Lisboa Outra Vez

Like a beautiful painting or a classic film, Lisbon bears repeated viewings. Since our first visit in 2011 we have returned again and again, each time finding new sights and flavors.

This time we saw the elegant interior of the Igreja Fátima, the City Museum with its terrific model of pre-1755 earthquake Lisbon, and the Pinheiro Museum. We happily discovered the work of Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (1887-1918) at a special exhibit at the Gulbenkian. A train ride to Queluz to see the National Palace was enjoyable but ultimately in vain: a bunch of Very Important Men in Suits were holding a meeting and police kept us humble tourists away at a distance, so we had to settle for a walk in the park.

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The Rua Augusta Arch was open after a recent restoration, so we rode an elevator to the top for fine vistas of the city and the river.

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I got hooked on bitoque (a thin beefsteak topped with a runny fried egg), a standard Portuguese dish I had inexplicably overlooked before. In between these new experiences we made time for frango assado (roasted chicken brushed with spicy piri-piri sauce) at Bonjardim and a tram ride to Belém for pasteis.

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Best of all, we got to visit with friends. One day we took the tram to Graça to say hello to António and the rest of the folks at A Cabreira. I met António when we rented an apartment across the street and Terri and I would walk over for pasteis de nata or codfish balls. This time we enjoyed a fine lunch of grilled fish and afterwards were treated to glasses of beirão, a potent Portuguese liqueur. (A Cabreira is one of those places you find in almost every block in Portugal: café, bar, diner, pastry shop, savory and sweet snacks, and community center, open from early in the morning to late at night.)

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Friday was a special treat. Our friends Manuel and Ana picked us up at our hotel for a drive to São Martinho do Porto, a small coastal village about 100 km north of Lisbon. The waves of the Atlantic boom at the entrance to a quiet, protected bay lined with wide sandy beaches; three- and four-story apartment buildings face the water with street-level shops and restaurants. We walked along the shore until the rains came, when we retreated to A Casa for an incredibly delicious lunch: fish soup, grilled shrimp, then a main course of caldeirada made with fish freshly caught that morning. The rains let up and the sun came out just as we finished lunch, so we enjoyed another walk with our friends before driving back to Lisbon through the lovely Portuguese countryside.

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After five nights in Lisbon it was time to head to Évora, capital of the Alentejo region, home to great food and fine wines. Our time there deserves another blog post -- stay tuned.

All the photos are on Flickr.

Chasing Our Tails

We're in a bit of an endless loop with this traveling. We fly enough to earn status as frequent fliers, which gets us certain perks like fast check-in, international lounges, and early boarding. We get accustomed to the perks, which means we have to continue flying to keep them. Without the perks we wouldn't fly as much or at all, so the perks become the goal rather than an incidental benefit. Whatever. It's complicated.

In any event, we have status through the end of February so tomorrow afternoon we're off to lovely Lisbon. Yes, yes, I know, we've been going to Portugal a lot the last few years, but why not? This time we're staying in a different neighborhood, around Praça Saldanha. After enjoying the sights and sounds and flavors of one of my favorite cities we'll take the train (or bus? who knows) to Évora for a few days. And we'll start amassing miles for the next year of status.

We'll visit with friends, see the sights, and of course I'll have lunch.

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Odds and Ends and Snaps

If you can, visit Italy in the off-season, between early November and late March. There's no crowds, prices are lower, and the atmosphere is much more relaxed. During this last trip, we never once had to stand in line anywhere, not even at the Uffizi or the Accademia in Florence.

Memorize these two words, because you will need them: spingere means "push"; tirare means "pull."

To buy train tickets, go to any travel agency (l'agenzia di viaggi) that displays the Trenitalia logo. You'll pay the same price and get much friendlier service than wading through the crowds at the station.

The Italian term for jet lag is jet lag.

Indoor heating and cooling is an iffy affair: some places will be too warm and some places will be too cold. In any event, Italians seem to dress by the calendar, not the thermometer. If it's December, they will be wearing scarves and coats, even in a restaurant heated to 85°. Be prepared to add or remove clothing as necessary.

The only flat part of Italy is the lower Po Valley, Parma-Modena-Bologna-Ravenna. Everywhere else, be ready to walk up and down hills. A lot.

