Small Package, nice surprise in Rome
Our B and B owner/friend in Rome, Nancy Ruggiero, centre.
“Ciao, Lorne and Angela,” came the excited voice from a busy street in Rome. “I am so happy to see you.”
We were greeted with the requisite hugs and pecks as we were reunited with our friend, Nancy, whom we had met four years ago. Nancy is a bed and breakfast operator and had just gone into the business earlier in that year, and we all immediately hit it off. She was interested in the work we did and, of course, we were fascinated with her insights into Roman life.
When we had to postpone our trip last year, she was disappointed, an emotion that came through clearly when I e-mailed her early in the summer to say we would be returning. She would be happy to see us, she wrote back, but could only offer us the “yellow room — do you remember? The one with the bathroom outside the door? But I will see if I can rearrange things.” We did remember the yellow room. It is on the small side, but would do us quite nicely, we insisted. After all, the location is perfect and the price is excellent. And we would see Nancy.
As we continued our reunion on the sidewalk, she beamed.
“I have a surprise for you. I hope you don’t mind. If you don’t like it you can still have the other room.”
She led us about a block away, bubbling with enthusiasm, this pretty, petite blonde who had just turned 40 when we first met. She had trouble with the door, but her friend Fabio appeared from nowhere and helped us get our luggage upstairs. He went up in the tiny elevator first, with our bags, then the three of us made the next trip to the seventh floor. Inside we found a newly renovated bed and breakfast, with a room that faced directly south toward the Vatican. From the balcony on the west we could also see the Vatican and enjoy the sunsets.
It turns out this was her second venture into the hospitality business, this time with her longtime friend, Fabio. They had renovated a derelict apartment this spring and, though it was fully booked when I wrote, she convinced another guest to switch to “the yellow room.”
Soon we were sitting at the kitchen table, Nancy chattering away in English, more confidently than she had done when we last saw her, and Fabio struggling to show us the ropes in the kitchen — where our breakfast food was, how to find the coffeemaker and so on.
Nancy Ruggierio bought her first bed and breakfast after a 20-year relationship with her boyfriend and business partner ended. She let him buy her out of their real estate business and decided she needed to make a serious change in life, most importantly to reduce stress. She was planning a return to university when we last talked, thinking she wanted to become a “life coach” and to write a book. It was an interesting leap for a woman with a degree in economics. The education plans went down the drain when her mother became paralyzed (her elderly parents live on their own, with a bit of help from care providers and a lot of support from their youngest daughter). But Nancy did pursue her other plan, and was mentored by a leading Italian professor as she wrote her book, which, she told us, was very well received and reviewed.
She is already planning another book, and wants to see this one translated into English so we, too, can see more fully what she means when she talks about being “taken hostage by our emotions.”
Two nights later, on our last evening in this short stop in Rome, we went out to a local restaurant with our hostess. For hours she regaled us with tales of life in Italy. Romans, she said, are more civilized than many other Italians, using the language to better express themselves. She was recently stopped at a traffic light in her Smart car, chatting with a friend, when she didn’t notice the light turn green. “A Bolzano?” shouted the driver behind. The reference was to a city in the Alps, she explained, and the meaning was, “Are you waiting for the snow?” On another occasion, in the same situation, a driver called, “Which colour do you prefer?” meaning that she obviously didn’t like green.
We said our goodbyes after dinner, encouraging her to make a visit to Canada, which she promises to do (like all Europeans, she knows someone in Toronto). Nancy told us that on our next trip, she will arrange for an American priest to give us an inside tour of the Vatican and to sit in on a papal audience.
“And you can translate for me what he says,” she added, without a hint of amusement. “I can understand your English easily, but not his.”
October 2008 – This is the Life
We were greeted with the requisite hugs and pecks as we were reunited with our friend, Nancy, whom we had met four years ago. Nancy is a bed and breakfast operator and had just gone into the business earlier in that year, and we all immediately hit it off. She was interested in the work we did and, of course, we were fascinated with her insights into Roman life.
When we had to postpone our trip last year, she was disappointed, an emotion that came through clearly when I e-mailed her early in the summer to say we would be returning. She would be happy to see us, she wrote back, but could only offer us the “yellow room — do you remember? The one with the bathroom outside the door? But I will see if I can rearrange things.” We did remember the yellow room. It is on the small side, but would do us quite nicely, we insisted. After all, the location is perfect and the price is excellent. And we would see Nancy.
As we continued our reunion on the sidewalk, she beamed.
“I have a surprise for you. I hope you don’t mind. If you don’t like it you can still have the other room.”
She led us about a block away, bubbling with enthusiasm, this pretty, petite blonde who had just turned 40 when we first met. She had trouble with the door, but her friend Fabio appeared from nowhere and helped us get our luggage upstairs. He went up in the tiny elevator first, with our bags, then the three of us made the next trip to the seventh floor. Inside we found a newly renovated bed and breakfast, with a room that faced directly south toward the Vatican. From the balcony on the west we could also see the Vatican and enjoy the sunsets.
It turns out this was her second venture into the hospitality business, this time with her longtime friend, Fabio. They had renovated a derelict apartment this spring and, though it was fully booked when I wrote, she convinced another guest to switch to “the yellow room.”
