Our port today was Civitavecchia, the port for Rome. Since we’ve been to Rome before and
we’d read of garbage strikes and transportation slowdowns we made other
arrangements. Our driver Angelo
was waiting for us and off we went to Tuscany.
Riding through the countryside of first Lazio and then Tuscany was beautiful. This region of Italy has lots of
rolling hills and fields dotted with medieval towns and villages and farmhouses
in the midst of olive groves and
fields of grape vines. Since
it’s autumn the colors were not as riotous as in the summer. The grapes have been harvested and the
vines are starting to acquire their fall color. The olive trees are still loaded with fruit because that
harvest doesn’t come for another couple of weeks.
Our first stop was Sorano, a typical medieval walled
town. It’s clearly not a big
tourist destination but it was very interesting to walk through the narrow
streets. There was a little shop
selling local ceramics; in fact the artist was the one tending the shop. We found a small serving bowl decorated
with paintings of olives. The
ceramics here are very different from those along the Amalfi coast where the
color palette tends more toward rich reds and yellows to match the citrus that
abounds there. While I looked for
a bathroom, Al sat on a bench and an Italian Nonna (grandmother) sat down and
struck up a conversation. She spoke no English and of course he speaks no
Italian, but somehow a conversation ensued.
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| A beautiful door in Sorano |
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| Narrow streets with lots of flower pots around |
Our next stop was the town of Pitigliano, a walled town
sitting on a tufa rock. Tufa is a form of limestone. By the
central square there is an aqueduct built by the Medici family in the 16th
century. Since Pitigliano is atop
this rock all the little side streets leading from the main street have lots of
steps going down to the buildings built into the side of the rock. One very interesting thing we saw was
the Jewish ghetto area which is called “La Piccola Gerusalemme,” the Little Jerusalem with its synagogue. During WWII some of the Jews from Rome
managed to escape round-ups by the Nazis and they were sheltered in Pitigliano
and thus survived. The Synagogue
was guarded by 3 Italian soldiers armed with machine guns. Even in this quiet little town they are
worried about attacks by extremists.
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| Steps, steps and more steps in Pitigliano |
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| Flowers everywhere along the streets of Pitigliano |
On the recommendation of Angelo we ate in a little restaurant called Il Tufo Allegro. It’s mushroom season so Al had a lovely tagliatelle with mushrooms and my pasta was served with wild boar, another local dish. With our side orders of salad and spinach cooked with pine nuts and raisins accompanied by a house white wine, we had a fantastic meal!
Before we left we saw the magnificent view from the main
square down to a couple of waterfalls.
There was a great bronze sculpture of an old farmer with his burro
there. We weren’t sure what it
commemorated but it was very pretty.
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| View from the walls |
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On our way back to the port we made a brief stop in
Tarquinia. That city is the home
of one of the largest Etruscan museums in Italy. The Etruscans pre-date the Romans so there civilization was
before 700 BC. Unfortunately we
didn’t have time to visit the museum; we’ll have to save it for another trip
here.
It was a truly wonderful day. The weather was absolutely perfect with lots of sunshine but
not much heat. As we sailed away
from Civitavecchia there was a beautiful sunset. Tomorrow we’ll be in Santa Margherita Ligure on the Ligurian
coast, Italy’s Riviera.
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