Ahhhh, Europe - Part II: Toscana, Italia

On Saturday, July 3, Travis and I boarded a train bound for Florence. Actually, it was first a train to Arth-Goldau, Switzerland, then a train to Milan, then Florence. The worst part of the trip was the fact that the A/C in our car on the train from Milan to Florence just stopped working. Since the A/C was off, the ventilation was off, too. It was horrible! Somebody finally told a worker and he fixed it, thankfully. I felt like I was suffocating. It was pretty hot the whole time we were in Lucerne and Italy, and they don't do A/C like we do. There was some sweating involved. Oh, Travis actually ordered an espresso on the train to Milan and drank the whole thing! I was proud, but that was, sadly, his last espresso of the trip. Guess he didn't care for it.

Anyway, I put together another collage of our time in Tuscany, shown below. For better views of these pictures and more pictures, check out my Picasa page.



During our time in Tuscany, we stayed at a little farm about 30 km northeast of Florence. It's run by an Italian family and they rent out apartments to people. It was incredible, but it was quite the adventure getting to the farm. After stopping in Florence to get directions from a fellow who only spoke Italian (we understood three things - the loop he made with his hand, "A Uno", and "Firenze Sud"). Somehow we got to the right place. The directions we had gave no indication of how far we were to travel after the last landmark. We kept driving up all of these intense switchbacks (the car, which was a standard, died a few times so we had to let it roll back, re-start it, gain momentum, and try again) until we saw a place with people around. We stopped and asked where we were, and we were at Fattoria Il Poeta (where we were supposed to be)! It's a good thing we kept going. We thought about turning around, especially after we passed a house with a creepy lady who glared at us as we passed. We were shown to our apartment, unpacked, and walked around a little bit. We found some cute ducks and a few other farm animals and, enjoyed the views, and decided we needed showers and naps before dinner.

The dinners were probably my favorite part about staying at this farm. If you're ever in Italy, you should definitely seek out an arrangement like this. The other people staying there were so friendly. It was incredible to sit down every night and share in some great conversation (some in English, some in German, some in Italian, a little in French, and sometimes in all of the languages mentioned above), great wine, and absolutely fantastic home-cooked Italian food in such an incredible outdoor setting in the middle of Tuscany. It was unreal. To give you a snapshot, there were olives (grown and cured at the farm), wine (again, produced there), antipasto platters, incredible pasta with sauces, risotto made with barley, panna cotta, crostada with apricot jam, fantastic cured sausages and meats, delicious roasted vegetables, and a homemade walnut liquor. My absolute favorite activity there was the cooking class, where we made a ragu with handmade pasta, chicken basically stewed with a lot of different vegetables, capers, herbs, etc., and the crostada mentioned above. I'm so excited to try to re-create some of this at home!

On our second day in Tuscany we went into Florence. Finding the train station in the small town close to the farm was an adventure in itself, as was figuring out what train to get on. There, we first went to see David at the Accademia. A word of advice: do whatever you can to get reservations at big attractions like these. We didn't know what day we would be there, but we read the poster outside the entrance that told us where to get tickets. It saved us a 2 hour wait in the heat! David was amazing. Our guidebook series, Rick Steve's, produces free audio tours in the form of podcasts. These were also a fantastic tip. We learned so much from them! After, we found lunch at a grocery store (much cheaper, even with purchasing a package of plastic forks) and sat on the steps of the Duomo for a picnic. The rest of the day was spent exploring Florence and gazing in awe at all of its cultural masterpieces. It's really a beautiful city. We had gelato at some point during one of our walking tours. I know this for a fact because it's on my shirt in all the afternoon pictures from that day. I believe I had Lemoncello with pineapple gelato that day - probably my favorite.

Our next day was spent hanging out at the farm and the surrounding areas. It included a very hot and hilly hike, a dip in the above-ground pool at the farm, a picnic lunch in the nearby town of Dicomano, a visit to a winery, a nap, and the cooking class. It was a nice relaxing day which I certainly was in need of. Driving around the Tuscan hills was incredible. So much scenery! Unfortunately the archeologic site we found was under construction, a fact that we discovered after hiking up to it! Italians aren't much for clear communication of these things, apparently. It was fun, anyway, and we hit up the vineyard we had spotted for a wine tasting on the way back.

The next morning, we arranged for Antoinella (the owner of the farm) to take us on a horseback tour. We arranged to start at 9 to get the horses ready. Of course, as we had already learned, this meant 9:20ish in Italian time. We got the horses all brushed and saddled up, got a quick lesson on English riding (she was worried that we probably knew only Western, but really there wasn't much teaching to be undone here), then set out. Some of the roads were steep and rocky! It was a little scary at times, but the horses know the roads well. We rode up to the top of the nearby hill/mountain and back in a loop that took about two hours. This was really an incredible experience with the views and different vegetation to observe. There were so many different types of flowers, trees, and bushes. I could tell that my horse, Petra, really liked eating this palm-like bush because I had a hard time keeping her going when we passed by those. After the ride, with the skies about to open up and pour, we settled up with Antoinella and Ricardo and said our goodbyes. We hated to leave, but we were off to Roma!

Ahhhh, Europe - Part I: Lucerne, Switzerland

We've returned and settled back into life here after our amazing trip to Europe. The first stop was Lucerne, Switzerland, where I was attending the European Fuel Cell Forum. Lucerne was beautiful. To give you an idea, I created a little collage from our pictures taken there.



The first day was a little rough with the jet lag and all. I flew with a colleague from Denver to Atlanta, then on to Zurich. We took a train from Zurich to Lucerne, which is about 30km south. Adding to the jet lag was the fact that Delta had screwed up our flights so much that we were informed upon landing that our bags would not get to Zurich until 24 hours later and wouldn't make it to our hotel until later that day - and certainly not before the presentation I was giving the next morning. This meant that I needed to go buy clothes suitable for giving a technical presentation in. Oh, well! Shopping was a good way to explore the city, anyway.

Aside from that snag, the conference was great, and the rest of our time in Lucerne was enjoyable. The food in Switzerland is amazing (and not just the chocolate, although that's pretty amazing, too) because they aren't allowed to import any food (with the exception of horse and kangaroo, of course). Everything was so fresh! The city was pretty clean, too, and the lake was gorgeous. I took the opportunity to go swimming in it as I had packed the suit, cap, and goggles in anticipation of the occasion. One day, during some conference sessions I felt I could do without, I wandered down until I found a beach. There were a lot of people out there swimming and sunbathing. The water was a little chilly (probably around 66F or so) but not unbearable. After swimming for a bit I laid my hotel towel out on the grass and enjoyed the sun. I chose to not partake in the European custom of revealing one's chest while at the beach.

That night we had a "Dinner on the Lake" with all the conference people, which might have been my favorite part of the trip. The lake was gorgeous, serene, and enormous! Travis joined me the next day and we walked around Lucerne a bit, had dinner with my advisor, and just enjoyed relishing the fact that we were in Europe!