Tusacany to Umbria to Naples

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Does it rain in paradise? Of course! Grapes and olives need water to grow. We awoke to fog and rain our first morning outside Siena in a refurbished bishop’s palace next to a monastery. Undaunted by the weather, we set out in our little car on SS222, the Chianti Trail. Sloping fields of vines in many straight lines; yellow-brown, very rocky soil; gnarled oaks, wrapped with green ivy, still clinging onto last year’s shiny brown leaves; regiments of cypress trees standing tall and proud.
The road twisted through the hills past farms, fields and forest. We arrived in Castellani in Chianti, a little, walled hill-town that had been a Sienese outpost against the Florentines. What better activity at 10:00am on a rainy day is there but to go wine tasting. Eschewing the spittoon, I gulped down every drop while Darla took her ladylike sips. Seems 2004 and 2001 were great years but at 20 euros a bottle we decided it was beyond our budget. A 2006 at a modest nine euros found its way into our possession. You could have your Chianti straight-up or with 10 percent merlot. It was clear from the tasting that the merlot rounded and softened the Chianti and was more to our liking. The winery was a bright modern building on the main road with thousands of bottles to drool over.
We took the road to Radda in Chianti, twisting for eleven km through the fog and oaks. Gloom but not gloomy after the wine tasting. Radda is a pretty little town with more walls and narrow streets. There was a masonry supply yard right on the main street which diverted my attention for a bit photographing all the mysterious hollow, channelled clay blocks. Then it was time for a hot lunch at a little trattoria. We ordered some bruschetta with fresh arugula and a fluffy spinach lasagne. An Australian couple next to us ordered a pizza that arrived the size of a truck tire. That got us all talking and we discovered they had just arrived from Australia that morning and they referred us to their rented house for our return visit in April.
We drove the back roads to the top of a mountain and down the other side. Chianti is more rugged than we had supposed. Back in our hotel, we opened the wine and relaxed from our arduous day.
Supper down the road was at Osteria NonnAnna. Nonna means grandmother and she was there with every light on to greet us and make suggestions as the menu was completely in Italian - which is what we like. It was a small place full of Italian couples and families. We started with the usual aqua minerale and vino rosso. For an on-the-house starter she brought four bread slices: two spread with chicken liver pate and the other two spread with what I understand to be onion marmalade made from caramelized onions and balsamic vinegar...delicious! She then suggested the Tris Primi and the Tris Secondi which was portions of her three best dishes on one plate for both primi and secondi. Well, it was Italian Cooking 101. The three pastas were pici, a local shape with pesto, spinach and ricotta lasagne with a to-die-for mushroom and truffle sauce. The third pasta was wide noodles with your grandmother’s meat sauce.
The secondi plate had some tender braised beef, a medaillon of veal with more of the mushroom/truffle sauce and the local favourite, trippa, which we had done our best to avoid but here it was, tender and swimming in a tomato sauce: tripe. It was much better than the poor justice done to it by our squeamish imaginations. Would we order it again? Probably not...but at least I was glad we had tried it. Around Florence we saw many little street stands selling trippa and they were always crowded.
More rain and fog the next day. We went back to Radda in Chianti to check out a future lodging. We met some great people and saw a remote, wild side of Tuscany and Chianti that has captured our imagination. Then on to San Gimignano and its unique towers of stone...the Manhattan of the Middle Ages. We had heard that Siena, once a great rival of Florence, was a special place but we did not have a visit there worked into our plan. All of a sudden we decided it was the place to be on a rainy day.
