THE OLIVE HARVEST

 We are home safe and sound and full of some great memories.  I just thought I would have to tell you about the olive harvest which we did on the last few days at IL MOLINO.  This is a picture of just one level of the olive trees.  The entire hill is terraced and, believe me, it is a long steep climb to the top.  Pino and Caroline have about 320 olive trees, most of them on that hill.  This year was a bumper crop.  Of course I would be there to pick when the trees were full of olives.  In fact on the first day we got more olives that the whole harvest last year.

Here is a view from the top.  Those trees in the foreground are olive trees.  The building to the right is IL MOLINO.  The green you see is just a small portion of what I mowed.  I had a Snapper rider with about a 30" cut and a power push mower.  It was fun.  No, I am not being sarcastic, it really was fun for me.  Not to mention the good exercise to burn off all the pasta and olive oil and salami.  As Pino always says: This is my paradise on Earth.  I agree with him.

This is one method used to get the olives off the trees.  Here you see Pino laying a net around the tree.  The olives are kind of raked off the tree and fall into this net.  There is also a tree shaker to help the olives to fall into the net.  Of course, Pino doesn't have one yet.  He did promise that he will have one by next year.

 These are some guests who know Pino and volunteered to help on the first day.  Here they are pulling olives off the tree and into the net.  The two people in the foreground are from Naples, Florida and have been to IL MOLINO before.  Once you stay at IL MOLINO you become Pino and Carloine's friends.  Many people come back once they have been there.  It is truly a great place.  Hope you go there sometime.

More picking of the olives.  You can see the red rakes in their back pocket.  This is what is used to rake the tree branches.  You do get some leaves and small branches in the net, but we try to pick as many out as we can.  Once the tree is finished the olives are poured from the net into plastic boxes that hold 25 kilos.  That is about 55 pounds.  It feels like 100 pounds when you are carrying the box down the hill to the trailer.  It would be difficult to get a vehicle up that hill.

Each day we would stop for lunch at about 1:30.  Brenda was the cook and would ring a bell when lunch was ready.  I don't remember what we had that day but I am sure pasta was involved.  And, of course, wine to drink.  You can see the bottles on the table and in the background.  This is Pino and his mother Anna (Nonna).  This harvest is a family affair and everyone gets involved.  We would go back to the grove at about 2:30 and work until at least 5:30 or 6 P.M.  At about 6:30 we would gather again for supper.  Finish eating, shower and usually bed.  No problem sleeping here.

Besides using a net we also did what we call hand picking.  That is mostly what I did.  You can barely see it but I have a basket tied around my waist.  You have gloves on and run your had along the branches hoping the olives will fall into the basket.  Some have to be picked individually.  It's a long day, but an extremely satisfying day.  You do a lot of thinking while your up there picking and a lot of talking with whom ever is picking with you.  I did a lot of picking with a person named Michael.  He is from El Passo Texas and a great guy.  We had a lot of fun.  So he asked me where I got that shirt.  When I  told him I got in the the states he kind of cracked up.  So did every one else.

This is the next day and more picking.  Those green boxes on the right are the containers we use to transport the olives.  This day we had help from four people from Sidney, Australia.  They were with Pino and Caroline the week before on their trip to Sicily.  They were spending the second week here to rest up and see the sights.  This day, however, there was no rest.  They worked from morning until evening.  We had a lot of laughs that day.  The guy in black is Pino and in back of the tree where you can't see her is Caroline.  Everybody helps out.

Here is Pino serving chicken soup made by Brenda.  She has made that soup several times at home, but it just didn't taste the same there.  I think it is the fresh ingredients including the chicken.  I told her I would get a live one at the market and slaughter and dress it.  Back when I was 15 I used to do that on the chicken farm where I worked after school and on Saturday's.  You can probably guess what she said.  The chicken in the soup that day came from the grocery store.  One thing is that the chickens there do not come from a corporate farm but from individual farmers.  Frank Purdue does not exist in this part of Italy.  Neither does Tyson or any of the others.  Believe me there is definitely a difference in the taste. Those stainless steel containers you see is where the olive oil is stored.

Here we are at the factory where the olives are pressed.  Those two bins represent less than half of the harvest.  They hold what we picked in two days, 500 kilos.  One kilo is 2.2 pounds.  All carried by hand in 25 kilo containers off the mountain.  This is the first step in the process.

