Biking the Via Francigena · Aug 8, 05:06 PM by James Martin
I like following folks who’ve decided to make their pilgrimages public. Frank Burns (not the Frank Burns from MASH, presumably) will be starting his pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome at the end of August. On a bike.
My Italian neighbor Enrico did the Camino de Santiago on a bike, and now wants to hike it.
In any case, by reading the early posts on his blog, I figure Frank seems thoughtful enough about the whole pilgrimage thing that his would be a good trip to follow, especially—for you Italophiles—after he crests the Grand St Bernard Pass and enters Italy. Perhaps we’ll get a chance to chat with him when he approaches the Sarzana-Luni segment of the trip.
Check out Frankburns’s Blog
Find out more about the Via Francigena and why you should consider stopping at a few of the towns along the route on your vacation.
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Slow Travel in the Fast Lane · Aug 6, 08:51 AM by James Martin
The Italian Fast Lane Got Faster, Sorta. Did you know that the new Italian driving laws will let you go faster on the Autrostrada? Up to 150 km/hour, as long as that particular stretch of Autostrada is monitored by the government through the “Tudor” system cameras, according to Zoomata. Of course, there are other constraints to a zoom along the fast roads, including some bizarre limits on Alcohol:
Fines for these drivers (under 21 or those who haven’t had a license in three years) with a BAC of “zero to 0.5″ start at 155 to 624 euros, double if they cause an accident and increase along with BAC levels exponentially.
Zounds, zero is both good and bad? Anyway, read the whole article on Zoomata: Italy’s New Driving Laws: Go Faster, Just Don’t Drink
From the Fast Lane to the Gentleman Farmer. It appears that Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, probably better known to you as the musician “Sting”, has started a store for the vegetables he raises in Tuscany. Sting also has quite a Chianti wine operation humming along, just in case you like to search out wine made by the rich and famous.
See: Sting Opens a Food Store for more
The keywords are the town of Figline Valdarno, near Florence, Tenuta il Palagio is the name of the shop.
The article also mentions that Sting sells “a specialty salami which is made from a local breed of pig.” We’re thinking Cinta Senese, aren’t you?
The Fast Lane in Portugal. Our sister site on Portugal has a feature on how to flog your car on the road course known as Autódromo Internacional do Algarve: Driving Fast in the Algarve
Zipping Around Tuscany in a Vespa · Mar 23, 01:16 PM by James Martin
Ok, I didn’t really like Tuscany Tourism’s promotional advertisements when they first came out (see I So Don’t Want to Live Like This), and I still loathe their dreamy romanticism. But there is hope at the end of that dreary rainbow. The Around Tuscany blog network is doing some fine work.
I liked the recent post on Vespa Tours. It gives you a road map to experiential travel bliss—besides the suggested route map I mean.
Sure, if it’s your first trip to Tuscany you’ll want to stand in line with the tourists in Florence and do all that Medici gawking you came to do—but some of us who’ve poked around Italy for a while really appreciate the culture we find; we’d like to take one of those iconic scooters and zip fancy-free through Tuscany, in part because all those button down-people devoting their lives and vitriol to keeping their neighbors from getting proper health care think it’s a nutty thing to—do but secretly they’d give a left ventricle to be there right along side of you on one of those little two wheeled time bombs, senza dubbio.
I so wanna do this.
(So, grab a bag and go. Or buy one cheap(er): Get an Extra 20% Off Sitewide at eBags! Ends Sunday)
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Consider the Marche - There's Saffron, You Know! · Mar 18, 09:19 AM by James Martin
I love the Marche. Well, maybe not as much as those people over there on the left—found bolted to a museum wall in Urbino—love each other, but still…
This morning floating in the twitter stream comes word of an interesting proposal. You can get lodging in the Marche and learn how folks grow and harvest the crocus sex organs which become saffron. See here. You’ll be in the shadows of a great town hardly anybody visits, Urbino, as sensuous a city as has ever been discovered.
Driving around the Marche is a great experience. Unlike Tuscany, there aren’t a lot of gaping tourists insisting on owning the road so they can take pictures from the car window because getting out would waste precious moments of their vacation, so they waste yours.
There are lots of interesting towns and medieval villages you can discover by just driving through. Get a good map like Touring Club Italiano-Marche and Umbria Map which you can easily buy over the internet, and get going. Take the small roads. That’s what regions like the Marche are all about.
If you end up in Piobbico, then you’ve come across the headquarters of the Ugly Club. Yes, Club dei Brutti, via Dante Alighieri, 25 and even the door is ugly.
