One recuperative week in Manciano

Bet you’ve missed us, huh? One week in the villa in Manciano. No internet and no phone calls. LOVED IT!!! So here is one long blog entry to cover each day. BTW, we can wholeheartedly recommend that you check with our innkeepers if ever you find yourself in need of a quiet week in Tuscany. Our "home" for the week was elegant and comforatble visit their website and tell them Jim and Jackie sent you ;-) http://www.tuscanresort.com/

Friday
Drove from Lucca to Manciano – arrived about 11:30 am and easily found La Mama and Lori. That’s right “La Mamma” not “La Momie” which is French for “The Mummy” which we saw in Paris in 1999 with English subtitles to go along with the phony looking dubbed in French over English. We saw it on July 4th. Did you know they have July 4th in France too? I did. I think that’s why they gave us that statue and we bailed them out of two world wars. But that’s another story.
Had lunch at Il Refugio, Lori and Nana napped while we walked around town.
Discussed and debated the (already decided) US Presidential election with MaryAlice. Got things fixed up. Jim convinced Mary Alice to send a letter to the Pope beatifying President Elect Obama. So he’s got that going for him…which is nice. Late night snack at La Filanda (more about this FABULOUS restaurant later). Nice sunset from the window of our villa.

Saturday
Slept late and strolled again through Manciano. Shopped a little, saw the town church had lunch at da Paolina and then tried (in vain) to find the Olio Nuovo festival in Marsiliana, but to no avail, seems they put that poster up just to trick us Vno’s into driving to a town that has no people, no animals and certainly no olio nuova. They didn’t even have any olio vecchio. Hmmmmm.
After Marsiliana, we drove to the beach side resort town of Orbetello and had a (nother) tasty, tasty cappuccino. We basked upon the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea sipping our caaaaapppooooocheeeeeeneeee and nibbling on biscotti. Tough job if you gotta have one. The Tyrrhenean Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea. By the way, we can see the Tyrrhenean Sea from the windows of our VILLA in Manciano. That’s right, we can see it from our house! Can you? Betcha can’t. And we can smell Lorri Knauss from here too, but that’s a different problem to solve.
Cooked at home pasta (shocking, huh?) with some other italian stuff.

Sunday
Slept late. Lori drove to Albinia to pick up Alice who wasn’t on the train from Roma. Oh well, this meant she had to have a (nother) coupla tasty, tasty cappucini and waited for the next train due in 2 hours later. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Jim, Nana and Jackie drove to the picturesque post-card quality fortified hill town of Pitigliano. OMGosh the whole town seems to grow out of the rocks. Spec-friggin’-tacular as Jimmy likes to say. Terrific family style lunch spot in Pitigliano, then back to the ranch to circle up the wagons with Alice and Lori.

Dinner on Sunday night at La Filanda…again, spec-friggin’-tacular!!!! Chef Barbara (self-taught) and her husband Gian Paolo (sommelier) made a big deal dinner in honor of MaryAlice’s 83rd birthday. Barbara and her female staff members are in love with Jimmy The Thing. But you already knew that, didn’t you? So many good things.

Monday
Rain and sleet. So we started to go to Siena but only got as far as Scansano. Still a really great day because we came back to our villa for long, under the cover naps. Lori and Jackie headed to the local grocery store about 4:30 (when everything opens up after the customary chiuso period of 1:00pm to 4:30. At exactly 4:30:01 or as they say in EeeewwwwwRop, 1630:01, Every scarf wearin, sensible shoe sportin, droopy stocking modelin, apron displayin, mustache havin, dowager lookin Italian Mamma in all of Manciano showed up to engage in the Medieval combat sport known as grocery shopping. Suffice to say that the experience can best be described as roller derby, bumper car shopping…these Italians are still not convinced about this whole idea of “waiting”in line…it’s really more of a funnel effect where you push and jostle and when an opening occurs someone gets popped out into an open register and you damn well better be ready with your euro and bagging your own groceries. If you have never taken a whack to the side of the head from an Eggplant wielded by one of these trolls from under the bridge then you have not lived. The only thing that they don’t say about you after they throw an NHL quality hip check into your unsuspecting…well…hip, is “bless her heart!” Whew!! Some things are better in the US. Publix is one of them.