Here the olives are transferred onto a conveyer belt where they are lifted to the wash section.  We still tried to get as much of the leaves and branches out before the went into the wash process.  There more of the leaves and stems are removed.  I am using the hydraulic lift to get the olives onto the conveyer belt.  Each of the containers had to be unloaded from Pino's van and loaded into there larger bins.  Oh, my aching back.  Actually, I had no back problems the whole time I was in Italy.  I don't know why, and we didn't even have a memory foam mattress.  So much for spending a lot money on a mattress.  Thanks, Amy for making me those great orthotics. They worked.

This is the washing process.  The olives go through several washes before they are transferred to the unit where they are pressed and turned into a kind of mash. In case your are wondering, the pits are also pressed.  I am told they have a lot of oil in them.  One of the things I noticed is that you can follow your olives through the whole process.  There are no signs telling you to stay out.  The workers just go around you as they are doing their job.  It's incredible. At home you probably wouldn't even be allowed in the factory, but would probably have to wain in a waiting room.

Here is the mash.  It is turned in this machine for at least an hour.  There are five of these in this room all going at once. From there it goes to another machine where it is spun so all the water is removed.  This takes quite some time as it is done over and over again until almost all of the water is removed and everything else is filtered out.

After that process, it is piped to another container where it is spun again to get the last of the water out.  What you see coming out of the vat is olive oil from olives picked that day and the day before.  There with Pino is one of the workers at the plant.  Contrary to what a lot of people believe, most Italians are slim.  That person is typical of Italians in Italy.  That is what you see on the streets and in stores.  If you see an overweight person, it is usually a tourist.  Most of the time from the United States.  We didn't see any fast food restaurants.  The snack shelf in the super market only took up a small part of an isle.  They might eat pasta often but it is only at the beginning of the meal and a small portion.  After that they have meat usually called the "secondi" followed by a salad with olive oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar.  They do a lot of walking everywhere and most of the time it is up hill.  I guess that works.

Ok, so I had to get in there to have a taste.  The taste is nothing like you have tasted from oil bought in the store.  It is said that a family in Italy uses at least one liter of olive oil a week.  We certainly had our share while we were there.  When you buy olive oil here in the US, read the label.  The best oil is from anywhere in Tuscany.  I am told by Pino the oil from Luca is the best.  If you see it buy it.  That is if you like olive oil.  Unlike wine, olive oil does not get better with age.  It's best young so check the dates on the bottle.

Here we are at the processing plant drinking wine and waiting for the first of the oil.  Caroline, you can see her hand at the bottom of the picture doing needle point to pass the time, brought some fresh Italian bread some salami.  We got the first of the oil and had it with the bread and salami.  The guy with the hat on the right side of the table is Michael.  That's who I picked with most of the time.  I don't remember all the names but they were great people.  We not only worked hard, but we had fun too.

Well, this is the end of my blogs for now. We are back home with many found memories of our stay in our homeland.  We went there hoping to find some information about my family, but what we found is a new extended family.  Here they are: Pino, Caroline, and, of course, Nonna.  We love you guys.  Thank you for making us feel like family.  Guess what.  We're going back.  Yep, come April we will be back in Italy taking care of IL MOLINO while Pino and Caroline are taking a group on another one of their tours.  I am also going to help get the vegetable garden started. Addio per ora. 

THE MONASTERY AND THE CHURCH

Today we had some time so we decided to go past Cortona and way up into the mountains and found a Monastery called Eremo Celle. This is the home of the Capuchin Friars.  It is a serene place built around a beautiful gorge. This was the favorite place of St. Francis of Assisi.  Here is where he lived out the remainder of his life as a monk.  You can see by the plaque at the entrance that the Monastery dates back to 1211.  The monks lived in cells as shown in the picture below.  The cell of St. Francis of Assisi is pictured below in this blog.

This is a picture from the top of the hill leading down to the Monastery.  Those tiny windows are the cells the Monks lived in long ago.  The Monastery is still in use today although I am sure the monks live a more modern life there today.  We did see laundry hanging out to dry.  Dryers are a rare thing in this part of Italy.  The wall at the top of the picture has a path that circles the hill.  Along that path are the stations of the cross.  How this was build starting in the 1200's is beyond me.  A lot of people must have worked very hard over many centuries to build such an edifice up in the mountains of Cortona.  You can feel the peace and serenity when you are there.

