Roughing it in Sardinia

Oops, I'm a couple months behind in getting out an update, but I've only just now finally taken a look at my pictures. It was great to see many of you in New York - as for the rest of you, I hope you'll come to Brussels sometime.

I wrote you last from Rome, where I promised you a picture of the blue tongues of the water buffaloes...




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After I signed off, I met up with Laura in the Roma Termini station, and we almost missed our train, and then almost missed our ferry, and after much running and sweating, made it to Sardinia (which, as I mentioned before, is that big island off the west coast of Italy). Our ferry took us to Olbia, in the northeast portion of the island, which we quickly found out was deserving of its terrible reputation.

After a night's sleep, we took the bus to Nuoro, capital of what we had heard was the least touristy, beachy province of Sardinia. We then found out that Sardinia is in many ways still a developing country, as we sat in the bus station for hours waiting for a promised bus that never seemed to show up. Finally we made it to Olgosoro, a tiny town famous for its political murals. The town is a gorgeous mountain town, and it's absolutely covered with murals, many with commentary about Italian and Sardinian politics and social movements, but several that commented on issues from other regions. Most people over 30 in this region are still dressed traditionally. The men mostly look like these guys, who were playing bocce ball in the square.

We stuck around till the next day for the Festival of the Assumption, in which there is a town-wide parade of women dressed in traditional regional costumes and men on totally out-of-control horses who do everything they can to avoid trampling the onlookers, but don't entirely succeed. It was possibly the scariest parade I have ever attended, including the one where oranges were thrown at us with baseball pitcher speed. Coincidentally, Laura was there for that one, too. This is followed by dancing and music and traditional song, sung by groups of three men in chorus with one soloist, which I have to admit sounded a bit like human didgeridoos.

Next we went to Oliena, which we used as a base to walk to Tiscali, the ruins of an ancient Nuragic settlement high up on a mountain, built inside a natural hollow in the rock. Supposedly the town was in use thousands of years ago, mainly as a refuge when nearby cities were under siege. The ruins themselves were unimpressive, although it was amazing to think whole families made it all the way up there, goats and all, and the hike itself was breathtaking.

After this it was time for a little R&R on the beach in Cala Gonone, as beautiful as had been promised. The water around Sardinia is still crystal clear and clean... let's hope it stays that way. We spent one day in Cala Gonone, and then did a one day boat tour along the coast to a number of grottoes that can be reached only on a boat or by foot.

After visiting from the boat, we went on foot. Although we were walking from beach to beach, there is a steep cliff above each beach, so you have to climb up that and walk along the top and then descend to the next one. The walk was gorgeous, through alternately sandy and rocky terrain. We camped along the way, and the first night we camped in a spot overlooking the beach, affording us with a beautiful view of the pink sunset sky over the water and then an amazing view of every star in the sky. When it's that clear, you see the Milky Way and lots of shooting stars, which made the anxiety from all the random rustlings in the forest totally worth it.

Three days into our hike, the sky clouded over and it started to pour, so we changed our plans and overnighted indoors, and then detoured to Santa Maria Navarrese, where we visited the beach and stayed in a campsite full of Germans riding bikes in bathrobes. Once the sun had returned, we did one more hike, to the gorge of Gola Su Gorroppu, which they claim is the deepest gorge in the world. We hiked down to the bottom, wandered around amongst the immense boulders, and then climbed back up to the top, where we made camp in the bushes. Little did we realize, however, that this was grazing ground for a herd of cattle, so we spent the first half of the night throwing rocks to scare the cows away so they wouldn't squash our heads in the night.

