Dreaming In Italian

Faced with 3 days alone in Frankfurt I really wasn’t sure what to do. After I got over the immediate wrenching dislocation I decided to make it an adventure. It took a little while to figure out how to use the machines to buy the tickets for the tram but once that was accomplished I was set to explore Frankfurt. I searched the web for interesting and typical restaurants, neighborhoods to visit, etc. While doing a fairly extensive walk the first day I found one of those city tour buses that seem to be in every city. They showed me the route that they took for a total of 2 hours at a cost of 18 euros. Being the cheapskate that I am I found that an all day pass on the transportation system cost only a little over 6 euros so I set off on my own.

A word here about navigating Frankfurt. There is, of course, the stereotype of Germans being very methodical and organized. Well, it’s true as far as I could tell. The transportation system is extensive and consists of all kinds of X-bahns. U-Bahn, S-Bahn, whatever-bahn I guess. The preferred surface transportation there seems to be trams that go all over the place and are augmented by buses when that seems to be called for and I’m sure that the Frankfurters have figured this out very well. Add to that that there are actual, easily visible street signs everywhere does make it quite easy to get around.

The second night that I was there I decided that I really needed to get some typical Frankfurt type of food so I found “Fichte Kranzi” in the Sachsenhausen district across the river. This is a very traditional (est. 1849) Apfelwein (apple wine) restaurant – whew these names don’t exactly roll off of my tongue. So I’m going to give up on the original german words here. In any case I had the apple wine along with suggested “hand cheese with music” (I’m not kidding about the name here) and some kind of pickled pork loin grilled on a bed of sauerkraut. Actually pretty good food if a bit heavy and the apple wine was tasty. One of the guys at the table (they are all communal tables) said that the apple wine is a very local product and is shipped all over Germany but is much better here. They don’t have to heat it in the bottle so it has much better flavor.  Click here to go to their website if interested in more info.

The next day at lunch on my day travel pass I ate at another very German looking place. This time I had the camera in hand. Again it was interesting but my palate was stuck on Italian so I decided that was enough with the German food. For the remaining dinners I went to the local Italian place – which was pretty good. The last night I had their pasta with fresh black truffles which was outstanding. That change in eating habits did not extend to the pastries. They do some really great pastries there and I indulged for snacks.

The third day was a major walking day. I walked much of the way downtown to a breakfast place that was recommended. Then around some very quaint areas and a number of places with striking contrasts between the old and the new. I walked down the Zeil. That’s long pedestrian shopping street. Really the biggest outdoor shopping mall that I’ve ever seen. Still, in the end it is, after all, just a mall primarily made up of chain stores with the odd McDonalds or other fast food chain tucked in among the departments stores. Not my preferred kind of shopping.

I then walked to a large park which included the Palmengarten which is a botanical garden with an enclosed area containing exotic plants from tropical and desert climates. It was quite well done and had benches where one could sit and contemplate the exotic plants and one’s tired feet.

Before the day of departure I stopped by the local U and S-bahn station and inquired about elevators. I did locate them after all so decided that rather than the 30 or more euro taxi I would go for the 3+ euro train ticket. This only required that I haul the two suitcases about a block and a half to the tram stop and a short walk across the street when we arrived at the station and that was pretty much it. It worked out well and I was glad that I skipped the taxi ride.

And now just some other photos….

 

Ah, the time finally came when I needed to begin the trek home. It has been 10 weeks since I arrived in Italy and I must say I’m sad to leave. After leaving Sicily on a Thursday I spent two nights at a very nice hotel on Strada Maggiore not far from the school that only cost 55 euros. I had several things that I wanted to do on Friday. First of all I withdrew all but 60 some euros from my account. I figured that I’d rather go home with euros than leave them all there but wanted to keep the account open so that I could transfer money to it in the future for a planned return to Italy. Then I got a haircut (the George Clooney style – it’s a long story). I dropped in at the school for the usual friday farewell party for departing students and then had lunch with Vittorio. Claudia was free for dinner so I didn’t need to dine alone on my last night in Italy. Oh yes, an important task was to buy a nice bottle of grappa to put in my checked suitcase as a nice and very usable souvenir of Italy.

