Tag: Flowers

High on Siena

Looking over the menu there in Siena I saw something that stopped me for a moment. Flash back. Ever notice that “l’etto” notation on the menu when you are in Italy? In the price column?

siena from the duomo to the tower in the Campo
SIENA, Tuscany, Italy–Always something new to discover. Even in a place like Siena where we’ve been a hundred times. How do I miss these things that are so in my face when I finally notice them? Point in case, the bird’s-eye view available to you right at the cathedral in Siena. The piazza-size, open-air section of the cathedral? What was their lame excuse for leaving this unfinished for the last 800 years? Something about the Black Plague? Walls are there, but they forgot the roof. Coming from il Campo (home of the famous Palio, that wild annual barebacked horse race) you walk right through this part to get to the Duomo. This time, Midge noticed a perfectly obvious door over to the side, posters and signs all around it. Step inside and there is a museum of marble sculptures taken from the exterior of the church and then, for another fee you can take stairs up and up and up until you are almost looking down on the bell tower in the center of il Campo. I never knew this kind of panorama was available without being up in a plane. Look up, Stew!
still high in siena, getting there is half the fun
Back on the ground, we hung out, we shopped, we soaked up the spring sun and people-watched all the other Happy Campers in the Campo. And then ducked into a trattoria for some lunchtime treats.

Which reminds me . . .

TO EAT vs ETTO

Looking over the menu there in Siena I saw something that stopped me for a moment. Flash back. Ever notice that “l’etto” notation on the menu when you are in Italy? In the price column? Or subtly just before the price? I skim menus like I skim most things, but should I? Signs point to “no”. Is it obvious what “l’etto” means to everyone else? Well, it wasn’t to me the first time I saw it many years ago. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was in Florence and having a fine weekend on no money per day, I was in the Navy at that time and no money a day was exactly what they paid me. So I was going thru the menu looking for the dead cheapest thing and there was Bistecca Fiorentina. Waaay cheaper than anything else on there. Why not try that? I only spoke a couple words of Italian at the time and bistecca fiorentina was not one of them.
eating with l'etto on the menu
Yes, even I could figure out the “bistecca/beef steak” part of that. But “fiorentina?” that could mean ground chuck for all I knew at the time. As it turned out my “florentine steak” was a massive steak that tasted great and had to be the deal of the century. Until the bill came. And it was ten or fifteen times what I expected. What the heck?! Slowly, ever so slowly, that little, back-of-the-frig sized light bulb came on in the back of my head and I mouthed the words “Ohhh, I get it”. L’etto must mean so much an ounce or a tiny metric version of same. What is wrong with grams. Not metric enough? Sigh. So, fellow travelers, learn from my mistake and know that the smallest number on your menu’s price list doesn’t always equate to the smallest number on your bill.

ROSES IN OUR ROOM

One of the reasons we were spending the day in Siena was because Midge is on the board of the nearby Spannocchia foundation (that is the grand agricultural estate and) and their three day meeting was starting at nine the next morning. And going straight through till evening with breaks for lunch and hikes. There was even a pre-breakfast hike penciled in for the die-hards but she passed on that, wise girl. With a Sunday schedule this full, we decided I should drop her off Saturday evening and see if I could wrangle spending the night in one of Spannocchia’s many lovely accommodations. What a welcome. The white, “Lady Banks” climbing roses covering the villa had even started to spill into our room. I don’t know about you but I wish I could figure out how Italians in this area get away without having screens. It just puts you so in the moment inside or out, not having every view strained through a wire mesh. Be that as it may, the villa is so elegant anyway and then when you frame the window with white flowers, it made us feel like we were spending the night in a Renaissance Painting.
italian roses covering a tuscan villa outside siena
And, it just got better. After a stellar dinner with Randall and Francesca and the other guests, we’d said our goodnights, and sogni d’oro’s and gone back to our room. At some point, the room seemed hot and I got up to open the solid wooden shutters. And the moon just bowled us over as if someone had thrown a switch on a spotlight right outside our rose-covered window. We could see details of the landscape, out to infinity. Miles of moonlit vistas. It seemed like a black and white photo of what we had seen during the day. Truly tried and truly failed to get those late night photos. We could see so well but the poor little camera could not. Probably operator trouble. Next time!

