Tag: italy

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The Road to Riparbella

Although we enjoy the quark, potatoes, bread, and tomatoes so readily available during meals on the farm, Gabe and I decide we should consider venturing to the nearby town of Riparbella to supplement our diet with some more fruit and vegetables. We hear that we can make it to town via bicycle, so we naturally borrow bikes from the farm and start naively on our way. We wait until about 5pm to try to avoid the heat of the day, but unfortunately, we aren’t entirely successful. After crossing several undulating hills, we hit the main road and optimistically look up the hill and think that we’re almost there. We start climbing the hill, and as we round every corner we prepare ourselves to see this small town. Eventually after about 20 corners and much climbing, we see a sign welcoming us to Riparbella. Unfortunately, the sign appears to be more of a tease than a welcome because we still only see more climbing leading to another bend in the road. Nonetheless, we rejoice at the sight of the sign, take a short break, and attempt to remove some of the sweat from our faces.

Riparbella sign

While waiting at the Riparbella sign, we watch other professionally dressed bicyclists in much lighter and higher-tech bicycles struggle up this same hill. Although we are not maintaining their pace, we still feel better knowing that we are not the only ones suffering. Eventually, we convince ourselves that this next corner will in fact be the last corner, we mount our bikes, and we continue forward. The next corner was not the last, but after only several more turns, we find the town, and more importantly, we find a small market. First thing, we find water to start re-hydrating ourselves, but as soon as we feel the warm bottle, we are less excited. We grab the water for later, but at the moment, find a refrigerator with cold beers, and we share one of the most refreshing beers I’ve ever tasted. The taste isn’t even mind-blowing, but the circumstances are perfect.

We purchase a backpack full of vegetables, water, juice, and some drinks for later, and we then walk around town with our beer and water. Satisfied with our completed mission, we remount our bicycles and enjoy the downhill ride with wind in our faces. We get back to our room, immediately re-shower, get ready for dinner, and then rehash our adventure to Ursula. She claims that she had warned us about the hill and that no other WWOOF-ers have ever attempted that ride before. Gabe and I look at each other, smile, and change the conversation.

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Scala Quaranta

Scala Quaranta is our card game of choice while on the farm. Taught to us by Gabe, this is an Italian card game that was popular in the 1920’s and is similar to Rummy.

Card playing on the farm

The game is played with two decks of 54 (include the jokers), each player receiving 13 to start the game, and there is one card placed face-up in the discard pile. Starting with the player sitting to the left of the dealer and proceeding clockwise, the player can take one from the pile of remaining cards or may take the top one from the discard pile. If the discard pile card is taken, that card must be played on the same turn. Playing on a turn requires placing cards on the table in sets of at least three that either match in value but not suit or constitute a run in the same suit (like Rummy). The first time cards are played for each participant, the total of the cards must sum to at least 40 points. Numbered cards are all worth their number value, face cards are worth ten, and aces are worth eleven. A joker on the table is worth whatever value it is replacing. Other players can play on cards that have already been placed on the table given that they have opened with their 40 points. In addition, another player can take a joker that has been played by replacing it with its correct card. That joker then must be played on the same turn. The game ends when a player has played all of his cards on the table. If a player is left with only one card in his hand, he must draw from the stack and cannot take the top card from the discard pile. Finally, at the conclusion of the game, the losing players total the points in their hand and record their score. If no cards have been played, that player receives 100 points for the game. If cards have already been played, numbered cards are again worth their number, face cards are worth 10, aces eleven, and jokers are now worth 25 when left over in one’s hand. If a player reaches 101 points, he can buy back into the game and is given the highest score of all remaining players. To win, everyone except for the winner must reach 101 points in the same game.

Katherine, Gabe and I shared many a hour playing this game together.

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The Vineyard Schedule

5:45am – Wake-up

6:00am – Breakfast of muesli, corn flakes, whole milk, tea, coffee, and bananas

6:30am – Work in the vineyard. Everyday, the three of us spend four hours in the vineyard performing two tasks. 1) We wrap vines back along their supporting wires and posts, and 2) we prune around the grapes so that they could receive more sunshine during the day.

Me in the field

Gabe and Katherine in the field

10:30am – We play a couple games of Scala 40, an Italian card game that the three of us begin to really enjoy.

11:00am – Yoga session led by Katherine.

12:00pm – Rotate through the shower and prepare ourselves for lunch. Gabe occasionally misses his shower opportunity because an unmentioned member of Team Degustation takes very long showers.

1:00pm – Lunch. Lunch begins sharply at 1pm and we are not to be late as it is the biggest and most important meal of the day. Meal favorites included quark, potatoes, mad cow butter, pineapple, spinach, eggs, potatoes, and sausages. Conversation is usually lively and topics range from salt fields to dormice.

