Friday, 13 ottobre 2006
(continued from The first day in Italy)

The second day began with a knock on the door at 7 a.m., because we had a reservation for the Accademia at 8:15. We met another American couple in line and compared notes. We were beginning to realize that every other person in Florence was an American, or it seemed that way!

I was there mainly to see The Prisoners, a group of unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo. He worked on a slab of marble from front to back without drawing anything out, freeing the spirit from the stone, so to speak. I was fascinated to see these in transition - but I wasn’t ready for the power of David, which before my visit I considered to be just another thing to tick off a list. I was wrong. You can see the copy in the Piazza dell Signoria for free, but the original David is not to be missed. Framed by an arched dome, he radiates strength and courage as he considers the task before him. If we could only elect a leader with the spirit of David in 2008!

We went to our first Italian coffee shop (bar), and we picked a good one because we weren’t charged extra to sit down and the proprietor was friendly. I was bold enough to order “due caffe latte per favore” and he responded in Italian, at which I was baffled. He laughed in a nice way and switched to English, and we picked out a couple of pastries for breakfast. I think it was good to get away from the area flooded with tourists.

Then we meandered over to the Museo Archeologico, where Sandy’s main interest lay. They had a large Egyptian collection on the second floor, where we were surprised by some mummies in a darkened room that reminded me of the back room of an old country store. Except, you know, with sarcophagi and stuff like that. As we moved into the Etruscan exhibits, I got yelled at for taking this photo of this bronze Chimera (forgot to turn off the flash), which was turned up in a Tuscan farmer’s field. The Chimera has the body of a lion, and the heads of a lion, goat, and snake. Very little is known about the Etruscan civilization except that it was destroyed by the Romans, but its art was beautiful. The third floor, surprisingly, had been remodeled and looked like a modern museum, with many English translations in the exhibits. It moved from Etruscan to Roman and Greek displays, mostly pre-medieval statuary, ceramics, and metalwork. There was a courtyard garden that looked inviting but it was only open on Saturday mornings.

If you ever go to Florence, get reservations for the Accademia and the Uffizi way ahead of time. We barely made it by reserving them through our hotel on Monday afternoon for Friday. By that time we had the choice of only one time for each. I guess that the tour groups book them ahead of time so you could check with them. But the last thing you want to do is stand in line with for hours with a bunch of frustrated tourists, when you’ll be spending more hours on your feet inside. By getting a reserved ticket, we walked right in the “special” line.

We went all the way up the stairs and stepped into Renaissance art heaven. I was especially eager to see Sandro Botticelli’s work, because I have always loved The Birth of Venus. It was so refreshing to see some work that did not have a biblical theme! The Birth of Venus was actually a bit disappointing - it seemed a little washed out to me and maybe I built it up in my head too much. But his other paintings - La Primavera and Pallas and the Centaur knocked me out. We were also able to see the Annunciation by da Vinci and the Madonna of the Goldfinch by Raphael, as well as a self-portrait of Rembrandt that I remembered copying in an art class at some point in my education.

Now, I love art, but I have to admit here that Sandy outshone me in the Uffizi. By the time I got to the end, I was whining and needed a time-out. Museumed out, I guess. After a while, it was “madonna, madonna, madonna, crucifixion, madonna, annunciation, madonna…” then “painting, painting, painting, statue, where’s a bench?” Just being brutally honest here. But the Uffizi is an amazing, overwhelming repository of beauty. Looking up, there were frescoes on every ceiling and statues and paintings lining every wall. One room’s frescoes depicted smiths and craftsmen working, which pleased me amid all the depictions of wealth. On one end, the wall is made up of windows that overlook the Arno and the other side of Florence. It is worth the price of a ticket for the views from the Uffizi, if nothing else.

So I was grateful to get off my aching feet on the terrace overlooking the heart of Firenze, where we overpaid for a couple of drinks and some truly awful food, and fed little sparrows at our table. Actually Sandy fed the bold little buggers while I had paranoid visions of Alfred Hitchcock. One of them actually sat on his finger and pecked at it. But I was able to take some awesome photographs from this high vantage point.

To be continued…
Next post: Firenze rooftops

Gulp. Gack.

I never knew what the evil eye was until I took this photo on the Ponte Vecchio in Firenze.

