Mamma Americana

Kissing Cousins

We're back in Florence. We flew in from the States on Tues. and have been fighting jet lag ever since. The first 2 nights Eleonora and I were up watching cartoons between 1 and 5 am. Now she seems to be sleeping better, and I'm the one who is wide awake in the middle of the night. Oh well.

On Friday we left Florence for a weekend in Cortona. The occasion being the christening of my nephew Cesare. My sister in-law and her family live in Rome. They chose Cortona as the location for Cesare's christening for several reasons.  

The franciscan priest that married us and also christened Eleonora has been in Cortona for a little over a year now (he'll be moving back to Santa Croce in Florence next week). He is a close family friend as well. And Cortona is about halfway between Florence and Rome. So a weekend at a nearby agroturismo was planned, with the christening scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Our group occupied all thirteen apartments of the agroturismo.

The christening was held in the church of San Francesco in Cortona. Sorry I have no photos of the actual ceremony, my camera was malfunctioning. The photographer was able to fix it for me during the party afterwards.

The party was held in the Teatro Signorelli in Cortona. We had a wonderful buffet aperitif/dinner. It rained while we were there, but stopped in time for us to climb back up the hill to our cars.

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day. We awoke to a leisurely breakfast of brioches and espresso. Everyone relaxed outside and enjoyed the sun. Then we piled in our cars and drove about 20 minutes to Marciano Della Chiana, a little walled town in the Arezzo province. We ate at a great little Osteria named "Hosteria La Vecchia Rota" in the central piazza. 

Eleonora playing on stage.

View of the theatre

The agroturismo "Principe del Trasimeno"

 A game of cards and rock soup on Sunday morning

The kids have some fun during a long Sunday lunch (the mauve blur is Eleonora)

The aftermath...

 The gang of cousins

Eleonora gives Cesare a goodbye kiss

Chamomile and Colic

Still on our New England vacation. Eleonora and I leave for LA tomorrow and Lorenzo heads back to Florence for 3 weeks of bachelorhood. I'll post some photos of our trip when we're settled in. 

In the meantime, here's something interesting about chamomile and colic.

Well, I just about rolled over when I read this article in the NY Times a few weeks ago. Evidently research shows some improvement for colicky babies after drinking chamomile tea. You see, chamomile is a folk remedy that Italian grandmothers have been touting for generations. They sell a powdered version just for babies at the supermarket here. 

I never gave much credence to it as there are many other old folk beliefs (regarding health) in Italy that are just plain silly. I have to give some examples: Going to the sea will bring out teething, illness, etc. in young children (il mare lo porta fuori); cold air will cause a stiff neck; going barefoot is bad for children's feet. There are many more, but I honestly cannot remember them right now. 

It turns out I was wrong about the chamomile. That's good news for babies with colic. Wish I'd known that when Eleonora was tiny. She had awful colic every evening/night until about 3 months.

Sea, Sun and Airplanes?

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I always get super busy this time of year. June usually finds me trying to finish up projects before summer gets underway. I finished one such project yesterday: the Blair family cookbook. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. It has over 78 family recipes, along with old family photos or copies of the original old recipes. I was surprised to find that some of the oldest recipes go as far back as the 1930's. Here's the link if you want to take a look at it on TasteBook: Blair family cookbook.

We spent the weekend at the family's beach cottage in Tonfano. There's still some work left to do on the patio, but most of the interior is back in shape after the humid winter. There was quite a bit of peeling paint and some mold that had to taken care of. 

There was an air show planned for the weekend that we were unaware of. It was a nice surprise to see jets doing stunts as we pedaled our bikes to the beach. Evidently the Frecce Tricolori  (Tricolor Arrows) were performing. They're the Italian Air Force's flight demonstration squadron. They rehearsed on Saturday and did the full show on Sunday with their trademark tricolor smoke trailing behind.

Shooting over the pier in Marina di Pietrasanta

A low fly by

A civilian group does a loop

May Day

May 1st is Labor Day in Italy and much of the world celebrates the International Workers Holiday as well. It fell on a Friday this year so we had a lovely long weekend. 

I prefer the old celtic May Day, celebrating the end of of winter and the coming of summer. It seems that huge numbers of Italians feel the same way. We encountered them all on the highway heading to the sea. Despite the traffic, we managed to arrive in Viareggio in time for lunch.

Afterwards we spent a few hours on the beach before heading back to Florence. The weather was lovely: the sun was warm; there was no breeze to speak of and the sea was like glass. Beautiful! The beach clubs had their umbrellas set up and there was no lack of customers.  The only hints of bad weather were the piles of drift wood and trash left along the shore by winter storms. All of this left me aching for summer. 

Cautious feet exploring a new, uneven surface.

Look at that Grandma!

Tripping

I've been planning our next trip to Los Angeles over the last week or so. Plane ticket prices haven't come down despite the fact that gas prices have dropped dramatically. So we finally bit the bullet and forked over $1,200 for tickets for the baby (on lap) and I. Lorenzo's ticket was slightly cheaper: $1,000! This is the most we have ever paid for a ticket in the ten years or so that we have been flying back and forth across the atlantic. 

