Isola di Procida, Napoli: 15-17 October 2019

Wes and Marlow
Isola di Procida, Napoli, Italia
15-17 October 2019

We are twenty days into this voyage. I say voyage rather than “vacation” because we have become quite good at immersing ourselves in our varying locales. In Italy, we have become able to express ourselves in the local language. We have had meaningful late night conversations with locals, without a word of english. We value the “old world”. After all, our American culture grew from the seeds of old world culture.

Today, we are in Isola di Procida, a small island (1.6 square miles), 14 miles beyond the bay of Naples. Of the many places we have been, Procida ranks high. Last night we had eight o’clock dinner at the waterfront. Da Maria alla Corricella quickly became a favorite ristorante. But, before walking from the hotel, down the hill, 150 stairs to Da Maria we went to our hotel’s garden for an aperitivo. The evening lights made the water shine. The boats moved gently. The dwellings climbing the steep cliffs were yellow and red and blue and green, but faded by the sun. In the garden we met a man and woman from Berlin. The man asked if I had earlier been playing Bach. In our room I been, but so softly so no one could be bothered. But he heard it. It pleased him.  In the garden I happened to have my viola with me. I offered to play a few minutes for him. He was interested, so I did. The garden had a few lights, but it was mostly dark.  The air was moist, the viola damp. Our sparkling wine was poured. I sipped then began to play. Softly at first. Then louder. After the first piece, I sensed more was appropriate so I played more; and drank more prosecco. Mr. Berlin was smartly dressed with pointy shoes and a neck scarf; a generically international artsy style. He knew music peripherally. Then we heard the eight o’clock church bells. We were late for dinner. I told him I would play more down the hill at Maria’s.

Fifteen minutes later we arrived at dinner. Da Maria’s is nestled into a courtyard rectangle between three buildings at the edge of the water. Long ago (or maybe still) the boats would be pulled onto the dry land where the ristorante sits. Her place steadily descends right into the water. We got used to our wine glasses at a tilt and things rolling off the slanted table. Two nights earlier while walking that spot we saw a man. Smallish, compact, barrel-chested with a smooth worn wooden crutch under one arm. Somehow, I am not certain how, we became acquainted. Maria was his cousin. He (Francesco) and Maria were native to Procida. He was kind to us. He spoke slowly and clearly and with patience. Whether it was intended or not he was a perfect conversation companion. That first night we made a date to see him again two days later at Maria’s. He implied he would have something special for us to eat.

So there we were. Two days later. There were a few people in Maria’s tiny piazza. Not too many because the busy season has wound down. Wes and I said quick hellos. I right away opened the viola case and began to play. It was a natural theater for optimal sound. I faced the boats. The listeners faced the surrounding buildings behind me. The light was warm and amber. Passers by stopped to listen. Upstairs neighbors leaned out windows. Maria, the chef, came out from the kitchen. It might have been the most comfortable I have ever felt playing. The listeners were kind and generous. It seemed meaningful to them. A platter arrived to the table. Of course I stopped and sat.

On the platter were the special things promised by Francesco. Tiny sea creatures as sweet as could be. Calamari (squid) fully grown and the size of our pinky finger. Tiny crustaceans (canocchie) with two black spots. The spots look like cartoon eyes, but they are just spots. The taste was clean and sweet. Everything was caught a few hours earlier. We cleaned the plates with bread; here that is called “making the little shoe,” (fare la scarpetta.)

When the plate was clean I took up the viola again and played more. I hoped I was not overstaying my welcome, but they seemed happy and I was, too. In tiny Procida life is simple. You do not go to the movies. Locals do not go to the restaurant; not when the locals are fabulous cooks. We were making our own entertainment: food, wine, music, conversation, friendship.

This morning, our last in Procida, we woke early, just before daylight. I was glad to watch our tiny harbor slowly illuminate.

The day we arrived it was to the busy side of the island where the ferries arrive. We had earlier had a challenging taxi experience leaving Naples. Interesting enough to make want walk next time. So I was more interested in walking to the Procida inn. It seemed easy enough. About a half a mile. But it was to the summit of the island. The pavement was black lava slabs lain diagonally. Rolling luggage must roll slowly. But we made it.

The building seemed to have been a former three story residence divided into individual rooms. Each room has a terrace. The view down is steeply vertical to the water of the quaint bay. The bay is a former volcanic crater. The beaches have black sand. The vertical cliffs are filled with dwellings stacked about seven high from the dock. It is plain to see how menacing earthquakes are here. The residences are entirely interconnected on these slopes.

