Pasta Making and Wine Tasting

I realized today, October 31, that it was Halloween in our country, which we always enjoy celebrating in Highlands.  We would also be missing Election Day, Veteran’s Day, and Thanksgiving while we are gone.  It did not seem like that time of year in Tuscany, because every day had been warm and sunny so far.  In fact, I had only packed one short-sleeved shirt, and I would be thankful for it over the next two or three weeks.

We had already met most of our group at the reception and dinner last night.  Most of them were from places in North Carolina we have visited, such as Bath, New Bern, Calabash, and Greensboro.  This morning, we all boarded the coach for our first adventure, a visit to nearby Tenuta Torciano Vineyards just outside San Gimignano.  We met our driver, Bruno, who was very Italian-looking and wore a dashing scarf every day.  He was equally good at navigating both narrow Italian country roads and the crowded streets of Florence.  He swung the big coach around so expertly that it sometimes seemed as if the mirrors would miss buildings and trees by mere fractions of an inch.  Jackie’s favorite expression was “Andiamo,” "Let’s Go."  Everybody was picking up a little Italian along the way and we would greet each other with a “buongiorno” in the mornings, which also pleased the desk clerk and servers in the restaurant (who were always men, by the way).

Tenuta Torciano was a family-run estate that produced grapes and olives and was a venue for a number of enterprises.  We were greeted by friendly staff before filing into a large tent for a pasta-making class with chef Dante, who was entertaining and enthusiastic.

Each of us found at our station a half-cup of organic white flour, semolina flour, and an egg, and in no time we were following Dante’s instructions, mixing and rolling and cutting a sheet of fresh pasta into tagliatelle and ravioli filled with sun-dried tomatoes.  We were also given chef's aprons, which as I am writing this are hanging on a peg in our kitchen.

After the class, we adjourned to another building set up with empty plates and many, many wine glasses, and we proceeded to sample antipasti (salami, bruschetta, cheese, and olive oil), five different varieties of wine, and the pasta we had all made earlier now topped with a simple truffle oil sauce.  Our sommelier introducing the wines was a nephew of the current owner, and was equally as entertaining as Dante.  The wine was regional, mostly sangiovese red wine, and very good, and he told us that because Italian wines are organic and do not contain sulfides, they do not cause a headache the next morning (a dangerous fact for we culinary travelers to learn).

We were all a little drowsy as we boarded the coach again, but we still had culinary adventures before us as we made out way to Fattoria San Donata to sample their organic extra virgin olive oil, served with crusty bread and olives.  And, of course, more wine.

We returned to the Borgo di Cortefreda as twilight approached, and we slept well that night!

Borgo di Cortefreda

The pretty little park across from our hotel was the Parco San Donato, and that was where I went for my morning Tai Chi and a two-mile run, just the thing for jet-lagged legs.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, the first of many such days during a time of year that was supposed to be rainy and cold.  I passed some other runners and walkers along the way enjoying the weather – Indian Summer, Italian version.

We took a taxi back to the airport and after only a brief wait met Jackie, our tour director for this first chapter of our trip called A Culinary Journey Through Tuscany and Florence, which we discovered through Our State Magazine.  We had wanted to sign up last year but the 2023 tour filled up before we could, so we had plenty of time to read about it and look at photos of previous trips on Facebook.  Chapter Three of our trip was another tour through Trafalgar Tours – Best of Italy – which we had also awaited for quite some time.  During the ten days between the two tours, Chapter Two, Martha had found an Airbnb in the heart of historic Florence, a city which we had heard about for years from Martha’s now 94-year-old aunt, who had traveled abroad many times and always said Florence was her favorite destination.  Well into her 80s, she would stay in Florence with an elderly friend – “all we needed was a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine every day,” she often said.  During our time in Florence, Martha had signed us up for tickets to many of the not-to-be-missed things to see in the city.

Jackie was the perfect tour director, friendly and approachable, fluent in Italian, and obviously very much in love with the country.  Like previous tour directors we had known in the past, she was knowledgeable in history, architecture, and culture, and over the next several days she made our visit to Tuscany a fulfilling and memorable one.  She was at the airport to meet us and two other couples (a larger group would be arriving on a later flight) and drive us to our location, the Hotel Borgo di Cortefreda, tucked in the rolling hills of Tuscany between two little villages, where we would be staying the entire time until our Airbnb in Florence.  Staying in one place night after night, not having to pack and unpack, was one of the things that was so appealing about this tour.  I had already found the Borgo di Cortefreda on Google Maps and spent some time using the street view feature, virtually “driving” up and down the two-lane Via Cassia, exploring the area.  Now we were driving past actual acres of olive trees and vineyards, chatting with the other two couple we had picked up, and marveling at the beautiful countryside of Tuscany all around us.

