In the Maremma

Dear Reader,

Are we being pessimistic? Do we have only one reader? If that’s the case, then we’re glad you are our reader.

We’ve been busy, very busy, with guests for the last week or so. The posts to this blog have been written only in intentions but, sadly, not in the blog. We will try to turn a new leaf.

Civitella Marittima

We’ve rented a car, a white Alfa-Romeo Giulietta, and we’ve driven to the Maremma, the area of Tuscany west of Florence that borders on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Pisa is to the north and Rome is to the south and in between is an area of rolling hills and former swamplands. Because the swamps were only drained in the 20th century, development here is new in many ways. 

Morning fog settles into the valley below

This new development includes the production of really good wines. A little to the north in the Maremma the new Super Tuscans are being produced. These wines have no place in the traditional scheme of Italian wines yet they are prized ... and often very expensive.

A garden in Civitella Marittima

We are more interested in some of the less expensive, more traditional red wines of the area. We’re staying in a little town called Civitella Marittima, home to about 500 people. The town in on the edge of the Strada del Vino Montecucco (the Montecucco wine trail.) The view of the town from below is familiar; the hometown of one of us looks very much like Civitella Marittima. Civitella, however, is more prosperous; the town has a bakery, a butcher shop, a coffee bar, a florist, and a Michelin one-star restaurant.

So far we have visited one small winery, Le Calle. They produce a number of wines and we tasted their DOC Rosso, their DOC Montecucco, and their DOC Montecucco Riserva. The second and third wines had spent time in oak and were sophisticated. As we tasted these wines we considered what foods might be paired with each. We purchased a bottle each of the second and third wines.

Casina di Rosa apartment

After the tasting we had lunch at one of the two restaurants in Civitella Marittima. It may be a small town but this restaurant, Locanda nel Cassero, has a Michelin star and is listed in the best Italian guide to restaurants in the country. We ordered our lunch and the owner suggested one of the exact same wines that we had just tasted earlier in the day.

To the left is a photo of the apartment we’re staying in. The place is called Casina di Rosa and is kept by a couple; he’s a Canadian from Ottawa who “came 17 years ago and never left” and she’s from the town. 

We visited the tourist office in a nearby town and picked up a brochure with some helpful advice regarding food in this area. The entire list is reproduced below. The last two items and interesting and wholly part of the Italian table.

Some rules about the typical cuisine in the Maremma:

1. virgin olive oil must be used
2. cream is not to be used
3. cheeses and cold meats must come from the local territory
4. wines must be produced locally
5. typical Tuscan bread must be used (Note: Tuscan bread has been unsalted since the time of Dante.)
6. fish must always be kept fresh
7. dishes must not be cooked beforehand
8. wild-grown vegetables should be used, if possible
9. pasta should be cooked according to suggested cooking time
10. all cold meats should be well-matured
11. conversation is recommended while eating
12. a new guest is always welcome

Just before we left Florence we spend part of a morning admiring Michelangelo’s David which stands in a museum that was built the famous, 17-foot high statue. A natural light shines down from above and the statue gleams as David faces his soon-to-be-defeated adversary.

While we were in the museum a person almost as tall as David himself visited. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar walked through the gallery. He is trim and tall, of course, at that time he was the only person in the museum whose stature compared to the David. He stayed briefly and moved on. 

It must be difficult to be so instantly recognizable.

Another job I don’t want

Last year I wrote about a job in Florence that I had observed  and that I could not imagine being able to do myself. That job was swinging from a rope over the Arno River while painting the Ponte Vecchio. (See How do you paint the Ponte Vecchio?.)

Flags have been hung from each window

A new unpleasant (and terrifying) job in Florence has been added to the list. 

The Palazzo Vecchio is the civic heart of Renaissance Florence. The communal palace has (a copy of) Michelangelo’s David by the front door, plaques and banners across the façade, and three large flags flying from a second story balcony, one each for the European Union, the national flag in the middle, and the city flag.

Sometimes Italian flags flying from each of the windows on the front and on both sides. The smaller Italian flags are not flying on permanent basis; sometimes the smaller flags are there and sometimes they are not.

I’d never thought about it but someone has to put those flags out and take them back in. The windows with flags are only one story up but that story is no ordinary story in height. 

The other day we walked across the piazza in a light drizzle. Tour guides were speaking to groups about the history of Florence and the place of the Palazzo Vecchio in that story. No one seemed to notice that a man was stepping out onto the window sills to install an Italian flag by each window. People were talking about the statues, the history, people were taking photos of each other, and people were taking selfies. And a man in an orange jumpsuit was working off of window sills high about the piazza.

Hanging the last flag on the front

Someone from the inside handed the man a flag on a staff and the man maneuvered the staff of the flag into each holder. This was repeated over and over, first on the side of the Palazzo Vecchio and then across the front.

I think that the man was belted. I hope he was. But what was he belted to? And what would happen in case of a calamitous fall?

