Trip report on Umbria, Tuscany and Puglia
Apr 12th, 2006, 07:12 PM
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Trip report on Umbria, Tuscany and Puglia
My wife and I returned last week from a wonderful two-week trip to central and southern Italy.
Tuesday March 21
After work, I met my wife at the Newark Airport train station and we took the Airtrain to the airport. We checked in at Swiss Air and relaxed in the VIP lounge before the flight. The flight was a very nice, business-class only plane of 60 seats (4 seats in 15 rows) which lie almost flat. This was all free with American Airline miles.
Wednesday March 22
We arrived at Zurich in the morning and had a six hour layover. We put the bags in a locker and took a train into the city. We walked down the main street, the Banhofstrasser, which is lined with banks and fancy shops. Supposedly a significant fraction of the world’s gold is stored in vaults under this street. Trams sped back and forth along the busy street. After about a half hour of wandering around, we arrived at the Zeughauskeller and had a tasty traditional Swiss lunch and enjoyed some local beer while admiring William Tell’s crossbow and, oddly enough, various pieces of modern field artillery on display in the restaurant. After lunch, we continued along the last few blocks of the Banhofstrasser until we came to the lakefront, where we had panoramic views of snow-capped mountains and the city. We crossed the bridge over the river and wandered around the old town for a bit and then headed back to the railroad station and subsequently back to the airport.
Our flight to Rome was a bit less luxurious than the transatlantic flight, but it was only a bit over an hour. Upon arrival in Rome, we rented a car and drove a short distance to the Sheraton Parco de Medici. This hotel is located on the ring road and caters mostly to golfers and bus tourists, but it suited our purposes as a convenient place to stay on our first night. There was a bit of confusion about which of the two hotel buildings we were staying at – we arrived at the first building, were sent to the second and then back to the first. This nonsense was ultimately worth the fuss as we were upgraded to a fairly nice suite. The room allegedly had a terrace, but the terrace was really just a hole in the roof and had no view, except for the sky.
Thursday March 23
One of my favorite things about traveling to Italy is the hotel breakfasts. In particular, I love the great coffee and warm milk. Unfortunately, on this trip I was fated to have chronic difficulties with my morning coffee. It all began this first morning when I could not get a waiter to come to our table so I had to get the dubious “American coffee” from the buffet table.
We departed from the Sheraton and took the autostrada north to Assisi. The very scenic trip took about two hours. Concerned that time might be running out for lunch, our first stop was the Ristorate San Francesco for a delicious wild boar an pasta lunch. After lunch we visited the Basilica of St. Francis. Unfortunately, workers were noisily dismantling scaffolding in the upper church, so it was difficult to admire the Giotto frescos in peace. We headed to the lower church and then down to the crypt. We spent some time near the tomb of the Saint and then headed out and wandered around Assisi for a bit.
Leaving Assisi, we drove about 15 minutes down the local road to Spello, one of our favorite towns in Italy. We entered Spello from a different road than what we had used when we visited this town in 2003 and we became lost in the very narrow lanes. At one point, we had to stop the car and tuck in the side mirrors to make it through the town without damage to our little rental car. Somehow, we managed to exit the small town without ever finding our hotel. This was particularly pathetic because we had stayed here in 2003 and managed to get it right the first time then. On our second try, we slightly overshot the hotel, but parked nearby and checked in. A bit later we drove out of town once again and then entered for the third time, finally getting it right and parking at the hotel’s lot.
Our room at the hotel Palazzo Bocci was a nice suite with a small terrace. After a brief nap, we walked up the street to a little wine bar and had some very nice Montefalco Rosso, along with a tasty plate of cheese and sausage. After wandering around town for a little while we had dinner at Il Cacciatore where we enjoyed some delicious pasta with mushrooms.
Friday March 24
I spent the morning wandering around Spello, videotaping the town. We hopped in the car and headed back to Assisi. We returned to the basilica for a bit and then spent some more time checking out the town, shopping and so forth. In te afternoon it was back to Spello where we went to the local enotecha for a wine, cheese, proscuitto, tapanade and olive oil tasting. Somehow, after several glasses of wine, we managed to convince ourselves that we absolutely had to buy 18 bottles of wine and ship them back home. Hopefully we will see them sometime soon.
After some shopping for linens and other local products, it was back to the room for a nap to rest up for our big dinner at la Bastilia. This was a restaurant which we really enjoyed on our last trip here and were very eager to revisit. La Bastilia did not disappoint, we had an eight course feast which brilliantly mixed local Umbrian fare with innovative haute cuisine preparation.
Saturday March 25
Sad to leave our favorite little town of Spello, but eager for new adventures, we departed Umbria and headed to Tuscany. A light rain was falling, but it was an easy drive through vineyards and olive groves past Perugia and along the north shore of scenic Lake Trasimeno to Montepulciano. We parked for free in the lower town, and walked through the gates into town. Even though there were quite a few enotechas and other places mostly catering to visitors, the town was less touristy than I thought it might be. We popped into a couple of ancient churches and checked out the main square, but a lot of places were closed as the main tourist season had not yet begun. The rain picked up a bit and we ducked into a littlw wine bar for lunch. We had a sublime bottle of 1997 Vino Nobile de Montepuliano accompanied by some very tasty brushcetta, cheeses, pasta and salad.
Next it was on to nearby Pienza, a little hill town that we visited on our honeymoon in 2000. Pienza is a town built of honey colored stone with a lot of elegant baroque churches and other public buildings. The town got a big makeover in the 1600s when a local boy made good, became Pope Pius II and built a big palace and church in his old town. Most of these hill towns have great views, but the views from Pienza are particularly spectacular. Also spectacular is the local pecorino cheese, and I consumed as much of it as humanly possible while I was in town.
