour later, with my circular knitting needles and 80 Euro worth of wonderful buttons, I wandered to a Palazzo recommended by our language teacher, realized as I went through it that I had seen it before, and made my way slowly to an internet cafe on the way to Santa Croce. Checked my e-mail, posted the first entry on this blog-trip, and tried to find a favorite little alimentari (sort of a wonderful little Italian deli market) near the Piazza Santa Croce, where I've been before.

After several turns into tiny streets that were NOT the right ones, I did discover a sign that said "Via Torta". That sounded familiar and I took a chance. There were the places I was looking for, as well as a street market with wonderful cherries and cherry tomatoes. I added several items to my picnic bag . . . cheese, bread, salami, a half bottle of wine with paper cup, several tiny cookies, and a sumptuous slice of vegetable quiche (frittata, here) and headed for the Piazza.

There in the bright sun in front of a magnificent church, I sat on a stone bench, opened my picnic, and watched the people while I ate my little meal. THIS is what I love in Florence! When I was finished watching and eating and sitting, perhaps two hours after I arrived, I again wandered the streets until I found a restaurant I had passed two nights before. Trattoria Alfredo, which I had remembered from 9 years ago when Neil and I were here because Ashley went to school in Florence that year. We had eaten in this restaurant and it was here I had tasted my first risotto con funghi porchini. I asked the waiter for a card, he did the typical flirtation, handed me a card and said, "For you, madame, no reservation is necessary . . . ".

Ah, the charm of the Italian cities and towns! Later I returned to the hotel, met up with a few of the women, and we decided when to have our dinner . . . see, food food food, walking walking walking, food food wine wine food.

So we headed out for our dinner, walked again past the button shop so Donna would know where it was. They were closed, with their rolled down metal curtain almost to the street level, and we peered in. They recognized me, saw me with six other women, and were smart enough to invite us all in to look and shop. I was afraid I'd be tempted to repeat my performance, and with the metal barricade nearly down, it was hot in the shop so I ducked out and walked around the tiny piazza down the street until the rest of the women returned to me, Donna with HER 100 Euro purchase in hand. See . . . smart shop owners!

So dinner at 7:45 with seven of us at Trattoria Alfredo. LOTS of food, too much, actually, but it was delicious. Risotto funghi porcini, of course, risotto gorgonzola, ravioli gorgonzola, some fish, appetizers, green salads, and dolce, a mixed plate of desserts. Wine, water and conversation . . . again. Back to the hotel and to my room, facing the Piazza. Because my 4th floor windows were open, I soon heard someone down on the square calling my name. Looking down, I saw four of my group beckoning me to return with them to the restaurant with the music and dancing.

No way tonight, I thought. I'm EXHAUSTED! They were there until midnight, while I tried to organize all my maps, directions, etc. for tomorrow's journey to Siena.

Bed later than I had hoped, past midnight, and the sense that all was ready for the morning. Tomorrow, off to Siena for an afternoon walking tour, another delicious meal at the Antiche Osteria da Divo, a night in beautiful Palazzo di Valli, and Saturday back in the old Centro of Siena until time to head out for our villa in the Tuscan countryside.

Buona Notte!

Joannah

Siamo arrivate in Italia!

2008-05-08T05:02:00.014-06:00

Monday, May 5, 2008

Well, our 2008 adventure began even before we boarded the plane this time, because of course we were on Alitalia Airlines. Though their phone agents are wonderful and helpful and charming, their e-mail notification system (when the schedules change or the planes are broken or the flights are canceled . . . which is OFTEN) sucks! I won't bother to fill you in on the gory details, but suffice it to say that instead of leaving by limo (HUMMER, NO LESS!) at 4:30 AM on Sunday, we left an hour earlier than that, groggy from barely a half-nights sleep, and headed for DIA.

Once we checked in, all was uneventful, and we arrived at the lovely Hotel Pendini at about 1:00 on Monday afternoon. Ten women, a reasonable number of bags, and not one was lost in the flight pattern, Denver, JFK, Milan, Firenze!

A bit of an orientation walk for some, a nap for others, and then dinner at Il Porcospino, where Franco was charming as usual, the dinner was delicious, and we all fell into bed soon after returning to the Hotel.

Tuesday, May 7, 2008 - a very busy day. The Pendini serves a wonderful and varied breakfast and we all gobbled ham, cheese, yogurt, cereal, croissants, espresso, etc. Then we headed over to the Duomo and Battistero to meet our guide, Elena, from Tours by Roberto. We listened to her extensive history explanations, which included answers to our varied questions, for three hours as we walked together on a beautiful morning.

She finished her tour at the Palazzo Strozzi, just a block or two from the Cantinetta Antinori, where we indulged in a delicious lunch before walking to my language school (see last September's entries), where the staff had graciously invited us to two one-hour language lessons with my privato, Leonardo. He is delightful, an excellent teacher, and remembered everyone's names after only one introduction!

When our lesson was completed and the second fiasco (finding the right bus stop after asking five Italians who "didn't know" . . . (non lo so), we eventually got on Bus #12 to visit the Piazzale Michelangelo and the Church of San Mineota. Mass with the chanting monks, views over the entire city of Florence, a gelato on the way from one to another, and weather we would have paid big money to get, but which was free of charge . . . what could be better!

Dinner on our own, and six of us wandered to an old haunt of Barbara Leyendecker's art-study days, Il Pennello. Low key, small ristorante, delicious! Of course . . . remember, we're in ITALY!

Wednesday, May 7 - another breakfast and out to the museums day. Our first appointment was at the Accadamia to see the spectacular David, Michelangelo's masterpiece. I never tire of looking at this magnificent statue, and sat for awhile on a stone bench directly in front of him, writing about his presence in front of me.
Below: Ponte Vecchio on a brilliant day!

We were able to make our way slowly and separately to the market at San Lorenzo and the area around the Capelle Medici before our appointment at the chapel at 12:30, so I bought the tickets for the group and walked across the cobblestone street to Il Porcospino again. It was 11:00 a.m. and the restaurant wasn't open yet, but Franco was there in a t-shirt and baseball cap and he made me a cappucino, guided me to an outdoor table, and kissed my cheeks in appropriate Italian style! One by one the rest of the group wandered in, got a bit to eat, and took their tickets to the Medici Chapel while I checked my e-mail, returned to Il Porcospino and ordered some lunch.

I said, "Pasta con ragu" and Franco shook his head. "You can get that anywhere. Let me make you something special, dear." So out came three large homemade ravioli with ricotta and artichoke, covered lightly with a bit of meat sauce. My usual Caprese salad (see photo right here . . . makes you HUNGRY, yes?)
and a glass of wine, plenty of still water, and I was set. I sat there until 2:30, waited for the rest of the group, and headed back to the language school for our second language lesson.

This time three of the women didn't attend, and Leonardo amazingly named everyone who was around the table, and the two who didn't come! We all had great laughs, attempting to communicate in Italian, some people not ever having studied a word of Italian, I with my meager language lessons.

I was pleased to find that more of my Italian knowledge surfaced than I had thought possible, and we again had a wonderful experience. This time, we had leisure time to walk back to the hotel or stop in shops or have a quick cappuccino/espresso, etc. We all met back at the hotel at 6:00 to prepare for our dinner at Il Latine (do you get the picture . . . fun, food, museums, food, lessons, food, food, food), a truly unique dining experience. I'll save the description of THAT for tomorrow.

At least now I have caught you up to more than the first three days of our travels.

Ciao!

Joannah

LeMarche/Umbria/Tuscany: Catch-up Post #4

2008-02-13T00:13:00.004-07:00

So . . . Friday, October 12, a beautiful day (we could have used that sunshine while we were searching for property with a lovely view in the countryside!) and we pointed our car southwest toward Assisi, another new town for us. We arrived there in the early afternoon, parked near the top of the town and walked down a bit to the beautiful church. We explored the upper level, then the lower one, watched the tourists pay the priest so he would say masses for them and their loved ones.

