Victoria’s Footsteps An Italian & French Travel Specialist’s Blog

Pedal Pushers or If It’s July, It Must Be the Tour de France!

Sun, 9 Aug 2009 20:26:57 -0400

I’m a Tour de France junkie. Every year I wait for the beginning of July with the anticipation of a small child impatiently yearning for Halloween trick or treat. It started a long time ago when Greg Lemond first appeared on the American cycling scene and pedaled his way on to the podium in Paris…imagine, an American dominating a European sport. It was just too exciting.
Of course it helped that I got my first introduction to the sport when I was waiting tables in Vail in the very early 70’s at what was once a fine dining restaurant, the Red Lion Inn (not the apres ski burger joint it has since become). Much to my parents’ chagrin, I jettisoned my art history education to be a “bum” in the most European spot I could find in US. In those days Vail was small, everyone knew everyone else and it was about 40% inhabited by Austrians, Swiss, Germans, French and a few Italians along with the rest of us who were college educated, often with multiple advanced degrees, all avoiding the inevitability of permanent employment. But I digress.
We were a rather carefree group in those days before TV hit the valley, even radio was hard to come by. Instead we spent hours, after skiing, cooking, eating, drinking, reading and engaging long, philosophic discussions. And in those crystal clear mountain days of summer, riding bikes. I met my husband in Vail, where we later got married and celebrated the happy occasion sitting on the patio of the Red Lion brunching with friends when a bike race came flying up Bridge Street, town’s main street. What excitement for about 30 seconds…but enough that we all diverted attention from eggs Benedict to watch the racers chase each other through the village for another hour.
My next encounter with the pelaton was ’73 in France when riders flashed through Chenonceaux as my husband & I stepped out of the local market with our charcuterie purchases for a picnic. There was lots of cheering and clapping so with time on our hands we quite naturally decided to follow our second bike race as it headed toward Bourges. Then, I forgot all about those “daring young men on their flying machines” for about a decade until Greg Lemond took a 2nd place finish in Paris in the ’84 Tour and followed it up with 3 Tour wins.
My husband, who has always followed Formula 1 racing and world cup ski races, decided to add the road cycling races to his spectator repertoire. At first I watched with him more for the scenery than the races. Growing up on movies like “To Catch a Thief”, what could be more enticing than breakneck turns, high speed, beautiful people and the spectacular yacht filled harbor that forms the backdrop for the Gran Prix of Monaco? Over 3 weeks the Tour de France takes viewers on an armchair tour of the luscious French countryside into the Pyrenees and Alps, along the coast of Provence, through ancient medieval villages, past chateaux and abbey ruins until it finally ends on the Champs Elysee in Paris on its last Sunday. What started as a travelogue became a passion.
In truth I think it was Lance Armstrong who really changed it all for me. Watching him ride to victory in 7 Tours, I learned that there was a real strategy to the thing, not just get on the bike and ride like hell, although I think that was the point in earlier days. Now it’s more of a cat and mouse game requiring immense physicality, stamina and skill but just as much cunning, team support and careful planning. A kind of chess game on the road, with an achingly beautiful backdrop. Sort of a modern day survival test where only the strongest survive and the fastest win.
Though I am by nature an Italophile, when it’s July, I become a real Francophile. We always start the Tour’s first day, usually a time trial, with caffé presse, hot croissants and French jams. Then celebrate Bastille Day on the 14th watching the race, flying our tricolor, eating paté, baguette, a good chevre and brie, washing it all down with a bottle of Cote du Rhone or Gigondas, Afterwards, we grill lamb chops and sing like fools with Edith Piaf and Charles Trenet. (Lest you think we are unpatriotic, the Fourth of July always takes precedence but it can’t hurt to remember that the tearing down of the Bastille, that detested monument to subjugation, by a populace desiring to be free of the monarchy is not a foreign concept to the birthing of this nation.) As the race winds down and the summer heats up, we head back to the grill for some merguez sausages to eat in pita with a cucumber, tomato, yoghurt sauce - spicy & cool at the same time, followed by an icy cold beer chaser - the perfect way to cheer on Lance, Levi, Alberto and the other “iron” men of summer. It’s a 3 week celebration I highly recommend, or like Meg Ryan tells Kevin Kline in “French Kiss”, dive into it, make yourself all pruney, enjoy it!

If you’re traveling to France, or Italy in 2010, and are interested in seeing a stage of next year’s Tour de France in July or the Giro d’Italia in May, call Victoria or send her an email; she’ll help you find a spot in your itinerary where you can watch the pelaton race by. Or ask her to find your own bike tour.

It’s the People You Meet.........

