Our Trip to Italy - Fall 2001

Alan and Silvia Danson

Silvia and I spent three wonderful weeks in Italy this fall. From the moment of our arrival in Venice, when we took a water taxi from the airport to our hotel on a sparkling clear September afternoon, to our last balmy evening in Rome, when we strolled down the narrow streets near the Fontana di Trevi and had a pizza and a bottle of wine at an outdoor restaurant off the Via Veneto, the trip was magical. Credit for our wonderful trip goes to Silvia, who spent many hours developing a fabulous itinerary and choosing our route, our hotels and restaurants. We thought that you might be able to benefit from her hard work, so here, if you are interested, is a summary of the highlights of our trip.

We arrived in Venice from London in the afternoon of a bright, cool and breezy day. We took a water taxi – actually a sleek and brightly varnished speed boat that looked like it might have belonged to Jay Gatsby -- to our hotel, and greatly enjoyed the views as the launch slowly made its way across the bay toward the labyrinth of canals that wind through Venice. Our hotel was the Pensione Accademia, which we found through the Karen Brown guidebook, and it was perfect-- an old palace, right on the Grand Canal next to the Gallerie dell’Accademia, the museum housing Venice’s premier art collection, including Giorgione’s enigmatic work, The Tempest.

Venice is a great walking town – no autos, trucks or busses. That evening, after exploring on our own, we met Enrico Isacchi, the guide we had hired for the following day, and took him to dinner at a popular restaurant , Trattoria Alla Madonna. I tried cuttle fish in its ink with polenta and it was great. Enrico is a wonderful guide who can be contacted by e-mail at e.isacchi@veniceluxuryguide.com. The next day, we walked from our hotel to Piazza San Marco where we met Enrico to start our tour. He took us to the fascinating Palazzo Ducale (the Doges Palace) and the impressive Basilica di San Marco, after which we went on a walking tour of wonderful back streets and alleys, along small canals, and over quaint hump-backed bridges. Along the way we saw the Rialto, Santa Maria dei Miracoli – a small gem of a church, the Scuola Grande di San Roco, a combination of guild, charity and religious fraternity that is decorated with many fabulous paintings by Tintoretto, and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, a magnificent Gothic church richly decorated with paintings by Titian and Bellini. We had a coffee at Campo Santa Margherita, one of Venice’s prettiest piazzas. After Enrico dropped us off, we took a tour of the Accademia by ourselves (it would have been better to have had a guide). Later that evening we ate at another wonderful restaurant, Da Ignazio.

On our last day in Venice, we got out early, took the vaporetto, or water bus, down the Grand Canal to Ca’ D’Oro, walked across the island to Fondamenta Nuove (the "new embankment"), where we caught the ferry for the islands of Torcello and Burano (we had decided to skip the glass blowing center of Murano). After touring the two islands we returned by ferry to San Marco, toured the shops around the square and visited the Correr Museum that depicts the history of Venice. After that we went to the nearby Biennale, or biennial exposition of modern art, where different countries have pavilions – it was interesting, but the art was largely unfathomable. Tired but unbowed, we went across the Grand Canal to the Dorsoduro district and walked to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, housed in the beautiful palazzo where she used to live. Her collection is fabulous, as is the building. We returned to the hotel, packed and then went out for a late dinner at what proved to be the best restaurant yet, Ai Gondolieri.

The next morning we walked with our bags (typical carry-on luggage with wheels) the short distance along a side canal to the "Zattere" stop of the ferry (traghetto) that would take us along the Canale de la Giudecca (Canal of the Jewish Quarter) to the Piazzale Roma, which is the area where car, bus and train passengers embark and disembark. There we picked up our rental car from Europcar -- for reservations in the U.S., call Auto Europe at 800-223-5556. Leaving Piazzale Roma across the causeway toward the mainland city of Mestre, we headed east across the Veneto toward our next stop, Padua, less than an hour to the west.