We checked into the Ciostro de Pienza, a former monastery converted into a luxury hotel. We had a relatively spacious suite, room 303, on the top floor with a great view of the elegantly colonnaded cloister courtyard. We wandered around the wonderful little baroque town, checking out the sites and shops. We had dinner at Latte de Luna, a delightful little place where we had lunch while we were here for our honeymoon. Latte was even better than we remembered and our delicious dinner was accompanied by an excellent 2000 Brunello de Montalcino.
Sunday March 26
Some fog in the morning made the town very mysterious and romantic. We took a fascinating tour of the pope’s palace. The pope’s family, the Piccolominis, had lived in the palace continuously from the 1600s until they died out in the 1960s. We had lunch at Latte (they were very happy to see us again) and bought some wine, cheese, and olive oil at various local shops for the road.
We packed up the car and drove north to Florence. After a surprisingly easy entrance to the city, we checked into the Westin Excelsior. Due to Laura’s awesome Starwood prowess, we scored a fantastic room on the top floor with a huge terrace that gave us sweeping views of Florence. This was our third trip to Florence, but really our first visit where we had any significant time to set our own agenda. After some preliminary sorties, I crossed the river and headed up into the hills to the south of town, but I got a bit lost and wound up quite a bit a away from where I expected to be. This was my first clue that my sense of direction, which is usually fairly good, was not up to par on this trip. We decided to take a break from big dinners and just had some wine, cheese and wild boar sausage on our terrace. Later we walked downtown for some gelatto.
Monday March 27
We took the train to Lucca, a walled town near the coast where most of the people get around on bikes. It is very odd to see well dressed middle-aged people scooting all over the place on bikes that mostly look like they were made in the 1950s. Typically well-behaved Italian dogs scampered all about, leashes rarely to be seen. I would like to take our crazy pooch over here for a few weeks so he could see how well these dogs behave. We had lunch at an outdoor café in an oval-shaped piazza. The piazza is oval because it sits on the spot where the old Roman ampitheater used to be. Although the atmosphere was pleasant, the food could have come from the Olive Garden and was probably the least impressive meal of our trip.
Next it was on to Pisa and the crazy tower that they just can’t seem to get to stand up straight. Most cathedrals have a paved piazza in front, but the Pisa complex is very unique with cathedral, baptistery and tower in a huge grass field cut off from the rest of town. We did not get to go to the top of the tower because there was a long wait and we had to get back to Florence.
We had to get back to Florence to meet up with our walking tour group for a tour of the south side of the Arno. This area has fewer big tourist sites but more authentic little artisan’s shops. The tour group was very small, only six people and our guide, Sylvia, was excellent. After the tour, Sylvia treated us to some wine at a little wine bar. We had dinner at Mamma Gina (Borgo San Jacopo 16) a great little trattoria recommended by Sylvia. Once again, I ate far too much for dinner, but our pedometer indicated that we walked over 22,000 paces this day, so hopefully I burned off at least some of the massive quantities of food I was devouring.
Tuesday March 28
Despite forecasts for improved weather, this turns out to be another cloudy and cool day, but there is no significant rainfall. We liked our tour so much yesterday that we headed back to the agency to sign up for another walking tour. This one had some more people, probably about 16 in total, but our guide, Tonia, was very good and really did a great job of bringing the sites alive for us. She was particularly knowledgeable with regard to the Orsanmichele, the S. Trinita church and the Strozzi palace. After the tour we had lunch at a little trattoria near the duomo, and then we went shopping for a bit before heading back to the room for a nap. We were wiped out from a day and a half of fairly heavy tourist activity, so we enjoyed the room for the remainder of the afternoon and just nibbled on cheese and sausage on our terrace instead of going out for another big dinner. In the evening, we headed out again and had some gelato near the duomo.
Wednesday March 29
We rented an audio tour of Florence on an MP3 player from the Westin for the day. This did not work out quite as well as we had hoped, there are a few kinks to get out of the system. The first MP3’s batteries died in a little over an hour and the second one did not work. As people who brought two IPods on our trip and figured out how to override the car’s radio to play our IPods, we tried everything we could think of, but it simply would not get out of one of the sub-menus. We toured the Accademia and the Uffuzi, both of which we had seen before, but which are always worth seeing again. The crowds were not bad and we had reserved our tickets in advance, so it was a very easy process. We stopped for lunch at the colorful San Lorenzo farmer’s market and picked up a lot of olive oil and balsamic vinegar while we were there.
Later in the day we headed to the east side of the city to see the S. Croce church were Michelanglo, Galileo and other Renaissance big shots are buried. However, our real target for this expedition was the “Scuola del Cuoio” (leather working school) attached to the church, where we picked up several very nice leather items, including a new wallet for me. The light in the late afternoon was fairly good, so I picked up my videocamera and scooted around town, doing a little filming of the town.
After I returned to the hotel, I assessed my wardrobe and realized that I would not have quite enough clean clothes to make it through the trip. As our hotel charged about $7 to wash a pair of socks, I decided to wander the streets looking for a laundromat. As of this trip, I have been to Europe 19 times and I like to think I am a fairly experienced traveler. However, one thing I can never seem to get right is the laundry process, there is always some crazy situation involving laundry and this trip would be no different. I wandered the streets like a vagabond for about 45 minutes with this heavy bag (why on Earth I took our one non-roller bag, I have no idea) until I eventually found the place I had been looking for on the third or fourth attempt. Sure enough, the first washer I tried did not work and ate my three euro token. After a bit of multilingual cursing, I tried again and finally got a working washer. Next time, I am reverting to the sink-washing method.