2:00pm – We wait out the hottest part of the day in our lower level rooms where the temperature is milder. We pass the time with books, cards, and naps.

4:30pm – Excursion time. After becoming a little antsy, the late afternoon typically includes excursions, which can be grueling uphill bicycle rides to the nearby town of Riparbella, a jaunt over to the neighbor’s pool, or just a walk around the nearby area.

7:30pm – Dinner. The time of dinner is more flexible as we were explained it is okay to be 5 minutes late. This is a lighter meal accompanied by wines from the vineyard.

Sunset from Tuscan farm

9:30pm – The day wraps up with a couple card games, maybe a crossword or two, and then setting multiple alarms so that we would be able to start the routine over again in the morning.

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More From Pisa

Despite popular tourist opinion, there is a lot more to see and experience in Pisa beyond its leaning tower. Pisa is a university town through and through. The University of Pisa has about 60,000 students in a city of only 100,000 inhabitants. When we walked through the town at night there were students congregated in several of the plazas, and they were all talking, having fun, and of course eating gelato. In addition, Pisa is home to the Scuola Normale Superiore, a highly selective university that can boast many accomplished alumni. It is the best in all of Italy, and probably one of the best in all of Europe. The college feel so prevalent around the town made us feel very welcome as we walked around with gelato in hand.

Scuola in Pisa

For our short stay in Pisa, the three of us enjoyed our accommodations at Michele Guest House on Via Amerigo Vespucci 103. Michele was very welcoming, full of information, and always high energy. He shared some of his photographs with us, including some hidden photos that he had mounted on tiles and placed throughout the bread and breakfast. Although he was a bit of character, his friendliness and valuable recommendations of where to eat and what to see while in Pisa made this the perfect spot to spend our one night.

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The Leaning Tower

Similar to the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa begs for perspective photos, and this time the temptation was too much to resist. So after a delicious pizza dinner topped off with creamy gelato, the three of us make our way across the entire town (which luckily is very small) to its famous tower. The much anticipated landmark did not disappoint. It is beautifully lit up at night so that it starkly contrasts with the night sky.

Without even realizing what we are doing, the three of us start the typical photo shoot of leaning against the tower, holding up the tower, etc. And as if we needed more encouragement, behind us gathered a small group of tourists who were overly impressed by the outcomes of these photos. Our 24 hours in Pisa starts off very well.

Tower of Pisa 1

Tower of Pisa 2

Tower of Pisa 3

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Italian Home Cooking

One down side of being on the go all the time is that having home-cooked meals become the exception rather than the rule. My time in Rome staying at Gabe’s apartment, however, fit into this exception very nicely. The first night began with a T-bone steak covered in pistaccio brandy cream sauce. The next morning followed up with a both delicious and attractive omelette completed with gianciale (a special kind of bacon). And finally, for the second dinner Gabe whipped up some amatriciana (fancy pasta) and his roommate Nikki made a great polenta pizza with goat cheese and veggies.

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Oasis di Ninfa

After a very efficient sleep between 8am and 12pm, Gabe and I put our faces on just in time to get picked up by his boss for a small going-away party. Gabe doesn’t know what to expect so we dress smartly and are prepared for anything. I meet some of Gabe’s co-workers as we ride in a small Fiat to our lunch destination. The restaurant (which looks familiar because I had seen it next to the definition of whole-in-the-wall in the dictionary) is the perfect introduction to authentic and rich Italian food. After lunch, we drive about an hour and a half outside of Rome. As we pass monuments, buildings, or other seemingly unimportant landmarks, Gabe’s boss points them out and explains their remarkable historical significance. The farther outside of the city we get, the more the landscape gets drier and less exotic. The land almost begins to remind me of the chaparral terrain so readily available in California. Eventually we pull into a driveway. Based on the entrance, I feel it might be a zoo or some other rustic tourist destination. The first sign we see as I approach is one selling different types of ice cream. Gabe and I are still very unsure of what to expect.

Oasis di Ninfa

We walk through the gates, step into Santa Maria Maggiore, the main church of a past village and a building that was probably built in the 10th century. Chaparral turns to oasis almost instantaneously. Flowers and plants from around the world surround ruins of this village that at one time was a passing grounds between Italian cities. The geography produces a microclimate that means all these plants grow, grow quickly, and without much assistance. There are streams running through the grounds that are so clear we stick our heads underneath and take a sip of water. The flowers are vibrant, the ruins are awe-inspiring, and the company is fun and entertaining.

I have forgotten to mention that Gabe’s boss organized this excursion on a day that the Oasis di Ninfa is not open. Therefore, we have the grounds to ourselves. In a garden that the New York Times has named the most beautiful in the world, we spend an entire afternoon drinking its stream water, running through its flowers, and learning about its historical ruins.

