Of Telecom and festas

Ok we changed telephone company, but… Unfortunately Fastweb rents the lines of Telecom Italia, and when something goes wrong with those, I tell Fastweb, they tell Telecom, and one day they may even turn up and fix the problem. As usual the line went down on a Friday, just before the weekend. An engineer turned up after shouting down the line on Monday afternoon (miraculously minutes after I complained. He claimed he’d solved the problem and left. However the problem was not solved and another one was sent. Again, minutes after I complained as to where this new chappie would be, I had a phone call saying he couldn’t find my house. Had he been wandering around the village for hours or had he just stopped at the bar for a few apperitivi I wonder?

Never mind, hopefully this isn’t going to be the pattern of things to come. It’s festa time around here, and we couldn’t miss our favourite ones, even if we are skint. With our Swiss friend Irene and our English friends James and Alison (and Holly), we went on Friday to the Sagra di Ravioli in Arcola. The serve some of the most delicious ravioli there, best served simply with butter and sage or a creamy nut sauce.

Saturday and Sunday we went to the Medieval festa at Santo Stefano. It commemorates the handing over of the keys to the castle of Sarzana by Piero di Medici to king Charles VIII of France in 1495 after France had conquered this part of Italy. Or as one neighbour put it, “I’m not going there, they are celebrating a war we lost!”

Anyway it’s all just harmless fun, with the entire village dressing up in medieval garb and showing off ancient skills. Have a look and a listen at some of the impressions from this year’s fun:

These guys are known as Sbandieratori:

This chap is the notary presiding over the Medieval market

A spectator on daddy's shoulder

These are the keys to the castle allegedly. I always thought they should be bigger

These are 2 dear friends of ours who have a B&B at the bottom of our hill. When they see us starting our descend on our bikes, they ususally insist on inviting us in for a homemade limoncino.

This is Cristina with her wee girl. She plays the Queen every year together with Pino on his horse as King Charles. This year was a special occasion for them, as they got married just a few hours before!

Story time for the kids:

These 2 young ladies tried to lure into their house of ill-repute, but Susan was dragging me back.

Trampling on grapes

Of accidents, flowers and wine tastings

It’s been a while since my last post, and I think I abandon the series of “Our Terraces” The last 4 terraces didn’t look all that exciting on the 25th April, so I hope you won’t be too disappointed. If you are you are just going to bloody well come here and have a look at it yourself!

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks since the last post. The weather cooled down at the very end of May, beginning of May, with a couple of days of badly needed rain. This was followed by slightly changeable weather with odd sprinklings of rain showers, which meant we didn’t have to water the land until yesterday. Now the hot weather has returned. Cherries are finished and plums keep falling on our heads, loquats are finished and we’re eating our courgettes. The sunflowers have burst into flower too as you can see.

So much about the land.

Last Monday we had cycled to the seaside to see our Swiss friend Irene, who works there at the moment. On the way back we had to negotiate the busy Sarzana by-pass road during rush-hour. Just as Susan, feeling quite chuffed with herself about surviving so far, had got around a particularly busy roundabout, a car pulled out of private property right in front of us. This left us with no alternative, but move over to the extreme right of the road to avoid a collision with said car. As it happened the father of the lady-driver was busy cutting some major branches off his hedge bordering the road, and one of those branches came down precisely in front of Susan who was cycling behind me. She didn’t even see what was happening, before the branch had wrapped itself around the front wheel of her bike, sending Susan onto the tarmac. I only noticed after I had gone on a bit and found her bleeding from her face, left shoulder and right knee.

The driver stopped and the owner of the property still with saw in hand came rushing out of his garden. He did kindly offer to drive her to hospital, but a brief examination revealed she hadn’t broken anything and her injuries seemed to be superficial. He then offered the use of his wife’s bike, because Susan’s was not rideable. The front mudguard was broken, and the front fork was badly bent. So we took up his offer of the bike, leaving Susan’s wreck with him and exchanging phone numbers before we left.

