June in Denver

Erin & Bryn

June in Denver was a family centered time.  Erin, on home leave before she heads to Pakistan in August, decided to spend it in Denver, which prompted us to change our plans, come back to the States early, and be in Denver with her and Bryn’s family.

We are so glad that we did.  First, Denver is a wonderful town in the summer.  Although this June was hotter than normal, with the thermometer often topping 90, the dry heat is nothing like the steaming heat of the east coast.

Grant & Bryn's Garden

Bryn and Grant have been working really hard on their yard and garden.  The perennials that they have planted over the last three years are beginning to mature and put on a good show. This year, they have been concentrating on transforming the side yard into a wonderful showcase.  One Saturday, we all—Grant, Bryn, Charlie, Sue and Larry—ventured out to Santa Fe Rock and Gravel to select some rocks and boulders to place in the garden.  It was a lot of fun selecting the rocks we all liked, and Charlie loved watching the big machinery and equipment in operation. When we got the rocks home, it was a lot of work getting them off of the truck and placed in the garden.  Grant did most of the lifting, with a little help from the rest of us. We all really like the dramatic effect that the rocks provide!

Charlie brushing his teeth

We have, of course, loved the time we have been able to spend with Charlie. We couldn’t believe  how big he was when we first arrived, but he also seems to change and grow with each passing day.

 A week after we arrived, he decided that he was done with his crib and proceeded to climb out of it one morning.  We believe that it signaled the end of babyhood.  He is a bundle of energy; always on the go; bouncing up from every fall like a rubber ball, acting like a true toddler.  He seldom cries when he is hurt; usually only when there is blood.   

With his favorite digger

Reading all about trucks

Each day seems to bring a new bruise, black eye, scrape or cut—but he just keeps on trucking.  And speaking of trucking; he is mad for trucks and cars.  His favorite toy is a large digger we got for him, and his favorite book is a board book about trucks that Erin found for him; he will sit for minutes at a time poring over the book, and he has to read it three or four times before he settles down at night.

At the Children's Museum

Sharing?

At the playground

With Oma

Charlie doesn’t say many words yet; but he is always jabbering, singing/humming, and pointing to things.  If he wants your attention, he takes one of your fingers in his chubby little hands and drags you to where he wants you to be. Bryn is using sign language with him, and it is fun watching him sign “more, all done, milk, and smile” among other things. Being able to sign things seems to help a lot with the frustration that he sometimes feels about not being able to communicate.  And although he doesn’t talk much, he seems to understand absolutely everything!

Grant's Family

Bryn

Grant and Bryn have been welcoming and inclusive as usual.  They seem to find some excuse (welcome home, birthday, first day of summer, etc.) to have a party at least once a week, which means inviting friends and family over for a cookout and beer with lots of music and good conversation in the their backyard—the more the merrier.  In addition to us, that often includes Grant’s extended family, and now his parents. Greg and Shirley have sold their house in California and retired (at least temporarily), and like us, they are thinking of making Denver their base of operations if not their year-round residence.

Erin at Botanical Garden

It was fun being with Erin so much, after her two-year stint in Mexico City.  She has invited us to stay with her in DC in July, while she is in training for her next assignment. She especially wanted to be in Denver to see more of her sister and of course have time with Charlie. We were surprised at the number of her friends who managed to come to Denver to visit her during her stay.  All we met were delightful and we enjoyed being with them.

Even though our initial Denver AIRBNB experience was not the best, we have not lost faith, and in fact have had our trust restored.  After taking advantage of Greg and Shirley’s kind offer to stay in their apartment while they were traveling, we finished our last week in Denver renting a room in a house in the Curtis Park neighborhood.  Brian, our host, is a young man who has been renting out his second bedroom through AIRBNB for more than a year—he tells us that he has hosted more than a hundred visitors in that time.  Since he spends a lot of time with his girlfriend who lives nearby, we often had the apartment to ourselves, but we enjoyed the time when he was their getting to know him.  An Upstate New York transplant, Brian is a great Denver booster; we really enjoyed learning about the Bike Sharing Program (B-Bikes) for which he volunteers and his community gardening adventures. We would recommend staying with him to anyone visiting Denver.

