Beat the winter blues, Italian style.

Last weekend we enjoyed the perfect antidote to the winter blues. Every glorious colour, as vivid as can be at Viareggio. The Viareggio Carnival celebrates 140 years this year. Viareggio is a beach resort on the Tuscan coast and its Carnevale is one of the most famous in Italy. The promenade is a perfect wide avenue for the spectacular procession displaying  amazing papier mache creations.

Many of the floats have a political satire theme. I can’t claim to recognise that many Italian politicians, but Mario Monti was heavily present, as here on the ‘Marriage of the Dried Figs’

This one above suggests Italian political life is a carousel. The comedian turned political activist Beppe Grillo features here, and on many others, including the dried figs car as the red devil!

I’m not sure who she is above, but I believe she is cleaning up Italian politics. Good Luck to her! European and world politicians also feature, not surprising given Italy’s current woes. Even Britain’s David Cameron was at Viareggio.

One way of knocking politicians down to size is portraying them as babies! The botty on the potty belongs to Silvio Berlusconi.

Other floats were just for the joy or the spectacle. Our favourite was the Minotaur.

 

As well as the floats there are also figures carried on the shoulders of strong men.

Many of the crowd of spectators come in costume too. I’d have loved to be this lady.

Even the dogs are well dressed!

Viareggio Carnival is held over 4 or 5 weekends each year, around February time, exact dates varying according to Lent/Easter. This year there is one more date, March 3rd. It’s a fun, relaxed event and  a great antidote to the winter blues: throw confetti, wear a silly costume, and enjoy watching the Italians at play.

The official website is http://viareggio.ilcarnevale.com/

Painting the town

From Ponte a Serraglio bridge, looking towards Villa Rosalena!

From the Bernabo terrace

Painting the town red? Well a few did, and all other colours possible. This Sunday saw the 5th edition of the painting competition ‘Colori e Sapori’ where artists come to Ponte a Serraglio to paint our beautiful little town in Northern Tuscany. They have between 8am and 4pm when the works are handed over for public display and judging  in the Villa Fiori park. Meanwhile lunch is served in the park for both artists and spectators.

The artists can choose any spot around town. I love peering over their shoulders to see what they are seeing and how they have interpreted the scene. It’s fun to see the familiar in new ways and through new eyes.

It’s always a very hot day for this competition. Often the artists start in situ and then move into the shade of the trees in the park to continue. This chap rather cleverly chose to paint from inside a tower!

Sometimes I just can’t see what they are seeing no matter how hard I try! I know I’m a philistine with sadly zero artistic talent, and there’s such a thing as artistic licence- But I do like to be able to recognise the town a little! Here I think he’s painting his trousers rather than Bagni di Lucca.

And here’s a bit more pink!

The river Lima is lovely but sadly we don’t have this waterfall! And no vikings or dancers! d

These ladies see the world as a magical place. Ponte a Serraglio is indeed a little bit magical so I’ll excuse this!

At four o’clock the paintings are displayed in the park and a panel of judges awards a number of cash prizes. Top prize was  650 euros.  Children are encouraged to enter as well and free materials are provided for them.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to stay until the results were announced. I think there were 6 prizes, so instead I’ll show you my personal top 6! In order. Do bear in mind that my criteria is very simple, it’s whether I would like it on my wall or not! It will be interesting to find out how close mine come to the experts judgements!

I’ll try to find out the real winners! I also need to give two ‘special mentions’. This next one is almost identical to the view from my window, and we even have green shutters! Did this man sneak up to Villa Rosalena without me noticing?

And this one is the only painting I saw that had our house in it, the white house, though he has missed off the green shutters!

UPDATE, Morena from Borgo degli Artisti tells me that my number 2 choice was the winner! But none of my other choices ranked!

If you would like to paint Ponte a Serraglio next July contact the Borgo degli Artisti, a local artists group who organise the competition, Morena speaks English and can help. http://www.borgodegliartisti.com/

A pool with a view

Reblogged from Bella Bagni di Lucca:

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In summer, the beautiful swimming pools open in La Villa, the main village in Bagni di Lucca. The water is crystal clear and the views from the swimming area are stunning.

