Springtime in Italy. Archives

When push came to shove . . . .
we came to Torgiano

TORGIANO, Umbria–I think the fact that we came here to Torgiano to celebrate our anniversary was very telling. A year ago it was Torgiwhat? We’d certainly never been in the village. (It is a bit left of Perugia and above Deruta) Oh, we’d heard “i voci” whispering about the wine museum, but I’m such a barbarian, I just couldn’t imagine such a thing. Turns out, I’ve only got two speeds on my wine analysis dial 1) hey, not bad. keep pouring and 2) Gack. no, no, choke, i’m fine, thanks.

But our co-anniversary celebrants kept after us. And we thought, you know, they are such inveterate, non-stop, explorers – lets get over ourselves and go see the darn Wine Museum with them. Well. We spent over an hour at MUVIT last year one rainy spring day and hardly made a dent in the place. Loved every minute of it. They have every thing from the ancient, ancient, bet-you’ve-never-seen-one-of-these to knock-your-socks-off modern art.

Thanks to their sugardaddy and founder Lungarotti Vineyards, everything is top drawer, world-class. Exceptionally well done and high art standard across the board.

This year, on a rainy spring day we went to its companion museum MOO. Yes, as fluent as the site and guides are in English, they all seem oblivious to the fact that we think “MOO” is cow noise, but they think it is Museo Olio Olive . It was smaller than the wine museum but no less interesting. Both are worth the trip and both can be seen on the same ticket for the price of seeing either one. On the day we were there they were throwing in tickets to the wine tasting at the winery as well. Win-win.

The previous year, post tour, we asked a guide where to eat. Specifically where CLOSE as it was raining buckets and some other museum-goers had “accidentally” walked off with my wife’s black and white polka dotted umbrella. The guide half leaned out the door and pointed to the corner of the street. And said “Giri, a destra all’angola, immediamente a sinistra, c’e Ristorante Siro.” This is where I would usually put a link to a deserving hotel/restaurant’s site. They evidently don’t have one. You can Google them, people like them and review them, but I couldn’t find a site per se. Regardless, we went and we were glad we did. And not just because we had shelter from the storm although that was in its favor. I would rank the food as wonderful, good vistas and personable staff who were the only people we ever heard speaking English. So there.

Exactly how much did it ring our bell? When we had to cut our trip back from three weeks to one, we could see it would cost us jaunts to the dream duo Trieste and Lake Como. We thought what can we do to make this right? To come up with a worthy last-minute fill in that wouldn’t chew up all our precious time by riding about in a rental car? We voted and revisiting Torgiano/Siros won. We felt like we did too. It was an unforgettable string of laughing in the rain, Dear Diary moments.

Thanks Torgiano,

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

You can’t have one, you can’t have one, without the . . . other.

MAY IN UMBRIA, Panicale–Our favorite month in Italy is probably always going to be May. Why? Short answer is Roses. The longer answer is everything is so green, so full of hope, promise of sultry summer days and swallows and sunsets.
But every now and then in May, you may want to know where your coat and hat are. And absolutely your umbrella and even gloves might feel good. Every moment of running back from Aldo’s with a coat over your head hiding from a sudden downpour is worth it, if for no other reason than for the roses. Whatever it takes to keep our new roses happy. One small bush, when seen from a walk by in the garden, seems a poor, underwhelming plant with no flowers to its credit at all. But, not so fast. Let us not judge this book by its cover . . . turn the page, move in closer and what the heck, it is over-producing. Its flowers are so dense and heavy that they point down like divining rods. Once we saw that, we just cut and then cut them some more. Roses for everyone. Roses on the house! Vases in every room.

TALK ABOUT CHANGEABLE.

Bruna, (on left, below) of Ristorante Masolino fame, has been the ranking chef, with the most seniority and history in Umbria for years. She lives a few steps from us one way, and her restaurant is a few steps on the other side of us. So, we see her coming up or down the street in front of us regular as the tide on Casco Bay. You can see she’s wearing an umbrella and a parka. And trust me, she needed both. For that moment at least. Look past her on the right of the photo. That is the top of our garden wall. In the other companion picture, at another moment, is Midge at the bottom of that wall, basking in the sun albeit in one of my sweaters. We’d be in the house and all of a sudden we’d see the sun was out and in a flash we’d be in lawn chairs and feel like we were in a solar cooker. At that point “someone” would “be up anyway” (gardening) and get sent in the house to fetch sunglasses. And before they could get back, the world would turn black. The theater would go dark. Summer would become winter.

Ma, va le la pena and worth the trouble too. In fits and starts, a chapter here, a page there, books were read, big thoughts mused, weeds met their final match. Glasses and spirits were lifted. And we put it to a vote, and we decided all was very right with the world.

Salute,

Stew Vreeland

Can I get a witness?