Soon we were sitting at the kitchen table, Nancy chattering away in English, more confidently than she had done when we last saw her, and Fabio struggling to show us the ropes in the kitchen — where our breakfast food was, how to find the coffeemaker and so on.
Nancy Ruggierio bought her first bed and breakfast after a 20-year relationship with her boyfriend and business partner ended. She let him buy her out of their real estate business and decided she needed to make a serious change in life, most importantly to reduce stress. She was planning a return to university when we last talked, thinking she wanted to become a “life coach” and to write a book. It was an interesting leap for a woman with a degree in economics. The education plans went down the drain when her mother became paralyzed (her elderly parents live on their own, with a bit of help from care providers and a lot of support from their youngest daughter). But Nancy did pursue her other plan, and was mentored by a leading Italian professor as she wrote her book, which, she told us, was very well received and reviewed.
She is already planning another book, and wants to see this one translated into English so we, too, can see more fully what she means when she talks about being “taken hostage by our emotions.”
Two nights later, on our last evening in this short stop in Rome, we went out to a local restaurant with our hostess. For hours she regaled us with tales of life in Italy. Romans, she said, are more civilized than many other Italians, using the language to better express themselves. She was recently stopped at a traffic light in her Smart car, chatting with a friend, when she didn’t notice the light turn green. “A Bolzano?” shouted the driver behind. The reference was to a city in the Alps, she explained, and the meaning was, “Are you waiting for the snow?” On another occasion, in the same situation, a driver called, “Which colour do you prefer?” meaning that she obviously didn’t like green.
We said our goodbyes after dinner, encouraging her to make a visit to Canada, which she promises to do (like all Europeans, she knows someone in Toronto). Nancy told us that on our next trip, she will arrange for an American priest to give us an inside tour of the Vatican and to sit in on a papal audience.
“And you can translate for me what he says,” she added, without a hint of amusement. “I can understand your English easily, but not his.”
October 2008 – This is the Life
An angel takes us under her wing in venice
We arrived in Venice, me for the very first time, late on Saturday afternoon, and ran into our first real glitch (unless one counts confusion over where or when to catch buses). I had instructions to telephone the owners of the apartment we had reserved, and had informed them by e-mail weeks earlier of our approximate arrival time. After failing to have any luck with a credit card in the pay phone, I purchased a local phone card. Each time I dialed the number I had been given I got a message that the number was not in service. Calls to the alternate cellphone number indicated the line was busy.
Many calls later, we opted to visit the information booth in Santa Lucia station and our problem was cleared up quickly. Don’t dial the area code when using a local card, I was told. The next call was a success, sort of. We were expecting you three hours ago — there must have been some confusion, I was told. No problem, though, the female Italian voice said, just follow these instructions. I quickly got a pencil from Angela and scribbled a bewildering number of turn lefts, go over the bridge, turn right, et cetera. Thinking fast, I asked how long the walk would take and she told me about 10 minutes. OK, how lost can we get in that short of time, I wondered.
We were at about our third line of instructions, not certain that we were really on the right track, when an angel appeared. It wasn’t that we were especially tired. We had left Salerno on the 9 a.m. train, ridden for four hours, then had just over an hour in Florence before we again boarded a train for another couple of hours. Throughout the day we were served drinks and snacks by very attentive Trenitalia personnel. But entering a traffic-free city where a long, unbroken stretch of street or alley is only a few hundred feet can be quite confusing.
“Do you need directions?” a voice asked. “Where are you going?” There was our angel. She had an American accent and, from appearance and mannerisms, could have been Marilyn Kettle’s long-lost sister. Imagine our surprise when I told her what apartment we were going to and she smiled and said, “Oh, that’s easy. That’s where I’ve been staying.” Huh? She breezily led us on our way, chatting and asking questions the whole time, leaving me to wonder whether this wasn’t some elaborate ruse. But I kept glancing at my directions and each of our turns seemed to jibe with them.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if you were in the same apartment?” our angel joked. Minutes later we turned the corner and, you guessed it, we were headed for the same place she had just finished a week’s stay in. The owners book the place from Saturday to Saturday and our new friend had an eight-day stay planned, so had booked into a hotel for her last night in Venice.
She had been chock full of information the whole walk and, had it ended there, meeting her would have been like a gift from heaven. But she offered to wait until we had dropped of our luggage, then show us to the nearest vaporetto (waterbus) station, one that would save us a lot of time if we used it instead of the one near the train station, which would have been our natural instinct. Soon she had taken us on another short but confusing walk, pointing out landmarks, restaurants and grocery stores, making recommendations as she went. Not only did she get us to the San Toma vaporetto stop in a way that we were able to remember easily, she then walked us back once again to our apartment before saying goodbye.
When we were settled into our apartment it almost seemed like the experience had been a dream. We had made only brief introductions and neither of us could remember her name. She’s an artist, she said, and has been to Venice four times and to many other places in Europe. From Venice she was headed to San Gimignano to visit friends for a week, then she was going to another place to paint a child’s room (with a cartoon mural) for still more friends.
Travel is always full of surprises, far more pleasant than not. And they happen in the most completely unexpected circumstances, as in the appearance of this American angel who provided us with the most remarkable of coincidences. She gave us a perfect start to our visit to this city of dreams and we were able to venture out that evening without the least concern about getting lost. It was a great way to begin the last leg of a near-perfect holiday.
