When I Wonder Away: Food, Water and Me

It seems, that I came to Amalfi coast from a wrong side... Today I took the road towards Salerno, through Analfi and small towns Manori and Maiori. The road and the views opening after each turn were beautiful.. and I had a realy nice 1h+ drive.

Yesterday I still spent a half day lazy.. and in afternoon headed towards the Amalfi Coast. Originaly I planned to have a stop somewhere around Rome, but got into those Termal waters and didn't want to get out. So the journey took me nearly 6h...after 4h in the car, I was already thinking to drop the Amalfi Coast idea, but the shot of espresso made it's job and the next 2h gone quite fast (like 150km/h fast.. yes yes.. I was carefull with safety cameras). I was planning to reach the place by the sunset, but at Neapoli area there were some trafic jams, so missed the target by half an hour.. Reached the Positano already in dark.  Why everyone says that driving in Italy is hard? All my trip I was looking for those "crazy italian drivers"... seen none. Of course...in the moddle of Tuscany you will barely meet a car every half an hour... But in Florence, highways...nothing unusuall. It made me think that maybe we, lithuanians, are driving the same "crazy"? so tha...

Why life cannot be stable? If yesterday was below expectations, so today it was exceeding them! Can't it be just "Met"?  Montepulciano Anyway.. today I headed back to middle of the Tuscany, with anticipation what the Montepulciano medieval and Renaissance hill top town will reviel. Not sure why, but I was looking forward to visit it and was amazed.. Tuscany is definitely at its best in its small historic hill towns..  F ields around this town produce "a violet-scented, orange-speckled ruby" wine called  Vino Nobile di Montepulciano . I read somewhere that Vino Nobile is known as Tuscany’s number-two red because it’s slightly less beefy than Montalcino’s Brunello. By the way - there is also a Montepulciano grape and  It should not be confused with the similarly named   wine   Vino Nobile di Montepulciano , which is made from predominantly  Sangiovese  (typical no1 Tuscany grape) and is named for  the village it is produced in  (..l ...

Today I had a real "vacation" - meaning spending a Day at a pool, sun-tanning and reading a book. As Tuscany is famous with it's Termal waters and natural hot Springs, I search for a place I could enjoy this. The closes and most attractive was a Grotta Giuspi SPA  .. definitely the most unique Spa experience I had! You have a natural underground sauna in a Grotta (Cave). It has 3 areas - Limbo first (warm), then you proceed to purgatory (warmer) and end up in Hell (hot) to relax, meditate and sweat out all the toxins in your body. I immediately fell asleep... and seems not the only one to do that, as woke up by someone snoring at the other end of the cave room :)) P.s picture is not mine, as it's quite hard to get anything taken...and you are not allowed phones..as they would get quite wet after an hour there.. Having in mind that I got a great Last Minute Deal - it was a good experience and a nice place to stay (even I feel 30 years to young being gere..).. But I wou...

Lucca and Pisa where my today's target. Eleonora and Marcus were very nice giving me a tips for getting to and spending a time in Lucca. Lucca As the Lucca has been chosen as official START of the 2013 Road Cycling Worldchampionship, I have also rented a bike at one of the "hundreds" bike rental shops and drove through the impressive Lucca city walls to explore..  Lucca town is completely surrounded by XVI Century walls . The walls, 4.3 km long, are allowed only to walkers and bikers, and it looked as a perfect start point.  Then I spent couple of hours driving through narrow streets, just enjoying the points of interest and watching people walking around. From all I saw, I liked the  Guinigi Tower  most - nice feature that it has  a trees on the roof and is the one of the few remaining towers in Lucca. Nice view from the top: Pisa I should say the Pisa leaning tower has realy impressed me... I even sat at corner cafe drinking Aperol Spritz (the popular Ita...

Saturday I dropped Brook at the Arezzo and headed towards Lucca. Montecatini Terme On the way I stopped at Montecatini Terme, as it had "something nice" on the top of the mountain. The town was built around it's mineral water springs and it appears to be largest and most know Thermal town. I got onto the tripadvisor and found that on top is a Montecatini Alto - and the best and most enjoyable way to get there is to take a Funicular. The view from above is amazing...as I could already expect. It's a standard for this region. Walked around, had some light lunch with porcini mushrooms and headed back.  By the way - today the  2013 Road Cycling World championship started,  that will be all run in Tuscany from September 21st through September 29th, 2013. The race will cross the most charming Tuscan roads, will climb the world famous hills and will arrival in Florence.. The race is said to be as famous as Tour de France. Just this one is "Tour de Tuscany". All w...

