Tuscany

This morning we were very sad to pack up and leave our cozy apartment in Vernazza, it is just such a beautiful place. We took a train to Pisa where we had planned a 2-hour stopover to see the tower and it was a lovely day out today so that was fun. The only disappointment was that we forgot the camera (left it in our checked bags at the station) so we won't have any of the requisite holding-up-the-tower pictures. Quite a shame. Our train ride took us straight through Carrara so we got beautiful closeup views of the marble-laden hills, that was exciting. Wish we could have gotten out to take.a hike there - it would be so fun to find a rock somewhere in the hills that would be an actual piece of Carrara marble. 500 years ago could have been right next to the block that became the David or Pieta! That would be a great souvenir; hopefully we'll have a chance to go back.

We got to our final destination, a town called Empoli, and Guido was there with his daughter Hanna (age 4ish) to pick us up. His wife, Rebecca, and one of his daughters (age 13) are away this weekend and we haven't met the other daughter (16) yet but she'll be home for dinner.

Guido seems like a pretty interesting guy. He was born in Florence and studied there, in Paris, and in NYC to earn a PhD in archaeology. He specializes in the Middle East and throughout the past decade while he's been trying to get the farm up and running, he has made most of his living writing journal articles. We have a bedroom in their house and in it there's a chest with about two dozen artifacts that are a mixture of things he dug himself and a copy of an artifact that he made during his time working at the Louvre! His wife is from the Boston area originally (funny coincidence) but studied in Paris - we assume that's where they met. Guido is also a painter and our room is full of his paintings. Most of them are pretty good.

Guido told us a lot about some of the scary and surprising things that are commonly added to wines during production. Ever notice that there is never a list of ingredients for wine, even though it's required on everything else? He said sometimes the list of ingredients would fill the whoke label. Kind of gross. He was telling us that a lot of what he and his neighbors learned about cultivating grapes and making wines comes straight from old Roman texts - washing out the barrels only with salt water, etc. So interesting to think about how long the traditions have been passed down!

We went for a little walk this afternoon. It is so gorgeous here, it feels like being in a movie or a novel, wandering the gently rolling Tuscan hills all full of olive trees abd lined with lovely cypresses. The most exciting part of our day was when we turned to head back from our walk and a PACK OF WILD BOARS ran right across the road in front of us. There must have been 12 or 15 of them, all grunting and snorting. (All larger than our favorite little pig, Stella, at Schnepfendorf but smaller than our least favorite, Big Ugly Dinosaur). So that was an experience. Guido said they're kind of a problem here because there are so many of them.

Guido made a delicious dinner, with bread soup (fresh pressed olive oil poured directly on top after it's served) that he said is traditional to this area, some kind of yummy meat and roasted fennel. Then of course biscotti and homemade orange-cello for dessert (I made up the name orange-cello, but it's limoncello made with oranges instead of lemons because none of his limoncello was cold).

Two loud-and-clear signs that this house is inhabited by a New Englander: LLBean winter catalogue, USA Today with the Red Sox on the front page.
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