It turned out that the proprietor was a senior officer in the Guardia di Finanza. I was a little worried about that fact, because I did not want to pursue a confrontational stance in demanding compensation, as he no doubt would be in a position to cause us more problems than we could him (I don’t want to go into any details in case the Guardia di Finanza read this blog…). However, il Capitano rang us the next morning to ask how Susan was. He sounded relieved, when I said to her that she wasn’t too bad. So I asked him: “what about the bike?” He said he’d take it to his local bike shop to be repaired. Later he rang us again, confirming what I had suspected, namely that it was beyond repair. So he bought Susan a brand new pink bike, with the same specs as the old one, but with everything in full working order. I had been thinking that both our bikes needed a general service anyway, so I now won’t need to do that one anyway. Picked it up on Friday and Susan was very happy with it.

Today though, Susan was obviously still a little nervous after her fall, we were riding down to Santo Stefano, where there was the annual Festa di Corpus Cristi, where the streets of the historical centre are decorated with flower petals. At the first hairpin bend, Susan applied the well functioning brakes of her new bike a little too hard and hit the tarmac again, resulting in another bang on the same knee and a couple of cuts and bruises on both elbows. The bike sustained only a few scuffs this time though, which is just as well as this time she didn’t have anyone else to blame. Now I’m on the look out for some falling branches myself, because I could also do with a new bike.

So much about Susan’s accidents (she says, she is going to stay off her bike for as long as it takes for her wounds to heal). Despite Susan’s fall, we did make it down to Santo Stefano to the floral display. Those who have followed this blog for long may remember the pics from last year. This year the folk of Santo Stefano excelled themselves again at some spectacular floral pictures along all the streets of the old town. My favourite this year was the representation of the church of Santo Stefano.

The original looks like this:

The final bit of news, I have now got an official website on line for my wine tasting events. It’s http://users3.jabry.com/tuscanytipple. Sorry, it’s a bit of a long and awkward site name, but it’s free. Once business starts flowing I will register an easier to remember name. In the meantime if you or any of your posh friends are planning on a holyday and would like to learn more about Italian wines, please have a look at the site and recommend it to anyone you know. The link is permanently displayed at the top right of this blog. It’s still a bit of a building site at the moment (some photos missing, only in English so far etc.) so wear your hard hats. I’d be interested how you find it as well, so do leave your thoughts on the comment function of the blog. What this business is essentially about is that I will hold fun and informative wine tastings at your accommodation while you are having a holiday in Tuscany, Liguria or our end of Emilia Romagna (Parma way).

History in Santo Stefano part 2

More photos from the festa in Santo Stefano

Combing the wool before spinning
Cobblers!
"I can see a handsome man in your future..."

History in Santo Stefano part 1

It is still festa season. Friday night we went with our friend Irene to the Sagra del Raviolo in Arcola. It’s one of my favourite sagras of the year, because the ravioli really are special. They are handmade, stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach and a choice of toppings: ragù (minced meat sauce), sage & butter, or nut sauce. The delicate flavour of the butter and sage best enhances the flavours of the ravioli themselves without overpowering them, but the rich walnut sauce is also delicious.

Last night we went to another highlight of our year the Historical Re-enactment of a Medieval market along the Via Francigena in the old town of Santo Stefano. This annual event is a great excuse for all the locals to dress up in medieval garb and have a great knees-up. Proceedings begin with a procession headed by the drum-rolling, fanfare-blowing, flag-waving ‘sbandieratore’. They are a group of young people, waving, throwing and juggling large flags around skillfully. They are followed by all the nobles, first and foremost by King Charles the I don’t know how manyeth of France, who was given the key to the city of Sarzana in 12something (I really must find out the historical details sometime). He was played as every year by our friend Pino, who rides in majestically on his horse.

All ages get involved.

After them the soldiers and knights in shining armour march in and finally the convoy is tailed by the ordinary trades people as well as the entertainers, the jugglers and musicians. After the ceremony of the king sitting down on his throne and everyone shouting “hurrah!” lots, the flag throwers, the knights and the other entertainers show off their skills. The trades people in the meantime, the weavers and cobblers, the bakers and cooks, the painters and wood carvers, the fortune tellers, and basket weavers, the herbalists and archers set up their stalls around the narrow alleyways of the town and show off their skills. As you can see, great fun is had by all.