Another important word is sciopero (SHOW-per-o), meaning strike, as in a labor stoppage. Strikes are an Italian tradition of long standing. Tourists learn of strikes by standing at a bus stop alone for twenty minutes until a helpful Italian walks by shaking his head and says sciopero!

Flying home across seven time zones in one day is hard on mind and body. But it's worth it.

Here's my snaps from the trip on Flickr. And as always, there's a slideshow version.

Christmas in Bologna

Eating

Italy is full of art, architecture, culture, history, beautiful scenery, and wonderful people, but the main reason to visit here is to eat. Mangiare!

As soon as we arrived in Bologna we headed down the block to Pizz'Altero for their wonderful pizza al taglio, chunky rectangles of thick pizza. The next day we had a three-hour lunch at a agriturismo with Cinzia and Sergio, sampling the different pastas of Emilia-Romagna and discovering crescentine, puffy fat squares of fried bread topped with different kinds of cheeses and cured meats. It's been pretty much an eat-a-thon ever since.

Our usual routine is to have breakfast at the hotel, a cappuccino or two along with pastries, salami and bread, or whatever else they put out that morning. Lunch is very light, a sandwich or snack eaten on the go. We save our appetites for dinner, the big meal of the day.

The food in Italy varies considerably from region to region, and even from city to city. In Bologna we dove into big plates of tagliatelle alla bolognese, flat noodles with meat sauce, and I had to have a cotoletta alla bolognese, a veal cutlet breaded and fried and topped with ham and cheese. Since we moved south into Tuscany we've had bruschette (grilled bread with garlic, olive oil, and diced fresh tomatoes), pappardelle (very wide flat pasta) with cinghiale (wild boar) sauce, thinly sliced beef on rucola, fried artichokes, and ravioli di zucca (pumpkin). At one little family place in the Oltrarno in Florence, we had arista, huge slices of pork perfectly oven-roasted.

The biggest problem each night has been, what do we order? Italian menus are made up of antipasti (appetizers, some quite substantial), primi piatti (first dishes, usually pasta), secondi piatti (second dishes, meats), contorni (side dishes) and dolci (dessert). Sometimes we split an antipasto then each have a primo. Or we split a primo and each have a secondo. Or I'll get an antipasto and a secondo while Terri will have a primo and a contorno. If we have a dolce, we share it. The serving size varies from restaurant to restaurant so it's hard to tell if you're ordering too much. Twice so far we couldn't finish our food, as delicious as it was.

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We bring along a dictionary but it's not much help. Menu listings use special terms and regional dialects that are never in the book. Rather than being a problem, this gives us an excuse to try new things and surprise ourselves. Sometimes we pay too much, sometimes we don't order the right things, sometimes we get too little or not enough. The only certain thing is that in all the time we've spent in Italy, we've never had a bad meal.

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With every meal we order a carafe (liter or half-liter) of house wine, almost always rosso (red), and it's always good and half the price or less of the cheapest bottle on the wine list. We also get a bottle of acqua minerale naturale (no carbonation); Italians do not serve tap water in restaurants and if you ask they will only answer with a puzzled expression.

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The waiter never brings the check until we ask for it. We sit at the table as long as we like and linger over the last of the wine and water. Finally, when I know it's time for a lie down back at the hotel, I get her attention and ask, "Il conto, per favore." We wander out into the Italian night, suffused with a rosy glow of contented satisfaction, and start thinking about what we'll eat tomorrow.

Here's the trip photos I've posted on Flickr. And here's dessert at the end of a lovely meal.

Beautiful Beginning

Sunday was our first full day in Italy, and what a perfect day it was.

We dawdled over breakfast and took our time getting ready. Near noon, we walked out to the Porta Saragozza, one of the many gates into the old city dating from the Middle Ages. We sat on a bench and soaked up some sun for a few minutes before our friends Cinzia and Sergio came to pick us up for a drive into the countryside for Sunday lunch.

N.B. Sunday lunch is very important in Italy. Restaurants are packed as families and friends get together for big meals and long conversations.