Sun, 10 May 2009 13:28:44 -0400

The soul of a place is always bound up in its people. The French are different from Italians and Italians are different than Americans but we all share a certain common humanity. And it’s the people that you meet that make the country come alive for you. I’ve been lucky to cross paths with wonderful, memorable people in my travels, most of whom have become friends, some I just remember because they were real characters. From time to time, I’d like to introduce you to a few of them.
Anna Maria is a great Tuscan cook, something I didn’t know when we first began working together many years ago. To me she was simply the best guide in Florence. Whenever I phone she always begins every conversation with "Victoria, I wish you were here. I'm cooking." And then I hear the menu in detail, imagining wistfully each dish the family will enjoy for dinner and wishing like a bewitched Samantha I could just wiggle my nose and be there sitting around the table with them.
Today she made fresh tagliatelle because her hens are producing too many eggs forcing her to make the pasta everyday to use up some of their bounty. Can you imagine? And her husband, Mario, retired from the Leather School in Florence’s Santa Croce church, is an accomplished hunter and gatherer, a real virtuoso mushroomer or fungaiolo, who brought home tiny wild asparagus and herbs from the forest floors to go into the sauce. Served with spring lamb, it’s a Sunday lunch most of us can only dream about, or plunk down a king’s ransom to buy, if we could even find someone to prepare it. Another day Mario found some prungoli or as Anna Maria explains, “poor man’s truffles” which she either pickles or uses in the the most delicious pasta. Last May she saved the last of them for me to enjoy when she prepared a dinner of Tuscan treats during my brief visit.
Over the years I’ve spent many happy hours at their table, outside under the shade of an ancient tree in the midst of their beautiful garden overlooking the valley, or cozy and warm in their dining room. Anna Maria has roasted their chickens, made wild boar in sauce from Mario’s hunts, pasta with tiny wild mushrooms that he’s found in the woods or omelets with fresh clematis tendrils gathered as they grew, again seasoned with wild herbs. There have been fresh fruit tarts, homemade pickles and preserves, all from the bounty of their farm and fields. Together we’ve peeled fresh fava beans and talked like women do, to eat with a beautiful piece of pecorino that Mario had brought back from the cheese store or sipped glasses of his fragolino wine as a fall day has drawn to a close laughing about our children and grandchildren.
When I tell her how I’ve relished every delicious bite or learned something new at her kitchen table, Anna Maria always tells me in her self-deprecating way, “Victoria, it’s only poor people’s food.” But I’m always left thinking that it’s the rest of us who are the poorer for it, missing the richness of her life with family, food and friends. Not knowing the satisfying pleasure of filling your own larder from the land or the joy of the table shared with those most dear. Reminds me of that line from a song in Camelot, “what do the simple folk do?” They live, with passion and gusto! It’s a romantic notion to be sure but when you see it alive, well and living in Tuscany, it’s why we are all looking for our place “Under the Tuscan Sun.”
Although she would be the first one to tell you, cooking is her greatest joy and accomplishment, it couldn’t be further from the truth. As a couple, both Anna Maria and Mario are marvelously accomplished in their respective endeavors. She speaks several languages, holds degrees in art history and history, and can explain her city of Florence with a combination of humor and scholarship. Over our 20 year friendship we’ve embraced one another’s families, revealed our histories, shared common sorrows and looked forward to each meeting. After 9/11 she sent me condolences for our nation and a donation to the firefighters of New York for their sacrifice. At our last visit she gave me a beautiful little hankie, embroidered by her as a small girl with her initials for her first communion. I cherish it, a bond between two women from two different cultures, generations and an ocean apart. For me, it’s the best of what comes from a lifetime of travel.
Mario, Anna Maria & Grandsons Tommaso & Samuele

Exploring Venice or One Day is Never Enough!