This is a view of the surrounding hills from the walk way leading down to the Monastery.  In the distance you can see the fog that has settled in the valley.  The road leading to the Celle is winding and up hill all the way.  In fact, the signage is very poor so we were just hoping we were in the right place.  We did meet some cars coming the other way and, believe me, it's a good thing we were going to a religious place because God had to be with us. 
Getting by one another is a trick that I guess most Italians know.  Maybe some day I'll get to learn it also.  I know one thing, it would be good if your mirrors folded in automatically so you don't break them off as you go by someone.  Also, do not get too close to the side of the road.  There are no guard rails.  Rosary beads would have come in real handy that day.

This is a view of one of the gardens there.  It is very neat as are all the gardens including the vegetables and olives.  There probably is some significance to the way this is laid out but we couldn't find any information.  Notice how the flowers are still in full bloom.  This is near mid October and it still looks like summer here.  Even at the top to this mountain.

Here is another view of the Monastery from the path leading down.  Everything is terraced because this is on the side of the mountain.  I am not sure how many people are in this Monastery but we did see evidence of several still there.You can do a pilgrimage there, as thousands do each year, and stay for a period of time in thought and prayer.  

As I said above, it still looks like summer at the top of this mountain.  Here are some tomato plants still producing tomatoes.  If you look closely you can see some green tomatoes.  Also notice how neat everything is arranged.  Next to the tomatoes is some kind of greens, perhaps lettuce or maybe something used in salad or cooking.  Most meals here in the homes consists of pasta, meat and salad.  The salad is their vegetable.

This is the gorge around which the Monastery is built.  There is very little water in it this time of year.  But I can just imagine how it must rumble after long periods of rain.  Remember there is very little, if any at all, snow in the winter so they do not get the kind of run off that we would get at home.  It is truly a beautiful scene and I wish all of you could enjoy it as much as we did.

This is the little chapel dedicated to St. Francis.  It is rustic and very small.  You are allowed inside to say a prayer or light a candle or even take a picture.  The beams in the ceiling are large and, most likely, hand cut.  That ceiling is typical of many that you see here in this part of Italy.  In fact, at IL MOLINO most of the ceilings are similar.  You will see that is some of the pictures I will include in a future blog.

This is the celle of St. Francis of Assisi.  It is very, very small and looks like a dungeon to me.  It is very damp and dark.  It's hard to believe that he would spend hours in this cell praying.  I guess you have to be extremely devoted to do something like that every day of your life.  It is believed that he stayed here in 1226 plagued by illness.

Another picture from below looking up.  Where you see the rails is the walkway.  And yes, Brenda did climb down and back up again.  Slowly, but she did it.  The building you see at the top is where the parking lot is.  Actually, just to the right of the building.  If you pull too far forward you better hope you are in good graces with God, because you are going to see him very soon.  Again, no guard rails.  Actually nothing to stop you from going over.  I guess the rules here in Italy are not as strict as in the USA.  Frankly, even the traffic lights are just suggestions.

Here is a picture from above the gorge.  That bridge crosses the gorge and leads to a path around the Monastery.  Eventually leading to the stations of the cross at the top level.

OK, so St. Francis lived in a cell that looked like a dungeon.  But look what I saw on one of the terraces.  As I said earlier, the monks do not live the life that St. Francis did.  I wonder if they were watching TV while we were there because we did not see anyone, just tourists.

Here is a cell that is in the side of the gorge that you saw in a previous picture.  There is a name over the entrance to the cell but it was difficult to make out from our vantage point.

On the way back to Cortona we stopped by this church dedicated to Saint Margaret.  She was know as the "bad lady of Cortona".  At the age of 17 she ran away with the Italian Lord of Vilano.  She was not accepted in his castle as his wife, but as his mistress.  She lived there until one day he did not return from a hunting trip, but his dog did come back without the lord.  She went looking for him and found him dead in the woods.  Apparently, he had been murdered.  At that point she gave all the riches she received back to his family and left with a son fathered by Vilano.  When she was not accepted by her mother and step-father, she went to the nearby monasteries operated by the friars.  Her son was accepted as a friar with the Franciscan order and she devoted the rest of her life helping the poor and sick.  After three years of prayer and fasting on bread and vegetables she was accepted by the Franciscans. She established the order of Our Lady of Mercy which is devoted to helping the sick and poor.  She died in 1290 and in 1728 she was canonized by Pope Benedict VIII.