It came time to day goodbye, briefly, as we are spending July on the east coast.  We flew to Dulles on July 4^th and will return to Colorado on August 4^th for a three month stay to see if we like spending a longer time there.  Our travels will continue in November when we plan to go back to Mexico.  Meanwhile, we’re in the U.S. and glad to be here.

Rome to Home

Our last week in Italy was spent in Rome.  Once again we used AIRBNB to book a place to stay—this time with Gianpiero, who lives in a Roman suburb called Labaro—an ancient settlement in its own right, but now a bedroom community for the big city.  Gianpiero, a divorced father of two grown sons, lives by himself in a two car garage that he has made over into a small two bedroom house—and the operative word is small.  Still our bedroom and bed were quite comfortable, and Gianpiero was a good host and a super Rome booster.

With Gianpiero as our guide, we saw some wonderful things in Rome, like Ostia Antica, which we had never heard of before.  It is the old port and is about as well preserved as Pompey without all the lava and tourists.  It was very, very interesting and we managed to spend all day there.

Oh the crowds in Rome!

On another day we went back to the Borghese Gallery that we had visited on previous trips to Italy and drooled over a couple Bernini sculptures and tried to take in the gazillion pieces of fine art.  The collection belongs to the state now, but was created by a greedy Cardinal who was not very nice about how he got the paintings and sculptures he craved.  Even had some people killed so he could get his hands on their stuff.  Nice guy.

The last gelato

Our final day we took a nostalgic walk thru Rome—revisited some of the "not to be missed sights, like the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, and had our very last gelato—now, that was a sad milestone! Our Italian sojourn lasted from March 1 through May 30—91 days. We overstayed our tourist visa by one day, and that can get you barred from traveling to Italy for as much as five years, but fortunately, nobody seemed to notice or mind.

Our plane trip home was long—about 18 hours door to door, Rome to Atlanta, with a change in London.  British Airways treated us fairly well, but are a little schizophrenic about carry-on baggage, with the size limit smaller than we are used to on domestic flights.  We got into a little tussle with a woman at the London airport about a bag we had carried on in Rome and wanted to continue with it as carry on luggage.  She said we had to check it; we flatly refused and told her we just alighted from a BA plane and were boarding another and it fit in the overhead.  We won!  “Next time, I won’t allow it”, she says.  Next time?  How often do we fly through London?

Larry, his Mom, Carlie & his sisters Glenda & Sandy

We flew to Atlanta to give us the opportunity to visit with Larry’s family, most of whom live in North Georgia these days.  His Mom, who will be 85 this July, is fortunately very healthy and lives by herself.  We got to see each of his siblings and many of our nieces and nephews. A big treat for us both was seeing 10 months old Art (Glenn & Garland Ryder’s son and Larry’s sister Sandy’s grandson); he is such a Zen baby and a delight to hold and cuddle.

After a four-day visit, we started on a three-day, 1600-mile driving trek to Denver.  On our first day, June 2^nd, we stopped for a quick lunch and visit with Rob Roschy, Sue’s nephew, who manages a Mangionne’s Little Italy Restaurant in Nashville. We spent our first night in Eastern Missouri and the second in central Kansas.  The American countryside can be every bit as beautiful and interesting as the Italian, although the billboards can be quite ugly and distracting. We were surprised at the lovely rolling hills in both Missouri and Kansas. 

Late in the afternoon of our second day, we stopped for a short visit to the Kansas State History Museum in Topeka—and regret that we had only one hour or so to look around before closing. Since neither of us knew anything about Kansas or its history, it was really lots of fun and educational—we highly recommend it. For a small local museum, it was incredibly well organized and very interactive.

Kansas Wind Farm

In central Kansas, we marveled as we drove through huge wind farms; giant wind turbines relief from the franchises found all along the interstate that seemed to march across the plains for many, many miles. Another recommendation that we might make for cross country travelers—get off the interstate for a few minutes and explore some of the little towns—we found a couple of really great local restaurants.

Still jetlagged and pretty road weary after three days driving, we arrived in Denver on May 5^th, hoping to settle into the apartment we had booked on AIRBNB.  Shock!!! Not only was the place difficult to access through an on-going remodeling and reconstruction of the front yard and path to the house, it was really quite dirty.  In addition, there was no dresser in the bedroom, and dollar store plastic plates, cups, etc., a popcorn popper and one small sauce pan were the entire kitchen.  Worse yet, the owner lived downstairs and was totally crazy. We got what we thought was her entire life story in 15 minutes as she babbled to us upon arrival; then got more and more for the two days we stayed there as she brought up for us several totally useless items from her kitchen to stock ours. 