The principal attraction of Padua is the Scrovegni Chapel, (much of the rest of the art and architecture of the city was destroyed by bombs during World War II). This chapel, which dates from the early 14^th century, is literally covered, from floor to ceiling, with paintings by Giotto. We had admired pictures of the chapel in our art books and were looking forward to seeing it in person. Unfortunately, the chapel was closed for restoration. We were disappointed, but nothing could be done, so we walked to the old town and visited two famous squares – the Piazza della Frutta and the Piazza dei Signori, as well as the beautifully frescoed Baptistery. We had a light lunch at an outdoor café and then continued another 30 minutes east to Verona, arriving in early afternoon.

In Verona, we stopped first to visit its famous Roman amphitheater, the Arena, dating from AD30 – the third largest in the Roman world -- where opera is still performed in the summer. We walked down elegant pedestrian shopping streets (Verona is a very prosperous city) to the Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori. We took a tour of the city in a little kiddie-style "train", we had a Campari at one of the many outdoor cafes, and then we headed east again, out past the beautiful Ponte Pietra (stone bridge) over the Rio Adige, for the 45 minute drive to our overnight destination – the picturesque town of Sirmione at the southern end of Lake Garda.

Sirmione is a town on a peninsula that juts into the lake. It is a resort town that caters to Italians and Germans, the latter who drive down from the north in large groups and either take hydrofoils or busses to the town. We enjoyed Sirmione as a rest stop after a hectic four days in Venice. The weather was beautiful and we hiked around the peninsula, enjoyed the views across the lake and read and rested in the sun.

The morning of our sixth day we left Sirmione to drive all the way south to the Mediterranean coast at La Spezia, where we entered Tuscany and followed the coast southeast, past the marble quarries at Carrara, before turning east toward our first stop of the day, Pisa. The drive was an easy four hours, all on the autostrada at speeds of 80 mile per hour or more. Pisa is a very special place. The Leaning Tower, which was not yet open for tourists to enter but was free of scaffolding for the first time in 10 years, is only one part of a group of beautiful white and black stripped marble buildings set on a large rectangular grass park called the Campo dei Miracoli, or Field of Miracles. The Campo includes the cathedral, the Baptistery, the Leaning Tower, which is the campanile or bell tower of the complex, and the Camposanto, which is a medieval cemetery. The cathedral is wonderful and features beautiful bronze doors, a Cimabue mosaic and Giovanni Pisano’s wonderful pulpit. We were there on a Saturday and were lucky to overhear an orchestra from Salzburg rehearsing a Mozart mass to be played and sung the next day. The Baptistery, which features a pulpit by Nicola Pisano, the father of Giovanni, has incredibly good acoustics, and one of the guards treated us to a demonstration by singing four different notes that were sustained long enough to sound like a musical chord. It was beautiful. After completing our tour of the Campo die Miracoli we walked to the Piazza dei Cavallieri, had a light lunch and got back on the road.

From Pisa we continued east toward Florence on the autostrada but skirted the city to the south and took a secondary road, the 222, south from there. This is as scenic a road as any we’ve ever been on – the "back way" to Sienba – and well worth the extra time it takes. As soon as you enter Chianti, the views become enchanting. Soft rolling hills, each with a castle or complex of farm buildings commanding the top, are painted in a variety of green tones, from the vivid green of pencil cypresses to the whitewashed green of the olive trees, interspersed with golden fields of grain, brown fallow fields, stands of oak and, of course, row upon row of vineyards whose alternating green and tan stripes decorate every sunny hillside. The countryside was magical on first view and continued to be magical for us as we explored every corner of the area over the next six days.

The 222 winds its way through the Chianti hills south of Florence through picturesque towns of Strada, Greve, Campana, and Castellina. We passed through the lovely town of Castellina in Chianti (see our comments below) and turned west off the road about 10 minutes south of town on a small road that led to the San Leonino vinyards and our hotel for the next three nights – the Belvedere di San Leonino -- a converted farm complex constructed of rough stone, with red terracotta tile roofs, surrounded by old stone walls, olive trees and vineyards laden with San Giovese grapes just ready for picking. This also was a Karen Brown recommendation. It boasts a good restaurant on premises that serves dinner to the public (reservations essential) and a lovely outdoor pool surrounded by vineyards and overlooking Siena in the distance. That first evening we had time for a walk of several miles to unwind from a rather long day on the road. We walked southwest down the paved farm road in front of the hotel, up and down hills, and past vineyards until we encountered a happy group of workers, men and women, picking grapes as the sun was setting. We exchanged a few words with them (we had studied Italian for nine months from Pimsleur Method tapes) and they offered us a bunch of the incredibly sweet local grapes to try. What a wonderful welcome to Chianti! At dinner that night we ordered a Chianti Classico Riecine ’98 -- it was exceptionally "di corpo" or full bodied.