Much more to come. Stay tuned to this channel, where it is all Italy all the time.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Springing around and around. In Italy

Has it really been several months since we’ve been to our Italian home away from home? I know, I’d like to think this video we live in here goes on “pause” while we are gone. One look at our garden shows that is not true. there will be some (note plural) wild weddings, air shows, festivals with kites as big as locomotives, ostrich shopping, flag throwing in medieval costumes, and we’ll be spending the day at a spa.

Hear that whirring sound? That is my mental hard drive spinning about trying to land on one memory at a time. Hard to extract a single one from the swirling, swirling masses of them running through my mind. Work? Can’t you see I’m daydreaming over here? We’re back and ready to start downloading Italian stories and pictures. On the one hand, it is touchingly sad because, well, we’re not still on the continent, partying like it was 1986 every day. On the other hand, going through our notes and pictures brings all of Italy roaring back.

But, where to start, where to start? The beginning? That has so been done. Buckle up buckaroos, we’re going to do the ricochet ride through central Italy. Where we stop nobody knows. But, along the way there will be some (note plural) wild weddings, air shows, festivals with kites as big as locomotives, ostrich shopping, flag throwing in medieval costumes, and we’ll be spending the day at a spa. And even going to an outlet village, Italian style.
gardening in italy, umbria edition spring 2008
GETTING OUR FEET WET IN ITALY

PANICALE, Umbria, Italy–Have we even been gone? Has it really been several months since we’ve been to our Italian home away from home? I know, I’d like to think this video we live in here goes on “pause” while we are gone. One look at our garden shows that is not true. I’d like to sit around trick myself into thinking I haven’t missed a beat but what I really think I’ll do is just not waste a moment of it. We got here yesterday and within an hour of touchdown I’d been given my Italian summer clip at the boys’ barber, Biano. This morning Midge is off like a shot to cue up at the girls’ barbershop, Mara’s. She’s the hairdresser in the piazza. Boy, I’m glad I don’t have to rush around like that. Got mine. Now, I can just sit back and no, not sit back but GARDEN. But first, like Nero, i need to fiddle a bit.

So, I fiddled, I strolled, I poked my nose in places and sang out hi’s to anyone who would make eye contact with me. A coffee here, a coffee there, hi fiddle dee dee, a tourist’s life for me. Yes, that is me humming as I buzz around town. An hour later I poked my head into Mara’s to check on Midge and found her sitting on the low plastic couch surrounded by 50 back issues of Italian Vogue and hairdresser trade mags. She was still in line. Maybe second in line. But, decidedly starved.
the view from bar gallo, panicale in umbria, italy
You know how she is when she’s hungry. So I thought “Make yourself useful, Stew” and backed out over Alice The Dog (who names their dog “anchovy”? oh, well, not my dog) And then I ambled across the piazza to Aldo’s and asked if I could take two cappucchinos and oh, two of those cornettis to Mara’s. I was thinking I’d just run those over. And, moments later, there I am along side ever dapper, and surprisingly fast Aldo with a tray on his shoulder, as we make a formal “Permesso” entry to “oohs” and “aahs” and what a grand fellow I was and how very lucky Midge was to get such service. Yes, yes. All true.

Before I could get the cornetto crumbs off me and or get a swell head, Midge was broadly hinting that I should finish that coffee and do something about the laundry. I knew that one. What I don’t know is how we just get off the plane and need to do laundry. Be that as it may, laundry in Italy is a new and different beast than the one lurking in your basement back in Connecticut.

GETTING OUR CLOTHES WET UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN. OK, UMBRIAN.

