Tag: terricciola

Dinners with Friends Old and New, and a Return Home (23/06-25/06/23)

We were heading into the last three days of our holidays, and we were going to spend a chunk of it with various friends. Marisa and David of the Tales from Tuscany YouTube channel were housesitting near the lovely village of Montecatini val di Cecina, and we would visit them for dinner.

The next night, we had been invited to join a vineyard dinner table at Azienda Agricola Castelvecchio by Marie and Lorenzo of Authentic Tuscany (check them out for a base for a Tuscany stay). Sadly, Lorenzo had to work, but we’d meet Marie and some of her guests for an amazing set dinner.

Friday, June 23rd
Unsurprisingly, I got up and went for a walk. I was due to work later on, so I kept it briefish.

We had a light lunch of pizza and milkshake!

Later on, it was time for the main event!

We took the sexy road towards Saline and switched out at the even sexier road towards Lajatico and Montecatini val di Cecina. The latter is a lovely village overlooking the val di Cecina (duh), and the northern part of the val d’Era. The road to it from Volterra is a masterpiece, going through rolling hills and tilled land. Lone trees or sculptures dot the land here and there, like exclamation marks to the lines of poetry that are the panoramic views. It’s even better looking coming the other way.

Just before Montecatini, however, we turned off onto a road that must have been created by a giant mole with delirium tremens. There are many such of these unpaved “white roads” in Italy, which lead to lone private properties. These properties can look like Heaven on Earth, but there’s an obvious purgatorial metaphor in the roads which precede them. This road was unpleasant at first, and then downright awful. I was beginning to wonder if our car was fitted with crampons. Was it possible to get seasick in a car? We lost the horizon multiple times, before it became a solid dirt track, which was the final driveway. Phew!

And it was a lovely place. It was airconditioned throughout, had a (technically) above-ground swimming pool, and best of all, a fabulous view over the valley back towards Volterra. We were enthusiastically greeted by Marisa and David, and a couple of lovely doggos they were also minding.

But we had a little bit of comedy to kick off the night, courtesy of an unfortunate Marisa.

A risotto with fresh porcini was supposed to be on the menu, but poor Marisa accidentally threw these (fairly expensive) mushrooms out with a bag of dogshit. An ignominious end for one of Italy’s finest delicacies. However, she deftly rescued the situation by having cooked a killer ragù to go with some toothsome pasta.

We had a little vino to wash it down, which paired perfectly with the food.

Afterwards, we had a trip up the driveway of the property to have a look at another large house, protected by its hedging. No breaking and entering tonight. We were shepherded by a lovely cat on the way back.

Another vino was had, and then, sadly, my metabolism caught up with me after a week of work, and I just began to get drowsy. They didn’t get the best of me that night – sorry, guys. It’s not like we were looking forward to leaving – we’d have to head down that poxy road again. But needs must, and we headed off with a wave.

Saturday, June 24th
This was our last full day this holiday. We did get out for a light lunch at Ristorante Etruria. It can be touristy, but Niamh loves the melanzane parmiggiana there, as I love the zuppa alla Volterrana. We also snuck in a little fritto misto.

But what this day was really about, was attending an evening dinner amongst the vines of Azienda Agricola Castelvecchio. We were invited there by Marie and Lorenzo, but sadly Lorenzo had to work that night, so we met up with her group for a little aperitivo beforehand.

Music played while we made our way to our table

There were lots of tables scattered throughout the vineyard, which itself was in beautiful surroundings, made all the more amazing by the golden hour. After we had introduced ourselves to a lovely bunch (mother and daughter Leslie and Suzy from the US, whom we met again this year, a pair of fab ladies from Cork with their partners, and of course Marie herself).

We were serenaded to our tables. We wound our way a few minutes to our own table and once again marvelled at the views.

We sat, and had a good old chat and a laugh, while we waited for the food and wine to arrive. And they were generous with both! A glass accompanied each course, and the experience was heightened not only by the booze, but by the sinking sun, which coloured the landscape from honey to a deep amber.

