Both with terrible flu, the partner on antibiotics and me trying not to be, we head to Modena to meet up with the daughter and her partner; they're in between trips coming from Budapest, going to Croatia - as you do in Europe. We survive on aperitivo food as we're not well and we feel the gin in the Negronis would probably kill most bugs.
I proudly show off this beautiful city that has become my second home, it's stunning porticoes, it's classy inhabitants. Even the dogs are well groomed here, perched in a basket on a glamorous bike, with a diamond studded collar.
I am left alone over the course of the next day - the girls leave, the partner leaves to see his family in England. I breathe in the sudden space around me and head for bed with my flu as company. The next day I make my way back to my home base in order to get the apartment ready for it's summer letting.
There's clusters of tiny pears and apples on the trees now. Vegetables are growing in people's gardens, peonies, lilies, long grasses in the meadows, summertime. The lake has been dammed ready for boat races, the small town is getting ready for the annual migration of people coming from the hot depths of mid and south Italy, to the coolness of the mountains. I'm here only briefly because I'm meeting the girls and my sister from Australia in the next couple of days in Florence.
This is a photo that my friend Victoria took of the lake just after a storm.
I have a meeting to collect my permission to stay or residents visa. It takes me a day by public transport to get there and collect it but I am now official! I have an identity card to prove it. Very exciting. It's the closest I'll come to being Italian.
I spend some time with the sister-in-law watching Tempesta d'Amore, storm of love, (a German tv show that she loves), in between bouts of watching tennis; her slight height allowing her to stand and watch show after show, her elbows on a cushion on the table, surrounded by bills, mail, tablets and things that are always on their way to be located elsewhere. We eat frozen meals that she gets from the Eismann, who delivers meals to her door and I supplement with vegetables in between. I try to make out the tv show which is in Italian but it is too complex, as is the formula for all soap operas.
As usual, the leaving from this town is complex without a car. A taxi ride and chat with the lovely driver; awaiting the bus at a nearby cafe that serves amazing chocolate croissants and coffee; change at Venice for another bus trip that takes 4 hours to Firenze and deposits you out of the city centre; a train ride and finally I arrive and it's a short walk to Mr My Resort. It's housed in a 14th century building and they've accentuated the old frescos and added a few of their own. I have my own little courtyard but when I ask about a section of the place downstairs that is cut off by bars, they tell me that they kept people with the plague there, I wonder then how I'll sleep.
I walk to the Duomo, the square full of tourists and horse drawn carriages, Italians smoking, painting, being Italian. And as always when you come upon the famous Duomo, you have to marvel at the beauty and intricacy of the bands of emerald, pink and white marble that are suffused with the late afternoon light.
I then meet up with the girls who have found a great vintage style cafe, Simbiosi for cocktails and then we head for Indian. We're desperate for some exotic, hot food. The decor of The Royale is so over the top but that's what makes it great and the food is authentic!
The next morning I explore alone, (the girls are exhausted by the overnight bus trip from Croatia, cheap but long). I'm on a search for the oldest cafes here. Caffe San Marco 1870; Caffe Gilli, 1773, Cafe Concerto, Caffee Giubbe Rosse, Cafe Paszkowski. All kept with such love and care. After stopping at two for macchiatos, I'm on a caffeine high. The rest of them I just peek into or wander through.
I find Santa Maria Novella Perfumery store, the world's oldest apothecary. Started in 1221 by monks to help take care of outcasts while the convent was being established, the monks distilled rosewater, thinking that it could combat the Black Death. The first alcohol based perfume was made here for Catherine de' Medici in the 16th century, Acqua di S. M. Novella, which is still being made. It's incredible, I walk through history, it has it's own museum. I buy a small tin of health pastilles and wish I could buy Catherine's perfume but it's a bit pricey.
I meet the girls at the Mercato Centrale for the cheapest pasta. It's fantastic, lemon ravioli with walnut sauce.
Then we separate again and I go to the Uffizi gallery, I haven't been there since the daughter was ten. I'm going to see the Titian's, because, after all, he's a relative on the husband's side. And when the husband told me on our second date that he was directly related to Titian, one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance, it did have the desired effect of me agreeing to the third date! (of course, it wasn't all to do with the famous ancestor...). To think that my daughter has the Tiziano Vecellio DNA is mind blowing. I linger in the beautifully adorned halls of the Uffizi Palace that has been a gallery since the 16th Century but after a couple of hours I am exhausted.
I meet the girls for a drink at La Managere, which I highly recommend, their bitters look like bottles from an old apothecary shop. Then to Simbiosi again, this time for amazing pizza. Unbleached organic flour pizzas with gorgonzola and grated lemon; sausage on a truffle paste and nduja, tomato and burrata. Nduja is a Calabrian spicy, spreadable pork sausage meat that originates from the 13th century.
The next day, I wander again, looking at the many art details of this incredible city, on the ground, on the walls, everywhere there is beauty and much of it from 500 and more years ago. To walk alongside these buildings, along the roads where Michelangelo and Carravaggio would have walked with their canvases, their paints, is amazing.
I lunch at a beautiful cafe on spaghetti with crema di melanzane, a creamy eggplant sauce with toasted garlicky breadcrumbs on top and when I walk out I see a sparrow, contemplating a pasta nest as the perfect place to lay some eggs.
This is definitely my photo of the day.
That night we meet up with the sister and her partner who arrived from Australia.The partner is visiting his son in Iceland and is leaving us girls to go on a short road trip.
Comments