We have visited Sorrento, Amalfi, Bellaggio, Portofino, Taormina; exquisitely sited places, overrun with tourists, glitz and souvenirs.  Procida strikes us as an equally alluring destination, perhaps like other popular Italian villages were before they were “discovered.”

So on that first night when we slowly rolled bags up the hill to the splendid vista, we wandered the waterfront on our quiet side of the island. We had dinner at Da Maria alla Corricella. I recognize that what to me seems like random wonderful discovery is actually the splendid thorough work of Wes. It has been arranged like a outstanding feast. Each course leads perfectly to the next. Many things have been considered. The lodgings are optimal for comfort and vistas.

Our first Da Maria meal unfolded at sundown. We sat at 7:53 at our slanty table. We began with a platter of seafood appetizers (antipasti):

Da Maria appetizer plate.  WOW.

fresh anchovy meatballs, tuna (fresh caught small tuna) bruschetta, marinated baby octopus in radicchhio leaves, tomato bruschetta, fresh and sweet anchovies lightly dressed. The table clothes are printed with vivid enhanced color photos of the cluster of buildings behind us. Maria’s daughter is a photographer and features her work on the fashion runways of Milan. We made our first contact with Francesco. He told us he was 78 years old. He showed us videos on his large Samsung phone of Maria featured in television shows of celebrity chefs.  Maria is also an expert fish catcher. Her boat sits in the water, feet from her dinner tables. Maria and Francesco are cousins. Their mothers were sisters. Maria’s young granddaughter comes over talking to her pet parrot, her best friend, on her shoulder. American jazz plays softly: Sarah Vaughn, then Dinah Washington, (What a difference a day makes; Cry me a river; Is you is or is you ain’t my baby.) The lamps cast a golden glow ... Fishing boats are feet away reflections in the still water ... The ristorante patio descends to the water ... The antipasti are wildly good ... It is difficult to choose a favorite: the tuna on toast, the stuffed squid, the chopped octopus in radicchio leaf? ... The pastas have arrived ... One is a local noodle, scialletelli, with shellfish, but the sauce is garlic, olive oil and pureed chickpeas .... Another is spaghetti with seppia ..... Seppia is squid-like and calamari-like .... It has black ink ... It always presents as a plate of blackness ... That does not bother our blind friends ... Especially when your palate is so happy ... Tonight, all is right with the world.

With Francesco at Da Maria alla Corricella.

Wes and Marlow
Isola di Procida, Napoli, Italia
15 October 2019

Francesco's Crudo plate.

Down to the restaurant at Chiara Beach where
we swam before lunch.
Vesuvius in the distance.

Menaggio, Lago di Como: 25 Sept to 2 October 2019

Wes and Marlow
Menaggio, Lago di Como, Italia
25 September to 2 October, 2019

I read this week Qantas Airlines will make a twenty hour non-stop flight. A commercial non-stop of that length has never been made. The jet will have a few dozen passengers. There will be various research specialists on board to study how the flight crew, pilots and passengers respond to the twenty hour experience.

Our flight from Los Angeles to Milan was eleven hours. That was plenty long. We had good seats. We wore pajamas. We had amusements and blankets. Still, it was plenty long.

From the airport, we rode a train to the small city of Como. Como is probably an interesting destination of it’s own. Several famous standard repertoire operas were conducted, by their composers, there. But mostly, Como is a point of departure for visitors to Menaggio, Varenna and Bellaggio, the three famous villages at the center of three-pronged Lago di Como.

We were a bit sleepy looking as we sat for a snack in Como waiting for our boat to Menaggio. The ride was 45 minutes. On the way we passed fairy tale villas on points of land which jut into the lake. The moment we arrived in Menaggio we were energized. It is a great feeling to return to a place you loved and find you love it even more. This is our third visit to Lago di Como and we are as enthralled as ever.

Menaggio Waterfront

It was a perfect day. Blue sky. Puffy white clouds. 75 degrees. Our apartment on the top floor (the third) of a medieval era building had a small round Juliet balcony overlooking the piazza; perfect for serenading the people below with viola melodies or an impromptu opera aria.

