Tuscany: A real look

So yeah, it's been two months since my last post and almost 3 months since these things actually happened. I'm sorry. Things have been a little crazy since we got back stateside to say the least. Still, I won't feel right if I don't finish out the posts about our Italy trip, so here it goes.

July 17, 2014
On our second day with Lello, we only had one request: Montepulciano for Julie. Other than that, Lello had full reign. This was one of those days where the experiences we had could never have been without a local to organize for us. Not only would we most likely never have found our lunch stop - possibly the best meal we had for the entire trip - but even if we'd found it ourselves, I doubt we'd have felt confident enough to go so far off the beaten path without Lello.

First stop: Cortona
A quick coffee and walk stop in the morning. Tuscany's hilltop towns really do have excellent views.

Next on the schedule was "lunch with family." None of us really knew what that meant, but I don't think we expected that it would end up being one of our favorite memories and one of the most authentic experiences we had. The Lungarella family of Bettolle, a small city in the province of Siena, welcomed us like old friends. Mama (Sara) and my mom (Joanne) got on beautifully. Of course, when we arrived at their "summer kitchen" and my mom saw that they were making scratch pasta, she jumped right in. When the two women discovered that they'd both lost their husbands and both had been contractors who'd built their custom kitchens, it was like nothing could separate them (even the fact that one spoke only Italian).

The table set for all of us - visitors and residents together - was simple but perfect. Instead of feeling like guests in a restaurant, we ate with our hosts, sharing as much as we could with only Lello and the daughter, Selene, to translate. (Selene, it turns out, is an aspiring singer. Check her out here.) The food was real home cooking: ravioli that was sweetened because that's how the family likes it, fresh linguine with a simple tomato sauce, slow cooked sausages and potatoes, a big wooden bowl of salad, and the creamiest tiramisu we'd ever had for dessert.

When it was time to go, no one wanted to. We made such a connection with this family during our afternoon together that it felt like we'd spent weeks there.

Mama with bruschetta and wine

Selene on the left. The family dog, who Joe named Mr. Nubbins 

and created a theme song for, on the right.

The 2 year old granddaughter of the property, Sofia, was enough to entertain us all afternoon. Instead of holding aside the curtain leading into the kitchen, she usually just walked straight through it, letting it trail over the top of her head all the way to the end. She was also pretty smitten with Joe and spent significant time either chasing him or playing soccer with me. Even though we were at the house for "lunch" for over three hours, none of us really wanted to leave.

Our afternoon stop was at Boscarelli Winery for a private tutorial on Vino Noble, the other wine of the region. Admittedly, we were full and wine drunk and it was very hot out, so we were not super interested in the lecture on wine varietals this afternoon, especially since our visit to il Cocco had been so fantastic the day before. The view was beautiful, the wine was tasty, and didn't leave without making a sizable order, though.

Our final stop in the Tuscan hills was Montepulciano, a special request because it was the filming location of Volterra in the Twilight Saga: New Moon. We didn't realize that the famous fountain that Bella splashes thru to stop Edward from revealing his sparkly self was actually created for the movie and isn't a permanent fixture of the town, but the square was still cool and the town hall (aka headquarters of the Volturi) was exactly as pictured.

a photo grom the filming of New Moon

other views of Montepulciano

Our whole group: Janis, Sarah, Lello, Joanne, Julia, Joe, and Val

Tuscany with Lello: Montalcino & Pienza

July 16, 2014

Back on our 2005 trip, we made a connection with Lello Tinelli, a private tour guide and all around perfect example of The Italian Man who operates from Siena. (Siena is our headquarters of choice when we visit Tuscany, but more on that in another post.) For nine years we have exchanged cards and emails with Lello, always with the promise of returning to Tuscany. He even visited us in California and went out to dinner with my extended family in 2008.

July 2005: Dad/Joseph, Sarah, Aunt Susan, Uncle Steve, Mom/Joanne, and Lello

We booked two full days with Lello, incorporating a few requests but mostly leaving the itinerary to his discretion. As before, we couldn't have been happier with how our time was spent and know for certain that there is no way we could have recreated these experiences without an insider like Lello showing us the way.

in the van

On Day 1, we left Siena for Montalcino, home of the Brunello di Montalcino wine varietal. Montalcino is one of Tuscany's famous "hill towns," medieval walled cities that are perched all over the region. Lello dropped Janis, Joe, Julie and Val off in town to wander while my mom and I headed to Podere il Cocco to enjoy some agriturismo and learn to make focaccia!

il Cocco

il Cocco is both a winery and an agritourism center, offering stays in their B&B, prepared lunches, or weeks working on the farm and learning the art of Tuscan cooking in the kitchen (check out the prices - so reasonable!)