We like to plan our whole day around coffee and gardening. But sometimes it ends up being planned around coffee/gardening/laundry. Several reasons why, but the first is that our washing machine is in our cantina which is right next to our garden. And “As long as you are down there” is pretty high on the list as well. Another factor is the two hours the machine takes to do even the smallest load. And, is it just me or does our machine always seems to be giving me the old fish eye as a I siddle up to it? I hear they are like dogs. And bears. They sense fear and of course that gives them the total upper hand. Get this going wrong with one of the many obscurely labeled knobs and buttons and drawers (a drawer for soap?) and you’ll be looking at a bunch of wet soapy clothes on into the next day. Only if you do it right the first time will you get it done today. We don’t get a lot of drying sun in our yard in the morning so we dedicate that whole time period to the start and stop, “Is it done yet?” washing cycle. It torments you by going dead silent for long periods. But fight as you might, its gaping mouth stays grrr locked tight. But, then, about noon, when the sun comes to join us, the wash is maybe done and maybe by evening you will be bringing in those sun-dried, on-a-line, slightly stiff, slightly scratchy, but ever so heavenly smelling, clothes.

If a pigeon hasn’t used your holiday duds for target practice. If it does, rinse, repeat, and just think, you’ve got a project all lined up for the next day.

OK, see you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

SECOND IN LINE AT THE BARBERSHOP. 7:45 A.M. DAY TWO.

Competitive Saturday morning. Even though it is way early, we’re jockeying for position at Biano’s. Women have several choices in town but guys pretty much have Biano. And here he comes with the newspapers under his arm right now.

PANICALE, Umbria, Italy– Competitive Saturday morning. Even though it is way early, we’re jockeying for position at Biano’s. Women have several choices in town but guys pretty much have Biano. And here he comes with the newspapers under his arm right now. He turns his head away from the even earlier bird and mutters “We’ll get our coffee in a minute. Or we can just go now?” I wave him off and tell him to get to work, we’ll do it another day. I was so glad to be here that even being number two couldn’t mess with my Zen attitude. And strangely it paid off because it gave me plenty of time with La Nazione. There in the Umbria section, the whole front page was covered with photos and news of the flower petal art display going on in Spello the next day. Never been to Spello. Its streets appear to be filled with elaborately detailed mosaics of religious subjects all done in flowers. Must do this. Right after the trim. Hey, I needed that haircut didn’t I? Ok, ciao, ciao. Time is predictably flying because even having a early morning haircut is fun. Tourists. So easily amused.

Kiki and Fabiola in Panicale's Piazza with some Italian cappucchino to goPASS ME DOWN THE LINE, PANICALE

Leaving Biano’s I head home (go left) even though like Moses, I can smell the coffee in The Promised Land, just across the wide piazza (to the right). I’ll go get the girls up and come back with them. I told you I was feeling Zen. Friends before coffee? Where did that come from? Bronzed goddess Daniela and I fall into step together and do the usual weather chat. What I really want to say is How DID you get that tan? She seems to be in Bar Gallo all the time and always fresh as a daisy and dressed like a perfect fashion model. When does she tan? When does she shop? She peels off at a store and Linda takes her places coming out of her storeroom on one side of the street aimed for her store on the other. Arms full of vegetables in a plastic crate, hair flying behind her, she keeps moving but laughs and says over her shoulder, “We are all running down the corridors of the castello, no?” Well, yes. The town is so small, the walls enclose the houses that all connect one to the other and the “streets” are narrower than most office hallways. It is like we are all in the same building bustling about.

At home, I find that Kiki has gone to the bar because she assumed I would go there. She’s doing that foreigner thing and getting coffee to bring back to the house. What will they think of us? So, I head back and find her coming up the street with coffee in a tray held waiter-like over her head striking a pose and interrupting her gossipy walk with the also amazingly tanned and fabulous Fabiola who works at Linda’s. Again, when is the tan happening? No matter, we’ve got coffee to drink.

Lucci is a favorite friend of ours in Panicale, Umbria, ItalyLuccia is our friend Nico’s cousin. He designed our garden and she brought us wild strawberries she picked in the forest to plant in the garden. She and her sister are walking Denise home when they stop to talk to the three of us. Denise is Danish and we are American but its all non stop Italian, multiple conversations flying about, bouncing off the old stone walls. I’m talking to Lucci and as is often the case, with her she holds someone’s hand while she talks to them. Clasps it, warmly, fondly in a way that you know she is focused on only you. We talk of many things but it always comes quickly back to gardening, flowers. We say we are thinking of seeing the Corpus Domini floral displays the l’infiorata in Spello. Is it worth seeing? In unison, three heads tilt back, all hands rise palm up and they all sigh “Ah, Spello”. Evidently its ok. Earlier, after pizza in Paciano, we saw friends of Kiki’s scrambling about getting teams busy drawing chalk designs on the sidewalks there but here in Panicale hours later we don’t see anything happening. Will there be floral displays here too? Well, maybe. Depends. It is nearly 11 pm here and they will have been working since 2 in the afternoon in Spello the paper said.

