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February 25, 2024 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Roman Treasures

Rome is slightly over an hour away from us by fast train, but it always feels like an exotic vacation, even on the briefest trips. In the last month I’ve gone for two overnight stays and found some special treasures—perfect after you’ve experienced the heavy-hitters like the Vatican, Forum, Pantheon, and Colosseum.

The Appian Way

The Via Appia Antica is in the running as the oldest paved road in existence. Begun in 312 BC, it was the first of the Roman superhighways created to move troops and materials—in this case 360 miles from Rome via Naples to Brindisi, an important port town where the Romans bumped up against the Greeks, and an intimidating military presence came in handy.

The most well-preserved section of eleven miles runs through the Appia Antica Archaeological Park, the second largest urban park in Europe. You can get there in fifteen minutes by taxi from central Rome. As I walked along the road paved with large basalt stones, still held in place by an early use of limestone cement, and showing wear tracks from cart wheels, it was impossible not to be swept up in history and natural beauty. This place is simply chock full of interesting things—several catacombs; Roman villas; a tomb of the daughter-in-law of ancient Rome’s richest man, converted in the 1300s to a fortified castle; aqueducts; and flocks of sheep. It was clearly the place to make your mark in Roman times.

We walked for about an hour from the Tomb of Caecilia Metella to the Villa of the Quintilii and were surprised by a flock of sheep running across the road in front of us at top speed. Caecilia’s large, round tomb from 30-10 BC was later incorporated into a walled castle in the early 1300s that is now only a shell. It was fascinating to see what it must have looked like—aided by an excellent VR-tour, complete with helmets—which I had to admit I liked despite my initial skepticism.

Unfortunately, due to a ticketing system hiccup, we didn’t get into the Villa Quintilii, but now have something left to explore. The villa is so large that at first the archeologists believed they were finding a whole town, not a single residence.

The walk itself was stunning. It’s the kind of place where we walked past Seneca’s Tomb and didn’t notice because there were so many things to see—realized it only later when looking at a map. Part of what made this adventure so special was that we were off-season so it wasn’t crowded or hot. The light was stunning with the sun low in the sky. Attempting this in high summer when it’s scalding hot would not be fun.

We had lunch at the Hostaria Antica Roma, a quirky place where the chef has recreated several dishes from the first cookbook in existence, written 2,000 years ago. There are also places to rent bicycles—a great way to explore more of the archeological park—which is enormous.

Domus Romane di Palazzo Valentini

Back in Rome, and next to Trajan’s Column is the Domus Romane di Palazzo Valentini. Discovered in 2005, when work was being done on the 16th-century Palazzo Valentini, workers discovered a well-preserved house, street, and part of another house from 400 AD, buried from 16 to 23 feet under the palace. These were homes of the rich and powerful. The tour wanders through the private bathing complex of the house consisting of plunging pools of various temperatures, a swimming pool, reception rooms, and the family’s private staircase—many walls still decorated with polychrome marble and painted frescoes. A street that used to run outside the house, and some rooms from the house next door are clearly visible. You can also see how the foundations for the Palazzo were put right through the Roman floors below.

An earthquake in AD 538, and subsequent fire, seem to have partially destroyed the house. The scarred beams and earthquake cracks in the elaborate mosaic floors remain to tell the story.

Spaces for the tour are limited, so advanced booking is critical. An audio tour, in a range of languages, and projections on the walls of what the villa might have looked like help to bring this site to life. Morning tours are slightly longer and include an up-close look at Trajan’s Column.

Basilica di San Clemente

The ‘modern”church, from the before 1100, at the top layer of the archeological strata.

Almost in the shadow of the Colosseum is the Basilica of Saint Clement. The Basilica one sees today was built just before the year 1100, which is pretty amazing all by itself, but excavations revealed that the current structure was built on top of two older ones: a 4th-century basilica, and a 1st-century Roman home that housed a Mithraic temple, used for secret, early-Christian worship around 200 AD. I felt the layers of time as we climbed steep staircases down and down to the earliest structures, deep underground.

It’s moving to see these structures, still intact with their early-medieval wall paintings, columns and alters—as well as signs of earlier Republic buildings, like the Roman mint and an apartment block, separated by a street that’s clearly visible. At this period, the population of Rome was around 1,000,000 people so urban density was important. There were many five-story apartment buildings and multi-level houses for nobles.

This visit is less-structured than some of the others, and in some ways more intimate. We did book in advance (always critical), but because it was February, I was by myself on the lowest level—otherworldly and magical.

We had dinner at Hostaria Costanza, set into one tiny part of the massive walls of the Pompeo Theater, built in 61 BC. The setting would have been enough by itself, but the food was lovely, and the staff was smart, funny, and attentive. The kind of crew that noticed with amusement that as soon as we walked through the door Lola, our dog, found the location of the kitchen and was staring in that direction with her considerable focus and powers of persuasion.

And don’t forget to visit another of my favorite archeological treasures in Rome, Ostia Antica.

April 30, 2023 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Just go: Brescia

An unexpected visit to Brescia revealed a delightful town often overshadowed by its neighbors—Venice, Verona, Padua, and Milan—but packed with beauty, history, and great food.

We haven’t even hit May and yet friends are reporting epic crowds in all the usual suspects—Venice, Florence, Rome, Cinque Terre, Amalfi Coast… As special as all of these places are, when you can’t even walk down the Spanish Steps in Rome because there are too many people it takes all the pleasure away, at least to me. One of the joys of living in Italy is the seemingly limitless supply of beautiful and fascinating towns to visit that are still uncrowded—and we accidentally found one last weekend.

John and I are still trying to master the Italian medical system and when a friend suggested we check out a modern clinic in Brescia for some routine doctors’ appointments we decided to make a night of it. I knew almost nothing about Brescia except that it was one of the cities on the front line when Covid arrived in Italy in January 2020. Arriving with no expectations we couldn’t believe what we’d happened upon—a beautiful town filled with architectural gems, a history of diverse cultures, and some great food. Best of all, we heard almost no English and saw almost no tourists despite it being a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Brescia sits at the foot of the Alps, whose snow-covered peaks were visible, and close to Lake Garda and Lake Iseo. Although it is a city of 200,000 and surrounded by industry, the old town is compact and beautiful. We wandered around with no agenda and happened across one beautiful little piazza after another ringed by restaurants and bars serving aperitivi at outdoor tables.

What makes Brescia so fascinating is its layers of history. There are remnants of Bronze Age settlements, later the first part of the city was founded in 1200 BC by either the Etruscans or the Ligures people, then it was inhabited by the Celts, followed by the Romans, then the Visigoths and Attila the Hun, then the Lombards, on to Charlemagne and French rule, then the Venetians…and this only gets us caught up to 1512. These layers play together in intriguing ways.

On old Roman ruin incorporated into an apartment building

The ancient old town is surrounded by palazzos built in the Renaissance. For dinner we decided to go to Veleno, located in one of these palazzos built in the early 1700s. The food was a bit uneven, but the decor was stunning. There is even a Michelin-starred option in town.

