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Zurers in Italy 2018

Italy 2018: Wednesday, May 2: Day 16: Udine

It's a bit overcast after breakfast as we head to the Castello ... it's a pretty steep climb and there is no bus on weekdays. But the lady at the tourist office made an excellent suggestion -- we should take a cab. The ride from the our hotel takes about two minutes and only costs seven euro ... money well spent. We are a bit early so we walk around the grounds and look at the views -- both north to the mountains


and south over the city.


There is a monumental staircase in front of the Castello


but luckily there is a ground floor entrance behind the staircase.

Before we enter, I take a couple of shots of two stones with Latin inscriptions to send to our friend Maureen who "collects" them.



Inside the museum, we start with a quick look at the Risorgimento Museum, where the explanations are all in Italian ... but there are interesting displays about Garibaldi and the various stages of the effort to unify Italy in the mid-19th century.

The archaeology section is different than many museums in that features displays about the founders and donors of the collections as well as the usual holdings of Greek and Roman artifacts.

arch_sala_2.jpg

photo from the internet - www.civicimuseiudine.it

The coin collection is especially extensive and nicely displayed.

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photo from the internet - www.civicimuseiudine.it

and we are very impressed with a video lecture (in Italian but with English subtitles) about the uses of death in different societies by an Italian professor named Nicola Gasparro. I wish I could find a link to it ....

The picture gallery is quite extensive and beautifully mounted. This picture is attributed to Caravaggio


and Diana really liked this portrait.


This picture is notable for the scene of Udine ... the piazza Liberta and the Castello in the background.


And I am always happy to add a Last Supper (Ultima Cena) to my collection.

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photo from the internet - i.pinimg.com

Lunch is at a very old style osteria called Pieri Mortadele where we have sandwiches on the best bread we have had on the trip so far. We wanted to buy several loaves to take with us ...

osteria-pieri-mortadele.jpg

photo from the internet - media-cdn.tripadvisor.com

Laundry is next on the agenda ... we get in the car and drive to the nearby town of Cividale di Friuli, a very old Lungobard town dating back to the 6th century. We locate the laundromat and do our laundry without any problem. Another customer is there and we talk a bit ... he is a cook. We discuss where we can find the crisp version of frico that I have been looking for but he suggests that I have to go further north into the mountains where it is more common.

On the way to the laundromat, we drive through a short tunnel which is part of the Venetian Arsenal


and I notice this inscription -- in Hebrew -- on the inside wall.


We later learn that Cividale had a significant Jewish population in the middle ages and there are many other inscriptions in Hebrew in the courtyard of the Archaelogical Museum which we will have to see on our next visit.

We then do some sightseeing in town ... the terrific Archaelogical Museum with beautifully mounted displays and well written explanations in English of the Lungobard influence -- they orginally came from Scandinavia on their way to the Italian peninsula.

We then walk over to the main attraction in town ... the Tempietto Lungobard ... a small chapel from the the 8th century now part of a convent. It is well preserved with statues of saints, frescoes and intricate carvings on the walls.

Cividale7.jpg

photo from the internet - www.turismoitalianews.it

Cividale_Lombarda.jpg

photo from the internet - www.longobardinitalia.net

On the way out, there is a walkway that gives you an idyllic panorama over the river and the town.

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photo from the internet - media5.trover.com

As we leave Cividale, we pass this statue of Julius Caesar who is said to have founded the town.

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photo from the internet - i.pinimg.com

Dinner is at a very attractive restaurant literally around the corner from the hotel ... Antica Trattoria Maddalena. We are seated in a back room and ignored for about 15 minutes. We are beginning to wonder if we have become invisible in Udine restaurants. Finally a waitress appears, apologizes and takes our order. This turns out to be the best meal we have in Udine ... I finally get my frico croccante (which is still different than I remember but good). I have a big bowl of mussels in red sauce and linguine with shrimp and scallops. Diana has a cheese plate and a grilled branzino followed by a pear cake with vanilla sauce. The house white wine is easy to drink ...

Tomorrow we leave for Asolo in the foothills of the Dolomites.

Jim and Diana
 
Jim, so cool to see you still love and are traveling to Italy. I have been leading my Italy Retreats for 10 years now. Will always remember your help. Maybe we'll see each other in Italy some day.

Hi Lenora....good to hear from you. Yes I do remember when you were getting started....glad to hear that you are continuing to bring people here. When is your next retreat?

Would be great to meet sometime in Italy.

