Uncategorized

Ken and I were among those with the latest flight back to US, so we didn’t need to get up at the crack of dawn.  In fact, there was a little time to wander Asolo in search of lock for my bike case (with the bicycle carefully disassembled and packed by Vernon).  It turns out–as the concierge informed me when I asked for directions before setting off–that you can’t buy a lock in Asolo.  You’ve got to drive (or bike) to a larger town.  There are worse ways to spend a final morning in Italy than wandering the streets of Asolo on a fruitless quest.  So much of this blog has been about where we went, what we cooked and ate, that I haven’t had time to include as many pictures of where we  stayed, what our surroundings were like.  The Villa Cipriani is a luxury hotel in a converted 15th c. villa.  Its  lovely rear garden and tables overlook one of the spectacular views of the Veneto plain that seem to be around every turn in Asolo.  My only complaint is that the grave, dignified waiter on duty late in the evening insisted on recommending “grappa for women” (prompting Kathy to remark, “Oh, I get it — the sucky one!).  Still, a “feminine” grappa late in the evening in the Villa Cipriani is still a grappa late in the evening in the Villa Cipriani.

Villa Cipriani garden

It's humbling to watch bikers ripping from the base of Monte Rocca up through the village.

I guess Eleonora Duse must really have loved pasta with tomatoes, evoo and cheese. Me? I'd go for the roast porchetta with polenta.

Asolo itself is a stunning medieval/Renaissance village on the side of Mount Rocca.  Its charms have captured a host of luminaries  (in addition to John Malkovich)–Robert Browning and Elenora Duse, for example,  memorialized in the Via Robert Browning, the Hotel Duse, and even “Pasta alla Duse,” which includes tomatoes, local olive oil and “formaggion di malga,” an Italian alpine cow’s milk cheese made not far away.   And there is of course the famous Catarina Cornaro (late 15th c.), whose rather paranoid portrait hangs between the Cipriani concierge’s desk and the foot of the main stairwell and whose castle dominates the village skyline.  Venice acquired the kingdom of Cyprus by marrying Catarina, a member of a highly-regarded Venetian family, to the king of Cyprus – and then poisoned him.  Catarina was forced into exile  in Asolo, where she coined the term “asolare”  to describe her life of idleness and isolation.

Queen Caterina's castle

View from near the terrace of the restaurant Due Mori

I can’t tell you how much fun I’ve had this past week–octopus, Venice, rivers and canals, ristros, prosecco, sopressa, and learning to remember that my feet are fastened to my pedals, unless I unclip them–and all without gaining any weight!  Vernon and Kathy were the ideal guides and everyone pitched in to make it a great group.

You can't escape them!

Side view of Queen Caterina's towers

If our adventures through the Veneto countryside sound appealing, you  can find details about future trips, along with more pictures, at the ItaliaOutdoors link below.  Biking, cooking, eating–what’s not to like?

Arrivederci!  Ciao-ciao!

For more pictures of our trip go to Italiaoutdoors.

Our last ride of the trip was a tired cyclist’s fantasy–17 km.,  almost all of it downhill.  Only one hill in the entire ride.

I was  sorry when it ended.   I am definitely going to miss Palladian villas, canals, signless intersections, prosecco breaks and cruising past bucolic scenes like the one above.

Ken and I took a wrong turn so we were the last to arrive in Bassono del Grappa.  Everyone except Vernon and Kathy had gone on ahead to explore the town.  While we were stashing our gear Ken noticed an unusual memorial across the street – Viale dei Martiri – where we had parked.  It looked like a WWII era photograph above a graphic of a hangman’s noose, with a fresh flower.   A little research revealed that a the town held an annual September commemoration to honor the 31 partisans hung by the Waffen SS from the trees on the street where we were standing.  It was moving to see each of the trees with its little flowerpot and at the same time difficult to reconcile the summer afternoon of our visit with the events some 65 years ago.  Things were not always as they appear today.

Memorial for Italian partisan

Viale dei Martiri today

Although Bassano del Grappa is not named after  grappa, you’d never know it given the distillate’s influence on the town–the Jacobo Poli Grappa Museum and the Nardini  grapperia come immediately to mind, along with the hundreds of bottles displayed in storefronts.   Bassano does have a second culinary claim to fame: locals assert that white asparagus was invented here.  After a hailstorm destroyed the crops, farmers dug into the asparagus beds to discover if anything might be salvaged and – Miraculo! – found that the buried pale asparagus was delicious.

Notice all of the grappa bottles cunningly disguised as pork products.

Broadening the cultural context beyond food, strollers through the town will also see signs of the local ceramics, and Bassano del Grappa’s own link to Palladio – the Ponte Vecchio – a wooden bridge designed by the architect with an unusual degree of flexibility in order not to be carried away by current of the Brenta River when it flooded.

I don’t have a picture of the Ponte Vecchio, mainly because to take it we’d have had to move a considerable distance downstream.  Ken did take a picture from the bridge. 

The most entertaining event of the day was our visit to the Jacabo Poli Grappa Museum.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Abandon all hope. . .

I’m not here to drink. See, I’m holding pastries.

The museum is filled with wild copper and glass distilling apparatus.

