I first met Anna Piperato more than a decade ago, not long after she had given up teaching at High Point University to pursue her dream of living in Italy. She has a PhD in Art History, her dissertation is on Saint Catherine of Siena, and there seems to be little that she doesn’t know about Italian Medieval and Renaissance art and history.

Today she is living her dream. Now an independent tour guide, she has worked for Rick Steves and still handles his Tuscan Hill Towns tours. But she loves Siena best of all and is also an active and fervent member of the Lupa Contrada and all things dealing with the Siena Palio. She is a great guide, as well as a wonderful person and delightful raconteur. I knew that we couldn’t do justice to seeing and touring Siena without her expert guidance. We were not disappointed.

After getting us to Siena and talking us through the not easy Siena parking situation (Siena is a walled city with very limited car access so you have to park in one of their massive car parks outside the city and walk in), we met up with Anna at Siena’s famous Campo, the town’s main piazza. As she walked us to our lunch venue, she tried to connect us to the history of the city while saving the main tour until after lunch.

Rosticcieria Vitti, a small relatively new restaurant is tucked away in the tiny Piazza Vitti. It was perfect for a reunion with Anna and the restaurant served a wonderful array of antipasti, bruschetta, and crostini followed by a variety of pasta dishes. The meal finished with some lovely desserts, including cantucci with Vin Santo.

Anna then took us to her to new apartment just a couple blocks from the restaurant. She and her family were able to renovate an apartment in a centuries old building, within the confines of the Lupa contrada. Anna did an incredible job working with the architect to build a modern, up to date apartment while keeping in mind the history and provenance of the building. We all loved seeing her new home and knowing she will be living in these beautiful surroundings.

Siena’s history is long, complicated, and interesting, but thanks to losing out to Florence after the Black Plague in the 14th century it remained a vibrant and important city but no longer sought to compete to dominate Tuscany. In my opinion, that is the reason that the city is so much more lovely to visit than Florence which today is overrun with hordes of tourists. Look up Anna if you are ever thinking about visiting the Siena; she will make it worth your while.

Leavng Rome, renting a car, and getting on the road to Tuscany occupied much of our day Saturday, May 2. With nine in our party, we needed three cars—and coordinating three cars and getting them all to the new rental car pickup at the airport was always going to be a problem. What was I thinking? Still two of the three parties made it to the right place, although Hertz and Budget couldn’t possibly be on he same floor!

Two hours later, the third party had joined us, and we had filled out all of the paperwork so that we could be entrusted with two BYD automobiles. BYD is a Chinese car company, which by the way is going to eat our lunch, American car makers.

There was no way that we could get out of the airport and en route and be together, so each car made its way up to Montestigliano. Since our favorite place to stay in the Siena area was already booked, we had to rely on AirBnb to find another place that could accommodate a party of ten. When Montestigliano popped up, it looked like an ideal place for us. And it truly is.

Montestigliano has been a working estate at least since the early 19th century, although not owned by the same family that now runs it. Today it is an Italian agriturismo providing a delightful respite for travelers to this part of Tuscany. As we drove up the long drive and arrived at the reception area, we could all feel the stress of the road ebb away. The manager of the farm, Francesco, has been incredibly attentive and helpful, making our stay here even more enjoyable.

Montestigliano is proving to be a great oasis after our days of touring.

Rome is a big city, full of sights to see and tourists seeing them, especially on a National Holiday (May 1), we had a full and fulfilling day walking about, eating, and chatting. We began with breakfast at one of the cafes in the market filled Campo De’ Fiori not far from where we were staying.

The day was bright & sunny, but fortunately quite mild. Some of us needed to start with a full British breakfast whereas most of us were content with a cornetta and our favorite form of caffeine.

We then decided to walk to Capitoline Hill since it was nearby and didn’t require a reservation. As the name implies, it is a hill, a rather steep one, which can be a challenge for some of us, but we prevailed.

The hill is the site of three grand and imposing structures, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, an 11th century Romanesque church; a Michelangelo designed Renaissance piazza; and the fascist era Victor Emmanuel II Monument. Any one of them would be a significant undertaking in any other city, but placing the three together on one hilltop is really quite incredible, considering the engineering prowess involved to create this supersized jigsaw puzzle.

