Chapter 8...Our Food and Wine Journey Through Northern Italy: October, 2023

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OUR FOOD AND WINE JOURNEY THROUGH NORTHERN ITALY

October, 2023

 

Tuesday, Oct 17, 2023

 

It was supposed to be Sept 8 that this journey started. About 18 months of planning came to a screeching halt on Sept 1 when I bent over to load the dishwasher. All of a sudden, the lower half of my body was going in a direction opposite my upper half. The “snap” was too familiar. By Sept 5 I knew that the trip was not going to happen because I was in too much pain and could barely walk so we started the cancellation process- which is a lot faster than the trip creation process.

 

The lesson………..always buy travel insurance. In 10 days, we had all of our money back.

 

By mid-September, I was still not 100% functional but we asked ourselves the question of whether I would be better in time to re-plan the trip before the cold weather would kick in. And so, a trip that came together in 18 months got put back together in 2 days.

 

And so here we are, winging our way to Chicago and connecting there to Milan. I am about 85% of full functionality and suspect that some of the walking tours we’ve arranged will hear lots of “I’ll wait here in the café while you go check that place out”

 

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

 

We arrived in Milan at 3 PM local time ignored the time zone-induced fuzziness and hit the town running. Our supplier, who does all of our land-based travel planning for us, has a wonderful selection of In-town hotels that are in the heart of the city. Here in Milan, our hotel is the Manin (https://www.hotelmanin.it) and we walked to the Galleria Victor Emmanuel , the La Scala opera house, and hundreds of beautiful shops, restaurants, and bars. Milan is famous for its culture of Aperitivo, a 5 o’clock run on bars of all sizes to imbibe on Campari, Aperol, and other pre-dinner drinks and snacks. We are far from the world's biggest drinkers, but these drinks are really good.

 

Aaaaah, what would a vacation in Italy be if there wasn’t a train strike to throw a monkey wrench into our well-planned trip? When is a train strike not really a train strike? When the Italians declare a strike, then identify a number of trains that will run in spite of the strike. In fact, it is a show of force that they can use to exercise muscle on the government. Our train to Bologna is not on the list of trains that will operate during the strike. Now what? We could go to the train station in the morning and attempt to manage language, barriers, and mobs of people to determine when we might be able to train to Bologna. But that ain’t gonna happen. I’ve hired an Uber to drive us to Bologna. They only operate Uber black here in Italy, so it will be a very good ride, and very expensive which we will submit to our insurance company for reimbursement under the trip interruption clause.

 

Thursday, October 19, 2023

 

Veteran travelers as we are, we like to think that we plan for everything when we go overseas as if we were being outfitted by Q from the James Bond movies and ready for anything. What we did not account for was that our Jetlag would keep us up through the middle of the night and cause us to have a very late start to the day. We tore up our original plans for the day and walked and walked and walked with a destination of Castle Sforzesco.

 

Milan is a wonderful city to walk given the number of beautiful shops, lovely apartment buildings, good-looking people, and fashion models. Did I mention that there must be more restaurants and bars and standup bakeries per capita here than we can even recall in Manhattan pre-pandemic?

 

This is our first city-based vacation in a while and a first where I would consider us as seniors. Our strained hips, thighs, heels, and backs have proven the point that we are no longer urban adventurers and belong on river cruises or lovely resorts with car services to great restaurants.

 

This sandwich shop (Al'Antico Vinaio) has outlets all over Italy and has even opened in NYC. Check out their website. (https://www.allanticovinaio.com/en/home-osteria-eng/)

 

 

This pizza restaurant had the most incredible aroma. I actually have a memory from Brooklyn in the 1950s of the aroma from a pizza shop and this was identical. Too bad it had too long a wait to taste the pizza. Next time. (https://denispizza.it/en/)

 

 

Friday, October 20, 2023

 

Oh, if only we could have trains that are as nice and efficient as in Italy. I guess we do but our geographic distances preclude them being as popular as here in Europe. I love the trains and the obligatory people-watching. Remember the Simon & Garfunkel song about people watching across America? Sitting across from us is an Italian Kramer look alike. A very handsome family of four with two adorable young children must not have ever been to preschool and learned that all-important admonition, “use your indoor voice” as the kids scream at anything they see from their seats.