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Experience Growth on Your Italian Vacation · Mar 9, 09:47 AM by James Martin
Spring has sprung here in California. It’s a bit of a cold spring, but stuff is popping out of the ground at an alarming rate. If weeds were good to eat, we could feed half of California.
That’s a new Calla Lilly we’ll sink into the soil as soon as the morning temperatures stabilize below freezing.
But you’re not interested in gardening in California, are you? No, you’d rather be sinking a shovel into the ancient soils of Umbria or learning to sort the wild edibles of Italy wouldn’t you?
Well, you can. In fact, for the money, if you’re interested in gardening and are going to be in Umbria, I’d venture to say you’d be nuts not to take a Spring Garden Workshop at the Art Monastery at Casale Santa Bridita. A more beautiful place to garden would be difficult to find, I’m guessing.
I actually don’t have to guess. I’ve been there. The picture on the right shows the little cafe (you know, called a bar in Italy) with some great views of the surrounding rural countryside.
The good news is that the workshop doesn’t cost a lot. Where are you going to get a week of experiential travel for a mere €390? With limoncello tasting. Check it out.
Dig Rome? · Feb 23, 12:05 PM by James Martin
Why just gawk at the Roman sites from the sidewalk, or stand in line waiting for tickets to see them close up? Why not experience the joy of discovery by excavating an archaeological site in Rome?
In June 2010, we’ll be starting our fifth season of excavation at the Villa delle Vignacce, one of the greatest excavation sites in and around Rome. We’re looking for people from all walks of life— structural and computer engineers, architects, artists, poets, students, accountants and tennis players— whatever your background and insights are, we want you— especially if you are happy to spend 8 hours getting sweaty and dirty working to save the cultural heritage of Rome. ~ Wanna Get Dirty This Summer?
Archaeology has to be at the top of the experiential travel list. Not only do you get to live in a place with a long and challenging history, but you get to discover it in real time.
Ok, so I’ve been an archaeologist and I can tell you some of the general pros and cons of these things. First off, archaeologists are pretty fun people. After all, they didn’t choose to work in a cubicle on purpose. They don’t make big bucks so they’re not usually snooty, and don’t have money to put into their Goldman Sachs “gambling with mortgages” accounts and so they spend it—often on alcohol, but still…they’re fun to be with and know a lot about things that don’t matter a bit in the modern world but are fun to think about anyway. A couple weeks with a bunch of archaeology types will make you rethink your career choice.
Until you excavate, that is. Here’s where it gets hot and sticky. Excavation is work. It’s not a treasure hunt, as you have been lead to believe from movies whose main characters are named after states. You move big earth, you move grains of sand with a dental pick, you measure—all in the sun. You uncover things that baffle you that you take to a real archaeologist who tells you it is a rock. You are disappointed if not humiliated.
But then there’s always the possibility that you or your colleagues will rock the world with a find that actually changes people’s minds about life in antiquity.
That’d be worth some sunburn and humiliation, eh?
If you want a real experiential travel experience, well hell, there’s no better. See: Wanna Get Dirty This Summer?
And tell me how it went, will ya?
Having a Cultural Experience in Italy: Experiential Travel Tips · Jan 28, 04:29 PM by James Martin
When people ask me for travel information, they often append their request with something like, “Don’t send me to any tourist traps. I want to go to a place without tourists where I can have a true cultural experience.” The unwritten part is, “…which you are going to spell out for me and which is going to be easy.”
Here’s the thing: nobody can give you steps to follow to have a cultural experience—or, for that matter, an epiphany.
I like epiphanies. You just can’t force them. They come when you’re ready.
What you can do is open yourself up to experience. For the most part, this means becoming a “cultural relativist”, even if only temporarily and then only if your chosen political party or leaning allows it. Yes, that’s right, the first step is to stop thinking that the culture you come from is the very bestest in the whole wide world and nobody does it better, despite the fact you haven’t experienced any other cultures. Other folks a long way away from your country have solved (or tried to solve) the same social problems. They got different answers. That difference is what makes the world go ‘round. Well, that and a whole lot of good Barolo…
Become childlike. Marvel at things. Have no shame in asking about things you don’t understand. People everywhere like explaining their traditions. Open your mind. Control nothing.
You’re in the garden of Eden. What’s around you is beauty and goodness and light. Marvel at it. Remember you get kicked out if you try to gain control of things. Remember God.
Now you’re ready. I’ve got tips.
Learn a bit of the language. You’ll have a hard time making inroads unless you can at least show folks you’re a decent person. Learn the polite words. Greet people in shops. Thank folks who help you.