umbrian rain. yes even in sunny italy some rain must fall. “Yes”, Lucci agrees “It should be like that, but here we are just four cats.” Siamo solo quattro gatti. What is with the magic number four? Quattro parole means short conversation and as always quattro gatti paints a perfect picture of deserted town piazza. We decide we need to see the display the next day. And see it in Spello. And hope that it doesn’t rain tonight like it has almost every evening. Even if the sun is out when it rains like in the photo, it would still make mess of the displays in the streets. As we part, I agree to come see Lucci’s terra sometime. Her earth. I say “garden?” “No, it’s more than that” she says and her sister nods. “Come see”. I will, I will. Sogni d’oro. Golden dreams.

QUATTRO GATTI IN FATTI

In the morning we three early risers slip into the piazza and there aren’t even four cats. It is just our footsteps we hear on the stones. Last night, after a wedding, the piazza was a happy riot of noise and action and friends dressed up in party clothes. Hardly recognized Nico in a black shirt and yellow tie. He is a retired professor and a hardworking artist and I didn’t know he had a tie. Molto chic. But that was last night. At Bar Gallo this morning it is just Aldo sorting sodas into the cooler and his wife Daniella serving coffee to the only customer: Biano the barber. Kiki and Midge cover him in compliments about my long, long overdue haircut. Maestro! Complimenti! Un Capolavoro! No, no he grins. I am merely a humble local artisan doing my work he says putting his hand near the marble floor to indicate his place in the haircutting world. And what is this? One more cat. Bruno with his Cheshire smile. Covered with paint. Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation today? Yes, but my wife is hardly speaking to me, he shrugs. Could be all the better vacation the men all reflect sagely. I show everyone the window on the back of my camera where I’ve got a photo of the plant Bruno brought by for Midge.

HOW MUCH DOES THAT BOUQUET WEIGH, ANYWAY?

umbrian flower explosion

That cactus Bruno loaned us must be forty or fifty pounds of Stay-Away-From-Me-I’ll-Stick-You-I-MEAN-IT plant. Piante Grasse they say here when they mean succulents like this. Or maybe just this kind? Not totally clear on that. This particular one is a big green cactus with long, eight inch flower buds. We have a really good sized one Bruno gave us years ago and it is ready to bloom. But his, even bigger one, is ready to bloom a day earlier and since he’s going to Tuscany tomorrow and would be gone when it is blooming he wants it to be appreciated. We drove out to his house yesterday to pick it up. Driving back we were showing it to everyone along the way. And this morning it had bloomed and covered itself with pale pink stars as big as apples. So, here we are. Aldo, Daniella, Biano and Bruno. How lucky are we to know these one, two, three, four cats and have them all to ourselves this quiet Sunday morning?

umbrian flower explosion

We thank Bruno for the flowers and Biano for the coffee and strike out across the still deserted piazza with purpose in our step. We are going to see yet more flowers.

The coffee paying thing is a fine game, by the way. They play it endlessly here and always act like it was their very first time. Biano told Daniela he was paying for everything when he saw us come in, before he said hi or anything. Quick as a snake. And when he saw Bruno come in, he said And Bruno too. Later, when we and Bruno try to pay before leaving Daniela points at Biano and Bruno grumbles Ma, no. Si, si. Grazie! It is an endless battle to see who can be the quickest and the most generous. Show up anywhere near the bar and you will be offered coffee. No coffee? Are you sure? Prosecco perhaps? But not this morning, we’re off on a road trip.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

NEXT STOP, UMBRIA. GOING DUTCH?

To quote the Italian designer Valentino: “ . . . I must go. It is not convenient. Perhaps it is not right. But this garden must be seen. There are many things you have to do in life, but you cannot ignore the roses.