Our morning stroll took us up to the castle and its extensive gardens, built on top of the Bronze Age settlement. As one of the largest castles in Italy it dominates the hill that overlooks the town. Then we wandered into a stunning piazza where two cathedrals were jammed next to each other next to a palazzo with a huge bell tower where the city’s offices are housed. The Duomo Vecchio (Old Cathedral) sits snug up against the Duomo Nuovo (New Cathedral), started in 1604. The Duomo Vecchio is a stunning example of a round Romanesque church dating from 1100, but my favorite part was going into the crypt and finding a complete tiny church from 762 with a forest of columns supporting the low ceiling.

At that point we were satiated but decided to push on and go to the Santa Giulia Museum, housed in a monastic complex of Longobard origin. In its 150,000 square feet the museum houses archeological finds from the Bronze Age on. But it’s not just about things in cases—there are two excavated Roman houses, the Longobard basilica of San Salvatore (8th century CE), the Choir of the Nuns (early 16th century) and the Romanesque Oratory of Santa Maria in Solario (12th century), where the nuns kept the monastery treasure, all skillfully incorporated into the museum.

Despite being spacey and hungry we had a reservation at the archeological park which is part of the huge museum complex and we were told by several people that we cannot be late. We go back outside and walked past a large Roman theater to meet our guide in front of the towering Roman Capitolium (73 CE).

Our guide assembled our group of twenty and took us down a staircase into a small room to watch a film for 5 minutes. This isn’t just about information—we were in an airlock where our germs and the humidity and temperature are being controlled before we can go into the next room which is a Roman sanctuary dating back to the early decades of the first century BCE with vibrantly-painted frescoes—some of the best preserved other than at Pompeii.

After we all have our fill we go back up and into the Capitolium where we again entered an airlock before we could see the Winged Victory, a bronze statue from the early years of the first century BCE, high on a pedestal in all her 6 foot 6 glory.

Lunch, a quick wander through a pristine Renaissance piazza, the Piazza della Loggia, the oddly beautiful Piazza della Vittoria, an Italian art-deco piazza created in the late 1920s, then home, exhausted but barely having scratched the surface of things to do.

Brescia is also home to the famous Mille Miglia vintage car race where some of the most rare antique cars in the world leave museums and are driven for 1,000 miles in Italy every year. Brescia and Bergamo are sharing Italy’s “capitals of culture” designation for 2023.

July 31, 2022 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Road trip in Europe

One graduating kid, one car, one dog, four countries, four languages, three seemingly endless tunnels, eleven different places to stay, three positive Covid tests, one quarantine—all in twenty-four days. What it is like to do a road trip in Europe. We were, as the Italians would say, in giro.

Or, the things my dog makes me do. We’ve done road trips in Europe before, instead of taking other modes of transportation, largely so that we could take Lola with us on vacation. Destinations have included Switzerland, Croatia, Corsica, Germany, and France, but this was our most ambitious road trip yet. Sebastian’s high school graduation outside of London in West Sussex, and a twice postponed Loire-valley chateau and canal boat rental in Burgundy with family from California, bookended the trip with plenty of time to explore in between.

The freedom to easily access different worlds is one of the things I like best about living in Italy. In California we’d go for long road trips but still end up, it felt like, not that far from where we started. To start adventuring as soon as possible I try to get further than northern Italy on the first leg, although it is a good five to six hour slog. On our first night out we pushed across the Swiss border to an area near Lake Maggiore called Ticino.

I’ve explored a lot of Switzerland but never this region. It has been strategically important for millenium as it’s the entry to the Gotthard pass, one of the routes over the Alps and into the main Swiss plain. The pass is grueling so Ticino is distinct from the rest of Switzerland. The language and food are Italian and it feels almost tropical, lush, and verdant. But the prices are unmistakably Swiss. Swiss prices have the same effect on the respiratory system as a plunge into the Baltic in winter. I reflexively check the exchange rate—surely 50 CHF for a pasta with tomato sauce and a 12 CHF bottle of water is more reasonable when converted to euros or dollars—nope. Nearly one to one for my currencies. Sometimes a 50 CHF plate of noodles with tomatoes is a $50 plate of noodles with tomatoes.

We stayed in a tiny town called Tegna which next to the Ponte Brolla gorge on the Maggia river, one of the rivers where water rushes down from the Alps to feed the Po River. From an elevated bridge the gorge looks like it has a pretty normal stream at the bottom until I realized that it was all supersized. When we walked down near the river what looked like small river rocks turned out to be immense boulders. It looked like giants had been playing games with rocks and had gotten called home for lunch mid rock skipping.

We left the relaxed, Italian-speaking region behind and headed through one of miracles of modern road building, the Gotthard tunnel. The first tunnel under the Gotthard was for trains and opened in 1882. Cars had to wait their turn until 1980 when the 11-mile long tunnel opened, the longest tunnel in the world at that time (it’s now the fifth longest). It turns out that eleven miles in a tunnel is a long time, not as bad as twenty-two minutes of a hypothetical Thanksgiving dinner between when an uncle declares his support for Qanon and when you can escape after dessert, but definitely longer than twenty-two minutes of most anything else. The first time that we drove through I didn’t know anything about the tunnel and remarked to the family after about five minutes in the dark that this was a really long tunnel. We were at about mile three at that point. It’s one lane in each direction and there can be quite a wait to get in, but we were lucky this time. I’ve done it now five times and each time I’ve been impressed by how respectful drivers are of this stretch of road. The speed limit is 30 miles per hour and drivers mostly obey, as well as leaving an abundant distance between cars.

And then you see light, and you are out, and in a different world. Soaring peaks with snow, and German road signs and food. We stopped for lunch with a friend who lives overlooking Lake Zurich and then decided to drive five hours into France to position ourselves well to make our all-important ticketed time on the Eurotunnel train with the car.

Google routed us along some stretches of the autoroute, but largely along country roads that followed through small towns and countryside, and around countless roundabouts. John recently read David Gilmour’s The Pursuit of Italy where Gilmour posits that the differences in Italy and France’s culture, history, and wealth may be partially due to geography. Italy has a mountain chain that runs its length north to south cutting off one part from another and has almost no navigable rivers. France, on the other hand, has mountains on its borders with most of the country being a fertile plain, and has many wide, deep, navigable rivers. This was dramatically apparent as we drove from Zurich into the Champagne region passing lush, fertile fields of crops and flowing water, so different from our Italian landscape.

We arrived for the night in a tiny village called L’Épine, the hotel chosen mainly as it was touted as very dog-friendly. When I mean a tiny village I know of what I speak. It makes our village look like a metropolis. But it does have the huge hulking Flamboyant-Gothic Basilica di Notre-Dame (yes, Flamboyant Gothic is a thing) in the middle of its three streets, one shop, and one restaurant. We walked around it after dinner when it was dark and misty and the three people who might have been out on the street during the day had left and it was like aliens had planted this thing in here. How could this place have ever created this?

The next day ended in Calais. Calais is the closest French town to England—the channel is a mere 21-miles wide here, so it has been a strategically-important port town pretty much forever. This geographic fate has hit it hard, most recently in WWII, where much of the town was bombed flat. We stayed in a sweet family-run Victorian B&B about a mile from the sea, and as we walked towards the shore the buildings abruptly changed to post-war architecture in every direction. The town was in the throes of Tour de France anticipation, with banners and signs everywhere, as the Tour was due to end Stage 4 in about a week.