October 2008 – This is the Life
Many calls later, we opted to visit the information booth in Santa Lucia station and our problem was cleared up quickly. Don’t dial the area code when using a local card, I was told. The next call was a success, sort of. We were expecting you three hours ago — there must have been some confusion, I was told. No problem, though, the female Italian voice said, just follow these instructions. I quickly got a pencil from Angela and scribbled a bewildering number of turn lefts, go over the bridge, turn right, et cetera. Thinking fast, I asked how long the walk would take and she told me about 10 minutes. OK, how lost can we get in that short of time, I wondered.
We were at about our third line of instructions, not certain that we were really on the right track, when an angel appeared. It wasn’t that we were especially tired. We had left Salerno on the 9 a.m. train, ridden for four hours, then had just over an hour in Florence before we again boarded a train for another couple of hours. Throughout the day we were served drinks and snacks by very attentive Trenitalia personnel. But entering a traffic-free city where a long, unbroken stretch of street or alley is only a few hundred feet can be quite confusing.
“Do you need directions?” a voice asked. “Where are you going?” There was our angel. She had an American accent and, from appearance and mannerisms, could have been Marilyn Kettle’s long-lost sister. Imagine our surprise when I told her what apartment we were going to and she smiled and said, “Oh, that’s easy. That’s where I’ve been staying.” Huh? She breezily led us on our way, chatting and asking questions the whole time, leaving me to wonder whether this wasn’t some elaborate ruse. But I kept glancing at my directions and each of our turns seemed to jibe with them.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if you were in the same apartment?” our angel joked. Minutes later we turned the corner and, you guessed it, we were headed for the same place she had just finished a week’s stay in. The owners book the place from Saturday to Saturday and our new friend had an eight-day stay planned, so had booked into a hotel for her last night in Venice.
She had been chock full of information the whole walk and, had it ended there, meeting her would have been like a gift from heaven. But she offered to wait until we had dropped of our luggage, then show us to the nearest vaporetto (waterbus) station, one that would save us a lot of time if we used it instead of the one near the train station, which would have been our natural instinct. Soon she had taken us on another short but confusing walk, pointing out landmarks, restaurants and grocery stores, making recommendations as she went. Not only did she get us to the San Toma vaporetto stop in a way that we were able to remember easily, she then walked us back once again to our apartment before saying goodbye.
When we were settled into our apartment it almost seemed like the experience had been a dream. We had made only brief introductions and neither of us could remember her name. She’s an artist, she said, and has been to Venice four times and to many other places in Europe. From Venice she was headed to San Gimignano to visit friends for a week, then she was going to another place to paint a child’s room (with a cartoon mural) for still more friends.
Travel is always full of surprises, far more pleasant than not. And they happen in the most completely unexpected circumstances, as in the appearance of this American angel who provided us with the most remarkable of coincidences. She gave us a perfect start to our visit to this city of dreams and we were able to venture out that evening without the least concern about getting lost. It was a great way to begin the last leg of a near-perfect holiday.
October 2008 – This is the Life
Cinque terre - miracle on the ligurian sea
Breakfast in Monterosso al Mare, cappucinno in Vernazza, lunch in Corniglia, a glass of Prosecco in Manarola and then maybe another cappuccino in Riomaggiore. And all of it travelling on foot, in about five hours, covering each of the five towns that comprise the Cinque Terre.
It is here in this storied national park on Italy’s Ligurian Sea coast that we started our holiday in earnest last week. We had arrived in Mestre, the mainland of Venice, two days earlier and did a day trip to Verona to get acclimated, but the “Five Lands” has been a long held dream for us.
The Cinque Terre falls into that “What were they thinking” category — the equivalent of us building three towns between Creston and Wynndel, then providing Wynndel with all the services of an independent community, too. Even more ridiculous than the towns” close proximity is their geography. Each is carved into steep stone cliffs, a testament to a people who settled in for the long haul many centuries ago. No tents or stick houses for these folks, not when there were rocks that had been pried loose or cut out to create little plots of flat land. And then, if making buildings that would last for several hundred years wasn’t enough, they set about making vineyards, gardens and orchards by — you guessed it — building stone walls to create a jaw-dropping system of tiers that ascend to the cliff tops — and then hauling up fill, soil and composted manure to make soil.
A few hours to the south, the French have their white-beached Riviera. There may be white sandy beaches on this, the Italian Riviera, too, but they are not to be found among these cliffs of marble and granite — “peculiar morphology” — is how the guidebooks put it. Most of what is green here has been planted by generations of gardeners, often thinking more of future generations than their own. The other colours, at least those that don’t belong to the flowers, are on painted stucco buildings. Yellows, oranges, reds, all in those sublime, subdued hues that are all the rage in North American paint stores these days, brighten a landscape that can use the help, lest it be overwhelmed by the turquoise sea.
As we wend our way up and down tight switchbacks in each town, yoyo along cliffside footpaths carved into the stone, or trudge up the 400 steps that make the staircase to Vernazza, which seems to have been inspired by Max Escher, our creaking joints and aching muscles beg for a few minutes’ respite.
Fortunately, those few minutes are never far away, in the form of a bar serving perfect cappuccinos (sorry, Joe and Allison), or patio trattories offering a chilled, endlessly bubbling Prosecco, the Italian version of Champagne. From those vantage points we watch the fascinating stream of tourists, all treated with a benign tolerance by the locals.
