My turn
I just got back from a long stretch that started with the indeed very nice "devirtualization" session in Imperia, with Nils, Dale, Luk, Fil and consorts... It was great to see you all, and to meet you Dale for the first time. The meal at Agrodolce
I also liked the Terre Rosse a lot, funny to read all this talk about vermentino on AFW, given that most wine atlases don't even mention Liguria... Like Provence for its reds, I think Liguria has a lot of potential in whites and it just needs to be developed further (Liguria is way ahead of Provence right now!).
The following day (July 14) we drove along the Via Aurelia (and part of the Julia Augusta), as Cathy continued her photographic project on roman roads (I can give some of you a private URL for a sneak preview). By the evening we were in Genova, and realized we had forgotten the camera's battery charger and the polarizing filter, luckily Luk pointed us to a very good photo store where we found all the missing bits. At 7pm we went down to the port and queued the car up for the ferry to Sardinia. The crossing was uneventful.
A week in Sardinia with some distracted wine tastings, we were staying close to Capichera but I did not bother visiting, with 38°C you jsut don't feel like it... and so we went looking for hidden beaches - the top one, a minuscule beach surrounded by huge rocks bizzarrely sculpted by the elements, with crystal clear water and a view of Bonifacio in Corsica, right at the end of Capo Testa near Santa Teresa. A few dinner wines all form Argiolas: S'elegas from Nuragus grapes, a low priced wine with slight residual sugar and nice to drink in the torrid heat ; Costamolino, a Vermentino lacking somewhat in balance and miles from the Ligurian standard. Myrtle liqueur was a big hit.
July 22 we took the ferry back to the continent, but landed in Civitavecchia near Rome, and we headed east on the Via Salaria, managed to get across despite the dozens of forest fires raging throughout Italy, and settled for the night in Montelparo, in the Piceno, a beautiful area with gentle hills and beautiful landscapes, reminiscent of Tuscany minus the German and English tourists. A simple carafe of Rosso Piceno of unknown origin hits the spot. Discovered an excellent olive oil from Alfredo Agostini, at just over 5€ a litre it is an excellent deal (the same oil in Tuscany would have been 30€). Brought home 10 litres (should last 10 weeks).
July 23 we hit the Adriatic coast and take the highway to get as quickly as possible up to Fano, where we take up the roman thread with the Via Flaminia, driving through the magnificent Gola del Furlo, a gorge in the Appennines with lots of Roman bridges and ruins. Again fires are threatening all around, especially as we pass close to Urbino. We spend the night at Trevi, a very nice town that somehow we had skipped in past visits to Umbria. Again, I decide to go for the noname plain carafe, and the Sagrantino is good, young and with the help of a bowl of ice we manage to get the bottle around 26 degrees, which tastes very cold when it's over 36 out... Perfect with strangozzi al tartufo nero.
July 24 we continue along the Flaminia until past Narni and there we grab the highway up to Chiantishire. In 4 hours we go from sub-40 temperatures to around 25°C in Chianti, and by the time we arrive at Radda we even get a few drops of rain.
In the evening we head for Castellina, our mission being to try to see if the Antica Trattoria La Torre is still operating, and if it is as good as if was during our last memorable visit in... 1991! Well, Mr. Stiaccini is still at the cash register, and his family is still cooking, so it looks promising...
Yesterday we headed for San Gimignano and for the 4th time went to see the magnificent cathedral, with the old testament painted on one side and the new on the other. I wanted to show my daughter the scene from hell, absolute masterpiece and more gory than any Harry Potter story. Tourists in short trousers are invited to cover their knees on entering the church, luckily mine are just below so this ridiculous procedure does not apply to me, but as I go in I am shocked to see paintings depicting Moses himself parting the seas wearing fairly skimpy shorts. Job is also showing some knee, and Saint Stephen is wearing nothing but white underwear (and some arrows). I thought of pointing this out to the guardians of the moral order, but then remembered this is vacation... ;-) To say nothing of what the demons were doing to completely naked women in Hell... Anyhow, after the visit we tried a glass of Vernaccia at a local bar, it was truly horrible... so we headed for the famous prize winning gelateria on the Cistern square, not the big one at the bottom but the little Gelateria di Piazza on the short side of the square, truly fabulous ice cream. They even have a flavour called "champelmo" - champagne and grapefruit...
It's nice to be back home.
cheers all
Mike