It is a great place to be on a hot, sunny day.

It costs €6.50 to enter the pool and you will need a bathing cap. (prices may change, this is what I was quoted the day I went)

Read more… 52 more words

Bagni di Lucca has a fantastic public open air swimming pool, now open for the summer. Here's Debra's photos from her brilliant blog Bella Bagni di Lucca which is a great source of information and inspiration about our great little Tuscan spa town.

Wisteria Envy!

I knew this was coming, it happens every year, severe case of wisteria envy! Bagni di Lucca is currently full of very large, stunning purple wisteria. The scent is beautiful and although they are growing in people’s gardens their size and visibility means we all get to enjoy them. Yet still I can’t help wishing each actually belonged to me! This is the one I love the most, it’s about 30 seconds away from Villa Rosalena, so I do get to see it daily during the all too short flowering period. It’s the dusky mauve against the grey stone wall I like.

I do have a wisteria, so my envy is not really very justified! It’s just that mine is small. It appeared a couple of years ago. It’s not in the best of places, not where I’d have chosen, but as it self seeded I’ve accepted nature’s choice. It is beside the steps, so it’s wonderfully fragrant when you walk past.

There are two large wisteria in the neighbouring gardens, so one of these below must be mother to mine!

Plum blossom confetti and magnolia envy

I feel very unoriginal, but like many bloggers at the moment I cannot help but share a little bit of spring! In our garden and patch of hillside the first little signs of spring are quite tiny, violets and narcissus. But now to join them are the biggies, the plum trees in blossom. That’s what really lifts the spirits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first of the plum blossom was the pink blossom on dark leaved trees, these give us tiny deep red cherry plums, too fiddly for eating but which make a lovely tart jam.

Most of our trees have white blossom, these are a mixture of yellow and purple plums.

The plum tree blossom is so important for me as the marker for spring as the other trees on our hill are still bare and wintry.

The blossom is sadly so short lived, already with the slightest of breezes it’s starting to fall like confetti. But there will be so many other spring beauties to follow I doubt I’ll mind too much. Spring does bring out another kind of green in me, that of envy. Already I’ve been coveting  mimosa trees at the start of March and now we’re into mid March it’s magnolias. I do have a magnolia grandiflora, a huge evergreen, but what I’m currently envious of is the ones that flower now on leafless branches. Yesterday I spotted a gorgeous one outside the Villa Fiori here in Ponte a Serraglio, Bagni di Lucca, and today whilst walking to the post office another stunner in a garden in Fornoli. How can I not be envious!

Sharing the goats!

Driving along a track yesterday near the village of Granaiola, one of the villages of Bagni di Lucca, I had to stop for goats – many, many goats. It gave me such pleasure to see them, along with the goatherder and his dogs. As I had my camera with me I snapped a few quick pictures to share. They had to be quick photos as these goats were on the move, though with a fair bit of stopping for a munch along the way!

a poke around Lucca Antiques market.

This weekend was the Lucca antiques market. I had some specific items I hoped to find, but as is often the way I didn’t find quite the right thing. But really it was more of an excuse for a poke around there anyway, as you never know what you might find. Markets like these are a treasure hunt. There may just be hidden gems. And of course you have to look on every single stall, twice over, just to be sure! Here’s a few of the stalls that weren’t what I was looking for today, but which caught my eye anyway!

Some of the things I wonder who buys, like these keys. They look great displayed like this, but what to do with an old key? Someone must buy them, they must be someone’s ‘treasure’ ( at least they look like they might unlock a treasure chest!)

These little treasures I could easily find a use for! They look so lovely reflecting in the mirror. I would love to sip my liqueurs elegantly from glasses like these.  Currently I break glasses at such a rapid rate that I have to stick to Ikea for glasses, but maybe when I’m ‘grown up’ and less clumsy!