Dinner, eaten later in the evening, will include fried acciughe — anchovies drawn into nets by spotlights the night previous — or pansotti in walnut sauce or trofie smothered in pesto or, well, if it’s local, we’ll try it.
This is the vacation we’ve been dreaming of for two years. We can only hope we don’t suddenly awake to find it was all a dream.
October 2008
It is here in this storied national park on Italy’s Ligurian Sea coast that we started our holiday in earnest last week. We had arrived in Mestre, the mainland of Venice, two days earlier and did a day trip to Verona to get acclimated, but the “Five Lands” has been a long held dream for us.
The Cinque Terre falls into that “What were they thinking” category — the equivalent of us building three towns between Creston and Wynndel, then providing Wynndel with all the services of an independent community, too. Even more ridiculous than the towns” close proximity is their geography. Each is carved into steep stone cliffs, a testament to a people who settled in for the long haul many centuries ago. No tents or stick houses for these folks, not when there were rocks that had been pried loose or cut out to create little plots of flat land. And then, if making buildings that would last for several hundred years wasn’t enough, they set about making vineyards, gardens and orchards by — you guessed it — building stone walls to create a jaw-dropping system of tiers that ascend to the cliff tops — and then hauling up fill, soil and composted manure to make soil.
A few hours to the south, the French have their white-beached Riviera. There may be white sandy beaches on this, the Italian Riviera, too, but they are not to be found among these cliffs of marble and granite — “peculiar morphology” — is how the guidebooks put it. Most of what is green here has been planted by generations of gardeners, often thinking more of future generations than their own. The other colours, at least those that don’t belong to the flowers, are on painted stucco buildings. Yellows, oranges, reds, all in those sublime, subdued hues that are all the rage in North American paint stores these days, brighten a landscape that can use the help, lest it be overwhelmed by the turquoise sea.
As we wend our way up and down tight switchbacks in each town, yoyo along cliffside footpaths carved into the stone, or trudge up the 400 steps that make the staircase to Vernazza, which seems to have been inspired by Max Escher, our creaking joints and aching muscles beg for a few minutes’ respite.
Fortunately, those few minutes are never far away, in the form of a bar serving perfect cappuccinos (sorry, Joe and Allison), or patio trattories offering a chilled, endlessly bubbling Prosecco, the Italian version of Champagne. From those vantage points we watch the fascinating stream of tourists, all treated with a benign tolerance by the locals.
Dinner, eaten later in the evening, will include fried acciughe — anchovies drawn into nets by spotlights the night previous — or pansotti in walnut sauce or trofie smothered in pesto or, well, if it’s local, we’ll try it.
This is the vacation we’ve been dreaming of for two years. We can only hope we don’t suddenly awake to find it was all a dream.
October 2008
Traveling along the magical amalfi coast
In a documentary movie about novelist Paul Bowles, an American who spent much of his life in Morocco, there was a memorable illustration about different cultural attitudes. Bowles arrived at a bus station, finding only a lonely mechanic at work. He asked the man if the bus he was expecting to catch would be leaving the next day. Yes, the mechanic agreed. “Early?” Bowles asked. “Very early,” was the reply. Bowles arrived the next day, very early, and waited many hours before the same mechanic arrived. There was still no evidence that the desired bus was in service. After a tortuous conversation, the American learned there was no bus heading for his destination that morning, or at any other time. It didn’t exist. The Moroccan had merely told Bowles what he wanted to hear — he didn’t want to upset him with news he didn’t want to hear.
We felt much the same way when we were traveling along the Amalfi Coast in Italy last month. We had taken the bus from Salerno, through Amalfi and Positano to Sorrento, and then hopped a boat back to Positano, just to get a different view of our environs. We made our way upward from the Tyrrhenian Sea through town and toward where we thought we could catch a bus to Amalfi. After stumbling around for a bit we found what looked like the bus stop and I went inside a tobacco shop to purchase bus tickets. The young man sold me a pair of tickets to Amalfi and, when asked, told me we could catch the bus “outside”.
A short time later a bus arrived and we hopped on, but the requisite ticket validating machine wouldn’t accept our tickets. The bus was going where we were but it was from a different company than our tickets were. “Where do I catch the SITA bus?” I asked. “Outside,” the driver replied. The entire crowd had disappeared and we sat alone for a few minutes before we decided to walk in the direction of Amalfi. Less than a kilometre away we arrived at a SITA bus stop and were soon on our way along the ridiculously twisty road.
We arrived in Amalfi and I bought more tickets, this time to our home base in Salerno. We wandered around for a while then returned to the bus shelter. Two buses were sitting at our stop when the Salerno bus came around the corner and simply pulled out around them and sped off down the highway, leaving us wide-eyed. Rather than let frustration get us down we found a seat at an outdoor café and had a glass of wine and some dessert, enjoying the light as it changed from daytime to evening. An hour later, we did get on a bus, but not before pestering other drivers about just where we could get aboard.
The next day we visited the remarkable Greek ruins in Paestum, a 40-minute train ride from Salerno. Train service to the tiny town is sketchy so we made our way back to the train station in plenty of time. At the unstaffed station a young, seemingly helpful fellow, came over and told us, “No treno.” I questioned him, asking why, and he spoke only Italian, first assuming we were going to Naples. Salerno, I corrected him. “No treno,” he repeated. He followed us into the waiting room where I wanted to double check the departure schedule, then pointed to each of the afternoon listings and repeated, “No treno.” At a 9 p.m. departure he pointed and simply shrugged as if to say, “Who knows?” How can we get to Salerno I asked. “Taxi?” he mumbled, shrugging again.
