We're off to Modena to meet one of our tenants. We're meeting her halfway as she's doing research in Perugia. Both the daughter and I are still nervous about driving, me trying to stay on the right side of the road and working out who to give way to in the roundabouts; the daughter because she is chief navigator. Luckily if things do go badly wrong, Italian drivers don't beep you if you stop in the middle of somewhere and try to work out where to go, they just drive around you. So civilised.
I stop for petrol, most are self serve but it's all different here so anxiously I pull in to find out what to do and a woman comes over ready to serve me. I'm so happy until I look up and realise it's 25 cents a litre more when you're served which may not seem a lot but petrol here is $2.75 a litre so that takes it to $3. Still, you live, you learn. After that experience I needed a coffee. It's a small service station on the highway but it has amazing food and so I choose my favourite - a brioche (or croissant) filled with half pistachio cream and lemon cream. It's amazing! I'm ready to go.
We make it to the town that my daughter lived in for a year and I visited regularly. It is a city of colour, of colonnaded arcades in fruity and nutty colours: rockmelon, lemon, pistachio, hazelnut. A town of well dressed people with their well groomed dogs taking the passeggiata around six, meeting up in the big square near the church, scarved, booted, high heeled and elegant (even walking over the cobblestones). It's the town of Ferrari, of balsamic vinegar and Lambrusco.
The daughter takes me to her favourite sandwich place, Mamma Puglia and we eat a Sicilian style bun the colour of sunshine, stuffed with all things Pugliese. The middle bit of the Burrata, stracciatella oozes out as we sip our first Spritz and for me the dry Lambrusco. I think everything is more sparkly, more colourful, more memorable after being in lockdown for two years, wondering if we'd ever get back here.
We part company as I go in search of a shop where the owner made the most unusual jewellery - Sarazine. I'm so worried she would have folded during Covid but she's there, looking fabulous, wearing her beautiful jewellery. She doesn't speak English so for the first time, I've got to make use of two years of Duolingo. We exchange news, I buy a couple of stunning pieces and move on, looking enviously at all the coloured shoes! They hardly exist in Australia.
We meet up with our friend and after showing her the church of the famous saint, San Gimignano, we take her off to Bar Collegio for huge Negronis. The night is just starting to hum. This is a university town so the young people are starting to come out, dressed up, ready to drink the Friday night away. The glamorous older ones, walk by in their warm winter coats and polished boots, little dogs trailing behind them, in search of fantastic restaurants. And our first night is done.
The next day we breakfast at a bar we used to go to and they have a great sign on their van - I'll be right back or maybe even not! Which says it all about Italian living.
Then I wander, it's Saturday and every Modenese and their dogs are out and there is music wafting through the air. Weddings are happening, people are onto their first wine of the day.
I meet the girls for the Pugliese sandwich and then go to the market. The Modena market is amazing and last time I was here, they were making some of it into a food hall. I was so worried they would ruin it but no, they've done it in style. Keeping it old fashioned with pink marble tables that used to serve the fresh seafood, turned into tables. I wonder and marvel at all the vegetables that we see here but not in Australia. I end up buying big thick asparagus that they wrap in brown paper; agretti which is a saltbush plant that makes soda ash and was used to making glass in Venice; ravioli made with ricotta, orange rind, almonds and cinnamon and another one made from pumpkin that you serve with a walnut pesto and beautiful new season tomatoes. I pass a stall that must have forty varieties of different flavoured tiny chocolate easter eggs and another with peas that are still attached to their curliqued stems, tiny perfect lettuces and three different types of coloured perky cauliflowers.
After that sensory experience we go home to rest and await the night of pizza. La Smorfia serves a white pizza with walnuts, pancetta and thick balsamic vinegar. We savour the flavours and then head off to the gelateria that fills the cone with warm melted chocolate. The gelato is served at exactly the right temperature so it is almost like semi-freddo but holds it shape because if it's softer, the flavour is more robust. Then we walk through the centre and it's full of people, walking arm in arm, the church is lit up, there are no cars, just people enjoying the night.
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