TravelStream™ news feed for member davidbeck on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/davidbeck en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:39:39 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211629260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211629260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211629260/tpod.html Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:39:39 -0400 Italy May 2008

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Sorrento, Campania, Italy

May 19 - It's Monday and we're leaving Rome to drive down to Sorrento. Museums and other attractions are closed on Mondays (at least in Rome) so it's a good day to be traveling. Gary has pre-arranged for a rental car, and I'm glad we're just driving it out of town. I would be very nervous about driving much around Rome. People and cars (and lots of scooters) seem to share the streets pretty well, but driving may be a special skill non-natives have to develop. Sidewalks are narrow when they exist at all. It seems like the right of way goes to whoever takes it, whether you're on foot or in a vehicle. It looks to me like Smart cars are the most popular, followed by Fiats and several models of Mercedes, Peugeot, VW, Opel, Ford, Chevy and others you wouldn't see in America. All of the cars are small by US standards; if I am converting right a liter of gas costs about $2.50 or $2.75 or $10 - $11 per gallon.
Unfortunately, I developed a cold or flu or something yesterday and last night was not good. Lynnette suggested taking some cold medicine along with us but I said no need to so we had to go to a Farmacia to buy some last night.
We have a fine B&B in Sorrento, Villa Anna (tag line "Rooms to Let"). It is inside a stone walled compound with a solid metal gate. We have a nice room with a large private balcony (next to Gary and Bonnie's balcony) with masses of purple bougenvillea all around and overlooking a swimming pool. The weather is a little cool here so we probably would not use the pool anyway but it is a little irritating that the owners (who live here with extended family) are the only ones who can use the pool according to a sign they posted which blames it on some local health law. The property has spacious, nicely landscaped grounds, but they have posted a "no picnicking" sign next to a shady area with a picnic table. They don't cite any health laws on that one. Sorrento is south of Rome on a little peninsula and it overlooks the Bay of Naples. We can walk anywhere in town that we need to go and plan to leave the car parked until we leave town. After we arrived in the mid-afternoon we walked around downtown Sorrento, which is quaint and picturesque, and features locally grown lemons, some the size of grapefruits. Lemoncello, a liqueur, seems to be a very popular souvenier that is sold everywhere in a variety of fun shaped bottles. They served it to us at a couple of Rome restaurants after coffee and desserts, and I think it's pretty good. We bought some local wine and cheese and took it back for a happy hour on Gary and Bonnie's balcony. Then we walked back downtown for another great 4-course dinner at a restaurant recommended by our hosts and walked back home to fall into bed around 11:30.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211571780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211571780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211571780/tpod.html Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:48:14 -0400 Italy May 2008

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Florence, Tuscany, Italy

May 23 - We get up and leave at 7 a.m., before the Fagiolari breakfast, which starts at 8, for a day-long road trip to Firenze (Florence) about 40 km north of here. Florence is another magnificent Italian city with a glorious past. We visit the Uffizi Gallery with its collection of famous Primitive and Renaissance paintings and sculptures including original works by Leonardo Di Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and many others. Bonnie had made reservations on line more than a month before so we did not have to stand in long lines and take a chance on whether we would get in, although G & B report that the lines are much longer in the summer. We also visited the Galleria dell' Academia, which is most famous for Michelangelo's statue of David, and also houses the museum of musical instruments. Academia also requires advance reservations to get in. There were large crowds at both museums but I understand they are even larger on weekends and during the summer months. We also visit the Boboli Gardens, the grounds of the Pitti Palace which was at one time the residence of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and later the King of Italy. We return from Florence and go to dinner at a fairly new restaurant in Panzano called Solociccia, which means "nothing but fat" or "nothing but meat" depending on who is translating. It is owned by a butcher and features a meal with lots of meat dishes and no pasta, unlike most Italian restaurants, which serve meat but the vast majority of the menu items do not include meat. They have two seatings per evening, 7 and 9, and when we arrive for our 9 o'clock reservation the 7 o'clock people are still inside and seem to be having a great time. The information in the waiting area says they're not really a restaurant, just a family butcher shop that likes to share. They don't have a menu to choose from; the four of us were seated at a table with 12 other diners and they started bringing out food family style in big bowls. They also brought out carafes of red wine and kept them coming as our table emptied them. Nearly everything they served was delicious. I lost count but I would guess we had 10 different meat dishes. (I've since been corrected that there were only 6 meat dishes but probably 10 courses to the meal.) We also had a couple of desserts and then some pretty strong liqueurs and Grappa, which, as near as I can tell, is distilled from the leftover fermented grapes used to make wine. We got to know the other people at our end of the table, a young US Navy officer stationed in Naples along with his wife and her sister, who was visiting, and two guys who currently live in Austria. Everyone had a great time and ate too much. When we return from dinner around midnight we can't get one of the exterior doors to unlock, and Giuletta seems to be pretty angry that we are apparently too stupid to unlock the door and that she has to get out of bed to let us in. Lynnette and I are embarrassed and pretty mad at this stupid lock system.