Of course, as usual we then stopped for cappucino and a bit of a sandwich before we lugged our tired bodies back up the hill to the parking lot. Winding down and down and down, around and around the hill to the main road, we moved west toward Lake Trasiemeno, where we had stayed 10 years ago, and then to Cortona.

Cortona is just inside the Tuscan border, the location for the book Under The Tuscan Sun (also the movie location, actually). We decided perhaps we might look for a place to stay there, since it was late afternoon. I knew exactly where I wanted to park in this beautiful hill town, near the main Piazza, and my little guide book suggested a reasonably priced hotel. I just hoped I could find it!

The road up to Cortona is confusing because there are many points of entry through the old walls and many little parking areas. But I kept guessing correctly, miraculously enough, and we came out of the winding road to the main part of the town, JUST EXACTLY where I wanted to be. I commented to Neil that I thought we could get a Cortona map and find this hotel my book recommended.

We got out of the car, made sure we had the requisite parking sticker, and when I turned around, there, right in front of us, was the hotel. Beautiful, perched out on the edge of the hill, overlooking the beautiful valley far below. And they had a room, a lovely room, as well as a sunny dining room overlooking that same valley.

We could not believe our good fortune. We checked into our room and could hardly wait to wander through the town. I bring my Italy Women to this lovely place, but Neil had never been here. We decided to find a restaurant way off the beaten path and take our time getting to dinner. The restaurants up in this town don't open until at least 7:30 or 8:00 so we couldn't have been in a hurry if we had tried.

I found my favorite coffee and drink bar, one that has delicious little appetizers served on trays with the drinks we order, and everything was so good that we ordered a second round, peach bellinis, I think, with a bit more food. We wandered through the streets, down one little lane and another, reading menus, checking out the atmosphere, looking for the restaurant that looked least like we would see even one American in it!

We succeeded in choosing just the right little place, with a party of local young people celebrating something at the table next to us, and a group of Brit/German travelers on the other side. I ordered everything in Italian, we had a wonderful, inexpensive bottle of wine with our food, and a really decadent set of desserts. The only photos I have are of the nearly scraped-clean plates, Neil's with trails of dark chocolate, of course, and mine decorated with traces of raspberry and cream.

LeMarche: Catch-up post #3

2008-02-12T23:58:00.002-07:00

Thursday, October 11. Cupramontana

After eating dinner at a restaurant in town, recommended by our host, Cristina, we made our way back to our B & B, had a glass of the wine made just downstairs from our room, and went to sleep. In the morning we awoke to a lovely breakfast in the dining room just outside our bedroom and then we were off for the day. We were to meet Peony downstairs and she would take us to her husband, Peter. From there, we would visit several dilapidated country houses in the area, just to begin checking out the real estate. And of course, this is the one day it was drizzly, foggy, with almost no visibility. But it was the only day we had left in Marche, so we took what we had.

Peter and Peony were delightful guides through the crumbling stone beauties of the Marche countryside, and after a few wanders through mud-ridden fields, a stop at a coffee shop, and a quick peek at a little (tiny!) apartment at the top of a chapel in a neighboring town, we continued our search for the perfect "handyman's dream" on the hillsides. Just for our dreaming purposes, of course, at least this trip.

At the end of a long day, we returned to our room, cleaned up, and drove to Jesi, a larger town about 12km from Cupra. We found the recommended restaurant, Settima Cielo, (7th Heaven) and had a perfectly delightful dinner in a room full of families, young people, all Italian, almost no English spoken at all. Wonderful! More practice for my meager language skills. I'm beginning to be quite impressed with myself!

Back to Cupramontana, sleep, another delicious breakfast on Friday morning, pack up and head toward Umbria and ultimately Tuscany again.

LeMarche: Catch-up post #2

2008-01-18T22:47:00.002-07:00

I know, I know. It's been too long. But I promised.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007. Urbino to Cupramontana . . . we awoke to a bit of rain over the Marche countryside, but still, we were in Italy, so any day is a glorious day!

Packed up our overnight bags and checked out of the little hotel, Albergo San Giovanni, walked up the narrow cobblestone street into the piazza and got our cappuccino, croissant, and cheese for breakfast. Finding our way back to the elevator in the mountain that takes one down the hill, through the mountain rock to the parking agent, we opened our maps and headed out, not sure where the next adventure would lead us.

We had spoken to a real estate agent and his wife, Peter and Peony, transplants ten years ago from Munich, and they recommended two B & Bs farther south on the path we had chosen through The Marches. I had contacted both of them this morning: one man apologetically said he and his wife were taking their first vacation in three years, so their rooms were closed for three weeks. The other, Girandola, owned by a Belgian woman I think, had no room for us, but gave us another contact in Cupramontana, , the town in which the real estate couple live.

I called. Got a grandmother who spoke no English, and her Italian was in a LeMarche dialect. I asked whether she had a room, and she said yes. That was the end of our mutual understanding of one another's Italian. I then called Girandola back, and the Belgian owner offered to be the intermediary for us. By the time she was through helping us, we had a reservation for the Cupramontana B & B. The grandmother and mother spoke no English, but the daughter/granddaughter would be there to greet us in the evening.

So off we went from Urbino toward Gubbio, just over the border from LeMarche to Umbria), one of the names I recognized from all the reading I had done before we began our trip. We headed toward the "centro", always a good bet, parked in the first spot we found, and began to - yes, trudge up another picturesque cobblestone street to the top of the village.

As we came to a corner, we heard raised voices (Italian raised voices, so "raised" is putting it mildly!) and saw two women and a man walking. The dark-haired young couple with a dog were arguing with a blond woman. We could only imagine the topic - and imagine we did . . . a jilted blondie confronting the "new woman"? or perhaps blondie had been a dalliance for the man and now he severed his illicit ties with her . . . who knows? But we could hear their "raised voices" even after we turned the NEXT corner.

And at the top we discovered, to our delight, a lovely enoteca which also served a very light and delicious selection of lunch plates. (As soon as I find the business card, I'll come back to this entry and add the exact name of the place and the owner). The owner, a handsome young man, had worked for GE for five years so his English was excellent. So was his taste in the wine in his shop, as well as his personal collection of some very exquisite bottles of Italy's best - displayed in the shop as well with signs which said "Private Collection" on them. Of course he and Neil had a lot to talk about while I munched happily and slowly on the variety of cheeses and other antipasti sitting on our table. We tasted a wine of the region, Sagramontina, I think, and spent much of the afternoon in this lovely little place.

After our long lunch, we began to walk DOWN and DOWN in another direction, just realizing that we had come into the town not in the center, but at the very top. The "centro" had a lovely park (and lots of tour buses) but we stopped at the Information office and got a map of the village so we could find our way back to our car! Then it was time for us to drive back toward our B & B and take a rest.

When we arrived in the town of Cupramontana, it took three passes down the main road and back again . . . and again . . . before we spotted the sign for Cerubini on a corner. Parked the car and tentatively entered what looked to be a little vendor for wine and a few other strange goodies (a roll of something (figs, it turned out) wrapped in a grape leaf . . . ). Cristina, the granddaughter, greeted us warmly and showed us to a lovely, spacious room on the third floor with our own gleaming, spotless bathroom. The price was 30 Euro per night per person including breakfast. A great relief after our expensive Venice stay. We decided to stay two nights instead of one, and Cristina beamed. Turns out this B & B idea was hers, and the two immaculate rooms and bathrooms on our level of the building had just recently been completed, so she was excited with her new venture.

We followed her back down to the "shop", where the village men began appearing, in and out without interruption. It was the end of the day and they had come to buy the wine made by the three generations of women. Cristina's a young exuberant girl/woman in sweat pants and t-shirt. She and her mother run the wine shop, where they sell Verdicchio (a white wine), Anastasia (a red named for a little niece), and olive oil from their farm. Her father and brother are out in the countryside harvesting grapes, and the grandmother sits grinning at the table in the tasting room. We settled ourselves at a little tasting table with grandmother (my phone partner earlier in the day), the mother, smiling but no English, and Cristina, whose English, coupled with my Italian, resulted in a similar conversation to the one I had the evening before in the Urbino restaurant. Delightful, hilarious, and heart-warming. God, I love this country!

