Monday, April 19, 2010

current food obsession

Castelvetrano olives--bright green and tender, the taste the very essence of olive-yness. Even better with some olive oil drizzled over them to notch up the flavor.

In other news, I have scored a room at an agriturismo (with half board, so I don't have to worry about being the only single woman eating dinner in a restaurant) in the Maremma, an area of Tuscany I have always wanted to visit. It's known more for its  natural beauty than for art and churches. So looking forward to wandering around the Maremma Park.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Sweet new Italian ride!

No, I did not buy an Alfa Romeo. But a vintage ladies' Chiorda off Craigslist is almost as good!


I have been riding around in scarf and sunglasses, liberally dispensing "Ciao"'s to passersby.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

got a ticket for an aeroplane

I'm going back to Italy for the first time in five years! That is really too long to go without re-experiencing the peninsula, but that's what buying a condo will do to your budget. I'm planning on staying in Rome for about half the time to reacquaint myself with the other city that is the love of my life and see some old friends (and hopefully meet up with some expats whose blogs I read regularly), and then stay at an agriturismo somewhere, probably in Tuscany, for the rest of the time. I'm thinking about somewhere near the water, which I didn't get to as often as I would have liked on past trips. I'd love to do a return to the Cinque Terre, since the weather was so disappointingly chilly, rainy, and overcast when I went--but I think that might be impractical and frankly kinda boring. I'd also love to go to some of the less-visited cities and regions in the south, like Matera and Puglia, but this trip is definitely for revisiting old places.

The photo is a Polaroid from some gardens in Rome. During the last few months of my stay in 2002, I decided to trade the digital camera for more old-school photography to try to see details and landscapes in a different way.