Under the Tuscan Hills

After wandering through the Vatican, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, The Forum and seeing all the artwork depicting Gods, Saints, Martyrs and Angels I began to wonder.  We don’t have monuments to such people any more but what we have is our own version of such.  We have movie stars, sports figures, rock stars and super-heroes.  All of our current demi-gods i.e. movies stars, sports figures, rock stars and super-heroes are all fake and we know it but we persist in believing in them.   Why is that?  Did the Ancients know that all those Saints, Martyrs and Angels were constructs and yet still believe in them?  Back in Medieval times people did not have television or movies and virtually everyone was illiterate so their form of entertainment was story telling.  Were all these wonderful stories of the demi-gods stories that were told again and again by the evening fire and became better and more wonderful with each telling?  

We have our own demi-gods, as I say, but there are versions of them in every civilization.  What is it in our psyche that needs them?   I don’t have an answer or even decent speculation about why this is so.  Just putting it out there.

The Tuscan landscape

Cycling in Tuscany has its ups and downs.   I am here to tell you that there are a LOT of ups.  I don’t think there is a level spot anywhere in this landscape.  Tuscany has many picturesque hill towns.  Do you know why they are called hill towns?  

IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE ON TOPS OF HILLS!!!

I rode my bicycle across Canada last summer but since then I have basically sat on my behind as we travelled through the rest of our journey.   Granted I did a little cycling in Laos and Vietnam but it was only a little.  My fitness, apparently, slipped away unnoticed while we were gawking at Angkor Wat and Milford Sound.  Getting on a bicycle in Tuscany has created a terrific uproar in my quads and glutes who have been sending strongly worded messages to my brain.   My cardiovascular system has threatened job action and my lungs have been showing solidarity with them.  I remember cycling in Tuscany 10 years ago and I don’t remember this many hills.   Maybe they built more hills, maybe I am 10 years older or maybe God is getting back at me for my snide remarks.  Whatever the reason, it has been challenging.

Telen near one of the Medieval Towns

Telen, of course, kicked ass.   She does not ride anywhere near as much as I do but, in spite of that, she was flying up those hills with gay abandon.  Talk about humbling!   I am a good hill climber – in fact it is one of the best things I do on a bike (think about that – a little fat man whose best skill on a bike is climbing…. Just how bad is he at the rest of the skills!) so I was able to get to the flatter spots faster than Telen.   But I would only have to wait a little bit to see here come breezing on up as if there was no effort involved.   I guess there is a lot to be said for the power-to-weight ratio thingy...

At Montepulciano.   No power-to-weight ratio here - only weight to weight

We started off from Pienza.   That was, and still is, my favourite spot in Italy.   It is a little hill-town that was constructed around 1459 as a Renaissance showcase of urban planning.   It is a beautiful little town…on top of a really high hill.   We did a couple of loops out of Pienza to nearby Montepulciano and Montecchiello.  Each loop was about 50 km.   The aforementioned towns are hill towns as indicated by the “Monte” bit in front of their names.  It means “Mountain”.  To finish off - the ride up to Pienza at the end of the day is grueling.   At the end of the first day when I got to the very top and was about to ride gloriously into the town I felt a sudden sharp pain in my groin.  So my victorious ride into town was accompanied by colourful language punctuated by groans.

Telen enjoying the brief Pienza sunshine

Luckily Telen was able to whip out her magical acupuncture needles and set me straight.  Don’t get me wrong, she waited until we got back to our room and, no, none of those needles actually went into my groin.  As it was she kept rolling her eyes at my whining and repeated mantra of ow, ow, ow.   If she was thinking of putting those needles into my groin the whining would have been more like shrieking and the mantra would have been no, no, noooo!

