Birra Artigianale

People seldom visit Italy based on its reputation for world class beer. Wine perhaps, but not beer. In truth, however, Italy has a long history of beer brewing with mass market products such as Peroni and Moretti. Recently Italy has joined the world in a beer renaissance, following on the heels of the American microbrew revolution of the past two decades.

In the province of Lazio there are no fewer than 25 breweries. Most have opened since 2008 and there are three new ones in the first four months of 2013 alone! There are even three within a few miles of our house: Turan is 3 miles away in Bagnaia, Bai is 5 miles away in Southern Viterbo and Free Lions is 15 miles away in Tuscania. I like beer as much as the next person, so you can imagine my frustration when they announced that the Italian Beer Festival would be in Milan last February and inaccessible to me. And imagine my joy when they announced it would be coming to Rome for a 3 day run from 10-12 May! Thus, last Sunday found me boarding the train headed to beer heaven! The Italian Beer Festival was held at Atlantico, a short walk from the southern end of the Rome subway.

It featured no fewer than 22 microbreweries, but whose counting.

Admission was 8 euros and gettone (tokens) for tasting were one euro each. One gettoni got a 10cc taste while two gettone yielded 25cc. Given the number of options I settled on the small size and was happy that I did since most servers were overly generous and I was sipping half a beer at a time. I stopped by the booths for both Free Lions

and Turan and introduced myself in broken Italian. I have contact information for both and intend to hit them up with friends before we leave.

Turan debuted “Dry Hard”, a one-off batch made just for the festival. It wasn’t ready until Sunday, I was the second person at their booth and the first person outside of the brewers to give it a try – yummy! There were all styles of beer available as most birrificio had 4 or more on tap. Italians seem to gravitate toward doppia and tripels so there were many intense beers to sample. My standard operating procedure was to try something interesting, perhaps that wasn’t even available in a bottle or outside of the brewery and then to purchase something to bring home.

I am partial to dark beers, birra scura, so my haul includes mostly stouts with an occasional porter thrown in. I will be enjoying them for some time to come. As an added aside, I am part of a beer social network called Untappd. It was quite a thrill to add 4 new beers to their database including one from a brewery that they didn’t even have!

Santissimo Salvadore

Last Saturday, as we were preparing ourselves for an afternoon of adventure, the blowing of police whistles followed by a band heralded the beginning of yet another procession through Viterbo. Steve and I headed out the door and down to the Fontana Grande to view the procession of Santissimo Salvadore.

The procession was preceded by a tempo group; if I have one picture of them I have scores. If you have been following this blog you might even recognize the individuals if not the bright red and white costumes.

In addition to the typical church groups and town officials, this procession has many marchers in medieval costume.

Why all the fuss? In 1283 a farmer plowing his field uncovered a stone box containing a painted leather triptych which they carried to the Church of Maria Nuova in Viterbo. It is likely that the artwork was buried a few decades earlier when Frederick II threatened the city, but memory is short and people aren’t very bright so its discovery was a miracle. Legend has it that the oxen plowing the field knelt down and refused to go any further until the spot was dug up and the box discovered. In recognition of that a team of oxen is given the honor of hauling the triptych though the streets as part of the procession. Quite the sight. Don’t worry, the procession was trailed by a street cleaner!

The First Last

Our second and third wave of Spring visitors washed over us and has departed, ending that portion of our experience here as there are no more visitors planned. That is the first of what will be many lasts. Life has been rushing by so quickly that we have already had the last day of classes. All that remains is the mopping up before students leave late next week.

My brother, Nathan, stopped by at the tail end of a business trip to the UK. He flew over and spent the first part of his vacation week wandering Rome. It seemed like a good experience for him to be alone, but completely able to do what he wanted, walk wherever he wanted, eat whenever he felt like it and just enjoy being alive for a change. Two days after his arrival saw Amy’s best friend, Becky, arrive with her daughter in tow. Sarah hit it off with some of our students and spent a day in Rome with them while the rest of us took a trip through the countryside of northern Lazio and surroundings. We stopped for pictures at the belvedere in Montefiascone. Here are pictures of all of us with a hazy Lago di Bolsena in the background.

After that we continued on to Orvieto. Nate and Becky hit up the Duomo.

We had a great time seeing all of them, even though we were working and couldn’t spend as much time showing them around as we would have liked.

A week after their departure we hosted another of Amy’s best friends, Steve. We took him on what has become a fairly standard tour of our home region, complete with lunch at Civita di Bagnoreggio, a dip in the hot springs and dinner at Monastero. For his last day, we took the train into Rome.

While Amy and Steve wandered the city and saw the sites, I took in a local festival. More on that later.

