Ex-pat Newlyweds

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things: of shoes — and shops — and saling wax — of cabbages — and kings — and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.”

Ok, so really, it was just time to say good bye to the family and make our own way through Italy.

Since moving here, Josh and I have had a more relaxed attitude toward our travels around Europe. Our two European adventures that we had before moving here were carefully planned out, booked months in advance. Now we throw darts at the Google map.

Where our dart landed this time.

Before we went to the big city, we wanted a quiet weekend getaway. Josh wanted to roadtrip, I wanted seaside. Somewhere in there, a trip to Pisa was thrown in. So we scoured the map and hit the jackpot in this little nubbin of land on the west coast. More on that later.

Our chariot.

We trained to Florence, picking up our little Alfa Romeo for our journey: first stop Pisa. I’m so glad we did this as a stop along the way. Besides the big park where the famous tower leans, the city didn’t seem that great. I’m sure it has its gems, but not enough stood out to make us wish for more time there.

The cathedral in Pisa, with the tower in the background.

The very-much leaning Tower of Pisa.

We wrinkled our noses at all the hawkers selling fake watches and Bart Simpson underwear while laughing at all the tourists holding up the tower on their digital cameras. I even got suckered into taking one for a couple that didn’t speak English — that was interesting. But after an overpriced lunch, we were back on the road.

Two hours down, we hit our little jackpot. After what Rick Steves has done to the Cinque Terra, we hope he stays away from this place. We arrived at Porto Ercole on Monte Argentario in the late afternoon and were blown away.

The town of Porto Ercole.

A little hike up the hill.

A tree we saw at the top of the hill. Does anyone know what it is (besides awesome)?

Our hotel, the Bihotel, was just 12 rooms right on the water. Its a tiny little fishing village precariously built into the mountainside. We hiked around the mountain, with forts on every vantage point. It smelled just like the seaside should: brined fish. There wasn’t a word of English to be heard, not even our hotellier spoke anything useful. Dinner was pointing at the menu and hoping for the best. It was delicious.

The hill we hiked up.

The next morning, we took it slow, eating breakfast as late as possible and heading to the beach. All the little pieces of land that creat the lagoon between the mainland and Monte Argentario are lined with beaches. So we bought a cheap beach mat and got our last bits of relaxing in. As the clouds started to roll in, we packed up our strawmat and said goodbye to the beach.

Leaving the beach — you can see why in the background.

But we weren’t ready to head to Rome yet, so we asked the lady at the hotel to point us in the way of a must-see town. She recommended Capalbio, and we had no reason not to trust her. As we rounded a turn on our way there, we see a hill town with castle towers sticking up. It was Capalbio.

Josh on Capalbio’s medieval walls.

I snapped him snapping! Ha ha!

The town was quiet — nothing like the crowds of the other hill towns we visited while we were in Chianti. We snapped photos as we walked along the medieval castle walls, taking in our last views of vinyards and olive groves. Lunch was again pointing at the menu with a “per favore”, but we were twice lucky with the food. We were, after all, in Italy.

Streets of Capalbio.

I don’t think there was too much we had to worry about gastronimically.

More goofing.

Finally, the sun got to us and it was time to make the rest of the journey.

We were en route to Rome.

Programming note: The blog seemed to be down for a week. We don’t really know what happened or why www.joshandsabine.com wasn’t working. But it should be working now, although joshandsabine.com seems to still be having issues. Strange science.

Home for the week.

The first impression.

On to post #1 (well, technically #2) about Italy: Our week in Tuscany.

Our journey there was like the beginning of an episode of The Real World, except for the part about us all being strangers. Vera and Jeff had met Mel and Andrew in the Cinque Terra and driven down to the Villa with them. Josh and I took the train from Rome to Florence, where we coincidentally ran into cousin Amy at the train station. We took the train together and Jenny and Jared had a nightmare of a time getting a rental car from Balogna.

We all made it to our destination eventually: the 17th century farmhouse called Villa Pecille. Rosemary and sage line the driveway, marinating the valley with its smell. Everywhere you look there are rows of of olive trees or grape vines, all leading the way to a lush-looking valley. Each grove is divided by fig, pear and cherry trees. You know immediately that, in this part of the world, food is key.

Josh at the wine-tasting at a local vinyard. The grapes for this vinyard were our neighbours for the week.

Uncooperative weather kept us from the pool for the first couple of days. We filled our time with days trips to a vinyard, wine tasting, wine consumption and trips to the towns of Castillo — for a wine-tasting festival that we decided to skip once we got there — and Cortona, where Mel spent two summers digging up Roman treasures.