LeMarche: Catch-up post #1

2007-10-29T20:34:00.000-06:00

I am determined to finish this, though I've been home and gone twice since Italy. Perhaps a day-by-day summary will be best at this point.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007: Last night we ate our final meal in Venezia with Scott and Nina. The old Italian man who helped us find the laundromat yesterday also showed us a little restaurant, out of the way of the tourists, and encouraged us to try it. We met several other people who looked longingly at the menu at Trattoria ai Giardinetto da Severino on Ruga Giufa, so we decided to make it our last Venitian repast.

Our waiter was hilarious, constantly telling us that a particular dish came with "raspberries from Knotts Berry Farm"! I don't know where he got that phrase, or whether he once visited the US and ONLY went to Knotts Berry Farm, but despite the fact that he had a huge group across the hall to wait on (and therefore was less than properly attentive to OUR table), he endeared himself to us with that repeated humor.

This morning we got up early to say goodbye to Scott and Nina in the breakfast room, and walked them to their vaporetto stop so they could meet their train at the Venice Station. Then we had a leisurely breakfast ourselves, at Hotel Bel Sito, and followed vaporetto suit an hour later. We disembarked at the rental car station, picked up our car from AutoEurope and began our drive to LeMarche.

When the rental car agent asked where we were going to go, I told him we would wander through LeMarche for a few days. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. "LeMarche . . . che bella . . . and wild . . ."

We followed the smaller roads, near the ocean's edge, stopped for lunch at a ristorante whose wait staff (and clientele) spoke no English at all. A good sign for a good meal. No turistico specials. I knew I wanted to head for Urbino first, the largest town in the north of LeMarche, and we arrived there in the late afternoon. Parked the car outside the old city walls, as usual, and began our ascent on the street inside the closest archway. When we arrived at the "centro", we indulged in a cappucino first, got our bearings, found a recommended and inexpensive hotel (a GREAT relief after the expense of Venezia) and reserved a room.

When we checked out the bathroom, Neil commented that there was no shower. I walked the three flights down the stairs to the reception area, where the elderly woman who registered us was dismayed, in Italian, and I couldn't quite understand her answer to my question about the "doccia" (shower). Finally, Neil had an idea, we trudged back up the three flights of stairs, and there, between the bidet and the sink, on the wall, were two water handles and above them, a shower head. No enclosure, no special spot for the shower, just a drain in the floor.

We encountered a shower like this occasionally on our early trips to Italy, and it always took us one good soaking to realize that before we turned the water on, ALL the towels, toilet paper, and anything on the countertops had to be REMOVED from the room or they too would get a shower. That problem solved, we returned to our car, to drive it to an overnight lot at the other end of the city.

Now Urbino is a beautiful hilltown with 15,000 permanent residents and 22,000 college students. Can you imagine the energy in a place like this? Beautiful palaces, churches, piazzas built perhaps 600 years ago, and the energy of 22,000 young people, happily studying in this amazing environment! I wish I were 20 again, for specifically this reason. Otherwise . . . it was too hard to be that age and I wouldn't want to repeat the experience!

We wandered through the streets, got to the hotel again and shed our bags, and went into the ristorante attached to the Hotel. Antipasti, pasta, lamb (agnello), panna cotta for dessert, and a delicious wine called Lacrima d'Morro d'Alba (The tears of Morro d'Alba). Deep purple, rich fruit flavor, with a unique austerity underneath that was so different from any other wine I have ever tasted.

We sat next to a student and her parents during dinner, and began a bit of a chat. She had a touch of English, I had my primitive Italian, Neil and the mother kept quiet, and the father asked me question after question, carefully, slowly (for an Italian, this is a lesson in EXTREME restraint!) and in fairly simple language, so I could understand most of it. Between my half-assed Itali-english responses and the daughter's matched mixture, we had the kind of interaction I could NOT have had without that two weeks of language school in Firenze. If I never learn another word of Italian, I will be grateful for that experience and several like it in the following days.

Early to bed, after a long day of driving, and the prospect of three more days of automobile exploration throughout this "wild" region.

More tomorrow.

Venitian skies . . .

2007-10-08T02:38:00.000-06:00

were at their best yesterday. We had an absolutely spectacular day in Venice. Bright blue sky, sunny, and about 70-75 degrees . . . my perfect weather. Neil and I found a laundromat in a less touristy part of town, and were led right to the door by a local old couple, who then told us about a wonderful little restaurant out of the mainstream, which we will go to tonight with Nina and Scott. We wandered that neighborhood, found authentic mask shops, not the schlock, and did our laundry in between exploring the tiny tiny side streets along the canals in that part of Venice.

After the laundry, we met our group of 7 other friends (a great traveling group, along with the others who were with us in Sicily). I had arranged a Venice Tour of the Doges Palace, Bridge of Sighs and Church of San Marco for them. Got them started, joined Neil back at the hotel and headed across the Accademia Bridge to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Museum, a wonderful little gallery with all the usual 20th century suspects . . . Magritte, Pollack, Picasso, Kandinsky, etc. And a beautiful sculpture garden.

Back with the group to do some eating in little holes in the wall near the grand canal, and then four of us went to a Vivaldi Four Seasons concert in the Chisa San Vidal, performed by 7 enthusiastic string musicians, all young Italian people. The experience was the highlight of our week, I think, though we've had many exceptional days of traveling.

Tomorrow we leave for LeMarche with a car, and will wander that region until Saturday. Unfortunately, I haven't loaded my photos from Venice and the last part of Sicily, so can't post them here, but I will do it when we get to LeMarche.

Ciao.

Woodswoman

Our week in Sicily is nearly over . . .

2007-10-05T06:28:00.000-06:00

and I apologize for not writing to this site all week. I am finally at the only internet spot on the western half of Sicily, without going into the depths of Palermo, and this internet spot is about 40 miles from our villa, named Torre Castelvetrano. (I don't think this site is able to do the proper paragraph spacing again, so Ashley, if you are reading this, please try to fix, and otherwise, I'll try later when I ahve more dependable service.)

We arrived at the villa, all 15 of us, in four cars in the late afternoon last Saturday. The town is a fairly large but non-tourist town, and that turned out to be quite nice, actually. Our villa, difficult to find at first, is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, with lush grounds, palm trees, a very nice pool and a wonderful covered sitting place near the peach groves.

The olive groves are on the other side of the villa and guest house, and the caretaker and his wife live on the grounds as well. We have six bedrooms and four bathrooms in the main house, and a 2-br, 2-bath guest house, all in that old stone and tile roof construction that is so typical of Italy and some of France.

One of the delights we hadn't counted on is a family of cats . . . we can't quite figure out who the mamas are, because even the largest of the cats is quite small, but we have identified perhaps eight or nine little kittens, 6-8 weeks old, and of course they were just being weaned, with no real skills yet in catching the lizards, so . . . we are feeding them. Angela, Nina and I, the real cat lovers in our group, have been mixing little kibble, water and a bit of milk in two large cereal bowls, twice a day, so they won't starve.

Hoever, now we've discovered that the caretaker and his wife are feeding them as well, so they'll be fat cats if we ever come back here again.

Since the group is so large, we don't try to do everyting together, but so far, Neil and I have wandered the ruins of Agrigento on the south coast, visited the little town of Selinunte, which ahs its own ruins, our closest grocery store, and some lovely restaurants with fresh fresh fish, since it is also on the coast.

We have tasted wine in Marsala, consumed lots of bottles of the local wine during the past week with everyone's exuberant participation, and eaten lots of fresh fish, bread and cheese.