 

BTW, when we got back to the hotel last night, we asked the front desk if there was any update about the train strike. She asked where we were going and when we said, “Bologna,” she said, “Oh, the intercity trains are not affected, your train is going to run fine”. So now I know the answer to the question, “How fast can you cancel a $500 Uber?”

 

I was last in Bologna about 2010 on a consulting project for the founder of Pinkberry. It was the infamous flight from SF to Paris where I took 2 Ambien. I have zero, and I mean zero, memory of exiting the plane, going through passport control, or getting on the flight to Bologna. I won’t do that again. I have good memories of being there and especially the food. Looking forward to making new memories.

 

Bologna is an old city. How old? Well, almost every building has a date stamp that is in the 14^th century. The architecture does not make you go “Wow, this is beautiful” but more, “Wow, this is old”. Compounding a dark feel there are 200,000 students attending the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the Western world, started in 1088. These young students and their predecessors over the last 100 years have seen these old buildings as a canvas to scrawl political slogans and miscellaneous graffiti. Literally, every building is impacted. As much as Milan is a center of fashion and culture, Bologna is a counterpoint.

 

However, there may be more restaurants, cafes, and bars per capita here than anywhere else we’ve ever been. And the food is rated as superb.

 

We had lunch at Trattoria Del Tempo Buono, and it did not disappoint. Vegetable salads and great bread were a treat. https://trattoriadeltempobuono.com/en/trattoria-2/

 

Remembering that this trip was put together on the fly, we could not get the hotel we originally had. In fact, we are here on a weekend and Italy is still sold out. We ended up in what we would call an AirBnB smack in the middle of the campus in a former family home. I hate AirBnB. It is what it is; yet another lesson for our clients to book early to go to Europe.

 

We were so tired from wandering around the city that we both fell asleep at five and didn’t get up until 8:00. We skipped dinner and went back to sleep. That is something I’ve never said before; we “skipped dinner”.

 

Tomorrow, we have a full-day private tour of the Emilia-Romagna region where we will learn to taste, buy, and enjoy the bounty of the region.

 

Saturday, October 21, 2023

 

This all-day food tour is the central reason for this trip as far as our travel agency is concerned. We wanted to learn more about the foods and wines that we enjoy in America that are produced in Northern Italy.

 

 

An arranged driver transported us to Sassuolo for a tour of a family business that produces prosciutto for fine restaurants all over the world. The owner’s son of Salumi Leonardi e Ciardulio showed us how they manage the aging process of the pig's hind legs. At the end of the tour, he laid out a spread of the various products we saw. It was then that I had to own up to him that I am a Pescatarian on a vegan sabbatical. He was relieved when I told him that I am not a food nazi, out to convert the world, just a guy eating to live who appreciates the food production process.

 

 

 

BTW, I’m the guy that passed on a steak BBQ on the pampas in Argentina so this was not too hard on me.

 

However, we enjoyed the tour and the conversation very much about their focus on quality over quantity, a theme we heard about all day.

 

From prosciutto production, we went to a producer of Lambrusco, the owner of which is good friends with Enzo Ferrari and he has the Ferraris on his property to prove it.

 

And then we drove over to Modena, birthplace, and home of Pavarotti, world famous for Balsamic Vinegar and Parmesan cheese. The vinegar folks are a 6^th generation business that started as a restaurant and added on the production of very expensive balsamic vinegar. The family name is Pedroni.

 

A few years ago, a friend of our son’s was a chef who trained in Italy and became a Head Chef at a well-known restaurant in New York. He invited us to dinner and came to the table with 25-year balsamic vinegar and cautioned us to use it sparingly both for the intense flavor and the price. We ignored him and slathered it on bread and anything else we could find.

 

I asked our host at Pedroni about using the balsamic on bread and she looked at me in that wonderful Italian judgmental way and said “No! We don’t use the vinegar on bread”. It was the same intonation and critical judgment that Michael Corleone's future father-in-law in Sicily expressed to him when there was a reference made about his daughter. 