Tuesday
Gorgeous weather, but cold. So off to Siena we went. 2 hour drive but well worth the trip. After Siena, Jim and Jackie headed southeast to Montepulciano (great town) and then back to Manciano via Pitigliano at night…wow wow wow…an even more fantastic photo-op.

Wednesday
Again gorgeous weather. Got up early, though, this day and drove to Orvieto (but not until after MaryAlice took a nose dive and twisted her foot, but did not break a hip). Orvieto is a great town if for no other reason than it has a funicular so you don’t have to climb the side of a rock face in order to see the Duomo (See reference above about MaryAlice’s dysfunctional foot).
After Orvieto it was off to Civita di Bagnoreggio. Probably the most spectacular vistas yet seen in Italy. This 2,500 year old (yes I mean 2,500, some 390 years before Christ) town literally hangs from a ridge and is accessible only by a footbridge that is nearly straight up in some cases.
I hate to be redundant, but, yep spec-friggin’-tacular.

A general aside: What’s the deal with O?
Here in TuscanO, there are a lot of Os. Migliano, Manciano, Pitigliano, Orvieto, Marciano, Magliano, Poggio, Scansano, Sorano…you get the picture. I am pretty sure they have been spelling all these towns incorrectly. They should be spelled with an EAU at the end like Vienneau. This would save us all a LOT of trouble. Mancianeau, Pitiglianeau, Orvieteau. I like It. My mother will write a letter to the Pope and have this fixed.

2nd general aside: What is the deal with all the torture museums in all these medieval hill towns in Italy?
I mean, you can pay Euros, or even REAL money to take a tour of these charming little displays and see the knuckle crackers, the face peelers, the eyeball poppers, the tongue yankers, the racks, the dunking stools, the Opera, the Iron Maidens (the nasty coffin shaped box with spikes on the inside AND recordings of the ridiculously bad heavy metal band, both being torture devices) and many other harmless fun. The U.S. can’t even wire up some rag head’s gonads without some sort of human outcry, and Italy has built shrines to the practice. What is the deal? Is this rant wrong? I mean, should I not have mischaracterized and stereotypicized and generalized the Opera? I should be more careful.

Thursday
Thanksgiving Day. Spec-friggin’-tacular drive through Tuscan countryside to the Banfi winery in Montaclino. 5 course lunch with wine-pairings. And not a slice of turkey to be found. Not too shabby. Brunello di Montalcino with the cheese course. Yummy yummy. This is something we highly recommend!!! http://www.castellobanfi.com/

San Jim and Yano or should I say San Gimigniano

Allllrighty then. Another cool hill town from like a zillion years ago. San Gimigniano is one of the most visited hill towns in Italy. One thing that seems to happen to us everywhere we go here in Europa is that people constantly stop us to tell us how happy they are that Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. They say, "He is President of the WORLD!" I am getting pretty tired of this so when some pointy shoe wearin, scarf tied in a knot sportin, Italian Stallion wannabe ma fa told me Obama was the President of the World, I grabbed him by his sickly little Tuscan neck and told him, "He's ours, not yours. You want one, get your own!" Was that wrong?










Rick Steves, though, says his favorite hill town in Toscano is Voltera, partially because of a really nutty wine tasting place called La Vena di Vino. www.lavenadivino.com. So, if Rick told us to go, we go. And we went. We tasted the wine, the fromaggio, the prosciutto, I (Jim) fondled the many many braziers hanging from the ceiling. It was good.