As many times as I have been in Rome, I had never visited this hilltop and found it really awe-inspiring. We spent much of our time in the Basilica, which is one of the largest and most elaborate Romanesque churches that I have ever visited.

As getting into the Victor Emanuel Monument seemed to involve descending and reclimbing the hill, we passed on that task and began walking down the other side of the Capitoline Hill, bringing us to the entrance to the Forum and Colosseum.

The entrance fee is now $20 and the crowds were even more daunting so we all decided to to forego them both and go looking for a place to have lunch. Which brings me to the Corso Victor Emanuel—for me, if not the seventh level of Dante’s hell, leads to it. Of course it was lunch time and all of our fellow turisti also had the same idea, but we finally found a nice restaurant with pleasant staff, good food, and a friendly couple from San Diego sitting at the table next to us. It’s always fun to meet up with fellow travelers from the States to compare notes.

But one day of sight seeing in Rome was really enough for me.

My final night in town, a few of my classmates joined me at a restaurant near my apartment, Temp e Feugo. Good Genovese menu with very welcoming staff and waiters. Genova proved a great place to stay and learn, with nice people, lots of things to see and do, and of course good food!

After saying goodbye to my host, Adriana, I took the train from Genova to Rome yesterday afternoon. Really enjoyed my time at the school, A Door into Italy. I feel like I learned, or perhaps relearned, a good bit of Italian and feel comfortable when trying to communicate. Just don’t ask me to talk about anything in depth!

The train trip was blissfully uneventful and arrived at the Rome Termini Station—seemingly with half of Italy. Despite the powers that be (incomprehensible signage and blocked exits) I was able to find a taxi. Friendly taxi driver and after a 20 minute ride, was greeted at the front door by my friends. And so our new adventure begins. There is no better way to start than with a dinner with friends.

Dinner at the the restaurant which is literally 20 feet from the front door of our Apartment. Left to right: Kat, Tom, Larry, Carole, Bob, Jennifer, Steve, Mart. Everyone liked what they got and getting back to our place was a charm!

Google today shared a picture of our 2018 Tour, which I thought I would share with you my kind readers:

Yesterday, I took the train to Camogli, a one time fishing village that is now a tourist attraction for visitors to the area. Train was a nice experience, even though it was just a regional train, it was new and comfortable. The folks in the ticket office were helpful and certainly spoke better English than I did Italian, but I insisted on carrying on in their language.

Weather wasn’t very conducive to touring, but that didn’t seem to keep the tourists away. I stayed about three hours, walked the boardwalk through most of the town and had a very good, if somewhat dear, spaghetti alle vongole and grilled vegetables for lunch.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to see a Van Dyke exhibition in the Palazzo Ducale. Unlike many places in Italy and Europe in general, here if you ask for a senior discount they don’t look at you funny, they just nod yes and apply the discount—that’s nice.

Anyway, back to Van Dyke. He clearly was a child prodigy and genius and was accepted into the painter’s guild in Antwerp at the age of 14 and became a master at the age of 17, when the self portrait above was painted.

In his early 20’s, already successful, he came to Italy and then settled in Genova for several years. Genova offered him a large audience for his skills as there were lots of families who were willing to pay him handsomely for a portrait of one or more members of their clan. Below is a portrait he did of one of the leading members of the Spinola family, whose family palazzo I mentioned in an earlier post. Spinola worked for the Spanish royal government, even though he was Genovese.

My fellow lodger Patrick, who returned to Hamburg on Saturday, declined to go to the exhibit with me—he said that when you compare Van Dyke to Caravaggio, there’s really no contest. He’s probably right—but Van Dyke was far more financially successful in his life, even if he was also a rake and womanizer.

Very soon after leaving Genova, he traveled to England and was given the post of official court painter for the Stewart kings, James I and Charles I. One of the most interesting. pictures in the exhibit was a dual portrait of Charles and his queen Henrietta Maria. Henrietta Maria, the daughter of the king of France, remained a Catholic all her life, and many historians say she influenced Charles with her religious beliefs. Of course, things didn’t end well for Charles, who lost his head to Oliver Cromwell’s forces in 1649 during the English Revolution.