Here is a picture of the inside of the church dedicated to Saint Margaret.  It is typical of most churches from the 1500's with its frescoes and gold etchings.  You can walk to the church from Cortona but it is not for the faint of heart as the path is steep and long.  Many people do walk there, but we took our junky car.  On our way out of the gate with our car we were stopped by a couple from Canada who asked us for a ride back to Cortona.  Apparently, the woman was overcome by the walk up and she was having a panic attack from the extreme height.  They hopped in the back seat of our luxury Italian car (they barely fit) and we drove them down to the Cortona city gate.  They were staying at a hotel within the walls and had no car.  Obviously, they were quite thankful.

There she is, Saint Margaret of Cortona.  I am not kidding that is really her.  She has been preserved and has been placed on the alter.  I don't know how they did it back in the 1200's, but here she is in a coffin with a glass side so all could see her.  You can't go on the alter so this picture was taken from a distance.

As I said earlier, the church is way up there in the hills of Cortona.  Here is a picture of the countryside from the back of the church near the monastery.  That lake in the background is Logo Trasimeno.  That was the subject of one of my other posts.  By the way the Franciscans still occupy the monastery a the rear of the church.  We did see one of them (a female) come out with some laundry and get into a car.  She was probably going to the laundromat (lavanderia in Italian) in Camucia, the center of our Universe here under the Tuscan Sun.

Once again, The end to a perfect day.  This is sunset viewed from our back porch just outside the kitchen here at IL MOLINO.  In the background you can see a pointed a pointed peak.  Believe it or not, but there is a house on that peak.  I could see the lights at night and barley see a house during the day.  I don't know how they get up there, but there must be a winding road to the top.  Maybe one day I will look for it.

An even better ending.  This hit the spot after a day of roaming around Cortona.  If you can't read the label on that bottle of wine it says Cortona Sangiovese.  It is the vino locale.  It is a DOC wine.  That means that there is a guarantee that all the Sangiovese grapes in this wine came from Cortona area.
Stay tuned, more to come.  Not much however, as our trip is coming to an end.  It is kind of bitter sweet.  We miss home and family, but we really like it here and would love to stay longer.  Maybe a year or two.  Just kidding, or am I.  

ITALY'S THIRD LARGEST LAKE

 

 

 

This was last Sunday.  It was a little cloudy and all the guests were checked in on Saturday so we decided to take a ride to Umbria and see Lake Trasimeno which is just about 15km away.  Trasimeno is the third largest lake in Italy.  It is very shallow: thus, the waters are quite warm.  The name Trasimeno dates back to Etruscan times.  Named after the son of an Etruscan king Tirreno, there is a legend that goes with that incident: however, I won't bore you with the details here.  It's a long love story.  There are several "cities" around the lake.  We visited two of them: Passignano sul Trasimeno and Castiglione del Lago.  This is a picture of one of the streets in Passiganano.  That on the right is what we would call "Dunkin Donuts".  Here they call it a bar and you can get cappuccino or espresso and some real nice sweet pastries.  The streets are extremely narrow, so if a car comes along, make sure you get out of the way because the driver won't.  They do , however, respect crosswalks if you're lucky enough to find a kind Italian driver.

Oh My God.  Which one do you buy.  There were
several shops along the waterfront selling these ceramics.
Some were just punched out dishes with nice colors
and design.  Others, those inside, were Deruta ceramics and much more expensive.  We didn't buy any because of the difficulty of getting anything home.  It seems that our focus is mostly on food.  You could take that home in your stomach, hips, and various parts of your body had have no problem getting through customs.  Walking sideways through the gate is not a problem.

 

Here is a view of the lake.  There is a nice boardwalk along the lake with several vendors selling various items, mostly food.  Passignano is an ancient fishing village originally named  Giano Passag, the mythical god of gates.  There are several churches and buildings that date back to the 10th century.  There is also the "Rocca" or fortress dating back to the 5th and 6th century.  Italy is so full of history and culture.  It is truly amazing.  Our country is just a "bambino" compared to Italy.

Here is a view from one of the restaurants along the lake.  These people were having a snack before boarding a ferry just across the street for  Isola Maggiore.  This a  large inhabited island where people go on a Sunday afternoon to walk around and perhaps have a picnic. By the way these young Italians had a snack of cheese, bread, olive oil and olives.  They had to leave before they finished because the boat arrived so the cameriera gave us the stuff they didn't touch along with what we ordered for lunch. Not that we needed it.