Mel and the floor that she helped dust off in the museum in Cortona, which I’m sure is a lovely town when it isn’t pouring rain.

Italian Nonas staying out of the rain in front of the fruit market in Castillo.

Also: we ate. And we drank. And we ate. Monday was easily a highlight of the week: local chef Melchiorre and his team of assistants (which included long-time business partner Elizabeth, her husband and Melchiorre’s girlfriend) came to the villa, brought all the things we needed for an Italian feast (including fresh, home-made ricotta cheese!), cooked a wonderful meal for us, while showing us the way in the process. We had food for a week. It was fun, it was educational, it was hilarious and absolutely delicious. Also: more wine.

Sabine chopping up the linguine with Melchiorre watching over her, ready to step in with a “No! No! No! You do itta like-a DIS!” (more photos from our cooking night coming from Josh when he uploads his collection from the trip).

Now you can’t go to Tuscany and not go to Florence: the heart of the Renaissance movement. It seems that every major artist of that period came through Florence at some point, and its galleries and museums show it. Josh, Amy and I were ambitious: hitting two art galleries, one museum and one gelato place in the day. We left the rest of the family at the markets to buy purses while we went to see Galileo’s perserved finger (among other important breakthroughs in the field of astronomy) at the Institute and Museum for the History of Science. We met the rest of the clan at the famous Uffizi — a gallery that houses the private collection of the Medici family. The halls are filled with marble statues and busts while the rooms are dedicated to the works of Raphael, Michaelangelo and Boticelli. It was incredible. Finally, we ended the day staring at all 517 centimetres of David by Michaelangelo at the Accademia gallery. It was exhausting.

The cathedral of Florence: it looks like Candy (I give Amy credit for this observation).
Amy and I: fuelling up on Gelato before we tackle three museums in one day.
These glasses brought out the Harajuku in Andrew. Unfortunately, they stayed on the shelf.
A break between galleries at the Uffizi gallery shop.

The sun came out for the rest of the week, just in time for some quality family time at the pool while the rest of the week flew by. Our dinner from Melchiorre lasted us for the week, including some linguine that came in handy for the Meatball Showdown. Cooking was shared by Andrew, Jen and I, while the rest of the kids cleaned up, doing our best to make sure Jeff and Vera get to enjoy Jeff’s birthday present to himself.

Goofs in the pool.
Three of the 14 towers that make the hill town of San Gimignano famous.

Jen and Jared enjoying gelato from the two-time world champion gelateria in San Gimignano.

Best photo ever? Definitely an excellent inside joke now.

But the trip wasn’t all about birthdays. Sure, it was in honour of Jeff’s 60th, while Jared celebrated his the Friday before we all met, Mel celebrated her birthday on the Friday and Josh just had his 30th birthday while we were in Rome. Together, we also got to celebrate Andrew and Mel’s engagement! We’re thrilled for them and delighted to have Andrew officially around for life — at least, I am. I won’t speak for Mel’s big brother. So we can definitely say, at the very least, July 2010 will see us back in Canada.

Our final Saturday morning was full of goodbyes and tearful hugs as we all went our seperate ways. Mel and Andrew headed to the coast near Pisa, Jeff and Vera made their way back down to Rome to start their journey home while Jen and Jared went to the Cinque Terra. Josh and I made our way to Florence to rent a car to continue on with our journey, but I’ll leave that for the next post.

Sunset over the hills we called home for a week.

We’re back in Berlin, where it’s a little gray and wet but a welcome change from the burning pavement of Rome. Our trip was big — the biggest yet! — and I’ll be dividing into three parts. THis brings me to the first of my list in this list of lists:

The Three parts in which I plan to tell you about this trip:

1. Tuscany
2. The journey to Rome
3. Rome

Now, on to more important lists.

Towns visited:

1. Rome
2. Florence
3. Poggibonsi
4. Panzano
5. San Gimignano
6. Cortona
7. Castillo
8. Pisa
9. Porto Ercole
10. Caplbio

Flavours of Gelato Sabine consumed (which will be unnumbered for psychological health reasons):

• pistachio
• strawberry
• grapefruit
• coconut
• kiwi
• hazlenut
• caramel
• Malaga (rum and raisin)
• raspberry
• Macedonia (mixed fruit)
• banana
• fondante (dark chocolate)
• walnut

Three more posts on Italy to follow!

Our apologies, posts have been sparse but there has been lots happening!