The next morning we set out south on highway 222, and after about 15 minutes the orange-brown roofs of Siena came into view below us. We started our tour of Siena at the fan-shaped Piazza del Campo, where the famous Palio horse race is held every July 2 and August 16. On the far side of the Piazza del Campo, we visited the Palazzo Publico (probably Italy’s finest Gothic town hall), with its Museo Civico, or City Museum– an absolute must see. The major attractions include a gem of a chapel with frescos by Bartolo and marvelous inlaid-wood choir stalls; a wonderful 14^th century Maesta by Martini; and the famous pictorial cycle by Lorenzetti, the "Allegories of Good and Bad Government". After that we visited the Duomo, which is considered one of Italy’s finest Gothic cathedrals. Its stark black and white stripped marble construction stands out from the virtually uniform orange-brown color of the surrounding buildings, and the multi-colored marble and painted façade (similar to the Orvieto cathedral that we would see in a few days) is wonderful. Moving inside, we were amazed by the magnificent inlaid marble floors – depicting biblical scenes, allegories, religious symbols and civic emblems that took 40 artists over 200 years to complete. The floors are covered except during September, so we got lucky. Off the nave of the cathedral is the Piccolomini Library, which is covered by beautiful, Renaissance frescoes by Pinturicchio. Completed in 1509, they look so freshly colored that they could have been painted last week. We also visited the adjacent Baptistery, which is decorated with bronzes by Ghiberti.

From Siena, we drove south to the Abbazia (Abbey) di Monte Oliveto Maggiore – a functioning monastery of "White" Benedictines – approached on a very narrow road that winds along a ridge offering spectacular views in all directions. For us, the highlight of the abbey was the main cloister, covered with frescoes by Luca Signorelli and Il Sodoma, relating the life of St Benedict. We had dinner that night at La Torre restaurant in Castellina in Chianti, a small but beautiful village that is very popular because of its central location in Chianti.

The next day we headed out early for San Gimignano – the city of many towers – about an hour north and west of Castellina, in the Val d’Elsa region. Our first stop was the Museo Civico, or town museum located at the base of the Torre Grosso, the town’s highest tower. The museum houses a Maesta by Lippo Memmi and the interesting "wedding" frescoes by Filipuccio. We climbed the tower and took in the wonderful views, and then went to the Collegiata church next door, which is literally covered with 14^th-century frescoes that are a must see. These are Old Testament scenes that will delight, especially the striking scenes of the Last Judgement by di Bartolo. There is a lovely park, called La Roca, above the main square, where we heard a harp and flute player and saw artists at work. We left San Gimignano at around 12:30 for the short drive to another famous hill-town, Volterra, where we had lunch at an outdoor café on the Piazza dei Priori. Volterra is a pretty town with a famous museum of Etruscan art – the Museo Etrusco Guarnacci -- and many workshops featuring alabaster handicrafts. We returned to Castellina that night for dinner at La Gallopapa restaurant, which we recommend highly.

The next day, after checking out of our hotel, we drove back into Castellina and then headed east toward Radda in Chianti, where we began a hike to a nearby hill fortress of Volpaia. Although we got our directions wrong at the start and ended up hiking several miles more than we had too (as well as bushwhacking through brambles at one point), the walk was wonderful – and served to burn-off some of the many calories that we were absorbing as we savored the local food with a full bottle of wine every night. On the way to Volpaia, we passed the Romanesque chapel of Santa Maria Novella. In Volpaia, the local (and only) café where we had planned to have lunch was closed, so we hitched a ride back to our car with two young men who worked in the cantina (wine cellar). That made it possible for us to get to the nearby town of Badia a Coltibuono, in the Monti di Chianti (Chianti Mountains) region, with its famous cooking-school and restaurant, where we had a delightful lunch and recovered from the rigors of our three-hour hike. After lunch we walked through the oak, fir and chestnut forests surrounding the deconsecrated abbey, and then drove about 30 minutes to Castello di Brolio (you wine lovers will recognize all of these towns as centers for the production of eponymous chianti classico wines of great note). After a tour of the grounds and chapel of this beautiful castle, we continued southwest to Siena and then south past Buonconvento and San Quirico d’Orcia to the turn-off east to Pienza.