One of Poli’s wonderful innovations is a sniffing room, with a variety of grappas that can be transformed into a aerosol mist with the push of button, giving you a chance to “taste” them.

So, how do you make these work?

Like this. . .

. . . and this.

Ron, I found one I liked.

I know what aroma it makes ME feel.

Sure beats riding around in the sun all day.

We'll take them all.

After the grappa museum (AND store), Ken and I wandered through the town with no obvious purpose other than to perhaps grab some lunch.  At the shop where I’d bought some pastries earlier we asked for a recommendation and were directed to Amadeus, a small ristorante tipica a couple of streets over.  To our chagrin the owner told us he had no openings for at least an hour and we watched enviously as construction workers in shorts and boots hurried past us to their seats.  The restaurant chalkboard outside said the day’s special was rabbit.  Malcontenti, we left, settling for pizza, but dreaming of rabbit.

Even knowing what lay ahead of us, I opted to ride back to Asolo on my bike, as did Ron.  I don’t think either of us were quite ready to call it quits.

That night we had a farewell dinner at the restaurant of the Villa Cipriani.  Everyone gathered in the sunroom adjacent to the terrace for a prosecco – our last ristro together.  Rosemarie’s husband Steve , their daughter Tessa and their good friend and expert  climber Rollo finished their hiking trip in the Dolomites in time to join us for dinner al fresco.  Kathy handed out awards for “Most Intrepid Tour Leader” (Rosemarie), “Most Likely to Replace Jody Adams in the Kitchen” (Emma), “Most Likely ot Reach the Top of the Hill First” (Ron), “Most Likely to Become a Butcher” (Robbie) and “Best Dressed” (Lena).  I got a signed Italia bike shirt to commemorate the trip.

On the LAST trip I made everyone ride up a hill like this!

For more pictures of our trip go to Italiaoutdoors.

View from car window descending from Hotel Villa Margherita

Thursday morning we loaded our bikes into the van and hit the road for Vicenzo, where we’d spend a couple of hours before biking partway to next stop on our tour, Asolo.  Vernon warned us that Asolo sat on the side of mountain and that the approach would be quite demanding.   Any brave souls were welcome to give it a try–the rest of us could ride up in a van.

Riding down the hillside from the Villa Michelangelo was much more terrifying than taking the same route up on a bike.  Switchback turns, steep drops; I was sitting next to an outside passenger window, with a stomach-churning view over the cliff.   It didn’t help to see the occasional memento mori, often accompanied by flowers, marking the spot where a previous traveller suffered a fatal lapse of attention.

Evidence of a little excess speed?

Hold on!

We left the van with the bikes outside of Vicenza to make our departing ride easier in a few hours, then drove into the city from the southern heights, passing by the green-domed Basilica di Monte Berico, then descending into the town and finding a spot within walking distance of the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio’s last great project, the Teatro Olimpico.

The city of Vicenza, the Teatro Olimpico and the villas of the Veneto, all of which bear the stamp of Palladio, were given protected status as a single Unesco World Heritage Site in the mid-’90′s.

One of the courtyard statues donated by the Olimpic Academy, the society that built the theater

The Teatro Olimpico, built between 1580 and 1585, is Palladio’s recreations of  a wood and plaster Roman theater– squeezed inside a medieval stone fortress.   As I was sitting in the steep audience gallery a guide addressing a nearby tour group in English explained that the heads of the plaster statues  decorating the theater interior were not the originals.  They had been replaced by those of donors, an inducement to wealthy Vicenzi to support the theater in the financially straightened times following Palladio’s death early in the theater’s construction.  The theater is still in active use today with a wide variety of productions.   Visitors to the Teatro Olimpico website can get see a few seconds of Stomp! performed on a stage set designed to replicate ancient Thebes.

Maybe NPR could give the statue thing a try during their next fundraiser. . .

After visiting the theater the group split up for an hour of wandering through Vicenza.  At an open air market I found dance shorts for my daughter Roxanne and packets of local vegetable seed.  When I get back I’ll give them to farmers who supply Rialto and see what happens.

We arrived back at the Teatro entrance at the Piazza Matteoti for our eleven-thirty rendezvous a few minutes early.   While waiting I couldn’t help but notice the locals whizzing by on their bikes.

After retrieving our own bikes we set off on the 30 km. ride to Bassano del Grappa.  It was a relief to spend some time back out in the country again.

Rural beehives

Farmhouse and circular hay bales

We enjoyed a couple of solid hours of farmland before our surroundings became increasingly urban–apartment buildings, cafes, gas stations.  We stopped for lunch on the outskirts of Bassano del Grappa, and everyone voted to load the bikes into the van for the ascent up to Asolo.  That night we were on our own for dinner.  Just up the street from the Villa Cipriani, our hotel, Kathy, Ken and I found a great restaurant , Hosteria Ca’ Derton.   Ron, Lena, Emma and Rosemarie opted for another nearby restaurant, Ristorante Due Mori.   Everyone praised both both restaurants and Due Mori diners enjoyed the extra treat of eating on a terrace with a spectacular view of the countryside below and if you looked closely at the walls inside, photographs of John Malkovich, who ate there frequently during a nearby film shoot.  At Ca’ Derton we didn’t have a view or pictures of John Malkovich, but we did have some fabulous food, including a handful of items that might have been lifted right out of our class menu.  These included Roasted Game Hen with Peverada Sauce, Crudo, and Octopus with Potatoes.  Of course we had to try all of them and while they were excellent, nothing tastes as good as great food you’ve made yourself.