• We’re going to Italy! This trip has been in the works for a while. We’ll be meeting up with the Devins clan near Panzano for a week of countryscapes of Chianti, sitting poolside, walks through olive groves and many bottles of wine. Probably a few scoops of gelato too. Probably more gelato than wine. The gathering is in celebration of Jeff’s 60th birthday, which he celebrated in April. To celebrate with his family, we’ll all be together in the countryside. After a week there, Josh and I are renting a car, driving down the West Coast of Italy with an overnight stay somewhere to end up in Rome. We’ll be there until June 10, which means Josh gets to celebrate his 30th birthday in Italia, with some gelato. He also gets to spend the last day of his 20’s at the Vatican. Lucky boy!
• Josh has been busy with work. Really busy with work. Like, staying up until 2 a.m. to hit deadlines busy with work. The insanity is over now and I now get to hang out with him sometimes. When we get back from Italy, Josh will be moving up in the world of Nokia Nerds to Software Architect.
• I have an internship! Ok, so I thought I would be over the “intern” stage in my career by now, but that’s part of moving to a new city: you start anew. Journalism isn’t always one of those careers you get on merits (see: Richard Quest). That’s what awards are for. So, I’ve got an internship here to get to know the Berlin journalism world, meet the people behind it and get to know how journalism works around these parts. You can read my work on The Local, Germany’s news in English. It’s a lot of translation, but some fun too.
• We had visitors! Lotte Bond was in Germany for a week for work, so we got to spend an afternoon walking around, having Kaffee und Kuchen, and doing what two girls do best together: shopping.
• Most recently, we had Mom/Vera and Dad/Jeff visiting us to Berlin. It was a first trip to Berlin for both and I think they really liked the city. We did all the touristy things, ate German food three of the four nights they were here, and saw a loto f sites. Hopefully, we can get a guest post from Mom/Vera, because I know that’s what the readers have been begging for.
• The weather has been beautiful so Josh and I have been doing lots of exploratory bike rides. Berlin in the summer has been exactly what we hopped for so far. It’s amazing. You really should come visit.

Ciao for now. We’re off to Italia.

To say Berlin is historic doesn’t quite fit. Berlin is shaped by its history. From a cosmopolitan city to a city divided by a scar of rubble to its reunited self: the evidence is everywhere. Germany has been praised for remembering its sordid past and opens its doors for visitors to be reminded of it in hopes that history does not repeat itself.

Living in Berlin today is living history. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but any given year is the anniversary of some great happening here. Last Tuesday, May 12, happened to be the 60th anniversary of the end of the Soviet blockade to East Berlin.

During the years of a divided Germany, Berlin wasn’t the border. West Berlin was an island of Western Germany surrounded by East Germany. To go from Cologne to West Berlin, one had to travel through East Germany and go through two border check points to get to West Berlin. The Soviets weren’t so fond of the island of Western influence right in the middle of its territory, and in an effort to gain control over it, on June 24, 2948, blocked rail and road access to Berlin. What followed was the Berlin airlift, in which 200,000 flights that provided 13,000 tons of food daily, for the next year over Tempelhof Airport.

Victory was declared May 12, 1949.

Fast forward 60 years: Tempelhof Airport has ceased operations October 30, 2008. Commercial traffic has been going through Berlin’s other airports, Tegel and Schönefeld. As a result Tempelhof is a giant lot right in the middle of the city and they’ve opened it up to the people once again, but as a way to remember the relief it provided more than 60 years ago.

It was a Tuesday, so I was alone but I hopped on my bike and pedalled the eight kilometres to the airport with camera in hand. It was mostly a lot of old people, veterans who told their stories and children who sang their songs. And I took a lot of pictures.

The water tower at the end of the airport. The whole tarmac was open for people to walk around on. On the left, you see the hangars for the U.S. Air Force.

Empty halls inside the airport. The spaces were mostly open that day but few people ventured through the old passageways that took you to your boarding gate not so long ago.

Crowds of people under and around the plane that stood on display for the day.

This little airplane got stuck at Tempelhof. The owners didn’t remove it before the closure, and now it’s permanently grounded at the airport. That sucks.
The inside was busy and full of people. Here, a former U.S. Air Force captain shared his experiences with the people in participating in the Berlin air lift, where a plane was landed at Tempelhof every 30 seconds with a delivery of supplies. You may also recognize this from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
The check-in counters made good seats.

As did the old luggage carousel. I loved that the signs that said “do not sit on the luggage carousel” were still on there. Also: I was really tempted to slide down where the luggage came up from, but I was worried I wouldn’t make it out.
Looking out onto the tarmac from the hangar. At one time, Tempelhof airport was the largest structure in the world.
Uhh.. I wonder what these guys do?

As always, you can click on the photos for a bigger version.