For Mom

My mother and her husband were our first visitors after we moved here two years ago. They came over our first Christmas. While they were visiting we went down to the local Saturday market where my mother bought us a red cyclamen to make our apartment a little more festive. She commented on the same plant in a picture of our February snowstorm of that year when it was still in full bloom. After that the plant took a beating – several in fact. It didn’t get much care while we were gone for our long trip to Sicily and then several times over the summer when we took off for long periods of travel. We brought it with us to our new apartment as there were still some small signs of life. By this fall, it was pretty much a woody plug in the pot, but I put it out on a windowsill in our interior courtyard where I proceeded to forget about it until our round of recent guests arrived. They commented on the pretty flowers outside their window. It isn’t nearly the same plant as the greenhouse grown and forced one that my mother gave us. But, it is back, probably looking much more like it would in its natural setting. They do grow wild in this part of Italy. So, this picture is for you Mom.

Happy Mother's Day, a few weeks early!

Puntarelle

Several weeks ago when we returned from our Easter Break with nothing to eat in the house, Amy instructed me to go to the Fruit and Veg and buy “something green” in addition to the usual assortment of onions, peppers, etc. I complied, albeit reluctantly since green vegetables aren’t my favorite. I happened across something that looked interesting. It was sort of a cross between asparagus and fiddleheads. I didn’t recall having seen it before, so I got a “head” of it.

It turns out I had stumbled upon a Roman delicacy known as puntarelle or cicoria asparago. It is a late winter plant which isn’t widely available except in our region. It was everywhere I looked. I saw it at both supermarkets and both fruit stores that I went to. Then the next day it was gone, to return again next spring, perhaps only for a day. There are entire websites dedicated to preparing the dish. Amy took on the task of chopping all of the tender stalks into thin strips and soaking them in water to get out some of the bitterness. After that she topped it with a vinaigrette made with anchovy paste. It was certainly tasty, but not worth the hours of labor she put into it. I snapped a picture of the dish in progress, but not of the original head and, as indicated above, when I went back to try to do so it was all gone for the year.

The First Wave

When we first made plans to move to Italy, at the time only for a year, all of our friends, family, etc. were envious and wished they could be going as well. But, _____ (fill in an excuse) made it difficult if not impossible. Recognizing that we were going to miss people, we invited basically everybody we knew to come for a visit. A handful of relatives and others took us up on our offer, but we were basically alone for the majority of our time here.

Until now. Sensing our immanent departure back in November and December, people began contacting us and setting up visits. That culminates this month as we host 8 guests in 5 clumps across the space of four and a half weeks. The first wave consisted of Amy’s sister, Gretchen, and her partner who flew home today. They overlapped with Amy’s former co-worker, Julie, and her husband, Craig, who left yesterday. Both couples were very laid back and enjoyed just hanging out in Viterbo or borrowing the car for quick day trips without us. We did tour around a bit with them on a long weekend we had. I took all four to Civita di Bagnoreggio.

The place was packed on a Sunday morning and it was a good thing we made reservations to sit outside in the glorious weather at one of our favorite restaurants.

The second wave arrives beginning on Wednesday with my brother Nathan and then continues on Friday when Amy’s best friend Becky arrives with her daughter Sarah. More adventures to follow.

Castel del Monte: 19 March 2013

One of the interesting features of the common euro coinage is that, while all of the countries share coins with a common design on one side, they have chosen distinctly different designs for the other side. In the case of Italy, the three smallest denomination coins depict iconic buildings. The 5 cent coin depicts perhaps the most recognizable structure in all of Italy, if not the world. It is the Colosseum in Rome. As discussed in a prior post, the 2 cent coin depicts the spire atop the Mole in Turin. We visited there this fall on our school’s northern swing. People from other parts of the world might not know what it is, but it is easily recognized by any Italian. Finally, the 1 cent coin depicts the Castel del Monte. As an avid coin collector, it was then with great anticipation that I awaited our stop there near the end of our trip.

The building was constructed during the 1240’s under the orders of Frederick II. Frederick was quite the builder, completing dozens of castles across his empire. Due to his Germanic origins, they are referred to as the Schwabian Castles. Many were repurposed from other buildings, but some, like this one, were purpose built from the ground up. There is a great deal of speculation as to the purpose of the building. While it is referred to as a “castle”, it never had a moat and appears to have had few, if any, defensive features. It is equally unlikely that it was meant as a long term dwelling as it lacks the infrastructure necessary in such buildings. Some speculate that, due to its size, it was meant as a hunting lodge. Unless other sources are uncovered over time, the question will remain without a definitive answer.

What we do know is that it is a near perfect, regular octagon. The length of each side differs by no more than a few inches along any wall. At each vertex of the main octagon is a smaller octagonal tower.

The building was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of its aesthetic and cultural appeal. In the 18^th century the building fell into disrepair. Vandals stripped it of its marble facing and most of its ornaments. At one point herders sheltered there with their flocks. The building was purchased by the Italian state in 1876 and, after much debate, was restored to its current form beginning in 1928. The interior is devoid of decoration, making it relatively uninteresting, but there are remnants of fireplaces on the upper floors

and even a “bathroom” in one of the small towers.

Many people feel that the castle was the inspiration for a similar castle in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.