To Florence

The morning of November 13, a Thursday, we set out for Florence. We had dined the evening before in the nearby town of Corazzano. At 7:30, we were the first diners in the restaurant, a serviceable spot recommended by our hosts more for the food than ambiance. Our dinner included beef carpaccio with Parmesan and white truffle sauce, wonderful paparadelli with wild boar ragu, fried rabbit and sausage with white beans. The meal was quite satisfying, the restaurant was warm and bright, and provided welcome shelter from the intensifying rain.

The rain continued throughout our meal, and indeed it would rain all night. The morning was drier, but still cloudy. Bill made us eggs with some of our truffle for breakfast, and I created a new taste sensation: pear and yogurt topped with crushed almond biscotti. Try it! We invited our cat friend in for a visit. He seemed to be quite fond of us, hopping in the car as we packed to leave. Turned out he was just after our cheese!

We said goodbye to the peaceful beauty of the farm and took off for Florence. The drive through the Tuscan hills was spectacular--a lovely harmony of rolling hills, silvery olive trees and neatly planted vineyards.

We drove through Certaldo, and Poggibonsi (a town Lonely Planet calls "one of the ugliest towns in Tuscany") and onto the A1 circling Florence. We stopped for sandwiches at a large Italian truck stop. After a bit of circling, Billfound the rental office in a suburb of Florence. We turned in the car and Bill's driving duties were complete. A taxi took us into the heart of historic and fashionable Florence.

Raccolta di Tartufi

November 12, 5 PM

It's dusk at the Doderi house on Barbialla Nuova farm in Montaione. Mom, Dad, Bill and I have just returned from a trip to a grocery store called Pam to pick up some items for breakfast tomorrow. We're staying in a self catering apartment on an agri-tourisme farm. It's a new building, but evokes an old farm house--casa colonica--with brick floors, 12-foot ceilings, and exposed beams. The curved-top doors and windows are painted brick red, other woodwork is pale green or blue.

The fog was coming in as we returned from the store. Last night we had to find the farm in the dark as we had tarried too long in Lucca. We twisted through a village knotted to the side of a mountain, passed through two valleys and looked for a white km6 marker which signaled the turn for the farm. We bought a few items from the farm pantry and a €5 case of water. Before dinner we snacked on prosciutto, cheese and grapes we had bought yesterday morning in a market in Pisa. The grapes were huge, green and crunchy, as much tangy as sweet. The cheeses were a mild, creamy Gorgonzola and a hard, tasty cheese of which we never quite learned the name. [But later decided was Pecorino Toscano.]

After navigating us safely through the night, Bill then prepared us dinner of pasta with an olive and tomato sauce and some Chianti. The food and wine were all organic, grown and produced in the nearby town of San Gimignano.

The apartment is two bed/two bath, so we're not roughing it. We all slept well last night, and ate a breakfast of more cheese, pear, apple and bread before setting out on a truffle hunt.

The acres of this farm produce 500g of truffles a week during mid-September to December. This pungent fungus is unearthed by an 80-year old truffler, Imperio, and his two dogs, Toby and Bobby. Toby, the elder dog at 11, has the more sensitive nose, but Bobby is a little more determined to find the truffle. Bobby's enthusiasm puts him at risk for actually eating the truffle, however. This woolly Lagotto breed is most commonly used for truffle hunting. Puppies are fed bits of truffle.

We met Sabali around 9:00 this morning, and set out with Imperio, his dogs, and a fellow agri-tourist couple from Greece. Imperio and Sabali were armed with tools that looked like a small straight hoe [a vanghino]. It's been rainy in Montaione and the roads and paths were slick with putty colored mud. Sabali said they'd had a dry summer and a wet fall, which was not particularly good for the truffles. We started out along the edge of a field, Imperio leading the way, the dogs weaving out like sniffing tentacles. The field was lined with White Poplars, a tree favored by truffles. The dogs quickly found some dirt of interest, and began digging. We were among several small poplars that had been planted to replace more mature trees that died. Sabali said that it is better to plant very young trees so the truffle fungus can grow along with the roots. The day before the dogs had found some truffles in the field; occasionally the fungus filaments can run many meters from the tree.

Sabali brought us a handful of dirt from the fresh hole, and indeed it had a garlicky musk. Soon Imperio uncovered a small truffle, and Sabali brought it to us. We passed it around and all took a sniff. Oh yeah, that's truffle. The dogs were not ready to leave the hole, so Sabali and Imperio kept exploring the hole, sawing away a piece of root. Under the root they found a larger truffle. This would be the largest find of the day.