Travel for me is always an adventure and this trip was no different. Paolo took me to the airport which was great. I got my boarding pass and went to check the big suitcase. When asked for my passport I couldn’t find it! Horrors! Heart attack! My mind filled with images of disasters ahead but I calmed down and called the hotel. Sure enough they had it and called a taxi to deliver it to the airport. The 20 euros for the taxi paled to nothing compared to the relief of having the passport in hand. Note to self: always check for all of the important stuff before heading to the airport.

I made it to Frankfurt without a hitch. It seemed so strange to be in a place where I really had no idea of the written or spoken language. It’s not really a problem since a lot of people here speak english and, as you can imagine, everything is well organized. I took the S-Bahn train into town. The next challenge was to emerge from the station not far from the hotel. The Germans do a lot of things right but I could find no elevators in the train station and had to take 3 escalators up with two suitcases. Not a pleasant task. Now I’m ensconced in a cheap but adequate hotel and already miss Italy. Frankfurt is about as far as one can get from Italy. Broad streets, big modern building  but also some quaint areas. I found a decent Italian restaurant near the hotel where I could at least have a conversation with someone – in Italian of course. I think that it’s going to be a long three days.

 

Really I should say lunching with friends. I did have dinners and lunches a number of times but these were two notable occasions. Just a week after I had arrived in Italy Paolo invited me to a barbecue (his word) at his country place near Imola.  Paolo is an orthodontist and almost everyone (at least the men) were dentists or orthodontists. I learned the meaning of the term “alla brace” (“brace”  means “embers”). The way it works is that the grilling area has two fire boxed. In one, you start a fire and let it burn awhile until it is a roaring blaze and has consumed a lot of the wood. Next you take a heavy stick or something similar, perhaps metal, and bash the fire so that coals drop through the grate. The you take a flat shovelish kind of thing and transfer the coals to the other firebox underneath the grill and then start grilling stuff. Not a bad system since you can continually replenish the coals as needed since the fire continues to burn. The food started off with bruschetta, then some peppers, yellow and red were grilled and finally a variety of meats – steaks, sausages, and spiedini of mixed meats. Of course there was wine and bottled water and a round or two of lemoncello afterwards. It was a terrific afternoon marred only by a few insistent zanzare (mosquitoes). At least they had bodies other than mine from which to choose,

The other terrific meal and excursion was in the Apennine mountains not far too far from Bologna. It was about an hour or so drive in Vittorio’s Alfa. First we stopped by the cemetery so Barbara could put flowers in the tomb of her grandparents. Every tomb and grave-site had flowers. It was All Saints day (Tutti i Santi Ognissanati) on November 1st and that is a pretty much iron-clad tradition. Actually it is supposed to be the next day, All Souls Day for the flower thing but November 1st is a holiday and November 2nd isn’t so they’ve adapted. We then went on to the agriturismo where they had reserved a table for 10. The place has a history dating from 1485. You can visit their website by clicking here. We ate a lot, especially a local specialty called crescentini. These are little squares of bread (about 1 inch on a side) that have surely been fried in very hot oil. They are not at all greasy and puff up like little pillows. They are eaten with a variety of salumi – mortadella, salami and prosciutto with a side dish of pickled onions and peppers. I also had hand made tortellini in brodo which was terrific and appropriate for the colder weather. In the photo of the group you can barely see me in the last chair on the right. If you look closely you can see that I’m holding a bottle of grappa – the first that we consumed.

As always with the larger pictures you need to click to see the whole thing.

Mille grazie to Paolo, Cinazia and Vittorio and Barbara and all of their friends for being such great hosts. I hope to return before long and see you all again.

