Category: Italy – food, wine & clouds (2014)

On the morning of the 3rd day we moved further down South, in the direction of Florence. The clouds and rains from Garda started closing in on Verona, and it was time to follow the sun again. I have never honored Florence with a visit, and this made the destination new for at least half of the travel party.

Weather-wise, Florence was the right decision, as when we made it to the city, the sun was shining, and the temperatures were closer to July than April.  At the same time, all the locals kept talking about walls of rain flooding the city the whole of the previous week.  On the down side, warm temperatures, sunny skies and Easter holidays attracted thousands of other tourists, who we indignantly had to share Florence with.

The first conscious impressions from the city were tall and skinny black guys, actively pushing sunglasses and fake Rolex watches on the main square.  Which made us contemplate the question of commercial monopolies, one of which (clearly on a global level) belonged to the said guys.  I wonder, at which historical/commercial point in time, the spheres and areas of street trade and small businesses were distributed and divided?…  It was definitely then that sunglasses and watches went to the tall natives of the African continent.  Asian expatriates got the grocery shops and nail salons, and Slavic and Mexican girls excelled in keeping other people’s households.  However, this rather chauvinistic breakdown is valid just for Europe and America.  Maybe in Africa and Asia the situation is completely different, and fake Rolexes are being pushed by, say, Estonians, and nail salons are otherwise owned and managed by Uruguayans…

A quick memory trip back to Verona – on the topic of Juliette’s breasts that were somehow left out of the previous part of the story.  The statue of Juliette in the courtyard of her father’s house under the famous balcony boasts a brightly polished right breast, molested by the millions of tourists flowing through the city on a daily basis.  But not only in Verona!  The city of Munich, for example, also has its very own statue of Juliette (right downtown, next to Marienplatz) with an identically shiny right breast.  I never really paid it much attention, until a young girl, who was taking me and an all-girl group of colleagues on a walking tour of downtown Munich told us the anecdote about the breast.  We laughed, but dutifully lined up to touch the right breast, for according to the girl the legend guaranteed meeting “the love of your life” within half a year of the laying of the hands on Juliette’s breast.  Women are such suckers for romance!…  Apparently, it was only the right breast that did miracles – the left one was purely ornamental.  In any case, that city walk took place in November, and in May, exactly 6 months later, I met Nic.  Talk about legends and myths…

But back to Florence.  Having ditched the car at our newly-found stylish digs at Hotel Cellai we went off to explore the surrounding. The main city attraction, the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower (aka Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiori – how come everything sounds so much better in Italian?!…) managed to disappoint, without us even visiting the interior, being closed for the Easter service.  Massive, with light-colored walls covered from top to bottom in mosaics, in all its grandeur it looked suspiciously like a mosque.  Gigantic round cupolas only added to the similarity…

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At the same time, another famous sight of Florence – Michelangelo’s David – made an exceptionally positive impression!  In contrast to some world-famous architectural and sculptural masterpieces (like the Parthenon in Athens) that in reality often turn out to be just miniature copies of their numerous post-card versions, David appeared to be the real deal, and was definitely more impressive “in person”.  The statue turned out to be at least a couple of stories tall, and looked very picturesque on the backdrop of some equally famous building, which we did not recognize due to the absence of a guide book we again did not bother to buy.  For some reason, I remembered my student years, and the art history classes at the State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, where the professors kept talking about “not naturalistic and purely schematic nature of sex organs in the antique statues“.  Don’t know about antique fellows, but David‘s physique was very far from schematic, and the statue happily represented physical health and fertility.  I fully realize the extreme ignorance of comparing antiquity with Renaissance, but my student years are well behind me, and all classical examples seemed to have mixed up in my head.

On the culinary front, Florence surprised us with a suddenly delicious wild boar pasta.  The boar was being offered on every single menu of every single restaurant in town, all the locals were swearing by it, and I finally fell to temptation.  The Florentine specialty did not disappoint for one second!  So much so, that I would have wolfed down three times more than the very decent-size plate I was served, but luckily, I could compensate with wine.