 

BTW, Balsamic vinegar aged for 25 years drizzled onto ice cream is incredible.

 

And then the visit to the farm that makes Parmesan cheese. There are 16,000 wheels being aged in this room!

 

Back in Bologna, we had dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant called Sale Grosso (https://www.facebook.com/salegrossobologna?fref=ts) which is a fish-based restaurant, and it of course was wonderful.

 

I should point out that we walked a different route to dinner and were pleasantly surprised by the hundreds and hundreds of university students on the streets and in the many restaurants and cafes all having a pleasant evening.

 

Sunday, October 22, 2023

 

Travel can be humbling.

 

One needs to be open to challenging pre-conceived beliefs or conclusions drawn too quickly.

Today we changed our perceptions about Bologna when we went on a walking tour with Roberta, who could have been on the cover of a magazine to highlight what a sophisticated Italian lady looks like on a Sunday afternoon.

 

 

It turns out that when we arrived in town we walked down some pretty shady streets. Roberta took us to see the highlights of the city and explained the history and architecture of the buildings. It certainly was not her implied or explicit message, but we took away from her descriptions of history and architecture that the city is old, and it is a city with a long tradition of thumbing its nose at those who seek to control it. For example, in every other major legacy city, the cathedral is in the center of the city. Bologna? Not so much. Not only is the main church not in the most important piazza but that distinction belongs to a basilica, not a cathedral. It seems that Bologna has had a lot of problems with Popes through the years and the university from 1088 has invited and facilitated lots of free and contrarian thinking. Is it any wonder that these 200,000 kids have marked up so much of the city with graffiti and the city does not seem to mind? Can you imagine that happening in Florence? No way.

 

Roberta also showed us so many food shops (and tried to also get me to have some prosciutto). But instead, after the walk we had lunch in a café in which I had this for lunch…………….

 

 

……..to reinforce that man does not only live by Parma ham and Parmesan cheese but by incredible veggies!

 

Tonight pizza, tomorrow we take the train to Parma for the day.

 

Monday, October 23, 2023

 

Milan has a population of 1.4 million, Bologna has 400,000 plus 150,000 students, Florence has 400,000 and Parma has 200,000 making it a second-tier city. But it is a lovely one at that and while I haven’t done any research, I think it must benefit from being a far-bedroom community of Milan and Bologna. The beautiful shops show top fashion, top-notch restaurants are plentiful, the men and women are very well dressed, and the city is clean while the buildings from the Middle Ages are in good repair.

 

As Roberta said it would, the center of town has a cathedral, and it is beautiful. The “full-employment act” in the Middle Ages must have been to get the ceilings and walls of these massive buildings painted, not with color but like the Sistine Chapel- to tell a sorry for those who could not read.

 

We arrived by train around 11; had lunch at a nice restaurant (http://www.ristorantelafiloma.it/menu/), took a walk, and was back on the train at 5. A very nice day.

 

The train ride home was noteworthy for the couple traveling with two large dogs who sat patiently under the seats even though the couple took 4 seats but only paid for two. Between his playing audio of Palestinian protests in London and his incessant coughing, we moved to seats far away from them.

 

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

 

Florence! 

 

Glorious Florence! 

 

We are back! 

 

I literally cried when we left the last time, thinking I would never see her again. So, this is my own personal renaissance. 

 

We have gone from old and dark Bologna to images and sights that make my brain spark with happy memories of previous trips, some with people who were very important in our lives, with the kids, and on our own.

 

And to be here, (the birthplace of Western civilization, where an intolerant, autocratic religious zealot was rejected in 1498, and burned to death), this week, when Western civilization is being challenged and its survival not guaranteed, when a US political leader wants to ban people who are not of “our” religion and Hamas terrorists have set loose hatred and violence not really known to our generation, feels like an opportune time to be here.

