My latest favourite bar in Florence

Every time my wife and visit a new town In Italy, or a different neighbourhood in an Italian city, a simple pleasure is to sample new coffee bars. The subtle differences in details are fascinating such as what kinds of pannini are on display and whether the other customers are locals or tourists. If we’re in one location for a week or more, it’s even more fun to try to find a favourite bar among the many available. 

The hub of the bar is the “barista”. Sometimes there’s a two-person team with one taking orders for the barista and collecting cash. Other times the barista does everything. The bars with the best service seem to be staffed by the same one, two or three people all the time, indicating that they are owned and operated by an individual or a family. 

The cappuccino I didn't have to order

One of the satisfying things about finding a favourite bar is to walk in after maybe only a few visits and be greeted like a friend. This is an amazing talent for a barista because of the hundreds of customers they must see every day. It certainly makes us feel welcome and want to return. 

I was in Florence for a week of Italian language and art history at Scuola Toscana and the one-kilometre walk between my home-stay and the school presented me with a choice of about ten bars. I was torn between sampling them all and finding a favourite. Friday morning before class, I had a memorable experience at the Caffe Michaelangiolo just north of the Piazza Santa Croce. It was only my third visit and the barista was as busy as a one-armed juggler. I stood at the bar waiting for a chance to order when suddenly, he put my "usual" cappuccino in front of me. I said “per me”? He replied “Si, is it right”? I said “Si! Grazie. You’re amazing”. 

Barista at Caffè Michaelangiolo 

I continued to watch him perform like a one-man-orchestra, zooming around filling orders and cleaning tables during a brief lull. I’m glad I got a photo of my new favourite barista!

Old Roads in Chianti

Etruscan, Roman, or just very old?

Everyone knows what happens to a dirt road or trail when it rains. If it's on level ground it will become a mud hole and if it's on a slope the surface will wash away. That's why good roads have a hard surface. Before asphalt and concrete, good roads were built with brick or natural stone. Roads made with the right kind of rock are bumpy but extremely durable.

Narrow roads made with hand-laid stone are very good walking trails.

In order to minimize the bumpiness, the only way to make a road like this is to place every stone by hand, like a stone wall. Italians are still quite good with stone as is obvious to anyone who has been here.

Greve in Chianti, Etruscan and Roman
by Carlo Baldini

My wife and I have seen several "roads" like the one above in the Italian countryside. The ones that look well-made and possibly ancient aren't even as wide as a full-sized vehicle. We wondered how old they might be so I inquired while I was in the town of Greve in Chianti doing research for a guidebook. At the Greve library I found a book about the archaeology of the Greve area by Carlo Baldini, a local historian. It shows that there are many remnants of stone roads of Roman and pre-Roman (Etruscan) age in the hills around Greve. The short section of stone road in the photo above is a few kilometres from Greve but I didn't find any reference to it. 

I also asked a man at the Greve tourist information office about Roman roads in the area and he said there are many. He said "follow me" and took me a few doors away to a wine bar on the main piazza. He said the floor of this "enoteca" is the remains of a Roman road!

Imagine how much wine has travelled over these stones

Writing a guidebook - a typical day

How does one write a guidebook?

OK, I haven't actually written a guidebook yet but I can describe what it's like to do the background work. In order to write a guide to walking in Tuscany, one should first collect a lot of information about that subject, a task that I approached with great enthusiasm! Most of the writing will come later but I'm now quite familiar with what a typical day of information gathering looks like. I'll call it "field work".


Breakfast

I stayed in an AirB&B apartment which was much cheaper than a hotel and had a lot more space, a private entrance, a kitchen, and a deck. It was important for me to be able to cook because not only was it economical, it was a lot faster and allowed me to get more work done. Fortunately, I enjoy grocery shopping and cooking.

November 3rd started as usual with coffee made in this little gem of a mocha machine.

Morning friend

One of my favourite breakfasts in Italy is gorgonzola cheese and jam on toasted whole grain bread. Hearty bread is uncommon in the Italian diet but supermarkets have have this excellent 100 percent whole grain bread from Germany.  

The weekly market

November 3rd was a Saturday, so I couldn't miss the fresh vendors in the main square only 5 minutes away from my apartment. Greve has a history of settlement going back to pre-Roman times (Etruscan) and their outdoor market is over 1000 years old. I bought a couple porcini mushrooms, some more gorgonzola cheese and a few slices of "porchetta" off the whole roasted pig. These three premium items are not very expensive considering their quality and are better than anything comparable at home. I got a photo of the nice man who sold me the gorgonzola and porchetta.