Our Leon's away from Leon's

It's good to have a place to go. We were in Lucca for four nights. On night two, we found Trattoria da Leo. We returned two more nights. Not only did we find this little gem, but so did several other international flavors of ferners. For three nights in a row, we saw the same German couple, the same British couple and the same crowd of loser Americans. We had a good time making up stories about the other folks in the restaurant, a la Simon and Garfunkel in "America." (if you don't get the music connection, go buy Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits and listen to the damn song...) Anyway, we did make up good soap operas about the couple who is apparently from Iceland who were in a snit because she wanted to have a baby and he wanted the Gellato. Then there was the wierd couple apparently from Wakistan who were arguing either about where to go for after dinner drinks, OR they were plotting the overthrow of the government of the independent and sovereign nation of Lucca, our new home. So, Trattoria de Leo is a lot like The Bridge, Leon's little hideout. There we see the same odd people, make up lies and eat/drink the same stuff, over and over and over again. Like I said, it's good to have a place to go. But we do miss Leon's.

Did you know there is a tower in Pisa that is leaning?

Well, there is! And did you know pickles come from cucumbers? They do! They really really do! So, we went to a little town called Pisa and checked out the cool tower that began sinking THE DAY THEY STARTED BUILDING IT! One would have thought that once they noticed that it was leaning, they might have said, "Whoa Guiseppe, let's put this sucka somewhere else!" But apparently in the 10th century, they didn't have a words to express such a concept. So they continued and about 400 years later, and several attempts at correcting the lean by skewing the tower in the opposite direction, they completed it. And it continued to lean, and lean, and lean more. In 1990, they took steps that may have at least slowed it down, but who knows? Anyway, the tower is part of the Duomo and we also checked out the church. Incredible weather. What a sky.

From Pisa, we went to Portovenere which is on the southern edge of the Cinque Terra. Lunch was great in this little fishing town. Very picturesque. Bright blue skies and plenty of fishing boats. Anyone remember the move version of Popeye with Robin Williams from way back in the 80's? Remember how everything looked cartoon-like and all the houses were jammed together and sort of crooked and all kinds of wacky colors. Well this is exactly what this place looks like and the same with the Cinque Terre towns.

And OKAY speaking of the Cinque Terre...OMIGosh no way were we prepared for how difficult this walking is. Hell, my (Jackie) left thigh is sore from the clutch in the Ford Fiesta...what was I thinking that I (let alone Jim!!) could walk between the five (that's what cinque means, btw 5!! freakin', kick-your-50-year-old outta shape fat ass) towns. Man!! Whew. So we came back to Lucca and went to our new favorite dinner restaurant (more on that later--this place deserves a it's very own headline on our blog) and ordered more pasta, cinghiale and vino.

We do love us some tuscan cuisine ;-)

Monday, Tuesday, November 17/18 -- SoFra to Lucca

From France to Italia and due cappoocheeeeeeeeni! Yeah baby, yeah! Or should I say, Ciao, Baby? Anyway, we followed the coast roads along the French Riviera through Cannes and Nice. While going through Nice, I do believe we caught a glimpse of the late Sadaam's (that's right, THAT Sadaam) yacht. At least the one remaining yacht.

It has been parked in Nice since January when the French authorities seized it. Iraq won the subsequent court battle and it is now up for sale. Last I heard, they were asking a cool $32m for it but had no takers. I believe it was his yacht since it dwarfed every OTHER yacht in the marina. At a mere 250 feet, it comes complete with more than one swimming pool and the ever important rocket laucher. The traffic was such that we could not get close enough for a picture and I didn't want to risk my neck. Sadaam risked his, and that didn't end very well for him.

After Nice, we worked our way around the coastline mountains and through an even more spectacular town called Villefranche sur Mer. A couple of pics from the side of the cliff/road just don't do the view justice. But Jackie's cute.

I decided that we would do a bit of gambling so we headed along the coast to Monte Carlo, in the Principality of Monaco. They have a tremendous casino there featured in a James Bond movie. Again, traffic prevented the pictures, but my gambling payed off. I had originally wagered Jackie and a half a bottle of Coke on Baccarat and had gone up on the house by about $20. I won Sadaam's yacht in a wager of 1,600,000 or nothing bet on who would win the U.S. Presidency in 2008. Apparently, they don't have TV or newspapers in Monaco. Silly Monacoans. I almost went with Bush, just for fun, but I really wanted the boat. The boat is great...hard to steer, though. I might get rid of it.

