springtime in Italy Archives - Page 6 of 9

Getting in Hot Water: A day at a Tuscan Spa

Oh, we’re headed to an adventure today. I’ve been trying to work up the courage to go to a spa in Italy for years. Today’s the day.

“I’M WET! I’M WET” Gene Wilder’s character in “The Producers.”

RAPOLANO TERME, Siena, Tuscany, Italy—Oh, we’re headed for adventure today. For years I’ve been trying to work up the courage to go to one of Italy’s many spas. Today’s the day. Midge has an appointment, buddy Steve has an appointment too and we’re on our way.

Do try this. It’s hard for me to imagine a finer way to spend the day. Even in famously idyllic Tuscany. And it was about half reasonably priced. The spa we picked charged 11 euros for an all access pass that let you into all the many thermal pools indoor and out. For the whole day. The place is great, clean and polished, chaise lounges surrounding pools of every temperature. With a slack jawed look of contentment, bathers were positioning themselves under the splash of wide mouthed spigots and letting the relaxingly hot, mineral rich waters whoosh over them.

Once in a great while you can pick up a hint of the sulfur in the water. But not in a disagreeable “What the Heck was that?” kind of way. You just note it and maybe think to yourself “Hey, Farmboy, you’re at a Spa in Italy. How about that?”

GETTING INTO MORE HOT WATER THAN USUAL

There are pools of every size and shape but the pecking order for temperature seemed to be: the closer to the building, the hotter the water you were into. The further away, the cooler the waters. On a spring day when the temps are still a bit cool in the shadows of the pines, you can tell where the heat is by where the bathers are ganged up.

This was better than I imagined. There is food of every kind and a full bar just inside the pool area. Pastries, coffee, they’ve got all the necessities critical for a day at the beach. Except towels. Who would have thought? Believe me, they just don’t have them. How can that be? Oh, and they don’t have directions. Even sitting up real close to the computer screen it was vague/mysterious about how one was to go about arriving here. I should have asked Andrea. This is all his doing.

I was hanging out, bothering him at Masolino’s between lunch and dinner crowds one day and broached the subject of this particular spa with him because we have a major villa for sale right beside it. So I asked if he knew about Terme Antica Querciolaia. Knew it? He, literally, has a season pass to it. He and his family are on their feet, I don’t know, 12 hours a day feeding half of Umbria and keeping their coffee cups and wine glasses full six days a week. But on the seventh day they rested. Clicking the numbers off on his fingers, he said “on our Torno (our turn to take a day off) we first get the kids up, second we feed them, and point them to the door. And we run to the car to get as much spa time as we possibly can.” He named spas big and small for miles around. He has different subtle seasonal variations he explores constantly but as a Brit would say about their favorite pub, this is “his local.” His main spa.

THEY’RE NOT THROWING IN THE TOWEL

Even though the directions are not obvious on the Terme Antica Querciolaia web site, it’s easy to find. You know where the main North South autostrada A1 hits Bettole? That is where we jump off to get to Castiglione del Lago or Panicale or Cortona etc when coming from Florence or Siena. Anyway, it is right about there not far from the Bettole autostrada exit/entrance. As their site says it is just “due passi” two steps from Siena, Pienza and Montepulciano. When you get near Bettole, just start looking for Rapolano Terme. Follow the signs and in short order you are there. And bring a towel. I know, I’m back on that again, but why wouldn’t they sell, rent or give you towels? Do not know. Must be a cultural thing. But it was funny because we called to make an appointment for different treatments and massages and the nice voice on the phone made a special point of saying to “be sure to bring a bathrobes and flip flops.” Oh, well, they don’t and once you get over that you see it for what it is, very clean, organized, newly renovated and lazygoodfun.

Plenty of ways to get upgraded and up-charged. Pick your poison. Weight rooms, workout center, massages, facials, mud baths. A whole menu of treatments of various lengths and Steve says compared to San Francisco they’re all great bargains.

I’m not emotionally prepared to go for all the treatments that Midge and Steve are signed up for. People I don’t know pounding on my naked body? Remember Spring Break in Biloxi?

HEY, I’M TRYING TO READ OVER HERE, DO YOU MIND?

And hanging by the general admission pool waiting for more Panicale friends to join us is not half bad way to pass the day, either. Give me a low brow beach book, a good cup of coffee and I’m all set. Midge, coming out of her second or third treatment of the day finds me on the same chaise where she left me earlier and wonders “Isn’t it hard not to be distracted here? You know, by the topless 25 year olds on either side you?”