The next morning was something I’d fretted about since we started planning the trip—Calais to Folkestone on the Eurotunnel. We arrived 90 minutes early for our ticketed time and pulled right up to the drive-through area of the Pet Welcome Center. A woman walked up and said “Nancy Raff? Is this Lola?” I was amazed—turns out our license plate was scanned on the approach and the records pulled up in advance. She checked Lola’s EU pet passport and I got to scan my dog, a first for me and Lola. All was cleared and we went to the automatic check in. I put in the reservation number and the screen said we were early for our train and would we like to change to the one 30 minutes earlier? Why, yes! We drove on to a parking lot with multiple lanes, like the staging area for a ferry. After about five minutes they started loading us. We drove down to the train and on to one of two levels. We got the top. You drive forward the length of the train until it is filled. Attendants urge you forward and make sure to leave enough room to close doors sealing off one train car from another. Five minutes later we were off. You can get out of your car but as there’s nowhere to go everybody just stays seated.

I am only a tiny bit claustrophobic, but these tunnels did cause me a few moments of careful thought. I am not sure which I found more intimidating, to be deep under a mountain in the Alps or under all the water of the English Channel. Thirty minutes in the dark to ponder various ways of dying, then we arrive in Folkestone and drive off the train. Easy. And yet a whole other world in a matter of minutes.

Next week, Part 2. The son graduates and the Plague hits.

Resources:

Ticino area, Switzerland: our inn, Boato Bistrot & Bed, was clean and simple but I wouldn’t really recommend it. One of those places where the photos on the site were so much better that you wonder if you’ve arrived at the right place. We passed a restaurant on our walk, Da Enzo, that looked very much worth a visit—and it is right on the edge of the gorge. I’m actively looking for recommendations for this area from readers who use this route often.

L’Épine, France: Aux Armes de Champagne, comfortable stop right next to the basilica, although modern in its restoration. Good restaurant too with an impressive chariot of cheeses. Very dog friendly and seems to be a popular stop with the British vacation diaspora. Convenient for exploring the Champagne region.

Calais, France: We looked hard to find something with some charm in very post-war Calais and found it at the quirky and simple Les Secrets des Loges, a bed and breakfast in old Victorian house overlooking the theater. The best part was the lovely family who ran it along with their four cats. One downside was very thin walls.

December 29, 2021 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Little treasures of 2021

Here are some of my favorite adventures and discoveries of the year. If you’ve stuck with me this long you know that as much as I love an over-the-top Relais & Chateaux-type joint I find even more delight in small places that may be a little rough around the edges, but are one of a kind. A couple from this year have stuck in my mind with such fondness that I figured you have to know about them.

Greater Bologna

The photo above is from Ca’ Lo Spicchio, a house from the 1500s in the mountains about 45 minutes away from both Bologna and Modena that offers one room for rent. It’s almost impossible to find, but worth the drive down one-lane unpaved mountain roads, except when Google Maps is insistent that you turn up a goat path. Run by a retired advertising executive and his fashion-industry partner every detail is thought through and done with an attentive eye, from the building restoration to the guest room touches. Their home also includes two dogs, seven cats, two horses, chickens who are the focus of attention from the fox they befriend, and one of the best situated pools I’ve seen. The guest suite has a bed and lounge up more of a ladder than staircase located above the living room with a big fireplace and wood-burning stove. Definitionally cozy.

The Truffle Hunters

One of my favorite films of the year, The Truffle Hunters is a documentary with intelligence, heart, a poetic eye, and humor, beloved at Sundance and Cannes. It’s a breath of fresh air —not one cliched drone shot—with every frame filled with creativity. I laughed out loud several times the first time I saw it as each new scene was a surprising delight, and I could feel the fun the filmmakers had creating it. The film follows a men hunting white truffles in Piedmont, Italy—a notoriously closed and suspicious group who somehow opened up to these two American filmmakers, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw—who shot the documentary over three years. Dweck and Kershaw were able to capture the men’s trials and joy, as well as the cutthroat, competitive world of selling and marketing this high-priced delicacy when supplies are dwindling due to climate change and competition. It embodies so much of what I love about Italy, and the Italians, and I hope you get as much joy and inspiration from it as I did.

Tivoli

On a trip to pick up Sebastian at the Rome airport we spent a night in the small town of Tivoli, which is more car-friendly than driving into the center of Rome. What started out as a night of convenience turned into love. Tivoli is the nearest town to two of greater Rome’s heavy-hitting sites—Hadrian’s Villa and Villa d’Este—but it turned out to be charming in its own right. The modern outskirts that you spiral around to reach the historical center on a plateau are not promising, but once you get to the old town it has that mix that I love—real, working, a little dingy, and bursting with life.

At night we walked Lola down a dark, narrow medieval street when from behind a shuttered second floor window we heard “Alexa, spegni la luce” (“Alexa, turn off the light”). Perfect moment.

We stayed at the Residenze Gregoriane, which is part of a palace from the 1500s. It has only three rooms, decorated in an older Italian aesthetic, and serves breakfast in a perfect courtyard adorned by frescoes and mosaics created by some of the same artisans who worked on the Villa d’Este. The family who runs it is one of warmest and most welcoming we’ve run across, which is saying a lot in Italy.

We visited Hadrian’s Villa on a very hot day and we lost our breath in more than one way. Another visit is in the cards during the cooler months. Built between 118 and 138 AD the ruins of this single palace are extensive and gorgeous. It has been revered since Renaissance times and I had one of those moments, which I occasionally get in a Roman ruin, where I am overcome with the sophistication, beauty, and grace of the lives of the elite Romans. This architecture had a goal of impressing visitors, no doubt, but it transcends its “look how rich and powerful I am” mission into something profoundly pleasing. Which many of other such palaces don’t. Looking at you, Forbidden City.

Also near, and somewhere I am excited to visit, is the Villa d’Este, started in 1560. A masterpiece of Italian garden design, it’s known for its fountains, including one that is an organ fueled by water.

Tivoli is a great base for those seeking a deeper experience of Rome beyond the main sites in the center. Close by is also the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, among the other UNESCO sites.

Maremma

This part of Tuscany, bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea, is not very well-known. On the mainland there are many Etruscan sites and gorgeous beaches. Just off the coast are the islands of the Tuscan archipelago. We went for an a couple of nights to the Hotel Torre Mozza, with seven rooms. Our room was in the 16th-century watchtower that juts into the Mediterranean and had a door cut through the thick defensive walls opening over the waves.

The island of Elba is a short ferry ride away from Piombino. I had spent several days on the island a couple years ago, but this trip we just went over to the island for memorable lunch on a small square at the Trattoria Moderna di Matteo in the tiny town of Capoliveri.

“Ancora Tu” by Lucio Battisti

Sebastian introduced me to this Italian mega-hit from 1976, “Ancora Tu” (“You Again”), from one of Italy’s biggest musical stars of the 1960s and 70s, Lucio Battisti. I just love the poignant way it captures the magic of a familiar love.

You again, it doesn’t surprise me, you know. / Ancora tu, non mi sorprende lo sai.

