(Only) A Day in Tuscany

Last day of what has turned out to be a rather exhausting vacation! The longest tour of the trip, and because of that we booked the small group version of the excursion to Florence and Pisa. Now, we knew going in that it wouldn't be nearly enough time to see much more than the bare highlights, but at least we would know what to look for when we do a land tour of some kind in Tuscany - which is definitely on the list.

Tuscany is known for producing great red wines, from Chianti to Brunello di Montalcino, all from the sangiovese grape, but they are also big producers of sunflower oil, used in biodiesel fuel, olive oil, and pine nuts that are harvested from Umbrella Pine trees.

Of course, the very best Italian marble also comes from Tuscany, in the mountains overlooking the sea. Marble is created by a chemical reaction at extremely high heat, and the marble in these mountains is so dense and strong that it takes 4 hours to cut through a single inch! There are some marble quarries that have been operating for over 400 years - the same quarries that Michelangelo visited to choose the specific blocks for his sculptures.

Sunflower fields

The Tuscan countryside

An olive tree grove on a hillside

 The history of Florence fills numerous volumes, so even a condensed version would be very hard to follow. Suffice it to say that Florence was established by the Romans, built to its prosperous state mainly by the Medici family that rose to prominence as bankers but were also great patrons of arts and sciences, and is still the cultural centre of Italy because of their influence and a few fortunate events in their history. The most important one was that the very last Medici signed a pact in her will that all of the Medici holdings, which were a great many, would be left to the city of Florence provided that none of them would ever be moved away. That's why there are almost as many museums as churches in Florence, including some for Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo.

From an overlook - the iconic Duomo cathedral

The Ponte Vecchio, or Old Bridge

The Church of Santa Maria della Croce

 

In earlier times, it was not allowed for a pagan to enter the cathedral, a bit of problem for someone who had not yet been baptized but was going to be. So, rather than adjust the rule, it was decided that cathedrals would all have separate buildings specifically to hold baptisms, then they could enter as proper Catholics. They went a little overboard in some cases.

The first glimpse of the Duomo is this utterly
awesome facade. It is made entirely of
three colours of marble, gold leaf and fresco paintings.

A look down the side of this immense building.

A closer look at the front and the bell tower

And for those of you wondering where the scaffolding
was, we finally found some! They are doing
some restoration work on one of the apses.

The Baptistry

The Baptistry entrance. The gold carving on the
door depicts stories of the Old Testament
as most of the people could not read or write

In the Palazzo Vecchio, or Old Palace, where the
lawmaking Signoria was literally cloistered
so they could not be negatively influenced

The loggia which is now a gallery. If you look outside the
Palazzo Vecchio on the left you will see a replica of
Michelangelo's David. The original is now in one of
the smaller palaces not too far away.

The Ponte Vecchio. Hard to get a good photo with
all the people and tour groups in the way.

One of the homes on the bridge

  

Santa Maria della Croce is much smaller than the Duomo, but also has an interesting history. It is also a monastery of the Franciscan order where the monks have historically produced some of the finest Italian leather. Now they run an apprenticeship program to continue to teach tanners and leather artisans the craft.

There is a Star of David up in the top of the facade
because the architect of the church was Jewish
and wanted to have his faith represented. As the
six pointed star is also part of the Catholic religion
it was incorporated.

Looking toward the Piazza

 

The town of Pisa has almost as long and involved a history as Florence does. It is, of course, famous for the Leaning Tower, which is really the bell tower for the town cathedral. The cathedral also boasts probably the largest baptistry in all of Italy, certainly larger than the one in Florence.

The story of the tower is basically one of poor engineering and maybe a bit of excessive architecture. When the modern engineers started working on preventing the tower from falling over, they discovered that it had been built on only a 3 metre deep foundation. Not much to hold up 14,700 tons of marble!! And on the not too solid alluvial plain of the Arno River. Apparently the tower had started to lean within a couple of years of the start of its construction, so as the bottom 3 levels were leaning one way, they built the next 3 levels with one side higher than the other to compensate, since they didn't know what was going on, and then the bell housing on the top was built straight. If you look closely, you can see all of that now. The addition of the walkway around the base in the 1830s actually caused the tower to lurch another 1/4 of a degree.

The tower was, in fact, continuing to lean by about 1 millimetre per year, and would ultimately hit the literal 'tipping point' if nothing was done to stop it. So in the 1990s the base of the tower was reinforced with concrete and steel cables to provide the counterweight from below and stabilize the building. This has already brought it back to the 1830 level, but it will never be straight. Something the citizens of Pisa are quite happy about. After all, if it was just the 'Tower of Pisa' would you want to go?

The gate to the cathedral square. It used to be
a Medici coat of arms at the top, but at some time
it was defaced by taking off the 6 balls
from the centre.

"Pinch Me!!"

It looks worse from the back side!

The Baptistry

Wow! That was quite a day, and, as mentioned at the top of the post, has placed Tuscany firmly at the top of our to-see-again list.