Van Dyke did paint pictures other than portraits, but the portraits, clearly his meilleur, provided his bread and butter and supported his successful lifestyle.

Finally, the two photos below are of my landlady and hostess, Adriana Toce, for my stay in Genova, and my fellow lodger, Patrick Mueller, from Hamburg, Germany. As I mentioned, Patrick went home yesterday, to La Signora’s chagrin as his Italian was much better than mine, so now her conversations are much more limited with me—but we do manage to communicate.

The last photo shows me with a better view of the kitchen where Adriana serves us breakfast daily, usually latte with toast, but sometimes she makes an omelet or scrambled eggs.

That’s all for now…thanks for reading my “ramblings.”

Today the school offered an accompanied tour of one of Genova’s fabled medieval palaces, Palazzo Spinola—quite a treat. Before my trip to Genoa, I had no idea about this city’s long and interesting history. So much of the central part of the city is well maintained and is delightful to walk around, even without a defined destination in mind.

The family Spinola were closely aligned with Spain, and I just yesterday saw a Van Dyke exhibition which contained a portrait of a 17th century Spinola who served the Spanish crown. I have also read that part of the reason that Genova was able to maintain its independence and power was that close alignment, as well as the diplomatic skills of its banking families. I am going to have to read up more on the city’s history, clearly.

The Hall of Mirrows brought to mind Versailles—of course, on a much smaller scale. After all this was the home of just one Genovese family and not the monarch of one of the most powerful countries in Europe. The family was also rich enough so that they could afford to own paintings by Van Dyke and Rubens as well as lots of other lesser artists.

The map below was printed in the early 17th century; clearly not much yet was known about the New World, but the coastal map of Africa is remarkably detailed. I just visited the Sea Museum, and comparing the 17th and 16th century world maps was enlightening—being the map nerd that I am.

Doesn’t everyone have a full sized fresco on their dining room ceiling? Other rooms were filled with the many china collections that the family owned over the centuries. This trip, I have also begun to notice the clocks and timepieces. The one below was particularly beautiful to my mind. Of course, like so many of the rich families during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, there’s always a spare cardinal or two; can you imagine carrying around this gold mass set and the people to set it up for you?

I have certainly become a booster for Genova since my arrival; it really provides a wide array of things to do, see and enjoy with a lot fewer other tourists to deal with than say Florence, Rome or Venice. Tomorrow I am planing on venturing out to a nearby seaside village that everyone tells me rivals Cinque Terre for charm. More to follow.

The Galleria Ferrari is one of my favorite places in Genova; it has some lovely shops and nice restaurants, but my favorite part is all of the used book dealers who daily put out their stock. It was fun to browse the titles neatly arranged on the tables, including some of my favorites like Pride and Prejudice or the Count of Monte Cristo, but it also made me a little sad to realize that most people walking about including me, would not be buying books to take home.

Window shopping is a great pleasure in this city; the shop clerks are still encouraged to use their creativity to display their wares, whether it is pastries, fruit, candies or clothing. I loved the chocolate sardines in their own “tins,” the peacock competing with the varied colored candies, or the lovely men’s suits and accessories. There’s really no reason to buy anything when it is just so much fun looking.

It’s spring time,of course, so everyone needs to buy some flowers or plants to greet the season. The weather has been interesting with a mixture of cool rainy days and mild sunny ones. Yesterday it was bright and sunny with hardly a cloud, but then just around dusk a front moved through with thunder and lightning & a cool breeze. This morning, I had to pull out my fleece for my walk to school but then packed it away in my backpack as I strolled about the shopping district.

Of course as someone remarked to me, it always seems to be noisy in an Italian city: I would love to experience this city filled with quiet Electric Vihicles, rather than the noise and buzzing of the scooters, motorcycles, and buses. Do you think that this crazy war with Iran will help make people aware of how much we need to quickly move to renewable energy to power our transportation needs? One can but hope.

I spent much of of the weekend walking around Genova. The weather was great—temps in the low 70s (22-23 C) with blue skies and a very light breeze. Both days I walked over 15,000 steps—not on purpose, mind you, but Genova is a fairly big town with half a million folks that stretches over a hilly terrain up against the Ligurian Sea Walking is usually the only option since I don’t know the town well enough to use the Metro or buses, and I am too cheap to get a cab.

