Tag: chinese

The Best of the Rest of July 2024

Ok, I’m escalating again. I am so sorry not have been updating this as much as I would have liked. The problem is that as well as actually being on holidays, I grew a little tired of writing the same old stuff and showing the same old photos.

I can only imagine what it’s like reading them. So, if this somehow is the first of my blogs you’ll ever read, I’ll point you in the direction of Blog Archive – please go ahead and read the past issues. They’re free and, at the time of writing this, also ad-free!

Anyways, I have now decided to concentrate on new stuff, places visited, festivals, and showing some occasional walk photos. I hope you prefer this topic shift and you continue to enjoy reading the blogs, and why not, have them make you consider a trip to the area.

On with the show! There now follows a series of highlights that occurred during the rest of July.

We meet a fair few people through Instagram, as do the people we meet – if that makes sense. As a result, a lot of them are also interrelated, and in turn we meet even more people and hang around in groups together. Two of those people we met were Fran and Nick, who bought a renovation project some time back, with a potential view to opening up part of it as accommodation. They live near Lari, a lovely little converted fortress of a hilltown, a little past halfway between Volterra and Pisa.

They invited us over for a chat, some food a soak in their pool. We arrived there, after having a wobbly old ride up their shared driveway and parked neatly on their properly. It’s surrounded by olive groves and other land that came with the property – and in the distance you can make out other properties, similarly situated. They made a wonderful purchase.

After initial greets and chats, it was time for nibbles and grub. Normally, I avoid tuna, as I associate it with the tinned variety and the awful-tasting burps it brings. However, nicked cooked ours with a smoky rub over a flame and it was absolutely delicious. We then changed into our swimming costumes and hit the pool. The water was so warm. I remember trying to float, but still swimming eludes me completely. I can’t even float without stiffening up and sinking in panic. Everyone was very kind! Something I’ll have to unlearn one of these fine years. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the heck out of ourselves to the extent that, for months afterwards, we looked for properties with pools, or the potential to house same. It’s wonderfully cooling.

I did have some walks of course, and if you get up early enough, you can get the cloud-lake effects. Here are some of the better shots of this I took:

We had two incredible food-based quests come to a successful conclusion during this month. The first one was based on finding somewhere that serves good quality Cantonese cuisine. Prato was, and to be honest still remains, the largest town we have not yet explored yet in Tuscany. This is not a good thing. We have tons of time to rectify it, though. One of the, I’m sure many, good things about Prato is that they have a large Chinese community, most of which is somewhat west of the old town in a mini Chinatown. I’ve known about this for some time, but the problem is Prato’s distance.

One day, we decided to bite the bullet and after looking up Prato’s general area for ‘cucina cantonese’ (our favourite Chinese is Cantonese), we found a place called Element, which is on the outskirts of Prato, just beside a large shopping centre and cinema. It was only a ninety-minute drive(!), so we headed there for lunch. It’s funny when you approach Prato. A lot of the signs are in Chinese characters and Italian. The bus stop timetables are similarly inclined. We accidentally passed by the restaurant with its small carpark, and doubled-back to park there. If the carpark is full, you have a pair of massive carparks in the shopping areas nearby, with just a five minute walk back to the restaurant.

We were put at a table and noticed that, for a time at least, we were the only westerners in there. We were given a menu, and I think we were given the usual chit (now mostly replaced by a tablet) to order, but the quality of the food looked far, far better than it does in the usual all-you-can-eat places scattered throughout Italy’s larger towns. It looked fantastic coming out to other tables too. Here’s what we got:

I particularly loved my beef dish. It was velveted, but not overly so. The black pepper was a thin coating, a little fiery and sweet. If you clicked the link above you’ll have seen the restaurant only scores 4 stars and has 99 reviews. I can guess at two things – Italians aren’t overly fond of Chinese food – which I don’t think is true, as the fusion restaurants can often be quite busy – especially the one in Volterra. I think the problem here is that the food in Element is a good deal more expensive than it is in the fusion places – scanning through the reviews, the service can be a little slow. We won’t be back as often as I’d like, but that’s only because it’s three hours in the car, there and back.

