A life of luxury

*Note: I wrote this blog post two weeks ago when I left Florence, but due to an epidemic of bad internet connections that’s plaguing small towns across Italy, I haven’t been able to post it until now.  This post is about the end of my time in Florence, and you should expect one more in a few days wrapping up my 10 months in Europe since I am now finally, finally home.

Palabra del día: La campagna

Spanish translation: El campo

English translation: Countryside

Italian sentence: La campagna di Italia e multa bella!

English sentence: The Italian countryside is gorgeous!

Spanish sentence: ¡Con el simpatico que es nuestro prisionero, vamos a tener un buen día en el campo!

Comida del día: One of the most interesting foods I've eaten in Italy were zucchini flowers stuffed with a potato mixture.  Did you know that zucchinis have flowers?  I had the opportunity to help prepare them when we spent a night in the countryside near Florence.  The flowers are orange and green and all you have to do to prepare them is open the flower, put potato inside them, close the flower, and then grill them in the outdoor brick oven.

Foto del día:

Spending a night in the Chianti countryside near Florence gave me the chance to enjoy some quality hammock time!

I ended up traveling this month much more than I thought I would.  The positive reason for this is that the Italian countryside is multa bella and a perfect place to enjoy summer weather.  The negative reason for this is that Florence is noisy and touristy, so I’ve been taking every opportunity to leave!  

Last week I took two trips.  The first was with my jazz program to play a gig at a bed and breakfast in the little town of Montespertoli in Chianti county.  It was a perfect overnight trip, full of cute children, a friendly dog, nice people, delicious fresh food, and the opportunity to play music.  The views from Monstespertoli reminded me a bit of the views around Granada, except that it was greener (with more grass) and in addition to olive trees there were also vineyards.  We got to the bed and breakfast in the afternoon, and I helped to prepare for the big dinner event they were having.  The dinner consisted of all sorts of fresh and local vegetables and salads and pizza and break baked in the outdoor brick oven.

I also had the chance to go for a walk in the countryside with this lovely dog named Ulysses:

Who led me to this view:

Spending a night in the countryside was so relaxing and such a nice change of pace from living in the city that when I got back to Florence I stayed for only three hours before leaving again.  I also left because I was invited to my friend's lake house and I've learned this year that when you are invited to someone's house, you should always go.  The last minute trip was with my jazz professor and my friend to his family friend’s house on Lake Garda, in the town of Saló in Northern Italy.  My friend’s name is Cabin (don’t ask me why…), so when he told me we were going to a house on a lake I just sort of assumed it would be a log “cabin” in the woods near a beach and that we would go swimming and sit in the sun all weekend.  I couldn’t have been more wrong:

I'm pretty sure that this beautiful house that I had the opportunity to stay in is the exact opposite of a cabin.

Cabin’s family friend is a designer and designed this house himself.  The bottom floor has a loft bedroom and big windows that look out on the lake, so when you're up there it feels as if you're on a boat in the lake.  On the second floor, there's another gorgeous lake view and the house is full of beautiful furniture and artwork.  I felt like I was staying in a museum!

I would have been perfectly happy staying at the house all day, but Cabin’s friends (who weren't even at the house while we were there) wanted us to see the area and planned our our trip for us, including a personal driver to bring us from one place to another.

First stop, this mansion-museum-garden called the Vittoriale, which was home to an important Italian figure in World War I named Gabriele d'Annunzio.  The gardens felt like an ancient Roman paradise:

Next stop, lunch at the fanciest and most expensive restaurant I have ever been to.  It was located in a hotel that was previously Mussolini’s house

This is the restaurant:

This is the view:

And here's what I ate:

Caprese salad.  I took one bite of the fresh buffalo mozzarella and thought, "So that's what mozzarella is supposed to taste like!"  It barely resembled the stuff you can buy at grocery stores in the US.

Pasta with seafood and lemon sauce:

A custardy tiramisu flavored dessert:

Everything I ate during this meal tasted like luxury, I didn't have to pay for any of it, and with the help of the gorgeous lake views I had a hard time believing that I wasn't dreaming.

I was expecting to have a full day to spend hanging out at the lake, and although that didn't happen, I still managed to go swimming twice.  The water was a bit cold but clear and perfect for an early morning swim, reminding me of all of the summers I spent in the lake at camp.  Both times that I went swimming, no one else was in the water - it seems like most people with lake houses in the area avoid cold water and the fishies and instead use climate controlled chemical-filled swimming pools. 

Throughout the whole weekend I felt like I was living a life of luxury and the trip was so last minute and so far from what I was expecting that I’m still not convinced that it actually happened.  However, I somehow ended up with a beautiful dress from Cabin’s friend’s designer store that was valued at 700 euros and which I didn’t have to pay for at all, so I have physical proof in my closet that it wasn't all a dream.  

After that weekend, I for some reason started thinking about my trip to Morocco last November, when we visited the family in the rural countryside and got a taste of their lifestyle.  I realized that living this luxurious life in the lake house was the complete opposite of the simple lifestyle I experienced with that family in Morocco, and I've been fortunate enough to have the opportunities to see both ends of the spectrum this year.  Certain parts of the weekend at Lake Garda felt a bit over the top to me, and although it was fun for a short period of time, I remembered that the family that we met in Morocco had everything they needed and seemed happy and content with their lives despite the fact that they would never be able to eat the best caprese salad in the world.

On the way back to Florence, we made two stops.  First we went to Verona, which has some beautiful plazas, a coliseum used for opera performances, and the balcony that Romeo and Juliet was based on.  Next we stopped in Bologna, which felt like a non-touristy version of Florence, and went to a really old monastery.  And then finally back to Florence for my last week in the city.  It’s really not such a bad city, but it just can’t compare to open fields of olive orchards and houses that look like boats. Here I am at the top of the Duomo (cathedral):

It was windy up there!

And now I’m writing this blog on another train after having left Florence for good.  Since leaving Granada, I've realized that it’s not feasible to stay in Europe for the rest of my life.  I've been so many places that sometimes I get this feeling that I don't know where I am or how I got there, which I think means that it's time to go home.  But before that, I have another week and a half of playing music in the Italian countryside - I can't wait!