Ugh! I couldn’t think about it. Thinking (just thinking!) about standing at the top of a forty foot ladder gives me vertigo. That man was working much higher than that.

Another job in Florence that I wouldn’t want to do.

This year’s craze, selfie sticks

Selling selfie sticks

There are many young immigrants in Italy doing what they can to survive economically. There are also many young Italians who are also struggling to live from day to day. The European economy is being squeezed by those leaders who think that the cure to economic problems is to cut governmental expenditures. Europeans governments, including, until recently, Greece, have accepted this prescription and the results have been a contracting European economy with difficult times for young people. 

Using a selfie stick. Florence is below.

The US, on the other hand, is lumbering along economically but is a high flier compared to the Europeans. The exchange rate keeps dropping in favor of US travelers in Europe. We are not complaining about the strengthening dollar.

Each year there are many young immigrants and young Italians selling stuff in places where tourists congregate. In recent years many of them sold the same thing, little flying toys with LEDs that buzz as the fly up in the twilight and float back down. Little kids (and big kids) seem entertained by these toys.

But that was last year. Perhaps the flying toys will reappear when the warm weather returns but the big new craze this year is selfie sticks. Young Italians and immigrants are selling selfie sticks everywhere. And, evidently, people are buying selfie sticks, too.

Walking with a selfie stick

Palazzo Vecchio visible on phone camera

The new toy has become so ubiquitous that museums are banning the things. (See A Running List of Places That Have Banned Selfie Sticks.) This list does not include the many museums in Florence that have banned the selfie sticks. The whole list of museums that ban the things must be very long.) The little devices engage their owners but well up irritation in the rest of us who have just gotten accustomed to the whole world being a phone booth. (See Why people hate your selfie stick : TreeHugger.) 

Now the whole world is a photo booth, too.

Festa delle Donne

March 8 in Italy is the Festa delle Donne, the celebration of women. This is the Italian version of the celebration of International Women’s Day, a holiday that perhaps had its origin in New York City. This is an official holiday in some countries, an unofficial holiday in others such as Italy, and a day that is unobserved in some other countries such as the United States.

Packets of sugar that appeared on March 8

In Italy the Festa delle Donne is impossible to not notice. Small yellow spring flowers (called mimosas; no, it’s not an alcoholic drink) are available everywhere for merchants to give to female customers and for men to purchase for the women in their lives. 

On the morning of March 8 we had cappuccino as usual at our coffee bar. Along with the regular ways in which sugar was offered to customers, the owners also put out these packets of sugar to mark the day. This was an interesting gesture.

Later that day we walked to Piazza Repubblica, a main civic piazza, where people congregate on Sunday afternoons. Today the air was cool but the sun was bright, blindly bright. There were stands set up in the piazza. We looked and saw that the stands were sponsored by an organization called the Association of Women in Agriculture (Associazione Donne in Campo.)

A translation of the purpose of the group from their website might be:

“Donne in Campo is the main Italian association of women entrepreneurs and women of agriculture, recognized and appreciated in Italy ... Donne in Campo creates 'networks' of women in the rural area, weaves relationships between companies and builds community and local groups.”

Many different agricultural products were offered. We talked with one woman for quite a while and purchased her plum marmalade, a mild concoction rich in fruit, low in sugar, and free of preservatives. We also purchased a pleasant ointment for a certain relative as a gift for when we return.

Welcome surprises

Flag throwers

We were walking toward Piazza della Signoria in the mid-morning and we heard drumming in the distance. As we came closer to the piazza, the volume of the drumming increased and we heard a crowd ooh-ing and ah-ing. We entered the piazza and there they were; a troupe dressed in medieval costumes, drummers drumming insistently and other people waving flags ... and sometimes tossing flags through the air to their partners.

We’ve seen this kind of thing before. The drumming and flag throwing have medieval roots and the Italians are not about to give up a custom that is loud and that attracts lots of oohs and ahs. And, of course, the custom was that men would always be at the center of attention.

Drummers

This set of performers surprised us because the drummers, who kept a loud and steady beat, were as you can see, all young women. Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day and in Italy it is called the Festa delle Donne, the Festival of the Women. It seems that this one-day celebration reflects some real changes in Italian society.

The anniversary of Michelangelo’s birth

On another walk we wandered through Piazza Santa Croce, the nearest of the great Florentine piazzas to our apartment. As we approached the piazza we could see many, many yellows school buses parked around the piazza. When we entered the piazza we were startled to see the great doors of Santa Croce cathedral open. A rare sight.

Druumers lead

We went up to the open doors to peer inside. We were struck by the huge stained glass windows at the other end of the nave of the cathedral. The windows gleamed with the morning sunlight pouring in. The light was so bright and the interior of the cathedral so relatively dark that it was impossible to get a photo with a decent exposure but, of course, we tried anyway.

The floor of the vast cathedral was thronged with visitors, mostly young. It seemed that it was a special day of some kind.