Thursday March 30
We picked up our car and headed out of town to the south. After driving for about an hour, we arrived at Volterra. Volterra is a hill town about ten miles from San Gimigano which has some wonderful Roman and Etruscan ruins. The ruins did not disappoint and we checked out the very well preserved Roman theater and the less well-preserved, but nonetheless fascinating, Etruscan acropolis. One of the city gates boasts the heads of three Etruscan gods. The basalt faces of the Etruscan gods were almost worn away by the centuries of exposure to the elements. It must be depressing to be a god when, not only do you no longer have any worshippers, but no one even remembers your name.
The views from the walls of Volterra were truly spectacular on this very clear day. Volterra is a center of alabaster carving and there are many alabaster shops lining the streets. In one shop a craftsman gave us a lecture, entirely in Italian (after we told him we spoke only English) about how he carved all of his stuff by hand and most of the other shops were just selling machine made junk. Or at least I think that’s what he was saying – we scurried out of there at the first opportunity, as it was a bit intense. We ultimately picked up a few alabaster items at a artisan’s cooperative near the main square. We had an excellent lunch at a restaurant on the main piazza called “Etruria” where I enjoyed some delicious wild boar stew and other local delights.
After an uneventful drive back to Florence, we headed to the Ponte Vecchio and did some jewelry shopping and wandered around town, stopping at the Mercato Nuovo to rub the bronze boar’s nose three times to ensure that we would return to Florence. For dinner, we went to a little place called I che ch’i ch’i (or something like that). We had discovered this place in 2000 on our honeymoon and were happy to see that it had hardly changed at all. The food was fantastic and our gregarious host was just as we remembered him, pouring free glasses of limoncello while regaling us with tales of his adventures as a guest chef in America during the off-season. When I failed to complete every single scrap of food on one of my half-dozen delicious courses the waitress gasped in horror and begged “what’s the matter?!? you don’t like it?!?”
Friday March 31
Given that we had spent the better part of four days in Florence, there were still a surprising number of things that I still wanted to do. Priority number one for me was to tour the Palazzo Vecchio, which I had never visited on my prior trips to Florence. The venerable town hall did not disappoint as we explored room after room filled with incredible frescos, and various artifacts of the Medici golden age. After touring the palazzo, we returned to the hotel, checked out, picked up the car and headed south for a long trip to the heel of Italy.
We drove past Rome and then toward Naples on the A1 autostrada. Our car topped out around 150 km/hr, but even at that speed (close to 100 mph) cars zipped passed us as if we were standing still. The scenery was delightful for the entirety of the drive and we were very impressed at how lush Italy was in the spring. Many verdant areas reminded us of Ireland. Also impressive were how many snow capped mountains we spotted, even to the south of Rome. After about five hours or more of driving, we arrived at Giovinazzo on the Adriatic coast. I had picked this little town because it was just above Bari and I did not want to drive the car into Bari after a long trip. The hotel billed itself as a seaside resort but I am not sure who would want to stay in this area as the seaside was just rock. We are not talking pebbles like Positano or other Italian “beaches” – this was just a slab of bare rock going into the sea. The town did not seem to have much to offer so, after a brief rest at the hotel, we decided to drive on to Bari for dinner. This was a mistake as the city was very crowded for some kind of festival and the driving was impossible. We could not figure out where to park and I realized that I really was exhausted from the drive earlier so we abandoned Bari and headed back to our hotel. We had dinner at the somewhat off hotel restaurant, where the overly formal waiter insisted on pushing a little cart around to transport all items, including things that could easily have been carried by hands. The food was a bit odd as well, but I somewhat enjoyed my selections form the “promotion of the onion” menu.
Saturday April 1
The Bari area probably had a lot to offer but we were too tired to check it out the previous day and now it was time to leave what was unquestionably our least favorite hotel of the trip and continue south to the town of Lecce. Lecce is a town which had a burst of prosperity in the baroque period and therefore has a large number of honey-colored baroque churches and other public buildings. This town is a real gem and is definitely a bit off the regular tourist path – about the only significant that I have been to in Italy where English was rarely hear and often not understood at all. We stayed at the Patria Palace hotel, which appears to be the premiere hotel in town. Our room was not particularly large but it was well-appointed and, oddly nough, it had two full bathrooms. My favorite thing about our hotel room was the mini balcony which was right on top of the hotel’s main entrance, which was festooned with flags. I felt like a head of state addressing the assembled multitudes when I would look at at the street from above the flags.
Even for experienced drivers in Italy, Lecce was quite a challenge to navigate and we were very happy to leave our car behind for the rest of the day. We walked around town, checking our the remains of the Roman ampitheater in the main square and the many almost identical (to the untrained eye, such as mine) baroque churches. We walked the length of the main pedestrian street, which had surprisingly few places to eat outside on such a beautiful and warm day. We eventually gave up on dining al fresco and had lunch at “La Vecchia Osteria” a great little place on the West side of town at Via Dasumno 3. I had a delicious mixed grilled seafood plate which included a tasty octopus with rather thick tentacles. We also split some very good orichette with broccoli rabe, a real local specialty. In the evening, Lecce really come alive, with most active evening stroll route I have ever seen in Italy. We joined the strollers for awhile, checking out the newer part of town outside the walls, had some very good gelato and later ate some so-so calzones for dinner.
Sunday April 2
There was an unexpected amount of activity in Lecce for a Sunday morning. A footrace drew hundreds, if not thousands of participants and there was also a big flea market in town this morning. I checked out the fortress of Charles V, which is currently being used to display modern video installation art pieces. After making sure the race was over, we picked up our car and tried to head out of town. However, as we always end up doing at least once on our Italy trips, we ended up drive down the middle of the main pedestrian street. No one gets mad at you, they basically ignore you, but no one gets out of your way.
