Traveling with Cynthia & Nancy--Part I

Casabellina

Casabellina

After a month in the hills near Florence in the small settlement of Poggio alla Croce, we moved into a little house in the Siena countryside--Casabellina.  Casabellina originally, centuries ago, was a stable and cowshed, but has been converted to a wonderful two bedroom apartment. The first week of May was a great time to rest and relax in Tuscany--we have loved the architecture, landscape and the wild flowers that seem to be blooming everywhere.

Nancy & Cyntia in Todi

On May 5th, our friends Cynthia Adams and Nancy Ball arrived at the Rome airport.  We have gotten well acquainted with the A1 Toll Road and the Rome Airport.  Delayed by a massive tie-up on the Rome ring road, we worried that Cynthia and Nancy would be feeling frantic and abandoned at the airport, but they greeted us with smiles and warm hugs.

Cynthia enjoying Casabellina

Fortunately, traffic out of the city moved at good clip, and we were able to take a pleasant lunch time break in one of our favorite hill towns, Todi. As we have mentioned before, the views over the Umbrian landscape are truly spectacular from all sides of this lovely place. After a delicious lunch, a quick tour and a gelato break, we headed back to Siena and Casabellina--but just for one night.

 

Lucca

Our sheep traveling companions

Early the next morning, we were back in the car and headed to Lucca for a three night stay and tour in the northeastern part of Tuscany and Cinque Terre.  On our travels, we rely on our trusty GPS--aka Gracie--to get us from point A to point B--this time from Siena to Lucca.  Occasionally, Gracie's evil twin, Gladys, seems to take over, and we end up seemingly lost in the countryside.  Our trip to Lucca was one of those times.  We found ourselves so far off the beaten path that we had to stop for a sheep traffic jam. After our initial shock--we all were convulsed in laughter and had enough presence of mind to capture the moment on film.

Biking in Lucca

So despite what seemed like many hours of back road adventures (but only an hour and half or so in reality), we managed to find the lovely walled city of Lucca around 7:00 pm.  What else could go wrong? Well, our Italian cell phone decided to lose its charge and our iPhone refused to link to a local network, so in order to contact our host for the night, we had to walk into the city in search of an Internet connection. That proved harder than we imagined, but finally we introduced ourselves to a nice real estate agent, Astrid, who after hearing our tale of woe, took pity on us and voluntarily contacted our host, Rosella--who had been waiting since 5:00 and wondering what had become of us. She happily agreed to meet us within 20 minutes at the apartment.  Throughout this trip we have relied on Airbnb to find apartments and rooms and fortunately have not been disappointed.  Our Lucca apartment was right in the heart of the historic center: bright, comfortable and newly renovated; the only drawback was the four flights of stairs that we had to climb to reach it--loaded down with too much luggage, food & other paraphernalia.

Nancy with Marco

We have visited Lucca several times and we always forget how much we really like this old but wonderfully modern Tuscan city. The medieval wall is intact and serves as a major recreation setting for visitors and citizens alike.  On our first full day in the city, we rented bikes and rode around the city on top of the wall--actually we circled it twice--first clockwise and then counter-clockwise; along with hundreds of other bikers, runners, walkers and young parents pushing strollers. It was a delightful spring day and a great break from auto touring. Of course, we always have to eat--we ended up at Da Leo (Leo's Place) where we had a great "pranza" and got acquainted with our waiter, Marco, who when he is not waiting tables, is a very talented, but struggling, graphic artist. We all loved walking around this mostly flat town that is filled with art, music, interesting and varied architecture.

Who will be Cinderella?

One of our favorite finds was the Palazzo Mansi, a 16th century mansion that is now an incredibly ornate and interesting museum and art gallery, on the same street as our apartment and just a couple of blocks away. Worth a visit if just to see the sumptuous lifestyle that a rich 17th century Italian family would have been living.

 

Cinque Terre

 One reason for taking Nancy and Cynthia to Lucca was so that we could all visit Cinque Terre--five small Italian Riviera towns that are a two hour car/train trip from Lucca.  Known for their scenic natural beauty, tranquil harbors, and walking trails, we had visited the towns in 1995 and remembered them as quiet and quaint and well worth a visit.

What we wanted to see at Cinque Terre

Since that time, however, these "undiscovered jewels" have become a prime itinerary stop on far too many tours.  The train from La Specia to Cinque Terre was like riding the Tokyo subway and unfortunately we had to share our Cinque Terre interlude with the hordes.

What we actually saw in Cinque Terre.

Confronted with the numbers of people--including tourists from throughout Europe, North America and Asia, we decided to ride the train to the northern most town and then take a boat ride back to the initial town.  It was a good strategy--although we were not the only ones to come up with this strategy. Still it was a spectacularly beautiful day--the water was a deep sparkling blue & the sky cerulean, and in the end we had a fun and interesting visit.We were pretty tired by the time we got back to our Lucca apartment that evening.

 

Cooking Lessons with Danilo

Readers of our blog will know how much we enjoyed our time in Poggio alla Croce and the wonderful Becattini Family.  We wanted to introduce Cynthia and Nancy to the family and the Poggio area. Danilo Becattini is a super chef--or Cuoco, as the Italians would say, and he offers cooking lessons in pasta and pizza making, which sounded intriguing and fun to our friends--and it was.  We have dubbed Danilo the Italian leprechaun--he is a wiry and diminutive man with a beautiful smile and boundless energy as well as a great cook and teacher.  Lorenzo, Danilo's new sou-chef served as interpreter and helper. Sue, Cynthia, and Nancy tremendously enjoyed their lesson and are anxious to try what they learned at home. The two hour lesson was full of laughter and smiles, new discoveries, and lots of oohs and ahhs.

Starting with making the pizza dough

Danilo gives pointers about working with the dough

Cynthia rolls out her pizza

Sue thought her pizza was smiling back at her

Danilo helps Cynthia put her masterpiece in the wood fired oven.

 

Certaldo

Linda Darty, a long time ECU faculty member and renowned jewelry artist, has spearheaded the creation of East Carolina University, study abroad program in Certaldo.  The hamlet of Certaldo is a medieval Tuscan hill town almost equidistant from the two main Tuscan towns of Florence and Siena. Our visiting friend, Nancy Ball, is the Development Officer for ECU's College of Fine Arts and Communication, and she really wanted to visit the center. We planned a day trip there. All of us immediately fell in love with Certaldo and the program and were blown away by the facility, faculty, and staff. How can we enroll was the question we all wanted to ask? As it was between term, we were not able to see Linda who was back in Greenville on business, but Ignacio, Marissa, and Chris welcomed us warmly, gave us a great tour, and told us about the program in detail. ECU can be proud of Linda, her colleagues, and the program they have created.

We spent a couple hours with them, ending our visit with espresso on the terrace of a several hundred year old home which has been turned into a beautiful hotel.  Afterwards, we drove back to Sovicille, a village near Siena to take up residence in the farmhouse attached to Casabellina.  We will tell you about Casabella and the remainder of Cynthia and Nancy's visit in our next blog.

Nancy with Chris, Marissa & Ignacio

Sue, Marissa, Chris, Nancy & Cynthia