The retinue

The guards at the great doors were there to shoo away people who were not members of the groups of school children and their chaperones. I remarked to the guards how much better the cathedral looked without the forest of scaffolding that had been there for a decade. The guards snickered and agreed, saying the the scaffolding had been removed recently. 

Member of the retinue

And then they invited us in. Nice guys.

The inside of Santa Croce cathedral is lined with the tombs of famous Florentines including Galileo, Machiavelli, Dante, and Michelangelo. These Florentines and some others were so famous that in recent centuries the same church has served as the burial place for non-Florentines such as Enrico Fermi, Marconi, Rossini, and many others.

The tomb of Michelangelo

This day the celebration marked the birthday of Michelangelo. Dignitaries were there as were many others dressed in Renaissance outfits. There were even some drummers. (As you can see Italians like drummers a lot.)

The ceremony was concluded, a wreath was laid, the drummers drummed, and those who came to honor Michelangelo, the most famous artist the city has ever produced, left by way of the great doors of Santa Croce. 

Then the great doors swung shut.

Two seemingly unrelated items and a photo

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UPDATE (Thursday 10:50pm local time)   

Fiorentina has beaten the Juve by a score of 2 to 1. The Juve were first in the league in offense and first in the league in defense and the Juve were playing at home. Tomorrow will be a happy day in Florence.

Here's an ESPN report on the game:  Mohamed Salah's brace gives Fiorentina advantage over Juventus - ESPN FC.

Tonight the Juve really do live in a dumpster.

Alè Viola!!

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Item 1    Florence is a small, dense city. The layout of the center of the city has probably changed little in the last 600 years. The streets are narrow and the sidewalks are so narrow that sometimes the sidewalk shrinks to nothing as you approach a building that is not perfectly aligned with the street.

As a result trash pick ups are managed differently here. The city has large blue and gray plastic bins on wheels along many of the streets. When trash has accumulated in your home, you pack it up and drop it in a trash bin the next time you go out. Trucks come frequently, pick up the bins, and dump the bins making lots of noise in the process.

The large bins are not attractive and the city is replacing the bins-on-wheels with more permanent, less unattractive alternatives. Most trash, however, still ends up in the blue and gray plastic trash bins.

Item 2    There is a big soccer game tonight in Turin between Florence (called Fiorentina or La Viola for the color of their uniforms) and Juventus (called Juve or Bianconero for the colors of their uniforms. The Juve shirts are black and white stripes. Weird; it looks as if there were referees all over the field.) 

Here’s a preview of the game from ESPN:  Montella: Fiorentina deserve trophy as Juventus Coppa Italia semifinal looms - ESPN FC.  

These fans of these two teams dislike the other. Really, really dislike each other. A few years ago we saw Fiorentina defeat the Juve 4-2 and the city was ecstatic for days. A few years before that we saw Fiorentina lose badly to the Juve and the local fans booed and abandoned their seats in despair shortly after halftime. That game became a wake.

In Florence no other team is disliked as much as the Juve. Tonight’s game will be on most TVs in town.

The photo    Our apartment in on Via Pilastri, a typically narrow street with a narrow sidewalk. Down the street a bit there are a number of blue and gray plastic trash bins covered with graffiti.

We walked past the bins yesterday and noticed something scrawled in black magic marker. (Note the world casa in Italian means the place you call home.)

Casa Juve

Teatro della Pergola

Concert bill

We’d only been in Florence for two days and we saw a poster for a concert that would take place a day later on Saturday. The concert was at 4pm at Teatro della Pergola, a small theater that is a short walk from our apartment.

There are two major concert halls in Florence, the modern opera house and symphony concert hall on the other side of Florence and an historic smaller theater near our apartment that was built in the mid-1600s. The concert we wanted to attend was at the smaller hall and was (thankfully) scheduled for the late afternoon.

Entrance to the theater

When one of us was a student in Florence the program leaders passed along a number of tickets to concerts at the big symphony hall and the historic, smaller theater. Since then a new opera house/symphony hall has been built and has recently opened. The smaller theater, Teatro della Pergola, was built in the mid-1600s and continues to reflect the era that it was built. The lobby is grand and the main theater has many box seats and lots of red velvet. 

Lobby (source)

The concert was an all Bach choral concert. If you know us, you know that the combination of Bach and choral would be appealing to us. We met in a choir and sang lots of Bach under the direction of an inspirational conductor including the first piece on the concert bill, Lobet den Herrn (Praise the Lord). 

The concert was performed by the Swedish Radio Chorus. Sixteen singers slowly processed onto the stage with a conductor, an organist, and a cellist. The singing had great forward motion, controlled energy, and a wonderful lightness. The performance was terrific.

Concert hall (source)

Here’s a Youtube clip of a performance of Lobet den Herrn.

The rest of the concert brought more old favorites and was a great tonic for a pair of tired travelers.