We chose to ignore our helpful friend, who was soon chatting with another man. Then they suddenly got up and exited the station and I heard a car drive away. Minutes later, our train arrived and we were on our way to Salerno. The moral to the story, I concluded, is that when traveling in a foreign country, assume nothing, be prepared for anything and enter every situation as an adventure. And, when in doubt, don’t just do something — stand there. Unless you’re in Positano or Amalfi.
November 2008 – This is the Life
We felt much the same way when we were traveling along the Amalfi Coast in Italy last month. We had taken the bus from Salerno, through Amalfi and Positano to Sorrento, and then hopped a boat back to Positano, just to get a different view of our environs. We made our way upward from the Tyrrhenian Sea through town and toward where we thought we could catch a bus to Amalfi. After stumbling around for a bit we found what looked like the bus stop and I went inside a tobacco shop to purchase bus tickets. The young man sold me a pair of tickets to Amalfi and, when asked, told me we could catch the bus “outside”.
A short time later a bus arrived and we hopped on, but the requisite ticket validating machine wouldn’t accept our tickets. The bus was going where we were but it was from a different company than our tickets were. “Where do I catch the SITA bus?” I asked. “Outside,” the driver replied. The entire crowd had disappeared and we sat alone for a few minutes before we decided to walk in the direction of Amalfi. Less than a kilometre away we arrived at a SITA bus stop and were soon on our way along the ridiculously twisty road.
We arrived in Amalfi and I bought more tickets, this time to our home base in Salerno. We wandered around for a while then returned to the bus shelter. Two buses were sitting at our stop when the Salerno bus came around the corner and simply pulled out around them and sped off down the highway, leaving us wide-eyed. Rather than let frustration get us down we found a seat at an outdoor café and had a glass of wine and some dessert, enjoying the light as it changed from daytime to evening. An hour later, we did get on a bus, but not before pestering other drivers about just where we could get aboard.
The next day we visited the remarkable Greek ruins in Paestum, a 40-minute train ride from Salerno. Train service to the tiny town is sketchy so we made our way back to the train station in plenty of time. At the unstaffed station a young, seemingly helpful fellow, came over and told us, “No treno.” I questioned him, asking why, and he spoke only Italian, first assuming we were going to Naples. Salerno, I corrected him. “No treno,” he repeated. He followed us into the waiting room where I wanted to double check the departure schedule, then pointed to each of the afternoon listings and repeated, “No treno.” At a 9 p.m. departure he pointed and simply shrugged as if to say, “Who knows?” How can we get to Salerno I asked. “Taxi?” he mumbled, shrugging again.
We chose to ignore our helpful friend, who was soon chatting with another man. Then they suddenly got up and exited the station and I heard a car drive away. Minutes later, our train arrived and we were on our way to Salerno. The moral to the story, I concluded, is that when traveling in a foreign country, assume nothing, be prepared for anything and enter every situation as an adventure. And, when in doubt, don’t just do something — stand there. Unless you’re in Positano or Amalfi.
November 2008 – This is the Life
a sweet wine for living the sweet life
A lovely display outside a shop in Monterosso al Mare, the westernmost of the five towns that comprise Cinque Terre.
Sciacchetra. No, the appropriate response is not "gesundheit". But it can be accompanied bya one's favourite toast, in this case "Cin cin" (cheen cheen), the Italian version of "cheers". And don't forget a nice piece of biscotti to dip into it.
Sciacchetra (SHOCK-eh-tra) is to the people of the Cinque Terre what Ice Wine is to Canadians, or what Vin Santo is to the rest of Italy. There is not hard freeze to intensify the flavours and sweetness here on the Ligurian Sea in northwest Italy. Instead, this spicy dessert wine, more noticeably acidic than Ice Wine, and therefore less sweet tasting, goes through a more complicated process to arrive at its pricey--25 Euros and up for a half bottle--conclusion.
But first, we should back up for a moment. In the Cinque Terre, five towns each built into rock cliffs on the Italian Riviera, there are no sprawling vineyards. Instead, each row of vines is built into its own tier, each created by stacking stones, and without the use of mortar. So steep are these hillsides that a series of simple, single-purpose monorail tracks has been designed to haul pickers upward, and bring boxes of grapes down. A gas engine powers each tiny train along the single track.
We arrived in Manarola early in October, missing the grape harvest by only days. On our hike up the steep incline to our apartment, the air was pungent with the aroma of fermenting grapes bubbling away in wire-fenced enclosures or basement rooms with doors ajar for ventilation. The grapes being made into red, white and sparkling wines are the ones fermenting right now. But others--the best--are hanging in bunches in open-sided sheds, drying and shrinking for another month at least.
Those grapes will be pressed sometime after November 1st (a date mandated by law), when they have become raisins. It will take at least of 10kg of the almost dry fruit to yield 1.5L of wine.