JIm
 
Italy 2018: Wednesday, May 3: Day 17: Udine - Asolo

After breakfast, we pack up, check out and say our goodbyes to Antonella, the very friendly manager of the Mercatovecchio Luxury Suites. Before leaving we stop at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art which is located in the remodeled Casa Cavazzini. One of the attractions for us is that they have a Carlo Levi painting in the collection. (Levi, the author of Christ Stopped at Eboli, was a painter as well and we bought one of his still lifes on a visit to Matera years ago.)

There is a James Rosenquist exhibit on the main floor ... which Diana is quite taken with -- very bright colors and inventive designs.



This museum is yet another treasure ... art works beautifully displayed and many very appealing.

Some of our favorites ...




and of course, the natura morte (still life) by Carlo Levi.


There is also an apartment of a previous owner of the palazzo that has been restored and has one room that is painted from floor to ceiling ...



Another amazing modern art gallery ...

We take one last stroll around the center ... the Piazza Liberta with the Venetian clock tower and the Venetian winged lion

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photo from the internet - i.pinimg.com

the Palladio designed arch that opens onto the road up to the Castello

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photo from the internet - italiannotes.com

the Loggia di Lionello ... another Venetian inspired landmark

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photo from the internet - wikimedia.org

and the painted buildings facing the busy Piazza Matteotti.


Asolo is only a two hour drive from Udine in the Veneto region but it has a completely different feel ... it is a hill town in the foothills of the Dolomites. We have an adventurous ride up to the center ... our GPS is set for shortest distance (to avoid autostradas) and we are puzzled when we are directed to turn off the main road and take a road through a residential area. The road begins to climb and gets narrower and much curvier. It is a beautiful ride but several times we have to work out how to get past when another car comes from the opposite direction. (NOTE: check setting on GPS before setting out.)

This is a good time for me to mention that I am happy to have an automatic transmission car on this trip. We have always rented manuals in the past and they have been fine ... but on hilly and curvy roads, I have found it much more relaxing not having to worry about the clutch and changing gears.

The small historic center of Asolo is set on the side of a hill ... the main square is very attractive with the Fontana Maggiore in the middle.



The view to the north towards the Dolomites is striking.


We sit in the Cafe Central on the main square with some prosecco and watch the passing scene before having dinner at a very stylish restaurant called Le Due Mori. We enter from the back through an open kitchen with a few tables and are surprised as we walk through to the main dining room which has a floor to ceiling window overlooking the view I took a picture of (see above).


Most of the customers in the restaurant are not Italian and one group is very noisy. The meal is mostly very good. I had a plate of tagliatelle with lamb ragu and beef cheeks in a rich sauce with potatoes. Diana enjoyed her delicate ravioli filled with ricotta but her second -- a pork roast -- was too tough to enjoy. We drink an excellent red wine from the nearby hills.

We have a nice walk home in the quiet streets. Tomorrow we are going to a museum in nearby Possagno which has many of the plaster models for the works of sculptor Antonio Canova.

Jim and Diana
 
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Italy 2018: Sunday, May 13: Day 27: Lerici-Rome: STATUS UPDATE

Just wanted to let you know that today we are leaving Lerici for Rome and the last four days of our trip.

Due to my inability to keep up with the reports, you have missed reading about our adventures in Asolo, Crema and here in Lerici.

We very much enjoyed our stays in the Veneto hill town of Asolo and in the surprisingly (to us) beautiful and pleasant small city of Crema in Lombardia. And we are especially happy to have been able to return to one of our favorite places in Italy -- Lerici.


I don't promise but I will try to at least write short recaps of the missing days ...

In any case, I apologize to my loyal readers for the gap in the reports.

Jim
 
Italy 2018: Friday, May 11: Day 25: Lerici: GUEST POST

Our good friend Maureen Fant and her husband Franco Filippi joined us for the weekend in Lerici and she has again (as she did in Sicily a few years ago) graciously provided a guest report for the Zurers in Italy 2018. Thanks Maureen.

I can’t say it was exactly a lazy day in Lerici, since anywhere you go involves going up or down quite a few stairs, but it was certainly a low-pressure and enjoyable day.

Our train left Roma Termini at 6.57 and reached La Spezia less than four hours later. Two points to note about La Spezia station: the toilets cost €1, and it is thronged with foreigners going to the Cinque Terre, whether or not they even knew what, or where, they are. Throngs of, say, commuters move in determined directions, but throngs of tourists going to the Cinque Terre move randomly. With big suitcases. Or backpacks.