“Hmmm? What was that dear? Oh, you mean like the one in the tiny orange bikini bottom whose chaise is right across from us? The one rather affectionately applying more suntan lotion all over her bronze bossom every half an hour?”

“Nope, nope never noticed.”

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Food and Wine comes to Panicale

Nancy Silverton’s chef in Panicale, article in Food and Wine following his adventures. Renting cars on the cheap right now. Springtime and roses in Umbria.

PANICALE, Umbria, Italy–Our friends Peter and Sarah are packing as we speak to head off to their lovely, newly renovated house in Casamaggiore, in Umbria. They just called last night to ask if we had seen the March ’09 issue of Food And Wine Magazine. It features our Umbrian hilltop castletown of Panicale. Sarah is a great and inspired chef and baker so she has a subscription. It isn’t in the newsstands yet. We’ve checked. But the How to Cook Like You Own an Italian Villa article IS online already.

Matt Molina, a chef at L.A.’s Osteria Mozza stayed at his boss’s house recently. That would be the Panicale home of Nancy Silverton. She is a co-owner of Osteria Mozza and the story line is about Matt’s food adventures all around this part of Italy. I’m getting hungry just reading about Panicale. And all nostalgic as well. But, we are taking action!

LOOK OUT ITALY. HERE WE COME. THE $700 CLUB?

We have plane tickets in hand and happy to have them. We chased prices up one side of the internet and down the other. We’ve made this trip hundreds of times and it’s an adventure buying every time. This time we found very good and reasonable $700 something on Alitalia. Boston to Rome direct. An overnight flight is an overnight flight. Direct flights makes life so much simpler and so much less room for that “Oh, sorry your connecting flight couldn’t wait and oh look there it goes without you” business. Plus, this non-stop flight gets into Roma at 7 AM. I’m good with that. Landing at say 10 or so after pulling an all-nighter finds me much less coherent than at 7.

Our car rental charge for three weeks were in the low $700 range. We went through, as we usually do, Auto Europe. No, this is not an ad. I WISH I got paid for mentioning them! Alitalia? Same non-lucrative deal. Anyway. We ran through our car needs and the bottom line kept coming in just under $900 – for three weeks. Part of the problem, one issue, was that we were coming into the country at 7 AM one day and leaving at 10 AM on the way out of country. So that Three Hour Day became a full day’s charge. Talk about not enough hours in a day. I could pay the charge or hang out watching the clock for three hours. After being up all night? I don’t think so.

So I called Auto Europe back and said “But what if we put our early-morning, post-arrival time to use and headed North by train to Chiusi. And picked a car up there at the train station? Chiusi is easy to get to by train and only ten minutes from our house. No sweat, they were all about that. That not only chopped a day off our bill, but they said they were also able to take off a “Rome airport delivery charge.” That was a new one to me. And in the “That Doesn’t Make Any Sense, But I’ll Take It” category they then said if I picked their car up in Chiusi I could return it to Chiusi or at the Rome airport-–for the same price. Our choice. Here’s what I got out of this exercise: I asked a few questions, had them email a couple written proposals to me, and didn’t take the first rate they gave me. And after a couple five minute phone calls, I had somehow saved almost $200. Highest and best use of my time all week!
springtime in Siena, Tuscany and Panicale, Umbria
LA PRIMA VERA IN ITALIA.

MA! Va le la pena. As they say. Umbria in Spring. In my mind I can almost see it, touch it, feel it. Whatever effort it takes to get us to the promised land is worth it. So, now that the airline and car rental planets have been so nicely aligned, we are holding our breaths and happily counting the days until our mid April touchdown.

Spring is one of the best times in Italy and we can’t wait to see our all our friends there. What a breath of fresh air it will be after a bundled up winter of snow to see the Umbian countryside in all its many shades of green. The fruit trees will be in bloom. And dozens of kinds of flowers, the early bloomers. We especially love the forty-foot-long yellow rose bouquet our house and garden set out on our pergola to welcome us home at this time of year. Grazie, grazie infinite, Casa Margherita.

Non vedo l’ora and I can’t wait, either.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

The purple and white spring flowers shown above are from Spannocchia outside Siena, Tuscany and the yellow ones are from our garden in Panicale, Umbria

OUR ITALIAN DAUGHTERS

Twice, years ago, we had the good fortune to have lovely Italian girls come to live with us for a year at a time. They will always be our daughters.