Due to the specifics of the audience, we also visited all 2.5 Irish pubs Florence had on offer. In the first one, I spoiled the evening for a dozen of guys, who before our arrival were sitting in the corner amicably chatting with each other over a sports game on the TV screens above the bar.

Within minutes of arrival I rained on their parade by discovering free WiFi in the pub.  After that the game (as well as any form of interaction) was forgotten, and the remaining time we were at the bar, the guys sat in total silence, each hypnotized by the screen of their cell phone. Civilization…  What are you gonna do about it?…

The second pub, was, in fact, a half. In the sense that a long time ago, when Nic happened to be in Florence last, the place was a full-blown Irish pub.  His built-in navigation system brought us right to the spot. Since then a lot had happened, the place changed hands and the name, and the only remnant of the former glory was Guinness.  A hunky Serbian barman running the place sighed dreamily, remembering the good old days of the Irish pub, when at least a dozen of hot Italian chicks ready for everything were fighting for him every night…  He timely stopped reminiscing, and remembered, that times had changed, he actually had a wife and three kids, and philosophically nodded that everything that happened, happened for the best.  The dreamy look, however, lingered on his face for a bit longer than seemed appropriate for a family man and a father of three…

The third (and last for the evening – we must be getting older, after all!) joint was a proper Irish pub – with rivers of Guinness, loud music, and a motley crew of patrons of all walks of life.  An overly positive slogan above the bar (facing the staff) should be quoted in its entirety: “Smile… Shut the fuck up… Work… And be nice… You are being paid! …Say thanks!”  Fits perfectly to any client-oriented business…  The bar staff obviously followed the proclaimed rule, and the general atmosphere of the place was full of optimism.  Within half an hour of our arrival, we were joined by a local of an American origin with a quiet wife of similar descent.  The guy has been in Florence for about five years, and was obviously missing the idiotic expat company.  We did our best to compensate for lack of idiocy in his life, and although the names of our newly found friends evaporated from our memories much sooner than the after-effects of consumed drinks, the evening was a success!

Miraculously, we found the hotel on the way from the bar, and in the morning, cursing Guinness under our heavy breaths, moved on.  This, however, is a completely different story…

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Limited in time by the Easter holidays, on the fourth day we had to turn back North, direction home.  The plan was to drive from Florence to Garda, spend the night in Bardolino (well-known and fondly remembered for its annual wine festival), and return to Munich on the fifth day.

We followed the plan with only a slight detour.  Back in the Verona Tourist Information Office I picked up a home-made flyer, advertising a vineyard in the area.  The flyer attracted my attention due to its English print, and simple sincerity – three brothers, owning the place, proudly advertised their family venture by the name of Fratelli Vogadori, adding that their 80-year old father (aka the vineyard founder) was still working alongside them, and promised rivers of excellent wine any day of the week and any time of the day.  The reverse side of the flyer had a hand-drawn (and by the looks of it not in a very sober state) map, and directions to this wine oasis.  It was the directions, that convinced us we had to visit – there was something utterly authentic in the instructions to turn right into the 3rd road past a drug store following the 1st roundabout at a 2nd supermarket on the left, that made us remember our long-gone boy- and girl-scout days.  The amount of drug stores, roundabouts and supermarkets on the way exceeded all wild expectations, and camouflaged the wine oasis exceptionally well.  Luckily, the car was equipped with GPS, and the flyer quoted the coordinates of the venue in microscopic letters at the bottom.  We drove around in circles a bit, took a couple of detours, but in the end the vineyard was found!

