Tuscany - The right way to do a wine tasting

Hillside in Chianti region of Tuscany

Roadside wine shop 

I’m not a wine snob.  But I think we tasted wine just the right way.  First, we were in Tuscany as the sun was setting.  Second, we picked a wine shop away from the crush of tourists, on the way back to Florence.  It was staffed by a single dapper Italian and for a time we had the place to ourselves. 

The place was Enoteca Nuvolari, and it served only its own wines, cultivated since 1043.  That is not a misprint.  These are vineyards that have been producing Chianti Classico for 974 years.  For 8 Euros we were happy to sample wines that had been bottled in the 967^th, 970^th and 972^nd year of production. We started with a Chianti Classico (16 Euros) bottled two years ago.  It was the kind of wine you could happily sip all day long.  As the Italians say, it was perfecto. This was followed by a Reservo (24 Euros) that had been aged four years.    It was dry and tart. We cleansed our palate with slices of Tuscany bread dipped in olive oil and salt, then enjoyed our last glass, a special Reservo (29 Euros).  The last had a strong tart flavor, and I could literally smell the oak caskets it had been stored in.  At that point, we were ready to buy a crate of the stuff.  However, shipping even six bottles was a hefty 87 Euros, so we decided on just two bottles.  They are packed in my luggage and we sincerely hope they make it home intact.  (Postscript: They did.)   

  

Classico or Reservo?  Hard to decide. Let's look up comments on my smartphone. 

Tuscany - San Gimignano

The central square of San Gimignano, surrounded by towers.

I could have titled this post “the Manhattan of Tuscany,” because this little village, which used to be a stopover for pilgrims crossing between Florence and Rome, contains 14 towers that sprout incongruously from medieval homes.  They are tall unadorned towers used for no other purpose than to impress the neighbors.  At one point, there were over 70 of these towers, and any homeowner worth his money tried to build their tower taller than the last one.  It got so ridiculous that the town mayor put a height limit on the towers.  Now only 14 towers remain, and we got to see the interior of one when we toured the Torre e Casa Campatelli (Tower and House of Campatelli). 

Dining room, Casa Campatelli

This villa was donated to the town in 2005 by Lydia Campatelli.  Her family had owned the house for centuries, and it was furnished as if frozen in time in the 1940s.  I would label the decorating style as “Tuscan country.”  

View from Casa Campatelli

While at the Campatelli villa we watched a film about the long history of this walled town.  The interesting bit for me was that the town had been “modernized” with stucco facades at some point, but once it became clear that tourists wanted to see a medieval town, homeowners started ripping down the stucco right and left.  The town now survives on tourism, and we found it nicely packed with this creature, the tourist.  

Interior of public restroom in San Gimignano

We did some wandering and got happily lost in the mazes of alleys and narrow passageways on our way to find the public restroom.  Some restrooms in Italy require a fee of a Euro or two to use. So I paid my coin and walked into a converted medieval vault.  Well worth the Euro! I don’t as a habit take a picture of bathrooms, but couldn’t help myself.    

Tuscany - Florence American Cemetery

On the way to the hills of Chianti, Steven suggested we stop at one of the two American military cemeteries in Italy.  The Florence American Cemetery sits in wooded hills near the Greve River and inters American service members who died during the Italian Campaign from June 1944 to May 1945.   Over 4,000 soldiers are interred on this peaceful slope in the heart of Tuscany.  Italy donated the land in perpetuity, and the American government pays to have this gravesite immaculately maintained.  

The cemetery is just a series of symmetrical lines of crosses, and a few Jewish stars, until you get up close and start reading the gravestones.  And even though these men (and a handful of women) died over 70 years ago, it gets personal. You see names and ranks, and their home state, and the date of death.  It all becomes real.  At the top of the hill is the monument to the over 1,400 MIA soldiers whose bodies were never recovered.

The faded grave marker of American Red Cross Nurse Gertrude Tempkin

Four women are also buried at the cemetery.  We came across one, Gertrude Tempkin.  According to a posting by her niece,

On Aug. 3, 1945 my aunt, Gertrude Tempkin died near Modena, Italy, when she
was thrown from an open jeep.  She was with the American Red Cross Civil
War Relief, working with members of the 5th Army, getting hospital supplies
for Ospedale Sant' Antonio near the Marani Pass close to Ravenna. 

Since my aunt was the head of the Cook County Welfare Department in
Chicago, IL, in the 1930s, volunteering for duty with the American Red
Cross in Europe was her way of serving the war effort.

Source here.

Florence - Climbing to the top of the Duomo

Our climbing goal, circled. 
And yes, the crowds at the base of the Duomo were constant!

The best views in Florence require a little sweat, and a reservation.  We were fortunate to get a time slot to climb to the lantern at the top of the duomo (dome) of the world’s fourth largest cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore (“Our Lady of the Flower”).  The cathedral itself is magnificent, but its crowning glory is the cupola designed and built by Filippo Brunelleschi in the 15^th century.  And in fact, when people refer to “the Duomo” everyone knows what you’re talking about.  It’s that distinctive.

Two days before the climb, we’d visited Museo dell Opera.  The museum’s name is a little confusing, because it’s not about music.  It’s all about the construction of the cathedral and the baptistery and bell tower next door (and oh, it also contains some priceless art, including one of Michelangelo’s last sculptures.)  We learned that the dome was first planned in 1367, and a brick model was even set up next to the bell tower.  But no one really knew how to build such a massive dome.  (The older baptistery, with a smaller dome, had needed to be reinforced in around 1400.)  Bruneschelli had the radical solution to construct the dome without scaffolding; it rose as a self-supporting structure. It was also built in two layers, with an air pocket between layers. It took a relatively short time to build; about sixteen years (1420-1436).

Walking up the space between the outside and inside domes.

So, to walk up to the lantern of the cupola, with all the great views, you are climbing up that “air pocket” between the dome layers.  It’s not for the claustrophobic.  The good news is that there  are two landings on the way, and one is at the base of the interior of the cupola.  

Steven goggles the immense fresco covering the interior of the dome.

Close up.  The best views of Hell are from the base of the dome. 

The interior of the cupola was painted by Vasari and Zuccari over a hundred years after the dome was finished (1572-1579). Not surprisingly, Hell is depicted at the lowest levels so we lucky climbers got to see those scenes writ large.  (Jesus and the prophets are much further up the dome.) 

After ogling the wretched sinners at the base of the cupola, we continued our climb up narrow steep steps all the way to the lantern that crowns the dome.  Once you get to the top, you’re free to enjoy the 360 degree views as long as you like.  It was a highlight of our visit to Florence.   

*Additional construction information is from a book Steven bought in the Museo dell Opera’s bookstore, Brunelleschi’s Cupola: Past and Present of an Architectural Masterpiece, by G. and M. Fanelli.  On the way down form the dome, and the second landing, we saw a display of tools Bruneschelli designed just to build the Duomo.  Fascinating.