First time I had steak tartare – not bad, but I wouldn’t go wild for it. It needed the caper and anchovy for taste

It began to get dark when the dessert came out, and we yummied it down and reluctantly moved back to the agricola buildings.

We were able to walk about their shop and wine-making facility, while they gave us a snifter of their grappa – which I have to say was rocket-fuel! Their wines are awesome, but the grappa has a bit of a bite to it, haha!

It was an amazing end to an amazing holiday, and Niamh and I couldn’t recommend a night like it highly enough – we loved it! So, thanks to our friends Marie and Lorenzo from Authentic Tuscany for the experience!

Sunday, June 25th
It was the day we were to fly home, but the flight was a little later in the day, affording us a little time to explore the ladies’ crafts market (mercato rosa), and have a little treat from L’Isola del Gusto before we drove to the airport, dropped the rental car off and flew back to Ireland.

Thanks for reading – let me know what you think. We came back in September/October 2023! Expect some content soon!

Strawberry Fair at Terricciola, lunch in Casciana Terme (08/05/2022)

I was true to myself and got up early for a walk around the walls. It’s such a good (and sweaty workout), as it involves a lot of inclines and declines on the 4.5km route. I’m always looking for a way to change the route up a bit and actually found one! But first, it was out the Porta Fiorentina for a clockwise path around.

About a week earlier, I had a walk outside the walls, looking for things I hadn’t seen before (or too often), and I came across the workshop of artist Nico Lopez Bruchi. Well along the walls of the town, in the south-east on Viale dei Filosofi you’ll find another of his murals. Clever and striking it is too!

There’s a section outside Volterra I hadn’t been to before. It contains the old bus station, and an emergency helicopter pad for the hospital. The Bus carpark (if that makes sense) is there too. Now that alone doesn’t make it sound very attractive, but couple Italian architecture, sculpture and the Tuscan countryside and you could have something a little special. Not sure if hiking routes begin from here, but if anyone more familiar with hiking around Volterra is reading this, please let me know!

Once done there, I carried on with the rest of the familiar route.

I stopped off at Migliorini for a mille foglie for me and a creamy rice tart for Niamh. We spruced ourselves up good, as we wanted to check out the Strawberry Festival in Terricciola, about 30 minutes drive away from us.

We headed for the carpark we used the last time we were here. Well, that was a little too optimistic! The place was jam-packed. In addition, Terricciola a town some of whose roads are narrow, but are nonetheless 2-way. We had some fun navigating our way through the town which, incidentally, also had a market on that day. We had to drive the guts of a kilometer out of town to a carpark beside a restaurant. Not the worst thing to have happened, as we didn’t miss the lovely framed views!

The roads were initially quiet as we made our way back to the town centre. It turns out that was because people were making their way towards a park where a few stalls were set up. Outside, a menu indicated what was going to be served for the communal lunch, and sure enough, there was already a huge queue for food. Rather than queue, we wandered deeper into town, past more stalls and wonderful panoramic viewpoints (see the YouTube video below). People kept streaming past us, presumably on the way to the commmunal lunch area. We didn’t see much in the way of celebration of the strawberry outside the park – just one bar was advertising strawberry produce, and a string of cardboard strawberries were to be seen nearby. What I thought was cute, was that outside many places, people had left colurfully painted chairs, with pots of flowers resting on them. I am not sure if that’s a general thing in Terricciola, or if was just done for the festival.

We took in some more panoramic viewpoints and when on the way back to see if we could join the communal lunch, stopped instead at the marketplace and bought us some sugary goods (jellies, sugared almonds, nougat). We passed by a restaurant and were tempted, but it looked busy. Unsurprisingly, the communal lunch area still had a huge queue. It might have been fun to stay anyway, but we were too hungry – so we made the counter-intuitive move of driving while hungry instead of standing while hungry. We went back to the car (the restaurant we parked next to was closed, sadly), and headed to Casciana Terme to see if we could find anywhere to eat.