There we met Imma, a traditional home cook in a line of home cooks stretching back generations. She joked that in her family the heirlooms weren't jewelry or fine china, but the wooden box used to let bread rise and her pizza paddle. Imma didn't speak much English or use exact recipes for anything, so Lello (a former pastry chef) did the translating and explained how and why we needed to use room temperature water in our dough and how to knead bread properly.  (Imma's husband is also the head chef at one of the best restaurants in Montalcino.)

rolling out the dough for focaccia pizza

dough hands

raw loaves

simple focaccia pizza

all of our goodies (See the bread rising box on the right? It's at least a hundred years old.)

Imma's outdoor stone oven (center left in the top pic of Il Cocco, behind the big bush)

As our dough was rising, Lello retrieved our travel companions for lunch. We took a tour of the farm where Imma grows her own fruits, vegetables, and herbs and raises chickens, goats, pigs, and turkeys. When the animals ran to see "Mama," she just yelled at the chickens to go make eggs!

I've never seen eggplants growing before!

Course after course came to the table, all home grown and hand made by Imma and her assistant Sylvia.

a toast of limoncello with Lello!

fagioli (beans) and sausage; ratatouille (or ciambotta in Italian)

penne bolognese

There was also a chocolate pear cake and coffee ice cream and then, of course, limoncello and coffee. And this was in the afternoon and it was about 95 degrees outside. When we were thoroughly stuffed it was time to mosey next door to the winery, also called il Cocco, for our tour and tasting with Giacomo Bindi.

Giacomo is the owner and next generation of il Cocco winery and gave us probably the most thorough and personalized wine tour I've ever been on. He and Joe enjoyed swapping information about the similarities (and differences) between the ingredients and methods for making wine and beer. Giacomo also explained the distinctions between the different levels of wines available in Montalcino, from table wine to Brunello. He showed us how the grapes are grown, what he looks for throughout the season, where the wine is bottled (by hand, up to 3000 bottles per day), and how he applies the labels individually.

a groupie with Giacomo in one of the fermentation tanks

After our feast and wine tasting (during which we were poured full glasses, not tasters, btw), we were properly happy (read: full and sloshed) and ready for our last official stop: Pienza.

Pienza is known for the production of pecorino cheese, named because it is made from the milk of the pecora, or sheep.

Tuscany

loving Italy!

Joanne/Mom enjoying ceramic shopping

my cat lover will find cats anywhere

Val prefers dogs, but this cat will do

Janis and her kids, Joe and Julie

One of the added benefits of traveling with Lello is the leisurely driving through the Tuscan countryside and the ability to stop whenever you want a picture!

one of the most famous sites in Tuscany, this patch of cypresses is photographed in every season

We were even taken by the rolling wheat fields with their human-height barrels

Believe it or not, this was just day one of our Tuscan exploration! Day two is just as full of deliciousness in Montepulciano, Cortona, and more countryside.

Pisa

Our stop in Pisa was meant to be relaxed. It was meant to offer us several hours to climb the tower, visit the museum, grab a snack, and yes, take pictures. But when we moved our boating adventure to Tuesday, Pisa got cut to only the most minimal time to run to the tower from the train station and back.

What most people don't realize, is that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is only one of several buildings in the Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) and is part of the cathedral complex. (Many of Italy's most famous cathedrals have separated bell towers like this, including the Duomo in Florence and the Basilica San Marco in Venice.)

Seeing the tower this way always reminds me of this photo series of famous landmarks zoomed out.

Technically, the tower is a campanile, or free standing bell tower, for the church. Seeing it in person makes it all the more obvious that what you're visiting is an engineering error, as the sunken foundation can only be seen as a terrible mistake:

"The tower's tilt began during construction, caused by an inadequate foundation on ground too soft on one side to properly support the structure's weight. The tilt increased in the decades before the structure was completed, and gradually increased until the structure was stabilized (and the tilt partially corrected) by efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries." (wikipedia) The tower's tilt began during construction??? As a contractor's daughter, this is somewhat horrifying. The groundbreaking was in 1173 and the tower took 200 years to complete (1372), but it was another 800 years before it was stabilized! That's just crazy.

Julie wanted to visit for this picture:

Joe wanted to visit because of the scientific significance of this place. The Tower of Pisa, after all, is where Galileo Galilei tested his theory of gravity, ultimately unseating the previous theory pioneered by Aristotle that a heavier body falls faster than a lighter one.

Here's a short video on Galileo.

Here's an long video that explains Galileo's impact on science a better.

And here's a clip of astronauts on the moon recreating Galileo's leaning tower experiment in zero gravity:

We had just enough time to snap a few pictures and then hop in a taxi back to the train station. (It was all for naught in the end because our train from Pisa left late and caused us to miss the last train from Empoli to Siena anyway.)