Yep, this was the lunch.  Brenda and I split a pizza margarita. The taste was incredible.  The dough was light but crispy.  At home when we do crusty pizza the bottom us usually burnt.  Not here, the bottom was a tan color and crispy.  The tomatoes and cheese had a real fresh taste.  Everything here tastes so fresh because they use only fresh ingredients. Just the aromas make you hungry.  Brenda had her usual aqua frizzante and I my usual vino locale.  We did walk it off at our next stop.

Our next stop was Castiglione del Lago.  Here is a picture from outside the walled city.  There are thousands of walled cities in Italy, all at the top of mountains.  They were built for protection from invaders like Hannibal who in 217 B.C. fought the bloodiest battle of the 2nd Punic war not far from this city.  Hannibal's army invaded the Romans on a foggy morning and killed over ten thousand soldiers. You can walk the battlefield today.  It remains a major archaeological site.

The entrance to the city.  You can see that all the streets run parallel to each other.  This is typical of a Roman city.  Wow, does that mean that New York City was built by the Romans?  With names like Gulianni and LaGuardia, and Verrazano as former leaders, who knows. Maybe!!!

Once inside the walls you come upon this main piazza.  Here you see a water fountain and a boy kicking a soccer ball against the wall. It's Sunday, no school, so what else do you do but practice soccer.  The building in the background is a hotel.  I hope you travel light when going to this hotel as there are no cars allowed in this area.  There are several cities in Italy where this is true.  It almost happened to us in Ravenna.

Of course we headed to the first food shop we saw.  This shop was like the best Italian store you ever saw.  We bought cheese, capcolla, wine and too many other foods.  Brenda did buy more mix to make her Tuscan bread soup.  I can't wait.  On the right in the background is a gelateria.  Fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it was closed.  We'll have to save that for another day.

As we walked down one of the streets, I noticed this building.  I had to take a picture because of the design on the outside.  I am not sure what you call it, but it was different.  Also you can see more street vendors on the side of the road. They sell everything from fresh vegetables, fruit, meats and cheese.  Mushrooms are very popular here in Italy and are sold almost everywhere but are very expensive.  The Coop has them in packages like at home and those are not too expensive.  They are fresh and still have the black dirt on the stems so you have to clean them.

Another view of one of the streets.  You can see how narrow they are.  I don't think cars were allowed on this street, at least, I didn't see any.  Here we are walking to the museum at the other end of the town.  As you will see in the pictures below, it is quite an interesting place.

If you can read this, you're good.  You will have no problem in Italy.  This is the plaque at the entrance of the museum.

This is the plaque on the outside of the building.  The museum is housed in this building that has been around since the 1500's.  The fresco's inside are original and were done at the behest of the Della Corgna family.  They depict the adventures of Ascanio della Corgna who, according to legend was the perfect gentleman and adventurer with a strong humanistic vein typical of the Renaissance. He was born in 1514 and died in 1571.  His body still lies in a chapel in Perugia in Umbria. 

This picture and the one below are just an example of the frescos in this building.  There are just too many to put in this blog and the pictures really do not do them justice.  In person they are magnificent.

This could be yours if you have an extra thousand bucks you don't know what to do with.  Add the shipping to the USA and the insurance and you probably have to dish out around $2500.00.  I don't think so.

This is a view of one of the restaurants along one of the narrow roads.  You can enjoy lunch or dinner here with a beautiful view of the lake.  Our stomachs being full from the weeks of gastronomical delights, we decided to wait until we get home(oops, I mean IL MOLINO, Freudian slip I guess) to gorge our self on the fruits of the land here in Tuscany.  I think that night we had pasta (what else) with something.  Pasta is an everyday thing here in Italy.  At least where we are.  Every time you go to the Coop in Camucia and spend a certain amount of euros, you get a free package of pasta. Caroline's pasta cabinet is getting full.

Yes, even Garibaldi was here at one time.  You might remember from your history in school that Garibaldi was instrumental in the unification of Italy in the 1800's.  He died in 1872 at the age of 74 and was known for his "red shirts" which he made his army wear instead of uniforms.

I finally found them.  Yep, I found them.  The Andro family.  Here they here are for all to see. Starting from left to right is Cardinal Raymundo Adolpho Andro,  to his left is Monsignor Adolpho Michello Andro, to his left we have Rossio Maria Andro, to her left is unidentified and the last person it Leanatarrio Margaretta Andro.  I had to do a lot of research to find these people.  The books I used were stored in a wine jug kept in the cellar of the famous wine merchant Iama Italiano.  Stay tuned.