PANICALE, TORINO, PADOVA–I like saying “Our Italian daughters.” It just fills me with happy memories. Twice, years ago, we had the good fortune to have lovely Italian girls come to live with us for a year at a time.

Roberta from Torino came first, and a few months after she left Alexia di Padova arrived. We have visited both of them at their homes in Italy and know their families, and we keep in touch by email and see each other as often as we can when we are in Italy. It is an easy four or five hour drive to either of their home towns from Panicale. This trip they both came to see us! The same day almost. alexia arrives in panicale from padova
And both came bearing serious boyfriends we hadn’t met yet. Both girls looked great, were happy with their jobs, their lives and we loved their guys. What are the odds of all that? Maybe it is me. I know I was a terrible territorial you-bums-aren’t-good-enough-for-these-girls dad when they lived with us in Maine. But I’m so much more mellow now? Dunno. Something is different.

Alexia was renting a villa with 10 friends to have a week-long birthday party so we were really glad she would leave her posse and squeeze in a leisurely lunch and a lazy afternoon with us. We relished catching up over Porcinis and panacottas at Masolinos and some later some Proseccos like her dad taught us to drink, in the cafés of the Venato in another galaxy, far, far away.

TAKE THE BRIDGE

Our friend Steve from San Francisco arrived that evening. To bridge the gap between Alexia’s leaving and Roberta’s arrival. Just in time for Labor Day. Yes, it has only been FIVE days since the last national holiday. But hey, who’s counting? Other than me. So we went right back to Masolino’s. That is just what people do when they want to connect or re-connect with Mother Panicale. A good place to start is a place at her table. A place with your name on it. I’ve figured out that if Andrea even hears we might be arriving in town, he puts a gold Reservato sign on a table because he knows. It’s a heart-melter to feel that warm welcome even before the hot, out of the oven, comfort food hits the table with a grin and a flourish. tractors in the piazza for labor day in panicale in umbria, italy
The next day, killing time was killing me, waiting for the next wave of buddies to party with so, post-coffee, we were glad to be well distracted by tractors in the piazza? I have not seen that before. Shades of Iowa in Umbria. The ancient 14th century fountain in the middle of the piazza surrounded by modern, noisy, house-sized pieces of farm equipment and angry rise-up-oppressed-workers speeches. Which segued abruptly to happy, almost cartoon-y music, wine in paper cups and the ever popular porchetta sandwiches in the piazza.

And then, enough stalling around, Roberta was here! Baci, baci, and was unloading a huge azeala for our garden and introducing us to her Stefano. And before you knew it we were in the garden admiring her pink azeala over some of Paul’s pink rose’. Salute Azaela, salute amici. from torino to panicale umbria. its roberta
We grabbed a lunchtime snack in the sun outside Aldo’s and rushed off to Castiglione del Lago to check out ferry schedules for a day of island hopping later in the week. What crowds. The parks around the ferry stop below the fortress were almost shoulder to shoulder full this happy holiday. The ferry and its dock were mobbed too. Especially for a Thursday. Sure, it’s a holiday, you might say. But it is partially because of the bridge.

golden glow of umbrian sunset What bridge? That last holiday a few days ago, it was OK. But being on a Friday the best you can hope for there is a three day weekend. But Labor Day this year! That is on a Thursday. Italians shrug and say “ponte” making a small bridge shaped arch with their thumb and pointing finger. With an optional wrist rotation. Usually accompanied by a “Not MY fault they put that holiday on a Thursday” look. They put on a look that says they are serious/sad, concerned at how this all turned out. Like there was nothing further from their mind than ditching work Friday. Until you put that annoying Thursday holiday on the calendar. And forced their hand.

Up in the town, above the dock we strangely found a parking spot and not so strangely found the first gelati we could wrap our soon-to-be sticky fingers around. And then we took a nice hot, mad dogs and Englishmen sort of tramp around the vertigo-inducing parapets of the fortress.

And then back to Panicale. No moss growing on us. This is a movable feast and we took the next bite up on Steve’s top floor balcony. The sun was setting, the prosecco popping, swallows doing boomerang cartwheels around us. You could feel the breeze they made going by us. Hey, we all look like we were poured out of molten gold, is this lighting great? How do they do that? Glasses clink. Now drink up me hearties, because it’s time to Sagra.

But that is another story. Stay tuned to the next edition of . . .

See you in Italy, The Blog

Stew Vreeland

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