This is the information posted at the entrance to Solociccia:
This is not a restaurant. It is the home of a butcher.

All that you will eat is the fruit of my work and that of my family.

You will not choose from a menu, though you will be treated well, and with great respect, if you return the favor.

You will it at a communal table, together in "convivio".

There will be six meat courses, chosen at my discretion, with seasonal vegetables, white beans with olive oil, focaccia bread wine cake coffee and after dinner liqueurs.

All of the above is to be had for 30 euro, which nearly two hours at our table, at the end of which you will turn over your seat to the next guests.

Feel free to bring your own wine without corkage fee. We do not serve steak.

In closing, please be aware that everything: the food the wine the space and we ourselves are for better or worse... thoroughly Tuscan.

Welcome. (if you dare!)

Via Chiantigiana 5, ingresso da via XX luglio
Panzano in Chianti Firenze tel.055-852727
macelleriacecchini@tin.it
http://www.solociccia.it/solocicciaing.htm
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211474280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211474280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1211474280/tpod.html Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:38:34 -0400 Italy May 2008

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Panzono, Italy

May 22 - We leave Sorrento for a 5 hour road trip to Tuscany. The drive is beautiful through the Italian hills (mountains for this Kansan) and it's interesting to see the old towns strategically located on top of hills for defense. It looks like most had walls around them in the early days but have grown outside the walls now. For lunch we stop in one of those towns, Orvieto, which is just a few km off the Autostrade (turnpike). Gary and Bonnie had stopped here before, and they were shocked that this time we were able to drive all the way into the center of town and park. In the summer tourist season access is restricted and you have to park outside the walls and hike uphill a ways to get to the center. In the center is an incredibly large and beautiful Catholic church. In addition to the size and design of the structure a most striking feature is the alternating rows of dark and light marble it is made of, giving it a striped appearance. Of course it has the ornate sculptures and frescoes and massive ornate doors that we've come to expect on churches in Italy, and like most of the others it is surrounded by a spacious piazza that features stores and restaurants on the perimeter. We eat lunch at one of the restaurants before going inside the church to look around. The weather was sunny and beautiful when we arrived in Orvieto, but by the time we ordered lunch a thunderstorm moved in and hung around for our entire visit. We should have taken pictures when we got there.Left aligned photo tag:
We arrive at our B&B destination, Fagiolari, around 6 p.m. Fagiolari is at the end of a rough gravel road, about a 10 minute drive from the nearest town, Panzano. It is a grand old stone country house with a tile roof that has 6 individual rooms (some with shared baths) plus the owner's quarters and a separate cottage where Gary and Bonnie are staying. The owner, Giuletta Giovannoi, thinks the house goes back to the 12th century, but when she bought it in 1980 it needed extensive work. She has had it open as a B&B since 1996. The 20-acre grounds are beautiful and the views of Tuscany are like out of a movie. A small vineyard and 150 olive trees plus a swimming pool are on the grounds. Giuletta reports that she makes her own wine (Chianti, of course, since this area is known as Chianti) and has her olives made into her own olive oil every year. Our room is nice and large with a red tile floor and a private bath with shower, and we share a sitting area with a fireplace with the other guests. Giuletta runs a cooking school here, and Gary, Bonnie and Lynnette are signed up for a class on Saturday. I've decided not to take the class (at 90 Euro per person) but will eat the meal they prepare. A big concern we have with Fagiolari is the difficulty in getting in and out of the place. The road is very bad and parking is at a real premium. We spent about 15 minutes trying to maneuver into a parking space (Gary driving with me out of the car trying to help him gauge how much space he had for backing up and turning) but we ended up backing in to a low stone wall with vines growing over it and damaging the rental car (twice actually). When we arrived they showed us our room and gave us three keys and said be sure to lock all three doors (a heavy storm door and a thick wooden exterior door and then another door to our room) every time we come in or leave. All three doors have to be unlocked and locked with one of the keys, even from the inside, so it could be very difficult to get out in a fire. We have two windows that we can use if we have to but they're fairly high up off the ground level. Gary and Bonnie have a separate cottage away from the main building and don't have the access problems Lynnette and I have (after the car is parked anyway). The cottage has a kitchen and a patio with a great view of the Tuscan countryside so we have our usual pre-dinner wine and cheese there. We have dinner at Ristoro di Lamole, an excellent restaurant in Lamole, a little town about 10 km from Fagiolari.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1212115080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1212115080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1212115080/tpod.html Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:39:53 -0400 Italy May 2008