We finally evaded the pedestrians and figured out how to get out of Lecce. In a little over a half hour we were at Gallipoli, on the west coast of the “heel” of Italy, along the shimmering blue Ionian Sea. The historic center of Gallipoli is a little peninsula jutting out into the sea. It was a beautiful clear day with enough of a breeze to propel a small flotilla of sailboats around little islands offshore with spinnakers flying. We had lunch at Il Bastione, a restaurant with tremendous views of the sea. We had a great mixed grilled seafood antipasta, featuring octopus, evidently the culinary star of the area. This area had been controlled by the Byzantine empire until quite late and retained a Greek influence in language and architecture until this century. Many of the whitewashed houses and churches in Gallipoli looked like they could have been in Greece.
We hopped back in the car and drove south for about a half hour until we arrived at Leuca, which is at the very tip of the heel of Italy. We did not actually go into the town, which evidently is not much of a draw, but instead took in the amazing views from the church/lighthouse area that dominates a cliff above the town. Next we took a breathtaking drive up the east coast, along the Adriatic Sea. This area abounds in wild beauty and definitely compares to the Amalfi coast, but with much less development. We stopped briefly at Otranto, another little gem of a historic town, which is dominated by a huge castle above its glimmering clear blue harbor. If I ever have the opportunity to return to this area, I definitely would like to spend more time in Otranto. On the drive back to Lecce we were deep in olive grove county, passing mile after mile of scenic olive groves. Mixed in with the olive grove are countless little buildings which we referred to as “stone igloos.” Some appeared to still be in use while most appeared to be ruined. I do not know how old these actually are, but they appear to be ancient.
Upon our return to Lecce we went back to the room for a nap. We woke up to the sound of beautiful choral music coming from the main square. We headed out to see if it was a concert and it turned out to be a political rally. It appeared to be a rally for the socialist party and it was quite festive, taking over the entire main square. We enjoyed the rally for a bit and then walked around town for awhile before settling on a little osteria “I Latini” for dinner at Via Palmeri 46. We ordered some tasty pasta and split a grilled meat platter “for two.” I think six linebackers would have had trouble polishing this one off – we barely got through a quarter of the array of tasty meats.
Monday April 4
This last full day of the trip involved a long drive from Lecce to Paestum. We drove from Lecce to Salerno on the autostrada at the normal terrifying speed of 150 km/hr. I thought Paestum was not far below Salerno, but it turned out to be local raods lined with the least attractive array of buildings that I have seen in Europe. Paestum was oddly spread out in an unusal way for Italy, but was nonetheless difficult to navigate. When we arrived at the Best Western we had a bit of a shock as it was closed due to construction. Fortunately, the hotel next door, the Savoy, was somehow affiliate with the Best Western and honored our reservation. This was quite a stroke of luck as the Best Western was pretty sad in comparison to the hotel where we ended up staying for the same price.
It was getting late in the afternoon, so we rushed over to the center of Paestum to see the archeological site. The three main Greek temples were as incredible as I had read about. What I did not expect was to find such extensive and well preserved Roman ruins. As always with these ruins, I am one the lookout for lizards, and Paestum did not disappoint. A wide variety of lizards were sitting on the ruins, baking in the sun, or skittering about in the bushes. Another interesting wildlife spotting was a farm next to the ruins which appeared to have buffalo. Buffalo mozzarella? After visiting the ruins and doing some shopping, we headed back to the hotel. We walked about 100 yards through a pine forest until we came to the beach. This was the best real sand beach that I have seen in Italy. It is odd that this place is not more developed for tourists. The restaurant near the ruins that interested us was not open for dinner and nothing else appeared enticing, so we just had dinner at the hotel restaurant, which actually turned out to be qite good. There was quite a little tableside ceremony of excavating our fish from the thick crust of sal tin which it had been baked. We had some excellent Lacrae de Christi (Tears of Christ) wine from the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius.
The next morning we cjecked out and drove about four hours north to the Rome airport and departed without any unexpected incident. It was a wonderful trip!
Tuesday March 21
After work, I met my wife at the Newark Airport train station and we took the Airtrain to the airport. We checked in at Swiss Air and relaxed in the VIP lounge before the flight. The flight was a very nice, business-class only plane of 60 seats (4 seats in 15 rows) which lie almost flat. This was all free with American Airline miles.
Wednesday March 22
We arrived at Zurich in the morning and had a six hour layover. We put the bags in a locker and took a train into the city. We walked down the main street, the Banhofstrasser, which is lined with banks and fancy shops. Supposedly a significant fraction of the world’s gold is stored in vaults under this street. Trams sped back and forth along the busy street. After about a half hour of wandering around, we arrived at the Zeughauskeller and had a tasty traditional Swiss lunch and enjoyed some local beer while admiring William Tell’s crossbow and, oddly enough, various pieces of modern field artillery on display in the restaurant. After lunch, we continued along the last few blocks of the Banhofstrasser until we came to the lakefront, where we had panoramic views of snow-capped mountains and the city. We crossed the bridge over the river and wandered around the old town for a bit and then headed back to the railroad station and subsequently back to the airport.
Our flight to Rome was a bit less luxurious than the transatlantic flight, but it was only a bit over an hour. Upon arrival in Rome, we rented a car and drove a short distance to the Sheraton Parco de Medici. This hotel is located on the ring road and caters mostly to golfers and bus tourists, but it suited our purposes as a convenient place to stay on our first night. There was a bit of confusion about which of the two hotel buildings we were staying at – we arrived at the first building, were sent to the second and then back to the first. This nonsense was ultimately worth the fuss as we were upgraded to a fairly nice suite. The room allegedly had a terrace, but the terrace was really just a hole in the roof and had no view, except for the sky.