This has been a very busy two weeks, and has demonstrated that high-impact cruising isn't really our cup of tea. But it did show us a part of the world we hadn't seen before and introduced us to Mediterranean cuisine. And that's a lasting impression that we will build on.

Thanks for coming along on this journey. We'll be back in the Med in September aboard Crystal Esprit, focusing on the Greek islands and the Adriatic Sea.

Portofino and a Ligurian Cooking Demonstration

This certainly was a food-themed cruise for us! Once again we were on an excursion that highlighted the cuisine of the area we were in. This time it was Liguria in the north of Italy. Our port stop was the tiny village of Portofino, less than 100 km away from the famed Cinque Terre and just as picturesque. 

But precisely because Portofino is a tiny village was why, almost as soon as we stepped off the tenders at the pier, we boarded a local ferry and headed to Santa Margherita Ligure (one of several Santa Margheritas in Italy, and not the one that produces the wine of the same name). Full sized tour buses would not get into Portofino, so we had to meet them in the somewhat larger town.

After a brief introduction to the town and a visit to its magnificently decorated church, we had a little free time (which seemed to be the case multiple times in every single tour all trip) to wander around before meeting the bus to go to Recco, the town where we had the cooking demonstration and lunch.

Santa Maria di Antiochia Church. For a tiny
town, this church packs quite a punch!

Another theme for this cruise could have been - balconies!
Everywhere we went there have been interesting and
ornate balconies and terraces decorated with
beautiful flowers and plants.

The area is quite spectacular, with cliffs and mountains rising from the sea, almost rivalling the Amalfi Coast. Here are a few photos from the drive between Santa Margherita Ligure and Recco:

Our cooking demonstration and lunch were held at the Ristorante Vitturin 1860, which dates back to that year and is the oldest restaurant in Recco. We don't know if has been the same family owning it since then, but the current owner and his son both run the restaurant now.

During the demonstration we learned how to make, and tasted, a wonderful fresh Pesto and a Walnut Sauce for pasta. Both of those will be coming out of our kitchen sometime soon! We were also shown how to make and shape Trofie, a tiny pasta made with a dough of only flour, water and salt, and how to fill and shape Pansotti, which look similar to tortellini but have a hole in the centre.

But the star of the show, and the main reason we came to Recco for the lunch, was the Focaccia di Recco col formaggio, which is made with stracchino cheese and is appellation controlled.  Like champagne can only come from the Champagne region, the only place that can use this name is Recco, although other towns can make a similar product. Unlike the focaccia we get here, this dough has no yeast and is rolled very thin, like pizza - but DON'T ever call it pizza! There are 2 layers of dough with the cheese dotted in between in clumps. This would be very hard to make at home because it calls for pizza oven temperatures of 300 deg C, almost 600 deg F. Maybe we'll try it in the barbecue!

The chef making Pesto, with our
tour guide doing the translation

The restaurant's owner making the
dough for the Trofie

Everyone trying to form the
Pansotti, with a filling of greens,
ricotta and parmesan cheeses.

The hard part - trying to roll the
Trofie. That seems to be a skill
that takes some time to master.

Filling the focaccia with the stracchino cheese.
It is a very young cow's milk cheese
 that has a bit of a grainy texture.

And now: Lunch!

The finished Focaccia di Recco col formaggio. This
huge thin bread can safely feed four if there's no main
course afterwards. In fact, a family of 3 (Dad, Mom and
young son) at another table ordered one just for them
and finished the whole thing!

Our pastas and sauces: on the left, the Trofie with diced potato,
green beans and the Pesto, a typical recipe; and on the right the
Pansotti with the Walnut Sauce. Absolutely delectable!

And for dessert, another version of the focaccia, this time with
Nutella in the middle and chocolate on top. Yummy!!

 After lunch, which didn't look like a lot in the pictures and on the plates, but was quite filling, we set off, back to Santa Margherita Ligure and, lo and behold, a little more free time. The weather hadn't changed much, still sunny and hot and sticky, and we also had nothing we wanted to do, so we found a bench in the shade by the seaside and watched the world go by. As all the tours finally came back, we boarded the ferry for the return to Portofino.

The small boat harbour

The Castello Brown, a 16th Century fortress

Boats, yachts and ships of all sizes sail the waters in the area.

Again, more spectacular scenery. The whole north coast of the Mediterranean is truly awesome, and because it is the cradle of Western civilization, with huge Eastern influences, it is all filled with history that is being uncovered more and more almost every time someone sticks a shovel in the ground. Our only issue has been that, because of the jam-packed itinerary, it has been very difficult to absorb a lot of what we've been seeing. In some respects, it's a good thing we do the blog so we can go back ourselves to see what we did; otherwise there would be a lot we wouldn't remember.

Tomorrow will be our last long day of touring, but we will see Florence and Pisa, so it will be worth the 10 hours!