 We knew quickly that we could not stay there for a month; said we were leaving and fought with her over giving us our money back.  We had stayed two days and had prepayed for the entire month.  Probably the worst experience of our entire trip.  Only “Freddie, everyone knows me” in the Galapagos could match it. Oh, well all trips must have their ups and downs.  The good news for us was that with threatening to write a scathing review of her “furnished apartment” on AIRBNB, she caved and refunded us for the remaining 28 days.

The part we want to remember is what she brought upstairs to stock our severely understocked kitchen. Here goes:  One filthy sandwich grill; two dirty cookie sheets encrusted, possibly for weeks, with bacon grease; two dirty cake pans; a basket put together like a “gift” (fake grass inside) containing such useful things as a hand potato masher, a rolling pin, rubber cupcake baking liners, a meat thermometer, a grapefruit cutter, a garlic press, four, count them, four sets of measuring cups and measuring spoons, an ice cream scoop and several unidentifiable objects that might have been useful to serve cheese.

Erin & Bryn

Fortunately for us, Grant’s parents had rented an apartment starting June 1^st, but will not arrive in Denver until June 28^th.  Their goods and chattle preceded them by professional movers.  They offered to let us stay for free, since we would have to sort through a lot of moving boxes, unpack what we needed to use and it has no TV or Internet. We are here; we have kitchen things; we have a comfortable bed.  Bought a couple towels and sheets so we wouldn’t have to keep unpacking.  We are good to go now with no crazy lady downstairs with total access to our apartment.

Sue, Bryn, Charlie &Larry

The lovely, bright spot in all this, of course is Charlie, along with Bryn, Grant and Erin (who is here on home leave for the month of June.)  It is a joy to be with them and a luxury to see them almost every day. We were all together at Bryn and Grant’s to celebrate Father’s Day—along with many from Grant’s family.  We are settling in nicely here in Denver.  We will be here through July 4^th and then we head off to DC for the month of July.  We will return to Denver for a longer stay in August. But we are already planning and thinking about the next places we want to visit.

Leaving Sovicille and the Siena Countryside

Casabella

It was hard to say goodbye to Casabella  but as we knew would happen, our time in Italy had to end. We so enjoyed out stay at Casabella--so much so that we could not muster up the energy for trips to towns and sites we had earmarked for touring.

With Renzo & Marzia in Casabella

Still, knowing that we want to return to Italy soon, we decided to just relax and enjoy our time in Sovicille and the Siena countryside.  We formed friendships with our hosts, Marzia & Renzo, and we definitely will plan another stay in one of their properties.

We have skipped a couple weeks between our trips to Todi, Poggio with the cooking lesson a la Danilo, and our visit to Certaldo with Cynthia and Nancy.

Cynthia & Nancy picnicking at Ricasoli

Not having written until now, those memories are getting foggy.  We spent the last few days of their stay in Casabella--our only regret being that it was too cool to get into the pool, which Renzo so graciously prepared early in the season at our request.  We did, however, spend time in Siena, revisited Ricasoli castle and winery for the third time, and generally had loads of fun with "the girls".

At our favorite restaurant in Piensa, La Buca della Fate

After they left, we relaxed in our beautiful villa, visited with Renzo and Marzia and had a wonderful evening with Norah White, whom we met at Ricasoli.  She served us all three times at our wine tastings and we grew to like her very much.  She and her husband, Giuseppi, came one night for dinner and we hope to have formed a lasting friendship.

Alas, our bucolic sojourn in the Siena countryside ended on May 25, and we had to head to Rome for a few days before our flight back to the U.S.

Piera, Sue & Nilo

On our way to Rome we made a short but important detour to Parana, a small Umbrian town, to visit with Nilo and Piera Leonardi. When we were last in Siena, in 2000, we stayed with the Leonardis for two months.  They were wonderful hosts then, and Piera is a superb cook, and nothing has changed except their location

Our reunion was delightful; they have a lovely home and they seemed happy to see us.  To aid the students who lived with them to learn Italian, they purposely chose not to learn English. Yet, they are both quite intuitive and seem to have little trouble understanding our halting Italian and making us understand their Italian.  