A free taste of porchetta before buying

Plan, pack, and go

I made a sort of sandwich using leftover focaccia and sausage. My plan was to take a bus north and walk back to Greve on country roads and trails. Unfortunately, the bus that was supposed to come according to the schedule posted at the bus stop didn't show up. Part of writing this guidebook is giving advice on how to get around so I need to solve this bus puzzle. I thought the posted schedule was the most reliable but maybe the schedule had been changed at the beginning of November and the ones posted at bus stops weren't updated yet.

Focaccia with onions ("focaccia alle cipolle), sausage, and mustard

Make plan "B"

On Saturday afternoon, I found a route that didn't require a bus trip and found the route shown below. It's pieced together from a variety of segments ranging from drivable roads to trails that are impassible to vehicles. The countryside has a lot of old tracks that are great for walking but not well-travelled or even shown on maps so a lot of my route-finding is by trial-and-error among many possibilities. This route worked out well for a plan B and I documented it with a GPS track and many photos. 

An 8.5 km loop walk from Greve in Chianti

Why it's not a holiday

A day of guidebook field work might look like a holiday but I'm more organized and persistent. It's not enough to simply find a route and go for a walk. For a suggested walk, I want to find a logical route and record any challenges so that I can suggest the route to readers with helpful instructions. The countryside I'm exploring is a maze of old roads, foot trails, and paths through vineyards and olive groves. Sometimes there are dead ends at locked gates or fences and I have to backtrack to find an appropriate route. I will have walked most of my suggested routes two or three times - often in both directions.

View of Montefioralle from my lunch stop. Olives in the foreground and highest point in Chianti in the distance. 

Dirt track on edge of vineyard, vague path by house, quiet country road

A coincidence of rainbows

Last week I went on this walk in the Chianti hills.

Blue line, a 15 km loop from Greve including Verrazzano

After several hours, I stopped at the Castello di Verrazzano, a winery with a bar and restaurant, to see if I could get a coffee. A server in the restaurant made me one but wouldn't accept payment, perhaps because I looked like I really needed it. I got some of my photo postcards out of my pack and gave her a few. One was this one below, about which I could say "Questa è la mia città (This is my city). "Oh", she said, "un arcobaleno", which is how I learned the Italian word for rainbow.

A rainbow over Williams Lake

Servers at the Verrazzano restaurant bar

I enjoyed my coffee, said "arrivederci" and continued my walk, umbrella in one hand and camera in the other. Seven minutes after taking that photo of the servers, I got the photo below from the terraced hillside of the Verrazzano estate. A coincidence of rainbows thanks to friendly strangers and serendipity!

Un arcobaleno over the Chianti hills

Greve in Chianti

This town used to be simply "Greve"

So why is it now officially called "Greve in Chianti"? It has to do with history and the business of naming wine. It turns out that Chianti is not simply a geographic area.  Historically, the name applied only to a few municipalities that were part of the ancient "Florentine Military League of Chianti". More recently, wine regulations were changed so that Greve and other municipalities  officially were included into Chianti which meant that they can produce "Chianti Classico" wine and use the black rooster symbol. Greve was officially renamed "Greve in Chianti" in 1972 after the change in wine regulations. They're very serious about their history and their wine here but people aren't fussy about the name. It's commonly referred to as "Greve".  

The "gallo nero" or black rooster is a popular emblem all over Chianti

I'm glad my home town isn't called "Williams Lake in the Cariboo". 


I'm writing a guidebook

When my wife and I first came to the hills of Chianti, we came with a guidebook that sounded perfect for us - "Walking and Eating in Tuscany and Umbria". We had some problems with it though so I developed a system for finding walking routes on my own (described in a previous blogpost https://iberianpixels.blogspot.com/2015/11/our-customized-walks-in-tuscany.html). On our third walking holiday to this beautiful town, I half-jokingly said to her "I should come back here and write a guidebook". Six months later, here I am! This will be the guidebook that I wish I could have bought more than a decade ago when we first came here. 

The walks we go on aren't particularly special - country roads, trails in the woods, lovely views. It's not wild country but rather a diverse cultivated landscape that's been inhabited and used in the same ways for thousands of years. In a couple of hours we can walk by vineyards, olive groves, wineries, managed forests, and vegetable gardens, sometimes on the same roads that were in use before the Roman Empire. The feelings of history and human geography are strong but what's most special about walking in this countryside is simply that we're in Tuscany before, during and after each walk. There's nothing like stimulating our appetites when we're in a place with such good food! 

Working up an appetite near Greve

Saturday market in Greve

On walking days, we eat anything we want!