Thursday March 23
One of my favorite things about traveling to Italy is the hotel breakfasts. In particular, I love the great coffee and warm milk. Unfortunately, on this trip I was fated to have chronic difficulties with my morning coffee. It all began this first morning when I could not get a waiter to come to our table so I had to get the dubious “American coffee” from the buffet table.
We departed from the Sheraton and took the autostrada north to Assisi. The very scenic trip took about two hours. Concerned that time might be running out for lunch, our first stop was the Ristorate San Francesco for a delicious wild boar an pasta lunch. After lunch we visited the Basilica of St. Francis. Unfortunately, workers were noisily dismantling scaffolding in the upper church, so it was difficult to admire the Giotto frescos in peace. We headed to the lower church and then down to the crypt. We spent some time near the tomb of the Saint and then headed out and wandered around Assisi for a bit.
Leaving Assisi, we drove about 15 minutes down the local road to Spello, one of our favorite towns in Italy. We entered Spello from a different road than what we had used when we visited this town in 2003 and we became lost in the very narrow lanes. At one point, we had to stop the car and tuck in the side mirrors to make it through the town without damage to our little rental car. Somehow, we managed to exit the small town without ever finding our hotel. This was particularly pathetic because we had stayed here in 2003 and managed to get it right the first time then. On our second try, we slightly overshot the hotel, but parked nearby and checked in. A bit later we drove out of town once again and then entered for the third time, finally getting it right and parking at the hotel’s lot.
Our room at the hotel Palazzo Bocci was a nice suite with a small terrace. After a brief nap, we walked up the street to a little wine bar and had some very nice Montefalco Rosso, along with a tasty plate of cheese and sausage. After wandering around town for a little while we had dinner at Il Cacciatore where we enjoyed some delicious pasta with mushrooms.
Friday March 24
I spent the morning wandering around Spello, videotaping the town. We hopped in the car and headed back to Assisi. We returned to the basilica for a bit and then spent some more time checking out the town, shopping and so forth. In te afternoon it was back to Spello where we went to the local enotecha for a wine, cheese, proscuitto, tapanade and olive oil tasting. Somehow, after several glasses of wine, we managed to convince ourselves that we absolutely had to buy 18 bottles of wine and ship them back home. Hopefully we will see them sometime soon.
After some shopping for linens and other local products, it was back to the room for a nap to rest up for our big dinner at la Bastilia. This was a restaurant which we really enjoyed on our last trip here and were very eager to revisit. La Bastilia did not disappoint, we had an eight course feast which brilliantly mixed local Umbrian fare with innovative haute cuisine preparation.
Saturday March 25
Sad to leave our favorite little town of Spello, but eager for new adventures, we departed Umbria and headed to Tuscany. A light rain was falling, but it was an easy drive through vineyards and olive groves past Perugia and along the north shore of scenic Lake Trasimeno to Montepulciano. We parked for free in the lower town, and walked through the gates into town. Even though there were quite a few enotechas and other places mostly catering to visitors, the town was less touristy than I thought it might be. We popped into a couple of ancient churches and checked out the main square, but a lot of places were closed as the main tourist season had not yet begun. The rain picked up a bit and we ducked into a littlw wine bar for lunch. We had a sublime bottle of 1997 Vino Nobile de Montepuliano accompanied by some very tasty brushcetta, cheeses, pasta and salad.
Next it was on to nearby Pienza, a little hill town that we visited on our honeymoon in 2000. Pienza is a town built of honey colored stone with a lot of elegant baroque churches and other public buildings. The town got a big makeover in the 1600s when a local boy made good, became Pope Pius II and built a big palace and church in his old town. Most of these hill towns have great views, but the views from Pienza are particularly spectacular. Also spectacular is the local pecorino cheese, and I consumed as much of it as humanly possible while I was in town.
We checked into the Ciostro de Pienza, a former monastery converted into a luxury hotel. We had a relatively spacious suite, room 303, on the top floor with a great view of the elegantly colonnaded cloister courtyard. We wandered around the wonderful little baroque town, checking out the sites and shops. We had dinner at Latte de Luna, a delightful little place where we had lunch while we were here for our honeymoon. Latte was even better than we remembered and our delicious dinner was accompanied by an excellent 2000 Brunello de Montalcino.
Sunday March 26
Some fog in the morning made the town very mysterious and romantic. We took a fascinating tour of the pope’s palace. The pope’s family, the Piccolominis, had lived in the palace continuously from the 1600s until they died out in the 1960s. We had lunch at Latte (they were very happy to see us again) and bought some wine, cheese, and olive oil at various local shops for the road.
We packed up the car and drove north to Florence. After a surprisingly easy entrance to the city, we checked into the Westin Excelsior. Due to Laura’s awesome Starwood prowess, we scored a fantastic room on the top floor with a huge terrace that gave us sweeping views of Florence. This was our third trip to Florence, but really our first visit where we had any significant time to set our own agenda. After some preliminary sorties, I crossed the river and headed up into the hills to the south of town, but I got a bit lost and wound up quite a bit a away from where I expected to be. This was my first clue that my sense of direction, which is usually fairly good, was not up to par on this trip. We decided to take a break from big dinners and just had some wine, cheese and wild boar sausage on our terrace. Later we walked downtown for some gelatto.