From Pienza our next destination was Montalcino.  You guessed it.   On a mountain.  We rode for the first 30 minutes in the valley and that was the last time we saw level ground.  We had a 9 km ride up a mountain where the wind nearly threw us off the bikes and then a nine kilometer ride down into the next valley where we stopped, breathed, drank and started up the next climb.  Luckily at the top of the climb there was a little ristorante where we were able to eat and drink coffee.  Down briefly, then up another climb that seemed to go on forever.  Nothing looked so good as to come around a corner and see Montalcino…below us.   Montalcino is famous for it’s Brunello Wine but I, for one, think that seeing the rooftops from that road was far more intoxicating.

Montalcino from above

 We have been ensconced in Montalcino for a few days doing loops out into the countryside seeing the sights.  The climbs back into Montalcino have been challenging.  I certainly know where my climbing muscles are now.

Montalcino from Below

In spite of my whining, I have been enjoying riding around Tuscany.  The land has so much history.  People called the Etruscans lived here long before the Romans placed one stone atop the other.  It is basically farming country growing olives, grapes, tomatoes and all those other wonderful ingredients in Italian food.  The area is like a postcard everywhere you look with Villas on the tops of hills (hills again, groan) in the middle of vineyards with Cypress trees lining the driveways. 

  

The Tuscan countryside is beautiful if you can change your perspective on hills.  The last time we were here it was August during the hottest summer Europe has had in decades.  The temperatures were hanging around the mid to low thirties and the landscape was painted in shades of brown.  This time we are facing one of the coldest springs they have had in decades with the temperatures hovering around the single-digit to low teens.  And windy.   The landscape is painted in shades of green with streaks of naked tree branches.  Both sides of the same coin.

You cannot talk about Tuscany without talking about food.  I have been trying to reduce my intake of wheat and dairy products to try to maintain my svelte figure.   Ok, maybe the term “svelte” is a bit of an exaggeration – maybe “stout” would be a closer approximation.  To say that it is difficult to do that in Italy is a bit of an understatement.  If you do not eat wheat or dairy in Italy having a svelte figure is easy – the same way it is easy to be slender after a nuclear war.  Pasta and cheeses are part of meals the same way that wet is part of wine.

Telen enjoying the Pasta

They take food seriously here.  Everything shuts down about 1:30 to 4:30 daily as everyone goes home for lunch.  There is none of this North American power lunches – how fast can you swallow a sandwich while you are working?  It doesn’t matter what is in the sandwich – you cannot taste it anyway.  Then your blood sugar goes through the roof and your body pumps out massive quantities of insulin to bring it back down and, as a side-effect starts depositing fat around your middle.  The Italians sit down to lunch and savour the flavour and share it with their family and friends.  Food is important as a social lubricant and a pleasure to be shared.  You seldom see fat Italians in Italy.  You also seldom see Macdonald’s or KFC (thank goodness).

We have been the recipients of this style of eating.  We went out for dinner in Pienza at a family run restaurant and met a nice young couple from Norway sitting at the next table.  We ended up visiting with them for almost 3 hours over dinner and no one came to give us the bill until we asked for it.   We were not the only ones sitting in the restaurant for that long – almost everyone did.  The food was fabulous.

Wild boar is a specialty in Tuscany.  So, I had wild boar.  Interestingly the Norwegian man had suckling pig.  He ate the baby, I ate the dad.  How gruesome is that!  I got to thinking that wild boar is a nasty- albeit tasty- creature that can devastate the landscape like almost no other animal.   It is a dangerous beast that is armed with a pair of long lethal tusks.  Wild boars cannot be roaming the Tuscan landscape – there would then be a shortage of dogs, cats, and more importantly –cheese!  There must be wild boar farms.  Tame wild boars?   Isn’t that an oxymoron?

After dinner Telen asked the owner who did the cooking.   He said that his mother and grandmother did.  Telen then asked the grandmother where she learned to cook.  She said, “Mama!”  I guess Italian cooking is a family thing.

Telen Writes:

The Tuscany hills are indeed beautiful.  Think of scenes from “Under the Tuscan Sun” along with some Italian opera music in the background.

