I got back from my travels Monday night. On Tuesday morning I watched the debate that I had recorded (it aired at 2 AM here), did laundry, and worked on the blog.

Gord had tickets to take the students to see Kinky Boots Tuesday night, and there was an extra ticket that I was able to use. It was interesting to see the London production, somewhat different from the Broadway one. The British accents were better, obviously. Amy Lennox, who plays the role of Lauren, was fantastic. The rest of the cast was great, too, but she stood out, in my opinion. The stage in London was smaller than NY, but it seemed to work well.

On Wednesday, I worked some more on the blog and did some more laundry, towels this time. I'm trying to figure out how to get the towels done on the morning we leave in December, because they take so long. I've been trying out different machine settings to see which is the fastest. The regular cotton setting takes over two hours just to wash them! Then the landlord doesn't want us using the dryer during the day because electricity is apparently much less expensive at night. She wants us to hang the towels on the drying rack and then when they are almost dry to finish them in the dryer. So it is really a full-day procedure. And on the same morning we will have bed linens to wash as well. I may have to check out a laundromat....

On Wednesday night, we went to see Donmar Warehouse's production of The Tempest at King's Cross Theatre, which is about a twelve-minute walk from us. I really like the Donmar's productions. We saw them do Henry IV at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn almost three years ago. (And they will be bringing The Tempest there in January, in case anyone wants to book tickets.) The Tempest, like Henry IV, uses an all-female cast directed by Phyllida Lloyd with Dame Harriet Walter in the leading role. Both plays are set in a prison and many of the actors we saw in Brooklyn were also in this production. One of the standouts (although they were all excellent) was Jade Anouka, who plays Ariel (and Hotspur in Henry IV). They are also doing Julius Caesar (Jade Aouka plays Mark Anthony), and I'm planning to get tickets to see that in November. I'm sure it will also be set in a prison. Several times this fall they are doing all three plays back-to-back. As much as I enjoy them, I'm pretty certain I would not be able to do a marathon viewing.

I finished and posted the Italy blog entry Wednesday night, although I could have tightened it up a little, and I couldn't get the videos to play. Sometimes you just have to let it go.

Today, Thursday, we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum to see the exhibition You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966 - 1970. Gord is bringing his class next week and he wanted to preview it. What a nostalgic afternoon! It covered a lot of things, much more than I expected. They talked about the Swinging London of the mid-1960s, the music, fashion, film, and cultural scene. There were lots of Beatles stuff, including Richard Avedon's photos, but then it shifted to elsewhere in the world, a lot about the US (race struggles, Kennedy, Vietnam, the moon landing) and Canada (Expo '67 had a large area of one gallery, and there was another section that mentioned George F. G. Stanley who designed the Canadian flag). Design and marketing factored in as well. I learned about Alice Herz, an 82-year-old Detroit woman who set herself on fire in March 1965 to protest the Vietnam war. I was a month shy of 11 years old at the time and was living right across the river from her, so why had I never heard of her before? The show reminded me a little of the David Bowie exhibition in Bologna (also organized by the V&A). I really like the automatic headsets that change as you move to different areas/rooms. I do think they could have done a better job with the placement of the wall text and labels. They were much better suited for someone in a wheelchair, which is a nice thing, but some of the signage needed better lighting and could only be read if you were kneeling. A mannequin dressed in a Mary Quant outfit was blocking most of another wall text. I suppose it was made worse by the crowds of people--so much for the timed entry. We were as guilty as everyone else, though, because we were there 2-1/2 hours. I would have stayed longer to watch more of Woodstock.

We took another half hour to wander around the main floor of the museum. With museums of this size, I always try to notice something that might be overlooked if you were walking down a corridor. Here is what I found today.

It's hard to believe these ceramics are 700-800 years old. They are from the Koryo Dynasty of Korea and were made for Buddhist temples. The detail shows up much better on my phone than it does here, but there are floral motifs, phoenixes, and cranes on the bowl, inlaid and painted under a celadon glaze. The bottle is inlaid with chrysanthemums and glazed.

After the museum, we went over to the Pretty Green store on Carnaby Street to an Art in a Corner private view of 23 photographs that Robert Whitaker took of The Beatles when they were in Japan in 1966. Jann Haworth, the cover artist for the Sgt. Pepper album, had a new painting that was also displayed. I liked some, but not all, of Whitaker's photos. (Thanks, Jo, for sending us the invitation.)

So it was quite a Beatles-filled day for us.

Some observations about being in London this year as opposed to nine years ago:
1. More men walk around with backpacks, and seem oblivious about the extra space they take up. I noticed this in Saratoga this summer, too, so I don't think it's a London/UK thing.
2. More men are offering up their seats to me on the subway, and I have mixed feelings about it. I know I'm nine years older, but that doesn't classify me as elderly, does it? I'm pretty sure the gentleman today was older than me. I'm still capable of standing up. On the other hand, it is rather nice to be able to sit.