From Monaco we switched from the tiny coastal almost fall off the cliff doing 90km/hour with screaming and gesturing drivers and scooter riders coming at us and from behind us roads, and went for the Autoroute which turned into the Autostrade once we hit Italia. I didn't count, but I estimate that we went through about 100 tunnels through the mountains. I S#*T you not.

On our approach to Carrera (where Carrera marble comes from...duh!) I took a couple of pics through the car window. That is not snow in the mountains...it's white marble. Cool.

On to Lucca. Lucca is an ancient city completely surrounded by three layers of walls. Roman walls are closest in and the flimsiest. Then come the Medieval walls built to withstand the more hearty attacks and then the Renaissance wall which was sturdy enough to withstand cannon barrages. Inside the walls is a veritable rabbit warren, a rat's maze, a mess o'tiny little streets that one can barely walk down, let alone drive down. Street (Via) signs are missing from at least half of the corners, and many Via change names a lot...kind of like home! Finding our hotel at night in this mess was a bit of a challenge.

Tuesday is cloudy about 54 degrees. Jimmy V. now has the miserable cold that Jackie is (hopefully) done with.

Pharmacies here and in France are really very helpful about helping with translations of the glamorous vocabulary of mucus and mucus related topics (antihistamines vs. expectorants vs decongestants). Jimmy is currently napping after a dose of I'm not sure what AND a 1/2 bottle of wine at lunch (pappardelle al cianghiale, insalata mista and acqua frissante).

Walked on top of the city walls this morning and will no doubt go again several times. Since we entered the city yesterday afternoon in the dark, we needed to get up above for a bird's eye view; 'cuz DAMN we were so lost last night!!!!!!!!!! It took us an hour (I am not exaggerating --1 hour) to find our hotel. I walked the (correct) path this morning and it is just about 500 meters. It took us 1 hour to find the place. At one point I started to turn down a very very tiny "via" only to notice that the sign that looks like this. No bicycles allowed!! and here we were tooling around in our breezy little Ford Fiesta/Focus/I can't remember what it's called. No wonder the old italian women were gesturing at us. Good news was I did not drive the wrong way down the entrance to the rental car return -- this time.

Fun times.

Observations -- just in general -- by Jackie

These are in no particular order. Just stuff that has occured to me...

I have discovered that I love solid wood shuttered windows.


Finding that Rick Steves' book about France is very good. So far everything he has mentioned is "spot on". Will let you know how his Italy book fares.

I know why French women always look pissed off. I always thought it was because of us Americans. Now I realize it's because of their shoes. OMG!!! Really? High heel, pointy toed, Elimira Gulch shoes on cobble stoned streets and you're 40? 50? even 60+ years old. I should have become a podiatrist in France. YIKES.

I may have gone away on vacation to "get away from it all", but damn if my menopause didn't find me all the way over here. I swear, ask Jim, I spent at least 20 minutes every single night trying to remember where the *&^% I packed my toothbrush, my lotion, my reading glasses (which are of course different from my driving glasses which have nothig whatever to do with my sunglasses). Kristin would be horrified at my lack of organization.

Much as I am glad I drive a "fuel friendly" vehicle at home, I am doubly glad it's an SUV. My fat arse and the little baby Ford Focus diesel we're driving here are not the best of friends.

I do like drving fast though. I did not know this about myself.

Saturday and Sunday

A nice view from a village we passed through between St. Etienne and Avignon.

From St. Etienne, we worked our way down to Avignon, the one time seat of Papal power, prestige and palaces. For about half the trip, we followed really tiny back roads, which provided the best views and small village experiences. When we got behind schedule, we jumped on the toll road and really flew. Avignon was great. Completely within its original walls, the city had lots to see. We took the self guided tour of the Palais des Papes (the French Vatican). Really cool. The palace was the home of the Popes from 1309 to 1377. Nice lunch and then on to our villa.