After our glorious meal, we checked out Jysk in the large shopping centre nearby – Niamh just testing out some ideas. We got in the car and decided on what to do: explore old-town Prato or old-town Pistoia. Well, you’ve read this far, so you already know. We headed west towards the latter. The one thing I remember about this road – in fact, I found it particularly quite extraordinary – was the number of plant nurseries along the way. There really was one after another, kilometers of them, on both sides of the road – not sure if they are wholesale or retail, or both. Something to bear in mind when we eventually move over for good. Right now, we couldn’t in conscience fill the apartment with plants, as they would just up and die.

We hit the outskirts of Pistoia on its Eastern side and were pleasantly surprised to find walled sections, lined with pleasant avenues on the outside. We could have selected a carpark inside the town, but the turn into it is rather narrow and sharp, and we’re jittery around damaging rented vehicles. We went instead to this large carpark near one of the town’s hospitals.

From there, it was about a kilometer into the main piazza of town (Piazza del Duomo). The first half of it was a little modern/suburban, but the old-town charm took over and I found myself being happy with our choice of parking spot.

There were some nice beauty-spots on the way, but the central part of the old-town is, as in most cases, the star. We arrived, and the square was set up for some medieval horse-based event – pretty sure it’s a circular jousting course, and it looked really impressive. I think we were there on a Sunday, and so one thing I have to point out is that it was soooo quiet. There were a few people knocking about, but given how lovely Pistoia’s old centre is, it was a surprise as to how few there were.

And then the second culinary miracle happened. Not just in the same year, nor in the same month, but on the same day! Are you all sitting down? We came across a gelateria which we scored a 1.0 on what I call the “L’Isola del Gusto” scale (1.0 being as good as my favourite Volterran gelateria – not biased at all, am I?!). You can find it in the corner of the square, not too far from Pistoia’s enormous baptistry, if memory serves me correctly.

It is called ‘Una Mole di Gelato‘ and it seems to be open outside the tourist season! The flavours were wonderful and it was a shade creamier than gelati I’d had in the past, and the lady serving was gracious and engaging – which also adds to the points.

Go check it out if you’re in the area – so creamy and delicious

After the gelato, we went on a fairly lonely explore of the town. It’s really lovely in the centre, and there was plenty of evidence that the place could be very fun during festivals or on lively weekend nights. Good shopping there too, closely surrounding the more historical parts. We started with the colossal baptistry (check the video below) and worked our way through the town’s lanes and streets.

On the way back, we stopped off in Piazza della Sala, which is moments away from the main square. I believe they hold markets there, and it seems to be a bit of a hub for socialising – both it and the lanes that shoot off from it. I was to drive home, so Niamh had a drink, while I had a double helping of lemon soda in Pub Vecchia Praga – the lady serving us was lovely. In hindsight, I probably had too much sugar that afternoon!

The drive home was quite lengthy! However, I have in my mind maybe to spend a weekend in Pistoia some time, especially during a festival.

The last highlight was the sixth birthday party of our favourite cocktail lounge: L’Antica Velathri Café. As you can see below, the owner, Pietro, tends to go all-out in celebration!

I’ll leave you with some photos taken in the car on the way to the airport to fly home. You gotta love those sunflowers in full-bloom!

Below is a video of our time in Italy during June/July 2024 – enjoy! Thank for reading the blog. Do let me know what you think of it. I’ll try to keep on top of it, I swear!

Quick Trip to Pontadera (31/08/2022)

My brother and I got up and had a walk, mostly inside the walls. We walked past Del Duca, up by the park walls and along the prison fences. We then walked back towards town on the road, but ducked right towards our carpark, before swinging a left at the Alab’Arte workshop. I don’t come here too often, as it’s purely residential – but a change is a good as a rest. We then took the stairs down towards Docciola, before swinging back on stairs to the left. My brother is a hiker, so I wanted to take him on an uppy-downy route (I think that’s what they’re officially called!).

The light that morning was strange, and somehow brighter and more yellow than normal than it usually is on a morning – perhaps some haze diffused the bright sun. Some of the photos as a result (I think!) are wonderful.