I have forgotten however about cycling up these hills.  It has been 10 years since we brought our bicycles here.  I think my subconscious deliberately blocked out the pain and agony I experienced then.  I tried all kinds of ways to trick my mind into keeping going up these hills.  I tried humming a tune, counting “1, 2, 3” in Cantonese and then in English and then in Italian.  My best one was to fantasize about a taxi suddenly pulled up next to me, offering to drive me and my bike up the long hills.

Food is delicious and proudly prepared by the locals here.  The pasta here is invariably “hand made”.   It is indeed wonderful with a definite al dente texture.  I tried making pasta at home in the past but the product always came out rather soggy.  We wondered into a kitchen today and discovered that the pasta maker is exactly the same one I own at home.  Obviously the trick in making good pasta is the dough.  I asked the lady in the store who was more than happy to give me some tips that her mama has passed onto her.  With lots of hand gestures, in broken English on her part and broken Italian on my part, we discovered trick in good pasta is to use 00 wheat flour, allow one egg per person, some water, a bit of salt and olive oil.  Knead for 5 minutes or so, not too long.  Add lots of love!

Yesterday at dinner, Rand actually ate all his vegetables including zucchini - which he detests normally.  I sampled it to figure out how the dish was prepared.  I confirmed with our server who, I believe, was also the owner of the restaurant that there was a touch of tarragon, fennel and garlic to flavor the dish.  His demeanor instantly changed from one of formality before to a warm Italian host who wanted to advise on you everything he knows about Italian cooking.  He was horrified that I would want a cappuccino at the end of the dinner because “it is too heavy for the digestion and would interfere with sleep”.  Instead he recommended an espresso and with a little milk if desired.  I did sleep pretty well that night.

Roman Holiday

Rome has been around for over 2500 years. 

Over that time it has accumulated a lot of tourist sites.  I guess things have to be around for a really long time to become infected with that aura that allows people to charge you for looking at it. Here you pay to see the Colosseum or the Roman Aqueducts.  I cannot imagine paying to see the Capitol 6 theatre or the pipe that brings water to the city… 

We used the first day in Rome to get acclimatized.  We were jet-lagged and culture-shocked and needed to find out how to do things, where things were and what is the best way to see what we wanted in the allotted time.  We also spent a lot of time sitting in chairs and staring into the distance.  I think when you are jet-lagged your brain periodically shuts off and requires rebooting – similar to a computer when the time on the computer and the local time disagree.

We bought a Roma pass.   NOT Aroma pass – that has to do with digestive problems and we don’t want to get into THAT!   A Roma pass is a tourist pass that allows you to ride the Metro and the busses and gets you into a lot of attractions for free and at the head of the line.  It was Telen’s idea.  She has the high-quality brain.  (Mine was purchased at a garage sale)

Our first stop was the Colosseum.  Thank goodness for the Roma pass!   The line-up stretched off into infinity. Looking at the huge line-up I got to conjecturing what those line-ups would be like during the busy season.   The weather is very cool here, it is the off-season and not a holiday so what was with the huge line-up?  With our Roma pass we walked to the special line-up and strolled into the Colosseum ahead of all the commoners, flipping our hair and looking down our noses as we passed them.   (You KNOW that is not true – I cannot flip my hair!)  Knowing some of the history of the Colosseum I did have a moment of hesitation thinking that lots of the people that got into the Colosseum ahead of the crowd had a lunch date with some lions.

I have to admit the Colosseum was looking a little old and shabby.  The place was a ruin!  Most of the seats were gone and the floor in the center seemed to be mostly missing. There were all these people there and yet they had no show scheduled! 

The Colosseum inside.   Could use a little sprucing up and maybe a lick of paint.

It really is an impressive structure.   It is amazing to think that, with all our vaunted technology we can’t build a building that will last 100 years without extensive repairs and government intervention yet the Romans built structures that are standing today.   Most of their technology consisted of slaves using such advanced tools as bare hands.  It was a little humbling.

I know now why the Roman Empire fell.   I saw some Roman Centurions outside the Colosseum and they were standing around smoking.   Not only that, but their swords, helmets and armour were made of cheap plastic!  I guess the Roman government must have been running into money problems when the barbarians were at the gates.   Being stabbed with a cheap plastic gladius probably left a nasty bruise but I am sure it didn’t slow the Vandals down much with their iron swords and axes.   Mind you, the Vandals only trashed a lot of Rome, spray-painted graffiti on things and damaged some public property.