 

And, to go from a guest house in Bologna to a four+-star hotel is also uplifting to my soul. Our hotel is part of the Lungarno Collection owned by the Ferragamo family and is ½ block off the Arno and right at the steps of the Ponte Vecchio. (https://www.lungarnocollection.com/gallery-hotel-art/)

 

Besides the hard rain throughout the day and my physical limitations from my ongoing back issues, we still walked over 11,000 steps today. This is a shopping trip and a photography shoot for Jacqui!, we won’t join the crowds in line to climb the Duomo or see the David this trip.

 

Jacqui’s night shot of the Ponte Vecchio will find a place of prominence in our home and replace earlier versions.

 

 

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Today we are going to revisit some of our favorite places in Florence. The church located in the neighborhood of Santa Croce is the final resting place for a pantheon of Italian greats (e.g. Dante, Galileo, etc) and the Medici Chapel features sculptures designed and made by Michelangelo for the Medici family.

 

Well, we did not make it to the Medici Chapel because we did not have skip-the-line entry tickets and it was sold out for the day.

 

The day was put to good use when Jacqui improved the Italian GDP by buying jewelry and securing a place on the VAT refund line at the airport.

 

Even though my back, hips, and soles crapped out we still managed to make this the day we walked the most. That’s Florence.

 

Tonight was quintessential Florence. At the suggestion of a Facebook friend, we went to the Grand Hotel Cavour which has a lovely rooftop bar for pre-dinner drinks. Jacqui took some more photos.

 

 

 

And then dinner at Café ZaZa (https://www.trattoriazaza.it/en/). Being old people, we had reservations for 7:30 (which we thought was late) and had a very nice meal but the only thing that we missed was watching fellow patrons having Florentine steak. I guess not much steak is being sold tonight, which is a shame since the presentation of a Florentine steak is memorable. ZaZa is a huge place and when we left at 9:00 the place was hopping but when we walked out the door, we saw this; people, young people lined up to get into Café Za Za.

 

 

That could only have been topped earlier in the day when we thought we’d have lunch at Al’Antico Vinaio (where we ate in Milan) and to our astonishment there was not one outlet on the block but four! And they were all jammed. I owned a few Jamba Juices in the 90’s and I know a runaway hit when I see one. And yes, they are already in NYC, so they are coming to a major metro near you.

 

 

A final comment. The throngs of tourists in front of the Palazzo Vecchio walk over a stone that shows my all-time favorite bit of history, which I find reassuring in the crazy times we are living in.

 

On this very spot in 1498, the priest Savonarola was hung and then burned by the citizens of Florence who grew tired of his religious autocracy and decided to reinstall the beloved Medici family to power.  

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola).

 

Right here, right on this very spot world history changed in a flash.

 

Tomorrow, we return to Tuscany on a van tour which should be an interesting experience and will at least keep me off my feet.

 

Thursday, October 26, 2023

 

A delightful day to visit Siena and San Gimignano with a very knowledgeable tour guide and 5 other couples. Jacqui and I visited these two incredible cities on one of our early trips to Italy in 1998. That was the trip I referenced earlier about traveling with people who were very important to us. Today, memories flooded my mind, remembering the laughs and very deep appreciation for how fortunate we have been to have seen so much of the world. As always, I think of my boss, mentor, friend, and ultimately my business partner Andrew who was so integral to the quality of our lives and who introduced us to Italy all those years ago.

 

In 1998 I remember being in awe of Siena and feeling so in sync with the small-town Italian way of life; how it reminded me of 1950’s Brooklyn, before we had gigantic supermarkets and we would go to the bakery in the morning for fresh bread and find our way to the butcher for dinner. I commented then that if I could ever have a small computer and a phone that could communicate inexpensively I could envision living there. 25 years later, here I am in my new office in Siena.

 

 

I am certainly not the only one who has an affection for Italy and I will not blabber on about why, but I want to end this journal by simply reflecting that it is the Italian dedication to craft that makes it so appealing. Whether it is making wine, leather goods, or pizza, they know what they are doing and take pleasure in doing it.

 

Finally, given the circumstances of this trip, I wanted to acknowledge the pharma partners who helped me to get through without ending up in the ER.

 

Ciao. Until next year in Puglia and Amalfi.