On Saturday I was on my own as I haven’t formed a group of buddies at school as happened during my time in Alberobello a couple of years ago. That’s ok…it’s hard not to have a good time, even solo, and Google Maps helps getting around without getting lost. The Galata Museum of the Sea was recommended to me as a destination, so I decided to give it a try. Genova has a long history of seafaring, dating back to the Roman Times.

The museum, however, was a mixed bag—starting off well with a life sized model of a Medieval Galley and a good section on Christopher Columbus—but with each floor going up, the displays got more chaotic and haphazard & I got more frustrated and tired. (Six floors and no elevator or any that I could readily find and utilize.)

One interesting fact: more than a million Italians emigrated, mostly to the States and Latin America, from Genova during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The photos below show a globe almost contemporaneous with Columbus, a 19th century picture of Genova, and a mid 16th century map.

At the end of the experience, you return to the entrance where you can pick up a hard hat and walk over to a WWII era submarine floating in the harbor. Walking through the boat, you have to ask yourself “who would be comfortable serving on a submarine, in a war or not”—certainly not your’s truly.

Fortunately, leaving the submarine, you are confronted with your choice of several restaurants in which to eat lunch. I chose the Love Restaurant (that’s what it’s called) where I ordered a tall mug of cold beer and a plate of mussels (cozze). Le cozze were incredibly scrumptious, the beer was ice cold, and a tiramisu and coffee topped off a perfect repast. I sat at the restaurant savoring my food and watching the tourists popping up out of the submarine for well over an hour, enjoying the beautiful spring day.

I liked the restaurant so much that the next day, when my house companion, Patrick, and I failed to find a restaurant in the historic center of town that he thought he remembered, I suggested we walk a little further to the Love Restaurant. He agreed, and pretty soon he had ordered spaghetti with clams and I, risotto ai frutti di mare (seafood risotto). WOW…the risotto was even better than the mussels. Being full, we decided to skip dessert, but succumbed to the lure of artisanal gelato on the way back to the house.

Patrick is from Hamburg, and he has lived and worked in Italy several times over the last decade. As you can imagine, his Italian is a lot better than mine, making conversation with the Signora a lot easier. Speaking of the Signora, she has invited us to dinner tonight as a special treat. She is obligated only to provide breakfast. I bought a dessert to share, and Patrick has decided on a bottle of wine. I plan on letting him handle the dinner conversation, as I get tongue tied trying to respond to her questions.

The second week of school started today.

The school arranged for three of us to take a Genovese cooking class this past Thursday: two Brazilian ladies, Irma & Zilma, and me. Our chef and teacher was Francesco Soldi, who in addition to teaching cooking to visitors like us also owns and operates his own catering service, Apriti Sesamo.

Our menu included:

Focaccia alla genovese

Trofie con pesto genovese

Crostata alla marmellata

Focaccia is a traditional Ligurian bread made with good Italian flour, yeast, olive oil, water, butter and salt. The Genovese people love their focaccia and focaccerias are as common as pizzerias on most shopping streets in Genova (Genoa).

There are certainly hundreds of different kinds of Italian pasta, varying from place to place in size and shape. Trofie, a small, hand rolled pasta, about the size of a small macaroni, is a favorite in Genova and is usually to be found on most restaurant menus, usually served with the Genovese version of pesto.

We made the dough, rolled and cut it out, and then made pesto by grinding up oil, pine nuts, and basil with a mortal and pestle—more work than I would probably ever want to do regularly; but judging by the taste, worth the effort.

Crostata (a pie or tort) is found in most Italian pastisserias. We made us ours with flour, butter, sugar, and one egg. We used a jar of apricot preserves for the filling. Again, learning to roll the dough out properly was a lesson for all of us.

Cuoco Soldi was a patient and helpful teacher, even with students such as me who clearly had never rolled out pasta dough or made a pie. Rolling out enough pasta for three of us and then forming it by hand took all four of us, including the chef, about half an hour—definitely not cost efficient.

All told, the entire lesson in preparation and cooking took us about an hour and a half, after which we had the great pleasure of eating the fruits of our labors, accompanied by a lovely bottle of Pinot Grigio.

It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon—and I learned a lot of kitchen and food vocabulary as well.