Travels in Italy

This is what I've been up to for the past 2+ weeks. I met up with my sister Molly. At the Rome airport she rented a car for our travels. She had pre-booked an economy car, but, since we were heading north, they decided to upgrade her to a Volvo SUV that they were trying to get back to France. Great for the autostrada, but quite challenging for the tiny streets in the towns and cities we're visiting. Molly, however, is doing a superb job.

We first drove to Bracciano in the region of Lazio where we stayed at a lovely villa owned by this very sweet gentleman who took very good care of all of his guests. Since we arrived after dark and hadn't eaten, he arranged a ride into town (2+ km.) and back for us. Bracciano has a lake and a castle, neither of which we had time to visit. The castle, Castello Orsini-Odescalchi was the wedding venue for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, and Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini.

One of the many lovely things in the villa's garden

Tiny view of the lake from the villa

Then it was on to Umbria, and our first stop was Orvieto. We found a very nice place to have lunch, Trattoria da Carlo.

Carlo was quite the chef and quite the charmer. We ended up at Argillae, his wife Giulia's winery 15 minutes up the road.

They were a lovely young couple, both very passionate about their careers. And the wine was very good.

Our next stop was Todi, our base for a few days. Todi is another pretty medieval town with Roman origins that requires a lot of uphill walking. We're staying in an apartment with access to a rooftop terrace with seating and a drying rack for our clothes--and this place has a washing machine!

One of the narrow streets

View from our window

We went to Spoleto one day where we met up with an acquaintance of Molly. Richard walked us around the town, giving us a history as we went.

He has spent a lot of time here and is an artist in addition to being a tour guide. He took us to the place where he is living with his wife and two daughters, to show us some of his artwork, probably with the hope that we would buy some of it. He paints in watercolor and his work is very abstract. I liked it, but didn't love it, and schlepping it around was out of the question. He is currently living in the home of Marina Mahler who is the granddaughter of Gustav and Alma Mahler and daughter of the sculptor Anna Mahler (her sculptures were all over the house).

After lunch, Richard accompanied us to Montefalco, another little town with a long history and pretty piazza.

After we wandered around, we went to our appointment at Cantina Paolo Bea, a prominent wine producer. What an amazing place! Giampiero Bea was a very gracious host, showing us around his cantina. He was trained as an architect and the care and attention to detail in the beautiful cantina building he designed and built in 2006 was impressive. His philosophy about wine producing was equally impressive. He believes that one should interfere as little as possible with nature, that one should work with the inconsistencies of nature. All of their grapes, and olives too, are picked by hand (and I dare say with love). He, alone, set our tasting table, folding the napkins and placing them perfectly in one corner of the paper placemat that he had carefully set down. He took equally good care of preparing the glasses in the tradition of avvinare--by pouring in a small amount of wine to season the glass, swirling it around, pouring it into the next glass and repeating the process. He brought out some food, beautifully presented of course, to accompany the six or so wines that he poured. I wish I could have bought more than one bottle to bring back to Gord. At the end, we met his father, Paolo, and his mother (who wouldn't pose for a photo).

Another day, Molly went back to Spoleto to meet with an olive oil producer/supplier and to have lunch with Elenora who had lived with Molly for about four months years ago (Katie, you will remember meeting her when you and I were in Minneapolis probably nine or ten years ago). I stayed back to explore Todi, visiting two of its churches, two of its 30+ Roman cisterns, and enjoying its streets and views. I did get a little anxious down in the cisterns, when the two other people down there left, as I thought about the recent earthquake in Amatrice and how Molly would never find me if I were buried beneath the Piazza del Popolo in Todi should there be a similar quake! The hard hat I was wearing wouldn't protect me from that.

Molly picked me up mid-afternoon and we drove up to Deruta, a town known for its hand-painted ceramics. Of course it was touristy, but we found some interesting shops and Molly found a "few" pieces to bring home. We had intended to have dinner there but, according to one of the sons in the family-owned shop where she made her purchases, Deruta is not known for its restaurants. We drove back to Todi to the Piazza del Popolo. In the Gran Caffe, we were directed, in Italian, to a restaurant about which Molly had heard (Ristorante Umbria). We got in the car and drove in the direction of the restaurant. This brought us down the narrowest street yet, which was made worse by the fact that it made a 75 degree turn at one point. Molly, like a pro, was able to get the SUV through, with literally only about an inch to spare. When we got down to the bottom of the town, and couldn't find the restaurant, I used the gps on my phone only to realize it was two blocks from the piazza where we had parked! So we had to drive all the way up again, park and then walk the short distance to the restaurant, which turned out to be well worth it.