Only contributing to the surreal experience of the day, in the evening, many of Gabe’s friends celebrate a birthday as well as his going away, and at the end of the night we end up outside The Sistine Chapel, Petersdom, and Basilica di San Pedro. One great full day in Rome!

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Andiamo a Roma

After a bus ride form the Airport to Piazza Cavour in the center of Rome, I meet up with my good friend Gabe. We were both classmates at university and will be starting school together in just a couple months. But before that, we will be traveling together first bicycling through the Loire, then farming in Northern Italy, and later jumping from Amsterdam to Prague to Budapest, finally ending up touring around Sicilia.

Gabe has been living in Rome for the last year working half the time in an Italian kitchen and the other half of the time organizing elaborate Italian events and holidays. When he picks me up, he is carrying several bottles of wine that a client gifted him as a thank you. He calls up Sam, his good friend in Rome who picks up some delicious steaks and meets us at Gabe’s apartment. Both Sam and Gabe demonstrate their cooking skills as we savor the rich, full-bodied reds that complement the steaks perfectly. Rome starts as food, wine, and friends.

In the spaces between picking up some food, eating and catching up on each other’s lives, Gabe points out some of his neighbors, including the Pope. We walk through the Vatican, which happens to be the view from his apartment window, and I start to soak up the immense amount of history packed into a relatively small space. After dinner, we celebrate one of Gabe’s friend’s birthdays in the middle of the Circus Maximus, where I imagine Ben Hur racing around us. We follow this with a visit to the pub affectionately known as Mafia Bar, a hole in the wall karaoke place full of Italians that stays open well into the morning. We leave to the sun rising in the distance, pop into a bakery for fresh morning pastries, and head to sleep.

Veiw from Gabe's window
View from Gabe's window
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My own “Eat, Pray, Love”, but not really

When I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” a couple months before leaving on this trip, it wasn’t hard for me to find some parallels between her adventures and what mine were hopefully going to become. Some of the more obvious ones include that we both would go to Indonesia and Italy, and I planned to meditate at a monastery. And I do not doubt that by the time I complete my journey, there will probably be other similarities I could draw.

Unfortunately and fortunately, our starting points were a little different. My trip would have probably been a bit different if I had been given a substantial publisher’s advance. I feel that this is almost like cheating because I feel that the budgeting that took place to make my trip a reality began well before I ever started planning and will continue after the trip is past. Budgeting was one of my bigger challenges because with enough money, the possibilities become almost endless. The part where I feel fortunate in our differences is that I am not divorced nor have ever been married, and I am not unhealthily off and on with someone as she describes her David.

Some similarities that I’m hoping for include having the opportunity to gorge on delicious food in Italy. I want to find that pizza that even though it falls apart when barely picked up, it doesn’t matter because it is so delicious when you finally get it to your mouth. I want to eat some meals overflowing with seafood and others that include so much pasta that I don’t even have room for dessert, which when the time comes I’m sure I can find a little left over space. After all, that’s why I’ve been told we have two stomachs—one big one for dinner and another even bigger one for dessert.

When I meditate, I wouldn’t mind experiencing some sort of similar meditative transcendence that Liz does, but I would happy with just being able to sit still for several hours without moving. This alone will be a great feat. And although I plan to go to a monastery where talking is against the rules, I hope to at some point in the trip meet my own Richard from Texas. I want to meet someone who makes me feel despite all that might be going on that everything is going to end up okay, someone who always has something positive to say even if it might feel a little backhanded, and someone who will listen to my stories and offer his two cents. I do need to make sure, though, not to end up with a nickname as bad as “Groceries”.

For the “Love” part of the book, the part that took place in Indonesia, where Liz finds her Brazilian lover, I feel I have to keep my mind open and see what happens. When I was talking to my grandma a couple months ago and we were discussing my plans for this trip, she had two tokens of advice that remain clearly in mind. First is to be safe and second is to find a nice Jewish girl. Both are very grandma-like things to say, and I’m not sure which of the two is more grandma-like. And I know that she will be happy with any girl that I’m happy with because of my many cousins (her grandchildren), several have married other Jews and several have not, and she loves all of her grandchildren-in-laws dearly.

So I guess in terms of this trip being my own version of “Eat, Pray, Love”, only time can tell. And in terms of me endorsing this book, I do admit to enjoying it, but only to the extent that I would visiting similar places and doing similar activities. I feel I may have liked it more knowing that I was about to embark on my own tale, and had the book not included so much about Liz’s inability to move on from her divorce and bouts with depression, I may have really enjoyed this book. I’m probably just jealous that I didn’t get a substantial advance on my own travel journal.