Go on a quest. Got a question about why folks do what they do? Find out for yourself. Want local regional foods, the best a restaurant has to offer? Discuss the food with the waiter and take his recommendations; it’s how you get good food in Italy because what’s special isn’t always offered to us hamburger eaters and isn’t always on the menu because they think we won’t like it. Or—go to an open air market and search for something you’ve never eaten before—perhaps agretti, or perhaps a rare cheese from a guy in a truck who likes talking and using his hands to make a point.
Stay where you’re not isolated as a tourist. That usually means you won’t be staying in a hotel. You might try a self-catering vacation home or apartment, but you’ll get more advice in a rural agriturismo, a country house on a working farm, where there’s someone to lead you over the cultural hurdles and send you to the right places to learn what you want to learn. You’ll also eat well and learn how the Italian insistence on good ingredients has created a cuisine that’s the envy of the world, especially in places where the industrial hamburgers are awash in Ammonia or other noxious liquids.
How to find an agriturismo and an owner that suits you? Easy. Go to twitter and search with the term “agriturismo”. You’ll come up with a list of owners that use the social network to tell you what’s happening in their neck of the woods. You can use twitter not only to find a likely agriturismo, but to see if the owner might share your interests or be willing to teach you something about the culture. If your quest is to find out how the taste of extra virgin olive oil you buy in the supermarket is different from that of artisanal production, you’ll be amazed the first time you taste an oil made by people who care. It’s an astonishing difference you’ll tell your friends about until they hate you for it.
I’m out of gas. Maybe my open mind has dried up. I need to remember to cover it in saran wrap when I’m not using it. There’s a hockey game on tv tonight.
Sardinia. You Should Go · Jan 13, 02:20 PM by James Martin
Angela Corrias, a journalist who works out of the UK, is stuck in Sardinia doing research on the Knights Templar. She’s also cranking out articles about the interesting culture there. She’s breaking my heart. I wanna go back. I want to see the nuraghi, the sacred wells, the Roman baths still warm, eat lamb stew from a cork plate and chow down on some formaggio con vermini, cheese with worms, after.
Anyway, Angela writes about S’Ardia – A Race Between Danger and Faith for example. You won’t see a race like it anywhere. I’ve seen it five times. I want to see it again. The Palio di Siena? Child’s play, I’m telling you. Besides, the palio’s best riders are all Sardinian.
But my heart really went all a flutter when a read one of Angela’s recent articles Called Fordongianus: Roman Thermal Baths in the Heart of Sardinia. It brought back earthy memories of a 1980s visit when I was working on an archaeological project nearby.
Fordongianus is a Roman spa complex fed by natural hot springs that are still filling the pools to this day. We visited the complex often as it was a stop on our introduction tour for new volunteers on the archaeological survey we were conducting. Not many people had seen a working Roman bath complex.
But I have to tell you, seeing the water in the daytime was plenty of a deterrent for those reprobates among us who harbored thoughts of soaking in it. It was filthy. It was smelly. It said “stay away” in a variety of ways, none of them verbal.
Fast forward to another evening. Our dig house was visited by some British archaeologists. Earlier, a Sardinian volunteer had brought over some chanterelle mushrooms, so I asked if any of the Brits had Scotch. I knew a recipe for chicken with chantrelles and Scotch that I liked and wanted to cook it.
Of course they traveled with a bottle! In the end (meaning quite late, as is the habit in Sardinian summer) we ate luxuriously and there was that bottle of Scotch, unfinished, just sitting there…
So we drank from it.
By midnight we had run out of words to slur, so there was only one option. Well, that is to say there was only one option presented to us by our guests, who were noteworthy enough archaeologists that we forced ourselves into playing along at every opportunity.
“What say we have a race, Brits versus the Americans, Olympic style. Isn’t there a big pool at Fordongianus?”
I looked at my friend Mike. He was wincing noticeably.
The Brits encouraged us…wait, they made us go to Fordongianus. I am not the least bit sad at being able to tell you the American team did not compete. We stood like wienies at the side of the warm pool, gasping in awe of the fearless Brits, crawling through the murkey shallows, flopping over at the end of the pool, kicking plumes of brown water in the air…
I wonder whatever happened to them.
Sardinia is a fascinating place, even id you don’t have any notoriously staid British archaeologists on hand. So, if any of this makes you want to explore further, please take a look at Angela Corrias’ latest works. Then, start planning that vacation in Sardinia. And wait…forget the costly coasts—go to the interior—if you care about fascinating cultures and archaeology that is. You might want to also take a look at my Sardinia scribblings: Inside Sardinia