We had been there before and found it quiet. So, I was thinking (forgetting it was Sunday) that perhaps it would be a good bit busier than last time. Sadly, maybe due to on-and-off drizzle, it was even quieter! We were pushing our luck for lunch, as it was a little after 14:00, but we did manage to find a place that would serve us. Yes, many Italian restaurants close between dinner and lunch services. Inside, Il Merlo Pizzorante was pleasantly busy with couples and small families noisily enjoying their food. We experienced a nice meal – I think I enjoyed it a little more than Niamh. The one thing that will stand out, though, is the service – and for strange reasons. There was a 2-person team… I’m calling them father and son, but they could be easily much older and much younger brothers. Anyway, the father greeted us and told us our menus were online. We papped the QR code and chose. We saw the younger man, with a moustache, flit from table to table in almost all cases not saying a word to anyone at the table when he delivered food. I think a family near us got some words out of him, but he was the definition of ‘taciturn’, to the point of it actually being amusing. In fairness to the main, he was efficient at his job! He delivered our drinks – standing on Niamh’s toe in the process, not a word… – barely even looked at us. By stark contrast, the father was warm and generous with his time, and we chatted with him briefly using my broken Italian. Now the food:

Not pictured: toasted bread I scoffed. The garlic, when rubbed, was super-powerful!

Would we go back? Ah yeah – the food was nice, even though there was a large choice on the menu. There was something for everyone, and I have little doubt that just about anything you try will be well-cooked. Their pizzas might be interesting. But I would also personally come for the comedy value of the curiously quiet, moustachioed server!

Once finished, we headed out to explore the town a little again. We walked past the spa – there were a handful of people frolicking around in the pool. The weather had flitted from dry to wet and back again, but eventually setted on dry and warm. It’s a nice town, but very quiet – maybe the spa is worth a visit for sure. They had bleacher seats set up in the main square, so maybe a festival is imminent. One strange thing about the town – it seems to end abrubtly in most directions. Whereas most towns trickle out – this one seems to have hard borders.

We drove back to Volterra, but by that time there were diversions active around Terriccciola as they were having a concert to help them celebrate their festival. It added about 10 minutes to our drive home, but at least we explored roads we hadn’t been on before.

Here’s a little vlog of our day up to that point:

Back in Volterra, before we returned to the apartment, I took a couple of snaps of Via Gramsci and for the first time I saw my favourite server at L’Isola del Gusto: Giorgia. She is a truly lovely and generous person (who also happens to speak 6 or 7 different languages). She also lets me practice my Italian, but I don’t delay her too much as the queues here can be long. I was in desparate need of a granita, as although it was probably 25 celsius, the day was quite humid and I had been out a long time. Unfortunately, it was not quite the season for granite, so I had to settle for a cup rammed full of lemon sorbet instead. It did the trick!

Back in the apartment we napped, screenwatched and edited some video footage. Then we did something a little piggish: headed out for more food. Just a pizza (just!) this time, with a beer, in Ombra della Sera Pizzeria. On the way there, we bumped into the builder we had been dealing with recently – he let us know that the wine bar he was entering (Enoteca Scali) was the best one in town. It’s a nice place, and we’ve been there once or twice, but dang it, he closes around 21:00-21:30, so we rarely get a chance to visit after typical Italian eating times. He has an excellent selection though.

Back to Ombra: We skipped fries this time. For me, pizza can get samey about halfway through, so I like to break it up with the occasional mouthful of fries. Anyway… we ate and drank everything up!

We rolled out of the place, and went for a nightime walk. I captured some lovely photos!

Afterwards, we sat up screenwatching for a while, then went to bed!

I hoped you enjoyed the read – please let me know what you thought!