The sky was about the color of Jim and Diana’s gray Mercedes, but by the time we reached our terrace on the top floor of the Doria Park Hotel (an upgrade thanks to the magic Zurer name), the sun was shining on the Golfo dei Poeti below us, and the weather continued to improve.


Literary note: the poets are, specifically, Byron and Shelley, the swim champions of the Romantic movement (there has to be a Monty Python sketch there). Our room is named for Mary Shelley. I reminded Franco that she was the author of Frankenstein.

Down, down to the water’s edge and main piazza to look for some lunch … we wound up at a cute little place (click to see how cute {link needed} ) that offered sandwiches and anchovies. I had tuna on focaccia, which did nothing to change my mind that Ligurian focaccia is one of Italy’s biggest scams, and if you don’t believe me, go to Campo de’ Fiori and have a slice of Roman pizza bianca to compare. Nevertheless, I’d go back for the relaxed seaside ambience and would order the anchovies.


Our route back to the hotel, up various stairs, took us along the harbor and sunbather-strewn rocks up to the castle’s gate, but the castle was closed. This mattered only to Franco, who never met a castle he didn’t like.


After aperitivi on the hotel terrace, we drove to the outskirts of Sarzana, near the Tuscan border, to a trattoria recommended by the Slow Food guide. Well …. not for the first time, I beg to differ. The place consisted of three rooms, of which only one contained tables (maybe a half dozen?), rustic, but in the style that suggests the rusticity was designed rather than inherited. Still, it was a nice old super-casual place run by two very pleasant women of a certain age. No wine list, no stemware, keep your forks please. The menu had two sections, dessert and everything else. You had to work out for yourself what was an antipasto, primo, and secondo. There was no pasta, one assumes because it would have to be made to order and would thus slow down the already glacial pace. We ordered practically everything. The first round of starters were gratined stuffed onions and zucchini flavored with an abundance of nutmeg. Barbotta, a pizza-like tart with zucchini, and farinata with fresh anchovies, were excellent. But then came testaroli (a Ligurian thing: large-bite-size pieces cut from a big spongy sort of pancake), some of which had had an infinitesimal amount of pesto applied, and mesciua, a watery soup of chickpeas, cannellini, and an infinitesimal amount of farro from which all flavor had been extracted and, in compensation, a literal drop of extra virgin olive oil had been applied out of view of the table. Stuffed saddle of rabbit and cima alla genovese were decent if you like those particular dishes. Homemade mirto was good. I’m probably forgetting something, but it doesn’t matter since we’re not going back.





maureenbfant.com
elifanttours.com
 
Italy 2018: Friday to Sunday: May 4-6: Days 18 - 20: Asolo

In an effort to catch up, I am combining our days in Asolo into one report.

We really liked the town of Asolo ... very compact -- just a few streets around the main piazza, which is ringed with cafes and restaurants, a big public parking lot and the big fountain. We spent a good amount of time in the Cafe Centrale drinking prosecco and people watching.

We made several excursions during our stay to neighboring towns. The famous 19th century sculptor Antonio Canova was born and is buried in Possagno and there is a big museum of his plaster casts as well as an imposing "tempio" dedicated to him. Canova's most famous works are the scandalous, partially nude Josephine Bonaparte and, for Americans, his statue of George Washington which was commissioned by the State of North Carolina but destroyed in a fire. (Thanks to Curren McLane we now know that the lions outside the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC are by him.)

His house has been restored and there are many exhibits which explain how he and his workshop went about creating his marble sculptures. But the highlight is the Gypsoteca ... a display of hundreds of his plaster model in several rooms -- a truly impressive sight.



This room of the museum is designed by the very well-known Italian architect, Carlo Scarpa, and has a drastically different feel than the other rooms.


Here is a shot of the mad photographer at work ...


We make a quick stop at Canova's burial site ... a massive building at the top of a hill.


In the evening, we climb the hill in Asolo to the convent of S.S. Pietro and Paolo for a recital of the Goldberg Variations by Italian harpsichordist Roberto Loreggian. Before the free recital -- there are about 25 people in the audience -- there is a discussion about Bach and the Variations. But it is in Italian and we don't understand much. However, the recital is lovely and we are very glad we made the effort.

On Saturday, we head out first to another Carlo Scarpa work -- the Tomba Brioni -- in the neighboring town of Altivole. Scarpa was commissioned by the industrialist Giuseppe Brion to design a complex adjacent to the town cemetery as a memorial and burial place for the family. The tomb and chapel are quite striking and seem to be an important stop on an architectural itinerary in the area.




