It's been another couple weeks since our last blog, but rest assured- this one's a doozie! At long last, I finished our how-to video about where olive oil comes from. Watch & learn (in HD)!
Watch it on youtube in 720p!
Only after you've watched the video may you drop your jaw at this latest round of flickr photos.
Over a week ago, we were still a full house here at Il Poderone. Bodo invited over his Swiss friend, Marco to come and join us for a few days. Marco interrupted our normal cycle of late evening meals with an afternoon barbeque! Afterward, everyone joined in a friendly Boule tournament. Boule is almost exactly the same game as Petanc/Bocci Ball. Bodo and Michael's team came out on top. As you can see, Bodo plays an aggressive game of Boule.
We did round two in Siena with Sarah. By some otherworldly coincidence, it was again raining. The only two times its rained since we've been in Italy have been when we dared to go into Siena. We saw a different side of the city, including the massively-empty Basilica of San Dominico. We went to a snazzy little restaurant for lunch, where I was lured into enjoying a delicious three-course meal (Happy Birthday to me!).
Mary, Sarah, and I accompanied our long-time coworker, Pietra, to the train station in Florence. She was going home, but the rest of us took the opportunity to wander the beautiful city. This time we managed to see the David. We payed the BOGUS price of eleven euro to tour the small museum (no student discount- denied!) full of young, loudmouth students.
At the beginning of last week, all of the harvesting was finally finished. We spent our mornings with less-demanding oddjobs- fixing the olive nets, bottling the oil, cleaning up thorn bushes, etc. After the work was done, we would unwind with Italian food and Italian beer.
Campagnatico is only a two or three kilometer walk from Il Poderone. Amazingly, Mary and I had never found time to walk there until the middle of last week, when we went with Sarah. All of the nice, old Tuscan cities are built on hilltops. The hills lend themselves to spectacular views! C'mon, look at the flickr photos.
Thursday morning, we took off in Bodo's Fiat Panda looking for the beach- what we found ended up being oh so much more. After seemingly having gone off course, we found a nature trail leading into what appeared to be the middle of a forest. We walked and walked and walked...but never found a good place to sit and have our lunch in the sun. Eventually, we just gave up and sat down on the trail to eat. After we'd finished, we contemplated going back. Sarah scouted out ahead and found an Italian paradisio that would make Dante weep (I will admit it compares to the beauty of Scotland). The above photo has not been tampered with; it's exactly as we saw it. LOOK AT ALL THE PICTURES!!!
This little gem, what I'm boldly naming Italy's best-kept secret, is located north of Punta Ala along the Mediterranean coast. Click here if you'd like to see it on a map.
You'll really be kicking yourself if you miss these pictures...CLICK!!! If you want to find the beach, remember that Garibaldi will show you the way. If you look hard enough, you can see Elba in the distance.
Thursday night was our last night with Bodo & his papa. Friday afternoon, we dropped off Sarah at the train station.
Mary made this lovely little Christmas tree for our kitchen!
It's just Mary and I in the Italian countryside now, and it's been raining nonstop all weekend. We've some friends in Bodo's three cats...but next week we're making a romantic excursion to the city on the water- Venice!
This is another example of the most-triumphantly-violent, Catholicism-inspired art which populates Europe. The 20-foot painting greets all visitors to San Dominico's Basilica, and depicts the horrific death of St. Peter of Verona. He came to be canonized after saying a prayer while a blade was lodged in between his ears.
Don't wait 'til the last minute to get the holiday shopping done,
-Jake
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