Monday March 27
We took the train to Lucca, a walled town near the coast where most of the people get around on bikes. It is very odd to see well dressed middle-aged people scooting all over the place on bikes that mostly look like they were made in the 1950s. Typically well-behaved Italian dogs scampered all about, leashes rarely to be seen. I would like to take our crazy pooch over here for a few weeks so he could see how well these dogs behave. We had lunch at an outdoor café in an oval-shaped piazza. The piazza is oval because it sits on the spot where the old Roman ampitheater used to be. Although the atmosphere was pleasant, the food could have come from the Olive Garden and was probably the least impressive meal of our trip.
Next it was on to Pisa and the crazy tower that they just can’t seem to get to stand up straight. Most cathedrals have a paved piazza in front, but the Pisa complex is very unique with cathedral, baptistery and tower in a huge grass field cut off from the rest of town. We did not get to go to the top of the tower because there was a long wait and we had to get back to Florence.
We had to get back to Florence to meet up with our walking tour group for a tour of the south side of the Arno. This area has fewer big tourist sites but more authentic little artisan’s shops. The tour group was very small, only six people and our guide, Sylvia, was excellent. After the tour, Sylvia treated us to some wine at a little wine bar. We had dinner at Mamma Gina (Borgo San Jacopo 16) a great little trattoria recommended by Sylvia. Once again, I ate far too much for dinner, but our pedometer indicated that we walked over 22,000 paces this day, so hopefully I burned off at least some of the massive quantities of food I was devouring.
Tuesday March 28
Despite forecasts for improved weather, this turns out to be another cloudy and cool day, but there is no significant rainfall. We liked our tour so much yesterday that we headed back to the agency to sign up for another walking tour. This one had some more people, probably about 16 in total, but our guide, Tonia, was very good and really did a great job of bringing the sites alive for us. She was particularly knowledgeable with regard to the Orsanmichele, the S. Trinita church and the Strozzi palace. After the tour we had lunch at a little trattoria near the duomo, and then we went shopping for a bit before heading back to the room for a nap. We were wiped out from a day and a half of fairly heavy tourist activity, so we enjoyed the room for the remainder of the afternoon and just nibbled on cheese and sausage on our terrace instead of going out for another big dinner. In the evening, we headed out again and had some gelato near the duomo.
Wednesday March 29
We rented an audio tour of Florence on an MP3 player from the Westin for the day. This did not work out quite as well as we had hoped, there are a few kinks to get out of the system. The first MP3’s batteries died in a little over an hour and the second one did not work. As people who brought two IPods on our trip and figured out how to override the car’s radio to play our IPods, we tried everything we could think of, but it simply would not get out of one of the sub-menus. We toured the Accademia and the Uffuzi, both of which we had seen before, but which are always worth seeing again. The crowds were not bad and we had reserved our tickets in advance, so it was a very easy process. We stopped for lunch at the colorful San Lorenzo farmer’s market and picked up a lot of olive oil and balsamic vinegar while we were there.
Later in the day we headed to the east side of the city to see the S. Croce church were Michelanglo, Galileo and other Renaissance big shots are buried. However, our real target for this expedition was the “Scuola del Cuoio” (leather working school) attached to the church, where we picked up several very nice leather items, including a new wallet for me. The light in the late afternoon was fairly good, so I picked up my videocamera and scooted around town, doing a little filming of the town.
After I returned to the hotel, I assessed my wardrobe and realized that I would not have quite enough clean clothes to make it through the trip. As our hotel charged about $7 to wash a pair of socks, I decided to wander the streets looking for a laundromat. As of this trip, I have been to Europe 19 times and I like to think I am a fairly experienced traveler. However, one thing I can never seem to get right is the laundry process, there is always some crazy situation involving laundry and this trip would be no different. I wandered the streets like a vagabond for about 45 minutes with this heavy bag (why on Earth I took our one non-roller bag, I have no idea) until I eventually found the place I had been looking for on the third or fourth attempt. Sure enough, the first washer I tried did not work and ate my three euro token. After a bit of multilingual cursing, I tried again and finally got a working washer. Next time, I am reverting to the sink-washing method.
Thursday March 30
We picked up our car and headed out of town to the south. After driving for about an hour, we arrived at Volterra. Volterra is a hill town about ten miles from San Gimigano which has some wonderful Roman and Etruscan ruins. The ruins did not disappoint and we checked out the very well preserved Roman theater and the less well-preserved, but nonetheless fascinating, Etruscan acropolis. One of the city gates boasts the heads of three Etruscan gods. The basalt faces of the Etruscan gods were almost worn away by the centuries of exposure to the elements. It must be depressing to be a god when, not only do you no longer have any worshippers, but no one even remembers your name.
The views from the walls of Volterra were truly spectacular on this very clear day. Volterra is a center of alabaster carving and there are many alabaster shops lining the streets. In one shop a craftsman gave us a lecture, entirely in Italian (after we told him we spoke only English) about how he carved all of his stuff by hand and most of the other shops were just selling machine made junk. Or at least I think that’s what he was saying – we scurried out of there at the first opportunity, as it was a bit intense. We ultimately picked up a few alabaster items at a artisan’s cooperative near the main square. We had an excellent lunch at a restaurant on the main piazza called “Etruria” where I enjoyed some delicious wild boar stew and other local delights.
After an uneventful drive back to Florence, we headed to the Ponte Vecchio and did some jewelry shopping and wandered around town, stopping at the Mercato Nuovo to rub the bronze boar’s nose three times to ensure that we would return to Florence. For dinner, we went to a little place called I che ch’i ch’i (or something like that). We had discovered this place in 2000 on our honeymoon and were happy to see that it had hardly changed at all. The food was fantastic and our gregarious host was just as we remembered him, pouring free glasses of limoncello while regaling us with tales of his adventures as a guest chef in America during the off-season. When I failed to complete every single scrap of food on one of my half-dozen delicious courses the waitress gasped in horror and begged “what’s the matter?!? you don’t like it?!?”