Next post: Museum Day in Firenze

Sandy and I were wandering the streets of Florence on a Friday morning between museum visits and happened across this fountain in a nearly empty piazza. It was a residential part of the city, but I don’t remember the name of the piazza or street.

Next post: The Evil Eye

Life goes on here in the garden whether I am ready for it or not!

Today I added compost, organic phosphorus, and blood meal to the area where I planted the sweet potatoes and most of the peppers and dug it in. In doing so, I dug up a couple of sweet potatoes that I missed. And three carrots asked nicely to come inside, so I obliged them.

I planted Broad Windsor fava beans from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in the bed where the sweet potatoes were. According to what I’ve read, fava beans can be grown over the winter as a food crop or a cover crop. This is part of my winter garden project.

The leeks I planted from seed in August are coming up like brave little soldiers and I transplanted a few that were too close together. I have really enjoyed my leeks and I go out to the garden and pull one up whenever I need an onion. I store them right in the ground. Some of these from the spring have side shoots that I transplanted on their own. I will always plant leeks from now on!

The garlic and multiplier onions arrived when I was gone, but the instructions with them suggest waiting until Thanksgiving week to plant them. So I went ahead and prepared a couple of spots for them, and did some general clean-up. God, there is so much clean-up to do. I let the weeds in the back get totally out of hand this year and now they have gone to seed. I will regret this combination of laziness and unwillingness to fight the mosquitoes for my domain. Now it will take a lot of mulching to solve this potential problem.

I was digging out some dandelions and little mulberry sprouts in the pathway beside the fava beans when I noticed how rich and earthwormy the soil was. So I shoveled it out into the beds and the path is now a trench lined with cardboard and hardwood mulch. I don’t know if this was brilliant (it effectively made the raised beds higher) or stupid (it could end up being a big mosquito-breeding mud puddle).

I’m pretty tired - this jet lag is not helped by the Daylight Savings Time change, and my arms are out of shape. I practice permaculture so I don’t do a lot of digging. But it was nice to get into the garden in a t-shirt and not have a single bug bite me. That’s one of the reasons I want to try to develop a winter garden, complete with little greenhouse.

Side note: I am making chili tonight partly with the O’odham pink beans I grew in the community garden row. I cooked them yesterday separately so that I could taste them alone. They turned out to be kidney pinto bean sized, medium brown beans - not attractive but they have a nice full taste. I can see why RAFT is trying to save them by giving away the seeds. I’ll plant these again in the spring.

I also cooked up the Golden Rocky Yellow Wax snap beans with some red potatoes I bought at the market. They are tasty and the yellow is very pretty against the red. I have TOO MANY green beans and I’m going to freeze the rest tonight, hopefully, if my energy holds out. I’m not a big green bean fan but for some reason I am fascinated with beans in general right now.

It’s funny how much less the Back Forty has been affected by the recent cold snap than the community garden row. I guess there is payback for being in a sunny spot - it is also more exposed to cold, maybe? My basil is still fine and there are a few green tomatoes that I missed that I’m letting go to see what happens.

Thursday, 12 ottobre 2006
(continued from Leaving home)

Sandy and I were pretty beat but we had been strongly advised to try to get on the Italian schedule as quickly as possible and not to crash until around 9 p.m. We decided to walk around without any real agenda except to find something simple to eat.

One of the first places we wandered into was the Mercato Nuovo, one of several street markets in Firenze that mostly sells leather, scarves, and souvenirs. It was originally a silk and straw market, and is covered (a loggia). Rick Steves noted that there is a “circled X in the center [of the ceiling], marking the spot where people hit after being hoisted up to the top and dropped as punishment for bankruptcy.” I didn’t see that, but I did rub the snout of Porcellino, a bronze statue that tourists rub in order to ensure that they return to Florence one day. This was the only time that I saw it when it was not mobbed with tourists.

We continued down to the Arno River, then we found ourselves right smack in the middle of one of Firenze’s hotspots - Ponte Vecchio, the Piazza dell Signoria, and the Uffizi. There are many statues here, including a copy of David. The original David was moved to the Accademia to protect it. We walked through the Uffizi courtyard, where there are street artists and living statues, as well as the ubiquitous sunglasses and handbag knock-off street sellers, displaying their wares on sheets and cardboard that can be quickly scooped up when the authorities come around.

