Tag: la rosa

2023)

We were due to pick up a friend who’d be staying a a few days with us. This was also the weekend that we discovered that Tuscany had developed some sort of weird monsoon weather front. For weeks, it would be nice in the morning, but come 11 or 12 dark clouds would gather and then it would pour rain for a while, then spatter until the early evening. We’d not seen such a prolonged weather front like in Tuscany like it before.

Friday, 2nd of June
Well, we still had one working day to see off before our 2-week holiday kicked-in. I had too much cheese for breakfast – pecorino aged under walnut leaves, with black-truffle infused honey. For lunch I had yummmy tagliatelle with ragu in Porgi L’Altra Pancia – alone! Niamh had lunch back in the apartment.

However, after work I had a wee glass of Santa Lucia’s finest to start off the holiday with a bang, and said goodbye to this precipitous drop from my ‘office’ window.

So vanilla-y! Note the rain on the window.

Earlier in the day during work, I had to shut the window firmly, because the sbandieratori (flag jugglers) and their accompanying band marched through the street directly outside. The window does a fab job of muffling noise, which is a good thing, as people stay up late during the summer months outside. Anyway, that march usually means something is on, and indeed it was. Every year the various contrade (neighbourhoods) compete in a couple of palii (plural of palio). In Siena, they race horses at breakneck speed around the main square. In Volterra, we have tugs-of-war in June and, believe it or not, race wheels of cheese through an obstacle course in October.

Today, it was tug-of-war day! Teams of mixed genders from all the contrade, which includes villages within the comune of Volterra. The event was delayed by the main weather feature this year: torrential rain. After a while, however, the competition-runners thought the piazza dry enough to kick off proceedings. In my humble opinion, and I would guess the opinion of the first few teams who were placed at on the southern side of the square, it was still too wet. Anyway, they had to go ahead, and arrange their teams on either side of the – I wish I knew what it was called in Italian – but it for all the world looks like the wooden base of some medieval siege engine. It was their job to tug the base over the line on their side. If both sides failed to do this, it would be in the hands of the judges as to who made most gains during that contest.

The first teams lined up, and you could see that half of the southern team had feet on wet flagstones. The competition was swift and decisive and went to the northern team. The protestations about wet ground fell on deaf ears and the competition continued. The group did begin to dry up pretty rapidly.

In the end, the victors were Villamagna – a town across a part of the Val d’Era surrounded by spectacular views. You can find the video of our trip to Vada during the previous weekend, and the palio!

After we’d watched the planting of the winning contrade‘s flag in the, er, wooden thing, and have the winning team run a couple of the circuits of the piazza, we got up and walked to L’Incontro for a quick aperitivo. Then it was off to get our usual very warm welcome at La Mangiatoia. We both opted for pizzas and beer.

Speck and Mascarpone… ham and mushroom in the background

There’s no pizza without beer, and this year we seemed to favour north Italian beer Først, instead of Moretti. It’s nice and refreshing! Speaking of booze, we then decided to visit Pietro in Antica Velathri Cafe for some spiffy cocktails (and to practice my Italian – he’s very kind like that!).

I think Niamh had a G+T which happily changed colour based on a light in the bottom of a glass holder. I had a lovely mixture made up by Pietro on our previous visit a few months ago: frangelico, grenadine and cointreau. Very yummy indeed.

Saturday, 3rd of June
The next day, we decided to stay in Volterra and check out the marketplace. But first, a wee walk!

The mornings were the best time of day, weather-wise

After washing and re-dressing (thank goodness), we went to the market!

I think the colours of the March market were a little more vivid. What do you think? Town was getting busy and warm, and to counteract this we decided to go on a little jaunt to La Rosa after having a granita (me) and gelato (Niamh). We wanted to see if we could find the supposed new location of La Rosa’s mercato del usato (Italy’s wonderful 2nd hand bric-a-brac markets).

On the way to the car, we spotted a hen party. I thought this rather unusual for Volterra, but I’ve actually seen a couple more since. Volterra, as much as I love it, isn’t exactly party-central. It does get loud in pockets during the summer, but largely it’s quite a quiet place. But everyone’s welcome!