We wandered around the carpark in the north-eastern corner of the walls, before taking a look at the Roman theatre ruins and the hills and Apuan Alps beyond. Then we went to Porta San Francesco and from there to Porta San Felice. Finally, what killed us off was the monster climb up Via della Pietraia, at the top of which I took the last shot of the rainbow. It’s a good route, as it takes you all over the town, and keeps cardio going with hillclimbs. We were suitably sweaty by then and headed back to the apartment to eat and shower.

I used to get folded and battered weekly by a Thai lady (they call it massaged), and found it enormously beneficial. I hadn’t had one in a long time, and I felt a little tight after recent walks around Volterra. The problem is, you can’t find a Thai massage place within 20km of Volterra. In fact, the one I found that seemed reputable and was getting good scores on Google (Ban Thai) in Pontedera. We left our guest behind us, as we had every intention of returning in time for lunch.

We parked and I left Niamh off while I went to the place. Niamh crossed the railway tracks into the older part of town (recommended, by the way) for shopping. The shop was closed… d’oh! I called and found out she was open for appointments only. I managed to talk her into giving me an hour. She arrived a few minutes later, and I was suitably chastised into remembering to book in advance next time. In fairness to her, her anger didn’t show in the massage, and I was out an hour later – suitably energised and limber.

I found Niamh about 20 minutes later, and looking at the clock and feeling the aching emptiness in our tummies we decided to forsake my brother and go to lunch. A quick call later (we’d let him know he should take care of lunch himself), we went to a nearby Chinese place. If you are a regular reader, you’ll know that we are on an eternal quest to find a Chinese restaurant in Tuscany that does Western-Chinese stirfries tolerably well (fried rice and dumplings are pretty good). After talking to several ex-pats and Italians about this, it would seem that our quest is in vain – but we are nothing if not stubborn (and hungry), and so we carry on regardless.

So now we took our fight to Pontedera. We completely bypassed the Piaggio Museum (Piaggio being the manufacturer of the Italian ‘Vespa’ scooters and ‘Ape’ 3-wheeled mini-mini-vans. We’ll have to go there for another vlog and blog. La Felicità is tantilisingly opposite the museum, but we were just too focused on our bellies.

Some of the resulting meal was nice – again, the dumplings and rice – but the curry was ok, and the chicken with peppers we ordered was like so many other stir-fries: soy and salt. Cheap. I figure that Italians don’t particularly like their veggies mixed in with their meat, so Chinese restaurants tend to give less of a crap about stir fries. It bothers me! Still, there are worse things happening in the world!

One belly in focus – the dumplings were nice

Once fed, we waddled back to the car and headed home. I snuck a granita in from L’Isola del Gusto, and then chilled for the afternoon.

That evening we went to the piazza for dinner – to Ristorante Etruria to be precise. As we had all been fed that afternoon just had a single course. They gave us some nice salted flatbread to whet our appetites. It is a touristy place, but sometimes it’s nice to eat in the square, and it has something for everyone.

Ok, maybe more than one course!

We finished off a relaxing evening with a short stroll to Antica Velathri Café for a couple of beers/cocktails.

Home and screen-watching! Thanks for reading to the end. Please leave a comment or question, I’d love to hear from you!

Why are people so quiet about you, Follonica? (28/05/2022)

Back in October of last year, we took an inland route to get to Castiglione della Pescaia. On the way back to Volterra, we drove part of the way hom by the sea. Cresting over the top of a hill, we got a dynamite view of Follonica – it looked so lovely from above, and so we promised to return some day. We drove through some of its suburban areas to get to the E80 and home.

It only took us about 7 months to return! Anyway, we went by the quickest route (the aforementioned E80 from Cecina), and I think it only took us about 75 minutes to get there. I thought I had selected a nice free parking spot. It was free for sure, but sadly when walking out of the urban area, Google led us astray a little and took us too far south. I thought we’d have a 5 minute walk. It turned out to be 15-20 minutes. However, it turned out to be something of a happy accident, as we discovered the free beaches south of the main part of the city.

