Sicily - late March

Emilia-Romagna - early April

Ferrara Intro

Apartment

Museums

Rossetti

Eating!

Ravenna Hills 1

Ravenna Hills 2

Faenza

Tuscany, Florence - April 8

Umbria - late April

Trips into the Hills - A Church, Some Olive Oil and Donkey Road

Probably the most fun we had was one day when we hired a guide to take us on a day trip into the hills of the province of Ravenna. Cynthia was an absolute gem. An American married to an Italian, she is the perfect mid-western cheerleader type--pretty, blond, enthusiastic, warm and generous. Her rates are very reasonable and, of course, her English is native and her Italian is pretty darn good. (The agency is Esperia Travels; Cindy is the guide and her mother back in Indiana is the U.S. contact, their tours are wonderful.) Cindy, and her husband of three years, Danilo, picked us up at the Alfonsine train station to take us to Brisighella and Dozza. We were treated royally and Cindy and Danilo gave us some good insights into the local culture.

On the way to our first stop, we drove through Faenza (more about it later), where Danilo said the leavings from olive oil production were pressed into bricks that are then sold for fuel. He said that travelers often complained of the nasty smell; but it didn't seem bad to me, compared to a pulp mill, for example, or a sugar beet processing plant. Probably like many places, the locals say "smells like money to me," but they probably still say lire and not euros.

The drive through the countryside up into the hills was beautiful and we managed to get a closer look at the lovely espaliered fruit orchards. This was also my introduction to the umbrella pine, as distinctive a part of the Emilia-Romagna landscape as the cypress. We learned from Cindy that there are stands of them all over central Italy, because the Roman Empire planted them to harvest as ships' masts. Our first stop was at a 9th century church just outside Brisighella. Pieve (Parish) del Tho in Ottavo. It was charming, peaceful, very clean and pretty run-down (well, maybe not for its age), except for the flowers on altar and the cemetery just outside the door. This was the first time I saw a pure white hydrangea, not a tinge of pink, blue or green; also pure white lilacs, tulips, wisteria and iris. Later I saw many flowers at churches in white that we don't often see in the U.S. I think it's special propagation for the altars. Danilo managed to talk them into letting us in to the crypt, which was mysterious and had strange little rooms and and maybe an old crematoriam (?) and side chambers and alcoves built in to the walls. As far as I could tell, no one was currently buried there. This church is built on an old Roman site and Roman tiles were laid out in the crypt in an approximation of how they had been placed way back when. Especially impressive because we were allowed to touch them. I suppose we shouldn't have.

One more stop before the Brisighella food festival, an olive-pressing facility. Signore Ossani, the owner and major vintner (presser? whatever the equivalent term is for the olive oil maker), explained to us in very rapid Italian, too fast for Cindy (but not Danilo), how they make the oil. By hand, no chemicals, no steam, no water infusion; current versions of the ancient olive press processes only. This mean stainless steel instead of stone; electricity instead of donkeys walking around in a circle, but the same processes for hundreds of years. The olive press itself is called a frantoio, likely from the Italian verb frantumare which means to crush. We bought some from last years harvest. Even if you buy it in Italy, if you're not there in November to about April, you'll never taste the new harvest oil, olio nuovo, because the antioxidants that give it the wonderful peppery flavor dissipate within a few months. It was wonderful anyway.

The second we concluded the transaction, Sre Ossini hurried off, with heartfelt apologies echoing in the dust as his pick-up careened up the road. "What was that all about?" all three of us asked Danilo. Well, it seems Sre Ossani had left his favorite mare about to foal, but he had promised Danilo (whom he didn't even know before) that he would do this for these two American tourists. So he did. Just not quite as leisurely as he had intended.

From there we went into Brisighella itself, a grand little farming, spa and quarry community, population about 7,500, that was having a food fare that day. This is an area which has been quarrying and transporting clay and chalk for hundreds of years to create those lovely ceramics of Faenza and other, lesser known, communities. So serious are the Brisigellesi * about this business that the donkeys used for transport were stabled on the second floor of the major defensive fortification in town and always kept there during times of danger, including the bombings of World War II. Although its official name now is Antica Via del Borgo, (roughly Old Market Road) everyone calls it Via degli Asini, the Road of the Donkeys.

I learned a great many things about how World Wars I and II affected Italians--probably the most critical lesson of this trip for me. And it was pretty much all casually imparted. Danilo said, for example, that Faenza has lots of charming old buildings, walls, etc. left because it was liberated in December, whereas his village, Alfonsine, was not liberated until April and therefore has very few buildings that haven't been built after 1945. I read on Cynthia's web site that she does a special tour of World War II sites. When I go back, I'm going to take it.

Since this installment is getting a bit long, I'll wrap it up in the next.

* One of the delightful things about little towns in Italy is that they all have a name for what their inhabitants should be called and most of them have a patron saint and a coat of arms. Brisighella's appears to be a prancing goat, although a donkey or a pig seems more appropriate. The Comuni-Italiani site has that information along with more standard statistical info. Note that this site has information on the smaller villages only, not the larger towns and cities.