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:55:26 -0400

Martedi Grasso or Fat Tuesday is just a memory, ending the Venetian carnival of 2009 with a bang! The bands and crowds have left, the golden masks, feathers, capes and costumes are packed away for another year and the confetti has been swept from the streets. The previous two weeks of revelry, much needed in this dour year, have ended the momentary frivolity returning La Serenissima to its peaceful winter demeanor. All that remains is the enveloping mist off the lagoon that gently wraps the city each night, creating ephemeral halos around the street lamps, painting the city as an other worldly vision. Martedi grasso signals my favorite time of year, time for my annual trip to this magical city that has continued to haunt me for the last twenty years. I'm in pretty good company as writers, artists, musicians, adventurers and plain ol' romantics have been filling books, essays, canvases and sheets of music about her for centuries.
Venice is a funny place, unique in the world, a mystery that reveals itself slowly. You must peel back each layer or lift every petal of the flower to get to her heart. This most beautiful of the Italian cities is a confection of palaces iced with Gothic tracery, caught between sea and sky, her shimmering images reflected and doubled. But she's also a little like a down on her luck harlot who's fraying at the seams, her narrow calle dark between buildings of peeling plaster. She's a city overwhelmed by tourists at certain times but one that's losing her native population dramatically each year. A Venetian friend tells me this is a place where you can buy every kind of tourist trinket in abundance but not the most basic of necessities easily. Yet, he would never leave; it's part of his soul. His mother often said she disliked going to the Italian mainland, true Venetian that she was. When queried why, her answer was short and direct, "Cars, cars, cars." She had a point. The peace of the city is part of its charm and allure, a peace punctuated by a gentle lapping sound of the water on the buildings in the tiny back canals or occasional footsteps on the pavement. When I think of this beguiling city one of my most predominate memories is the bells, softly calling the faithful to prayer or marking the time. I love to phone my husband at home, holding the phone out of the window, transporting him instantly back to a place we both hold dear. It's one of those sensory memories that binds you to a place.
I'm often chagrined when told "I only need one night in Venice to see it all." To this I must respectfully disagree. There is a common denominator among these naysayers - St. Mark’s Square. If you limit your visit to this small, and most densely populated area of the city, one day is all you would need. But Venice is so much more. My Venetian friend, after a lifetime in the city, still stops mid-walk and takes notice of something as yet unseen, marveling that the city still holds surprise. For a visitor this applies all the more for you must be patient, and diligent. Leave the crowds of San Marco behind and venture into the neighborhoods, or sestieri, alive with elderly matrons shopping at their local outdoor market or carrying bags of produce home from the barge for midday lunch. As you walk, look up to spy the neighborhood cats, all lovingly collared and protected, sitting imperiously in their windows or atop the altane, Venice’s unique rooftop terraces. Make a mental note of the chimney-pots, distinctive to the city, which give the rooftops a fairytale appearance. Visit the campi, or squares, where young school boys play soccer around the cistern wellheads or a new baccalaureate, wreathed in laurel leaves, is carried triumphantly by friends from the university. Observe a dying art at the squero where gondolas are built and repaired. The architecture of the shop more reminiscent of the mountain homes from which the original craftsmen came than of Venice. Or wander through the Ghetto, one of Italy’s oldest Jewish quarters, a vibrant culture within a culture. This city of Marco Polo and Casanova, Doges and courtesans hides its secrets in every corner; you must spend time exploring to find them, getting lost and found with each step. And it takes more than one day! For me a week to ten days each year still isn’t enough!

Victoria takes a small group of 10 or 12 people to Venice most winters after the close of Carnival. If you’d like to join her in 2010, please send us a message to be added to the potential tour list.

Stuck in Milan’s Malpensa airport:

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:55:26 -0500

While I love traveling, the getting there is no longer “half the fun”. It’s more like torture in these post 9/11 days. Delays, long layovers, security checks that most of the time seem anything but, are the rule rather than the exception. When the granny in the tweed suit is singled out for the body frisk while the person standing in front of you looks like he was just sprung from the big house earlier in the day, you can’t help but wonder if the inmates are running the asylum.

With a long layover at Malpensa, I needed a way to pass the time. Bored, I let my imagine run wild, creating histories and stories about the passengers sharing the departure lounge around me. There was lots of time to kill and nothing exciting to read so the airport became my novel, inhabited by the characters whose lives I controlled by the worlds I conjured up for them.

The transit lounge was empty one minute and filled to capacity the next as flights from other world capitals de-gorged their weary travelers. The Japanese had just arrived and gone on maneuvers to the nearest duty free shop replacing the American tour group of ladies returning from their Italian holiday to Chicago. Why, you find yourself asking, do the most Rubenesque of them insist on dressing in leggings with T-shirts and tennis shoes, giving them the appearance of candied apples on sticks? What crazed muse of fashion could they be following? They were the antithesis of the Italians where la bella figura was everything.

Further emphasizing the point, a woman in her late forties, presumably Italian though I couldn’t hear her speak, had taken issue with the counter agent about her seating assignment. She was dressed in the understated manner of a European, well tailored clothes in dark colors, shoes unmistakably Italian, gold bracelets encircling her wrists and a Ferragamo silk scarf smartly folded around her neck. Unashamedly draped over her shoulders, a full length mink coat, now safe from harm inside the terminal away from the PETA protesters who had selected this particular day for a little anarchy in front.

In another section of the lounge, an elderly group of Italian nuns dressed in their knee length dove gray habits with sunny yellow scarves advanced on the bank of telephones to make last minute calls before their departure. Where was their Holy Father in Rome sending them this trip? They peered longingly into the bar at the array of sandwiches and sweets arranged in the cabinets next to the barman but none summoned the courage to enter. They bore a strong resemblance to hungry children, noses pressed to the glass, outside a candy shop and I wanted to pass the collection plate to buy them all a treat. Duty free wouldn’t prosper from their layover.