The old city of Siena is the equal of any great European city. The campo, the open, cobbled main square is huge and dominated by a brick tower which is Italy’s tallest secular structure. As a mason, I can tell you it is one big pile of bricks heading skyward. I’d hate to be the tender on this project - the one who ensures the bricklayers always have bricks and mortar - as it is some 330 ft tall. We found our way there through narrow streets. Chatting up some American students in a bar on the campo over vino rosso, we got some suggestions for a good restaurant deep in the warren of streets...Nonno Gina. Miraculously, we found our way there and it was worth it. We had very big gnocchi with a meat sauce, veal slices with an amazing sauce (hints of truffles) and a huge plate of spinach to ward off any lurking possibility of scurvy. The high point of the evening, just before we asked for the bill, was an old man, the owner, shuffling out of the back room with full bottles of grappa and amaretto and plunks them down on the table. History will note Darla’s new affinity for amaretto began here. Much later, ambushed by amaretto, we wandered out to find our way through the streets to the car. On the way we happened upon the Duomo...every city has one...the main church...Siena’s was over the top: built of white marble with every fourth or fifth course of green marble. At this moment, in the the empty square in front of the Duomo we knew we had to come back...that Siena’s charms had not barely been acknowledged.
However, the next day we were off go Perugia in Umbria. More fog and rain, we stopped for a coffee at beautiful Lake Trasimeno and it was there that our very cheap umbrellas gave out in the gales. The umbrellas were dear to us having been purchased from Bangladeshi hustlers in Rome after a lot of serious bartering. The Bangaladeshis were almost in tears after Darla was finished with them and they would have been even sadder to see how badly their umbrellas performed in the winds of Lake Trasimeno.
Perugia was, for us, a bit of a nightmare as 1) we stayed at an unmentionable mid-rise hotel in what felt like an industrial park simply because it had free wireless internet and 2) the temperature descended to some 3C. All our plans to tour the countryside; see Assisi; sample the local fare, etc, were abandoned as, the next day, we jumped in the car and drove to Naples some 300km south hoping for some sun and some warmth. We had planned to cross the Apennines and drive down Italy’s east coast but heavy overnight snow in the mountain passes between us and the Adriatic coast forced us to drive down west of the snow-laden mountains, by-pass Rome (it’s true, all roads do lead to Rome) and take to toll highway to Naples.
We had made some promises to ourselves before we left Canada. Promise #1: do not drive in Naples; promise #2: do not walk at night on the streets of Naples. Six hours after our arrival we had broken both promises. Arriving in Naples at the height of Friday afternoon traffic was something we will never forget...we were both reminded of New Delhi except that in Naples they drive on the right...sometimes! We took the subway downtown from our hotel to a suggested area. A long set of stairs down to narrow cobbled streets and an intoxicating smell of good food being cooked lured us from our path.
We stepped into Pizzeria Manfredi and were met by a handsome waiter who spoke excellent English. Around his neck was a silver chain attached to a sort of bowl some three inches in diameter - a sommelier’s wine tasting device we found out. With his help we ordered our food and a ‘local’ wine. He brought the bottle, pulled the cork and literally drank in the smell of the cork. Discarding the cork, he then poured a few drops into the appurtenance hanging from the chain about his neck and tasted the wine himself. We could barely contain ourselves as he pronounced the wine fit for us to drink...a bottle that cost 8 euros in a restaurant. We loved the wine - a narrow, full-bodied but delicate red - and the intensity of the service. With the help of the waiter, Francis, we ordered risotto al funghi - risotto with mushrooms - for primi and deep fried fish as secondi. While the food and wine was great, I was seated with a full view of the kitchen. Remember the name of this restaurant - it has the word ‘pizza’ in it. Also remember that pizza was invented in Naples...they take it very seriously. All the while we are ordering food and drinking wine there is this subplot of people walking in the door, placing their order, walking down past us into the kitchen and, like me, watching their pizza being made. Dough lands on a marble table, a few flops into the flour and pressed with fingers, a few more flops and than flap, flap, flap the dough is fanned between the hands and in about 10 seconds a ball of dough is a perfect round pizza ready for dressing. A spouted vessel allows a couple of circumferences of olive oil to pour on the dough, then a couple of large spoonfuls of tomato sauce is dumped on and massaged in with a spoon. A couple of basil leaves go into the centre for decoration and chunks (not grated) of cheese are dumped on. That is the basic, time-honoured pizza here. There were lots of variations with aubergine, red peppers, olives, caramelized onions, etc. Calzones were numerous and, an altogether new one for me, was the piping bag full of ricotta squeezed around the perimeter of the dough which is then folded inward enclosing the ricotta. Then you dress your pizza with whatever. I asked our waiter about this and he said it was to make the crust more interesting. Certainly, I am keen to go home to play with dough and try some new things with our bakeoven.