For more pictures of our trip go to Italiaoutdoors.

No guest of the Hotel Villa Michelangelo in Arcugnano could ever mistake his surroundings for flatland.   Standing at the edge of the hotel lawn is like being in a hot-air balloon, suspended among hills carpeted with the vineyards and forest and dotted with villas.    The view offers a visual lesson in the up-and-down-ness of the local terrain.

Wednesday morning we had two choices f0r rides, the first, a loop that included traversing the Dorsi di Berici–the “backbone” of the Berici Hills; the second,  lowland tour around Lake Fimon.  The first was about 60 km.; the second, about half that.  The first, as  Vernon explained in modest understatement, included “rolling hills;  the second was more or less a ride downhill followed by a long flat circle.  Whichever one we chose, there would be no backup vans.   Today Vernon and Kathy  were riding along with us on their own bicylces.

Everyone bravely opted for the Dorsi di Berici loop.  We headed down the hotel drive, turned left, and then shifted gears as the road began to climp up.

We soon encountered a road sign with a wave-like icon and a km. number indicating a stretch of  up-and-down terrain ahead.  What the sign didn’t tell us was the relative relationship of the rises to the falls; whether, for example, we were in for a couple of steep climbs alternating with steep drops or, say, a long gradual climb followed by a two or three sharper descents.   Barely had we passed the sign when Rosemarie’s chain jumped its sprocket and jammed so firmly that Vernon couldn’t fix it without tools–he’d have to walk the bike back to the hotel.  Concern over the possibility of future jams and not wanting to slow the rest of us down convinced Emma, Robbie and Rosemarie herself to switch to the Lake Fimon route.   So half of us returned to the hotel, the chain was repaired, and the three women set off on successful loop around Lake Fimon.  Lena, Ron, Ken and I followed Kathy ahead onto the Dorsi, with Vernon rejoining us the rest were safely away.

"You're not pushing hard enough!"

This doesn't look good. . .

Berici fixer-upper

The eleven-kilometer slog to the top of the Dorsi was more demanding than the term “rolling hills” suggested, but we made it, just as Vernon predicted.   The high point was in San Gottardo,  and I had to wonder if the fact that it shared a name with a pass in the Swiss Alps was just a coincidence.    We were rewarded with  a screamingly fast  zoom downhill to Barbarano–Ken’s pedometer  clocked him at 53 km/hr–pretty zippy for a bike.   At Barbarano we stopped  for a well-deserved prosecco and bruschetta ristro.

We then passed a wonderful half-hour in Barbarano tasting olive oil and trying out a variety of olive-oil based cosmetics.

"Oh, man, does that feel good!"

Barbarano was surrounded by rolling farmland, a little like Vermont, if Vermont had prosecco and a lot of vineyards.  Ken kept wanting to stop and take photographs, but Vernon, Kathy and I had to get back to the hotel ASAP in order to prep for the final cooking class and dinner at Vernon’s house that night.  Ken assured us he’d be able to find his way back.  He missed a turn of course, got lost, had some adventures, but managed to find his way back with the map a few hours behind the rest of us.   He did get some good pictures of a few places we never saw.

For the last cooking class I thought we’d mix things up a little–two kinds of of risotto for Emma, a  local delicacy called sauce peverada often served with fowl or game birds, spatchc0cked (split and flattened) chickens grilled over coals (bring on the peverada), some deep-fried eggs Lena had tasted in Venice and wanted to see if she could duplicate, brandade (a potato and bacala mixture with cream and shallots), beet salad and for a sweet finale, a tiramisu.

Vernon’s wife Nadia was incredibly generous in allowing us to operate in her kitchen.  She took all the activity in stride and wanted to participate.  I don’t think she’d ever seen so many people rubbing shoulders over her stove or chopping at her island at once–and she’d certainly never been confronted with a mess like the one we made (and cleaned up).   Luca, Vernon’s fourteen-year-old son, also lent a hand.  Outdoor competence seems to run in the family – he made us a moka pot of espresso coffee atop a propane camp burner.  Vernon’s and Nadia’s daughter Lisa stayed out of sight during much of the activity, but was coaxed into joining us when everyone sat down to eat.

Vernon's wife Nadia and their son Luca

Some of these chicken still have feathers attached!

Appetizers - hard-boiled eggs, evoo and--what else?--prosecco. . .

Wait a minute--you agreed to do the beet salad, the brandade and the eggs???!!!

We need more people in the kitchen.

Chicken grilling under bricks

Peverada sauce

Beet salad

Brandade of salt cod

Lena's eggs

Grilled chicken

Rosemarie's polenta

Tiramisu, before the last layer goes on

Vernon, in his usual role

After the main courses, grappa and tiramisu

For more pictures of our trip go to Italiaoutdoors.

Ron, raring to go. . .

So our bikes have been fitted and tweaked for us.  We’ve taken a practice run and had our fill of urban tourism.  It was time to hit the road and explore the agricultural plain that extended north, south and west  from Venice.  The plan was to cover about 50 km.–about 30 miles–in an arc running roughly southwest beginning Mira, skirting south of Padova, and finishing in Arcugnano, where we’ll be staying at the Hotel Villa Michelangelo.