These pines always remind us of the coast

As we were fully dressed and had no beach gear with us, I can’t say what the water was like, but the sand was nice and golden! So, we continued farther north back towards town. There were houses right on the beach, between which we got more glimpses of free beaches. There seems to be an enormous stretch of such strands immediately south of Follonica’s main promenade – a tip for those of you who are tired of the Lido-life and don’t mind lugging your own gear. One thing negative to note is that you would have a bit of a walk to get to any beachside amenities.

Something that it puzzling to me is that I heard Tuscans extolling the virtues of Castiglioncello, Rosignano Solvay, Marina di Pisa (the south part anyway), the Gulf of Baratti, Marina di Cecina – but nobody ever mentioned Follonica. Does it have a bad reputation? Do they just want to keep it secret? I don’t know either way – comment if you do know, though! Maybe Italians just prefer beaches with all the gear ready for use.

Another thing we found, which we wouldn’t have had we paid for parking in the centre, is that Follonica has a Centro Storico (old town)! It’s far from medieval, but is maybe a couple of centuries old. There only seem to be a few blocks in it – so it’s small.

Will explore more of this next time we’re here

Soon after, we followed the road over and snaked around to the left to get our first view of the main promenade, before which lay yet another free stretch of beach.

There was a ton of free space on this beach, even though it was a Saturday and quite warm. We might come here next time we have a hankering for some sea. We then hit the beginning of the proper part of the promendade and went a little deeper into town, a little past one of the apartment buildings that towers over the rest of the city, and past that pierside building you can see in the distance above.

And a hotel too? Interesting stay here I imagine!

It was by now the middle of lunchtime, and we were starving. We took the opportunity of being in a bigger town and headed to an Asian restaurant, in our ongoing quest to find somewhere that serves decent stir-fries. We didn’t quite find it. We went here, and found a pleasantly familiar menu, with a few cantonese favourites – it was typically extensive. Like many Chinese restaurants in Italy, they do fried rice and steamed dumplings very well, but it all falls apart in the stir fries. The meat is cheap, the sauces seemingly flavoured with soy or salt – apart from the curries, which are barely passable. I don’t know why this is! It’s annoying and baffling! The veggies were nice and crunchy at least.

We didn’t want to eat too much as we knew we had a dinner date later that evening. The portion sizes are actually quite small, so that was good.

When done, we headed out to burn some additional calories along much of the promenade.

We stopped after about 500m, and it seemed to go on for at least another 5-700m. It was getting warm, so we stopped at a lively gelateria – Sogni Golosi (greedy dreams). On the way there, we passed by a tented area – the town was getting ready to party! I can’t remember the flavours I selected at the gelateria, but I do remember being hugely impressed. Definitely worth a go if you’re in town.

We wandered inland a bit in a rough direction back towards the our parking spot, and I once again was impressed by the centre’s pedestrian areas, packed full of eateries, shops and bars. It was quiet that day, but I can imagine it getting very busy in high-season.

We enjoyed a nice (if lengthy – thanks, Eoin!) walk back to the car, and took the same road home.

Below you can find a very short and shaky video of footage of our day out.

Needless to say, we chilled after we came back, and then we went out for our last meal of this stay in Volterra. Where better than Del Duca? We skipped aperitivi (our lunch was big enough!), and got treated like minor royalty as always! The food was pretty damn good too! I will really miss that place when it closes.

And that was that! We few home the next day and life began as normal on the Monday.

The good news, though? We came back in mid-August to mid-September… met new friends, experienced the Medieval Festival and Red Night again and enjoyed weather than was hot, but thankfully not appressively so. More to follow over the coming months!

Please let me know if you enjoyed this, or if you had any queries about travelling in Tuscany – especially west-central Tuscany. I’d love to hear from you!

That was the (food of the) week that was – Photolog (16-19/05/2022)

This week saw me have little in the way of daytime free time, so in lieu of a verbose blog, here is a collection of photos with commentary for the above dates.

Monday 16th May

Some food today from La Terra di Mezzo.

Tuesday 17th May

Firstly a little walk down by the archaeological digsite.