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Murano, Veneto, Italy

May 29 - Our last full day in Italy. We take the bus boat to two small nearby islands, Murano and Burano. It takes nearly an hour to get to Murano, getting on and off boats and some walking in Venice to get there. Murano is best known for making beautiful glass products. Lynnette and Bonnie both want to visit a bead store that sells mainly Murano glass beads that can be made into jewelry. The store is hot and Gary and I spend the time outside having a Cappucino at a bar a few doors down. After that we visit another store, an outlet for one of the family run factories, and G & B end up commissioning a beautiful light fixture for their new lake home in Wisconsin. The designer was running the store and her dad and husband work at the factory. They will make the fixture, wire it for USA, and ship it for, according to Gary, about the same as the price of the fixtures they were looking at in Wisconsin. After that we take off on the bus boat for Burano, another half hour ride. Burano has a different look than other places we've seen around here with brightly colored buildings, similar to what I remember seeing in England with a single building having 3 or 4 colors, separated vertically, to differentiate the multi-level townhomes within it. It definitely wins our Italy trip prize for most colorful, especially since most people had lots of beautiful flowers growing in pots or in window boxes. It is really a very pretty place, with canals running through it like Venice and Murano. Burano is known for making lace and there are lots of little stores selling lace as well as Murano glass, Venice carnival masks, and other tourist treasures. After lunch there, we walk around taking in the picturesque village and taking pictures like crazy. We head back to Venice for a little rest before our final dinner in Italy. We're eating early tonight, 7pm, because Gary and Bonnie have an early flight and will be leaving for the airport around 5am. Our flight is not until 1 so we'll be able to have a leisurely breakfast before heading home.

Things I learned:
1. It is a good idea to take only carry-on size bags, but it would be better to check one of them so that you can bring more of the restricted items like toothpaste, Woolite or liquid clothes washing soap, shampoo, a knife, scissors and a corkscrew. Although readily available items like toothpaste are twice as much money and you'll have to buy stuff like Woolite in large bottles. Most of our hotels/B&Bs provided soap and shampoo but not all.
2. Bring a washcloth or two. None of the places we stayed provided one. They all had towels but no washcloths.
3. Bring plenty of things like Ibuprofen, Alka Seltzer, Tums, Band-Aids, cold medicine, etc. just in case you need them. Again, these things are available but cost 2 or 3 times as much and are not always easy to find.
4. We had no problem getting cash from ATM's, and we think that is the best way, rather than taking dollars or travelers checks and trying to convert to Euros. There are a surprising number of restaurants and hotels that do not take credit cards, but most take MasterCard and Visa.
5. We saw three or four McDonalds total and no KFC, Pizza Hut, or Starbucks. This was a refreshing change from what we saw in China. Coca Cola was the biggest US brand I noticed in Italy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1212243780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1212243780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidbeck/2/1212243780/tpod.html Sat, 31 May 2008 10:26:42 -0400 Italy May 2008

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Topeka, Kansas, United States

We're back in Topeka. It took about 21.5 hours from the time we left the hotel in Venice until we got back home. Highlight of the mostly uneventful trip was seeing Richard Simmons at the Marco Polo Airport in Venice. He was on our flight.
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Venice, Italy