By nine-thirty everyone had their luggage downstairs, tagged and ready for transport; laptops and redundant camera gear went into one of the two vans driven by Kathy and Vernon, who had also replaced maps from our ride of two days ago with fresh maps and new routes in the clear plastic envelopes velcro-ed to our handlebars.  The plan for the day was fairly simple.  Vernon explained the route for the day–or at least as much of it as we needed until our first rendezvous point an hour or two down the road, listing important landmarks, things to watch for, important sites, etc., then we–me, Lena, Ron, Robbie, Rosemarie, Emma and Ken–set out on our own.

At various junctures along the route we’d encounter Vernon and the van  pulled off the road, giving everyone an opportunity to refill with water (especially critical in the afternoon, when we were drinking a liter or more an hour).   All of us had cellphones (okay, Ken didn’t bring one because I told him he wouldn’t need it–ha!) so if someone became separated from the group and got lost or had a breakdown, help was only a call away.

We were on the road by ten-thirty and the day was warm.  The terrain southeast of Mira is relatively flat.  It makes for fairly easy biking through small towns separated by lots of farms, many of which advertise “Agroturismo” at the head of their drives.  Out in the country both sides of the road often plunge into ditches.  Sometimes the ditch is a scary pitch down an embankment, at others it’s little more than a shallow depression, and once in awhile it’s invisible because of the heavy growth coming out of either side and you don’t even realize there’s a ditch at all until you step off your bike to take a picture or perhaps plunder a ripe apricot and then suddenly go toppling forward into the hidden ravine you didn’t even know was there.

Just out of reach. . . but not for a picture.

Roadside ditches are Venetian history writ small.  Much of the Veneto plain is drained marshland.  Inhabitants of the region have been draining and channeling local water since the Middle Ages.  The sight of a high-powered sprinkler arcing a steam of water in the distance notwithstanding, the ditches are an important component of local irrigation.  Ditches run alongside fields (often bordered by roads);  when certain gates are opened and others closed the field floods.  The ditches feed from from local canals that get their own water from bigger canals which are often  transformed sections of original riverbed.  The Brenta Canal, whose course we followed for our first ride, was actually a length of the Brenta River, transformed into a canal in the 16th century.  The inland head was at Stra, site of the Villa Pisani.  As Veneto marshes were drained more land became arable–and valuable.  The canalized sections of river helped control flooding and provided a reliable means of transportation through a heretofore often impassable region.

Brenta Canal at Mira

As I said, the terrain was mostly flat, but that didn’t mean there were no hills (Vernon’s Law of Biking Elevation: The rise up and over an autostrada does not count as a hill). And hills mean you need to shift out the gear range you’ve been using while tooling along the flatland.   About an hour out of Mira we had our first mishap.  Rosemarie “Chain-Jammin’” Johnson managed to inadvertently shift her chain off the smallest rear gear, wedging it between the frame and the gear.  Vernon to the rescue.

The problem. . .

. . . and the solution

Ken happened to mention to me that it felt a bit odd to be riding along and every forty-five minutes or so see a white van with Kathy or Vernon keeping tabs on us.  Whatever happened to the romance of the open road, blah blah blah? Actually I’ll trade the romance of the open road to having a bike mechanic and caterer on instant call any day of the week.  In any event Vernon quickly set Chain Jammin’s bike aright and we were soon back on the road.

We took our first ristro (Venetian dialect term, meaning “to take a break from cycling in order to drink prosecco”) in the shade next to a church in Legnaro, one of the small towns we were traversing.  We paused long enough to rehydrate, grab an espresso across the street, and learn the name of the church – San Biagio.   If you’re determined  to learn the the story of the Armenian martyr San Biagio (Saint Blaise to the English-speaking world), and why he’s so inspirational for the Italians, offer to buy Ken an espresso coretto the next time you see him and I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you.

San Biagio

"You're getting burned."

Early into the afternoon we began to see the first of our Venetian colli – hills.   Abano Terme, our destination for lunch, sits in the middle of what was once a volcanic plane.  The colli are independent and solitary,  like Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, as opposed to the ridgelike upthrusts that mark tectonic fault lines.  The colli are actually the dormant volcanic cones.   Volcanic activity hasn’t vanished from the region altogether.  Abano Termes and it’s neighbor Montegrotto  Terme are famous for the therapeutic quality of their water, geothermal springs (188 degrees F) and curative mud baths.  Italians can actually receive a prescription from their doctor for a restorative stay in one of Abano’s many hospital or hotel treatment facilities.   (In an odd coincidence, we learned that the  woman standing in line ahead of us for the Air France baggage check-in at Marco Polo Airport had just spent the last week at Abano Terme getting the spa treatment for arthritis.)

The great advantage to having an antipasti class the night before a long bike ride is the guarantee of an incredible lunch.  Many antipasti taste even better the day after their preparation, and with an appetite worked up by a couple of hours of biking we were definitely ready for second helpings of Ron’s octopus and Emma’s salad.

The afternoon seemed to grow hotter as the day wore on and Vernon no longer had to keep quizzing us: “Are using your water bottles?  Are you drinking?”  The sight of the van was greeted with more and more relief.  Water was at hand.