I was hoping to find a nice ceiling light, but those I liked hung too low for most of the family to pass safely underneath, but I did find this stall with all the bits to repair broken chandeliers so when I finally find the right light fitting at least I’ll know where to go to fix it if it has missing parts.The Lucca antiques market is held on the weekend of the 3rd Sunday of each month. It is on Saturday and Sunday, but to work out which weekend it’s the Sunday that counts, it’s always the 3rd Sunday, but the day before it may not necessarily be the 3rd Saturday. There are around 230stalls I believe. I looked at them all but didn’t count to check this! It’s easy to find, start at the Teatro del Giglio, which is to the side of the largest square in the centre of Lucca, Piazza Napoleone.

It then spreads around the piazzas near of the several churches including San Giovanni, San Giusto and the Cathedral of San Martino.And of course it trickles off down some nearby side streets, several of which have some very luxurious home decor and grand antique shops on which it would be easy to otherwise not stumble upon.

Of course it’s even more fun when it’s not a wet, grey day in February, but then as the market is only once a month one can’t wait for the weather!

The charm of Lucca’s shops

A recent question on a travel forum asked what was so great about Lucca, why did so many love the town?  The other day I had to wait around for a while in Lucca on a very cold morning. To kill time and with that thought in mind I took some photos of whatever struck me as special about Lucca. When I looked at them later I realised many were of shops. This surprised me as I’m not a girl who much likes shopping. But then I realised most were food shops-which makes much more sense!

Lucca is our nearest ‘big town’ and no matter how many times I go I find it always enchanting. Lucca isn’t about ‘must see’ sights and that’s a big part of its appeal, it’s still real. It has a lovely atmosphere and feel to it, a great place to just stroll around, any time of year.  It is enclosed by 4.2km of intact walls  and nothing within the walls  is modern, nothing jars. I think the quaint, traditional style of these shops is a huge part of the charm of Lucca. The fact that they are unchanged for decades. These are small, unique, family run businesses, a far cry from  impersonal multi-national chain stores.

I always aim to buy foccacia at steam bakery Amedeo Giusti. Often I don’t manage it- because the tiny shop is usually so incredibly packed and I’m not always patient enough! But it is worth braving it,  their breads are excellent and so fresh. As it was early morning on a very cold day I was lucky to find it almost empty.

At Giusti I bought foccacia bread and cenci which are special pastries for carnival. At the Chifenti bakery on via San Paolino I succumbed to another seasonal treat, frittelle, which are sweet fried balls with rice, crema or nutella fillings. Unable to choose I had a mixture!

I had to include the vegetable tarts in the window to save readers from the mistake I made when I first bought one-of thinking that these vegetable tarts were savoury! Maybe the fact that they are surrounded by chocolate, cream, almond and fruit tarts should have been a clue! They are sweet vegetable tarts, a Lucca speciality.

The most well known Lucca sweet speciality is probably Buccellato, a fruited aniseed bread, lovely toasted with butter. Most bakers in the town offer it, some specialise in it, like this one on Piazza San Michele.There are a lot of bakeries in Lucca, these are just a handful, plenty more to choose from. And there are other shops, albeit not as high up on my personal shopping priorities! This one I don’t go in, china and glass is not my thing, but I like to stop and admire the exterior.

I always like to pop in for a look around Le Sorrelle in Piazza Anfiteatro, it has wonderful tablecloths in vibrant fruit designs, also scented soaps and herb based beauty products.

I don’t know the name of this shop on via San Paolino, and I’ve never been in, but I love the fact that it exists! It sells all kinds of useful implements. There are sickles for cutting, each with a slightly different blade from different areas of Tuscany, and special tools for gathering truffles, olives and asparagus. Pans for chestnut flour cakes, glass flasks for cooking beans, knives for opening oysters -where else would you find such things?This shop probably sums up Lucca, what I mean by it being ‘real’. In some  popular towns tourism has eaten away at the true nature of the town, and shops are full of souvenirs and ‘tat’. Of course there is some of this in Lucca, but not much, most of the shops in Lucca cater for their traditional Lucchese clientele and the tourists are incidental. The shops aren’t fake ‘olde worlde’, they are genuinely unchanged and original. When a tourist goes to Lucca they can feel they are ‘living’ in a real town, doing what the locals do, even if it’s just for a few hours.