I didn't write yesterday, as It was a long night of "Good Byes" and lots of good words... This is a bunch of my new friends - whom I definitely miss! From left: Raymond (Australia) - the most calm person in a group, but very efficient! He will definitely remember this as a "pigeon nightmare" - he had to debone 6 little pigeons...and when he though he finaly done all (in 2h..) - the another one was found. The funny part was that we are the pigeon ragu in 2min... it was so tasty.. Next to me - Betsy (US). Comming for a 2nd time, as an aniversary present by her "non participating" husband Joe. They were the one of the oldest couples (she 60 and him 68). But so fit, funny and full of stories, that I personally enjoyed their company most. Joe was great non-participating guest - always comming at a "Food time".. looking after wine supplies, with a smile and energy. Taking us around the medieval towns and driving a car adms he drives his motobike.. ...

Today was a Day Off. (So.. no pictures..) I decided to do nothing and spent most of the Day at a pool, enjoying a Sun. Some of the people when off to Montepulciano, some stayed in Villa and done nothing as me.  As it was a Day Off - we were not served neither Lunch nor Dinner and we left alone in the Villa. It was interesting to see, how everyone started gathering at 6pm... one setting a Dinner table, the other one making a pasta, other one heating a leftovers... I done a cake.. It felt so hommie.  Cooking is all about pation. And it unites everyone - despite the age or nationality... No one forced..but we felt so good to sit all together at Dinner table, clap for people who made a meal, appreciate the Food. You could see people being proud of making a Meal for others and it makes you feel honoured of being able to eat and enjoy it. It's a nice experience, which is difficult to describe and you can only experience. ..then it smoothly transformed into Dancing party! Even out Ni...

Today Paola (the teacher) promissed a hard day. She said we will be "Disastered"...in her Italian-English she acctually meant Exhausted :) ...it was true..after the Introduction (we start a cooking class by going through recipies we will be making ..receiving tips and comments) we realised that we will have to make 23 recipies!!! And basically quite a complicated ones.. I got the Lamb (on a Leek&Spinach bedding with Garlic souce and cherry tomatoes) - which turned to be a delitious dish! Beside that, we were again making pasta - but this time was a Tortellini... which Robert called a "Torture'llini" - as for him is was a nightmare to make those small creatures...and looks like Paola on purpose gave the biggest man in a group this task - to make a Fun for all of us! ;) Camaldoli ...in the morning we went to Camaldoli - The holy Hermitage and Monastery of Camaldoli. The monks living there still make use of homegrown medical herbs.  On the way back we took a ve...

Today was no Cooking day and from the early morning we left for a full day trip. Arezzo First thing we stopped at Arezzo which has a charming medieval historical center. One of the main attractions is  Basilica of  San Francesco  (13th-14th centuries), built in Tuscan-Gothic style, with massive fresco the  History of the True Cross  (1453–1464) cycle by  Piero della Francesca  in the Bacci Chapel. The fresco is stinning and must see! Villa La Ripa Next stop was a Wine tasting. Not a traditional place. A current owner (Saverio Luzzi) bought a Villa with a 100 years old wineyard in 1998.. and was not planning to get into wine making. 7 years later, he was planning to get rid of the wineyards while one of most famous Tuscany wine makers made him an offer - he asked Saverio to give a grapes a chance: he would help him to grow and harvest the grapes and make a wine. If it would be not good - he can destroy it..  The wine turned to be a great one, havin...

Day Five and I'm already tired. I think, I'm tired of the eating.. I feel like it's a 3rd Christmas Day.. we cook, we eat, we eat again and we eat again. The only good thing - there is definitely no time and energy to think about work or any other distraction from the "Reality". Today I took the lazy morning and missed everyone going to a nearby (4km) medieval village Poppi, which is included in thr list of "The most beautifull villages and towns of the Italy". This is a view from the road to Villa: I will go there the other day. Instead - I wondered to road to other village Pratovecchio and found a nice XI century Monastery & churche of  San Giovanni Evangelista. And up the hill - the Castle where they say that Dante Alighieri lived for a short time during his exile from Florence. The last looked more like ruins, but acctually was rebuilt and quite visited by the tourists. The afternoon was the Pasta Day. In Italy, as they say, there are as many pas...