Lunch from La Sosta del Priore – always tasty. We then met another ex-pat friend – John – for an aperitivo or three, before heading to Porgi l’Altra Pancia for dinner.

One of my most favourite shots of the street on which lies the entrance to our apartment

Wednesday 18th May

I went on some walks! First a morning one:

Followed by an afternoon one during lunch:

A rare trip to lunch to La Carabaccia. This is a cute place in Piazza XX Settembre (and to be honest, the only place worth eating there – the rest are rather touristy, but in fairness to them have fine outdoor seating). They have a tiny menu (2 primi, 2 secondi), and some desserts. They will also knock up an antipasti plate for you on demand. The cooking is nonna-style and tasty.

And we had a homecooked pasta meal from Niamh that evening:

Thursday 19th May

No walk today… had… not the most nutritious lunch, but it was tasty, then had a walk about the town to burn off some calories afterwards.

Circling this for a friend to show him where the next pic was taken

During the evening we had a severe hankering for some Asian style food. I’ve gone on the record before as loving SE Asian flavours, even over Italian – so after several weeks of the latter, we were gumming for something different. We’d noted the place in Poggibonsi and contemplated it, but instead opted for a place in Colle di Val d’Elsa – Ristorante Sugoi.

We got there and parked in the supermarket carpark just down the road. Turns out we didn’t read the signs properly and only got away with it by the skin of our teeth. But first the place. We walked into a narrow place that looked small and intimate. Then we were ushered into a much larger side room, and from there into a pretty big semi-covered outdoor space. Wow! This place could cater for 150! And the food:

Look, I am seriously considering paying someone cash money if they can show us a good Chinese/Japanese place that does decent stir-fry sauce-based dishes. All the ones we’ve had in Italy are so insipid. It’s the same pattern: the starters are pretty good, but the mains are chronic. Halp! Ok, the curry here wasn’t too bad, but the other dish was decidely ‘blah’. The quality of Asian restaurants in Italy seems to be no better than a mediocre takeaway back home. Bit of a shame. We had an ok one in Livorno (more another time) and a nicely flavoured Katsu curry from a truck the visited Volterra during the Volterra Comics and Fantasy festival (again, more another time).

In fairness to the restaurant, the service was nice, the food was ok and the setting was great. We left and headed back to the car, and only then spotted the carpark was about to close and we were one of the last people to go. Phew!

Next blog will be slightly more normal!

A Walkabout in Florence

Well, we found a decent place to park in Florence, which acts as an unofficial Park and Ride for line 1 of their tram system, so I was able to bring you this update! Note that it’s photo-heavy. Note also that we didn’t enter any of the attractions, as we’d been in Florence a couple of times before and had already hit most of them.

We probably left a little late, and instead of taking the dual-carriageway route, we went via the Pisa road, and a scenic route. Some parts of it are really lovely, and it offers a much less-stressy approach to the CoOp carpark, but it is a bit longer than Google Maps suggests – maybe 15 minutes longer.

I took some snaps along the way, but Mr. Sun, God bless him, did his level best to screw up my shots, as I was facing him for most of the route.

The carpark is for the CoOp on Nenni. It is completely free, but to get to town, you have to get the tram to the central train station, and walk a little from there to the more popular attractions. You pay for tram usage by time, rather than by number of stops. We selected the base ticket (90 minutes) both there and back, and it only cost €1.50 per person for each journey. What we forgot to do (on both legs of the journey) is to validate the ticket using the machines inside the trams. You run the risk of getting a fine if you don’t. We got lucky.

Anyway, we got off at the train station, and walked through the underground shopping centre and a street or two, to hit Piazza di Santa Maria Novella. Despite spending 5 nights in the city a few years ago, I don’t think we’d ever been here!

Onwards, then, towards probably the series of chief attractions in Florence: the Cathedral, belltower and baptistry of Santa Maria del Fiore. The architecture is stunning, with incredibly detailed doors and columns. It is one of the most impressive things you’ll see in all of Tuscany – really… the outside of the Pisan square simply aren’t as impressive (although they are amazing – it’s just that the cathedral in Florence is a cut above).