Neil, Brad and I went to Mount Etna on Wednesday, the largest active volcano in Europe. Took nearly 5 hours of driving (I'm the designated driver in Italy, for our car, at least) then about 3 hours on the mountain, including the cable car ride up to 2500 meters, the little van up to about 3000 meters, and the walking around the volcanic dirt and rock at the volcano site. Then down the mountain again, into the town of Nicolosi, through Gravina di Catania, a stop to look for dinner in a beautiful village on a hillside in the middle of the island called Enna (no dinner - restaurants don't open here until 8:00 p.m.) and back to our villa by about 9:30 p.m.

A long day, but I didn't want to come to Sicily and NOT see Etna.

So today it's back to Marsala to a Mailboxes, Etc. to ship some things back home, grab tomatoes to add to our lots of lettuce for dinner, and then some relaxing time at our lovely pool before packing up and preparing to depart by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.

We then head for Palermo airport, turn our cars in, and disburse to our various next destinations. Some will go back to the US, and some of us still have Venice and Tuscany. Neil and I will stay 3 nights in Venice, rent our car there for the exploration of LeMarche, and then, as I've said in the past, one last night in bella Firenze before we leave for Colorado.

Must go.

Take care.

Woodswoman

School's out!

2007-09-28T09:46:00.001-06:00

I finished my last day of language school today, and I received my certificate for passing 60 contact hours of Intermediate I. I took my private teacher out for a quick caffe-wine break . . . he had caffe and I had the wine, because he had to leave quite soon to get his car, his wife and his son to a doctor's appointment. Didn't want to drive with any wine in him. Good choice.

At any rate, I'm nearly packed, actually, all packed but for what I'll need in the morning . . . toothbrush, blow dryer, etc. I leave early early tomorrow for a train to Rome Termini and then to the Fiumicino airport to meet Neil so we can fly to Sicily together. It will be good to see him after two weeks of being here without him. Somehow, being gone in the States, away from one another, isn't a big deal, but this time, he would have so much enjoyed wandering around Firenze and it would have been fun to have him here.

Still, I do like being alone on a trip like this, at least for awhile, and with the language school all day, it was best that I did it this way. I will definitely return next year for more classes, and look forward to joining our friends in Sicilia tomorrow afternoon.

Won't have great internet access on that island, but I'm sure I'll find some places to keep this site somewhat up to date.

For now, Ciao!

Woodswoman

It's going waaaayyyy too fast!

2007-09-25T08:42:00.000-06:00

I cannot believe that I only have three days left at my language school. The first week left me confident and full of new language abilities, which I seemed to use quite well this weekend.

Monday found me (as I looked it up) cerebramente morte . . . brain dead, as I read it. But my private teacher, Leonardo, informed me (in Italian, of course), that "cerebramente morte" is a medical term . . . for a REALLY, ACTUALLY brain dead person. I, he cheerfully told me, "sono in coma!" (I'm in a coma.) Like Neil's favorite joke about my mother's favorite singer, Perry Como, whom Neil renamed "Perry Coma".

So, for the first two days of my second and final week at la scuola lingua, sono in coma. My brain feels over-full, there are too many words I keep forgetting, and I felt so frustrated yesterday, because I thought I SHOULD have been doing better, after a good first week. But all the teachers say this is normal, and Leonardo reminded me that I was not in school for the weekend, and that one loses 50% of what one learned the first week . . . during the weekend. As he says, "E'normale" so I, in frustrated Italian, responded, "but what about when I leave the school and just go HOME??? How much will I forget there?"

Leonardo reassures me that if I continue to listen and read and talk and learn, I'll be fine. I said today that I would have to spend three years here studying the language before I would feel confident, and he said, "No, quattro mese (four months would do it, he thinks). So . . . that would be impossible, but I am more determined to continue my study at home. I've got some regular books (kids stories, The Prophet, The Little Prince, and some short stories) written in Italian, and there's always Front Range or CSU.

So here I am, with three more days of lessons, and then two weeks of practical application with Neil and our friends, in Sicilia, Venezia and LeMarche, before we return to our own English-speaking country.

And I'm going to complete my staff photo representation here with one of Leonardo, since I hadn't gotten around to taking a photo of him until yesterday. E' insegnate privato (my private teacher).

Time to go see a couple of things on this side of Firenze before dinner with my host family.

Ciao!

Woodswoman

After one week . . .

2007-09-23T06:53:00.000-06:00

of language under my belt, I:

1) negotiated all my questions at the Florence train station IN ITALIAN, and the attendant actually understood me, gave me my printed train schedules, etc.

2) wandered around Lucca this weekend (a lovely town about 90 minutes' train ride from Florence)looked for things, bought things (not much, just paper), ordered a meal and a few pastries and a bottle of water from various venders, asked directions, sat at a wonderful rehearsal for Haydn's Nelson Mass, which I found when I stumbled into the Chiesa di San Michele in the heart of Lucca. I asked one of the musicians (at their break) the title of the composition, whether I could see his sheet music for a minute, etc. . . . all in italiano!

3) Even tried looking for a CD by an Italian group while I was in a CD store owned by an older couple. We had an actual discussion about exactly what I was looking for.

I am truly amazed. I just hope that after this next week of immersion and a couple weeks of actually surrounding myself with situations and people who only speak Italian (while I'm traveling with 14 other people who do NOT speak Italian) . . . I hope after all that, I can come back to the Fort and start really listening to and reading Italian on a regular enough basis, with a dictionary, that I can keep up with what I've learned. I'm already making lists of preposition translations and other words we use all the time, which I can't keep straight in italian at this point.

BUT IT WILL GET BETTER!! This school is excellent, the teachers are very helpful, though they don't speak any English to us at all. They just keep explaining and explaining a concept or phrase or word until one of us says, "oh, you mean ______?" and they'll beam and say, "Si, Signora!" or whatever.

So . . . I have one more week, and will hope to increase my ability to speak and understand at least 2-fold from last week.

Now: Lucca . . . is a lovely small city, and the "old city" is surrounded by stone walls, as many Italian towns and cities are, but THIS wall has a walking path all around it, with green, trees, little parks, all on top of the wall. The Italians use this wall surrounding the city like Central Park. They are riding their bicycles, nursing their babies, holding hands with lovers, sitting on the grass with picnic baskets or bags of food from the alimentari and frutta e vedura shops, etc.

I didn't really take a list of palazzi to see, but chose yesterday to walk around the streets, people-watch, and find the one church I did want to enter, Chiesa di San Michele. Of course by the time I got to it, it was closed for mid-afternoon, but I wandered, got something to eat, and went up on top of the wall, sat under a tree, and read for a bit.

Then I almost just left the old town for my B & B, which is about a 20-minute walk outside the walls. But no, I went back to San Michele, and there, inside the church, between the altar and the pews, were 15 string musicians and their conductor, rehearsing a Haydn composition which was so lovely, I thought I would weep. The acoustics in the church made even the musicians' mistakes a joy to hear, and the conductor would sing in certain parts, to stay on the track of the composition (which turned out to be a Missa - a Mass).

I was in the first row of the available seats, and sat for an hour, watching the conductor stop the musicians, correct them, have a discussion with the first violinists or the cellists, etc. and then start again. It was hypnotic . . .

Soon an Asian young woman showed up and the conductor stopped rehearsal for a moment, greeting her warmly. She moved to the very front of the area, and began to sing just a bit with the music. I realized this must be some sort of chorale piece, and wanted so much to know what it was, when it would be performed, etc.

When they took a real break, I walked to the Piazza San Michele, where there was a kiosk specifically for information about all the music events that are happening in September. Apparently this is a big-deal month for some reason, and there are many opera performances, as well as smaller concerts in churches like San Michele.

To my dismay I discovered that the "real" performance of this Hayden Missa is tonight at 5:30, but I had to be back in Florence this afternoon. So I went back to the church, whose main doors were now locked, remembered that there was a side door I had seen earlier, and snuck in there. Now inside the rehearsal area were perhaps 20 musicians, the strings joined by an oboe, an organ, and a few other things, and about FORTY chorale singers, plus two sopranos (including the young Asian woman, of course) and two male singers.