Before I left Girardini Naxos I found a place to get internet access. I was concerned about reentry into Palermo after my experience getting out. It looked pretty simple so I made detailed notes from Google Maps and was ready to go. The next morning it was raining hard all morning so my hoped for photos of the view from the area of Messina to the mainland were not realized. Of course it’s almost impossible to find a vantage point anyway so maybe it’s a mute point. There are lots of tunnels on the east side north of Taormina and then heading west toward Palermo. Many are 2 or even 3 kilometers long. Always exciting if a BMW wants to pass you going through the tunnel. In any case I decided to stop Cefalu’. A pretty and heavily touristed spot in northern Sicily not too far from Palermo. There are some really spectacular rocks jutting out of the earth around there and it’s a bit hard to get a good picture of them so I will get some from the web. As always, click on any photo to see them uncropped and in all of their glory.

I stopped at a bar and asked where was the best seafood around. He directed me to a place and wrote down the name and street and said it’s only “due passi”  (literally two steps) that is supposed to mean close by but in fact can mean anything from a 20 meters to 2 kilometers. In this case it was the latter. And the restaurant was closed along with a lot of others because the tourist season was pretty much over. So I stopped at a wine bar and asked for another recommendation and he directed me to a restaurant where his friend was the cook. It was indeed good. An octopus and potato salad followed by tagliatelle with small shrimp and zucchini – excellent. They also had house made cannoli which was spectacularly good. That plus  a glass of white wine, water and coffee came to just 26 euros.

So now I was ready for Palermo. I followed my notes perfectly and stopped to fill the car with diesel – 69 euros for almost a full tank and asked the name of the street that I was on. To my horror it was not the one that I had noted from Google maps. Ah, another adventure in Palermo and this time in driving rain. One would think that since train travel is so important that there would be signs indicating the direction of the train station at strategic points. But NO, the Sicilians don’t need no stinking street signs In fact it’s really hard to even see the names of the streets and of course almost no place to park to ask directions. Finally when my bladder was about ready to give out I stopped at a  bar to take care of that problem (parking illegally of course) and got directions which involved about 5 turns and identifying piazzas which I had no idea of how to identify. After several similar stops and a tour of the other half of Palermo that I hadn’t yet seen, I was driving along and saw the “Fountain of Shame”. That’s the one with nude men and woman that earned that title from some straight laced Palermo residents maybe a century or two ago. So after about an hour and half of driving  through flooded streets and sudden forced turns when confront from a one way street ahead,  I knew the way. I double parked in front of the rental agency with the emergency flashers and they took it from there. I did get back my 200 euro deposit to my relief. Note to self: Maybe getting the GPS for the car is not a bad idea in Italy.

I stayed in the same hotel with a different room. This one did not have a balcony over the busy street (Vittorio Emmanuale) but instead opened up into a mostly closed area. I loved the silence and found the view interesting. A mish-mash of old and new construction, pipes and wires on the exterior walls. Italians are very creative at making things somehow work.

The next morning I didn’t have a lot to do other than walk around Palermo. I was a little afraid to take the bus because with all of the one way streets, etc., god knows where I would wind up and I would just visualize myself being several kilometers from the hotel without the faintest idea of how to get back. That would be kind of the public transportation version of my car experience. So I put another few kilometers on my shoes. This time the church was open so I got some pictures there. I still know next to nothing about the church since it doesn’t seem to rate a mention in the on-line guides to Palermo. Some of the others must really be something.

In my wandering I came across a street market. I doubt that it was the famous Vucciria market since it didn’t seem big enough but still had some interesting stuff. Everything is super fresh and I noted the tiny calamaretti (little squid)- maybe only an inch or so long. Then I happened upon a tiny place with a specialty of fried stuff and there they were right beside the tiny sepia (cuttlefish). So it was a good time for a snack. At least I took one food picture.