After the Colosseum we went into the Roman Forum.   It was very cool to be walking around on the same ground as the Caesar boys and their ilk.  There was so much that we didn’t get to see even half of it.  The Romans had a huge influence on western history and it was amazing to be walking around where all those major decisions were made and where history was shaped.

Jet lagged at the Forum

The next day we took a tour of the Vatican.   The new guy, Frances, was not on hand to greet us.  He was probably just getting settled into his new digs, decorating his desk, finding out where the toilets are and having a confab with the boss and her son.

Sardined at the Vatican museum

The Vatican museum is basically huge art museum.  Apparently if you spent 30 seconds with each piece of artwork in the Vatican Museum it would take you seven and a half years to see it all.  Imagine if you had one painting in the Vatican…  that would be the height of anonymity.  Probably more people would see your painting if you kept it in your own basement behind the furnace. That is where I keep mine.  Except the ones that I don’t want anyone to see – those I keep in the Vatican.

The Vatican museum is a popular attraction in Rome.  When we started the tour I thought it was a popular attraction in Sardinia.  I felt like a sardine.  I could not believe the crowds.  Already the Italians have very small personal space and in the Vatican museum they give up the concept entirely.  The guide has a little radio that broadcasts his comments to everyone in the group who has a receiver and a small earpiece.  We looked like a crowd of secret service agents on holiday.  That meant that lots of times I had no idea where the guide was but I could hear what he had to say and I hoped I was looking at the painting he was referring to.

We eventually made it to the Sistine Chapel that, for me, was the whole reason for coming to the Vatican.  Seeing the work of Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would have been breathtaking if you were allowed to make that much noise.  The Vatican police infested the Chapel and all of them had large bowel problems due to the presence of broomsticks.   NO TALKING! NO WHISPERING! NO PHOTOGRAPHY! NO BREATHTAKING!

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.   Not my photo.  Apparently if you take photos they take you outside and nail you to a cross...

Truly the work of Michelangelo was amazing.   But a nasty little thought went through my head.  Almost every person in the paintings was either nude or almost so and I wondered if Michelangelo was having a little laugh at putting all these nudes in the church.  His depiction of women was a little odd.  It was almost like he was painting them from theory rather than real life.  They all looked like buff men with breasts and long hair.  Mind you, all of Michelangelo’s men look pretty muscular – even the really old ones.  We did see the “Pieta” the sculpture that got Michelangelo his big break in the sculpting business.   Absolutely amazing!

The Pieta.  All that cloth is actually marble.   Michelangelo is an incredible talent

At the end of the tour we went to St. Peter’s Basilica.  I had some concerns about going in there especially when one of the Swiss Guard followed me in with a portable lightning rod.  He shouldn’t have worried – I figure God has good enough aim that she could zap me with no collateral damage.  However, no lightning bolts, plagues of locusts, or me turning into a pillar of salt, so that was good.  That is one BIG church!  Apparently the inside is the size of an American football field.  We didn’t see any games, though.

I was looking at one painting on the wall and glanced down to see the remains of Pope John Paul.  The one that died in the 60’s.   Apparently his remains were brought out for his beatification.  It was a little creepy - just like the head of St. Katherine that we saw in a church in Siena.  What is it with Catholics that they like to keep bits of their Saints in mason jars?  Isn’t that something like idolatry?  On the other hand they had the remains of Raphael in the Pantheon - but he was all sealed up in a coffin.

The Vatican is a huge, flashy and tremendously costly place.  I am not sure that Jesus would have wanted that.  Like Buddha he was not all about grandiose displays and spending huge amounts of resources on looking good.  Would it not have been better for the church to spend their money on feeding a starving population rather than building an enormous monument to themselves?  That goes for Buddhism as well as I mentioned in my blithering about Southeast Asia.