We left Umbria behind and set off for the Republic of San Marino. It was a beautiful drive through the mountains with some amazing views, which I would have enjoyed had I not been hanging on for dear life. The gps in our car was having a bad day (Molly has started calling her Strega, or witch), and she took us in a not-very-direct route. We ended up on a cow path that abruptly ended after a climb of about two miles.

We backtracked, found another route, and arrived eventually. We took the funicular up to the City of San Marino where we joined the masses. I was not prepared for the number of tourists who apparently had the same idea we did. We walked around, caught a bit of the changing of the guard in the Piazza della Liberta in front of the Palazzo Pubblico, and had some lunch.

The drive to Bologna was a lot less terrifying. Bologna is a beautiful city in the region of Emilia-Romagna, and a good place to be if you encounter rain, which we did. It is a city of porticoes, or arched colonnades, that protect you from the elements. And they are beautiful.

Bologna is also known for its gastronomy, the Lyon of Italy, if you will, but I am here to tell you that this does not extend to their bread, which is dry and tasteless. But I'm willing to sacrifice the bread for the tagliatelle al ragu Bolognese and the tortellini en brodo.

Bologna is also known for having the oldest university in the world, founded in 1088, as well as being a center for culture and the arts, especially music. I would love to be able to spend a few months exploring this city. A few days is not enough.

While Molly went off to meet a manufacturer of pasta-making tools our first morning, I went off to find a place to buy a SIM card for my cell phone. I was eventually successful but had to go back the next morning to get the data to work.

On one of our days in Bologna, we visited the Museo d'Arte Moderna and saw the exhibition David Bowie Is, organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and curated by Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh. It opened at the V&A in 2013 and then went to Chicago, Sao Paolo, Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Melbourne, and Groningen. It was very interesting and I learned far more about Bowie and gained a better appreciation of him than I had when I was in college.

On our way to Piedmonte, we stopped in Parma to have lunch. Strega again took us on some one-lane roads, first to a restaurant on a farm outside Parma that was closed that day, then to a place where there was a wedding (or some kind of celebration), before we finally found a ristorante that we read had al fresco dining under a pergola. We chose to eat inside, however, as there was a radio blaring under the pergola. It turned out to be a nice little Michelin-rated place, though, called Parma Rotta.

We then drove to Acqui Terme, a nice city famous for its hot sulphur springs and its brachetto d'acqui red wine. It was a good little walking city, too, and Molly, I think, enjoyed not having any meetings with suppliers.

We spent a Saturday night here and thought that there would not be much happening on Sunday. Were we wrong! We awoke to the sounds of band music, as in marching band. We went out to explore and found not one but five bands participating in what seemed to be a competition. They represented five area cities, including Acqui Terme. Initially they formed individual groups, standing in a semicircle next to each other and alternating playing songs. Then one at a time each band marched off in the direction of the upper part of the city. We stopped for caffe, wandered around the city some more and shopped a bit. After lunch we heard the music again, coming from another square. An announcer in front of a big stage would say a few words, then one of the bands would march around the corner and into the square and line up. This continued until all bands had arrived.

We supposed they would announce the winners, but we got sidetracked by a store where we purchased purses and we never did find out what happened.

We left for Monforte d'Alba (Barolo country!) about 4:00. It was just over an hour's drive to the winery where we were staying, but it was another trip through winding, climbing, narrow roads and it seemed much longer to me. But La Torricella offered beautiful views and it was worth the journey. We met up with my nephew Thomas and his wife Annie, and Jeff, the chef at Terzo in Minneapolis. We had a fabulous dinner at Trattoria della Posta, a 15-minute walk down the road. Agnolotti!

I have no recollection of what we did the next day, but that night we had a wonderful meal at Davide Palluda's all'Enoteca. It was my first time at a restaurant where you had to buzz in to gain entry and then take an elevator up to the restaurant. Davide was very charming and personable.  Thomas and Jeff got a tour of the kitchen.

The next day we were very fortunate to get a tour of the Giacomo Conterno winery in Monforte by Giacomo's grandson Roberto, who now runs the winery. We were treated to a tasting of the wines right from the barrels and we were able to compare vintages. Roberto was very gracious to take the time to do this, as they are about to start harvesting the grapes.

La Torricella has many beautiful paintings on the walls of their inn that we have admired since we arrived. Most are by Claudio Durando who lives in Dogliani. We decided to drive there for lunch and try to see some art. We found a nice little place to eat, Ristorante Farinel, run by a friendly couple from Torino. They had a unique item on their menu that of course we had to order. It was tortellini in warm red wine, literally, that's what it was. Apparently people remember their grandparents eating/drinking it. I'm glad that we ordered it, but would not try it again. No photo.