We drive on to Feltre -- a very attractive walled city shadowed by high mountains -- which we had visited on a previous trip. We have a bit of a problem breaching the walls (on our previous visit, we drove right into the centro but it is now restricted) but we find a staircase and make our way into the center. Our destination is the local modern art gallery which is in the house of the local wrought iron (ferro battuto) artist, Carlo Rizzarda. One floor of the museum is devoted to his work which is spectacular ...

Here is a selection of the works on display ...





The rest of the museum is also quite interesting and there is a special exhibition of works by an artist who did a lot of adveritising and propaganda posters during the Fascist era.


There are also lovely views from the windows looking out onto the green hills


as well as some beautiful leaded glass windows.



The drive to and from Feltre -- through the Piave River valley -- is beautiful; the steep hills are covered with all shades of spring green.

The sun comes out in the afternoon and I walk up the steep path to the rocca at the top of Asolo which is closed for restoration (in restauro).



In the evening, we again take advantage of Asolo's music scene. In our hotel at breakfast, we started talking to a woman who is a mezzo-soprano from the Czech Republic. She is giving a recital that night in the town hall with a local pianist. This time, the room was packed. We enjoy most of the concert -- they alternate duets with solo piano pieces -- and especially like the songs by the Italian composer Leoncavallo.

randova-favero.jpg

photo from the internet - Edita Randova and Valter Favero - www.malipieroasolo.it

continued in next post
 
continued from post above

On Sunday, the weather is sunny and warm again. Asolo is hopping -- there is a big food festival set up in the main square and the residents are dressed up in medieval costumes, flag throwers are putting on a show and there is dancing in the streets.






I take this opportunity to climb the tower in the Asolo castello which is open today.


This tower has been renovated inside with easy steps and a bell on the top floor.



But the main event for me are the views over the town and countryside ...



After lunch we take a short drive following the local wine route, and then stop at the very fancy and beautiful Villa Cipriani hotel in Asolo for an aperitivo. The grounds are lovely and the surroundings are elegant ... well worth the premium price for the prosecco.




Tomorrow we head to Crema.

Jim and Diana

P.S. Another book report from Diana

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott. What are the odds that I'd read two books in a row about nuns? This novel is a gem - I highly recommend it. Here's a link to a NY Times review by Mary Gordon which says it better than I could:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/books/review/the-ninth-hour-alice-mcdermott.html

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. This is another in that Hogarth Shakespeare series and it is terrific. The Tempest is the play and Atwood's brilliant book, which Jim recommended to me, features a Shakespeare festival director who's been fired and then puts on The Tempest in a prison. Here's a link to a Guardian review that will give you a good idea of why I'm so enthusiastic:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/06/hag-seed-the-tempest-retold-by-margaret-atwood
 
Italy 2018: Saturday May 12: Day 26: Lerici: GUEST REPORT

Here is Maureen's report from Saturday....thanks again.

Today was a social day. One of Jim’s many gifts is his determination to put together and maintain his network of Italian-travel-related friends and acquaintances. All of us blessed to be members benefit in many ways, among which is meeting one another. And so it was that we spent a large part of the day with Pauline (SlowTrav) Kenny and her husband, Steve Cohen, brains behind the SlowEurope site.


The morning took us to the throbbing heart of Lerici (sea level), where all the Spandex we’d seen at breakfast in the hotel was mustering for a triathlon, adding to the festive atmosphere. Jim had a date with Megan McCaffrey, a local travel agent (California native), so we all had coffee and observed the Zurer network in action.


But soon we had to hightail it out of town before Lerici cut itself off from the world (i.e., closed the roads) for the triathlon.

By then it was getting on to lunchtime anyway. We said goodbye to Megan, climbed the stairs to the hotel parking lot, and drove back to Sarzana. The plan for lunch was to be footloose and find something we liked, which turned out to be La Bettola di Nonna Felicità, which Jim had eyed at the beginning of our survey of the piazza.