The highlight of the afternoon was a brief respite at the Benedictine Praglia Abbey,  visible across a plain where it sits at  the foot of the Euganean Hills.  The abbey dates from the 1th century, with most of the currently visible Renaissance architecture reflecting the height of the abbey’s political and spiritual power.  Political upheaval from the 1700′s through the beginning of the 20th century forced the monastic community into a series of exiles, but the current Benedictine order has been in place for the last one hundred years.   Access to much of the abbey is restricted because of  monks living and working there.  The abbey does  feature a center for restoring ancient books but the only thing that was open during our visit was the gift shop selling honey and various other agricultural produced by the monks.   One excellent feature of the site is a natural spring  just inside the gates.  I took the opportunity to rinse the dregs of Gatorade our of my bottle then refilling it with fresh springwater  before setting off once more.

Paglia Abbey in the background

"You go poke around the monastery. We'll just wait here."

You can just see the gate into the monastery between the two cedars. It's locked--I know, I tried.

By three-thirty we had reached Longare, a couple of towns short of our final destination in Arcugnano.  Vernon explained that the Hotel Villa Michelangelo was reached via a 1.5 km access road and–to give everyone a heads-up–the road was a “steep climb.”  A steep climb? Who do you think you’re talkin’ to?  I eat steep climbs for breakfast! Yeah, right.  Those who didn’t want to give the access road a try dismounted for a ride up in the van.   Ron, Ken and I decided to do the rest of the route on our bikes.

Vernon turned out not to be exaggerating.  The road was murderously steep, and while I never had to drop down to my lowest gear, I was tempted more than once to get off my bike.  Ron made it to the top first, then me,  where Kathy and Vernon were waiting for us.  We stood chatting, waiting for Ken.  And waiting. . .  and waiting. . .  My husband learned a hard lesson that day – he thought he was in the lowest gear and after huffing and puffing two-thirds of the way up he was finally forced off his bike.  When he came into view ten minutes later his nose was bleeding.  Vernon congratulated him on getting as far as he did, then remarked, “The ironic thing is you had plenty of gear to spare.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take a look,” Vernon said, pointing to the front gear wheel, where Ken’s chain rested on the middle sprocket,  “You had another three or four lower gears to go.”

Ken shook his head in disbelief.  There was time for a brief dip in the pool of the Hotel Villa Michelangelo, then a cocktail on the terrace to savor the view of the surrounding countryside and speculate on just who could actually live in which fabulous villa perched on the various hillsides visible below us.  Dinner in the hotel restaurant.  No one stayed up late–given the ride ahead of us the next day, a wise decision.

For more pictures from our  trip go to Italiaoutdoors.

Is there anyone who could not immediately identify this city?

Venice.  La Serenissima. Another labyrinth -  this time of narrow cul-de-sacs, of streets and canals whose layout seems to have more in common with a fun house than an actual city.  Vernon and Kathy dropped us off at the Piazzale  Roma and we made our way on foot into the city of bridges and canals.  Visiting Venice at the height of the summer tourist season with the thermometer heading toward 90 requires a certain amount of craziness, but we were determined to round up ingredients for that night’s antipasti class and, speaking for myself, pay a visit to the original Rialto.

Do you really want to go inside?

Ken and I made the obligatory stop at the Piazza San Marco, where we threw financial caution to the winds and spent 40 euros for the privilege of enjoying two cappuccini and a bottle of mineral water at the Cafe Florian while  the elegantly turned out house band played Pamplona. We gazed across the piazza to a line of brutally determined visitors sweating it out in the block-long line to get into the Ducal Palace.  Not for us.

The Erbaria, the fruit and vegetable market in Venice is not as impressive as, say, the one in Campo dei Fiori in Rome, but still substantial, even if you arrive, as we did, toward the tail end of things.  Vendors tend to close by lunchtime or when they run out of goods, whichever comes first.  We didn’t arrive until almost eleven so some of the vendors were already packing up.  Still, we had no problem locating beans, artichokes, tomatoes and squash blossoms.  Although there were displays of fresh seafood outside some of the nearby restaurants, the Pescheria, the famous seafood market on the San Polo side of the Rialto, is closed on Mondays, so we had to rely on Dal Corso family to get us the octopus, sole and tubot we needed for the antpasti class later that day.

After the erbaria no one was particularly interested in tromping off to see the the usual sites -  too hot, too many tourists and everyone except Ken and I had arrived several days earlier and had plenty of time to sate their museum-and-church bug.  But we couldn’t skip the Rialto.   Getting a good group shot out of both shade and direct sunlight and still showing a bit of  bridge in the background was a challenge.    Judge for yourself.

There is one thing that you can do in Venice, even when it’s jammed with tourists, if you know where to go.  Eat and drink.  And we had just the right spot in mind – the Cantina do Mori. Visitors may come to Venice for the art and history, but  long after impressions of frescoed ceilings have faded patrons of the Cantina do Mori will recall that refreshing first gulp of prosecco on a hot afternoon.  And then, thirst at bay, remember the difficulty of choosing between the octopus and the squid, between the baccala or the sopressa sitting atop the trim squares of polenta behind the glass-in-shelves. One final cool thing about the cantina that anchors it somewhere in the indeterminate past is that they serve prosecco in those wide-mouth champagne glasses – you know, the kind that appear in New Yorker cartoons.