Sergio's sister Manuela and her partner, Luca, are the proprietors of an agriturismo north of Bologna, near the small town of Granarolo dell'Emilia. (Luca also makes dog sleds.) We arrived around 1 and the place was packed with a lively crowd. There was much chatting about the menu of the day, as Cinzia and Sergio explained all the possibilities. (Our dictionaries got a real workout: Cinzia knows some English, Terri and I know a little Italian, Sergio knows a little English.) In the end, it was too difficult to decide so we got plates of all the primi piatti and shared them around. That was followed by a big platter of crescentine, hot squares of puffy fried bread, accompanied by prosciutto, pancetta, salumi, and cheeses. We eventually finished it all and left around 4, feeling very satisfied and full and happy about life.

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As we were driving back into town, Sergio had the excellent idea of driving up into the hills to San Michele di Bosco, a church and hospital complex overlooking Bologna. The timing was perfect: the sun was setting, the sky was blue and pink, and the lights of the city were spread before us.

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After leaving San Michele, Sergio found a parking spot just outside the city walls. We strolled up Via Santo Stefano, blending into the evening passeggiatta as all of Bologna seemed to be out and about. In Piazza Maggiore, we joined the crowd watching Beppe Maniglia play his guitar, as he has been doing for over 30 years.

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At last it was time to say goodbye. There were fond farewells all around and promises to share photos and stories and talk of the next time we'd all get together.

Here's the trip photos I've posted on Flickr.

Italy #10: Bologna and Tuscany

Our last trip out of the country was back in May, when we explored northern Portugal. Some, um, issues arose after that trip, preventing further travel; we didn't even make it to Buenos Aires in August, for the second year in a row. But those issues are now resolved and we are ready to once again fly way up in the air, heading to Italy for the tenth time. Have I mentioned that we like Italy?

Our ninth trip to Italy was in December 2011, when we visited new places and old favorites in the Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. This time we'll fly into and out of Bologna, a regional hub with convenient connections to Madrid.

We're looking forward to seeing our friends Cinzi e Sergio in Bologna, where we'll spend the first few days. After that, we'll be retracing some of our earliest trips: several days each in Florence, Siena, and Arezzo. I'm excited just thinking about it: tagliatelle alla bolognese anywhere within a kilometer or two of Piazza Maggiore, bistecca alla fiorentina at Buca dell'Orafo in Firenze, risotto at Il Biondo in Siena, the fabulous Piero della Francesca frescoes in Arezzo, maybe even a quick side trip to Sansepolcro. And since it's the holiday shopping season, there will be lots of open markets to make the evening passeggiata especially enjoyable.

While we head off to the airport, you can read about my first trip to Italy, on our honeymoon in 1999.

At First Sight

And no blog post would be complete without a picture. In 2005, I happened to catch the light of the setting sun on the Florence Duomo using an antiquated photographic medium called 'film':

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Next post and snaps will be from Italy!

Reflections on Veterans Day

I'm uneasy if someone thanks me for being a veteran. I did not join the Army to serve my country, to keep my fellow citizens safe and free, or to bring democracy to foreign nations. I joined because I didn't have a girlfriend and ran out of money for college; my new draft card marked me as 1-A. Joining voluntarily might let me avoid the infantry and become a pilot. Surely, I thought, pilots had lots of girlfriends.

In October 1967, at the age of 18, I was shipped off to basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. By January I had started flight school at Fort Wolters, Texas, near Mineral Wells, and then finished at Fort Hunter-Stewart just outside Savannah, Georgia. By October 1968 I had my wings and my bars and was headed to Vietnam.

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Even then, as young and naive as I was, I had no illusion that I was helping the Vietnamese people or protecting friends and family back home. There was no feeling of pride for participating in a noble cause, only relief at being alive day to day. Flying helicopters was fun and exciting but even in a war zone military rules and regulations could be silly. The most popular acronym was FTA, F**k the Army.

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Looking back after all these years, I could try to convince myself that I had done something worthy of thanks, that I had served someone or something, but I must be honest with myself. I was an aimless kid with few options who could pass a flight physical. The war, like virtually all wars, was cruel, senseless, and unnecessary. Along with thousands of others, I was swept along by events and actions beyond my ability to understand or control.

Welcome me home if you'd like. (This can be important to Vietnam vets.) Perhaps congratulate me for being lucky enough to make it back. But thanks? Save that for when I buy lunch.