You again, but, weren’t we supposed to not see each other any more? / Ancora tu, ma non dovevamo vederci più?

And, how are you? Useless question. / E come stai. Domanda inutile.

You’re like me, and we can’t help but laugh. / Stai come me, e ci scappa da ridere.

My love, have you eaten or not? / Amore mio, hai già mangiato o no?

I, too, am hungry and not only of you. / Ho fame anch’io e non soltanto di te.

How beautiful you are, you seem younger / Che bella sei, sembri più giovane

or perhaps you’re just nicer. / o forse sei solo più simpatica.

Oh, I know what you want to know. / Oh io lo so cosa tu vuoi sapere.

No one, no, I just restarted to smoke. / Nessuna no, ho solo ripreso a fumare.

It is still you, unfortunately the only one. / Sei ancora tu, purtroppo l’unica.

Still you, the incorrigible one. / Ancora tu, l’incorregibile.

But to leave you is not possible. / Ma lasciarti non è possibile.

No, to leave you is not possible. / No, lasciarti non è possibile.

To leave you is not possible. / Lasciarti non è possibile.

No, to leave you is not possible. / No, lasciarti non è possibile.

It is still you, unfortunately the only one. / Sei ancora tu, purtroppo l’unica.

It is still you, the incorrigible one. / Ancora tu, l’incorregibile.

But to leave you is not possible. / Ma lasciarti non è possibile.

No, to leave you is not possible. / No, lasciarti non è possibile.

To leave you is not possible. / Lasciarti non è possibile.

No, to leave you is not possible./ No, lasciarti non è possibile.

Desperation, joy of mine, / Disperazione, gioia mia.

I’ll be still yours, hoping it’s not madness. / Sarò ancora tuo, sperando che non sia follia.

But, let it be what will be. / Ma sia quel che sia.

Hold me, my love, / Abbracciami amore mio,

hold me, my love, / abbracciami amor mio,

‘cause now I want it too. / Ché adesso lo voglio anch’io.

You again, it doesn’t surprise me, you know. / Ancora tu, non mi sorprende lo sai.

You again, but, weren’t we supposed to not see each other any more? / Ancora tu, ma non dovevamo vederci più?

And, how are you? Useless question. / E come stai? Domanda inutile.

You’re like me, and we can’t help but laugh. / Stai come me, e ci scappa da ridere.

My love, have you eaten or not? / Amore mio, hai già mangiato o no?

I, too, am hungry and not only of you. / Ho fame anch’io e non soltanto di te.

How beautiful you are, you seem younger / Che bella sei, sembri più giovane

or perhaps you’re just nicer. / o forse sei solo più simpatica.

Il cantautore italiano Lucio Battisti 1969

October 3, 2021 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

On the road again

The Second Annual French Road Trip—also known as The Paris Haircut Trip—concluded recently. This time John was with me and I wanted to share with him the sites of the discoveries and adventures I had last year, including the Mt. Blanc helicopter rescue, the mountain top with grazing cows and the hut that makes and sells fontina cheese, and one of my favorite hotels in the world—as quirky and a bit odd-smelling as it happens to be. If you’d asked me last year if Covid was going to be equally on my mind in twelve months time I would have seriously doubted it. Sad to still be going around in masks and in fear, but I thought you might be interested to know what it’s like to travel in France and Italy at the moment.

American readers might have missed that both countries have instituted a Green Pass system, a QR code-based golden ticket that documents your vaccine status, Covid antibodies, and test results. In both countries you need to show you are vaccinated, have antibodies, or a negative test within the last 48 hours to eat at any restaurant, go in a museum, theater, gym, indoor pool, attend a conference or event, take a high speed train, and more. The pass makes travel within the EU much easier too. In Italy, Prime Minister Draghi has gone all-in and required that all public and private employees have the vaccine to stay employed. And in France, your Green Pass is checked even sitting outdoors at cafes and restaurants. There have been a few sputtering protests in both countries but the measures have been very popular. And looking at the data it is easy to see why.

Recent Covid case trends: France on the left and Italy on the right

The peaks and falls in the fourth wave coincide with the widespread use of the Green Pass, and the resulting surge in vaccination rates. And it’s not just about new cases, yesterday it was announced that the proportion of Italy’s intensive care places occupied by Covid sufferers was down to 5.1%.

On our travels through northern Italy, the Alps, Burgundy, and Paris people were being remarkably careful. In addition to the Green Pass being checked without exception people were all masked indoors, and pretty universally with N95 masks now, not the flimsy little surgical ones or cloth. On the Paris metro we didn’t see one person unmasked. Testing is easy; Paris has tents on the sidewalk every few blocks where you can drop in and get a free test with results in a couple of hours (nonresidents pay $35), Italy has Covid tests widely available at pharmacies for about $25. The big question to me is about indoor dining at restaurants, which were packed everywhere we went (at this point we are only eating outdoors). I was surprised to see how popular sitting indoors was, given how often Covid is spread in such settings—certainly cut down by the Green Pass requirements, but still a lottery with the Delta variant.

We decided to go to London on the Eurostar for less than 24-hours to see Donella’s new flat and meet her puppy, Nora. Although the paperwork and requirements to get into England were epic, once we got off the train we were in a different world. No checking of Covid status at restaurants, lots of unmasked people everywhere, even on the Tube, and packed restaurants.

We spent a couple of days in Beaune, France this trip, in the heart of Burgundy. It was a town we’d been to years ago, and it was fun getting to know it a bit better. Driving in we passed a store that looked intriguing so we doubled back to go in and found a gem. With two small windows facing the street, a narrow room lined with wine, and things like sets of antique meat cleavers and copper pots artfully displayed on a center table it was a little hard to determine what it actually was selling. Turns out, quite a mix. It’s called The Cook’s Atelier and is a family-run cooking school, shop, and wine store. Started by a woman from Phoenix, Marjorie Taylor, and her daughter, Kendall Smith Franchini, whose French husband gave us some excellent advice about wines, the place intrigued me. Everything was carefully curated and had a story, and the shop and cooking school is in a 17th-century building with a lovely carved staircase. They ship internationally and have a beautiful cookbook of favorites from the cooking school that I bought and am enjoying.

Gorgeous photo from The Cook’s Atelier website.

One night I poured through the cookbook to find any special things that I needed to be on the lookout for the next day at the Saturday farmers market. This is a truly lovely French farmers market with lots of very small stands selling just a few exquisite things. One stand was full of different squashes and I remembered a recipe for a squash soup from the cookbook so lugged two large Potimarron squashes around in my market bag along with 8 jars of unlabeled but glorious looking raspberry and strawberry jam, a bunch of cheese, some figs and plums, and mushrooms. These all got carefully packed into the car for the return trip. After we got back to Italy I was shopping at our unexciting local grocery store and I spotted the Same Damn Squash, but now called a Zucca Hokkaido.

I made the soup, with the French squash thank you very much, and I’m quite sure it spoke with a more delicate and nuanced Gallic accent. Anyway it was delicious.

We visited the Hospices de Beaune, a hospital for the poor founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin and his wife Guigone de Salins, who in additional to funding the hospital bequeathed some prime vineyards in Burgundy to the hospital. They have an auction every fall where they sell the young wine in bulk. It is the most important wine auction in Burgundy and an indicator of how that year’s wine will be valued. In the 1970s the hospital relocated to a modern structure at the outskirts of town.