Need I explain?

Sopressa and pickled onions

Note the glasses in everyone's hands. . .

Back at the hotel later later that afternoon we worked on preparing our own Venetian antipasti banquet:

Artichoke, Fennel, Orange, Zucchini, Asiago and Walnut salad

Crudo of Turbot with Lemon, Celery, Rosemary and Capers

Sweet and Sour Venetian Fish

Grilled Citrus Octopus

Warm Mustard Potatoes

Grilled Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Asiago

Grilled Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Herb Ricotta

Marinated Radicchio

Venetian Squid

During our cooking lesson a couple of days earlier with the Dal Corso family the group showed an admirable absence of squeamishness (hurray!).   People gutted fish and cleaned scallops like they’d been raised on the water and I was happy to see everyone bring the same spirit to the antipasti class.   It was almost scary to watch Robbie efficiently peeling the skin off a raw turbot; Emma prepared a delicious artichoke salad; Ron took a hands-on attitude with the squid; and Rosemarie, who’d never dealt with squash blossoms before, patiently filled and grilled them.  Judging by the sounds of appreciation everyone made once we began eating, the class was a great success.   Even Rosemarie, who’s mostly vegetarian, had to take an occasional taste of seafood, purely for informational purposes, I’m sure.  It was a great time.

For more pictures of our trip go to Italioutdoors.

Ron, in his new role as king of octopus

So after a couple of hours in the kitchen we dined afresco, waited on by brothers Alessandro and Dario Dal Corso , who served us the results of our efforts in the kitchen (okay, they did the heavy lifting). First the gnocchi.

Gnocchi with Adriatic sea scallops. The bright orange bits are the roe sacs.

Then the fish baked in salt.

Then the wonderful apples in pastry.

The top is a little fish...

For more picture of our trip go to  Italiaoutdoors.

Today we hit the road for a test ride, a (relatively) short ride west from our base in Mira at the Hotel Villa Margherita.

"Here's where we start - here's where we end up."

Ruined villas, pasture, farms and villages, all in all a fairly flat run.  After about an hour and a half we reach the far point of our loop, the spectacular Palladian Villa Pisani.  Built by the noble Venetian Pisani family in the early 18th century, the villa overlooks the Brenta canal some 30 kilometers west of Venice.

Reflecting pool and interior courtyard of Villa Pisani

Purportedly based on the design of Versailles the palace stands empty now.  Its most interesting feature (to us) was the incredible maze.

"I think we go left--no, right!"

After a pleasant trip retracing our route–broken by a stop at a charming Enoteca Dolo, a former mill and now a cafe in the town of Dolo where Jody’s Seven bicycle provoked the first of many comments this trip–”Great bike–why’d they cut it in half?”–we made it back to the hotel in time for the cooking class at the hotel.

"If you can hold it close to your nose for ten seconds then it is fresh."

The generous DalCorso family gave us a personal lesson in the how-to’s of gnocchi with a fresh scallop sauce, sea bass baked in salt and baked apples in pastry.

For more pictures of our trip go to Italiaoutdoors.

Garden Apollo at the Villa Margherita

After an uneventful flight  out of Boston we had one of those sweaty-palmed stopovers in Paris while we inched our way through Charles de Gaulle  security, wondering whether we were going to make our connection to Venice.  We collapsed into our seats   just as they were announcing last call for boarding.   Ninety minutes later  we touched down  at Marco Polo Airport, relieved to be welcomed by a familiar Kathy Bechtel.  Aching for real coffee after twelve hours of Nescafe we convinced Kathy to pull into an autogrill off the highway en route to Mira for a quick infusion of caffeine before arriving at the hotel.

Two cappuccinos later Kathy delivered us up a long elegant drive to the  Hotel Villa Margherita where we settled into our rooms for a hot shower and 2-minute rest before heading to the hotel’s restaurant for a perfect simple lunch of arugula and parmesan salad, vegetable risotto and fresh fruit with vanilla ice cream.

Vila Margherita, first evening

After my bicycle fitting with Vernon, I set off on my virgin ride with my brand new snap-on shoes (the opposite of a snap-on tie).

How do you unhook these damn things?

I wanted to get the hang of getting in and out of the pedals before our serious ride the next day.   So as not to get lost, I made my way along the canal and passed not one, not two, but three weddings at three different churches.

Nuptial transport, Italian style

It gave a feeling of celebration that seemed fitting for my first day.  I was feeling great, reveling in the Italianess of it all, taking in the amazing aroma of the giant magnolias and fantasizing about a life in a crumbling Palladio villa when a huge pop brought me back to the moment.  My rear tire was flat.  Fortunately, that was the sum of the drama.  I managed to get my feet out of the pedals without embarrassing myself  and contemplated what to do.  I was supposed to be back at the hotel in 10 minutes and by foot, I was 20 minutes away.  I did have a cute tire fixing kit on the back of my bike, but I hadn’t a clue how to change the tire.  It was way too fancy a bike to just ignore the flat and ride on the rim so I opted for the on-foot alternative.

I arrived back just in time for the introductory wine, cheese and speck tasting but did not escape the label of top trouble maker so far.