So again, they were rehearsing, and I comforted myself with the reality that I was sitting here in the working rehearsal, though I wouldn't be in Lucca tonight for the full performance. I'm going to order this Missa through Amazon as soon as I finish with this post.

The other accidental concert I discovered was in a smaller church, St. Cristofo, and the program was with a mixed group of a cappella singers from Norway! Singing in Norwegian, Italian and English, four mini-groups of singers, with a Norwegian and an Italian doing the comments between the programmes. A day for music, sunshine, and wandering in bella Italia.

I'm not on my own computer, so I won't attempt to post any pictures now, but tomorrow, when I have my own laptop operating at the school, I'll make another attempt. Looks like my daughter has commented with a tip for loading photos, coming to my rescue yet again in this voyage through travel blog experiences.

So for now, ciao to all.

I'll be back here on line in another couple of days.

Woodswoman

Nearly a week of language school under my belt . . .

2007-09-20T07:17:00.000-06:00

and I've screwed up this post now that I'm trying to put pictures on it after the fact. So I'll try to compose again. The school is called Centro Lingua Calvino Italia or CLIC for short. It is run by four hard-working people, Massimo (director of the school), Gabriella (director of the accommodations), Leonardo (director of academics), and Sven (in charge of the techno stuff). They are all right out front, like the receptionists at a hotel desk, available to us all of the time, and I am very impressed with the school.

Below see photos of Massimo and Gabrielle!

I signed up for four hours of group lessons and two hours of private per day. So at 9:00 a.m., we begin, five of us. Two of us from the U.S., one from Australia, and two from Germany. They are all younger than my children, or at least young enough to BE my children, but my Italian is neither better or worse than the rest of the group. Actually, the other American and the Australian struggle more than I do, and one of the German woman, though she is probably better in her vocab, gets quite stressed quickly. The other young German woman, with fabulous cheekbones, seems to have a pretty good handle on the language at this level, and we all have a group sense of humor for our difficulties.

The grammar half of the morning is taught by Daniele, who speaks faster than I'd like, but I catch a good bit of what he's saying.

The second half of the morning group is taught by Marco, a mid-thirties young man with the most amazing blue eyes and the longest lashes I've ever seen. He's quick and fun with our struggling group, and his hair looks like he slept with twelve books on the top of the thick mop. (I wrote some of this in a different form earlier, but somehow my blog-edit monster ate it, along with my original text about the school, Massimo, Gabrielle, Sven and Leonardo, etc. Sorry about that. I'm still learning!
See Daniele and Marco above or below or wherever you now find their photos!

After a very quick 30 minutes to catch my breath and try to eat something resembling lunch, I'm back in the same classroom on the top floor, this time with Leonardo who is my teacher privato, and who seems to have the ability to explain anything to anyone at any level in a way that makes the student relaxed, perhaps even laughing, while Leonardo smiles with the difficulties of someone who is new to the language.

He is, as I said above, the director of academics and I am very fortunate to have him for two hours in my afternoon. He helps me have conversation and then teaches a point or two or three in the midst of whatever we're talking about, to clarify the usage or the idiom or the conjugation. Avere or essere? Which do you use with all these irregular and regular verbs when you are talking in the past? We spend a lot of time on this difficult process, but he seems to make it more clear and I'm grateful.

Today I'm going to the train station to check out the schedule for my weekend. I have made a friend, Marja Bot, a bit younger than me, who is studying for one week here from Holland. She is twelve years more advanced than I in her language study, but we are very compatible in friendship. I mentioned that I want to go to Lucca for the weekend and she happens to have a Dutch friend living outside the Lucca city walls, who runs a B & B there, with a beautiful garden. Marja gave me the e-mail this morning, I wrote to the woman, Ankie, and she called this afternoon after my class. She will send a transfer car to meet me at the train station tomorrow evening, and have dinner ready for me tomorrow evening. I will stay two nights with her, for 40Euro per night, and I'll probably wander in Lucca for most of Saturday, perhaps eating in town before I walk or bicycle or take the transfer back to her house. Sunday afternoon, I'll take the train back to Firenze and my host family (more about the host family in another post).

Must go now . . . a domani.

Ciao.

Woodswoman

After all this time . . .

2007-09-16T07:16:00.000-06:00

. . . I am in bella Firenze! But NOT before a three-hour delay in Denver on Friday, which put me in Newark 20 minutes AFTER my flight left for Rome, and after RACING in a cab from Newark to JFK,WITH with the cab paid for by United and some very efficient and nifty re-booking work by a wonderful United agent (isn't THAT unusual), and a VERY sympathetic Alitalia agent or two at JFK, I arrived with my bags (also a dream chance, since they were checked through to Rome and United actually pulled them off in Newark so I could take them WITH me . . . . , are you getting the drift of my initial experiece for the month?) just an hour before takeoff, at JFK, to a flight that was fully booked, (another person assigned to my seat as well, but that was minor . . . after all, I was ON the plane and they couldn't remove me!) and I sat down surrounded by a bunch of great young people traveling to Italy for weddings and new-romance vacations, etc.

Of course when we arrived in Rome at the airport, and I schlepped ALL my stuff by myself to the train to the Rome train station, I got to the Rome termini three hours later than my scheduled train reservation to Florence, so my reservation fee was lost and I had to re-pay. THIS is why we have travel insurance, as well as for the lost bags. I'm going to file with United and with TravelGuard for these minor charges, and thank the United agent at Newark, named Torry someone, for her incredible efficiency!

I got to the Pendini and a smiling Barbara knew who I was, took me to my room, and I returned the message from my host "mother", who spoke not a word of English but was trying to let me know that I had to change the time of my arrival today at her house. So I'm killing time for another hour.

It's hot and humid and beautifully sunny here, about 85+ degrees, so I suspect we won't have to worry too much about coats.

I wrote this on the 16th, but didn't get dependable internet service until today when I signed up for the free wi-fi at la scuola lingua, so this post will be a bit old, but I'll do some catch-up as well.

Ciao.

Joannah

A month in Italy . . .

2007-09-12T22:59:00.001-06:00

and I'm not even packed yet. But I leave in less than 36 hours for Firenze, where I will study Italian at a language immersion program until September 28. I will live with a family, share two meals a day with them, and spent six hours each day adding to my rather impoverished vocabulary and grammar skills in the language of this beautiful country.

On September 29, I'll meet Neil in Rome and fly to Palermo to join thirteen other friends at a villa outside of Castelvetrano (Torre Castelvetrano) for a week, and then spend the final week first in Venice, and then exploring the Adriatic coast of LeMarche.

I KNOW that once I'm packed, I'll feel much better, but at this point, the lists and lists seem overwhelming, though I'm checking off many tasks. Just a few more ad copy confirmations and a last e-mail to my Lifeprints group list and I think I'll be done.

I hope to write on a regular basis, to keep track for myself and to let everyone know what's happening on my latest Italian adventure! Perhaps I'll learn to post photos more easily as well.

For now, buona notte e ciao.

Long Time Gone . . .

2007-04-10T00:28:00.000-06:00

Well, I never did finish that old trip journal last May, did I? Downloaded the photos, but didn't insert them, and perhaps sometime I'll write the notes for the last few days of that Italy Women's group in '06.

Now I'm preparing for a month in Italy this fall. First I will spend two weeks in Florence with an Italian family while I take 6 hours of language classes per day. Then I will fly to Palermo and meet 14 friends who have rented a villa in Castelvetrano! My grandfather was from Sicily and I hope I can find some family there. At the end of the Sicily leg of my trip, I'll fly to Venice for a few days, and then drive down the Adriatic coast, exploring Le Marche (the "new" Tuscany, they say). I hope to gather information for a new itinerary for Italy Women Part II.

Any excuse to spend a month in my heart country . . . and the language immersion will be wonderful.

I'll keep this site posted.

