Roughing it at Cooking School, but we Graduated!

The cooking school was great but we worked hard. Each of the 4 classes were over 4 hours in length. In our spare time we were able to: soak in the wood burning, wine barrel, hot tub which reached 120 degrees; do laundry without the benefit of a dryer; tour the Chianti wine area, olive producer, sheep cheese farm and weaving mill. We enjoyed all we cooked, making some 60 recipes. Some recipes we won't repeat at home such as octopus, full squid, guinea fowl (head, feet, feathers) and other not to be mentioned!

Casa Ombuto, Cooking School in Tuscany

We're loving the Villa and Cooking School in Tuscany. The property is about 1 1/2 hours from Florence, quite remote in the hills of Tuscany, it's so beautiful. Notice the wood burning wine barrel hot tub, taking 5 hours to heat. We wanted to try it out today but it's now up to 110 degrees, so we're blogging instead. We had no idea that hunting season for Wild Boars began yesterday. We woke to the sounds of hunting dogs running around with bells on and hunters posted in various locations. We double checked that Dick Cheny wasn't around before we ventured out for a hike! Cooking school is so much fun, food is delicious. It's a great group, there are 13 of us, all Americans. We have 3 orthopedic surgeons in our group (only 2 know each other) so Glenn is feeling quite comfortable in their presence.
Got to run to class!

Cinque Terre, Itaty

To our dear travel friends, does this town look familiar? Portovenere looks like Portofino and so does every town in Cinque Terre. The colors of the buildings in all these towns look alike. Cinque Terre is known for the 5 mile hike between each of the 5 fishing towns, only accessible by foot or boat until 50 years ago. We reach the first town, Riomaggiore by boat. Two of the links between the towns are washed out and closed from the prior night’s rain. We hike what we can. The last link between towns 4 & 5 is 1 hour 45 minutes on an extremely unpaved and uneven rock steps (lots of them). It’s not easy but there are surprisingly lots of people on the path, mostly prepared. Thanks Robyn for making me do all those step ups. Adrienne, kudos to you for hiking the entire path!

Mr Toad's wild ride

Another lightning and thunderstorm filled night, we awoke on Wednesday in Positano deciding to hit the road north for a 7 hour drive. We had thought we might stop and stay overnight along the way, but found nothing too intriguing. With two hours to go to Cinque Terre, we just decided to drive to our final destination. Once again the heavens opened up on us. We had reservations at a hotel in Portovenere beginning on Thursday night, but called ahead and asked if we could arrive a day early, we’d be there is less than 2 hours, or so we thought. Portovenere is on the Italian Rivera, about a 20 minute boat ride from the 1st of the 5 towns of Cinque Terre (5 fishing villages). Thank goodness for our friendly Navigation system that leads us to the long, narrow and winding road to our hotel. The Nav system counted down, destination is 6 minutes, then 5, 4, we knew we were close. It was pouring rain and lightning like crazy. We couldn’t find or see the hotel. It was so dark, no one was home in this building, than that one, wait there was no power is this town, we couldn’t see anything! Funny enough, thought we were on a hilltop, then we rounded this corner and there was the ocean. We’re on a one way street, so we’ll need to circle this town once again. This time we turn on another road, we’re going uphill, it’s getting narrower, thick with brush and Mr. Nav shows us on an unmarked road. There’s nowhere to go, it’s a dead end so were forced to turn around. Back on the road, we saw a police car and we pull up to them. They don’t speak English but points up the hill and say look for a temple. Well thanks a lot, how about a police escort! So up the hill again. Glenn pulls the car over to walk up this steep driveway because in case he’s wrong, he doesn’t want to back the car down. Now mind you, this is the set up for one of those scary movies when you know you’re not supposed to leave the female in the car. Moments later Glenn’s orange cap is visible coming down the hill, this isn’t the place! Let’s try calling, but the cell won’t connect, there’s no power in the town. We decided we should give up on this town, and head back to a larger town with power! But then we see these people on the sidewalk. Do you know where this hotel is, do you speak English? Ah, American’s and it’s here. The lights come up and we unload the car, Glenn goes to park. Standing on the sidewalk, the lights go again. Where’s that flashlight? Now in the hotel, its 9:30 and the restaurant is only serving pasta, providing the power stays on. The waiter warns the power could go. We pull out our flashlight, order some wine, laugh about our adventure and high five each other on remaining calm in the car.

Amalfi Coast

We have just spent 4 days in the Amalfi Coast of Italy, one night in Sorrento and three in Positano. It has rained, major thunderstorms that have rattled the room at night, for half our stay. This is unfortunate since we are on the water and this area is known for foot travel because it is all carved into the hillside with minimal roads that are very narrow. No one has flipped us off (the hand jesture interruption previously shown has been confirmed by a couple from Australia and Ireland one night at dinner) since our car has been parked. We did witness two scooters crash though. Positano is the nicest town in Amalfi, very romantic and picturesque.

We stayed at a nice bed and breakfast, great view but almost 6 flights of stairs with NO ELEVATOR. It was worth every penny to pay the porter to schlep our luggage up the stairs. See picture to the right, can you pick out our white B&B? Glenn's swimming trunks are on the balcony (which took flight one night in the storm).

If you were in Italy and someone did this to you, what would you think they were saying?

A. Arrivederci (Good bye)

B. Wow, what a cool mini van you're driving!

C. Moron, you're driving the wrong way on a one way street!

Seriously, this gesture was thrown at us quite animated! Driving in Italy isn't easy. Roz can't figure out the difference between do not enter this way and no parking. A Grandma wouldn't move out of the way and started knocking on the car window. Scooters honk at us repeatly. A police car turned around and pulled up next to us and advised what we already knew (that we were driving in a pedestrian walking zone)!

RyanAir to Brindisi, Italy

It's Thursday morning, 9/10/09, and we have a flight to catch at some far off airport. We're worried that our $1.99 cheap air flight is going to cost us a fortunate between the cab ride and overweight luggage. There was no direct metro or train to Charleroi airport outside Brussels. The check-in attendant at the airport was very gracious and advised us to step aside and load up our backpacks. Despite the air ticket warning of only 10kgs to carry on, we were told just do it. The attendant even fudged the weight for us and reduced our penalty from Euro150 to Euro45! The only worry now was the little old lady and her cane could easily topple us over with our bulging backpacks. Ryan Air is reminiscent of Southwest Air, decent. But I kid you not, perhaps the locals were more weary than us, that when the plane landed, the passengers errupted in applause.

We are now enjoying a lovely bed and breakfast built around the 16th century. A former farm, now lodging and an olive tree/olive oil farm located in Pezze di Grecco in the Pulgia region of Italy. Picture the map of Italy, we in the heel of the boot on the Adriatic Sea side. Somewhat off the typical beaten path for tourists, English is either non-existent or poorly spoken. Thank goodness that the word "Toilet" is universal.