Getting there. Lucca is 24km from Bagni di Lucca and can be reached by bus or train. It also easily reached by public transport directly from Florence, Pisa and Viareggio. Bus drops within the walls at Piazzale Verdi, train is just outside the walls, only a minute or two. By road use the A11 autostrada and park in the large car parks outside the walls. Do not attempt to drive inside the walls.

Snow! Where’s Mr. Tumnus?

This is what we woke up to this morning. Magical isn’t it. I’m like a little kid when it comes to snow. On days like this anyway, when I don’t have to go out in it unless I want to and it doesn’t inconvenience me! And I haven’t been outside yet,  all these were taken from the windows. For now I’m staying warm indoors, appreciating the beauty and looking for Mr. Tumnus.

Mr. Tumnus is the faun in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, he meets Lucy as she arrives in Narnia, beside the lamp-post. Look at the photos-I have a suitable lamp-post, so where is he?

When I grew up, in Sussex on the South coast of England, we hardly ever had more than a token few flakes of snow, and so C. S  Lewis’ wonderland was enchanting to me.  Now that I get to see some proper snow here in Tuscany, Italy it always makes me think of Narnia.There are footprints in this one, but probably not Mr. Tumnus, more likely one of the cats !

The snow started here rather tentatively yesterday afternoon, but was only just starting to settle by bedtime so I wasn’t sure how much we would wake up to. Looking at the depth on the table it looks to be quite a bit.

We only get one or two days like this each year here in the Lima valley so I think it’s time to go and build a snowman now.

UPDATE – Have ventured out as far as the garden now. Here is my snowman!

My son eats snails!

Thankfully not the kind a child might dig out of the mud but the properly edible type!

The first place he ever ate them was the Osteria al Ritrovo del Platano. We stopped by one day when passing to look at the menu. He kept pestering to go there and try them. Pester power won and we went, thinking he just wanted to try them out of kiddie gruesomeness and he’d get it out of his system. But he not only ate them all but with very apparent relish. Ever since whenever it’s his chance to choose where to eat he chooses there. He’s since eaten snails at other restaurants, but this place is the top choice for him. He claims they are bigger there. And as this was his first snail experience this for him is exactly how they should be.

I can’t tell you what snails are like to eat. I’m a vegetarian. According to my son the snails are chewy and he likes the texture with the garlicky buttery sauce they are cooked in. He doesn’t eat meat either, but he loves seafood. The first non veggie food he ate was clams from his dad’s spaghetti alle vongole at age 5 so maybe snails aren’t too big a jump from shellfish. In order to sort the snail eating thing out in his head he defines himself as someone who doesn’t eat mammals!

I suspect he also likes the ritual involved. The snails come on a special plate with an indentation to hold  each snail and there are tongs to hold the snail steady and a special pronged fork to winkle them out of the shell.

Osteria al Ritrovo del Platano is a small restaurant with a small but well chosen menu. Game features particularly and local Garfagnana specialities.  Obviously I don’t have the snails! My starter is always the warm black truffle eggs, and then maybe truffle pasta, or maybe a cheese platter.

The walls are decorated with memorabilia of Giovanni Pascoli, a famous Italian poet who had a house nearby at Castelvecchio from 1895 until his death in 1912. Pascoli used to frequent this osteria, and surely it cannot look that different from  his day, still having a rustic charm.

The Osteria al Ritrovo del Platano is at Ponte di Campia on the SS445 Garfagnana road which runs alongside the Serchio river, north of Lucca, Tuscany. It is between Gallicano and Castelnuovo di Garfagnana and also easily reached in 10minutes from nearby Barga via Castelvecchio Pascoli.  From Bagni di Lucca it’s 25minutes drive. http://www.osteriaalritrovodelplatano.it/

Pascoli’s home at Castelvecchio is now a museum