West of Sicily: Marsala

There are so many bits and bobs I've started to write down in the past months and haven't go time to finished...

As usual I'm celebrating my adored Sicily. Why mine? I can proudly say that a quarter of my blood is Sicilian.

Last September we spent a holiday in Sicily,  we visited the western part, landing in Trapani airport where we rent a car and traveled around. If you want to visit Sicily, unless you are staying in a big city, bear in mind that you need a car, distances are not so enormous but there are not good connections. Trapani airport is a small one, we queued for a while but not due to the personnel of the rent a car but due to disorganized customers. Coming back there were severe controls on the weight of the hand luggage, so be careful not to buy too many things, otherwise you have to leave them there. The civil airport shares the runway with the military one, recently quite busy, if there is a little delay the risk is that it takes longer due to closure of the flying zone.

Marsala Chiesa Madre from via Vaccari (B&B Il Profumo del Sale)

Firstly we stopped in Marsala for few days, I've been pleasantly surprised by that lively and elegant town, located in the extreme western bit of Sicily. In Marsala we stayed in a lovely B&B Il Profumo del Sale, right in the town centre, few steps away from the Cathedral square, near the "circolo" strictly for men only, where everyday I always spotted an elegant  and old man reading the newspaper. He looked like Il Gattopardo.
The owner of the B&B, Celsa is an active lady from the North of Italy who chose to live in Sicily, she used to run a restaurant so you will never be disappointed by the breakfast she prepares. Follow her precious suggestions for itineraries, she knows the area and what is worth visiting.

Marsala enoteca Sirena Ubriaca: the best aperitif

Marsala San Lorenzo Osteria

We tried all the nice restaurants in town, avoiding those that offer touristic menu,  worth to mention for a very good service and good food and very nice cosy atmosphere is San Lorenzo Osteria. If  you'd rather have an aperitif, stop at La Sirena Ubriaca try a tasting of Marsala wines and you won't be disappointed, meanwhile enjoy the "struscio" (a real ritual in that town!), much better that the more than packed Mercato del pesce, which is a proper fish market in the morning and in the evening becomes the heart of the local movida.

Marsala "struscio" at Porta Garibaldi

Marsala fish market by night

A must do visit is the Cantine Florio, a journey through the history of Sicily, of wine production and of a great family, the Florio. But this is a long story and I will talk about it in another post...

See you soon
ML

Marsala fish market during the day

Here we are...again!

Hello everybody,

... even if you are very few, but I'm not discouraged, one day maybe someone will be interested in what I'm saying :)

So, what happened in in such a long time? Five months of silence, it's definitely a long time.

First of all I traveled a lot to and from Italy, many things happened I became auntie of a lovely girl, I literally adore her and I go back to Italy whenever I can to spend time with her.

[source Pinterest]

In the new year, with my husband we started our own company, it's really thrilling, so many things to think about, evaluate, but I'm so happy to share this experience with him.

love
ML

Pinot Noir on Pesaro Hills

The first time I tasted the Focara wine, I've been completely blown away by that velvety, smooth translucent ruby drink and I thought "can wine be so good!". Yes it can, refined and delicate, with a strong personality Focara Pinot Noir doesn't need to scream its qualities, they are perceived at the first sip.
I don't like those strongly, muscular red wines that need to be chewed rather than drunk, I don't like to look at the glass which I can't see through. I won't ever be able to say I love Sangiovese, even if it's the grape variety mainly produced in Romagna, the area where I was born and where I came back to live after growing up in Rome.
I definitely love the pinot noir produced in the Fattoria Mancini, a few kilometers from the Marche and Romagna boundary, which as far as the landscape is concerned it is just an administrative whim that was fought over by the two warring families, the Montefeltro and Malatesta.

Fattoria Mancini is a family run winery located in the Natural Park of Monte San Bartolo, a pearl on the Adriatic coast that the tourists usually coming on the Riviera Romagnola never explore. At the beginning of XIX century that area was identified as ideal for growing Pinot Noir by the Napoleonic administration, who then occupied the Papal State for nearly a century. The Mancini family bought the land in the second half of the XIX century and preserved and reproduced the original Pinot Noir introduced during the French domination. Today that grape is recognized as D.O.C. (controlled origin denomination)

You arrive at a working winery and everything is as it should be, no posh structure or manicured gardens, a well preserved country house, where clearly the wine production is the core business as the several large wooden barrels lined up in state.
Inside the tasting room a coolness prevails above any other sensation, no pretentious and newly made smelling oak furniture, a mainly white empty space which gives room to the main character, the wine. Photos of the vineyards decorate the white walls, with a didactic purpose rather than pure complacency.

On our visit we were greeted by two perfect English speaking women (a rarity in that area), later we discover one was the owner's wife, a young and friendly New Zealand winemaker. They offered us to taste some wine, this is the first time I experienced a producer who really wanted to know what you think about their wine and not telling you what to think.

There is only one regret, during last year they changed the labels on some of their wines, it's true the new ones give figurative information of where the wine is produced and the history of that piece of land, but the old ones have got such a strong personality that really make you recognize their wine among thousands of bottles.