We went to La Rosa, and for the life of us couldn’t find the new location. The old location was firmly shut up and there was no sign of life. Google was pointing us towards the back of a warehousey-place on the opposite side of the road – and we drove around it – but no joy.

We then went into one of those ‘Chinese’ stores, which seem to be a variant on ‘pound’ or ‘dollar’ stores you’ll find elsewhere. If in Ireland, think ‘Eurosaver’ or ‘Mr. Price’. Anyway, we did have some stuff to pick up for the house… cleaning implements and sprays. We found what we needed, and then also spotted a sun-reflecting screen for a car. It’s the kind of thing you unfold against the windscreen to reflect the sun and keep your parked car relatively cool. It was only a fiver, so it went in our basket.

On checking out, we asked where the 2nd hand market was. One man in the queue behind us said it was gone, but that there was one in Capannoli – which we knew about. The Chinese lady at the register thought it was still about and maybe on the block next to her’s. We thanked everyone, and wandered out – without the sun reflector. We didn’t realise this until days later, hilariously. We had a search for the second hand market around the block suggested, but to no avail. Oh well.

It was well within the lunch hour, and not spotting what we wanted nearby, we had a look at Google maps in the car, and spotted a well-reviewed place between La Sterza and Lajatico: La Valatta – which is down in Google maps primarily as a hotel/agriturismo – and it is also just exactly that. No sooner had we selected the place and begun to leave La Rosa, it began to absolutely pelt rain. Utterly torrential, with accompanying sound and light show.

The rain didn’t let up, and when we pulled into La Valetta’s carpark, we had a 30-40 meter dash to the restaurant in the lashings of rain. We survived the run (that’s cardio for the weekend!), and walked into a completely empty restaurant. Uh-oh. I located a lone waiter and pounced, asking him if the restaurant was, in fact, open. He had to check with a colleague before confirming. We were seated and sighed in relief.

More people came in as we ate, so we weren’t entirely on our own. I have a bad habit of wanting to try a few courses in restaurants I’m eating in for the first time. So yeah, we ended up having three courses. The food here was really good, but I remember the meats being perhaps a little more gamey than you usually find in touristic towns.

I think this was beef tongue, but I am not sure

By the time we rolled out of the place, the sun had come out (sort of), and we got a good look at the place from the outside.

We drove home via Lajatico, which brought us via a pretty route and that was pretty much all she wrote for that day, except that I gave our new sexy chair a go that evening.

Sunday, 4th of June
I have to shamefacedly admit that I remember precious little about this day. There’s no doubt we had a lazy one, and ate kind of light too, with Porgi l’Altra Pancia getting our love again.

I hope you enjoyed the read – let me know what you think!

Capannoli for real this time, Fuccehio, and Peccioli Redux (22/03/2023)

Niamh still had a yearning (quite correctly as it turns out) to get some sort of mini-table to put down next to seating in our living room, so after yesterday’s Capannoli closure, we knew the second-hand market was open today, and so drove there in the mid-morning. But I had the obligatory walk first.

I must be careful calling it that, as during our September visit I really cut back on the walking in order to give my joints and back a rest. I was beginning to resemble a nonegenarian getting out of a chair until I’d take 20 or so steps. Anyway, back to the ‘present’!

I took the fountain path up to the park and circled about it, before heading out Porta a Selci, past Marcoli carpark and the seminary, down to the road which took me to the Docciola free carpark. I eyed the steps that lead all the way back up to town. I sorta wussed out by taking the less steep ones, to the town and back home again. They’ll still wreck you a little!

Once breakfasted, washed and changed we rocketed towards Capannoli’s second-hand market. And it was, indeed, open! One thing about the Italians: they don’t seem to throw away anything. Old tech can still find its place here on the shelves. PCs with 3.5″ disk drives, CRT monitors, phones from bygone days. It’s almost as if they were catering not just to your average punter, but to also to bars and the props departments for theatres and film studios. Nothing is thrown away. Furniture that can be rightly called antique, to garish nasty stuff from the 70s. Tons of glassware and crockery – nothing is wasted. And you know what? I think this is absolutely the correct way. We are far too throwaway in Ireland, and have a thing or two to learn from these markets. Much of the stuff is super-cheap too!