We walked through the woods for another hour or so, tromping on wet leaves, Imperio calling to the dogs, "Dove (doh-vay)?" Where? The dogs kept looking; today's haul was around 75 grams. Imperio has brought in a kilo this month. He told us last year he brought in 7 kg in one month. Still, the 75 g would bring a couple hundred euro.

After the hunt, we were refreshed by some red wine, fennel salami, pecorino cheese, olives, and bread. I had recently bought some fennel salami at Carluccio's in Dublin, and I can say officially we are crazy about finocchiona. We completed our lunch with biscotti and Vin Santo, a sweet wine made from raisins. We decided to buy some of the smaller truffles found today, so Sabali cleaned and weighed them for us. The larger truffles are more expensive by the gram, as they are more desirable to restaurants. We bought 34 grams; several small truffles. Sabali wrapped them in paper and placed them in a glass jar. We're to replace the paper every day. White truffle is supposed to be amazing with eggs, and we also plan to make some truffle butter. Or maybe we'll sell it on the streets of London: £60 for 10g. [Bill used the truffles for tagliatelle al tartufo.]

I took a nice hot shower after the hunt and crawled into bed to read, which of course meant I snoozed a bit. Mom and Dad also napped, and Bill read up on the next phase of our journey, Florence. We snacked a bit throughout the afternoon, and sat outside during an afternoon rain shower. The Doderi house looks out over miles of Tuscan hills, which today were yellow and blue and grey. We've had a kitty friend for our stay here, and she visited with us this afternoon.

Our trip to the grocery store supplied us with plenty of diet coke, and some eggs and mortadella for breakfast. We'll head out to one of the recommended restaurants for dinner. Most restaurants start serving at 7:30.




Some scenes from the truffle hunt:

Lunch in Lucca

The draw of Lucca is its well preserved city walls. This twelve-meter high fortification, built in the 16th and 17th centuries, held 126 cannons. Now used for more peaceful pursuits, the walls provide a leafy walkway with playgrounds. Within the walls is a pedestrian-friendly city with the lovely euro-mix of shops, restaurants, and cathedrals.

We had a recommendation to lunch at Buca L'Antonio and while the owner was not impressed that we had been sent by "Roberto, the ex-banker from Pisa," we were impressed with our delicious meal. Mom loved her onion soup and her roast guinea fowl was a star of the meal. Bill loved his rabbit pasta, and Dad's rabbit salad was very nice. Dad had a big plate of roast wild boar, which he warmed to after the first bite. I had zucchini ravioli for primo and Bill tucked in to roast pork.

After lunch we wandered the rainy streets, shopping a little and taking refuge in the Church of Ss Paolino e Donato, the parish church of one of Lucca's most famous residents, Giacomo Puccini. Just being in Lucca gave Mom a bit of the operatic spirit.

We left Lucca around 4:30 for a dark, rainy and occasionally harrowing drive to a farm called Barbialla Nuova Fattoria in Montaione.

Goodbye Pisa

Our wonderfully sunny Monday in Pisa was to be the loveliest weather we would see for several days.

Tuesday morning after breakfast at the hotel, we took a stroll through a nearby food market.


Dad bought some prosciutto and cheese from a local vendor. We think the prosciutto was made from an heirloom Tuscan pig, Cinta Senese, crossed with wild boar. At any rate, it was yummy crossed with delicious. The cheeses were a creamy blue and a Pecorino Toscano.









He also learned that merchants are protective of their squash blossoms. Seriously, the guy is in the process of telling Dad not to touch the blossoms. We think.

The supplies we bought would come in very handy later in our trip.

Around noon we rented a car and set out for Lucca, a 45-minute drive North.

Eating in Pisa

We are Lonely Planet travelers. We've visited many European locations in the last year and the Lonely Planet guides have served us well. We're thinking of changing the name of our blog to Bill and Sharon's Guide to the Lonely Planet Guide. We do veer off LP plan based on need and desire, but the guides provide a helpful foundation for exploring new places.

Lonely Planet led us to many delicious meals during our week in Italy. In Pisa, we took a break from the Piazza dei Miracoli monuments to lunch on panini at one of Panetteria Focacceria's sidewalk tables. We had our first of many simple and tasty sandwiches and also enjoyed some wonderful chocolate tarts.



On the way back to our hotel, we spied La Bottega del Gelato as we passed through Piazza Garibaldi and stopped for our first gelato. With frozen goodness in hand, we walked on to the River Arno and watched the sun set.