We did the “heart of Rome” walk.   We saw the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and some of the most expensive shopping possible.   We noticed a plethora of Men’s clothing stores.  In Canada you are hard-pressed to find a Men’s clothing store, yet in Italy they seem to be on every street corner. This is such an alien concept to me.  The term “snappy dresser” has only ever been applied to me with either a strong negative applied or with barely suppressed laughter.  My main clothing supplier is MEC.   In Italy the men dress the part. They wear very snazzy suits or tight pants, long shoes and scarves.  In Canada that would scream “gay”!  Judging by how they look at women I would say that scream is more like a whimper.

Only available in Italy you say?  Pity.

The Spanish Steps

The Trevi Fountain

You have to have Gelato in Italy!

Lunch in the Piazza de la Pantheon.   The Most Expensive Cappucino Ever.

Telen writes:

My highlight in Rome was the visit to the Vatican.  In spite of what Rand said, I think he was glad that he came along.  I know that Rand hates crowd but I reassured him that I had booked a tour to the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel, which according to TripAdvisor, would help to bypass the long lineups and to focus on the highlights.  Well, I was SO GLAD that I did.  The collection of arts and frescos in the museum was immense.  Both Rand and I felt that the Vatican in general does not convey much sense of spirituality.  It reflects much more of the long history of political rules under various Popes and the glorious collection of artwork and sculptures.  Our guide Mark (from Ohio) mentioned that a Japanese company has earned the rights to the images in the Sistine Chapel since it paid for the cleaning of the frescos in the ceiling.  What a clever business arrangement benefiting both sides.  I then had a sudden brain wave.  The public can email a prayer to the Vatican and receives a blessing from the Pope, for a fee!

 I did check out the Prada store.  After all, it is owned by an Italian.  I did not dare to enter the store when I saw in the display window that the furry black clutch bag the mannequin was holding was priced at $4000 euro.  I had Rand to take a photo of me standing outside the store…quickly so that the security guard would not notice.

Telen and Prada

      

 

All Roams lead to Rome

The Colosseo:  where the lions learned to love Christians 

All roads lead to Rome.   But not all airlines, apparently.

Yes, those are oranges on that tree!

We have made it to Rome and find ourselves tucked away nicely in a pleasant B&B down a back alley somewhere deep in the city.  It took a while to get here and Telen was unusually fuzzyheaded by the time we arrived.   I was fuzzyheaded too but, in my case, being fuzzyheaded is a normal thing on many levels.

Telen in her element: La Cucina

The flight from Victoria–Vancouver-Frankfurt went off without a hitch and the gentleman at the Air Canada desk was kind enough to check our bags all the way through to Rome.  That was just weird.   We reckoned that, since it was April 1, it was a trick.  It wasn’t.  On our way to the airport our daughter did play a trick on us by telling us that the steering wheel was stuck and we went around the roundabout about a dozen times.  In doing so, I suspect, we may have crossed into an alternate universe where Air Canada actually gives you customer service. 

I will have to speak to Steven Hawking about this.

Our room in La Bella Sosta

It is a good thing our bags were checked through to Rome because we had not taken into account Frankfurt Airport.  The guy who designed the airport was a real wiener.  Either that or he allowed his child, who had been playing with mazes, and who has anger management issues, do it for him. There are two types of Germans – the ruthlessly efficient Prussians and the fun loving, polka dancing Bavarians.  We expected to enjoy an airport with the Bavarian good humour and the Prussian efficiency.  They got it backwards.   The airport was run with the efficiency of the drunken polka-dancing Bavarians and with the fun and good humour of the Prussians.

We landed at Terminal 2 and our connecting flight was due to leave from Terminal 1.   We had 1 hour to make it there and the only transportation was by foot.  We followed the signs to Terminal 1 and concourse A.  Following the signs, I am sure that we doubled back a few times and once we literally went in a circle and down a corridor that the only sign indicated was to the toilets.  It was dark, smelly and narrow but actually ended up in a bigger labyrinth that was the correct maze. They did have a train between the two terminals that travelled approximately 30 meters at a pace that would have Granny with her walker sighing and looking over her shoulder in frustration.  Poor Telen had to sit me down and have a firm word with me because I kept slamming into the front of the train trying to make it go faster.  

