Italy Through a Golden Eye: A Quick Trip with a Tuscan and
Umbrian Focus
Landing in sun-drenched Italy soothes even the most jet-lagged souls. Cruising down the
Autostrada and diverting down side roads when the mood strikes is the reward for
navigating the Milan airport car rental counter and its maze of airport exits. We started to
unwind when the sunburnt sienna and ochre hues of the impossibly beautiful landscape
began to unfurl before us: every moment a photo-op, a movie set, but it’s real and just
keeps on coming.
My husband and I took
a ten-day trip to Italy
this early July and
packed in enough
memories and material
to last a lifetime – or
until our next journey.
We went with the crazy
idea of meeting real
people, learning more
about why it is we love
the Italian culinary
lifestyle, and diving a
couple of levels back into the distribution foodchain to find some “killer app” (to coin a term from our telecom
days) ceramics and linens to import back home and sell in our store in Dallas. We fussed,
roamed the Internet, I actually packed ahead for the first time in my life; all were good
things to do. However, our experience could not have been engineered in advance; it had
everything to do with the openness and generosity of the people we met, rather than the
timelines and trajectories in our itinerary.
Our first stop was Modena, home to real Balsamic vinegar and our first tour of an aceteia
where glorious barrels of the fumy, fusty, wonderful stuff have stood for centuries,
silently aging. Acetaia del Christo, run by
the Barbieri family outside of Italy, melds
the latest in stainless-steel technology with
ancient, family-run physical plant. Here
Gilberto spent an hour or two showing us
around the various batteria, or rows of
barrels in which the vinegar is aged, and
finished us off with a taste of creamy
Italian gelato topped by a balsamic vinegar
aged in cherry wood for 12 years. That’s
right – vinegar on ice cream: fabuloso!
The next morning, before moving on, we
strolled the historic piazza and stopped at
Guisti’s: a restaurant, a wine cellar, a food shop,
and a coffee bar. On a friend’s recommendation,
we met Nano, the owner, who graciously
showed us around his restaurant (4 tables, 4
stars, and reservations in advance a foregone
requirement) and treated us to a cup of espresso.
Right next door at the military academy students
marched and trained; an odd juxtaposition with
the ways of the world that are not so new.
Next, we settled into Siena, our
favorite city of the stay. The campo,
a central open area enclosed with thpalazzos from the 13 century, hums
with life in the evening (if you’re
lucky like us, at Midnight, the
neighborhood winner of the Palio
parades around the campo, singing,
drumming, and chanting – from
another age). We went to the
Wednesday morning market, ogling
the sensuous reds, yellows, and
purples of vegetables and fruit;
trying to look past the poor pig’s
head perched atop its back as layers of steaming pork was cut in curls and packaged to
send home. We bought silly stuff, fun linens for the store, and picnicked in the parking
lot with the spoils.
Our most memorable Tuscan
day was spent with “Carolina”
and “Tomasso” Adair, who live
most of the year in College
Station, but we think they find
their true identity here; in their
mountain home in Saltino, in
their olive grove, and in their
tiny guest house, a former mill
near Figline Valdarno.
Carolina, a stranger until a
week or so prior, spent the day
with us, showed off this beautiful part of the world; from the tiny thumbnail-sized
hummingbirds to the vast expanse of the Arno Valley below her very own olive grove.
We saw a family villa that their friend, Daniele, has lovingly restored with authenticity,
taste, and modern conveniences. (It rents for 1000e a week; the idyll is free.) Then, to
top it off, Tomasso fixed our first taste of a Tuscan lunch: “simple” but so full of flavor,
with fresh pesto, zucchini, pasta, bread, wine, vin santo……It was a dream.
On to Umbria, land of rich clay and sinuous ceramic design. Our fears of “where to find the ceramics” were baseless. All around you, in town after town, Gubbio, Deruta,
Perugia, Orvieto were stores with windows full of the stuff. Deruta is the mother lode;
here you find actual people painting plates in each store – actual people! Gorgeous canisters, mountainous vases proclaiming “olive oil!” or “limoncello!”… Humble vases,
rolling plates, oil and vinegar cruets, all became almost commonplace. Almost, until we
met Luca at Ceramiche Fanny. His
designs incorporate the traditional
Deruta elements; the grotesques, the
almost Arabic motifs, but with bright
reds, blues, and yellows that put me
in the mind of the lovely Sistine
chapel as it was originally painted;
not muted and mild, but shouting
with color, dimension, and style. We
loved the difference, and were in the
midst of placing our order when we
met his new friend Sheri, an artist
with a focus on portraiture, with
whom he plans to collaborate on new designs. Luca invited us all to lunch, and we again fell under the spell of a seemingly
interminable Italian afternoon. We had pasta with truffles, sausages, steak, wine, even
Baci ice cream! The simplicity and honesty of the meal, the talk, the ingredients, brought
us together.
We wrapped up our tour in lovely Roma: dazzling, but ultimately not engaging. We’re
home now, and mourn that the recent Italian meal we had at a popular restaurant fell so
short of the most humble fare in Italy. Here’s what we hope we learned: to love in the
moment, to live simply, and to taste each drop of life. Here’s what we plan to do: go
back and delve deeper next year!
Recommendations:
Modena: Acetaia del Christo http://www.acetaiadelcristo.it/
Osteria Giusti, vicolo Squallore 46, Modena. tel: 39-059-222533.
Siena: Hotel: Best Western Palazzo Dei Priori, Via Montalbuccio Siena
Italy I-53100 Rooms around 80e/night tel: 39 0577 398701
Market: Wednesday mornings in the historic district
Daniele’s Tuscan villa for rental: www.i-camini.it
Note: We weren’t thrilled with our accommodations in Modena, Orvieto, or Rome. All were clean and
cheap but not worth repeating. The Best Western in Siena was perfect – believe it or not!