The shrivelled grapes are pressed and left on the skins for a few day, which helps the acid levels stay up. Fermentation can be a tricky business in and unpredictable cool weather can shut down the process within hours if the winemaker doesn't pay close attention. The fermentation comes to its natural conclusion when the alcohol level reaches about 15 per cent--it will gradually increase to about 21 per cent while the wine ages in small oak barrels, for at least a year, and evaporation does its work.
Wines have been made in this astonishing region at least since the 14th century. Today, though, the product is only making a comeback after phylloxera, that rotten louse, wiped out the vines between the two world wars. Growers are encouraged to replant vineyards and the National Park, which encompasses the tiny 15-kilometre-long region, has a program to encourage the reconstruction of stone walls that have deteriorated with years of neglect. A research project in the park is attempting to identify and propogate long forgotten old grape varieties.
Almost certainly one of the world's unlikeliest wine regions, the Cinque Terre is in all ways testament to man's determination to overpower nature. And growers in this region have succeeded--for a long time. Cinque Terre wines are mentioned in literature, including a 1148 tome that described them as "pressed from those white and reddish grapes that ripen among the stones and are gilded by the setting sun." They are even credited by Dante in the sixth circle of his Purgatory.
In the 16th century, a Genoese writer said, "There is no baron, prince or any king who does not consider it a great honour when on his table Cinque Terre wine is offered; and so it is that the fame of this territory is great not only in Italy, but almost everywhere in the world."
Cin cin.
La Dolce Vita – October 2008
Sciacchetra (SHOCK-eh-tra) is to the people of the Cinque Terre what Ice Wine is to Canadians, or what Vin Santo is to the rest of Italy. There is not hard freeze to intensify the flavours and sweetness here on the Ligurian Sea in northwest Italy. Instead, this spicy dessert wine, more noticeably acidic than Ice Wine, and therefore less sweet tasting, goes through a more complicated process to arrive at its pricey--25 Euros and up for a half bottle--conclusion.
But first, we should back up for a moment. In the Cinque Terre, five towns each built into rock cliffs on the Italian Riviera, there are no sprawling vineyards. Instead, each row of vines is built into its own tier, each created by stacking stones, and without the use of mortar. So steep are these hillsides that a series of simple, single-purpose monorail tracks has been designed to haul pickers upward, and bring boxes of grapes down. A gas engine powers each tiny train along the single track.
We arrived in Manarola early in October, missing the grape harvest by only days. On our hike up the steep incline to our apartment, the air was pungent with the aroma of fermenting grapes bubbling away in wire-fenced enclosures or basement rooms with doors ajar for ventilation. The grapes being made into red, white and sparkling wines are the ones fermenting right now. But others--the best--are hanging in bunches in open-sided sheds, drying and shrinking for another month at least.
Those grapes will be pressed sometime after November 1st (a date mandated by law), when they have become raisins. It will take at least of 10kg of the almost dry fruit to yield 1.5L of wine.
The shrivelled grapes are pressed and left on the skins for a few day, which helps the acid levels stay up. Fermentation can be a tricky business in and unpredictable cool weather can shut down the process within hours if the winemaker doesn't pay close attention. The fermentation comes to its natural conclusion when the alcohol level reaches about 15 per cent--it will gradually increase to about 21 per cent while the wine ages in small oak barrels, for at least a year, and evaporation does its work.
Wines have been made in this astonishing region at least since the 14th century. Today, though, the product is only making a comeback after phylloxera, that rotten louse, wiped out the vines between the two world wars. Growers are encouraged to replant vineyards and the National Park, which encompasses the tiny 15-kilometre-long region, has a program to encourage the reconstruction of stone walls that have deteriorated with years of neglect. A research project in the park is attempting to identify and propogate long forgotten old grape varieties.
Almost certainly one of the world's unlikeliest wine regions, the Cinque Terre is in all ways testament to man's determination to overpower nature. And growers in this region have succeeded--for a long time. Cinque Terre wines are mentioned in literature, including a 1148 tome that described them as "pressed from those white and reddish grapes that ripen among the stones and are gilded by the setting sun." They are even credited by Dante in the sixth circle of his Purgatory.
In the 16th century, a Genoese writer said, "There is no baron, prince or any king who does not consider it a great honour when on his table Cinque Terre wine is offered; and so it is that the fame of this territory is great not only in Italy, but almost everywhere in the world."
Cin cin.
La Dolce Vita – October 2008
What does an intrepid wine columnist do when he has no pen and paper, but wants to remember information? There is always a camera to save the day.
When in rome, drink as the italians do
We thought the view from our Rome B & B balcony was sufficient accompaniment for our wine. Our host didn't.
My passion for wine stems not from tasting, sampling and comparing so much as it does from its cultural and social aspects. Drinking wine connects to our past and to other countries and cultures, helping us enjoy both food and one another.
A couple of instances come to mind as we continue our travels in Italy (if it's Tuesday this must be Salerno, where we've arrived from Rome only a few hours ago).
The tale begins last Thursday in Manarola. We were in a restaurant for our last dinner in town we called home for a week. Exhausted from another day of walking, we looked forward to the warm service and great food. The wine, as it always seems to be here, is good, but we are not paying extravagantly, so we don't too fussy — house wine or a local bottle is just fine. Our dinner didn't disappoint, focusing on seafood, most of it caught locally in the last day. We ordered a bottle of white Cinque Terre d.o.c. wine, which is generally a cut above the stuff served in litre or half litre bottles, and it tasted wonderful with our meal.