Hospices de Beaune

We happened to be staying with friends in Paris who live very near the L’Arc de Triomphe so we got to watch the Christo and Jeanne-Claude project wrapping the monument being installed and finished. It was fascinating to see it come together during dog walks and watch the workers rappelling off the top of the monument.

L'Arc de Triomphe Chriso wrapped

The other highlight was a chance decision to duck back into the Romanesque (and oldest in Paris) church at St. Germain-des-Pres which has been glowing from its recent cleaning and restoration. I want every single pattern and every single color in my life every single day.

church St. Germain-des-Pres

One thing I love about doing this trip is the excuse to stop in Italian cities we wouldn’t normally visit. We stayed in Parma on the outbound and Turin on the way back, both beautiful, walkable, and with a surprising thing to see in Italian cities—a wide age demographic.

Turin after a storm

Treasures we discovered, or rediscovered along the way…carefully edited. This is only the good stuff in case any of it ever comes in handy.

—Lovely wine bar, Croce di Malta Caffe and Cucina Vini in Parma on a cute courtyard. We had a really good starter on fresh focaccia, ricotta, and Parma ham. Ah yes, the ham. A 30-month Prosciutto Crudo di Parma Sant’Ilario.

— In the Val d’Aosta, the valley in Italy that butts up against Mt. Blanc, we returned to stay at the Maison de Saxe in Courmayeur and this time snagged the room with the balcony nestled among the massive roof tiles in the 17th-century hamlet and a view of Mt. Blanc.

Maison de la Saxe room balcony with Mt. Blanc view

— On the way up to Courmayeur we stopped in Aosta and had a lovely lunch in a courtyard at a little restaurant called Stefenelli Desk. Interesting, refined, and delicious menu.

— Over to the French side we stayed at two places in Burgundy, Chateau du Saulon, and of course John had to stay at the Chateau d’Island with me, which is the subject of a past Itch.

— In Beaune, on our return, we stayed in a lovely hotel inside the town walls for two nights, Les Remparts.

And, oh yes, the hair. Thanks to the ever-masterful David Mallett who makes it worth the trip.

Now my glam trip is over and I am back to mowing.

One more gratuitous shot from Chamonix of Mt. Blanc cause it’s so Wes Anderson.

Chamonix

September 5, 2021 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Are some places cursed?

We had to ask ourselves this question about a bucolic, beautiful, tiny island in the Stockholm archipelago, Rödlöga, four hours by ferry from the capital. The reason we’d even asked ourselves this question is because a friend, the inimitable Meg Ray, baker extraordinaire, author, and founder of Miette bakeries in the San Francisco area, loves this island and she’s run a small cafe on it for a few weeks every summer for five years. In a cafe with no running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity she is able to work magic with a generator to power a clunky oven and convert Baltic sea water for kitchen use. She loves this place so much that last summer during the uncertainty of Covid travel restrictions she rode her electric bike from Paris, where she lives half the year, to Stockholm as to not miss a summer at the cafe.

So we had to find out more and planned a trip with a couple of friends to visit and film in June. Even in the planning stages odd things began to happen. One of the crew that our director friend had booked stopped returning phone calls and never surfaced again—a first for all of us with years of production experience. Another crew member pulled out at the last minute; a friend who was going to come found out her Italian visa had expired, and if that wasn’t enough, fell off a rock wall onto a rock staircase and had to go to the hospital for stitches on her face. A friend’s child had a school crisis that almost derailed the June trip, and ultimately we had a health emergency that precluded any travel for John and me.

Despite all of this a brave skeleton crew persevered with the June trip, including Donella, and they had a complete immersion into the Swedish island summer lifestyle. Donella ended up loving it so much that she stayed for the rest of the summer to bake in the cafe with Meg, so in late August we were quite confident that the curse had lifted and it was safe to proceed with a trip. We ignored that one of the chefs had just been thrown off the island, almost literally, for outhouse misuse—”You and your stuff will be on the 4:30 ferry or all with be thrown into the sea.” And that Balthazar, the commercial oven, broke down and needed a hard-to-get part, leaving the crew to bake in the few private ovens around the island. And that a staff member had a mental health crisis and needed to leave the island.

But still believing in rationality over curses John and I landed in Stockholm, a city of water, bridges, islands, inlets, ferries, and boats. We checked into the lovely Hotel Lyd ma r, directly across the street from the ferry to Rödlöga. The next morning we boarded the Sjogull, or Seagull, which was the cutest ferry I’ve ever been on, complete with potted plants on the tables. Islands unfolded as far as the eye can see, reflected in the calm Baltic, with larger and more formal Swedish summer homes giving way to smaller cabins the further we got from Stockholm. Two colors dominated, the now-protected shade of Swedish red, which originally was a stain created from the remnants of iron mining, and a golden shade of yellow, which was a color used by the wealthier families who had gold mines and could use the runoff as a paint stain. Common to all were the small, individually-built sauna buildings located to make the jump into the cold Baltic a short step away from the sauna—tiny, doll-house like echoes of the larger houses they were paired with. Here the Baltic is so far inland and distant from the ocean that it’s half salt and half fresh water and there are no tides, so buildings are only a foot or so above water level, making for an intimate relationship between the buildings and the sea.

The archipelago numbers somewhere around 25,000 islands. I asked a few Swedes what counted as an island—when we were on the ferry we saw rocks barely breaking the surface with only room for a couple of seagulls to large inhabitable islands—but no one I asked was certain of the definition. Although undefinable in number the islands are undeniable in beauty. The rock formations are smooth and undulous. The glaciers shaped this landscape, which is still rebounding from the weight of the ice; the elevation raises by three millimeters every year. Something about the newness of the landscape, which only emerged in today’s recognizable form during the time of the Vikings, feels otherworldly and distinct to this part of the world, like the glaciers have only recently retreated.

The ferry pulled into Rödlöga and our suitcases were loaded in a wheelbarrow, the only way to move things around the island. Rödlöga is inhabited for six to eight weeks during the summer months by Swedish families, many of whom have been coming here to family houses for generations. There are about a hundred houses scattered across the island, some located on nearby small islands accessible only by private boat. The tiny harbor with its circle of red wooden houses and buildings and large boulders was gorgeous.

Rodloga Sweden

It had been misting and we were instructed about how to walk across the glistening, perfectly smooth large granite formations which were as slippery as ice. Our red wooden guest house was the size of a shed, with twin beds head-to-head. Water for washing and drinking was pumped from a green hand pump in the yard. The lengthy instructions for the outhouse were intimidating. Let’s just say that liquids and solids go in different places and must never meet. Not taking this seriously is what had caused the chef to be cast off the island. Any bathing during our visit would need to happen in the Baltic. Poisonous snakes and ticks were rumored to outnumber the people and were taken seriously as Lyme disease was prevalent.