"There'll be frequent stops for prosecco along our route."

For more pictures of our trip go to Italiaoutdoors.

Jody and Vernon in Umbria

To all of you readers who have followed my bike trips to Italy through this blog – there is more to come! I have two more trips planned for 2010, both created just for me by our terrific guide Vernon. So come to the Veneto with me for cooking, biking and sipping Prosecco.  We cook together, ride a bit and laugh a lot.

It’s a ton of fun, and if you don’t want to ride, that’s okay… there’s a van ride for you.  I know it will be great.  The first trip will be June 26 – July 3, 2010, and the second in the fall, September 25 – October 2, 2010. For more information please check out:

www.jodyadamsitaly.com

The theme of the day is bikes, nuns and churches.  We see many of each.

Young nun with a bag of flour

The sun is shining as we pedal onward toward Assisi.  A few kilometers before we reach the town we stop by the sky-blue domed Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli.   The basilica was built around the Porziuncola, the original church where Saint Francis founded the Order of the Friars Minor in 1209.  Lots of churches are built on the foundations of older buildings, or they incorporate the old building into the new structure.  This is different.  The entire original chapel is intact, distinct, sitting in the middle of the open interior of the basilica.  Think ship-in-a-bottle, except with Franciscans.  Stunning frescoes inside the Porziuncola illustrate events from the life of Saint Francis.  I want to include a picture, but cameras are forbidden.  You can take a peek at the mystery here: http://www.porziuncola.org/en/index.html.

Santa Maria degli Angeli

Bike Riders at Santa Maria degli Angeli…Dan, Kay, Jim, Vernon, Jackie, Ron and Kathy

Up, up, up we climb to Assisi, but it is absolutely worth the effort.

Resting troops… Susan, Jackie, Dan, Ron… just can’t kick the technology habit

We visit the Basilica di San Francesco, home of the tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi, and the center of the Franciscan order.  Giuseppe, the best tour guide ever, whispers wonderful stories about St. Francis and the Basilica through our earphones.   The basilica is contains two churches, upper and lower.  Their locations mirror their presentation.  The lower one sits beneath an awe-inspiring series of frescoed arches (remember all those 8th-grade illustrations of groined vaults?).  The upper church is a grander, more formal affair, with sunlight streaming through gorgeous stained-glass windows.

Giuseppe

Giuseppe points out that the lower frescoes look faded because visitors over the centuries have scraped off the precious minerals that were used to create the vivid blues and golds.  He shows us the first examples of perspective drawing on the frescoed walls.  And he tells us that although Saint Francis is known as the patron saint of animals, he is really the patron saint of the environment and lived a life devoted to serving the poor.  Even after only a short lesson about Saint Francis, it’s impossible not to be awed by his work, and by the brown-robed Franciscan friars and nuns we see who continue his work today.

Giuseppe tells us about the hiding space between the upper and lower churches, used to secret Jewish refugees during the Second World War.  Although there is no record of any Jews ever living in Assisi before the war, 200 Jews were hidden in the town’s various convents and monasteries, sometimes dressed as monks and nuns.

Saint Francis of Assisi

Franciscan nuns

At the end of the tour we feast on typical Assisi sweets.

Spello, another amazingly beautiful stone-walled city.

In Spello we disperse to wander the town, but Chip and Keith discover the winner for lunch, Enoteca Properzio a wine store and Umbrian specialty shop with a cafe.  Spello is so small that within 30 minutes, everyone touring the town on foot manages to pass by their table—and decide this is where we ought to be, join them, sharing wine and bruschette.  Roberto Angelini, the manager, wears blue jeans.  He never stops talking or moving.  “Come! Come!  You must see my tasting rooms complete with kitchens.”  According to Roberto we have arrived at the source for the best wine, the best olive oil, the best beans and meats in Italy.  We taste and buy everything in sight.  Roberto is happy.

Spello street

Hanging at the Enoteca… Collen, Jody, Kathy, BA and Lena

Roberto

Dinner at our hotel, Tre Vaselle, is elegant, truly delicious and afterwards I have a chance to thank the chef personally.

The menu reflects a modern interpretation of traditional Umbrian cooking.  Squash blossoms stuffed with a mixture of lake shrimp and ricotta, the whole thing on a zucchini emulsion; black celery soup, a specialty of Umbria; truffled ravioli; roast squab.  We end with pears poached in Sagrantino wine.

Ravioli

Squab

Message from Saint Francis

Olive trees

Crocuses?

We ride through the Tiber River Valley.  Groves of trees peppered with tiny green olives.  Clusters of purple grapes dangle from vines.  Fields and fields and fields of sunflowers.  We stop to gather walnuts from the ground, marvel at the sunny yellow crocuses growing under an olive tree in September (!?) and admire the bursting figs a man is collecting in a leaf-lined basket.  He calls out from the top of his ladder, “Mangia, mangia,” and climbs down to peel them for us.  We eat them with juice running down our chins.

Our new friend with figs

Juicy figs

Susan eats a fig

We stop for lunch and we buy sausage, cheese and capers for our antipasti cooking class.  I asked Antonio if he would put fennel in the sausage and he gives me the unlike-in-Tuscany-in-Umbria-we-know-better-than-to-do-that look.  When I point out that there was fennel in the salami we have just eaten for lunch, he just shrugs.  This must be a fluke.  He doesn’t know how this can be.