We went around in a circle twice to arrive at security just as boarding was commencing on our flight.  As fate would have it we got into the middle of a group of high-school kids from the States who seemed to think that all you needed to do was put your jacket in the tray for X-Ray and you could carry the rest with you through the magic beeping door.  American airport security is the most stringent I have ever seen – you practically have to strip down to the buff to go through. (Luckily for them they have not gone that far yet. Me going naked through security? No one should have to see that!)  These kids must have gone through their security when they left their country.   And yet, they did not learn from watching the person in front of them, either.   Each one had to be told, individually, to put their carry-on luggage on the trays as well as their jackets, purses, hats, stuffed toys, computers, etc.  It is a good thing I have no hair or I would have ripped it out.  And then I would have no hair…

Sure enough, Telen’s bag got selected for extra examination.  But first they had to check the bag in front but the owner of that bag was not to be found.  Finally one of the young high-school students noticed that his bag was put to one side and wandered over to find out what was happenin’, dude.  Little did that young man know how close he came to grievous bodily harm that day at the hands of a terminally frustrated and severely jet-lagged little Chinese lady.

We got through that bit and went through a door where a man was waiting.  He separated us into Euro and non-Euro passports and took all us non-Euro passport holders through a secret door and told us to follow him.  

I knew this was going to be bad when he got on a bicycle.

We looked like a pack of dogs being led by a little fat Bulldog and a sleek greyhound chasing a cyclist down the concourse.  Telen kept yelling at me “Bad boy! Bad boy!” as I snarled and tried to bite the cyclist’s ankle in frustration.   We were accompanied by the thunderous sound of suitcase wheels and people making bets on the outcome of the race.

We thought we were almost to our gate when the bicycle took a sudden turn and came to a stop in front of … Customs!  There we stood at the yellow line waiting for the customs officer to beckon us forward.   We stood there and stood there and the man in the booth sat there and sat there.   Finally the bicycle man clicked his heels and said, “Go ahead unt zhow him your papers, please” We walked forward and presented our passports to what we thought might be a corpse.  It turned out the cadaver had one reflex left and he unhurriedly stamped our passports and without a single word, gesture or other movement he handed them back.  I think it might have been Germany’s first attempt at an automated Passport device.  

By this time we had so much pent up frustration we literally flew through the doors to get to our gate.  Down some stairs and back the same direction we came.  We literally ran down the concourse and onto the airplane.  Thank goodness they did not decide to get all efficient and close the doors on time!  We sat there in our cattle-class seats trying to catch our breath and thanking the Air Canada man who checked our luggage all the way through to Rome.  We would not have been sitting there if we had had to pick up our luggage in Frankfurt.

We made it to Rome and, surprisingly considering the brief stopover in Frankfurt, so did our luggage.  We arrived at our B&B and were met by a beautiful, smiling young Italian woman who showed us to our spacious room and made us our first Italian coffee.  That coffee made the Frankfurter Airport a distant, vaguely unpleasant memory. 

It is good to be in Italy!

Telen writes:

Oh yes, I felt we definitely have arrived in Italy when the driver for the pre-arranged pick up at the airport showed up in his Armani suit and a Mercedes with a strong smell of expensive aftershave.  He insisted on carrying my luggage in the typical charming Italian way.   I certainly did not protest.  Rand, of course, had to carrying his own luggage as is expected of any self-respecting man. He did not do it with the same suave style, however.

Our car travelled swiftly through the cobblestone streets of Rome, narrowly dodging cars parked on either side of mostly narrow streets.  I caught a glimpse of the world famous Coliseum and the dome of St. Peter’s square in the distance.  Wow!

I have forgotten how delicious Italian coffee is.  After a dinner of insalata caprese and spaghetti with clams, we have truly settled in on our first day in Italy.