After this, sadly, our time in Sardinia had come to an end, so we found our way back to Olbia to take the ferry back to the mainland. On the whole, I had a very positive impression of Sardinia. Although it is a tourist resort at many places on the coast, we saw very few tourists in the inland regions where we traveled, or even really at the beaches we chose, and, perhaps as a result, the people were some of the friendliest I've met anywhere. We soon realized that public transportation was not a viable option, so we hitched the whole time, finding that people not only were super friendly, but sometimes drove miles out of their way to take us where we were going, even though we didn't ask them to. The language was fascinating - supposedly it's very close to Latin - and it changes by region. And the scenery was beautiful. Someday soon I hope to go back and see the rest of the island, since we only covered a tiny portion of it. And you should, too, because Sardinia is exceedinly charming and offers something for every kind of traveller.

Well, I think that's enough for now. I'll write again soon with an update on my trips to Germany, and then I'm off to South America for a while. Hope you all had a great summer!

Kim

Umbria, Rome, and Paestum - Another food tour of Italy

Greetings from Rome!

I am having a brief layover, and thought I'd check in with you all. I've been in Italy for three and a half weeks now, and I'm just about to begin the last leg of my trip. No pictures yet, since they haven't been uploaded yet, but I'll get some up as soon as I get back in September.

So Damien came with me for the first 5 days, and we did a whirlwind tour. Two days in Rome: one at the Vatican and one spent walking around all the famous sights of Rome. I wont go on about these, as I'm sure you are all well aware of what the famous sights of Rome are! And this time, I probably don't even need to include a map, since I'm sure you all can find Italy. :)

After this we got the train down to Naples, which is pretty far in the south of Italy, rented a car and got the heck out of there. The air in Naples, in the short time we were in the area, was the closest I have seen to what I experienced in China. We couldn't see the sky. So we were happy to drive into the countryside to a small town called Paestum. We stayed in a beautiful farmhouse on a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside, and it was very relaxing. Paestum is the site of three very famous and extremely well preserved Greek temples, which we dutifully visited. But the highlight (and the reason we were there in the first place) was the mozzarella di bufala.

You may not know that real mozzarella actually is made from the milk of water buffaloes, not cows. And this region is where it comes from, so there are water buffalo farms all over the place. We found one we immediately fell in love with - an organic farm, of course. They had the buffaloes out in the open where you could go feed them grass and pet them, and we spent a lot of time doing that. Did you know water buffaloes have blue tongues? We have some terrific pictures that I'll share with you all later.

Because it was a small, organic farm, we were able to watch the buffaloes being milked from about 1 foot away. We also watched the mozzarella making process from right in the middle of the action. And it's all still done by hand. They milk the buffaloes at 4:30 in the morning and then start stirring and mixing the cheese, ending with 1 guy grabbing a large hunk of unformed mozzarella and another one pulling off hand size pieces one by one and throwing them in a vat of salted water. The mozzarella must be eaten within 24 hours or it loses its flavor and texture, and it has to be kept in water at all times, so when you buy it, it's like getting fish at the pet store.

And oh, the cheese. The best mozzarella by far I have ever tasted in my entire life. In the morning it's still warm when you buy it. And the ricotta... we were in cheese heaven. They make all sorts of cheeses out of the buffalo milk - ricotta, mozzarella, provolone, gorgonzola - as well as yogurt and even gelato. Definitely worth the trip out of the way to experience this, since you really can't get the cheese at the height of its taste anywhere else in the world. We ate extremely well those couple of days.

On the way back we visited Pompeii, famous site of the volcanic eruption. The site was a lot bigger than I remembered from my 11 year old point of view, and extremely well preserved, but very touristy and seriously hot. After that, Damien went home and I stayed in Umbria, north of Rome, for the next two and a half weeks doing a singing program to wake up my vocal cords again after the year off. The program was in Spoleto, but I had a chance to visit several other medieval hill towns, including Spello, Todi, Orvieto, Assisi, and Perugia. Spello was my favorite - utterly silent, beautiful and preserved just as it was (I imagine) for centuries. This region is known for its black truffles, and I ate as many as I could while here.

So this afternoon Laura joins me and we continue on to Sardinia, which (you may be wondering) is that big island off the west coast of Italy (the top one is Corsica, which belongs to France, and the bottom one is Sardinia). We'll be there for two weeks, after which I'll be visiting New York and looking forward to seeing many of you if possible!