Sausage maker and cook

Everyone wants to know about Umbrian sunflowers.  Why are they grown?  Why are black?  Have the seeds been collected yet?  What do Umbrians do with the seeds?  We get our answers from Lorenzo who joins us for lunch.  Sunflowers are grown for their seeds and the oil produced from them.  The plants are left to dry naturally in the sun until they’re black, then they’re harvested, leaving only the stalks in the ground. The ones we have been seeing have not yet been harvested.

Drying sunflowers

Chef teaches Chef

Our evening includes a class before dinner on how to make torta al testo—a griddle bread.  I love watching the Bike Rider excitement at the uniquely satisfying feel of kneading dough.  We learn to make a simple yeasted dough with flour, salt, water, a drop of olive oil and a one-hour rise that they use to make all their breads—free-form loaves, schiacciata in a sheet pan with tomato and onion toppings, and the torta al testo they split, fill with cheeses, meats and vegetables, and heat.  It’s an Umbrian quesadilla.

Mis en place

Ron, Dan Gary and Chip…I know how to knead

Collen, Kathy, Susan, Jim, Kay and Lena…how much flour?

Kneeding

Stretching

Baking

By this time we’re all old friends and spend hours laughing around the table at the family-style Umbrian feast the restaurant cooks for us.

Our biggest adventure of the day is the ride home.  The restaurant is down a remote road and our poor sweating driver, who happens to be a police officer, is unable to find his way out.  After a false start, we turn around and start over.  Then we do it again.  And again.  We see a sign for forest fires.  We joke that we may have to camp out overnight.  Haha.  Then an Umbrian wild boar dart across the road.  Hahaha.  Maybe we’ll pass on the camping.  We arrive back at the hotel 45 minutes after the others.  The driver is the happiest to see it.

Grape vines

Dear friends,

I fully intended to update this blog each day while on the Bike Rider trip in Umbria, but technology got the better of me.  On our first day of riding my Blackberry made a suicidal leap out of my bike bag and expired.  In addition, each hotel offered a new wireless challenge.  Today access is only available in the bathroom of my hotel.  If you followed my Sicilian trip last May you may remember that Catherine and I faced a similar problem in Catania. The only thing to do is laugh.

en route to Todi

Day 1–Todi

You never know what will happen when 17 people come together for a week of biking, cooking and eating.  It might be a fun, easy-going group, up for anything.  Or not.   But I’m not worried.  Everyone introduced him or herself in Rialto at least once and I traveled with our guides, Dawn and Vernon,  a year and a half ago in Sicily.  It’s going to be a great trip. I am a little concerned about the weather.  Dawn and Vernon assure me all will be fine, even if it does rain.  Nothing fazes them. They’re veterans.

Dawn, Jody and Vernon

Susan, Kathy and I arrive ahead of schedule at the train station in Perugia. How novel!    Being late is my perpetual failing, but I want to be on hand to greet the riders with Vernon and Dawn.  We sip coffee at the tiny bar that straddles the street and the train station.  Train fuel, cigarette smoke, the clanking and tooting of train arrivals, the old Italian man behind the counter in his uniform blue jacket handling money and barking orders to his wife—all of it gives me a Proustian jolt back to my Eurail days.  Grubby students burdened with enormous backpacks call out to me.  I could join them in a heartbeat and hop a train to anywhere.  Instead I finish my coffee, allow my daydreams to fade and set off in search of the Bike Riders.

BA, Colleen, Susan, Kathy and Jackie

We all find each other, the vans are packed, and we head for the hotel, Relais Todini, which sits on a hill about 8 kilometers outside of Todi.

Fog

We take in the spectacular view of Todi, muted by a light fog, as we gather around the pool.  Lunch is a typical Umbrian antipasti: Umbrian prosciutto, capocollo and salami; bruschette topped with liver pate, mushrooms and tomatoes; pecorino cheeses with honey; salads of fennel, tomatoes and greens;  and finally a bowl with flavorful peaches and “stupid grapes.”

Our first typical Umbrian antipasti

Stupid grapes

After chatting with everyone, I know that with Dawn and Vernon as our guides and the fabulous food, wine and countryside Umbria offered, it’s going to be a fabulous trip.

At a short orientation meeting Dawn and Vernon talk us through the next week of our lives.  Rain, if it happens, will be brief.  Remember to tuck your shoelaces into your shoes.  Gorp will be plentiful.  We then jump on our bikes for an introductory ride and head to Todi.

Orientation with Dawn and Vernon

As we race down the long steep cypress lined road from the hotel, I can’t help but hoot and holler.  How lucky we are.

A street in Todi… a typical Umbrian view

Something to see

Something to hear

Something to taste

Bike Rider days are scheduled with such interesting tours and tastes, that I never want to skip out and write it all down.

When not biking, we eat and drink.  Endlessly.  Yet something magical happens in Italy.  Sleep erases each day’s indulgences.  We waken each morning without noticeable damage to head or stomach.  However, I AM taken aback by how tight my jeans are around my thighs.  Dawn assures me it’s just the amazing muscle development I am experiencing.

En route with Kathy