Cooking sgabei, puffed-up, deep-fried bread balls of the region

Cusina d’ Sa’Steu

Last night was festa time again in Ponzano Superiore. Every year the local restaurants are organizing a number of events around Santo Stefano celebrating the distinct cuisine of the town and surrounding villages, in dialect ‘la cusina d’ Sa’Steu’. Last night’s event took place on the terrace outside our palazzo under the moon and the stars. Guests were welcomed at the entrance of the village by a brass duo. As you worked your way up the village you picked up your first antipasti on various tables. The first table had cheeses and a glass of white wine from local producer Zangani. Next we were entertained by a couple of belly dancers, a very exotic sight in our village! At the second table they handed out bruschetti and the speciality of the village, ‘scherpada’, a kind of vegetable pie. The third table offered passers-by vegetable balls and chickpea chips.


As we finally found our seats at the top we were given further antipasti, fried anchovies, vegetable parcels, some walnut bread and focaccia, and finally we settled to our primo (lasagna al forno) and secondo. The centre piece can be admired on the photo below, the famous 4-headed Ponzano inflammable pig! Finally there were various cakes, chocolate cake, fig cake and pineapple cake.


As after-dinner entertainment we moved into the inner court of our palazzo where there was a fire juggling show. Originally our neighbour Mauro with his band Tandarandan were supposed to play, but the event had to be postponed from last week, due to the sudden death of someone and Mauro unfortunately couldn’t make it for yesterday. The best thing after all that food and drink was that we only had a few yards to stagger home and fall into bed.

On the land in the meantime I have ploughed over another terrace in readiness for some sowing. Frank Motozappa the hoe gave me some trouble though. The sparkplug cover had split and wasn’t holding the metal connection in place properly. I was quite proud of myself though that I managed to locate the fault and replace the faulty part myself. I’m not normally known for my mechanical abilities. However this meant that there was a 2-day interruption to the work. This morning it looked almost as if it was going to rain, but it has cleared up nicely again. The courgettes and cucumbers on the land are starting to take on gigantic proportions!

Boscofesta

Later in the afternoon the sky had cleared up a bit and there was another festa on in Santo Stefano, a forest festa. The excuse this time was a more secular one, the opening of a new footpath from Santo Stefano to Ponzano Superiore. To be precise the footpath S5 had long existed and we had walked before, however it led partially over private land and it involved opening and shutting gates to keep grazing animals restricted. Now this path bypasses this and new fresh red and white signs by the CAI (Club Alpini Italiani) have been put up as well as the undergrowth cleared. The festa took place at a agriturismo at the foot of the path and featured Anchefunky, an Afro-Brazilian (almost) all female percussion group. A lot of fun was had by all especially the kids as you can see. Check them out on http://www.anchefunky.net/. We did walk back on the path spotting snakes and a badger. It leads through lovely leafy woods, which smell just lovely with all that rain we’ve been having. It’s not the shortest pedestrian route between Santo Stefano and Ponzano Superiore, but during the heat of the summer it offers great protection from the sun and a quiet get-away from the hubhub of the valley.

Festa del Corpus Domini

Today in the Christian calendar is Corpus Domini, don’t ask me why. Don’t worry, we haven’t turned religious all of a sudden, but a display of flowers was promised in Santo Stefano. And it did not disappoint! All the streets of the centro storico, the historical centre, were covered in flower petals which were arranged into artful pictures. It was quite an impressive display. They must have started picking several kilos of flower heads yesterday and laid it out over night. The base was grass clippings, which made it obviously slightly easier, but all in all about a kilometer of street was covered in flower petals. There was a procession over it and the head priest got the largest umbrella as it was drizzling a bit. He had 6 people carrying it for him. Well I’m not much of a religious man, but I did like the effort that went into this lovely flower arrangement.