Which is your favorite wine?

Fiorenzuola di Focara

10 kilometers away from the over-crowded Riviera Romagnola there is the small village of Focara, perched on a rocky headland on the Adriatic coast in the Park of San Bartolo. The village is quiet with just a bar, a grocery store which sells everything and a restaurant, a little archway marks the entrance to the path that leads to the beach several metres below.
The name of Focara was added to a commonly spreaded Italian name Fiorenzuola,  which means flourishing, due to the tradition of lighting fires to signal to mariners.

the bell tower

It is a Roman settlement that has always had a strategic role due to its location, built between the X and XII centuries along with the castles of Casteldimezzo, Gradara and Granarola, was part of the defensive system in the border area between the Church of Ravenna and that of Pesaro and then, among the Malatesta possessions of Rimini and of Pesaro. In the XII century was built the church of St. Andrew, of which remains only the bell tower, in the church were present works of fine workmanship, but a violent earthquake in August 1916 destroyed it.
In the charming village there are architectural relics of the past, interesting the main door of the village is where there are the verses of Dante's Divina Comedia (Inferno, canto XXVIII) describing a dark betrayal that happened off in this sea.

passage to the beach, no signal directs you just a blue sea

Visit the lovely village of Fiorenzuola di Focara all over the year, in the summer if you fancy a swim in the unusually clear water of the Adriatic sea, walk down to the beach 500 metres away or take the shuttle (only in the morning), it's a steep road but worth doing it. The best period I would suggest for you to visit this village is in one of those clear and crispy early spring days, when the sky is pure blue and the wind still has the coolness of the snow on the mountains.

a door knob

the beach in the winter

timetable of the bus to the beach

a precious collection

I don't remember how many years ago I bought my husband a small purse in the small Tuscan village of Sovana, a little hand-made treasure, that he always carries with him.

It became a tradition, now that we got married, to exchange something that we love to collect on our wedding anniversary, so it came that he started his personal collection of hand made purse called "tacco".

the parcel Giuseppe Fanara sent me 

The artisan who made them is Giuseppe Fanara of Il Bussetto, an artisan who works leather in his workshop in Florence, who has been really helpful with me when I called him wondering if he was selling on line. His simply replied "Deve venire a bottega (must come to the workshop)", flying from London to Florence just to buy a purse! it doesn't matter how exquisitely it is manufactured, the plan sounded a bit over the top. Anyway, I told him the whole story and he offered to send the gift to me through the post, since I was planning to be back in Italy sometime I told him I would think about it and I'd call him back. When eventually I went back to Italy for few days I immediately called him and I didn't need to tell him the whole story again he perfectly remember the romantic issue and offered to send them the following day. In two days I had an orange and a green purses for my husband collection, just before his arrival in Italy.

"tacchi"

I look forward to visiting his workshop in Florence next time I'm in the area.

If you're planning a trip to Florence, pass by that little artisan shop to discover his little treasures.

Il Bussetto di Giuseppe Fanara
via Palazzuolo, 136R
Firenze

Do you have any collection you care for?

Memories of Pantelleria - part 1

Pantelleria is a small volcanic island in the Mediterranean sea half way between Tunisia and Sicily, my husband and I spent summer holidays there twice and we fell in love of this fantastic spot in the middle of the sea.


Pantelleria really remains in our memory as one of the greatest places we ever been since now, where you feel detached from the rest of the world, where nature provides so much richness, from the green covered volcanic hills, planted with grapes, to the open bays with warm thermals from this naturally volcanic island.

The first time we stayed for a week in a dammuso (typical house of the isle) not far from the main village. Not worth renting a car, better a moped due to the roads, to reach the best spots most of them are small off roads. I will never forget the answer of an old man when we were in desperate search of a petrol station to refuel our empty moped while being on the wrong side of the island, he replied "don't worry the road is going down now" the only thing was we didn't know how far we still had to go to get to the only petrol pump, but that comment gave us the idea how relaxing the place was.

Everyday we would go out and discover new corners of the isle, we really fell in love with the island and each other. There are the ancient dammusi, or the perfectly conceived giardino pantesco, a real house built just to protect citrus trees from the strength of winter sea winds, creating a little oasis of peace from the constant sea breeze's on the isle of winds.

Only the other day and ten years later we opened a bottle of Moscato di Pantelleria that we brought back with us. After many years we tasted the same rich, sweet and dense flavors that struck us when we tasted it first in one of the very good restaurants we found on the island.

And that wine brought back to mind the work of hardworking men who cultivate the vineyard creating small crates around each plant, which is no more than the size of a small bush, and work every day to produce wines as valuable as what we drank after so many years but which preserves aroma and flavor of the sun in Pantelleria.

Learning Italian

Last night my husband showed me one of his notebooks of the period he worked in Rome, which is when we actually met, and I found something very funny, a sort of  Italian emergency manual that he wrote - with all the possible misspelled words - of his first days, all the words are related to small talk kind of conversation and - of course - food :D

Have you ever lived abroad without knowing the language of the country?