Anyway, Niamh bought a couple of knick-knacks, but couldn’t find what we were looking for. We went back to the car and had a debate over what we’d do for lunch. We both fancied something Asian, but also wanted to try somewhere new. I spotted a town called Fucecchio, and a Chinese there (Ristorante Cinese Bambu’) was getting some good reviews, so off we went.

We got parking more or less beside it, which was super-handy. We found the food (are you sitting down?) actually not bad at all for an Italian Chinese. In fact, the stir-fry dishes were the best we’d found to date.

The stir-fried veggies (mostly beansprouts) were delish!

We left quite happy, and sure seeing as we were here, we thought we’d walk to the older part of Fucecchio to Fu-check-io (sorry) it out.

After a reasonably pleasant urbanised walk, we found our way to the older part. I might have been stuffed with Chinese, but there’s almost always room for gelato, and there was supposed to be a nice one in the central square. And we found it! Sort of. It’s called Pasticceria Caffe’ Malvolti. Given that it was a a couple of weeks before an Easter, they were not yet doing gelato, but had a lovely looking suite of cakes to try. Sadly, I was too stuffed for cakes, but I have made it a goal to return to Fucecchio and try it out. It really reminded me of Pasticceria Pansa in Amalfi. Why I didn’t take any pics of it, I’ll never know. Stuff I have to remember next time!

We left and headed to Peccioli, because the major reason for heading out today was so I could meet my Italian teacher in person for a tour of the town. We stopped off in Biscottini to buy a little stool we would use as a drinks table. We arrived early, of course, and so spent a little bit of time at Jolé La Rosa for a little gelato. It was tasty. You know, I might have said we went here yesterday, but that was a dirty little lie. I’m going to leave this lie as is so I can think about what I did every time I see it.

Anyway, my teacher, Massimo, works for a Tuscan touring and experience company called Arianna and Friends. Please consider either them and Authentic Tuscany if considering putting together your own Tuscan package experience outside Volterra. We burned a tiny fraction of the gelato calories off by walking back to the car and driving to the offices of Arianna and Friends. We would have walked, only we knew we’d have to drive to Peccioli for Massimo’s tour of Peccioli. It would be largely in Italian and he would be listening to me intently, making it a sweaty end to the day for me!

His meeting overran a little so we waiting outside in the warmth. When he was ready, he had us follow him to Peccioli’s roofed carpark. We took one of the elevators up to the town, but before heading into the old town, we were shown the modern colour-covered walkway to the elevator that leads down to the newer side of town. Some people blow hot and cold on it, but I think it’s an interesting feature. I think it’s supposed to be expanded over to more of the shopping area of the new town, so it will actually be useful for the inhabitants going forward.

Once done here, Massimo took us into the town proper, but first to one of the new features: a converted palazzo, some of which is apartments that will be sold/rented, a small art gallery and exhibition centre and an enormous and unusual bar. Outside is a modern piazzetta-sized terrace, from which you can see some wonderful countryside of rolling hills, much of which the town has purchased, so it won’t be developed to spoil the view. Again, the views on the terrace are mixed, but most people I know actually quite like the contrast of the old and the new – and the terrace itself appears to be floating – there is no support at the far end; very well-engineered!

There were several exhibitions of art, which were there as part of a cultural festival in which prominent politicians, journalists and artists attended called ‘Pensavo Peccioli’. Massimo was a proud part of that.

Back outside, we were given a tour of the town. It’s essentially a town within castello walls, and so is relatively small. But they’re making the most of it – it is essentially an outdoor art museum. Look up or down, and there may be a hidden sculpture waiting to be discovered. Some neon lights adorn the rooves of arches, which look like seemingly like random squiggles, but which are actually elevation contour lines of the surrounding countryside. Another striking exhibit, is one of a wall on which over a hundred photgraphs of pairs of residents’ eyes.

In the main square, Massimo introduced us to a couple of builders who were restoring the church roof in the main piazza, and they showed us photos of their work. They spoke a bit too quickly for me, and I found their accent strangely strong. Maybe it was a dialect, but I don’t think so.

I don’t have many photos, as I was filming at the time, so you can check out Peccioli and the rest of the day in a video further below.