Dogliani seems to be an art town, with a lot of interesting looking galleries. However, all were closed, even during the opening hours listed on their doors. We saw some great art through the windows. Claudio Durando had a show with a sculptor, Fabrizio Argonauta. I would like to have one of his pieces in my garden and one of Durando's in my house. I guess it was probably a good thing that the gallery was closed.

That night we had dinner at Alberto Ristorante Felicin, right in Monforte. We got off on the wrong foot with the chef when we didn't go along with his insistent recommendation that we do his tasting menu, but it meant that we would all have to have the same dishes that he selected. I learned from the previous night that when you dine at a restaurant with my sister and any of my nephews you have to try as many dishes as possible and quite often you order an extra dish for the table, so we politely declined. He ignored us for the rest of the evening. The dishes were good, maybe not great, but they redeemed themselves with the beautifully quivering panna cotta. Thomas took the first of what would be several slow motion videos of this dessert over the coming days.

I believe it was that night that it started pouring rain just as we returned to our inn. Once in my room and sitting in bed, I felt a drop on my head. Then I saw and heard drops next to me on the bed sheets. I got up and found water all over the floor on the far side of the bed and running down the wall. My room has a loft with a small bed and a beautiful window through which I took photos the morning before.

I remember closing the window when I was finished. But tonight when I shone my phone's flashlight up towards the window I saw that one-half of it was open. I grabbed some towels, climbed the steep, crude stairs to the loft, shut the window and started mopping up the water. I mopped downstairs as well, and the ceiling. Just as I was about to turn off the light, a fly, or so I thought, started buzzing around. Only it was a wasp, not a fly. I got up, opened the door to my balcony and hoped it would fly out. I lost sight of it, but didn't see it again, so I closed up the door and eventually went to sleep. I kept thinking how fortunate it was that nobody (meaning Gord!) was sharing the bed with me, because the sheets on that side were all wet. It would have been impossible to move to another room, as there are no phones in the rooms and the family who runs the winery/inn is off in another building, so we would not have been able to contact anyone. I survived and all was good the next day.

The next day we dropped Jeff off in Priocca where he was doing a stage at the restaurant where we were eating that night. Priocca was probably the most unexciting place we had been on this trip, with nary a caffe to be found (we did find one eventually). We then drove to Monteu Roero in the province of Cuneo to taste the wines at Azienda Agricola Negro. Emanuela Negro was a delightful woman and we tasted about 8 or 9 different wines (at 10 in the morning!) at this family-owned winery.

In the afternoon Molly and I went to the Fondacione Bottari Lattes to see a solo exhibition of the artist Roberto Demarchi, Forma, materia e spirito (Form, matter and spirit). His abstract works are based on the Old and New Testaments and some were quite beautiful. An added bonus was the view from the terrace of the foundation.

That night we returned to Priocca and ate yet another wonderful meal--at Ristorante il Centro. Jeff was able to sit down and join us for the meal, and we got a tour of their very impressive wine cellar at the end.

This was our last night at La Torricella. If anyone is looking to spend a month or two in Italy, the owners are interested in finding someone to teach their adorable young children English. It's a beautiful setting and could be a nice opportunity.

TheAlps, Monviso on the right.

And you would get to see the cute little robotic lawn mower they have.

Thursday we drove to Torino (Turin) for Terra Madre, Salone del Gusto, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Slow Food movement. This grassroots organization was begun by Carlo Petrini in Italy in response to the opening of the first McDonald's in Rome, and it is now a worldwide (150 countries) organization that promotes good, clean and fair food with a focus on local, indigenous and traditional foods. There were events and tastings throughout the city of Torino, hundreds of booths representing different regions of Italy and different countries. We had a tour of the fabulous Guido Gobino chocolate factory, a walking food tour that included a shop for antipasti, one for pasta, and a pasticceria for pastry. We visited the original Eataly. One night we partook of the food trucks and wine tasting, other nights we had some interesting meals at some local restaurants (including Ristorante Consorzio and Sotto la Mole). It wasn't all food, though. Molly and I found a great little shop, Simba, with a beautiful selection of scarves. We also did a lot of walking--one day we calculated that we walked at least ten miles. I can't begin to include everything we did, especially as this entry is too long as it is, but let the photos suffice.

The view into the back garden (from the French doors off the sitting room of our 3-bedroom flat).

Our last stop was in Arona, a town on Lake Maggiore where we did our last bit of shopping and eating.

It was a long but wonderful 2-1/2 weeks. Molly and I had a lot of good laughs, with a few stressful moments in between. We are both craving salad, and looking forward to some smaller meals. I hope the pasta withdrawal is not too painful.

Favorite sign: Exclamation point, sometimes by itself or sometimes with a graphic as in the photo below. It must mean Attenzione, or pay attention to something ahead.