Woodswoman

Various photos

2006-06-24T12:39:00.000-06:00

Rather than go back to all the previous posts and try to sandwich in the photos, I think I'll try loading a couple of them up here, putting a title on each of them with a link to the date of the post about each particular photo, and leave it at that.

Here we go:

Fattoria de Corsignano - north of Siena, just past Vagliali.

Loui and Carol are standing outside the little building that serves as the office on the main level, and houses the wine casks from the vineyards on the level below. And I just love this wonderful flower cart, set right in the middle of the pathway one must cross to get to anything on the property. It is most picturesque! And the whole place is lovely, run by Mario and Elena. I'd love to spend a week here sometime in the future!

Perhaps now some photos . . .

2006-06-07T23:30:00.000-06:00

I'm playing with this site and trying to figure out how I got that first photo posted, way back in April. So I hope this one actually shows up. Here we are, at Denver International Airport, ready for the Italian experience.

Back row: Adell, Jan, Pat, Loui, Mary, Carol
Front row: Joannah, Cyndy, Debra, and Karen

If this one works, I'll post more!

Ciao.

Woodswoman

The finale and home

2006-05-29T13:48:00.000-06:00

Well, I am back in Colorado, and have been too wiped out to complete the details about the rest of our trip until now. However, my entries will be easier to read now, because my daughter fixed my paragraph formatting problem in the last couple of days. She called and said, "Mom, I hacked into your blog, and now your paragraphs actually show up as paragraphs!" Ah, the wisdom (and technical skill) of youth . . .

So I think I had completed most of our villa day trip details, having finished the San Gimignano and vineyard tour. And the last day of our villa week was spent lounging, re-packing, and preparing to leave Ambra for points north. The older couple who cooks for us sometimes when we're at the villa, Anna and Pasquale, returned Friday evening with their son Patrizio, and presented us with a sumptuous meal. Any of you who are reading this could have joined us and we still would have had more food than we needed.

And at the end of the evening, Debra, Adell and I went into Ambra to find that internet point in the bar, about which I wrote on May 19, I believe. That was one of the highlights of my trip, and it made me realize that being in a little town with NO tourists, just soaking up the local color, is exactly where I want to be.

So . . . Saturday morning, we packed up all three cars and headed back to Florence to the car rental return. We piled all our luggage in one corner of the car return garage so our mini-bus driver, Marco, could load it up in the little bus, which we had hired to take us up to Cinque Terre. Marco's eyes got bigger and bigger as he watched the continuous parade of bags from the ten of us, after ten days of shopping through Tuscany. We assured him that we didn't mind some of the bags riding in the seats with us. Fully loaded, we made our way to our first stop of the day, Pisa, to see the Leaning Tower, Cathedral, Baptistry, and the junk-market circus that surrounds these beautiful treasures. We were scheduled to stay in Pisa for two hours, and that's about how long it takes to visit the buildings, and make the decision NOT to climb hundreds of steps to the top of the tower, which leans more precariously with every second one considers how it would feel to hang out of the top of it.

Back in the van again, we continued our journey to Cinque Terre, the five villages on the Italian Riviera which are built on very steep hillsides above the sea. Typically one can drive to the edge of the village, unload one's bags, and drive back up to the pay-parking lot half way up the mountain, but I hadn't considered that these mini-buses are not allowed to do that, and they must stop quite a way up the mountain, much farther than we typically park. Marco parked the bus and turned off the motor. I tried in my minimal Italian to tell him I thought he could drive down so we could unload the bags. He folded his arms, glared at me, and said, "Non posso." I certainly understood those two words. I cannot. He got out of the van and began to unload the bags onto the pavement. I gave him an early tip, 50 Euro, and he mellowed a bit. After a few phone calls to Andrea, our host at our B & B in Manarola, the National Park shuttle showed up to take nine of us down to the town, while Debra stayed back with all the bags. Soon a little 2-person truck with a large flat bed (picture a wide pick-up truck . . . now reduce the size by half . . . and try not to imagine that the vehicle needs winding before it will go anywhere . . . ) arrived to get the bags and Debra. Once the arrangements had been made, it was an easy entry, but at first, all I could think if was ten of us dragging perhaps 30 bags of all sizes (and WEIGHTS) down the mountain road toward the sea. Perhaps once we began, we would just roll down into the waves and float back to Boston!

Settled into our rooms in Manarola we set out to explore the village, walk down to the bottom of the town to the Marina Piccolo bar for cappucino all around. Over the next three days we scattered here and there among the five villages, hiking, shopping, eating, tasting wine, and enjoying the spectacular, take-your-breath-away views from anywhere, always out to the Italian Mediterranean where the water was blue and looked much friendlier than it probably was.

More later.

Ciao.

Woodswoman

May 18 - San Gimignano and a winery

2006-05-25T07:06:00.000-06:00

Today we headed out, all of us, for the fortress of San Gimignano. This, another medieval hilltown, had 72 towers at one time, and still has 14 of the original standing tall above the hill outside Poggibonsi (we've all agreed this is our favorite weird word for the season . . . poggibonsi, which is apparently named after a famous Italian poet). We thought we had chosen a good day, because one of our guide books said that Thursday is market day in San Gimignano. That was a bad idea. The main piazza, Piazza del Cisterna, and the one next to it, Piazza del Duomo, are usually stony calm places to meet up with one's group, but today, the market was actually dozens of tented tables, full of schlock, not artisan items, and we couldn't find the Cisterna, thus it was difficult to find one another. But we all managed finally, with the aid of cell phones and occasional shouts across the fray, to locate one another, find an escape route on streets past the Duomo, and locate corners of the old town that were away from all the market hawkers.

Debra and I wandered up a hillside behind the Duomo, after a stop at the Leo Balducci pottery studio and shop (a favorite of mine here) and discovered a musician playing a harpsicord in the middle of a grassy patch of ground. We sat and lsitened, purchased three CDs, and wove our way back down through the main square, now devoid of the market mess, to find our car. The rest of the group was still in San G, but we, Debra and I, were on a different mission. We had contacted a woman named Franca Gatteschi, the owner of a small winery near Gaiole in Chianti, just outside Montegrossi (through the village, look for the madonna shrine on the right, turn right down the dirt road until it ends and there you are!). She had invited us to come to her house and vineyard, winery and tasting room, to have a look around. After many wrong turns here and there, we finally arrived at the Madonna statue and were stumped as to which dirt road to follow. But cell phones, even in these little bitty places, DO work well enough to get us where we want to go, and we met Sra. Gatteschi, a delightful woman of perhaps late 60's or 70 years of age, who gave us two hours of her time and information, tastings of four of her family wines, and an exchange of e'mail information. She comes to Colorado twice a year and we are going to arrange for her to come to my house to do some cooking classes! Anyone interested?

After our Gatteschi adventure, we joined the rest of the group at the Trattoria at Colona Di Grillo for a sumptuous meal (I think I have not seen so many dishes on the table during this whole trip) and a fairly minimal bill at the end of the night.

Tomorrow we will stay close to the villa and try to pack our things efficiently, because on Saturday we will take the cars back to Firenze and get our mini-bus up to Cinque Terre, a completely different experience.

Ciao.

Woodswoman

May 17-Chianti Country

2006-05-25T06:51:00.000-06:00

This morning, a Wednesday, three of our group decided to stay at the villa to relax. Cyndy and Adell headed to Arezzo to see frescos and churches, while five of us headed northwest/west to the Chianti towns for the day. We first stopped in Gaiole in Chianti, a nice little place where we always do our first exploration of this region. There is a little walking street with a sort of hardware store, a kitchen store, a wine-tasting place and the usual ATMs and Tabacchi stores, for post cards and stamps and the ever necessary bottles of water.