We said our goodbyes at the bar in the exhibition centre (aka Palazzo Senza Tempo), and then we headed home. Still stuffed from the Chinese earlier in the day, we didn’t head out, but stayed at home and chilled.

Here’s the video of the day:

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you found it enjoyable, useful or if you have any (polite) suggestion!

Our Glowing Balls – 05/08/2020

First day of the holidays! What to do, what to do. We decided to head out late morning for Navacchio, about 45 minutes away north to look for paints and lights… and maybe someone who knew a thing or two about air-conditioning units – although we figured that we were getting on grand with the cooling units we bought a while back.

We stopped quickly in La Rosa on the way, to scope out a cheap department store called Magazzini Mangini to see if we could cut short our journey and just buy lights. The stuff they had wasn’t to our taste, so onwards to Navacchio shopping centre!

We masked-up and went to Casa, and bought some knick-knacks and some gently glowing balls (bedside lamps). Happy with our lot, we decided to head down to OBI. Spotting a lift, we got inside, thinking it would take us down a full level to where OBI is. However, we quickly discovered that the lift was for disabled access to the store and just went down about 7 feet to the same level as the bottom of the stairs into Casa. Thoroughly humiliated, but laughing, we went on our hunt for OBI.

OBI had paints, but not the ones we wanted… it had nice air-conditioning units too – but I chickened out.

Quickly nipping into Euronics to confirm we had no impulse to shop for electronics, we had a big flip-off lunch in Wild West. A nice burger and fries for both of us, but damn we had to wait 20+ minutes for a table – although it was still (albeit barely) Covid-compliant. It also had yapping dogs. Italians love their dogs and they are frequently welcome in restaurants.

Afterwards, we went back to La Rosa, and picked up a couple of heavy terracotta decorated boxy-type things, which we’d use to hold the doors to terraces open. Handy! We also checked out the opening hours of a second-hand type store – Il Mercatino Dell’Usato (which I nicknamed ‘tutta la merda’ due to little bit of everything it seemed to have in stock behind its locked gates).

Then back home. I don’t think we ate much, as we’d had a big lunch, but not so big that we didn’t head back out into town to take some snaps. I also indulged in a lemon granita from Isola del Gusto to cool me down.

And that was that… screenwatching and bed!

Back to La Rosa

This will be a short one!

We lazed about in the morning. For lunch, I put together a selection of meats and some cheese we had in the fridge. Niamh tried out a couple of slices from one of the pizza al taglio (pizza by the slice) places. She gave me a bit of a ham and mushroom slice – I found it pretty insipid, to be honest. Niamh seemed happy with them, though.

After Niamh had a nap (and I ‘rested my eyes’), walk to the car and drove to La Rosa, to a discount department store called Magazzini Mangini. Niamh wanted some extra bed clothes, and more pillow cases besides. I just wanted out of the apartment! We got some nice stuff there, and then (of course) went around to see what else might we need. I’m kinda glad we did now.

The black puffer jacket I bought in Volterra last year, has a lot of frayed threads, and it probably won’t be too long before it starts unravelling. In addition, I have a heavy red overcoat, which acts as my walking winter duvet. It’s not very good at keeping out the rain, and has a large rip in the inner lining in one of the sleeves. I got a replacement for both coats, and will probably leave the black one behind in the apartment when we leave.

We stopped off in Conad in Volterra on the way home, to pick up some bits and pieces, including the rest of the ingredients Niamh needed to make a chicken curry.

After another couple of hours of screen-watching, we had the aforementioned curry. I love Italian food, make no mistake, but you need a break from having the same flavour palette over and over again. When we were in Hong Kong, we went to an Italian for lunch one afternoon! So a curry was just the thing, and it was fantastic!

We slept the sleep of the just after that (and a couple of glasses of wine each!).

This morning, I took a walk past the Cathedral (among other places). Niamh told me that they had removed the scaffolding, and looked like they were in the process of tidying up and getting ready to ship the construction gear away. It could only mean that the Cathedral will open soon – it’s one of the few places we haven’t seen yet.

No mad plans today, although it’s our last day before guests arrive, so we might get something done. A lot depends on our property manager being able to contact the furniture delivery folks – apparently it’s proving tricky. Fun times!

See you in the next one.