Meg was drawn to the island because she relishes a challenge. She wanted to take this rough gem and with the help of the locals—including a long history of the island teens working at the cafe—marry traditional Swedish cuisine and baking with her experience and creativity. When on the island Meg lives in a tiny cabin about a ten-minute walk from the café and when she walks to work at 4 a.m., in broad daylight, through the trees and along the water she tries to get a sense for the weather to determine if the ferry will be crowded and how many people will be arriving on sailboats for lunch to plan for how much bread and food they need to make.

Donella’s cabin next to the sea

Watching Meg and Donella at work was like seeing a dance unfold. The two of them working almost wordlessly with Edith Piaf’s “Je Ne Regrette Rien” blasting on the speakers, simultaneously making multiple delicious things based on their drawers full of sourdough starters: Doughrien Greg, the rye starter; Tillsbury Doughgirl, or Tilly, for walnut and raisin bread; Hank The Farmer, used for a simple milk bread; and Love for the cardamom buns. The baking was fueled by strong coffee, seemingly the national drink of Sweden. On Meg’s first year on the island the coffee machine broke and she had to figure out how to rig up a new one using gravity and water heated by the sun.

Some of Meg and Donella’s creations

Meg has fallen in love with fermentation and Sweden is a good place to explore it. She’s been experimenting in new types of sourdough as well as pickled vegetables, kombucha coffee, and fermented ginger beer. With such a short growing season the Swedes had to master food storage to survive the long winters, going back to ancient times. Remains of fermented fish stored in an early Mesolithic settlement in eastern Sweden that date from 9200 years ago were recently found, according to the Journal of Archaeological Science—the oldest fermented food yet discovered. Today, Sweden offers sourdough hotels for bread-baking travelers to drop off their sourdough starters to be fed while they are out of town. One is conveniently located in Stockholm’s Arlanda airport.

We got invited to go out on a 1930s wooden boat with the photographer shooting Meg’s cookbook, Tomas Södergren, which revealed the island to be even more beautiful by water.

Settled into our red cabin and watching our daughter work while we idled we assumed all was good, but before we were able to eat our first cinnamon bun the curse continued. Meg revealed that she’d been having nerve pain in both arms and that her fingers were getting numb. The nurse on the island insisted that the medical helicopter come and take her to the hospital to be checked out, and as she’d recently had a tick bite and had had Covid in the winter, there were a lot of possibilities for what could be causing her symptoms. She arrived at a small local hospital by helicopter in the evening and at 2 a.m., after they determined she wasn’t dying immediately, the doctor told her she had to leave despite the fact there were no hotels open and she knew no one. She successfully pleaded for a morning release, we went to work finding her somewhere to stay on the mainland as she was in excruciating pain, and we set to work trying to pack things up on the island as it was clear she wasn’t going to be able to come back to finish up the remaining week that the cafe was scheduled to be open.

This is where I wish I could say the island banded together to help and support Meg but sometimes things in tiny towns get complicated. Usually when someone wants to improve somethings there’s a group that prefers the old ways, and they came out in force, voicing in equal parts that store-bought bread had always been just fine and frustration that Meg wouldn’t be there for the final week or so of the season to continue to bake fresh bread and pastries. It got uncomfortable enough that we were all delighted to board the ferry back to Stockholm, complete with all Meg’s bags.

Meg is now back in the California working on finishing her cookbook about her experiences in Sweden and trying to solve her medical mystery.

A few finds from Stockholm that were a highlight of our trip—two nursery and garden centers with lovely restaurants featuring produce grown on site, Rosendals Trädgård and Ulriksdal Trädgårdscafé. We stayed at the Hotel Nofo which was lovely.

And we now believe in curses.

July 11, 2021 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Venice discoveries

I love Venice but I’ve always hated the area around the Rialto Bridge. It’s too crowded, usually hot, and lined with the kind of restaurants where they try to lure you in as you walk by waving menus in English coated with plastic. My preferred neighborhood, Dorsoduro, feels more local and I’ve shared my favorite haunts here. But when we decided to go to Venice recently for John’s birthday to take advantage of the lack of crowds, we booked a hotel a friend had recommended that was smack dab in the middle of the Rialto Bridge area and we discovered a couple of gems.

The Hotel al Ponte Antico is a restored palazzo right on the Grand Canal next to Rialto Bridge. We went a little nuts for John’s birthday and booked their Junior Suite with Patio with glass doors that opened onto a private quai on the Grand Canal. No railings, no separation, just the traffic and trade of the canal passing by at eye level. The main photo above is the table outside our room. They also have a memorable porch for breakfast and aperitivi. No long lens in this shot—Rialto really is that close. The hotel has less than 10 rooms so it is lovely and intimate. We were lucky enough to have had the whole place to ourselves.

al Ponte Antico venice

The restoration from a nearly empty shell took years and unleashed all the monkeys in the zoo at the Venetian Planning Department. The two brothers who own the hotel were completely hands-on during the restoration and were joined daily by at least one Venetian official who watched over everything. One day they were painting the exterior wood trim of a multi-paned glass door overlooking the Grand Canal a certain city-approved shade of brown with a hint of red. On the inside the owner asked the painter to mix in a touch more of the red which they applied as a test to a small section of the door. The planning official then stopped work because the color had too much red. They offered to paint it over immediately with the approved color they were applying outside but the damage had already been done. All work on site was halted for two weeks and they had to pay a penalty. He recently received a certified letter saying that he must report to jail for the offense. This he shrugged off saying that the jail sentence would be reversed with yet another fee.

Good food in Venice is hard to find as so many restaurants are geared to tourists. We found Ai Mercanti in a tiny, nearly impossible to find square that offers innovative, local, and delicious food. And we discovered that even a stone’s throw away from the main tourist thoroughfares this area of Venice has its share of locals, quiet streets, and hauntingly beautiful canals.

The islands are always fun to explore and easy to access via the Vaporetto line 1. We headed out to Burano, nestled next to Torcello. Burano is a fishing village famous for its brightly painted houses and lace. The houses were even more vibrant in color than what I was expecting and a visual delight.

But what really made the trip special was a destination lunch at Venissa, which is on a tiny adjoining island accessible by footbridge. Venissa has a Michelin star and a large garden where they grow their own grapes for an acclaimed white wine. We ate next door to the one-star at their more casual Osteria Contemporanea.

Venissa Burano Venice

The tasting menu was diverse and delicious but most interesting were the paired wines—all whites— which were unusual and lovely. We’ve ended up tracking several down to have at home. Two of the four were from a small winery near Padova, Maeli, who takes advantage of their highly volcanic soil to produce some interesting sparkling wines featuring yellow Muscat grapes. We had their Dila Sparkling Wine and their Diloro Fior D’Arancio dessert wine—both fabulous—and I saw that they are available at a couple of US retailers. Maeli is headed by a woman winemaker, Elisa Dilavanzo, as is one of the other whites we loved, Arianna Occhipinti’s SP68 Bianco, from Sicily. Venissa has a small hotel and offers cooking and wine courses.

Venissa Burano Venice

July 4, 2021 In Best Of, Chow, Roam By Nancy

The Venice I love

When we first moved to Italy several years ago we lived in Venice for six weeks in August and ended up loving it more than ever. Several of you have asked for Venice advice so I thought it warranted a story. We love Venice, and feel protective of it, and want friends to experience the things that make it so special for us.

John rigged up a camera obscura in our rental apartment in Venice which projected our small view of the Grand Canal on our wall.