We arrived in Pienza and checked into the wonderful Il Chiostro de Pienza (a converted cloister), which was to be our home for the next three nights. We were given a room with a magnificent view overlooking the entire valley to the south and west. Pienza is a charming small town where Pope Pius II, in the 15^th century, successfully created the perfect Renaissance town square. That night we ate at Il Prato, where I had a delicious grilled rabbit in rosemary, an herb that surrounded the garden of our hotel, giving off a most wonderful smell. Returning to our hotel we enjoyed the vision from our hotel window of a full moon floating over the valley – it was heavenly.

The next day we planned a hike from Montepulciano to Sant’ Antimo, and so we got an early start for the home of the region’s best wine – the Brunello di Montalcino. Montalcino is a picturesque hill-top town about 20 kilometers west of Pienza. We began our walk along the road toward Grossetto. After three kilometers we turned onto a dirt road lined with raspberry bushes and walked almost two hours through fields and vineyards to our goal, Sant’ Antimo, the most glorious of central Italy’s many medieval abbeys, with alabaster columns and a chapel reputedly built for Charlemagne in the 8^th century. We hitched a ride back to Montalcino with a tour group from the U.S. and spent the rest of the day visiting the town and enjoying lunch (with a good glass of ’95 Caprili Brunello) at an outdoor café. That night, back in Pienza, we had dinner at Rossallino, a small restaurant (only six tables) owned by a former banker and his wife who do the cooking and serving. This was one of our best meals of the trip. Silvia had sautéed porcini mushroom caps.

The next day was a hike day again. We drove a few miles east and south of Pienza to Bagno Vignioni, an old Roman spa with natural sulpher hot springs on the banks of the D’Orcia River, which gives its name to that area, the Val d’Orcia. We started at around 9:15 and did a 10 kilometer loop that started out following the river in view of the hilltop castle La Roca d’Orcia -- and then went steeply uphill to another castle, Ripa d’Orcia, by beautiful vineyards and farms with fabulous views in all directions. We returned to our starting point in three hours, ready for lunch on the terrace overlooking the old Roman hot pool. After lunch we returned to Pienza and then continued further east for a tour of nearby Montepulciano. This is also a lovely hill town and home of another famous wine, the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. We enjoyed a cappuccino at Caffe Poliziano seated on a balcony overlooking the valley. We returned to Pienza, 12 kilometers away, and had dinner that night at Da Fiorella, where we enjoyed a spectacular bottle of 1995 Il Paradiso Brunello di Montalcino.

We drove for a little over one hour the next morning, first east and then south from Pienza, to reach the city of Orvieto, in Umbria -- a good sized city whose old town sits on top of a plateau ringed by cliffs. We parked by the railroad station and took a funicular to the top of the "Roca" where the old city is located. After a visit to the interesting Well of San Patrizio, built in 1527 at the orders of Pope Clement VIII, we strolled up tree-lined Corso Cavour toward the Duomo, reputed to be the most beautiful cathedral in Italy. The elaborately decorated, gilded facade is magnificent, as is the Chapel of San Brizio, which contains a fresco cycle called "The Last Judgment", by Luca Signorelli, that should not be missed. We also toured the labyrinth of galleries, tunnels and caves that riddle the ground beneath the old town, formed as inhabitants, dating back to the Etruscans, dug out the volcanic rock (tufa) to build the city. A private museum across from the Duomo houses an excellent collection of Etruscan art.

After lunch in Orvieto we drove east to Todi and then on to Spoleto, where we stayed at the beautiful Hotel San Luca. We took a walking tour of this lovely town, visiting the Casa Romana, a well-excavated Roman house, and then had dinner at Peccharda, a very unpretentious locals hangout. The next morning we again toured the town on foot, walking to the old aqueduct at the top of the town. We visited the Galeria de Arte Moderna that displays many of the past winners of the art and sculpture competitions featured at the Spoleto Festival every summer.