As we said, Piera is a wonderful "cuoca," and the feast she prepared, which included soup, pici (homemade thick Tuscan pasta), spinach soufle, salad, roasted por in carrot sauce, and a torta, was just incredible. Accompanied by their homemade olive oil, the two hour visit and feast were a delight. It was so nice to renew our bonds of friendship, and we of course promised not to wait another 12 years to return again. But of course, we had to say goodbye as we needed to get onto Rome.

We will write again about Rome and our return, but for now...our best to all and especially to all those who physically shared our journey.  Our virtual companions we love, too, so buon fortunal a tutti !

Spring Rambles in Tuscany

Along one of our nearby country roads

One of the great joys of our time here in Tuscany has been watching the land come alive with the coming of spring and seeing all the blooming plants and  flowers.

Since our arrival in March, the land has seemed to burst forth, and every walk and drive along the country byways, reveals something new.

We recognize some of them from home-- daffodils, lilacs, irises, roses, etc., but the so many of the wildflowers are new to us or in an abundance that we have never seen.

The poppies are incredible

The poppies that seem to spring up in every field, on on every stone wall, in every cranny are especially delightful and fun.

Poppy closeup

We have tried and tried to grow poppies in our various gardens but have never had much success.  To see them growing in such wild profusion has been a treat.

Mustard fields were prevalent during March

Earlier in the spring, the fields of mustard, glistening in the sun were also a new experience for us.  The mustard is mostly gone now, the farmers have plowed them under to sow their spring crops, but while they lasted they were a sight to behold--solid fields of yellow amidst a landscape of green.

Small farmer's vineyard--just a few rows

What dominates one's view most often are the vineyards and olive groves.  It seems to be every Tuscan's birthright to grow his own grapes and olives.

Even in  the smallest plots--in towns, cities and countryside, you see olive trees and grapevines.  We have been told that it takes about one tree to make a liter bottle of olive oil--so everyone's goal seems to be to grow enough for their own use.

Palazzo that we see on our walk with its vineyards & cypresses

Here in the Siena countryside, each farmer  seems to have three or fours rows of grapes; and we assume that is enough to make a year's supply of red table wine for his family's consumption.

As you drive along Tuscan provincial roads you see vineyards covering hundreds if not thousands of acres or hectares, which is how they measure land here in Italy and most of the world. And for many of these large vineyards, there is a winery.  Some like Ricasoli produce 3 million bottles a year, others like a little winery, Tenuto La Nouvela, we visited in Poggio, 12,000 bottles is a big production.

View from our window

But we started out talking about the lovely flowers and blooming plants that we see each time we step out our door or take a drive or better yet, a walk through the countryside.

One aspect of the Tuscan countryside that we like is the clustering of houses in small communities or settlements, so the landscape is not as broken up by farm houses and outbuildings as it is in the States. Casabella is part of a small cluster of houses--not really a village, but just a community.  We are surrounded by family gardens, olive groves, and vineyards as well as fields of wheat and sunflowers. We would love to be here this summer when we are told the wheat fields are golden and the sunflowers all turn their blooms to the sun.  The Italians call sunflowers, girasole, or sun follower.

Yesterday, in a break from the May showers that are more prevalent and frequent than we had expected, we were able to get out for a long, leisurely walk along the country lanes that criss cross the landscape.  We saw any number of new and interesting plants, at least to us--most of which we cannot name. But we wanted to share the pictures with you, in hopes that it might help to understand this faccinating landscape just a little bit better. Everyday, something new and different seems to appear, and of course as the season progresses, things die, stop flowering, or are just get overwhelmed by new growth.

A geranium or cranesbill that we noticed for the first time yesterday

A type of succulent that seems to grow out of every stone wall we pass

Wild gladioli

Not a clue, but found it peaking out of a bank of two foot high grass

There are lots of thistle--both the giant ones and its smaller relative

Earlier in the spring there were lots of ground cover daisies, but now their bigger cousins are showing up

We think this is another kind of geranium

Is the sage native or just naturalized--either way the big bushes of blue are impressive.

Earlier in the season, this plant was everywhere--it has now been overwhelmed by so many other plants, but still in a lovely clump like this it is striking.

There are many others that we have missed or cannot capture well with the iPhone camera, but we know that when we have the time for a walk, these sights and many others will be there to greet us.

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