Italia, pt. II

DAY 2

We welcomed Saturday morning with another stroll through the Straßen of Freiburg.

After stopping by the neighborhood Bäckerei for some delicious pastries, it was our good fortune to come across a food market in the town piazza.  With rows upon rows of vendors offering fresh, local produce, baked goods, & meats, we came away with our hands full of delicious goodies.

By lunchtime, the Mooring ladies & I were back on the road.  The second half of our drive took us from Germany into Switzerland, passing along a series of scenic lakes & hillside towns, eventually continuing into the Gotthard Tunnel on the Swiss-Italian border

The third-longest tunnel in the world, Gotthard extends some 11 miles straight through the side of a mountain.  It's quite a feat, really, but can make for something of a claustrophobic ride.

Eventually, we'd made our way through most of northern Italy, bypassing Milan, Bologna, Florence, & then eventually reaching Tuscany, where our rental house waited, just off the A1 beyond Bettole & Torrita di Siena.  Our little Tuscan villa sat peacefully atop a gradually sloping hillside, adjacent to a working farm.

 The vista from the back porch overlooked our swimming pool immediately below & rolling hectares of farmland, vineyards, & traditional Tuscan houses in the distance.  It was absolutely perfect.

DAY 3

Our first full day in Tuscany we spent in leisure, relaxing & driving around a bit to get accustomed to the area.  The highlight of the day was our visit to what would become our favorite local restaurant, the Osteria delle Grotte in Sinalunga.  More about that later.

DAY 4

Tania arrived around midday on Monday, having flown from Stanstead into Perugia, so we drove down there to pick her up & explore the town a bit.  Fi actually lived in Perugia back in 2001, studying Italian at the Universita per Stranieri, so it was quite a treat to have her as a tour-guide.

We stopped for lunch al fresco at an attractive little place called La Rosetta.  Though it was very hot (high 90s), our table was tucked back from the main streets in a shaded courtyard, so the ambient temp was quite comfortable.  Plus, it gave us an opportunity to eat with our sunglasses on.  Very Italian.

There are some nice views in Perugia.

Of course, no trip to the city is complete without gelato, which is actually something of a family decree in this bunch, esp in Perugia.

That just about sums up the first few days.  Here are a few more snaps I took before leaving the city. 

More to come from the second half of our week...

Italia!

Hello, hello.  Fi & I are back from our vacation & finally settling into our Oxford groove again.  Though we officially got back to town on Monday evening, it's taken a few days to sort through a long laundry list of chores.  This is actually the first chance I've gotten to sit down at the computer after work.  Anyhow, enough with the crotchets, I reckon you'd like to hear about Italy, eh?  Happy to oblige:

DAY 1

The Mooring ladies & I arose at 4 a.m. on Friday morning in order to make our reservation with Eurostar leaving St. Pancras at 650.  Luckily, Fi had arranged for a taxi to pick us up, so there was minimal schlepping of luggage en route to the train station--great news for yours truly (I am not a bellboy).  Upon arriving, I was reminded of just how nice St. Pancras is.  Notice the Olympics rings:

Fi's particularly fond of am enormous bronze sculpture at one end of the station.  I guess I can see why, with the romantic theme & all.  The subjects are snogging, as they say in the local parlance.  For my part, I was particularly fond of my ham & cheese croissant from Le Pain Quotidien; not all of us can be art-lovers.

Boarding the train was painless, as is usually the case with train travel, & in no time our journey was off to a start.  The overall trip on the rails was some 1-2 hours, but that seemed to pass in a moment, & before I knew it, we'd traversed the English channel, & I was officially on French soil, slowing to a halt in the seaside ville of Calais.  Bonjour.

As dedicated Sausage readers will recall, leading up to our trip, I experienced some concern about the make & model of our rental car, as we couldn't determine that in the booking & would only find out upon pick-up.  Well, much to my surprise, we landed a Mercedes:

Not exactly the BMW X1, but not a bad substitute either.  Billed by Mercedes as a Compact Sports Tourer, the B180's interior was certainly spacious enough for 4, & with a little art & elbow grease, I even managed to cram all of our baggage into the back too.  Under the hood, it was rocking a 2.0 liter in-line 4-banger, enabling us to push along the European highways & byways at a clean 54.3 mpg.  It's a good little car.  Anyway, in motoring from France to Germany, I didn't really take any photographs, save one.  The kodak moment arose in a Belgian gas station, when I stopped in front of a drinks cooler only to realize it was entirely filled with only one variety of beverage:

I'd never seen it before, but subsequent research reveals that JUPILER is the best-selling beer in Belgium.  Because the filling station kept such a large quantity in stock & the Belgians aren't exporting any of this to the UK or US, I can only assume that Jupiler must be the most delicious nectar in Europe's capital.  Why else would they be hoarding it all for themselves?