We left Spoleto before lunch and drove toward our next stop, Assisi. En route we turned off the highway at Spello to follow the back road to Monte Subasio, the highest mountain in the area that provided spectacular views and a pleasant place for a picnic – and where we saw locals picking mushrooms and hunting for truffles. From the top of Monte Subasio we made our way down to Assisi, which was crowded with pilgrims and tourists since the previous day was the Festival of San Francisco. We stayed at Hotel Il Palazzo, in a room with a magnificent view of the city and the valley beyond. We toured the cathedral and the rest of the town before having dinner (pasta with black truffles) at the Osteria d’el Erbe.

We found the Umbrian countryside to be quite different from Tuscany. Umbria had bigger, more abrupt hills and wider valleys than Tuscany, and was not as green and lush as the Chianti region.

The next morning we headed out early toward Perugia, en route to Florence to the northwest. We parked at the Perugia train station and took a bus to Piazza Italia, where we gained access to the old city via the fascinating subterranean excavations of the Roman foundations of the city. We visited the Palazzo dei Priori, with its several magnificent guild-halls – the Colegio del Cambio and Colegio della Mercanzia -- that should not be missed. We were on our way before noon and arrived in Florence around 2:30PM for a four-night stay.

Four nights in Florence is bare minimum, because there is enough to see and do to justify a week or more. Silvia had been there once before, which helped, and we had a guide arranged for a day and a half, and that was very useful. We saw all of the important monuments and museums -- the Brancacci Chapel in the Santa Maria del Carmine church, with its important frescoes; the Santo Spirito Church, where Brunelleschi startled the architectural world with his innovative design; the Museum of the Opera del Duomo, that provides a look at how Brunelleschi built his famous dome (don’t miss the new book, Brunelleschi’s Dome); the Duomo (cathedral) and the Battisterio (baptistery); the dome of the Duomo (well worth the climb); the Santa Croce and San Mineato al Monte churches; the Church of Santa Maria la Novella, with its interesting façade; the Bargello Museum, the San Marco Museum and the Accademia Gallery, to marvel at Michelangelo’s David; the Uffizi Gallery, the Medicee Chapel, with its wonderful Michelangelo sculptures, the Laurentian Library, the Medici-Ricardi Palace, to see Gozzoli’s famous Procession of the Magi, the Palazzo Piti and the Boboli Gardens. We, of course, walked all over the old city. In addition, we took the bus up to the nearby village of Fiesole – a side trip not to be missed.

Our guide in Florence was Anne Barbetti, an American who has lived there for 40 years. Her telephone number is 011-39-05-547-4298. We recommend her highly. We ate wonderful dinners at La Giostra (one of the best and most enjoyable meals of our trip), Cibreo (where we celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary with friends from Vail) and Le Fonticine. This is a food and wine-lovers city, and it would have been worth staying extra days just to try other restaurants.

After two full days and two half days in Florence, we boarded the Eurostar train for the 95 minute train ride to Rome – our last stop on the trip. We spent four nights in Rome at the absolutely wonderful and inexpensive Hotel La Residenza, two blocks off Via Veneto, across from the American Embassy, a short walk to the Borghese Gardens and the Spanish Steps. We had a great guide in Rome, Lila Volpe, an American with 30 years experience. She can be reached via e-mail at sailawaywind@yahoo.com and by phone at 011-06-582-8519; cell 335-587-6773. She also runs cooking schools.

As in Florence, we could have used more time in Rome. We did the major sites: the Forum and Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Vatican Museum and St Peters, the Borghese Gallery -- and we walked as much as we could – through the streets around the Spanish Steps, through the Borghese Gardens, the Piazza Navona, around the Fontana di Trevi, the Ghetto, along the Tiber, etc. -- but there was much that we didn’t see enough of or at all, so we’ll just have to return.

We recommend the wonderful novel, A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin, for anyone who has been or is planning to go to Italy (and anyone who likes good literature).

We hope you enjoyed this summary of our trip. We have guide-books and maps and e-mail addresses and phone numbers that we’d be happy to share with you. Just let us know how we can be helpful. Viva Italia!