The part that was supposed to make this trip special, a trip to Hawaii paid for with air miles from Alitalia, has fallen through. Alitalia is no longer offering LAX as a hub for departures. So I'm seriously disappointed, but if we can find a really good flight/hotel deal we may still go. Tourism has been hard hit by the financial crisis and there are supposedly some really good deals to be had (according to the papers). We'll see.

In the meantime, we need to use up our miles (we have a special offer that expires in Feb.) before Alitalia goes bankrupt. People have been predicting Alitalia's doom for years, but it really does look to be on it's last legs.

A strike that was held on Monday may be the next to the last straw. Air France- KLM won't buy it until the company becomes profitable again, but all efforts to restructure the company have been met with resistance by the employees. Job cuts are needed badly because the company is bloated. So instead of accepting that some will lose their jobs, they strike. What they don't realize is that they're risking everyones job if Alitalia fails. 

It's bad enough already: Alitalia's prices are higher than Air France, Lufthansa, and KLM to name a few. You pay more, but get terrible service and don't know if you'll be stranded somewhere if they decide to go on strike at the last minute. Who wants that? 

I hope that it stays solvent at least until early December though. We'll probably go to Paris for an extended weekend (paid for with our miles). Lorenzo's aunt and uncle have a time share in Paris (Montparnasse), so we'll meet up with them. Ah, Paris!

Il Mulino (the old mill)

Yesterday we visited Lorenzo's late grandmother Maria's childhood home. It is located in the Tuscan-Emilian Appennines, above the village of Vernio, which is about a 40 minute drive from Florence. The name mulino  means mill, in this case it was an old water mill, which was used to grind wheat. The mill is no longer in use, but it was at the heart of a small cluster of apartments. This is what the mill probably looked like when it was in use.

Photo of a mill in nearby Cantagallo (photo Nove.Firenze)

There was room enough for between five and six families, plus plenty of arable land cut out of the surrounding forest. Maria's family consisted of eight brothers and sisters and their parents. They all lived in a two bedroom apt. 

The ground floor has a good sized kitchen with a large fireplace and a wood burning oven built into the wall. This was and is the only form of heating in the apt. There is a living room next to that, separated by a steep stone staircase (pardon my alliteration). There are two large bedrooms above. A bathroom with a shower was added at a later date.

The reason for our visit was to make the acquaintance of another Italian/American couple and their two daughters who have been living in a nearby apt. for two years. It happened to be the younger one's first birthday, so we celebrated together.

Lorenzo's great aunt made tagliatelle by hand, rolling out the dough with a long skinny rolling pin. The pasta was served with ragù a meat sauce. Then we had steak and sausages cooked in the fireplace. Yum!

Villa Caruso Bellosgaurdo

A childhood friend of Lorenzo's was married on Saturday. The three of us sweated through the afternoon ceremony in a small country church and then drove to Lastra a Signa for the reception. The villa is located on a hilltop overlooking Lastra a Signa and Florence. The word bellosgaurdo literally means "beautiful view". I had fun taking pictures while Lorenzo enjoyed an aperitivo.

View from the back of the villa

Villa on the right

Dinner by sunset

That "beautiful view"

Front of the villa

Surfer Girl

Eleonora with her daddy

Saturday was Eleonora's first trip to the sea. She enjoyed playing in the sand under the shade of our gazebo. The water was a different story. Lorenzo dipped her toes in briefly and she let out a cry. So we'll take it slow. There were lots of other babies not much older than she playing in the shallow surf, so I'm sure that she'll come around.

The area where we're staying is known as Versilia and is made up of several small municipalities. Tonfano is the tiny town where our cottage is located. There is a lovely market on Saturdays that brings out locals and tourists alike. Life at the beach isn't all bad :D!

White Night

La Notte Bianca is a special night where stores, restaurants, museums and churches stay open much later than usual. The streets are closed off to traffic; stages are set up in various piazzas; and people stroll about enjoying the live music.

The phrase notte bianca derives from passare la notte in bianco, meaning to pass the night without sleeping, better known as insomnia. That's exactly what happened on Saturday night here in Florence, as the part of the city known as the Oltrarno (oltre l'Arno = beyond the Arno river) became a lively street party.

The festivities started at 7:30 p.m. and lasted until 4 a.m.

Ballerinas in Piazza Pitti

Piazza Pitti at sunset

We had dinner at Celestino's in Piazza Santa Felicita. Tables were set up in the piazza, and there was a singer/dj, giving the whole thing the atmosphere of a wedding reception.

The church in the background is ,Santa Felicita which I had never visited before, on account of never finding it open. I was finally able to see a very famous painting by Pontormo. You can see the square windows of theVasari Corridor above as it passes through the church on its way to Palazzo Pitti.

Looking back towards the Ponte Vecchio. You can see the Vasari Corridor winding its way around a tower.

Summer is finally here!

Summer has arrived much later than usual this year. May, usually the nicest month, was very dreary, with showers/thunderstorms almost everyday. And June is normally quite hot, without a cloud in sight. It's almost July and yesterday was our first day of really warm weather. Even so, the mornings are overcast, just like in SoCal this time of year.

Soon our family will be heading off to the beach cottage. Come June and the end of the school year there is a mass exodus of moms with kids in tow. They relocate to the beaches of Italy, or less often, to the countryside from June to September. The dads commute to work or visit on the weekends, depending on the distance to/from work.

I'm looking forward to getting away from Florence for a while, but two months seems like a long time. This is going to take some getting used to...