As I said, there are no pictures from Luxembourg.  To be honest, I don't really have anything worthwhile to say about France, Belgium, or Luxembourg from this part of the drive.  We only stopped for fuel & bathroom breaks in those places.  Eventually, though, after 7 or 8 hours of automotive transit, we reached our hotel for the evening, located in the charming town of Freiburg, in Germany.

I've been wanting to see Germany for a long, long time, & from all the research I've done, my anticipation couldn't have been greater.  Luckily, Freiburg was absolutely beautiful.  Resting beneath a giant hill on the eastern border of Schwarzwald, Freiburg has the feel of a mountain village, the sort of place that every small Rocky Moutain Town in Colorado has tried to recreate.  The cobblestone streets were quaint & immaculate, so the town seemed smaller than I suspect it actually is.  As soon as we arrived, I felt very happy to be there. 

The Mooring ladies & I arrived fairly early in the evening, so we had ample opportunity to stroll around, take in the sights, & sit down to a nice meal.  After dinner, Fi & I repaired to the town brewery to tipple some local lager & enjoy a bit of German hospitality. 

Let me tell you, Hausbrauerei Feierling was a pretty happening spot on Friday evening!  We eventually found a table, though, & (you will be proud to know) I honored my German heritage by ordering the largest beer on the list. 

Just So's You Know

Meantime London Stout is delicious.  I'm sipping one to pass the time while I wait for the Mooring ladies to 'finish' packing.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, early tomorrow morning, roundabouts 4 a.m., we're leaving East Sheen to catch our train at St. Pancras.  I'm pretty excited to see what the Eurostar is all about.

I'm also excited see what kind of rental car we've been allotted once we arrive in Calais.  I'm given to understand that the reservation could only be made for a class, so we could just as easily end up with a BMW X1 as a VW station wagon.  While these two could be comparable with respect to legroom, I might prefer one to the other for blazing down the autobahn. 

Word round the campfire is our house in Tuscany will not have interwebs, so it's possible I won't be able to publish any new Sausages til after my return.  While I know you, dear readers, typically wait with bated breath for each new post, this week might be a suitable time to take a break from that practice.  I'm on vacation!!

If Chance will have me King

Last weekend, Fi & I had another date with Shakespeare, this time on his home turf in the quaint English hamlet of Stratford-upon-Avon.  In order to make the journey, she & I booked a vehicle from Zipcar, a rental service we belong to which allows you to hire cars by the hour.  Saturday's winner was a brand-new Volkswagen Polo.  Although it's pretty much the bottom-rung VW, I rather like that model.  It looks fierce, wouldn't you say?

Okay, maybe not fierce, but definitely... zippy.  We rented this bad boy for the day & drove it from London to Warwickshire on Saturday afternoon, making our first stop at Kenilworth Castle, a ruined Norman stronghold located about an hour's journey outside of Oxford.

Full disclosure: I haven't yet experienced most of Kenilworth Castle.  We arrived some five minutes before closing time, so our visit was limited to the public path around the castle wall.  Still, as you can see, the view from without wasn't bad.  Fi insists the inside is worth a return-trip, so perhaps we'll make that a priority when next we're hosting some American visitors.

After a quick pit-stop at Kenilworth's Clarendon Arms for a tasty beverage, Fi & I got back on the road & proceeded on to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we had tickets for that Royal Shakespeare Company's evening production of Macbeth.  This was my first time seeing Stratford, & I was somewhat charmed.  For a town that could've easily devolved into a soulless tourist trap, Stratford has handled bardolatry surprisingly well, keeping the kitsch to an unoffensive minimum.  Although we only had a few minutes to walk around before our show, I saw enough to think I wouldn't mind returning with a bit more time to explore.  All the Elizabethan-themed architecture is great fun to see.