Our first Tuscan dinner, at La Grotta, had us puzzling over the Italian menu. Some terms were easy to decipher: Spaghettone, Ravioletti, Risotto, Zuppa. But we had to question the waitress about several dishes. In the end we took a few shots in the dark. Mom and Dad chose Le Animelle di Vitello sulla Crema di Zucca, as we understood this was veal. When the dish arrived it was declared tasty, but of a unusual character. Bill really liked it. The next day after reviewing an English menu I nicked on the way out (not sure why we weren't given an English menu initially) we discovered Animelle is in fact sweetbreads, or thymus gland. Bill has knowingly ordered sweetbreads in the past, and Mom and Dad will both eat liver, so no one was harmed in this eating experiment. The rest of the dinner included risotto, some ravioli, and a few steak dishes. A favorite item was Fagioli all'Olio e Salvia--delicious, creamy white beans. My dessert was delightful--ricotta with a rich, dark chocolate sauce. Dad's dessert came with a fruit garnish of cachi, which we determined was persimmon. Over the next few days we saw many persimmon trees, bare of leaves but laden with orange fruit.

After dinner we were offered caffe, or espresso. Being a coffee wimp (more whipped cream please), I surprised myself by ordering a teensy cup. When in Rome, er, Pisa, my friends--this espresso was delicious, with strong caramel notes and no bitterness. I had many espressos throughout the week (they are typically around €1.50), and while this first was my favorite, I enjoyed them all. They also served to balance the wine I had consumed with dinner, and never kept me awake. I've yet to try an espresso off the continent. It can't be the same!


Note: I added a vid clip to the previous post.

Battistero di San Giovanni

The Baptistry of St. John stands to the West of the Cathedral in the Square of Miracles. The architectural grandeur of the medieval baptistry reflects the importance of the sacrament of baptism. Construction on the Romanesque base began in the mid-12th century, with the loggia, top story and the dome completed in the Gothic style in the 14th century.

The interior of the baptistry features a tiled floor with an octagon-shaped baptismal font. The eight-sided shape represents Christ's resurrection on Sunday, the first day of the week made new, an eighth day in which we continue to live.

The baptistry features amazing acoustics which allow an individual to create ethereal harmonies. Click below to listen:











Turns out the baptistry leans 0.6 degrees toward the cathedral, so I thought I'd help out a little.










The other monument on the piazza is the Camposanto monumentale (monumental cemetery). The oblong Gothic cloister was built in the late 13th century over an existing burial ground. Note the slender mullions and plurilobed tracery of the inner court (divided windows and ribbed windows or vaulting). In addition to grave markers the Camposanto contains Roman sculpture and impressive frescoes from 14-17th centuries. The frescoes have been restored after the roof of the camposanto was set afire by allied bombs in WWII.








Several museums are also located near the piazza. We visited the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo which contains further examples of art work, craftsmanship and architectural features of the Piazza dei Miracoli monuments. The museum is tucked behind the campanile and provides excellent views of the tower.







Up Next: Eating in Pisa. (Yeah, you knew that was coming.)

Torre pendente di Pisa

Walking toward the Piazza del Duomo, the Cathedral Bell Tower came into view as we crossed the Piazza Ardvescovada. Approaching from the South, the tower seems rather impertinently upright. But as we rounded the corner into the Piazza del Duomo, or Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles), the tower took on its familiar stance. Familiar indeed. I definitely had a "Wow, I am somewhere famous" moment. Even more so when verifying shots on the camera screen, seeing my smiling self right there in front of the Leaning Tower. I never dreamed of visiting Pisa. I've even held silently unflattering opinions of the tower, thinking it was a shoddy tourist trap somewhere with unfortunate peasants selling trinkets in its oddly cast shadow. While trinkets abound, my prejudice was undeserved--the tower is beautiful. A wedding cake of gleaming marble arches, the campanile definitely lists, and curves slightly, the result of attempts to correct the sinking tower during construction. The bell tower was installed in 1372, almost 200 years after the project began. It think it is the charm of this Building-That-Could that has secured the tower as an iconic image and may cause one to exclaim, "I'm at the Frickin' Tower of Pisa!"

The tower does not tilt pensively in solitude. The Piazza dei Miracoli is also home to the Cathedral, or Duomo, the Baptistry and the Camposanto. The Romanesque 11th Century Duomo features a mosaic in the apse and
amazing wood inlay panels. I liked the the Romanesque cathedral--still ornate, but visually calmer than some Gothic cathedrals we've seen.

Next: Inside the Baptistry