The baptistry in that last photo looks bizarrely skewed… blame the camera on the iPhone.

Anyway, having been blown away by that, we marched on to Piazza della Republica. A gorgeous square indeed.

We went on, then, to the Mercato Nuovo and the Fonta del Porcellino. You’re supposed to put a coin in the boar’s mouth, to let it fall through the grate below, and then rub the snout for good luck. While some tourists were attempting that, a beggar woman sidled up and grabbed every coin from the font, before wandering off again.

We were both feeling a little peckish by now, but decided to go to the Piazza della Signoria – really the main square of government in Florence – or used to be in the Medici’s days.

Here you’ll find a ton of statuary, including Neptune, Hercules, a copy of David, moulded from the original, and Perseus holding aloft the head of Medusa. As well as that, of course, you have the main building of government (back in the day at least): the Palazzo Vecchio. If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll notice that it’s a cheap knock-off of the Palazzo dei Priori in Volterra, the design of which predates it by about 300 years. Florence’s palazzo was begun in 1299, but owes its current appearance to the Medici, who rightly thought Volterra’s equivalent looked snazzy. I say ‘cheap’ with my tongue planted in my cheek: it’s an impressive building, and the inner courtyard is fabulous. We haven’t get visited it, and it sounds like it’s worth a good explore, based on what I read about it. Maybe some other time.

What else would you dine on in Florence, but Chinese?! Yeah, it had gotten to that stage again where we craved something oriental, and so gorged ourselves in Il Mandarino. The soups we had (won-ton and sweetcorn) were nice, and the steamed dumplings excellent. But the mains were so-so, with Niamh’s chicken satay not really tasting of peanuts, and my chilli beef tasting more of toasted sesame than chilli, but was still tasty. Our accompanying veggies were nice enough.

After filling ourselves to the tops of our throats, we waddled south through the streets, until we hit the Arno river, and made our way to, and across, the fabled Ponte Vecchio. Niamh stopped here briefly to pick up a mask to go on display with the other mask we bought during Volterra’s medieval festival. It’s a lovely little walk, with shops hanging over the sides of the bridge, all decorated externally like medieval shops. There is a gap halfway over, so you can look east and west along the Arno and take snaps.

The south isn’t as dramatic as the north, but a small explore is recommended, if only to at least see the enormous Palazzo Pitti. We had thought to enter and walk around the gardens there, but lazily we gave it a miss and continued exploring the south.

It was gelato time, and up to now we had been avoiding most gelaterie in Florence, as we had a fair idea it would be sub-standard. We’ve been told that a pretty good rule of thumb is if you see the gelati piled high, don’t go in. We went instead to the Gelateria Santa Trinita, and if you go, you too can be served slightly above average gelato for 30% higher than you’d pay in Volterra, and have it served up by a tall, attractive young lady whose hobby appears to be eye-rolling. Fun times. Still, we could sit on a bench within and it did its job of cooling us down.

We’d begun clock-watching and so decided to call it a day. We strolled back to the north side, to the train station, stopping to take photos. We found a couple of the ‘no entry’ street signs so wonderfully ‘adjusted’ by a dude call Clet Abraham. He gets wind of a new sign, has his changes already cut out and ready to stick to it, cycles to it and sneakily rubs it on. It’s quite illegal, but he’s never been ‘caught’… I suspect the authorities are pleased, as it adds another bit of character to a town already overflowing with it.

We took the dual carriage way home – a road that bridges Florence and Siena. We came out at Colle di val d’Elsa, whereupon the road became instantly familiar. It’s a shorter route, but not as scenic and involves a bit of an annoying rat-run through some of Florence’s streets from the CoOp carpark to get to it. As it was the evening, Mr. Sun trolled me from the other side again!

We didn’t do or really eat anything that evening, but just relaxed and screen-watched. This morning, I got up and had my first walk in 3 days.

You know it’s the end of holiday season, when they start setting up the Saturday market in the main and cathedral squares. Ah well… all good things must come to and end, as they will do this day next week when we fly home 😦