On the walk from the high street to the theatre, I noticed something odd about the streetlights -- none of them matched.  Further inspection revealed that various counties around England had each donated one of their own lamps for this path.  Kind of a fun idea.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre turned out to be extremely nice.  In recent years, it underwent extensive renovations, part of which included extending the stage into the audience (known as an apron).  This change makes for a very intimate feel, bringing the actors much closer to the audience.

I won't go into detail about the play, because it'd keep me writing all night, but I will say that I found the set extremely interesting.  The backdrop was built to resemble the inside of a cathedral having had its windows & walls vandalized & broken through.  Fi explained to me that this motif was in keeping with the politics during the time of Macbeth's publication in the 17th century, when England's churches were effectively gutted of anything resembling a religious image by mobs zealous reformers. Admittedly, I wouldn't have picked up on this myself.  Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, it helps to have a Shakespeare scholar as your date.

Although Fi & I both agreed the guy cast as Macbeth didn't really work out, overall, I found the production to be excellent.  The seats were comfortable too, with plenty of legroom even for those of us who tend to be too American for English spaces.  I'd gladly invest the time & money to get back to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for another play.  For those of you planning to visit in the near future, let us know if you'd like to make the trip.

Life is a Highway

My international driver's license arrived today!  Many thanks to my mom, who helped coordinate all the paperwork & telephone calls from the American end.  There's no way I could've managed this in time on my own.  I'm so relieved this arrived when it did...

...Because I'll be needing the license in a couple of weeks, when we set off for Italy!!  We'll be leaving London on the Eurostar, then renting a car in Calais & driving the rest of the way across western Europe to Italy, where we have a house in Tuscany booked for a week.  The journey should take about a two 8-hour days in the car, crossing through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, & Germany along the way.  I can't begin to say how excited I am! 

The Victory Garden update

Many moons have passed since I last posted pictures of Fi's balcony garden.  It's grown so much in the last month, I figured it was high time to show you more.  The plants have now reached production stages, & we've enjoyed a fair few tomatos, zucchini, peas, & beans, not to mention the occasional cutting of herbs.  Here are a few shots for your perusal:

The first picture is taken from the walkway approaching our front door, with the tomato on the left, guarded by three basil plants, & then my mini Weber on the right.  Below is a close-up of the tommies.

Here we've got a bird's eye of the zucchini, or courgette as it's called in the UK.  Fi likes to batter & pan-fry the flowers, a traditional Italian dish called fiori di zucca.  My goodness, they are delicious. 

These are the window-boxes, hanging from the rails.  Around the herbs planted within these boxes, Fi's growing flowering peas, which produce no fruit, but in the last few weeks, they've started putting out these extremely pretty red, white, & purple blooms. 

Gorgeous, aren't they?  Down below the window boxes, we've got some more herbs & pea plants, one of them in a teapot!

The final picture is of the latest tomato crop.  There's nothing like a homegrown tomato.  I added these to a pot of seafood jambalaya, my dinner this evening.  It's fine if you're jealous.

Mini Coupe

I've mentioned before on the Sausage that MC works for BMW in the Mini Cooper engineering division.  Lately he's been test-driving a few of the newest models, & the other day he got to check one out & bring it home.  Being the super nice guy that he is, he asked Fi & me if we cared to go for a spin.  I took some pics for you guys, so you can behold, in all its stylish glory, the Mini Coupe:

What do you think?  Slick?  Allegedly, the man who designed it was inspired by the image of a boy wearing a baseball cap backwards.  I can see some resemblance in the contours of the top & rear window.   

Word round the campfire is that Top Gear mercileslly slated the Coupe for a number of reasons, foremost because of its looks.  I rather like the shape though.  Also, it's ridiculously fast, which never hurts.  The John Cooper Works model (Mini's equivalent of BMW's M upgrade) that MC brought home does 0-60 in 6.4 secs & has something like 215 brake horsepower, which goes a long way in that package.

The Coupe only has two seats, so Fi & I got separate rides.  I can't speak for her experience, but I had a blast riding around with MC on the ring road, darting in & out of traffic like a go-kart.  He didn't hesitate to bend the law ever-so-slightly to demonstrate the Coupe's speed capabilities either, pushing up to somewhere around the ### mph mark.  It. Was. Awesome.