We were greeted by a hotel cat (we love hotel cats!) who was very vocal – did I detect an Italian accent in his “miao”?

The grounds of the hotel were absolutely beautiful, with views out over the rolling hills, and only a short walk to the nearest village.  We settled in and then met the rest of our forty-or-so fellow travelers on the trip, most of them from North Carolina because of the Our State Magazine connection, at a wine reception featuring hors d'oeuvres (or, I should say, antipasti) and plentiful glasses of prosecco, followed by dinner.  

 Let the Culinary Journey begin!

Madrid to Florence

Suddenly it was October 29, just like that, and we were landing in Madrid.  I have never been to Spain before, and now I can say that I have.  But we saw no more of it than the airport, a huge nearly-empty building with high, wavy ceilings, like something out of a dream.  And we were both a little sleepy at that point as we made our way to where we thought our connecting flight might be.  There were not many people about, and at the one Información window open I realized that, although I had learned a few words of Italian, I had neglected to learn any in Spanish, such as “Where is our flight?”  We were told that we should go to the “Welling” desk, whatever that might mean in Spanish, and somehow we found our way to the American Airlines window, which was not open.  Martha somehow pulled a miracle and printed our boarding passes, and we went over to a little airport café for a coffee and a croissant while we waited.

The American Airlines window opened, we located our gate, and finally we found ourselves boarding our connecting flight to Florence.  The name on the side of the aircraft was Vueling, pronounced “welling” – mystery solved.

Travel is an exciting and mysterious and frustrating and exhausting struggle for those of us who are not as seasoned as some of the travel companions we would soon be meeting on the first chapter of our trip.  

It was sunny and mild when we landed in Florence, and there were taxis waiting at the Amerigo Vespucci Airport.  My Italian was good enough to pronounce the address of our hotel, where we finally arrived at 1:00 p.m.  That would make it 7:00 a.m. Charlotte time, but I’m not sure what time it was according to my body - sitting on an aircraft for hours on end is not a good thing for a long-legged man accustomed to regular exercise.  After we settled in a little, we located a place to eat, a pizzeria just around the corner called Da Saba Pizza Novoli.  It was loud with Italian pop music and throngs of young people were gathered outside, and it seemed to be operated by a single employee, a young man who spoke as much English as I spoke Italian.  We enjoyed a quickly-prepared thin crust pizza and glasses of very good vino della casa rosso.  We finally felt like we were in Italy.

 
Across from our hotel was a pretty little park in which we could see people walking and running and children playing.  And the sun was shining.

Charlotte to Madrid

We awoke to the sound of aircraft taking off and landing.  I went out the front door of the hotel for morning exercise – Tai Chi next to our parked car, and then a half-mile or so around the parking lot.  I had packed my running clothes and a new pair of shoes and I intended to get in as much exercise as possible, but I really didn’t know what to expect.  Two years ago, when we traveled to France, we met a man named Jean-Charles on our first morning in Paris who was the owner/operator of Paris Running Tours.  He was a friendly and enthusiastic man only a few years younger than I was (but a much more accomplished runner), and he took us on a three-mile orientation run from the hotel all the way to the River Seine – the perfect thing for jet-lagged legs, and a great orientation tour of Paris, but the only run I managed to complete in our time there.  Martha had been unable to find a similar tour in Florence, so I was on my own.

In the elevator to the lobby I met a young man in a crisp navy blue uniform, a pilot or flight attendant, and we chatted briefly.  “Where are you off to?” I asked him, and it turned out he was from Venice.  “It is a good time of year to visit!” he said.  Good weather, fewer people.  That was encouraging.  We took the shuttle to the airport and waited in rocking chairs to board our flight at Gate A, while out the window we could see aircraft being moved into place ready to embark or disembark.

So many people passed through this airport, every possible race and nationality, and I listened to the wonderful music of foreign tongues as they walked past us.  We had lunch at a Mexican place, Tequileria, probably our last Mexican food for a long time, I thought.  And then we were boarding, and taxiing to the runway, and feeling that wonderful acceleration as we suddenly lifted into the air.  I am not at all a frequent flyer, and I am still humbled and amazed at the miracle of flight, climbing higher and higher, watching the My Flight on the tiny screen in front of me.  4229 miles to Madrid, seven hours and 21 minutes, 63 degrees below zero outside, 558 mph, 37,000 feet.  What a fragile vessel we were in, this ship made of aluminum and plastic, rocking occasionally in the turbulence of transatlantic flight.  David Bowie came to mind:

“For here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do.”