Learning about Eating Out in Italy

I was getting cranky from pain and hunger (I had problems with what is probably a heel spur during this trip) and this was a nice place to people-watch, so we decided to try getting a bite to eat at one of the outdoor restaurants. Nope - the kitchen was closed because it was mid-afternoon. I felt overwhelmed and so we headed back closer to the hotel and found a place to eat in the Piazza dell Repubblica near this carousel. This was, in retrospect, a dumb decision. They were clearly recruiting exhausted, naive tourists.

Sandy was too tired to order anything fancy so he just ordered pasta with meat sauce and a beer. I ordered prosciutto e melone (ham and cantaloupe), a glass of wine, and water. “Naturale o gassata?” It was the first of many times I would hear this - Italians drink lots of bottled mineral water, with or without carbonation. I’m used to drinking free tap water at meals - it’s one of the ways I save money eating out. But I enjoyed drinking the fizzy acqua minerale at almost every meal here.

Another lesson - it is considered rude for waiters to bring your check before you ask for it. The idea is to let you linger and enjoy your food as long as you like.

Once you get the check, you need to look it over carefully. This waiter added the bottle of water that he did not bring us, and the bill was around 40 euros - that translates to around $50 - for a very small and simple meal with two drinks. Almost every place we went charged us for an extra (large) bottle of water. Sometimes there is a 15% gratuity added (there was in this case, and the service and food was not good). More often we encountered a “cover charge,” basically a fee per person for sitting at a table. And, if you sit down at a table for coffee instead of drinking it standing up at the bar, you can expect the price to be much higher. Waiters in Italian restaurants are paid salaries that don’t depend on tips and tipping is not expected, but we generally tipped for good service anyway. It is hard to get out of that habit and Sandy and I are the masters of self-imposed guilt anyway.

We crashed at the hotel despite our best intentions, then got up at 9 p.m. and went to the Osteria dell Agnolo, just around the corner, for Birre Moretti (beer) and calzoni capriccosi (calzone with ham, olives, artichokes, and mushrooms) and finally I felt relaxed. We enjoyed this place - we needed a spot that was casual so that we could kick back. I tried out a little Italian on the busy waiter and he put up with me! By this time, I had consulted my Rick Steve’s guide and understood how the restaurant billing worked a little better.

Then we walked around the San Lorenzo church area for about another hour before we returned to the Hotel San Giovanni to collapse.

to be continued…
Next post: A Gargoyle Fountain

From Moomin Light:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

I’m glad mine wasn’t a computer manual! I swear this just happened to be completely on topic for today. From Rick Steve’s Florence and Tuscany 2007:

“The Baptistery was likely built on the site of a pagan Roman temple. It was flanked by a humble church that, by the 1200s, was not big enough to contain the exuberant spirit of a city growing rich from the wool trade and banking. In 1296, the cornerstone was laid for a huge church - today’s cathedral, or Duomo - intended to be the biggest in Christendom.

“-The first large room (with a pope sitting at one end) is lined with statues from the original facade.”

This view from our hotel window shows the Baptistery in front, and the Duomo and Campanile di Giotti behind it.

As much as I LOVED the food markets of Tuscany, it was still good to get back to my cozy little farmer’s market with its familiar faces this morning. We needed the basic staples to back up my fall harvest, so I bought a split chicken breast from Back Woods Family Farms, extra-sharp cheddar cheese from the Molner’s, milk from Homeland Creamery, eggs from Ward’s Happy Chickens, and red potatoes and fresh October beans from Faucett Farms. I didn’t need the beans, but I’ve been bean-happy lately.

I was reminded that finding fresh organic eggs at the market during this time of year requires an early visit and digilence. Because I like to spread my money around my five favorite farmers, I planned to go back to Pat and Brian at Handance Farm for eggs after I left a long conversation to allow them to wait on customers. By the time I got back, the eggs were gone. I went back to Back Woods and the Molners, and that quickly, they were out too. I could join a CSA and be guaranteed eggs each week - however, the two of us do not eat a dozen eggs per week. So I bought my eggs from Ward’s Happy Chickens, who I suppose do right by their critters, even though I had an unsatisfactory answer to a question I asked of one of their vendors a long time ago.

