a taste of tuscany

tuscany 1 continued...
we spent two nights in tuscan heaven. after arriving the first day, we ventured back down the hill and into sleepy figline valdarno for dinner. little did we know that the italians do not eat dinner until seven...which means the restaurants do not serve food until seven. we ended up with about two hours to kill. but let me tell you....it was more than worth the wait. i'm not sure how something as simple as pasta, olive oil, red pepper flakes and salt can be so amazing. perhaps it's because when it comes to fresh olive oil, we were right at the source. i do have to insert here that basic italian "table" bread is pretty lackluster. i don't think they put any salt in it at all. but that is exactly where the olive oil comes into play. you take this bland, flour and water rock and then dredge it in silky, golden goodness and suddenly you cannot imagine why anyone would even conceive of putting salt in bread dough in the first place. needless to say, we stuffed, and i do mean stuffed, ourselves sick that night on pasta, bread, wine and a complimentary sampling of the house pizza. this intoxicating combination of soul satisfying food would inspire a return trip the following night.

tuscany 2...
we had originally planned this day for visiting several of the surrounding olive oil farms and wineries. however, since we were staying on an olive oil farm and i had only printed directions for one winery, we really only had one destination. that's not to say that we couldn't have stopped at dozens of other places along the way. they are literally everywhere. but i think we found the hidden jewel of them all. it's name: fattoria la vialla in the village of castiglion fibocchi. we pulled up the tree-lined, dusty road and parked under a viney, handcrafted carport. several farm workers were milling about the grounds. a few tourists sat at weather-beaten picnic tables set up under a leafy awning enjoying fresh salami, bread, cheese, and wine. i meandered into one of the stone buildings to ask about a tour. i was greeted by perhaps the most gracious gentleman i have ever met. he told me they had just finished their daily tour but he would be willing to show us around. he took us through the wine press and barrel storehouse, telling us fascinating things about the origins of their farm and how it grows its fruits and vegetables. he also took us into a mini factory of sorts, where bakers could be seen dusting tables with flour and rolling raisin-kissed balls of hearty dough into shapes for baking. i stood mesmerized in this window for quite some time. i even asked marcus if he thought i might be able to take a summer job here. sigh. maybe in my next life...
we spent quite a bit of time in the little side shop, picking out souvenirs of wine and freshly jarred olives and tomato sauces for our family. we also debated ordering some of the bread and salami for our own picnic lunch. for some reason, the salami kind of threw us. darkened, hard meat sausages lying open in woven baskets on a rustic wooden table sounds idyllic but is not altogether appetizing. we opted to roam the farm for a few extra minutes and then pressed on.

we were but twenty minutes outside of the city of arezzo. i had my heart set on visiting because "life is beautiful" was filmed here. that movie has inspired me time and time again (go rent it!) and i was eager to see the main piazza from the first half of the film. i'm not sure what i was thinking when i planned this excursion from home. i honestly don't think i was thinking at all. i guess i figured it was a lot smaller of a city and that we could simply drive into town and the piazza would be right there in the town center. wrong. we ended up driving up and down street after street before eventually coming to a total standstill down one road. the reason...school had just dismissed and there were literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of teenagers pouring out of the building and into the streets. for being as frustrated as we were, it was a totally unforgettable experience just sitting there for a full ten minutes, people-watching and soaking in all of that culture. never seen anything like it. i do have to thank marcus for his patience on this particular afternoon. he could have cared less about "life is beautiful." and having no true direction or clue as to where we were really going, he definitely stuck it out for me. i mean, we had come all this way..........luckily, we spotted a sign for a tourist center and found a brochure that would take us to all of the film sites. i was only interested in one...the piazza. we meandered for quite a while before we turned the corner and i gasped. the piazza was not in the center of town at all. it was a quiet, small square off in the older part of town. it had glorious arched walkways on one side and fabulously tall stone buildings on another. it was so peaceful and perfect. we stayed there for quite a while. and i don't think i ever stopped smiling. the breeze was blowing the linen table cloths along the sidewalks and the sun was glinting over the rooftops. it was truly lovely. even marcus will admit it was worth searching for. i would have loved to eat at one of those tiny cafes, but our local find back in figline was calling our tastebuds from miles away. we finished the night back at "home" with more pizza, pasta, olive oil, wine, the world's most delicious tiramisu and calming dreams of arezzo.