This is the view from our balcony at Les Carmes onto the courtyard and to the gardens beyond. http://www.lescarmes.com/

Our lodging for the night was an old farm house fully restored and tout a fait incroyable. We found out about this little gem from Jamie's sister Allie. Allie knows the owners of the inn and connected us. The place is spectacular and the Provence countryside is beautiful. The inn is just 4 km from a fantastic town called Isle sur la Sorgue. It was named after the fact that the Sorgue river runs through it creating a number of canals with the main part of the town being an island. After breakfast at the inn, we wandered through the weekly market which featured everything from fruits, vegetables, meats, clothes, trinkets, trash and other items. This open air market is the largest in all of Provence and it took up at least half of the town.

Windows and doors in this country are pretty cool.

Why do I look like "Fat Bastard?" Maybe because of all the French food? But I could be wrong.

From Isle sur la Sorgue, we headed toward the French Riviera. It sure is an awesome experience to be able to see the Med on one side, and the snow covered Alps on the other. We went yacht shopping in Antibes and then headed toward our hotel just outside the hill town of St. Paul de Vence. Our hotel room has views of the tiny town as well as the Med in the distance. Wow.

With this edition, more pics, less blah, blah, blah. Or is that blahg?

To the left is our hotel just outside of St. Paul de Vence. St. Paul is the village on the hill.

Puzzler Answer

Yous guys are pathetic. Not one guess? OK...so here is the answer but I hesitate to give it to you as that will make you all more lazy and yous wont try for any others...Well here goes: We got a nice bottle of wine for next to nothing. We arrived in our hotel room (which was really a motel rather than a hotel. It was really nice for a motel but thankfully the only one of its kind we will stay in), realizing that while Jackie had the foresight to purchase two wine glasses for us to consume this el cheapo wine, we had no corkscrew, and thus, limited opening options. Being the problem solver type of guy I am, I improvised. First I tried a nail file, which I broke. Next I tried some tweezers (not zircon encrusted tweezers) which I broke. Then, in a fit of panic and subsequent inspiration, I struck upon the perfect tool with which to extricate myself from this wineless existance. Thats right, I utilized Jackie's (not mine, are you nuts?) toothbrush to push the cork into the bottle. I indeed pushed the cork into the bottle, and while trying to clean up the colossal mess made from the volcano effect caused by the cork plunging into the wine, creating increased hydrolic pressure and a limited vent through which the pressure could be, well, vented, thus causing a large squirting action, I accidentally sort of, somewhat dropped the toothbrush into the bottle. There you have it. The whole unadulterated story. Yes, we were able to retrieve the wine from the bottle...every drop of it. No, we did not retrieve the toothbrush as the stiff little bristles prevented it from being regurgitated up the neck of the bottle, as it were. No winners to the puzzler, you losers.

More fun with tech in France

Yo Milt:

We can get emails via Outlook but can't send. Server is rejecting the log in...keeps asking for login and password. Cant get to your web mail at all, but obviously we have access to the web. Hmmmm. Maybe your server wont let us send because we are in France eating Freedom Frites? We tried getting to your webmail from a French computer but got the same Cannot display the page error. WE can get to your website, but the link to the webmail fails.

Today's Puzzler

How did Jimmy V. lose Jackie's toothbrush?

Helpful hints:

1. Homeland Security doesn't like Swiss Army products
b. Jim and Jackie like wine
iii. As he has been told before (but never listens): "Jimmy, don't touch the tools".

Friday 11/14 or is that 14/11?

Breakfast of croissants, pains au chocolat, brioche, cafe au lait, preserves and orange juice. Mighty tasty. Provided by our hostess Odile at the Manoir-du-Parc, the B&B we stayed at. Good chow at some restaurant...I think it was French. Drove around Amboise and then headed off to take a tour of Chenonceau, a really really cool chateau. We did a 45 minute audio tour provided us by an iPod. This place was really big. We skipped the even bigger Chambord (400+ rooms) using the logic that once you have seen 399 room, you've seen 'em all.

From Chenonceau we took some really small roads, and I mean really really small, to a great town called Loches which happens to be the where Jeanne d'Arc heard the voices. Or Joan of Arc for all you non French speakers. I have heard Joan was hot...really hot! Actually, what the French inscription says is basically, Jeanne d'Arc was Joan's smarter sister who heard the voices, but told Joan that they were actually speaking to her, and that SHE should go to Reims and do all that crazy shit. Jeanne stayed behind, had the pick of the menz, and became an English teacher in a small high school. She was later known as Jeanne d'Berthoud. Joan got toasted.

