Italy del Giorno

Travelers gravitate to the ancient sites of Rome, but don’t let Milan’s status as a modern international city obscure its important ancient past.  Of course, celebrated sites like the gothic Duomo and Da Vinci’s Last Supper are must sees, but consider adding The Archaeological Museum of Milan to your short list.     

The museum is located in the former Monastery of San Maurizio, which is near Santa Maria delle Grazie (home of the Last Supper), and is well worth a stop on your way to or from Da Vinci.   You do not need a reservation and will most likely have the place all to yourself.  The monastery itself is in the midst of Milan’s richest ancient archeological deposits and features some well preserved architectural structures as well, such as a Roman tower and walls dating from the 3rd – 4th century AD.  The origins of present day Milan can be traced to the 5th century Celtic settlement of Mediolanum, which was a Roman city by the 2nd – 1st centuries, and this small museum does an excellent job of informing us of this early history.  Notable pieces of the collection include glass (an incredibly ornate goblet among them) and kitchen objects from Roman times and a couple of interesting mosaics, all with some general descriptions in English as well as Italian.  One really interesting  part of the exhibit is the section of tombstones dedicated to informing us about the jobs and lives of the citizens of Mediolanum.  There are a number of tombstones of individuals and couples with engravings and descriptions of their careers while living.  My personal favorite:  the stone of a teacher (maestra) featuring an engraved bust of her, with a description of her excellence and success as a great disciplinarian of students – further illustrated with an engraving of her whipping a child. 

There are several tombstones on display, with translations only in modern Italian, so it would be useful to visit the museum with a professional guide.

During the summer, Italians are almost exclusively focused on one thing – finding time to go “al mare” –  to the sea  or to the beach as we would say.  Italian beaches are (in)famous for their ability to accommodate a lot of people in a small space.  You can reserve lounge chairs, umbrellas and changing cabins on a daily, weekly or seasonal basis.  It’s a bit different than an exclusive private beach in the Hamptons, but costs are quite reasonable and considering the numbers of people who flock to Italy’s rather limited swim-able coastline, it is quite orderly and civilized. We visited friends in Rimini last week and were able to take in some of the sights of this celebrated seaside resort.   

The beach in Rimini 

In addition to hanging out on the beach, Rimini offers a beautiful historic center and is close to other interesting historic towns like Urbino.  And in case of rain – there are always the discount designer outlets of the municipality of San Marino.

The Ducal Palace in Urbino

The “Love Bus” on the road in Rimini - this band of four instrumentalists were parked on the side of the road, jammin’ with the door open for passersby near the beach.

For the third year in a row, Concierge in Umbria has been named to the Conde Nast Traveler list of 128 World’s Top Travel Specialists in the August 2008 issue now on the stands!  The selection process is always rigorous, but was even more so this year – a number of established travel specialsts from previous years did not make the current list.  The pressure is on for us to continue to deliver exceptional travel experiences to our clients! 

Wendy Perrin, CN Traveler Consumer News Editor, manages the evaluation and publication of the list each year.  As she writes in the foreward to the 2008 list, the evaluation of travel specialists is becoming increasingly competitive, due in part to the proliferation of online travel planning tools.  Wendy wants to ensure that the list contains only those travel specialists who can “do for travelers what they cannot do for themselves” through both extensive and recent knowledge, as well as insider contacts.

We are excited to be a part of this elite group of travel specialits.

The distance from farm to table in Italy’s restaurants can usually be measured by a few kilometers.  The ingredients have even more integrity when the restaurant has its own organic orto or garden.  Silician born Salvatore Denaro has made his home in Umbria, where he is the chef/owner of Foligno’s Il Bacco Felice osteria.  A visit to Salvatore’s is always a memorable experience – he and his kitchen have long been recognized by epicures, and his fame is spreading as national publications (recently in Food & Wine magazine) have taken notice.  Salvatore has been inviting us to join him in his garden for quite some time, and when we left Bacco Friday evening (see photo of the week for what that looked like!), we decided to take him up on it the next morning. 

He is in his garden everyday at 5:00am – we arrived around 11:00, and found him still laboring over his tomatoes.  He stopped everything to take us from plant to plant, “harvesting” - eating and sharing ripe fruits and vegetables along the way.  He explained details of his experiments with different seeds, different types of soil, placement with respect to the sun, cycle of the moon, etc.  

My favorite nibble was the lemon cucumber – quite tasty.  After a bite of  cucumber, Salvatore spat the seeds out onto a strategic spot and told us that the cukes would now start growing in that spot.   We then met his two pet black pigs, living out a lovely porcine retirement featuring heavy portions of leftovers from the restaurant. 

Then as we made our way to sit in the shade on some bales of hay, Salvatore appeared with a cooler of sparkling wine, heavenly mozzarella di bufula (one of our group went off to pluck some of Salvatore’s basil for the repast), a very rustic pork salami, specially baked whole grain bread.  Salvatore also had a bottle of wine on hand, but no cork screw. 

In true Salvatore style, he then walked out to the country road that passes his garden and flagged down a couple of neighbors driving by to see if they happened to have a corkscrew on hand.  Still smarting from our wine consumption at Bacco Felice the night before, we convinced Salvatore that the crisp methode classico was really quite enough.

Getting a lift home after dinner from the chef!

Perugia opens its doors to the Jazz community for two weeks every July.  This year’s event even featured an open-air, closing night concert by REM.  The real “soul” of the festival, however, lies in the free outdoor concerts, small club events, and daily street parades. 

The Coolbone Jazz Band of New Orleans on parade in Perugia.

We’ve always loved the food and people watching at Sparafucile in Foligno.  One more thing that sets the experience apart is the way the owner, waiter, part-time cook and overall factotum ties his bow-tie — just flopped over once.

After Cantine Aperte ended, we all sat down for a family-style feast.  One of the meat courses was spit-roasted rabbit bathed in rosemary, garlic and white wine.  The cooks used a giant stalk of rosemary as the “mop” to baste the meat.