May 28 - Ca' Angeli wins my Italy Vacation Best Breakfast Award hands down. Even the coffee is good. We have pre-arranged for a guided walking tour of Venice this morning. Bonnie has requested Marco to guide us, as he had done for them two years ago, and we're pleased when the tour company sends Marco to our hotel for the tour. Marco is charming and very knowledgeable and takes us on a two-hour walking tour full of historical information, current Venice problems, tips for getting around and a few spots outside the normal tourist route, like the open air fish market. We also visit a horse and burro meat butcher shop, meat which Marco says they started to eat after the mad cow disease hit Europe. He thinks it is delicious but we do no sampling. Venice is still the most difficult place to find one's way around. Marco was a great guide, but I'm still lost most of the time without a guide. Gary seems to be able to get around pretty good, but this place is more challenging for him than anywhere else we've been on this trip.
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Venice, Veneto, Italy

May 27- We're off on our final road trip, to Venice. We checked out and said arevaderci to Fagiolari and hit the road around 9:30. After getting to the Autostrade toll road we had good roads but lots of traffic all the way and numerous tunnels and we arrived in Venice around 1. After you cross a bridge into Venice everyone has to park their car; we gave up our rental car there, bought a Venice Pass (for unlimited public boat bus transportation) and took off on a boat down the Grand Canal for our hotel. We had no problem with getting off at the right stop but lots of problems navigating the narrow and winding (and lots of dead ends) lanes to find our hotel even though we had directions. I am used to narrow winding lanes in Italy but Venice is like a maze and the lanes are not well marked even by Italian standards. But we finally find our hotel, Ca' Angeli www.caangeli.it and get checked in and find it is probably the nicest we've stayed in while in Italy. We explore a little on our own and I find that the main piazza area exceeds Pisa for blatant commercialism and people selling junk to tourists. The huge piazza has lots of pigeons and some tourists are extending their arms to get the pigeons to land on them for a photo. I'm told that the pigeons used to be a bigger problem but the city of Venice recently banned the corn sellers. Now the corn sellers are having a protest demonstration on the piazza with their empty corn carts. We return to the hotel to have a happy hour on B & G's terrace (our room does not have a terrace, but G & B are paying €25 more per night for theirs)and have dinner in a nearby restaurant recommended by our hotel host.
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Panzano, Italy

May 26 - Day trip to Pisa. We visit the most famous tower in the world, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The tower is in a walled compound that includes a giant church and a large baptismal building, all 3 of which share an architectural style, even though they were built over a period of 2 or 3 centuries. The area seems like the biggest single tourist attraction we have been to with hundreds of vendors selling food, trinkets, souvenirs and other junk as well as guys walking around selling fake Rolex watches. I expected to have to pay to get to walk up to the top of the tower but was surprised that they also charged admission to get into the church building. All the rest had been free (except in the Vatican) although some had special sections with special art displays that they charged to get into. Climbing up the tower is very popular, even at 20 Euros per person for a 30 minute visit, and they have to restrict access to 2 groups of 24 at a time. We bought our tickets around 11:30 a.m. for the earliest entrance time we could get, 2:20, then walked around some more and had lunch at a nearby pizza place. I think the experience of climbing up into the tower and the views you get from the top are worth it. When we came back from Pisa we relaxed a while - Lynnette napped while I wrote in this journal - and then had a happy hour with local wines, sausages and cheese we had bought at the Greve Coop, a nice supermarket in one of the nearby towns, outside G & B's cottage with the magnificent views of the Tuscan countryside. We dined at Fagiolari, another delicious meal followed by Tiramisu, with a couple from the LA area, Dennis and Kathy, who had checked into the B&B that day.
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Panzano, Italy