Terricciola, Castelalfi and Montefoscoli

Warning: this post is photo-heavy!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not in a position to be able to write anything yesterday, so I’m back with a bang today. As well as being cooped up in the apartment for the weekend, we just needed to clear our heads and get out for a while. Niamh suggested going to La Rosa to check out a cheap department store there. Turns out it’s closed on Mondays (new opening hours), and so we sat thumb-twiddling looking for things to do next.

We decided to go travelling!

Terricciola was not too far from La Rosa, and we’d driven past it before on the way to Lari. Parking was handy enough, and was only about 100m away from the older part of town. It’s a nice looking place, but given that this is September, and it’s not a major tourist destination, it was as quiet as a mouse. We found only two food places open – an antipasto and wine store, and a bread baker (panificio).

Once we were finished there, we caught the bug and scoured Google Maps for other places to go. I spotted Castelalfi, but dropped it in favour of Castelfiorentino. I happened to note, though, that the route suggested took us through Castelalfi anyway, and we stopped there too.

What I was not prepared for was what Castelalfi was. I knew it looked to be only a couple of streets, but the carpark was three-quarters full, and the town began with a couple of hotels.

It turns out that Castelalfi is a manufactured resort village. It may well have been converted from a previously existing town, but most of the buildings are apartments for holidaymakers. There were a few shops and a couple of eateries (only one of which was open yesterday). Don’t get me wrong, it was a gorgeous, pristine (not one speck of trash found) place, surrounded by lush countryside, and a wonderful view onto a golf course. But it just lacked a little character as a result – it isn’t a ‘lived-in’ place. Oh, if you like swanning by the pool or golfing, then I probably couldn’t recommend a better venue, though! It is lovely, but what the hell do you do if you have no transport and are stuck in Castelalfi?! Admire the views, I suppose…

They have a restaurant at the top of the area that looks pretty amazing – but it would want to be for the prices! Anyway, it was closed. All-in-all, we saw a sum total of about 9 people in Castelalfi, half of whom were booted and suited for a conference in one of the hotels.

We ended up skipping Castelfiorentino in the end, and instead backtracked to a small hilltop village called Montefoscoli. It is almost the diametric opposite of Castelalfi. It is very much a lived-in town, which I suspect gets very little in the way of tourist traffic. Regardless, it had lovely, if occasionally shabby, clustered buildings and a higgledy-piggledy layout that reminded me of the back end of Amalfi town, or Atrani. It was their market day, and four stalls were decked out with simple goods. Niamh and I stopped to grab some sweeties, as we hadn’t had lunch, and were a little on the hungry side.

Down one road, a table was laid out, with half-empty bottles of water, which suggested we missed a mini street-party. There were also some fab views to be seen from here. A lovely, gentle place.

Google took us down another back road we hadn’t been on before to get home. I love it when this happens, and in this case, we saw some amazing scenery, which, it turns out, is only about 20 minutes drive from Volterra! The pics don’t really do it justice – it’s a case of visiting the place, really.

We chilled for a while at home, before heading out to a place we’d only been to once before: La Vecchia Lira. The owner is sound, and very enthusiastic. We both had pasta primi – Niamh had amazing ravioli, while my pici with Chianini beef ragu was pretty good. For meats, Niamh had sliced steak, with a side of grilled veggies, and I had a really well put-together plate of pork medallions with a vin santo jelly, vin santo sauce, almonds and raspberry pulp, served with perfectly seasoned spinach. We liked the food enough to each have a tirimasu afterwards!

We went straight home again after that (we eat quite late in Italy, and were finished around 21:15 there).

This morning, I got up slightly earlier and went on a walk. It was great to clear the cobwebs, but I finished off with the 200 steps at La Docciola, which damn near killed me!

No plans today – except maybe to ask our property manager to phone the furniture place to drag a date for delivery of our stuff out of them. The service from them (the furniture people, not the property managers) has been a little incompetent. Hopefully, we get the stuff before more guests arrive on Thursday!

Ciao for now!