Friday March 31
Given that we had spent the better part of four days in Florence, there were still a surprising number of things that I still wanted to do. Priority number one for me was to tour the Palazzo Vecchio, which I had never visited on my prior trips to Florence. The venerable town hall did not disappoint as we explored room after room filled with incredible frescos, and various artifacts of the Medici golden age. After touring the palazzo, we returned to the hotel, checked out, picked up the car and headed south for a long trip to the heel of Italy.
We drove past Rome and then toward Naples on the A1 autostrada. Our car topped out around 150 km/hr, but even at that speed (close to 100 mph) cars zipped passed us as if we were standing still. The scenery was delightful for the entirety of the drive and we were very impressed at how lush Italy was in the spring. Many verdant areas reminded us of Ireland. Also impressive were how many snow capped mountains we spotted, even to the south of Rome. After about five hours or more of driving, we arrived at Giovinazzo on the Adriatic coast. I had picked this little town because it was just above Bari and I did not want to drive the car into Bari after a long trip. The hotel billed itself as a seaside resort but I am not sure who would want to stay in this area as the seaside was just rock. We are not talking pebbles like Positano or other Italian “beaches” – this was just a slab of bare rock going into the sea. The town did not seem to have much to offer so, after a brief rest at the hotel, we decided to drive on to Bari for dinner. This was a mistake as the city was very crowded for some kind of festival and the driving was impossible. We could not figure out where to park and I realized that I really was exhausted from the drive earlier so we abandoned Bari and headed back to our hotel. We had dinner at the somewhat off hotel restaurant, where the overly formal waiter insisted on pushing a little cart around to transport all items, including things that could easily have been carried by hands. The food was a bit odd as well, but I somewhat enjoyed my selections form the “promotion of the onion” menu.
Saturday April 1
The Bari area probably had a lot to offer but we were too tired to check it out the previous day and now it was time to leave what was unquestionably our least favorite hotel of the trip and continue south to the town of Lecce. Lecce is a town which had a burst of prosperity in the baroque period and therefore has a large number of honey-colored baroque churches and other public buildings. This town is a real gem and is definitely a bit off the regular tourist path – about the only significant that I have been to in Italy where English was rarely hear and often not understood at all. We stayed at the Patria Palace hotel, which appears to be the premiere hotel in town. Our room was not particularly large but it was well-appointed and, oddly nough, it had two full bathrooms. My favorite thing about our hotel room was the mini balcony which was right on top of the hotel’s main entrance, which was festooned with flags. I felt like a head of state addressing the assembled multitudes when I would look at at the street from above the flags.
Even for experienced drivers in Italy, Lecce was quite a challenge to navigate and we were very happy to leave our car behind for the rest of the day. We walked around town, checking our the remains of the Roman ampitheater in the main square and the many almost identical (to the untrained eye, such as mine) baroque churches. We walked the length of the main pedestrian street, which had surprisingly few places to eat outside on such a beautiful and warm day. We eventually gave up on dining al fresco and had lunch at “La Vecchia Osteria” a great little place on the West side of town at Via Dasumno 3. I had a delicious mixed grilled seafood plate which included a tasty octopus with rather thick tentacles. We also split some very good orichette with broccoli rabe, a real local specialty. In the evening, Lecce really come alive, with most active evening stroll route I have ever seen in Italy. We joined the strollers for awhile, checking out the newer part of town outside the walls, had some very good gelato and later ate some so-so calzones for dinner.
Sunday April 2
There was an unexpected amount of activity in Lecce for a Sunday morning. A footrace drew hundreds, if not thousands of participants and there was also a big flea market in town this morning. I checked out the fortress of Charles V, which is currently being used to display modern video installation art pieces. After making sure the race was over, we picked up our car and tried to head out of town. However, as we always end up doing at least once on our Italy trips, we ended up drive down the middle of the main pedestrian street. No one gets mad at you, they basically ignore you, but no one gets out of your way.
We finally evaded the pedestrians and figured out how to get out of Lecce. In a little over a half hour we were at Gallipoli, on the west coast of the “heel” of Italy, along the shimmering blue Ionian Sea. The historic center of Gallipoli is a little peninsula jutting out into the sea. It was a beautiful clear day with enough of a breeze to propel a small flotilla of sailboats around little islands offshore with spinnakers flying. We had lunch at Il Bastione, a restaurant with tremendous views of the sea. We had a great mixed grilled seafood antipasta, featuring octopus, evidently the culinary star of the area. This area had been controlled by the Byzantine empire until quite late and retained a Greek influence in language and architecture until this century. Many of the whitewashed houses and churches in Gallipoli looked like they could have been in Greece.
We hopped back in the car and drove south for about a half hour until we arrived at Leuca, which is at the very tip of the heel of Italy. We did not actually go into the town, which evidently is not much of a draw, but instead took in the amazing views from the church/lighthouse area that dominates a cliff above the town. Next we took a breathtaking drive up the east coast, along the Adriatic Sea. This area abounds in wild beauty and definitely compares to the Amalfi coast, but with much less development. We stopped briefly at Otranto, another little gem of a historic town, which is dominated by a huge castle above its glimmering clear blue harbor. If I ever have the opportunity to return to this area, I definitely would like to spend more time in Otranto. On the drive back to Lecce we were deep in olive grove county, passing mile after mile of scenic olive groves. Mixed in with the olive grove are countless little buildings which we referred to as “stone igloos.” Some appeared to still be in use while most appeared to be ruined. I do not know how old these actually are, but they appear to be ancient.