No umbrellas:

Groups of tourists following umbrella-equipped guides has to be a feature of the inner circle of Hell. One of the keys to enjoying Venice is never to be where these groups are. That means sticking to neighborhoods during the day and exploring anywhere near the Piazza San Marco only at night. Once you leave the Stazione-Rialto Bridge-Piazza San Marco superstrada of humanity you can get into neighborhoods and experience a whole different Venice. Piazza San Marco is ravishing at night, and it’s even worth it to splurge on the most expensive coffee you will ever have and sit at Caffè Florian at least once. The only time I’d recommend breaking the Piazza San Marco only-at-night rule is for the Secret Itineraries Tour at the Doge’s Palace, where you go into some special places in the Palace—including where Casanova was held prisoner, and inside the Bridge of Sighs. (If you book through the museum it’s half the price of doing it through a private tour, but places fill up fast.)

Our hood:

We love the Dorsoduro area near the Accademia museum. With quiet streets, interesting stores, and cafes and restaurants that have more locals it was an easy place for us to feel at home and we’ve returned many times. We lived near Campo San Barnabas and Campo Santa Margherita, both of which are lovely places to linger. There’s a university right by Campo Santa Margherita so it has a nice student vibe in addition to the local families with kids playing soccer.

Campo Santa Margherita:

—Caffè Rosso (photo above) on Campo Santa Margherita—no formal name, just a red painted facade with white “Caffe” painted over the door. It’s my favorite place to have a Spritz (the classic Venetian cocktail with Aperol, soda water, and prosecco) in the afternoon.

—As you face Caffe Rosso, several doors to the left, there is a place with a floor lamp placed outside, and a little white dog, called Osteria alla Bifora. The space is beautiful with ancient beams and it has a nice selection of simple things to eat. The tagliere (literally “cutting board”) of prosciutto, salumi, and cheese was our dinner many a night.

—Pizza Volo is great, and take out only, if you are in the mood to get a slice and sit in the piazza.

Campo San Barnaba:

— In Campo San Barnaba, there’s a little street that leads off the square called Calle Lunga San Barnaba which has several of our favorite restaurants. A famous one, 4 Feri just went out of business due to Covid and a rent dispute, but fortunately the next door restaurant, La Bitta, another of our favorites, is still going strong. A dessert that we make often—an amazing spice cake with hints of pepper, red wine, paprika, and cumin—is from this restaurant and the owner gave us the recipe.

— Ai Casin dei Nobili is good for pizza. They have a retractable roof over one of their dining rooms that is lovely on a hot evening. There’s also a branch on the Zattere.

— GROM ice cream on Campo Santa Barnaba is a chain, but really, really good.

—Between Campo Santa Margherita and Campo San Barnaba you pass over a canal on the Ponte dei Pugni, or ”Bridge of Fists.” They used to have fist fights between the youths of the two islands, outlawed in 1705, because of the injuries and fatalities.

—Here’s an extra credit, super great spot, if you can find it. If you cross the bridge slightly down from the entrance to Ai Casin dei Nobili, find the Calle dei Cherieri, and take it all the way to the end you’ll be on a dock on the Grand Canal, right at water level. I think it’s the most intimate view of the Grand Canal in Venice and a great place for a picnic.

Accademia:

—As you head back toward Accademia you need to find Ponte San Trovaso and Cantinone Gia Schiavi. It is one of the most famous places for bacari, also known as cicchetti, which are small, seasonal, freshly-made bar snacks and a large selection of wines by the glass, and grappa. Go around dusk when everybody gets a drink and cicchetti and hangs around outside. Alessandra, the mom, runs the place with her four sons. (This place just headlined a recent New York Times article. The other suggestions for cicchetti in the article look promising to investigate on my next trip.) There’s a boat yard opposite which is one of the last remaining gondola repair yards in Venice, which will be the topic of a future Itch.

Markets:

—I hate the crowds right by the Rialto bridge, but the outdoor market is invaluable for cooking in an apartment kitchen or provisioning a picnic. There are some high-end food stores in the area. Also, the produce boat parked at Ponte dei Pugni has a great selection.

I loved this lunch straight from the Rialto market.

Other parts of Venice, and islands:

—To go far off the tourist path take a vaporetto (line 12) to Torcello, the first of the inhabited islands of the Venetian lagoon. (Founded in 452—after Attila the Hun razed mainland villages. Most people left for other islands in the 1300s after malaria got too bad on Torcello.) There’s an inn and restaurant called Locanda Cipriani that is a fabulous destination for lunch. It was started by the founder of Harry’s Bar in 1935 and has been run by the family ever since. Ernest Hemingway lived there for a season while he wrote Across the River and Into the Trees. It’s a haunting, gorgeous, nearly deserted island with a beautiful “cathedral” from 639 with some lovely mosaics.

—The Jewish ghetto is interesting and there’s a famous Jewish restaurant Gam Gam. You can even get a table outside and eat right on the Canal Cannaregio. The streets in back of it are a quiet and haunting place to get lost.

— The Lido. Late one summer afternoon we decided to go for a swim and headed to the Lido. Very Italian scene—the beach is totally occupied by beach clubs with small bathing huts and chairs. Groups of families rent the same cabanas year after year, share the cost, and invite dozens of relatives and friends, so the beach was so crowded with towels, chairs, and people that we could hardly make our way to the water. We started swimming and by the time we turned around an hour later we were shocked to discover that the beach was empty. It was after 6pm and there is obviously an unspoken rule not to be on the beach after 6. That’s where we also started to notice that Italians love to do things in packs. Why go anywhere alone when you can go with a crowd?

—The Libreria Acqua Alta bookstore has ended up on a lot of “most beautiful bookstores in the world” lists on social media, but it is worth seeing in person if you love books. Plus, when we were there one of its fabulous cats was standing guard over an honest-to-GodREAD MORE

November 15, 2020 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Ten things the Romans didn’t want you to know about the Etruscans

The Etruscans get a bad rap. When the Greeks and Romans wrote the history of their time they intentionally left the Etruscans out. In the case of Rome, the victors get to write history. The result is that even my daughter, Donella, has a disdain for the Etruscans after spending five years in the Italian school system.

We live on an Etruscan road (the little lane above) and it’s made me curious to know more, as does living with the Tuscans and noting how different they are from the people of other regions—where did this difference come from? I’ve been investigating and here are ten reasons that I’m intrigued by this ancient civilization. (The Etruscans lived from 900 BCE to 89 BCE in present day Tuscany (and far beyond), and gave the region their name.)

1. Women were equals. Woman were literate and some were noteworthy scholars, they participated freely in the public sphere, became judges, dressed in any way they chose, and participated in banquets as equals to men and could drink, dance, and lounge on couches. The contemporary Greeks and Romans thought these women’s rights were scandalous. They kept their own names when marrying and people buried in Etruscan tombs were identified by their mother and father’s lineage. Women in art were represented with their heads on the same level as men, and as having the same torso size, which is clearly a physical exaggeration, but conveyed equality. When the Romans dominated the Etruscan culture women lost all these rights.