Hope you are all making the most of your summers. Much love, and keep in touch!

Kim

Italy - Parma, Modena and the Cinque Terre

Hello again!

We've had two trips since I last wrote, and I didn't want to bombard you all with blog updates, so I was planning to squish them into one entry. However, I realized that would get really long, so I'll be sending out another update in a week or so with pictures from Slovenia.

Anyway, it seems Europeans really don't like working, so there is at least one day off (usually for some Christian holiday) every week in May. Combine with low-cost European airlines and you get nice 4 day weekends.

At the end of April we headed to Italy, the northern region around Parma, Modena and the Cinque Terre. We had heard nothing but glowing reviews of the Cinque Terre park, and I was excited about the food touring options. Our first night we stayed in a charming old converted farmhouse in the country. We started out by going to a small town near Parma, home of Parmigiano-reggiano cheese (also known as parmesan in the English-speaking world), to visit a Parmigiano dairy. They spoke only Italian, but we were able to get a tour of the facility, where they are still making the cheese the way they have for centuries - all by hand. We watched as the fresh cheese was turned in cheese cloth while dipped in giant vats of hot water, and then we saw the various stages of the cheese-making, all the way to the storage room where 12,000 large wheels of Parmigiano were aging for 24-30 months. The quality of this cheese is serious business. There's a consortium that controls all the authentic Parmigiano, and once a month (I think) they come to check all the cheeses. Any that don't meet the quality standards have their Parmigiano rinds scraped off them on the spot so no one gets any ideas about trying to sell them as "real" authentic Parmigiano.

After this we went to nearby Modena, which any of you cooking buffs out there will recognize as the home of "Aceto Balsamico di Modena", otherwise known as balsamic vinegar. We toured a farm where they have been making the vinegar for centuries, and we found out that it, too, is a very serious process with many rules and its own consortium that has to approve every single batch of balsamic vinegar that is sold. Even the barrels in which the vinegar ages have to be registered with the consortium, and if you want to change one or get a new one, it's a big hassle. The vinegar is aged for a minimum of 12 years, and the barrels can be centuries old. We also learned that the name "aceto balsamico di Modena" is not protected - so look on your kitchen shelf... your balsamic vinegar could be made anywhere and is probably mostly red wine vinegar mixed with caramel coloring. Only if it says "aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena" is it truly a protected name, and in this case a tiny bottle will run you $50 or so. Once you've tasted it, though, you'll see it's worth every cent.

What I didn't know about Modena, but which apparently every straight guy on the planet knows, is that it's also the home of luxury cars like Ferrari and Lamborghini. So of course we had to visit the Galleria Ferrari, which was quite a sight to see. It was a collection of Ferraris and engines from across the years, plus pictures of Ferraris in different places throughout the Americas. All in all, the most boastful, self-aggrandizing museum I've ever seen. But it was worth it to see the audience - 99% men plus a few very bored-looking women, and EVERYONE decked out in Ferrari clothing - shirts, caps, pants, even shoes. And those who didn't have actual Ferrari merchandise were at least wearing red, the official color of Ferraris. It was very amusing.

So anyway, the main attraction of the trip was the Cinque Terre, five towns perched on a seaside cliff in a national park. The towns were, as everyone had told me, gorgeous, and we had some great hiking opportunities between and outside of the towns. They were a bit overrun with tourists, though, so we tried to find hiking trails that were a little more challenging in order to avoid the crowds. In any case, we enjoyed the food (the region is the home of pesto) and the towns were really quite lovely, especially in the evening after all the day-trippers went home. We spent about 2.5 days there, walking between the towns and relaxing, before heading back to Milan to fly home.

Well, I suppose someday I'll learn to write a short trip summary, but so far I'm not doing so well. Look for an update on the Slovenia trip pretty soon, and I'll see you in a couple of weeks!

Happy Spring!