We had such a great time we made reservations for the next night (why mess with success) which was Saturday. I got permission from Francis to bring my camera “to take some photographs” I said, omitting the video function of my camera.
During the day on Saturday, we walked up through one of the very seedy parts of Naples to the Musee Nazionale which contained all the best stuff from the rueins of Pompei - amazing statues, mosaics, etc. Then, in the warmth of a sun that had abandoned us for many days, we wandered around the waterfront taking in the view of the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius on our left, the peninsula of Massa Lubrense - our destination the next day - and the Island of Capri. Towering mountains plunging to a blue sea everywhere. I have been disabused of my two dimensional attitude toward Italy...there is very little flat as the Italy we have seen is mostly mountainous.
The atmosphere on the streets of Napoli on Saturday night was electric. Handsome young men driving motorcycles with long-haired lovelies wrapped around their backs. Pizza Manfredi was a madhouse when we arrived with the phone ringing, a half-dozen people waiting for pizza and the moto delivery driver sprinting out the door in a waft of steam and hot pizza. Francis, the waiter, allowed me to taste the wine and then there was a quiz as to its qualities...I passed the test. We started with a primi of pasta with calamari and embarrassingly small clams in their shells. For secondi we chose one of the two fish Francis brought out of the kitchen to show us - one in each hand. I hope the fish, as they swim in the sea, know just how expensive they are. It might make their life more pleasant. The fish arrived and Francis performed the operation of removing head, tail, skin and bones with precision and flair. We had roast potatoes and, onions and zucchinis in a little wine sauce over top of the fish. We never have dessert but tonight we succumbed to a creamy lemon pastry and a couple of glasses of limoncello.
I had brought my camera and was able to get a couple of great videos of the making and cooking pizza in the kitchen. The chefs were honoured to be honoured.
After supper we walked the streets alive with young people gathering to begin their evening in one of the many clubs, bars and restaurants in this quarter of town. We even passed the restaurant where, supposedly, pizza was invented. Full of tourists, it was too-brightly lit and we were determined that Pizza Manfredi was a superior experience.
Sunday dawned one of the rare, cloudless days we had been longing for. We checked out of our hotel and embarked on what we thought would be the hour-long trip - 60 km - to the south side of Massa Lubrense next to the Amalfi coast. First, the GPS decide to take us bumping along through thick traffic on an endless cobbled road next to the shore when we knew there was a perfectly good highway not to far away. Finding the highway, we turned off toward Sorrento and found ourselves in a procession of cars crawling along the only road...if life serves you lemons...I was able to jump out, walk along beside the car and take endless photos wherever we happened to be on the Bay of Naples - which has to be one of the most photogenic spots I have ever been. About an hour later the traffic thinned as we crept through a small town. Darla ran into a bar a picked up a couple of cheesy potato croquettes and two cold beers and we carried on winding our way to Sorrento and beyond. Not far off the mainland, the island of Capri loomed larger and larger. It beckoned to us, a haze of blue, towering rocks across the shimmering sea. Now there were no cars on the road and we were zooming up the mountain, endless switchbacks, and then Capri was gone and we could see the Amalfi coast and the coast of Campania stretching to the horizon before us in a blue world of sea, sky, and mountains. We found our pleasant apartment in the village of Nerano and settled in for five days of rural life.

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Photos

Pompei Artifact 3
Mosaic detail