PANICALE, Umbria–This time our excuse was . . . our anniversary trip. We think it was well deserved. 40 years for us and 40 for our best man, Harry and his wife, Alison. I was his best man and he was mine. I think Sandro said the simple way to relay that complicated relationship status was “eravamo testimone reciprocamente”. Tricky business, since Best Man implies a certain maleness I’d much prefer testimone ended in a clear-cut masculine “o” but no. Its that neutral “e” thing. Which is fine because technically it just means Witness.

We all enjoy Italy and so here we were, celebrating up a storm at GMB pastries outside of Castiglione del Lago. Here’s to many more! Salute! You can tell by the scarves and coats it was shoulder season.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Picture Italy on instagram.

roses just before a shower, running to the car in the parking lot at the foot of the escalator in Cortona.

CORTONA & rosescortona350, cortona, italy EVERYWHERE, ITALY– You say you want more pictures of Italy? See our latest instagram shots That gallery is growing.

Instagram is too fun. Latest app for our brava iPhone, seems wicked user-friendly. I mean, if Stew can do. So can you.

Just add wi-fi, it’s a snap. Click the picture, adjust it, caption, send. Ta da!

This picture was taken just before a shower, running to the car in the parking lot at the foot of the escalator in Cortona. OH, you don’t know about the escalator parking trick there? Makes Cortona even more of a dream.

See you (on instagram) in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

TO THE FOUR CORNERS OF ITALY. AND BACK.

look-both-ways, trieste, bevagna, italy TRIESTE, ITALY –The lost province of Istria fading out of sight in our rearview mirror, we were headed through Friuli-Venezia (FriuLIVEnezia as the posters remind you) then the Venato. Then another hyphenated province, Emelia-Roman this time, then Tuscany, and finally “nostra” Umbria. It was five or six provinces in seven plus hours but leisurely, sunny, well-caffinated “don’t-miss-any-AutoGrills-at-all” kind of hours.

Barely paying attention, we were watching the lush landscapes roll by, and thinking The Big Thoughts. The ones we all think in quiet moments of a long trip when our minds on autopilot. When SUDDENLY like a EURIKA moment, it dawned on me: We’ve been everywhere, man, we’ve been everywhere. Over the years we have managed to see Italy from Reggio di Calabria and Siracusa in Sicily in the South – to Chivasso in the North (just below Lugano in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland). And from Genova and Torino in the West to Trieste in the East.

I think we can safely say we’ve pretty much done Italy top to bottom. And now add, the left to the far, far, almost in Slovenia, right.
coffeeandwine, Tavernelle, Bevagan, italy
BUT, WAIT. THERE’S MORE.

That revelation came to us the first week of our trip. But, oh so obviously, in between those four corners there’s things we will admit we’ve missed. For Example: just the other day, we went to a mid-morning! wine tasting at San Clemente Vineyards outside Montefalco. Hey, it is Eleven AM, somewhere. But, such are the rigors of traveling with our wine-importing friend Paul Turina of Turina Italian Wines. Back on the road, it dawned on us that we could take our friend Andrea’s (of Masolino’s in Panicale) advice and See Bevagna.

Bevagna is half an hour from Panicale. But, yet. We’ve never been there? How can that be? Walking through its gates we knew were someplace quite different. Different look and personality from any Umbrian town I’ve seen to date. Small, walled, lower buildings, on a plain rather than a hilltop as are many walled towns. Medieval overtones everywhere. Including one 14th century fountain that actually mirrors the one in Panicale. Just as Andrea had promised.

It was a dark and stormy day as they say in Peanuts. The word “cold” could be thrown in for good measure. But it was still a lark to shop about, have a nice lunch, see their museum (lots of Roman artifacts) go to their theater and then for the finale see the town’s pride: a huge black and white aquatic themed mosaic floor of a Roman Bath. This big floor was only a third of the whole bath system, the cold room. It was saved because someone built a house over this part at some point in Post Roman history. It was just re-discovered about 1900. Honey, look! I pulled up the carpet and there’s another darn Roman mosaic in this room too. Che sorpressa!
bevagna, italy, ape, geraniums, theater, tower And then, we met a charming British artist having a show of his ink drawings in a renovated church/gallery. And then, when asked, he pointed us down a nearby alley to his favorite restaurant. Which proves that when you are out and about, the best plan can be – no plan at all. Sometimes translated as Stay Loose. Which we did!

We certainly had no idea at our coffee that morning in Tavernelle that we’d be enjoying Bevagna for lunch. And just as our original destination of Montefalco had passed us to Bevagna, Bevagna was passing us on to Bettona. We were headed away from Bevagna on a back road outside of Torgiano, when we looked up and saw a towered village on a hill high above us and Bettona signs pointing right at it. That’s even closer to our home. How did that get there? Really no idea. But we’re saving Torgiano and maybe even Bettona for another day. Maybe we’ll discover them with our next round of company. Stay tuned.

Are we having fun yet? Yes, yes we are. I think we can safely put this whole day in the Win Column.

See you in Italy!

Stew Vreeland