After dinner, we decided we had room to share a serving of tiramisu, as well as a single glass of sciacchetra to go with it. It seemed like a fitting way to end our week in this magical place.
Before I could signal for the bill — in Italy you will never get a bill in a restaurant without asking for it. It's considered a sign of rudeness for a server to do so — the female owner of the establishment appeared at our table with a tray.
"This is a local dessert wine for you," she smiled, setting it down. She couldn't have known it was to be our last meal there, so the sentiment was appreciated. We dipped the several slices of biscotti that were also on the tray, savouring not only the lightly sweet treat, but the gesture that it had appeared with.
Two days later we were in Rome, sitting on our bed and breakfast balcony, watching the sun go down just to the west of St. Peter's Cathedral, which was only several hundred meters away. Open in front of us was a bottle of red wine from southern Italy, a gift from our hostess, a friend from visits past. It was a gift for us, Nancy had said, to welcome us back to Rome.
Having had a large, late lunch, we weren't hungry, so we nibbled on peanuts and pistacchios and as sipped and watched the skyline. Big mistake.
Fabio, Nancy's friend and business partner, arrived at the B&B and popped his head through the doorway to say "Ciao." We had been told he was a wine connoisseur and that he had chosen the wine — a Syrah from Sicily -— for us.
Apparently he was so appalled that we were eating the wine with nuts that he called Nancy to report in. A short while later he returned, bags in hand. In one was our wine for the next night, a Chianti reserve, and in the other were four olive buns, a Genoa salami and a bag of Parmesano Reggiano cubes. Fabio made it clear that we were to drink the Chianti the next evening, but only with the food.
"Wine should be drunk with food," he explained in his halting English.
Of course we followed his instructions, not wanting to insult and, of course, the wine really did taste good. And it wasn't only because it was accompanied with food, but because of the thoughtfulness with which it had been presented.
In Italy, with food being such an integral part of the culture, wine makes no less important a contribution to the meal as do the food and company it is eaten with. It is a lesson we won't soon forget.
La Dolce Vita – October 2008
A couple of instances come to mind as we continue our travels in Italy (if it's Tuesday this must be Salerno, where we've arrived from Rome only a few hours ago).
The tale begins last Thursday in Manarola. We were in a restaurant for our last dinner in town we called home for a week. Exhausted from another day of walking, we looked forward to the warm service and great food. The wine, as it always seems to be here, is good, but we are not paying extravagantly, so we don't too fussy — house wine or a local bottle is just fine. Our dinner didn't disappoint, focusing on seafood, most of it caught locally in the last day. We ordered a bottle of white Cinque Terre d.o.c. wine, which is generally a cut above the stuff served in litre or half litre bottles, and it tasted wonderful with our meal.
After dinner, we decided we had room to share a serving of tiramisu, as well as a single glass of sciacchetra to go with it. It seemed like a fitting way to end our week in this magical place.
Before I could signal for the bill — in Italy you will never get a bill in a restaurant without asking for it. It's considered a sign of rudeness for a server to do so — the female owner of the establishment appeared at our table with a tray.
"This is a local dessert wine for you," she smiled, setting it down. She couldn't have known it was to be our last meal there, so the sentiment was appreciated. We dipped the several slices of biscotti that were also on the tray, savouring not only the lightly sweet treat, but the gesture that it had appeared with.
Two days later we were in Rome, sitting on our bed and breakfast balcony, watching the sun go down just to the west of St. Peter's Cathedral, which was only several hundred meters away. Open in front of us was a bottle of red wine from southern Italy, a gift from our hostess, a friend from visits past. It was a gift for us, Nancy had said, to welcome us back to Rome.
Having had a large, late lunch, we weren't hungry, so we nibbled on peanuts and pistacchios and as sipped and watched the skyline. Big mistake.
Fabio, Nancy's friend and business partner, arrived at the B&B and popped his head through the doorway to say "Ciao." We had been told he was a wine connoisseur and that he had chosen the wine — a Syrah from Sicily -— for us.
Apparently he was so appalled that we were eating the wine with nuts that he called Nancy to report in. A short while later he returned, bags in hand. In one was our wine for the next night, a Chianti reserve, and in the other were four olive buns, a Genoa salami and a bag of Parmesano Reggiano cubes. Fabio made it clear that we were to drink the Chianti the next evening, but only with the food.
"Wine should be drunk with food," he explained in his halting English.
Of course we followed his instructions, not wanting to insult and, of course, the wine really did taste good. And it wasn't only because it was accompanied with food, but because of the thoughtfulness with which it had been presented.
In Italy, with food being such an integral part of the culture, wine makes no less important a contribution to the meal as do the food and company it is eaten with. It is a lesson we won't soon forget.
La Dolce Vita – October 2008
wine and coffee experiences in italy
Food and drink aren't just fuel for Italians--the social experience is equally as important, as this couple in Rome proves.
Here in Venice, where I am writing this from on a dreary Tuesday, wine is as big a part of the Italian culture as in any other area. The only difference is, of course, that there is no wine industry on this island. In fact, there isn’t a whole lot of anything grown here, other than seaweed and moss. That’s what happens when a city is built on a lagoon.