After a short stay, we headed to our main destination, lunch at Badia a Coltibuono, a restaurant on the grounds of an abbey, Lorenza Di Medici's cooking school, and a lovely little shop which sells the wines of the Badia as well as many other tempting goodies. One of our group nearly purchased a four-foot in diameter ceramic table top, until she realized that the shipping would cost nearly as much as the table. But in this lovely setting we had a fantastic lunch, with cream of fresh pea soup topped with goat cheese, grilled deer with risotto, goose carpaccio on creamed polenta with cream . . . you know . . . the usual restaurant fare!

After two hours enjoying our food and the magnificent view, we went back down the hill, toured the shop, and headed for Greve in Chianti, another favorite of mine. For the first time ever, I didn't buy wine in the excellent wine store in Greve. I didn't even ENTER the store. So good for me. I did get some practical items, namely dish towels, and sat at an outdoor cafe for the requisite cappuccino. Drinking cappuccino and bottled water are constant activities in Italy, which then require that one find a toilette, preferably not a ceramic hole in the ground, but a real toilet . . . perhaps with real toilet paper as well.

As the sun was smiling low in the sky, we made our way back to Ambra and our villa, where the three homebodies had gone grocery shopping and had dinner grazing ready for us when we arrived. Another beautiful day.

Woodswoman

May 16 - Lake Trasimeno and Cortona

2006-05-24T10:27:00.000-06:00

Lake Trasimeno is situated just inside Umbria, just east of the Tuscan border, and has three islands, I think, one on which Neil and I, Ashley and a friend stayed for three days in 1996, if I remember correctly. The women, three cars full again, drove to the town of Passignano, caught a little ferry boat to the Isola Maggiore, and spent a few hours, eating, walking, sitting, taking photographs of the old doors on the houses of the fishermen who live on the island. There are five churches on this island, five churches in the space which one can circumnavigate in one hour or less.

The lake is calm and beautiful, but we all wanted to spend some time in Cortona as well before we headed back to the villa, so we were off again in mid-afternoon up to Cortona, the town made famous by Frances Mayes (Under The Tuscan Sun). Read the book, see the movie (not much like the book, but a fun movie nonetheless) and enjoy vicariously the life in another medieval village WAY up on the hill. There is a different feel to Cortona, somehow. More noble, a bit less junk for sale, I'm not quite sure. But I entered the walled town from a different entrance than I typically do, having found a parking spot JUST outside one of the arches. Ten steps inside the walls I stood in front of a tiny gallery full of whimsical original drawings by a young man (everyone is young in my eyes these days . . . either young or VERY VERY old . . . )who sat just outside the shop. Short story is I bought three of his pieces for a very reasonable price, and they are packed well and safely in one of my suitcases. For some reason I wanted to stay in Cortona on this visit. I sat at a little table in the square, sipping white sangria with something added which tasted like peach schnappes, and wondered what it would be like to have a Frances Mayes experience. I don't think I could live without the dogs and Neil, but it was nice to fantasize anyway.

Ciao.

Woodswoman

Tuscan hilltowns - May 15 - Montepulciano-Pienza

2006-05-24T10:15:00.000-06:00

This is my catch-up, the promised one. I will do it in segments, since there is no way I can figure out how to make paragraph breaks or indentations which actually post to the site.

This is a new paragraph! Montepulciano is situated about 45 minutes from our villa, in my favorite part of Tuscany, and is quite close to Pienza, site of some of the scenes in The English Patient.

We drove our three cars to Montepulciano and all ended up in the same parking area within 5 minutes of one another! Amazing! We all walked through the old medieval brick and stone arch, tasted a bit of tuscan toppings on tuscan bread, but agreeing that it was too early in the morning for the wine. The sun hadn't yet crossed the yardarm, as Neil likes to say.

I bought six jars of my favorite pasta seasoning mix, saving five to take home and earmarking one of them for the pasta I would cook for our group that evening. We found the lovely Caffe Polizziano for lunch, a recommendation from one of our last travelers two years ago, and then we all split up to shop or write or find the internet cafe. Unfortunately, we left our restaurant just at about 1:30, which is the time the shops are all closed. So we were forced to stay in the only store that stayed open, a beautiful leather shop with journals, pens, shoes, purses, and I found I just couldn't resist a soft red leather journal. It came with an old fashioned pen, the dipping into the ink kind, and I was told I could choose a color of ink to take home with me. I certainly hope my clothes aren't purple when I unpack them!

On to Pienza for the last half of the afternoon, the beautiful little place tucked on the edge of the Tuscan valley. There I finally bought a ceramic pitcher made by a woman who owns MezzaLuna (half moon), and I will carry it home on the plane.

Back at the villa, several of the women chopped mushrooms, onions, garlic, and peppers while I made the pasta sauce. Salad and a nice Chianti topped it all off well.

We even had a fire in the huge old kitchen fireplace in our villa. Sleep until the next day. See next entry for Lake Trasimeno, Isola Maggiore, and Cortona.

Wooodswoman

A beautiful afternoon, and then, some catch-up . . .

2006-05-21T08:46:00.001-06:00

Well, we'll see . . . I titled this, and the hit "enter" so I hope I can amend this post. Otherwise, there is always another, right?

I have neglected to write about the day trips we have taken while we were in the villa in Ambra, but now, I am sitting in the little train station in Manarola (fourth from the "top"), the Cinque Terre village in which we are staying for three nights. This morning it was cold and stormy, so we bagged the plan to go to Camoglie and Portofino, hoping tomorrow morning will be better. But then the day turned beautiful at about noon, and I have returned from an afternoon in Vernazza, the second little village from the "top" (north) of Cinque Terre.

In Vernazza I found a favorite restaurant, got a glass of the local wine and made reservations for dinner. Then crossed the piazza about twenty steps to the wall just overlooking the little beach and inlet in this lovely place. Boats peppered the piazza, and as I looked out to the sea, I heard the din of all the international voices all around me. Today was some sort of May Day, and many little children were celebrating their first communion, which is apparently a HUGE family event. Our own host, Andrea, showed up this morning outside the breakfast room at Da Baranin in a white suit and red printed shirt, on his way to a family celebration in La Spezia with his wife, two young children, his brother and sister-in-law and their baby, etc. In Vernazza, little girls in their white dresses ran around happily with younger cousins, siblings, and beaming aunts, uncles and parents.

I sat on the edge of the water and then moved to a table steps away, part of the Ristorante Gamberoni Rossi, I believe. I think that's the Red Shrimp Restaurant, believe it or not. I sat alone, luxuriating in my solitude amidst thousands of visitors. Asked the waiter for a plate of sliced tomatoes and a pesto pasta dish (pesto originated in this area, and it was green, creamy, and delicious). The food came with the requisite bread basket, plate of foccacia, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a bottle of water (senza gassa-without bubbles). Also un quarto, a 25 ml. carafe of a better version of the local wine. I had a conversation with a nice couple next to me from Seattle, then settled into my food and my book.

By the time I had finished both the food and the first story in the book, I was nearly in tears with the joy of just being here, reading Amy Bloom's exquisite prose from her book of short stories, entitled Come to Me. The first story is entitled "Love Is Not A Pie", and I remember it from years ago. Truly it is the kind of writing you want to read out loud to your dearest friend.

Enough already. I am going to walk back up the windy old brick and stone street through Manarola, back to my room to rest a bit and get ready to go back to Vernazza tonight with half of my group to have dinner at Gianni.

More later.

Ambra on a Friday night!

2006-05-19T14:18:00.000-06:00

Well, I am at a real cultural event! We are staying at a villa just outside Ambra, between Siena and Arezzo. We've been here nearly a week, doing day trips which I have begun to write about, and will continue to report to all of you. Tonight, after our last dinner at the villa, brought to us by our local favorite couple, Anna and Pasquale and their son Patrizio, three of us decided to go into Ambra, the little village, to find an Internet cafe.

We were told about two computers sitting quietly in the back of the local bar, open until midnight. So here we sit, with most of the townspeople of all ages outside on the piazza, men crowded around the tables and the bar entrance, the women sitting on benches on the outer perimeter, and little children running around everywhere. You enter the bar (sort of a cross between a 7-11, a gelato shop and a pool hall), find your way to the second layer of rooms, and move to the corner where the computers are. This particular screen is hiding the left two inches, so I have no idea what I have typed at the beginning of each line. Mea culpa.