We typically go to Umbria via London or Munich or Paris. But London is having a jet fuel issue and threatening to raise Cain with flights originating in the US. Airline pouting and politics. So, maybe this time, we are thinking, we will go via Amsterdam. Kind Dutch people have emailed us here at SeeYouInItaly extolling the charms of their town outside Amsterdam named Vreeland. Never been there. Never got the Tshirt. But the perfect meld of Dutch and Italian is happening now in honor of the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth and one of the highlights of the celebration is a massive Rembrandt—Carravaggio show at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. That has to Gogh on our list. And then, la nostra cara Panicale. To see how my Umbrian roses do grow. This photo was taken last April by our good friends the Lambarts, from Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Nico and I have been tending these roses for several years but I have only seen them in bloom, in photos. Hope to correct that this year!

To quote the Italian designer Valentino: “ . . . I must go. It is not convenient. Perhaps it is not right. But this garden must be seen. There are many things you have to do in life, but you cannot ignore the roses. When they demand to be seen, one simply has no choice but to go to them.” Words to live by, whenever possible.

Secret Life of Plants.

Having maybe solved the Great Australian Skin crisis, (see previous episode) Denise and Carla and I are free to discuss figs and some of the fine points of Carla’s recipe for fig marmalade. Until that reminds me — I have a new batch on the stove

As Midge and Wiley get ready to head over to Umbria, I look back on our trip last September. Stories that I had not shared here yet. Just to give you a taste of what kind of unplanned adventures a traveler could expect to have on any given fall day in Umbria. Part two of three parts

PANICALE, UMBRIA — Having maybe solved the Great Australian Skin crisis, (see previous episode) Denise and Carla and I are free to discuss figs and some of the fine points of Carla’s recipe for fig marmalade. Until that reminds me — I have a new batch on the stove — literally as we speak — and YIKE — have had for several hours! Hate to leave the sun and fun of the piazza but do rush home, turn off the long suffering jam and give it a stir or two.

While I’m there I’m home, I’m strangely transformed into something like a serial plant killer. I’m taking big fig prunings and runamuck wisteria’s cuttings and frantically chopping them all into tiny bits and stuffing their mutilated parts into garbage bags, so I can sneak them into the town dumpsters with the trash. My friends here say that is a big no no, but what the heck else are you to do? Their consistent sage advice? Just dump it in the country. But I’m not so sure about that. I keep on bagging.

I’ve really been after the wisteria. This is one tough plant. It is bending the iron rods holding its frame work up. The iron rods. One is almost ”C” shaped. So I cut that offending branch and pulled miles of connected vine out afterwards. Can’t even tell where I was working and cutting, as it is such a big healthy robust and aggressive plant. The trunk is fully as big around as I am. The contractors cut it right to the ground, to be able to put a crane in the yard to work on the house. I was crushed. The next year they had to cut the wisteria off to the ground again as it was threatening to be The Wisteria That Ate The Three Story Tall Crane.

Night blooming Umbrian flowers in our Panicale gardenWiley calls to tell me she is on her way home as she does everyday when she starts her inter-town hilltop hike. On the way back, she finds black berries on the side of the road and knows all their berry names now because she has a page of hand written school notes about just that subject. She takes that page out of her notebook and folds it up into a basket and gathers the berries to bring home. Berry poetic Wiley. She learned the basket-folding trick on Italian Kid Tv the other day.

We had lunch on the terrace, and now we are multi-tasking. Watching clothes dry. And figs ripen. At the same time! Sigh. Did i mention I’m in love? With a garden. All true. After a bit more of this post-lunch loafing, I attend to my little green friends for a couple hours, weeding and organizing, shaping climbing roses on the pergola etc. and notice it is getting hotter and hotter, but there is such a delicious September breeze that you’d hardly notice. Eventually, I do need a cool down moment and I give the ”beach chairs in dappled sun!” alert to Wiley and we plunk down and read beach novels off into the early evening when the sun sets behind Montepulciano. Not long after that magic moment, the giant Bella della Notte plant unfurles a raft of new, white, trumpet-sized flowers. You know the best part? We didn’t even PLANT that plant. It just showed up in our garden and now is as big as a Fiat car. As unplanned, but as welcome, as our days in Panicale.