But the wine culture is alive and well here. As travellers, we easily fall into the Italian habit of having a large lunch, and we inevitably order wine with our pizza, pasta or piati secondi, a meat or fish dish. Like most, we don’t order bottles of more expensive wine—we settle quite happily for a half litre of either red or white vino di tavola (table wine) of unknown origins. Typically the red wine is served chilled and I remember being told by a waiter in Florence on our last trip that North Americans drink white wine too cold and red wine too warm.
The dining experience itself is a fascinating one. We usually eat at trattorias, casual restaurants that offer both stand-up and sit-down service, the latter about a third more costly than the former. Today at lunch we sat and enjoyed pizzas so large they hung over the edge of our tiny table, watching a steady stream of locals and tourists pop in for a quick sandwich, pizza slice or drink as they stood at the bar. This is Italy’s version of fast food. No drive through here, obviously, where roads are replaced by a series of canals.
If we were going to be fussy about drinking local wines, we would opt for the white Soave wine made in the Veneto region. This clear, crisp wine doesn’t create memories of greatness, but it goes famously with most foods.
More exotic are the “straw wines”, made from the best grapes (from the “ears” of a bunch), which are picked, then dried for several weeks on straw mats, which allows the fruit to lose some of its water and intensify in flavour. The results become Recioto, a white dessert wine, or Amarone, those huge-bodied reds that have intense colour, incredible flavour and high alcohol contents. They are also expensive, so much so that another wine, Ripasso, is made by passing other red wine through the pomace, or leavings from the pressing of Amarone wines.
Of course wine isn’t the only drink involved with Italian food. We visit, at least twice a day, bars which, here in Italy, aren’t there primarily to sell alcohol (though they do) but coffee and snacks. The coffee here is espresso—good luck finding a drip or instant cup of coffee. And they are served in single shots. An espresso might be a one ounce serving at the outside. We’ve watched Italians pour as much sugar into their espressos as there is liquid.
Personally, I’ve come to enjoy espresso macchiato, in which a tiny bit of steamed milk and froth is added to the strong, tiny dose of espresso.
Cappuccino is enormously popular but here you can tell the locals from the tourists. Italians drink cappuccinos only the morning, then settle for shots of espresso throughout the day.
Cappuccinos are perhaps six-ounce servings at the maximum. North Americans used to the giant Slurpee-sized lattes served by Starbucks and the like are in for a big shock here. And one needs to be specific when ordering. I watched one bewildered woman taste her drink in Verona and realize it was nothing more than steamed milk—latte is Italian for milk and she got just what she ordered. The server accommodated her by pouring a shot of espresso into her cup, but explained she needed to order a café latte. I’m sure she never made the same mistake again.
La Dolce Vita – October 2008
But the wine culture is alive and well here. As travellers, we easily fall into the Italian habit of having a large lunch, and we inevitably order wine with our pizza, pasta or piati secondi, a meat or fish dish. Like most, we don’t order bottles of more expensive wine—we settle quite happily for a half litre of either red or white vino di tavola (table wine) of unknown origins. Typically the red wine is served chilled and I remember being told by a waiter in Florence on our last trip that North Americans drink white wine too cold and red wine too warm.
The dining experience itself is a fascinating one. We usually eat at trattorias, casual restaurants that offer both stand-up and sit-down service, the latter about a third more costly than the former. Today at lunch we sat and enjoyed pizzas so large they hung over the edge of our tiny table, watching a steady stream of locals and tourists pop in for a quick sandwich, pizza slice or drink as they stood at the bar. This is Italy’s version of fast food. No drive through here, obviously, where roads are replaced by a series of canals.
If we were going to be fussy about drinking local wines, we would opt for the white Soave wine made in the Veneto region. This clear, crisp wine doesn’t create memories of greatness, but it goes famously with most foods.
More exotic are the “straw wines”, made from the best grapes (from the “ears” of a bunch), which are picked, then dried for several weeks on straw mats, which allows the fruit to lose some of its water and intensify in flavour. The results become Recioto, a white dessert wine, or Amarone, those huge-bodied reds that have intense colour, incredible flavour and high alcohol contents. They are also expensive, so much so that another wine, Ripasso, is made by passing other red wine through the pomace, or leavings from the pressing of Amarone wines.
Of course wine isn’t the only drink involved with Italian food. We visit, at least twice a day, bars which, here in Italy, aren’t there primarily to sell alcohol (though they do) but coffee and snacks. The coffee here is espresso—good luck finding a drip or instant cup of coffee. And they are served in single shots. An espresso might be a one ounce serving at the outside. We’ve watched Italians pour as much sugar into their espressos as there is liquid.
Personally, I’ve come to enjoy espresso macchiato, in which a tiny bit of steamed milk and froth is added to the strong, tiny dose of espresso.
Cappuccino is enormously popular but here you can tell the locals from the tourists. Italians drink cappuccinos only the morning, then settle for shots of espresso throughout the day.
Cappuccinos are perhaps six-ounce servings at the maximum. North Americans used to the giant Slurpee-sized lattes served by Starbucks and the like are in for a big shock here. And one needs to be specific when ordering. I watched one bewildered woman taste her drink in Verona and realize it was nothing more than steamed milk—latte is Italian for milk and she got just what she ordered. The server accommodated her by pouring a shot of espresso into her cup, but explained she needed to order a café latte. I’m sure she never made the same mistake again.
La Dolce Vita – October 2008
