Arrivederci, Umbria Jazz, 2011
“Three Ladies of Blues” had all rockin’ at the jazz aperitif last night at Hotel Brufani, one of the last events of the stupendo 10-day Umbria Jazz festival in Perugia.
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Floral Passione Takes Over Spello
“Bello Spello, vero?”, an elderly woman asks me as she polishes her brass doorknob to a gleam. Above her head, fiery red geraniums and hot pink petunias overflow in chromatic profusion from terracotta flower pots on the stone wall of her house. I thought she might win the “Finestre,Balconi e Vie Fioriti” (“Windows, balconies and alleyways”) contest – until I saw Attilio’s courtyard. Each day, stonemason, Attilio, returns hot and sweaty from work and after a quick shower, spends hours in his courtyard tending the 120 flower pots hanging on the pink limestone wall of his courtyard.
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Eating Flowers in Spello
Spello – che bello! – is becoming world famous for its magnificent flower petal tapestries – Infiorate – carpeting medieval alleyways and piazzas for Corpus Cristi. Prior to the wonders, the Spellani compete in a contest of flowering balconies, windowboxes and alleyways, try out the rose and lavender flavors featured in the main piazza gelateria – and even eat flowers…
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Perugia …and all that Jazz!
Since 1973, In mid-July the rhythms of jazz, R&B, soul, Gospel, swing, Latino, zydeco, bebop, tango, blues, samba – to mention a few – fill frescoed Perugia theaters, reverberate off the walls of its stately medieval city hall and wrap around the Gothic sculptural masterpiece, the 13th-c fountain, in the main piazza. Yes, things are cooking in Perugia this week giving the city the redoubtable honor of being the hottest city in Italy – but Herbie Hancock, Santana, Prince, Liza Minelli, Gilberto Gil, B.B. King and countless other top musicians – are doing the cookin’…and the rockin’ fans filling the piazzas and streets are feeling a different kind of heat…
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Goat Cheese-making in the Mugello
The Moto Gran Premio draws motorcycle buffs – and not only – from all over the world each year to the glorious Mugello valley in northern Tuscany. One of them is my husband Pino who heads here each year on his moto Guzzi. For the second time, I joined him – and quite literally, only “went along for the ride”: the three-hour ride from Assisi into Tuscany and on to the rolling wooded hills of the Mugello. It’s not just the glorious, serene Mugello valley: Casa Passerini (where we stayed for two nights) and the hospitable owners, the Manetti family, draw me back, too. While Pino was at the track on Sunday, cheering on Valentino Rossi (uselessly, this time), I was in the kitchen of Casa Passerini hearing Gianna’s stories as she coaxed 8 litres of goat’s milk into a wondrous caprino cheese…
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Bolsena’s Many Treasures
Bolsena’s many treasures keep luring us back to this Latium lakeside town: the imposing fifteenth century gray tufo rock castle of the Monaldeschi (powerful Orvieto family) towering over the medieval town and the deep peaceful lake below, filling up a volcanic crater, are primary draws. The clean waters of Lake Bolsena refresh on hot days and yield pike, perch, black bass and whitefish to enhance the tasty pasta dishes of the trattorie along the shores and in the village.
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Bolsena’s July Living Tableaux
Certamente, the brutality of the martyrdom of Bolsena’s Santa Cristina in the fourth century contrasts dramatically with the serene bucolic beauty of the Lake Bolsena area. The fifth century text of the Saint’s Passio kept alive the story of her martyrdom, metamorphosing into a medieval miracle play. In the sixteenth century, the multiple episodes of her martyrdom became the beloved Misteri di Santa Cristina, ten tableaux acted out each year on her feast day, July 24th, by the Bolsenesi…
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Self-Exile on a Mediterranean Island
Augustus Caesar banished his libertine daughter, Giulia to Ventotene, tiny Mediterranean island just south of Rome and north of Naples. The exiled Giulia might not have relished the peace and natural beauty of Ventotene but today the island (1 km long and 700 m. wide) attracts those who seek a sort of “self-exile”: a move out of the fast lane into a world of all things “slow”, from the island food to the idle pace of Ventotene life…
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