Which brings me to this warning: farmers, if you ask others to sell your products at a market and you raise your food cleanly and humanely, please make sure those folks understand your practices enough to intelligently answer questions. Otherwise, you could lose long-term business.

I heard of an interesting and promising opportunity from one of my farmers this morning. He may be able to begin a cow-share program, allowing me to legally drink raw milk from my own cow. The cost may end up being prohibitive, and I am rather cynical about the possibility that the Va. Dept. of Ag will find a way to stop it, but Sandy will be glad to hear this after he went bananas over his first taste of raw milk in Italy. It was sOOOOOO good!

San Lorenzo Cathedral, late at night.
Next post: The first day in Italy

I’ve never been comfortable with flying, and at times I’ve had a full-blown, knee-gripping, catatonia-inducing phobia about it. I did okay the last time I flew. That would be the time that I unknowingly flew through Greensboro and Charlotte airports with a box-cutter in my purse. It was taken away from me in Orlando on the way back - let’s hear it for Florida security!

Anyway, I haven’t flown since before 9/11, and other than a few hours in Tijuana when I was thirteen, I’ve never been abroad. I am a recovering agoraphobic. A few years ago, going anywhere other than work and the grocery store was difficult for me. Agoraphobia is a behavioral response to panic, and there isn’t an easy cure. There is no pill. You first have to recognize it (I didn’t until I was well entrenched in my routine) and then you have to be vigilant and fight hard against your most basic instincts. I’ve come a long way back towards a normal life in the last four years, but although I love the idea of world travel, the reality is that I don’t even like to travel across town.

So this trip to Italy was a bigger deal on a more internal level than most people knew. That’s why I must begin with leaving home.

First mistake - I didn’t buy Dramamine for the trip. The last time I took it it knocked me out, and the last time I flew I was okay without it, so I decided it wasn’t necessary. We had a somewhat turbulent first leg of the plane trip to Philly, and I was suffering from a mild case of motion-sickness. No problem, I figured. I’ll buy some at the next airport. Wrong.

There was a power outage in Philadelphia that put us in a holding pattern. When we got out, we had to run to make the connection. We got on the plane, only to sit for another hour. Which cut our time between flights in Paris.

Charles de Gaulle Airport is a horrible, hectic place to need help. The nice people gave us wrong directions. It was the sneering clerk at the Air France desk who finally steered us in the right direction. When we made it to the check-in desk, it was departure time. The clerk there demanded baggage claim tickets that we couldn’t find, since we didn’t think we would need them after being told that the luggage was checked through, and she gave us the choice of claiming and re-checking our luggage or making the connecting flight. We decided to ditch the luggage and run for the plane. We barely made the bus and when we got to the plane, there was my old yeller suitcase on the pavement next to it. It may be a dinosaur, but by God you can spot it a mile away. We made the right decision.

But I didn’t have time to buy the Dramamine. So on the crowded flight from Paris to Florence, I mostly slept with my complimentary croissant in front of me, occasionally sipping a cup of hot tea. I was too airsick to look out the windows as we descended into Florence, but I glanced back at Sandy, who was several rows away, to find him looking at me, then out again, then looking at me and nodding.

We took a taxi to the Hotel San Giovanni and found that we had one of the rooms with a frescoed ceiling. Charlie told us later that the hotel had once been the home of the bishop of Firenze. We had an amazing view of the Duomo and Baptista and the busy crowds and traffic three stories below. The room itself was very simple and had no TV, phone, or even a clock. We shared a bathroom in the hallway. For campers and misers like us, just having a bathroom in the same building is actually a step up for our vacation digs. The bed was ultra comfortable and hey, there’s a FRESCO on the CEILING.

To be continued…
Next post: San Lorenzo at Night

Sierra Magazine continues the trend this year of publications focusing on food with November/December’s “Green Cuisine” issue. They address truth in labeling, marketing, and industrial organic, as well as local food heritage with Slow Foodie Gary Paul Nabhan. It’s great to see the Sierra Club paying more and more attention to real food issues and looking beyond the USDA organic label. The local food movement needs all the publicity it can get as corporations such as Walmart and Cargill begin to wield their influence in the organic market.