The place turned out to be a big villa on a hill, surrounded with vineyards that seemed to stretch almost to the horizon.  It’s been raining since early morning, and the area looked exceptionally fresh and green.  Despite the early hour and difficulties locating the place, at 11 in the morning we were by far not the first visitors.  A cheerful group of Italians was chirping amicably in the main room on the 2nd floor, actively sipping wine from their full glasses.  The older brother was in charge of the morning shift, and although he did not speak a word of anything but his native language, this did not get in the way of communication in the slightest – he quickly handed us glasses, and continued pouring wine into them from a battery of bottles in the center of the big table, dominating the room.  Judging by the rosy cheeks and a visible tremor in the hand holding the bottle, the older brother tasted his product on a regular basis, so his advice and opinion on the wines on offer could be trusted.

In about ten minutes the English-speaking younger brother materialized in the room, and added information about the place, as well as the wine.  The room was full of beautiful wine bottles of varied sizes and colors, and the walls were covered with flyers, similar to the one that brought us to the villa on the hill.  The flyers assured that for visitors who got tired, or too carried away in their wine-tasting enthusiasm, the hospitable brothers had guest rooms with comfortable beds.

As a result of the visit, three boxes of wine (that upon arrival home turned out to be even tastier than “at the source”) were loaded into the car boot, and enriched by the experience of wine-tasting in a real vineyard, we left the brothers, continuing in the direction of Bardolino.  

The sampled wine, however, was now insistently calling for food to accompany it.  What was the classic quote – “Start drinking in the morning, and you are free for the rest of the day“?…  We technically were already free for the rest of the day, but we did want further adventures, so refueling was the next point on the agenda.  Fantastic lunch was found right there – offered by a tiny family restaurant in a village next to the vineyard.  A simple dish of pasta with meat ragout called for applause and all sorts of compliments on our part (and no, not due to the amount of previously tasted wine, but due to the excellent quality of food!)

Close to three in the afternoon we finally made it to Bardolino that was being soaked with rain.  After half an hour of walking the streets, we realized that the non-maritime nature of our shoes did not call for continuation of the exercise, and landed in one of many wine bars downtown.  The venue served drinks in elegant half-litre glasses, and each order came accompanied by a bowl full of olives, crackers, and a variety of other fantastic snacks, so the next couple of hours we were happily watching life and people go by from the warmth and dryness of the bar, enjoying total idleness.  Time seemed to stretch in direct proportion to consumed beverages.

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Having been spoilt by the variety and quality of food over the past several days, we walked all over downtown Bardolino in search of a place for our last proper Italian dinner of the season.  We wanted this, and that, and everything, ideally in authentic surroundings, and a quiet atmosphere, without crowds of tourists, screaming babies, or TV screens on the walls.  Having finally chosen the place and taken our seats, we immediately localized two TV screens in the corners, and in the next ten minutes a crowd of tourists with crying babies and overactive toddlers entered the previously peaceful interior of the restaurant.  Just our luck!…

Here I have to say a couple of words about Italians and “bambini“. No matter how loud, annoying, and nasty they might be – “bambini” are sacred.  Even the snottiest kid gets a pat on the back, the waiters start digging out toys and candy, and gush over them every time they pass by.  Since we already ordered and had no way to escape, we resigned to observing the restaurant staff’s attitude towards the kids. The waiters gushed even over the brats who broke plates, and screamed their hearts out while smothering the food all over themselves, table cloths and the walls!…

Despite the brats, the dinner was a success.  Even though the portions in the venue were purely touristic, after a 4-day training we wolfed down everything we ordered.  The size of portions is, probably, the only way to tell a tourist restaurant in Italy from the one where the locals eat.  Freshness, quality and taste are always exemplary, be it a family restaurant with two and a half rickety tables, or a silver-service establishment.  In local joints, frequented by the neighbors the size of portions will always be small, allowing the patrons to spend the whole evening tasting the menu, without putting their waist lines in too much danger.  On the other hand, portions in the tourist places can easily feed a family of five each.

This gluttonous note wraps up the description of our Italian Easter trip.  The next day we were back home, where we happily unpacked the purchased wines, pastas and other dried tomatoes, and only photos were left to remind us of our brief Italian vacation…

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