Upon our return to Lecce we went back to the room for a nap. We woke up to the sound of beautiful choral music coming from the main square. We headed out to see if it was a concert and it turned out to be a political rally. It appeared to be a rally for the socialist party and it was quite festive, taking over the entire main square. We enjoyed the rally for a bit and then walked around town for awhile before settling on a little osteria “I Latini” for dinner at Via Palmeri 46. We ordered some tasty pasta and split a grilled meat platter “for two.” I think six linebackers would have had trouble polishing this one off – we barely got through a quarter of the array of tasty meats.
Monday April 4
This last full day of the trip involved a long drive from Lecce to Paestum. We drove from Lecce to Salerno on the autostrada at the normal terrifying speed of 150 km/hr. I thought Paestum was not far below Salerno, but it turned out to be local raods lined with the least attractive array of buildings that I have seen in Europe. Paestum was oddly spread out in an unusal way for Italy, but was nonetheless difficult to navigate. When we arrived at the Best Western we had a bit of a shock as it was closed due to construction. Fortunately, the hotel next door, the Savoy, was somehow affiliate with the Best Western and honored our reservation. This was quite a stroke of luck as the Best Western was pretty sad in comparison to the hotel where we ended up staying for the same price.
It was getting late in the afternoon, so we rushed over to the center of Paestum to see the archeological site. The three main Greek temples were as incredible as I had read about. What I did not expect was to find such extensive and well preserved Roman ruins. As always with these ruins, I am one the lookout for lizards, and Paestum did not disappoint. A wide variety of lizards were sitting on the ruins, baking in the sun, or skittering about in the bushes. Another interesting wildlife spotting was a farm next to the ruins which appeared to have buffalo. Buffalo mozzarella? After visiting the ruins and doing some shopping, we headed back to the hotel. We walked about 100 yards through a pine forest until we came to the beach. This was the best real sand beach that I have seen in Italy. It is odd that this place is not more developed for tourists. The restaurant near the ruins that interested us was not open for dinner and nothing else appeared enticing, so we just had dinner at the hotel restaurant, which actually turned out to be qite good. There was quite a little tableside ceremony of excavating our fish from the thick crust of sal tin which it had been baked. We had some excellent Lacrae de Christi (Tears of Christ) wine from the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius.
The next morning we cjecked out and drove about four hours north to the Rome airport and departed without any unexpected incident. It was a wonderful trip!
Apr 12th, 2006, 07:40 PM
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Oh Biz, your trip sounds beautiful. I have been to many but not all of the places you visited (have never been south of Bari) and so enjoyed your descriptions. Love your sense of humor also!! BTW, my husband decided washing socks etc. in the bathroom sink was easier than trying to figure out the laundromats too!
I amagine you were tired after driving from Florence to north of Bari. That is a long drive. We have done the drive from Naples and that is long enough for me!!
BTW, did you notice if the Excelsior in Florence has their roof garden dining room open? It has been closed for awhile and I am curious if they reopened it or if they ever will.
Thanks for sharing your charming trip. Wishing you many more journey's throughout Italy.
I amagine you were tired after driving from Florence to north of Bari. That is a long drive. We have done the drive from Naples and that is long enough for me!!
BTW, did you notice if the Excelsior in Florence has their roof garden dining room open? It has been closed for awhile and I am curious if they reopened it or if they ever will.
Thanks for sharing your charming trip. Wishing you many more journey's throughout Italy.
Apr 13th, 2006, 07:11 PM
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Thanks for all of the kind responses. I am trying to get some pictures posted but we are experiencing technical difficulties at the moment. As for the Excelsior restaurant, we noticed many promotions for the restaurant at the affiliated Grand Hotel across the street but do not recall any for the restaurant that you mention.
Apr 14th, 2006, 06:59 AM
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Biz: What a wondderful report..filled with just the right amount of detail and a great sense of humor. Thanks for taking the time to write it up; I especially enjoyed reading about Lecce and surroundings. Could those stone igloos have been the "trulli?" It is true that there are water buffalo farms close to Paestum, so those are the animals you must have seen.....that beach sounds very tempting. You must be a lot of fun to have as a travel companion!
Apr 14th, 2006, 09:50 AM
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Biz -
Thanks for a great trip report! We also had Sylvia as our tour guide from "Walking Tours of Florence". She is great and the tour lots of fun. What a wonderful trip. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for a great trip report! We also had Sylvia as our tour guide from "Walking Tours of Florence". She is great and the tour lots of fun. What a wonderful trip. Thanks for sharing!
Jun 26th, 2006, 10:59 AM
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Biz-this is a nice report. I note the number of times you ate "cinghiale" (boar) in Florence-and the fact that you had to rub the nose of "il Porcellino" at the Mercato Nuovo. As we know, il Porcellino is not a pig, but a bronze statute of a wild boar-no trip to Florence is complete without coming to the il Porcellino fountain to rub his shiny nose. After reading your report, I think you'd make an excellent Florentine, and I'm surprised you didn't try any of the "tripe" carts set up around the piazza of Florence-tripe sandwiches, in addition to wild boar, are very popular here!
As for me, give me la cucina Veneziana-I LOVE octopus and insalata di mare-could eat it everyday-grilled octopus particularly, in addition to the grilled sardines and anchovies. Hopefully, in a couple of months, I'll be back to eating it every day!
As for me, give me la cucina Veneziana-I LOVE octopus and insalata di mare-could eat it everyday-grilled octopus particularly, in addition to the grilled sardines and anchovies. Hopefully, in a couple of months, I'll be back to eating it every day!
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