I visited the tombs at the Necropolis in Tarquinia (and took a private 2.5 hour tour) and in the Tomb of the Leopards (480-450 BCE) three couples are shown at a banquet. The pair on the right especially grabbed my attention. I think it is one of the most beautiful images I’ve ever seen of a couple’s relationship. There is such energy, enjoyment, and engagement in their body language.

2. They chose equal city-states over centralized power. The civilization was a federation of twelve equally-powerful cities. Key to Etruscan success was the idea that it was better to specialize, cooperate, and trade rather than fight amongst themselves for power. This made them very successful and wealthy. Cities specialized in different things, like mining and metal work, ceramics, food production, or cloth production. This specialization let technology surge ahead, which increased food production, which let more people specialize. A virtuous cycle.

3. The fashion was amazing. For several centuries when the Romans wanted to say someone was really stylish they’d say someone dressed like an Etruscan. In the painting above the women are wearing three different patterns of cloth: stripes, polka dots, and stars. And check out the center musician from the same tomb as he walks through a field of olives with two other band members. His clothes are amazing, billowing backwards as he walks forward. And his shoes are marvelous. The Italian gift for designing clothes and shoes started early.

Etruscan jewelry is also beautiful. I love the things that started with the Etruscans and endure today. The town of Arezzo remains one of the top places in the world for gold processing and design, and its Etruscan predecessor was famous for metal work, including jewelry. Look at these Etruscan bracelets.

4. Italy with no olive oil or wine? The Etruscans brought the cultivation of grapes for wine and olives for oil to Italy from their contacts with the Greeks at the end of the third century BCE.

5. Romans would not have been the Romans without them. The Etruscans predated the Romans and then were subsumed by the Roman Empire in 89 BCE when the Romans stamped out their rights, culture, and language. The Etruscans got the alphabet and numbers from the Phoenicians and passed them on to Rome. The Etruscans also taught the Romans hydraulic engineering, city planning with streets in a grid, fashion (including the toga), architecture (temple design and the Etruscan adaptation of Doric columns) and more. Two of the last Roman kings were Etruscan. The most famous statue of Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf—the symbol of Rome—was created by an Etruscan.

6. They were the creators of the red-checkered table cloth. Some Italian traditions run deep. Check out what the lounging couples are sitting on in the painted scene above.

7. These guys got around. I am always amazed when I learn the extent of trade relationships that existed thousands of years ago. The Etruscans were one of the major players. They traded with Greece, Turkey, Egypt, the Phoenicians, and even the Celts.

8. Social mobility was celebrated. Although they did have slaves, apparently freedmen and women had many opportunities to cross occupations and social classes. One third of the paintings in the Tomb of the Leopards is about this topic. The same figure is repeated four times, starting on on the left as a naked slave and ending up on the right as a well-dressed member of society coming to the banquet.

9. They had great taste. More revered Greek attic vases, or kraters, have been found in Etruscan tombs than anywhere else, including one of the most infamous pieces of art the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has ever had, the Sarpedon Krater. This piece of pottery was looted from an Etruscan grave in 1971 and the Met illegally bought it a year later for the most they’d ever paid for a piece of art. The Krater was repatriated to Italy and moved from its centerpiece position in a Tiffany-designed case to a more humble Italian museum very near where it had been found.

The Etruscans also made Kraters that have been found in Greek tombs.

10. Precocious artists. The fresco is badly damaged, but look at the nuanced leg muscles on the guy on the right (and the shoes!). Predates the rediscovery of perspective and portrayal of anatomy in the Renaissance by 1400 years. And the door to the underworld actually has plaster relief working with the painting to amplify a 3-D effect.

If you are still with me in my rabbit hole I applaud you. If you want more I found this, this, and this helpful as good overviews of the Etruscan civilization.

October 1, 2020 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Cheese made in heaven

Since I had such a memorable adventure on the Chamonix side of Mont Blanc I felt it was only fair to give the Italian side a chance so on the return trip to Italy we stopped in Courmayeur for the night. We had work to do. Largely involving cheese.

Before this trip I’d asked Edward Behr for advice about food in the Val D’Aosta. (Edward edits and publishes The Art of Eating, which is one of my favorite publications on food and wine.) One of his recommendations was that we track down a Fontina maker in the mountains. Challenge accepted.

To do so we needed to add on an additional night in Courmayeur — not a hardship as we’d landed in a nurturing, cozy, and rustic place, Maison la Saxe. The six-bedroom inn was in a rustic farmhouse from the 1700s, one of many houses in a tightly packed cluster literally in the shadow of Mont Blanc. When I say tightly packed I mean the tiny lanes between the houses are about an arm’s width across. I asked the owner, Raphael, a guy in this thirties who was born in Courmayeur, had lived all over the world, and then returned to the village to restore and run the inn, and he said they were built tightly together not for defense but warmth. It’s the kind of place where my stone shower had a window thoughtfully installed with a view of Mont Blanc.

Maison de Saxe Courmayeur

I enlisted the aid of Raphael for our Fontina search. He called a Fontina maker who invited us up the following morning. Up is a description I chose carefully. It took us 40 minutes to go just a couple of kilometers above the town of Aosta on one of the curviest roads I have ever driven. Pretty soon we were at eye level with the highest peaks and surrounded by green meadows. It was the closest to heaven I will probably every get.

Raphael had given us coordinates of where to park which was an unmarked grassy area at the top of the road. We then had to actually find the cows and cheese-makers. We asked at a tiny restaurant and were pointed to a hiking trail leading ten minutes straight up through the pastures to a small barn, the summer home of Azienda Agricola Quendoz.

The cheese maker took us into a small room with a huge copper cauldron to show us how it’s done. The cheese maker was originally from Morocco and had come to this spot, fallen in love with it, and moved here to take care of the cows and make cheese, more than a decade before. I can see the appeal of this life.

Fontina cheese copper cauldron

True Fontina comes only from here. To be recognized as “Fontina” (which has DOP — protected designation of origin — status from the EU) the milk has to come from red-pied Valdostana cows who graze only on these mountain grasses. They are milked twice a day and the cheese is made twice a day as each batch has to be from a single milking. The milk is heated in large copper cauldrons, enzymes and rennet are added to produce curds, the cheese is separated and drained, and pressed into a wheel-shaped molds. It’s brined in salt for two months and then set aside to age for three more months, frequently turned and salted. We tried the just ready Fontina along with a much more aged version and they were complex and interesting, not at all like the boring cheeses marketed as Fontina from other countries. This was nutty and buttery and wonderful.

Then on the way back down we got to meet some of the girls.

I wanted to write this article this not because I thought you needed to become Fontina aware, but more because I wanted to share this place of beauty and peace and a glimpse into a different way of life.

Trip notes:

If you are ever in Aosta but don’t have time to make it up the hill Raphael also pointed us to a small cheese shop downtown with a surprisingly large selection and a big cheese cellar in their basement (photo below) called Erbavoglio Antica Latteria. They put together a delicious tasting for us and looks like I can also order from them. I see more Fontina in my future.

Ed Behr also recommended Salumeria Bertolin in Arnad, just as you enter Valle d’Aosta. I stopped on my way to France and loved it. A wide variety of mountain salumi and delicious tasting board. I was fascinated by one that looked like a salumi but was made from beets. When life gives you beets…