Outside the terminal, it was cold and the skies were heavily overcast, common in Milan this time of year. As the fog thickened, the boards reflected an updated delayed departure time and more time to kill waiting, watching and imagining. A little boy, pretending to be Darth Vader, walked menacingly between the rows of seats decapitating pretend foes and driving travelers to safer sections as he swung his red plastic light saber. His parents watched from a safe distance with amused smiles while he terrorized tourists. I longed for the boarding announcement.

Travel just isn’t what it used to be - the Grand Tour is dead.

Winter Travel

Sat, 7 Feb 2009 09:55:26 -0500

I love traveling in winter, admittedly, a pattern started over 20 years ago out of necessity. When you work in the travel industry, unless you’re a ski operator, it’s about the only season you can really get away from the office. But those early trips of necessity grew into real favorites, especially for the cities.
Venice, Florence and Rome take on an entirely different character in the winter - not so crowded, at least not with tourists. And there are other incentives. For a music lover, it’s opera season, not the crowded summer festivals but real opera or orchestral concerts filling the stages of Italy’s great opera houses all up and down the boot. As the days are shorter in the winter months, the evenings are ripe for musical diversions.
People who work in the hotels and restaurants, museums and shops, have recuperated from the high season tourist crushes. They actually have time to talk to you, share stories and tell you about little hidden corners that they like. Sure, it’s colder, maybe the weather isn’t optimum but nine times out of ten, it’s not bad either. I’ve had those gloomy, overcast days in Venice but I’ve also had an equal number of gloriously sunny, 60 degree days where sitting in St. Mark’s Square for lunch was commonplace. And what is more atmospheric than Venice in that certain wintery fog when the mist rolls off the lagoon at night, enveloping the street lamps to cast a rosy glow across the Piazza? I’ve seen Florence under snow but also in brilliant sunshine in January. And Rome’s generally mild climate more often that not has left me shedding my coat or wishing I could open the window of a too hot hotel room. But maybe that’s just me.....I’ve seen the Italians all bundled up like it was the North Pole in December, and although I’ve lived most of the past 36 years in southern California, found myself wondering what all the fuss was about. It was, after all, about 60 degrees! In California, we’d be grilling dinner outside.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is the Tuscan countryside in February and March. Rolling hills vividly tinted green like a rich velvety coat by the tiniest sprigs heralding the spring to come. Granted, many of the hotels are closed (remember, travel industry - they’re on vacation too) but many aren’t and the restaurants are still going strong. And the only people in them are the Italians. To see the stranieri (foreigners) is much rarer. In the museums the guards are bored, no pretty girls to watch, so they are willing to strike up conversations, point out something you might miss and give you a story. I’ve even been escorted into locked portions of a museum, or a chapel, to see something not generally open to view when I’ve struck up conversations. No self-respecting guard would consider doing this in the height of the season when they’re too overwhelmed keeping idling fingers from touching paintings.
If the lack of crowds isn’t enough of an enticement, I’ll give you two more reasons - sales and food. The word saldi in a shop window is magic to a shopper as it trumpets the sale period has arrived! Those six weeks or so, a time period which like many other things in bureaucratic Italy is regulated by governments, can drive dedicated shoppers to near hysteria. Beginning just after Epiphany starts or the Befana visits, Italy’s Christmas witch, the prices drop sometimes as much as half at the end of the 1st week in January. All of that stunning Italian style, not just table loads of junk that American stores bring in for special bargains, goes on markdown to make way for the spring. Although Italy only has two official sale periods, January and another beginning in July, for me, I’d rather shop in the cold than in the blaze of summer! You’ll find heavy discounts from the designers to the small shops as storeowners clear out inventory. And now, with a stronger dollar, you can work yourself up into a real frenzy!
Which brings me to my next point - food, sustenance - and after all that shopping, you’re going to need it! Winter’s chill brings hearty fare - roasted and braised wild game, a variety of freshly unearthed mushrooms and the pungent aroma of truffles. A walk down any street tantalizes with the wafting scent of roasting chestnuts and log fires. Succulent stews and soups, filled with lentils or root vegetables, have simmered on the back burner of the stove all day until the flavors are melded and their aromas have overtaken kitchens and dining rooms all over Italy. The freshly pressed olive oil, some still unclarified, finds its way to the table. Duck, goose, and wild boar all enrich and enliven pastas and risottos as wards against winter chill. Ravioli filled with pumpkin and amaretti, one of the seasons most delicious treats, shares the table with artichokes and persimmons as signs of winter. For a food lover, winter is paradise!
Summer’s overrated.