Lunch in a Brasserie with beer (not Splugen) and wine. We found a perfect fixer upper for Terry to flip. The commute in the boat truck is a bit much, but the neighborhood is safer than most of the places in which he works.

Decided to skip through Clermont-Ferrand and went all the way to St. Etienne where we have holed up in a chain type hotel. Dinner is in our room with some wine, meats, fromage, wine, bread and wine. We bought these comestables in a number of shoppes in Loches. Very bohemian.

We took the big highway to St. Etienne. Speed limits are 130! I like to go really, really fast. Went through some mountains in the dark which was a bit stressful at times. It took us a while to figure out how to work the defroster so I navigated the twisties at 130km/h through a pin hole sized spot at the bottom of the windshield until the fog finally cleared. Excitement in the style of the French!

For any of you who are interested in this sort of thing: today's bottle of wine is a 2003 Chinon, Domaine de l'Abbaye at the staggering price of 4E,70 (=$6.11). In the nearly inimitable words of Adam Sandler, the abbaye is "not too shabby".

Safety tip for the financially squeamish. Toll roads are really expensive here. Today we spent 20E (=$26) for the privilege of drving really really fast. Good thing the wine is cheap.

From NJ to France via Newark

Milt, If you are reading this. Please let us know what to do to allow access from here to net2atlanta...all other internet access is working, but we can't get to you AND you have our mail. Katie or Kristin, please send an email to Milt to read this message. Jeezh, I feel like MataHari here, passing coded messages to spy networks all over the world. ;-)

Overnight flight out of Newark NJ to Paris FRANCE ;-). Great flight; no “issues”; slept a few hours and hit the ground running.

We landed at 8:35a local time and by 9:30 we had cleared immigration (guess Jimmy’s felony warrants haven’t filtered into the international system YET) got our bags, and were in our rental car driving off campus.

Less than 1 hour later we were in Chartres standing in front of the Gothic cathedral that puts all other Gothic cathedrals to shame. WOW WOW WOW. Pretty impressive stonework. Had deux cafes crèmes, deux croissants for breakfast upon arriving in Chartres. About an hour of mesmerizing grandeur was all our craning necks could endure.

Took another short scenic drive to enter the Loire Valley and the sleepy hamlet of Chateaudun. Quick tour of this lesser known chateau, lunch of croque monsieur, frites, salade and a local red wine served in un pichet.

Back in the car for a short drive to Amboise. By now it was 4:00pm local time and that could only mean one thing. NAP TIME!! 2.5 hours later made ourselves get up and take a brisk walk to a great little restaurant called L’Alliance. For just about $80 (I am not making that up) we had duck, a local take on beef wellington with a really hearty wild cherry reduction, a couple of appetizers, a cheese course and dessert, and cognacs. Pretty freakin’awesome. Oh yeah and a ½ bottle of a local Chinon.

2 things. It’s cold here, and we LOVE our little Garmin machine that Torey and Mike Young lent to us. It is “spot on” so far.
De bon reves, mes chers

More Day 4--Carlisle to Hackettstown

Got to my sister Patty's house about 3:30pm. Seeing family that we have not seen for a long time is nice, but frankly, after the Martin Factory, a little anti-climactic. Just kidding of course, it was very climactic. We hung out, abused the children and several of the animals while waiting for Patty to prepare perhaps the last great meal we would eat before we arrive in Europe. I say perhaps ony because we may get a fabulous meal on the WWI Folkker Red Barron plane provided by that famous airline L'Avion. I am indeed looking forward to Ick with Velveeta as our overnight dinner selecton. Anyway, we had some laughs with Patty, the kids and Patty's hunny bunny Kevin. Kevin is a scientist of some sort and I do believe he has succesfully altered the genetic makeup of his daughter Maggie and turned her into a rather large tree frog. But I could be wrong.