Everything else looked either insufficient (panini) or touristy, while the Bettola menu consisted of typical Lunigiana dishes. (Lunigiana is the territory on either side of the Liguria-Toscana border; it has its own culinary specialties, once again proving my point that in Italy one should use the term “regional cooking” with caution). It was a bit of a challenge choosing. Pauline is vegetarian, Steve doesn’t eat much cheese or meat, and the rest of us were trying to save room for dinner. So Pauline and Steve ordered linguine with pesto, but also potatoes and green beans, the full treatment. The rest of us ordered antipasti and contorni, which is always a solution when you want to pretend you’re going to eat like a bird. We had fried veg (lot of zucchini), crostini toscani (don’t ask don’t tell), fried anchovies, stuffed mussels (that’s what I forgot that we had the night before, stuffed mussels; these were better), panizza (chickpea polenta sliced and fried like cornmeal mush) with scales of pecorino, and sgabei (= panzanelle I think), which are strips of fried bread dough, served with creamy cheese (stracchino? certosino?) and excellent assorted affettate (cold cuts). Most of us had strawberries next. Everybody was happy.



Next something semi-cultural, the Castello Malaspina of Fosdinovo over the border in Tuscany. Eric Newby, the esteemed English travel writer, had lived in the village and set A Small Place in Italy there.

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photo from the internet

Thus we had some lit-gab until it emerged that what was really on people’s minds was shopping, not homage to a DWM, however esteemed. Franco wanted to take the €8 50-minute tour of the castle (see yesterday), caring not a fig for either Newby or the shops. I went with Franco. The tour began with instruments of torture, which I could have done without, and included some ghosts and such jive, and a lot of 19th-century furniture (presented almost apologetically, but at one point the guide allowed as how it was nice anyway). There were views and lots to see but the impression was of a 19th-century mansion more than a 12th-century castle (except for the torture tools).

By the time we finished the tour, Pauline and Steve had flown the coop and Jim and Diana had learned that the nice linen shop had moved away. Reviewing his notes from 2006, which he accessed in a nanosecond, Jim recalled that they had bought a wedding present there. Coincidentally, Franco and I had been the lucky recipients of those very nice soft monogrammed towels, so even if we couldn’t visit the shop, we had a moment.



We had had various recommendations for dinner and went with Il Fico, about ten minutes down the road from Lerici, which our informant believed ready for a Michelin star (it’s not). Dinner started strong with a flute of a lovely small-producer-in-Trentino spumante (never got the name) and a fried anchovy on panizza and lemon mayonnaise. The place is comfortable, with fairly spare but upmarket decor, and rather intrusive music, which eventually blended with the Saturday night buzz to make conversation seriously difficult.

The menu consisted of three tasting menus at different (reasonable) prices, and we were invited to mix and match. Everyone else mixed, but I wanted to try the menu (the middle one) just the way it was written. It began with very tender octopus in tiny pieces on a bed of creamy cauliflower. Delicate, we declared. The next was pasta with swordfish, olives, and capers, no tomatoes and chromatically similar to the octopus. We tried to give it the benefit of the doubt and call it delicate too, but we felt it really needed an escalation of oomph. Other menus included the impepato of mussels, which involved a lot of black pepper and lime (not used in Italian tradition because never seen in Italy until about the day before yesterday). Jim and Franco both ordered it and I tasted. Far from bland, but far from interesting and tasty too. The secondo was ombrina, a white fish of the genus “doesn’t taste fishy.” Unfortunately it was, though well prepared, as bland as everything else. For dessert I chose a cooked pear with red wine and mascarpone. What could go wrong, I thought. I think they forgot to cook the pear. Jim wanted panna cotta (of course) but what they proposed was latte cotto “in piedi,” i.e., standing up. No, it was definitely lying down, more or less like a hockey puck, drowning in I think strawberries. Good service, cordial welcome, all friendly and competent, but it don’t mean a thing if the food ain’t got zing.

(Some of the dishes from Il Fico)





Maureen
 
You got me.....I have been meaning to write a final report wrapping up our final days in Italy but I haven't done it yet.

Crema was excellent...we got go see a lot of the locations from Call Me By Your Name. But, on top of that, the town is extremely attractive and lively--a nice place to hang out. Our visit was enriched by being able to spend time with the people from Crema we had met in Gorizia. They were very hospitable, inviting us to their home, taking us on a tour of the area and treating us to dinner in a typical Cremanasco trattoria.
 
Hii Jim
I just finished reading your entire trip report. It was fabulous! I love all the details. I admire your patience and commitment. I lose steam rather quickly. I also never remember what I ate or even where unless it was particularly memorable. Thanks for this one.
 
Hi Lisa....thanks for your kind words. I am glad that you enjoyed the reports. I also run out of steam and you will not that the last week or so of the trip are not covered...even though I have the best of intentions.
 

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