I watched most of a very funny Olivia Coleman movie called Wicked Little Letters, hoping I could finish it on the return flight, and then, drowsy with Dramamine, Major Tom nodded off to sleep.

Andiamo in Italia

Andiamo in Italia!  Let's go to Italy!  That's what I wrote on the blackboard in our kitchen as we prepared to embark on another adventure.

Are we actually going?  We planned this trip so long ago that it doesn’t seem real.  But yesterday we were packing, one suitcase and one carry-on apiece, trying to guess what might be needed for a five-week stay in a country where the weather is supposed to be rainy and cold in November.

 
And I am learning a few necessary phrases:

Buongiorno – good morning (not too dissimilar from bonjour, after all)
Grazie – thank you
Prego – you’re welcome
Mi scusi – excuse me (especially useful for poor Italian pronunciation)
Dové il bagno? – where is the bathroom?
Il conto per favoré – check, please
Arrivederci – farewell until we meet again

And of course:

Vino della casa blanco and vino della casa rosso.  We met a woman at the Highlands Wine Shoppe who had just returned from Florence and knew the city well, and she told us to always ask for the house wine, which is not the cheap poor-quality wine you might get in this country, but the very good local Italian wine, which is also inexpensive.

Cin-cin!

We drove on this cloudy Sunday morning to the Holiday Inn near Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where we have stayed on past overseas trips.  You can park your car safely there at a rate comparable to all the other parking lots near the airport and they have a free shuttle to and from the airport, which I remember from past trips was most welcome when arriving jet-lagged late at night after a ten-hour flight and a six-hour time difference. 

 All night we heard the sound of aircraft taking off, one after another – according to the internet, 672 flights per day, 28 per hour, or about every two minutes on average. We dreamt about flying high in the sky across wide shining oceans.

Oktoberfest 5-K

 This was the third year I completed the Oktoberfest in Walhalla, and perhaps the most perfect weather conditions I have ever seen – bright blue October skies and temperatures in the 40s.  Light frost was lying in the valleys on the drive down Highway 28 and I witnessed a gorgeous sunrise – who could ask for anything more?

As I have said in previous posts about this race, it is well-organized (by the local Rotary) and takes place on an almost flat course, the main road through the center of Walhalla.  As in previous years, there were people dressed in tiger costumes high-fiving runners at the start, and a young Miss Oktoberfest was on hand in her tiara to present awards.  With plenty of children and families in attendance, it is the kind of race that speaks well of small towns, with plenty of applause at the award ceremony for “local heroes” from the area and for older veteran runners like myself who had to wait for a very long time for our age groups to be called at the award ceremony. 

There were some fast older runners participating who were humbling to compete against.  A man my age took first place to my second place in a time of 25:15, while I ran a respectable (for me) 41:56.  Even more incredible was a 70-year-old man who ran 21:41, almost as fast as my all-time PR for this distance set when I was 50 years old.  I was passed early in the race by an 82-year-old woman who remained ahead of me until I slowly reeled her in again with a quarter-mile to go.  As I drew up beside her, I said, “My inspiration!” and she said, “But you’re the one who caught up to me.”  I told her, “Go ahead, you deserve to cross that finish line before me,” and with that she kicked, pulled away, and came in eight seconds in front of me.  I wanted to tell her later that I knew she had that finish-line kick, but she left before the awards ceremony. 

I have grown accustomed these days to finishing in the rear of the pack.  I used to wryly say things like, “The older I get the faster I was,” or “I’m not the runner I used to be.”  Until another veteran runner told me while we were standing around after a race a few years ago, “Yes, but you are the runner you are right now, and you should be grateful for it!”  Very true, and I never forget those words when I finish a race these days.  If I can run knowing that I could not have gone any faster, then it is as rewarding today as it was when I was setting PRs 25 years ago.

Miss Oktoberfest looked like she might have a problem reaching high enough to place the award medal around my neck – she had been dutifully doing so for everyone else, and even carefully arranging the medal so the front side was showing – so I did it for her.  It’s always nice to be handed your award by a pretty young woman wearing a tiara!  Thank you Miss Oktoberfest.  And thank you Rotary of Walhalla for another great race.