At any rate, the conversation behind us is deafening, as perhaps thirty old Italian men have pulled their chairs into a circle in the middle of which is a card came or dice or something. All we can hear is the roar of approval or dismay after each hand. I want to stay here forever, part of a little community like this.

My Italian classes continue to serve me fairly well. I understood at least 30-50% of all the velocemente (fast) conversations thrown at me by our cooks, as well as by the old owners of the villa. They have invited me to contact them directly next time I come to visit, rather than go through the two agencies we have to use. Andthe cooks have invited us all to their house next time we are here. Cinque minute vicino . . . five minutes near, actually.

Tomorrow we brave the trip back to Florence in our three rental cars, where a 16-passenger van is supposed to be waiting to pick us up, take us to Pisa for a couple of hours to see the Leaning Tower, Baptistry and Duomo, etc., and then whisk us on to Cinque Terre, specifically our little village of Manarola, the fourth in the line of five villages, if you are going north to south.

Iàll write more in another entry, since it looks like no matter how I format my writing, paragraphs, indentations, double space between paragraphs, everything shows up in one long stream of letters. Again, mea culpa.

Grazie e ciao.
Buonasera.

Woodswoman

A belated post, and an addition

2006-05-15T09:05:00.000-06:00

(This is a delayed post because our internet cafe computer in Siena, after I had written the entire message listed below) decided to crash without actually publishing the post. So here it is two days later. Mi dispiace!)

May 13, Saturday, Siena

Well, we are having lovely weather, after a few days with some enthusiastic rain here and there during each afternoon or evening.

Thursday morning, we took cabs to the AutoEurope car rental, loaded up three hatchbacks and, gripping our printed directions, set of on the wild adventure of EXITING the old city of Florence. Not as bad as it has been in years past, and we arrived at our agriturismo, Fattoria di Corsignano, before noon. This is a beautiful working farm and bed-breakfast, which produces its own wine and olive oil. The young couple, Mario and Elena, run the place, as a third-generation family occupation. They had a lovely lunch prepared for us in the dining room, with the pale lilac wisteria drooping down from the wood portale outside.

Mario took some of us to the wine cellar and explained about the wines made on the premises, gave us a few tastes, and took our orders for Chianti Riserva and Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I always wondered what made it "extra" virgin, and this time actually discovered that it is because the oil is from the first press, not from an extra hymen!)

We walked or napped, as we pleased the rest of the afternoon. I fell asleep (ME! A nap!) on a lounge chair out by the still-covered swimming pool and when I woke up, literally had no idea where I was. I looked around me, and the views were almost enough to make me believe in heaven, because that's where I thought I had landed.

Lovely dinner that night on the grounds, and a delicious breakfast yesterday morning before we loaded up and drove to Siena, to the Palazzo di Valli where we stayed last night. We met our tour guide, Viviana Girola, at the tower on the Piazza del Campo, and spent three hours learning about the history of Siena, and visiting the Duomo and other special sites. Then we were each on our own until dinner, most of us returning to the Palazzo to change clothes before coming back into the walled city for dinner at Antica Osteria Da Divo, a restaurant created in a series of cave-levels of an old Senesi building.

Today we are spending the day back in the center of Siena. This evening will leave for the villa in Ambra, which we have rented for the next week. From there we will visit Chianti, San Gimignano, Montepulciano and Pienze, Cortona and Lake Traseimeno, and perhaps another place or two.

So for now, I'm ready for a cappucino on the Campo, and a high dose of people watching. Until next time,

Ciao!

Woodswoman d'Italia

Tre giorni a Firenze (Three days in Florence)

2006-05-10T08:22:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally found an internet cafe that works well! We arrived in Florence without much but a few airsick travelers on Monday at about noon. Three cabs to the Hotel Pendini, a favorite of mine on the Piazza della Repubblica, and we, like the good travelers we are, ditched our bags in the room and walked to a bus stop near Santa Croce to board the #13 bus up to Piazale Michelangelo. Beautiful views of Florence, and of course the amazing church at San Mineoto al Monte, where we arrived just in time to hear the monks chanting their evening Mass.

We lost four of our group at the bus stop to extreme jet lag, but all rejoined me yesterday morning for a private walking tour of Florence, a delicious lunch at Antinori Cantinetta, and a late afternoon appointment at the Uffizi Gallery, where in addition to all the very old paintings, we stumbled on a special exhibit called Il Mente di Leonardo. Wonderful display of the incredible documention for how Leonardo's mind worked in all directions, all the time.

I bought another Leonardo journal (I filled the last one in March) and a biography of the great man. We tried out a little Tuscan restaurant just a block behind the Duomo, a place our walking tour guide told us about, and it was delicious. Best of all, when we told the waiter that Sylvia (our guide) sent us, the owner came over and serenaded us in his booming voice! While most of the group headed back to the hotel after dinner, at about 9:45, three of us were NOT at all sleepy, so we wandered all over, the piazzas, crossed the Arno at the Ponte Vecchio, walked past the Pitti Palace, into the Oltrarno district, past Ashley's old school, back over another bridge, up and down the little brick and cobble streets until past midnight before we came back to the hotel to try to settle down.

I got to bed at 4:00 a.m., got up a couple hours later, because we had a reservation for 9:45 this morning at the Galleria d'Accademia, which houses the magnificent statue of David. I sat for a long time looking up at him, and writing in my journal. Then a quick visit to the Medici Chapel for me, while most of the group lingered there. Pat, Carol and I found a particular gelato shop especially wanted to visit, we bought some gorgonzola picante, toma piemonte, and pecorino, crackers, green bean frittata, marinated whole artichoke hearts and some other goodies, plus of course a bottle of wine, and wandered over to the Piazza Santa Croce, found a stone bench, and basked in the sun, the glory of delicious food and friendship.

Later, a visit to Santa Croce itself, and now I'm here, just about to quit this computer stuff and find a little paper shop where the owner makes journals and other delightful paper products.

Tonight we have our last dinner in Firenze and the infamous Il Latine (some of you will remember THAT) where the food just keeps coming until it seems impossible to put more plates on the table.

Tomorrow we will get our cars and head up north of Siena to a lovely agriturismo called Tenute Corsignano (you can google it and check it out), where we'll spend our first of two nights in the Siena area. Saturday we head to our villa for a week.

I'll write again soon. Ciao!

Joannah

I can smell the countryside and the parmesano!

2006-05-05T13:57:00.000-06:00

Well, we have less than 48 hours before we depart from Denver to Italy, (that's "dopo domani" - day after tomorrow) and I am checking things off my list, checking it twice, just like Santa Claus. I still haven't figured out how exactly to put photos on this site easily, so perhaps if you are going to keep up with our adventures, you'll just have to read, and then the photos may follow.

Back to the list.

Ciao!

Tuscan view - Pienza

2006-04-15T17:06:00.000-06:00

Are we on our way yet?

2006-04-15T13:28:00.000-06:00

Well, I've been working on this trip for exactly one year. 20 days, 19 nights in northern Italy with grown-up women (no cattiness, no bitching!), some of whom are good friends, one repeat traveler from our trip two years ago, and a couple brave souls who didn't know anyone, even me!

My group was fairly well set by last July, and that made me very happy. Nothing like women who make decisions quickly once they know they want to do something. The ones who agonized over it all will have to wait until another year to travel this route with me.

So we have had four gatherings, which have created early friendships among 10 women who didn't know one another. I have always hated the idea of blogs, but I have been convinced that this will be a good way to keep track of our trip, let family and friends back in the crumbling US of A to keep in touch with me and with what's happening in my beloved heart country, Italy!

So this is a first post, just to get the hang of it and see if everything works well.

Ciao, grazie mille for checking this one out. Many adventures ahead!

Woodswoman