May 25 - Day trip to San Gimignano, Volterra, and Siena. We take off to visit three Chianti district towns in the Provence of Siena. Our first stop is 40 km away in San Gimignano, a small and very picturesque town with 17 towers and a wall built in the 13th century. Most of the towers were built to defend the town, but at least some are now bell towers and we're treated to some brief bell tower concerts while we're there. We walk around the winding little streets and have a nice lunch at a restaurant on the central plaza, Piazza della Cisterna (an ancient cistern is in the center). From there we go to Volterra, and I must correct myself because it is in the Provence of Pisa, but still part of the Chianti district of Tuscany. Volterra is another fortified hilltop town that goes back at least to the 3rd century B.C. It is mainly known for its Alabaster sculpture and we visit a special display in the community building there (the display runs April 24 - November 3, 2008) that features Alabaster sculptures from 1780 - 1930. There are also some displays about how artists and architects worked with alabaster and some very interesting information about the alabaster trade that sprung from Volterra and went all over the world in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Our next stop was Siena, the largest of the three towns we visited today, and although not the most picturesque, the most memorable experience. Our timing was totally luck but we arrived on a Sunday afternoon that was part of a celebration that involves the entire town. A horse race, Palio, is held twice a year, July 2 and August 16th, and is a competition/ritual that dates back to the middle ages. It is much more than a horse race and actually takes a full year of preparations and includes parties, parades, flag acrobatics, and taking horses into the church for special blessings. The event centers on the rivalry among the 17 contrade (neighborhoods) of Siena. Each contrade has its own symbol, colors, and flags. When we first entered the town a group of a dozen or so teenage girls were strolling through the streets singing a song together. Next we ran across a group of young men hanging out in the street talking and some of them twirling their contrade flags. We did not realize all of this was part of the big celebration until we were met by a full fledged parade of boys and men, dressed in medieval looking costumes (tights with two different colors for the legs) and playing drums while they paraded through town with their contrade flags. We went on to the town square, the Piazza del Campo, where the Palio is run. As we sat and had some wine at a restaurant on the piazza, a crowd began to gather, young and old with the elders dressed up and strolling and greeting each other and the young people strolling and talking on cell phones or clumping up to chat. By 7 or so the entire piazza was packed and the ceremonies began. We could not see all of it but it was a lot like a pep rally with people roughly divided into their respective contrades and taking turns cheering for their own group. The guys in the parade showed up and there was some sort of ceremony in front of the church that ended up with the 17 contrade flags flying from the second story windows of the church. As if just being a part of the emotion and city spirit of the events in the piazza weren't enough to make us love Siena, we had a great inexpensive meal (by Italian standards) at a restaurant recommended by one of Gary's friends, Osteria la Chiacchera. We ate outside (like almost every meal we've had in Italy) on a narrow street that was so steep they had to put special wedges out for the tables and chairs to be set level.
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Panzano, Tuscany, Italy

May 24 - We've been keeping a pretty frenzied pace (yesterday we were going non-stop 7 a.m. to midnight) so we decide to take a day to sleep in and take it easy. After breakfast at 9 I took some time to download pictures and write in this journal while Lynnette did some laundry for us. (The plan to take only one carry-on bag per person has worked fine for us with rinsing out some things to dry overnight and now a major laundry day. Our car is larger than average but the luggage compartment is completely full of our stuff when we travel to a new location.) We go into Panzano to a café with high speed wireless internet for lunch. The internet service seems to work pretty well but we're not able to send any e-mails for some odd reason. After lunch we hang out by the pool and read until G, B and Lynnette go to the cooking class while I download and edit pictures. When I join the rest for the end of the class and a glass of wine they're filled with enthusiasm for the cooking class and the food we're about to eat, and it doesn't take long before I share their fervor and their food. They had prepared risotto with fresh artichokes, spinach lasagna, pork loin with a Chianti reduction sauce, and a beautiful and delicious orange marmalade tart for dessert. The whole meal was great. In the next room the other guests, a group of college chums (50 years ago) from Norway, were having a big farewell dinner (I think they've been here all week) including singing several songs around the table. We could hear them singing more songs after dinner and learned at breakfast the next morning that they were singing drinking songs from their college days.
I've decided that Fagiolari is a fine place if you have the right expectations. It is a great place to relax and enjoy the scenery and food but not a very good place to use as a base for day trips and a hurried schedule. It is certainly not your typical B&B. In fact, breakfast seems to be an obligation Guilietta has not figured out how to get around; every day is the same with a big bowl of cornflakes and a big bowl of plain yogurt plus some bread you can put in the toaster and three kinds of jam/marmalade. Fagiolari is really a fine Bed & Dinner place, though. You can eat dinner here every evening if you want to, whether or not you take the cooking class, and the cost is only 25 Euro including wine and dessert, a real bargain compared to what we pay most places.
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