Menaggio Apartment View

The main piazza in Menaggio is a triangle. The long side of the triangle is Lake Como. Directly across the water are Varenna in one direction and Bellaggio in another. In this area we expect to spend time on the water. The villages are connected by daily ferry service. The ferries are little boats though some carry a half-dozen motor vehicles. Beyond the ferries you can rent a motorboat by the hour. Years ago we did that. It was indescribable. This time we did it again.

We revisited the same boat vendor. I showed him a photo I made of him seven years ago when he was a teenager. He laughed, “that was a dozen kilos ago,” he said. He walked us down the dock. In the water we saw hefty three pound fish, lunch, swimming in groups. (Lavarello they are called. A simple white fish. They are grilled and served with chopped almonds or butter and sage.) At the end of the dock was our boat. Our clerk gave Wes a quick tutorial (most of which he remembered from seven years earlier) and off we went.

There are three directions you can go from Menaggio. (Perhaps I am repeating myself: Lake Como is composed of three finger lakes which meet in the center where the three villages I mentioned sit on opposing shores.) We headed north toward the Valtellina region. It was forty minutes at moderate speed to the end of the lake. We could have parked the boat to go ashore anywhere, but did not. The scenery is calming. The mountains rise from the lake. Eventually they become the Alps. The villages each have a castle, scenic villa (by scenic, I mean, we see them and feel “wow!!”) , churches, bell towers, ancient monasteries, etc.

The Valtellina region figured largely in our Menaggio eating. Aside from eating and being on the water and admiring scenery there is little else to do. It is a place to leave behind the concerns of the city, to decompress. Aside from the historic presence here of ancient Roman philosophers, composers and writers a landmark event was that here Benito Mussolini was brought to justice. He took refuge while on the run. Then was rounded up unrecognized in a group arrest. Once recognized he and his lady-friend were stood against a wall and shot. Justice was served. Then the public in Milan had their way with his corpse which hung in the public Piazalle Loreto. It is a dark tale, but because we like justice it is a happy ending.

There were several outstanding meals in Menaggio. Ristorante Il Vapore sits on a piazza adjacent to ours. It is the ground floor of a small inn, run by the mamma and her son. The fish from Lake Como is simple: grilled and lightly dressed. They prepare the classic Valtellina pasta, pizzoccheri (pronounced pete-SAW-ked-dee). Pizzoccheri is made with buckwheat flour, oil, water and potato; more or less. It is served like a casserole baked with potato cubes, chopped cabbage, butter and Valtellina’s casera cheese. It is hearty, filling comfort food, good for a cold winter. Our appetizer was a plate of Lake Como fish (a trout type and a salmon colored fish) pulled into flakes and lightly dressed with olive oil and lemon juice. I complimented the owner. She waved off my comments and said, “no, we serve only simple food.”

Another meal at Trattoria La Vecchia Magnolia similarly was “simple food”.  Here they make Sciatt della Valtellina: an unusual fried ball, like a falafel ball, but made from buckwheat flour, casera cheese and beer.

We ate again after seven years at Pizza Lugano. The pizza maker (pizzaiolo, probounced Peets-eye-oh-lo) worked near our table on a porcini mushroom pizza. We ordered carrot salad and tomato salad. The carrots arrived shredded in a bowl and the tomatoes sliced in another bowl ready for us to dress with the olive oil and vinegar on the table.

We had several meals at a restaurant a ferry ride away. In miles it was nearby. But the ferry, as a bus does, made several stops crisscrossing the lake. We arrived after one hour. The boat was our favorite, The Milano. Over one-hundred years old with a cute single smokestack, it is the first boat we rode on Lake Como seven years ago. Trattoria Santo Stefano, already one of our favorites, won us over all over again. Everything was remarkably tasty. I asked if nonna (grandmother) was in the kitchen. No. The chef looked like a skinny teenager and was from Sicily. We ate carpaccio di ricciola fresca (amberjack) marinata agli agrumi di Sicilia and zenzero (Sicilian citrus and ginger.)  Caponata siciliana: delicate tender pink cubes of eggplant marinated in citrus and mild vinegar and oil and tomato with capers. Spaghetti al pesto Trapanese: Trapanese pesto uses almonds in place of pine nuts. Finally, Mixta Griglia, which as it sounds is mixed grill, an assortment of grilled objects (seafood) from the lake.

On Sunday there was an exciting airshow. Ten jets flew in precise formations. Like a school of fish they turned this way and that always in perfect alignment. Now and then one peeled off from the group, flew straight up, did a fake stall, then made a spiraling nose dive straight toward the water. At the end the emitted, out their jets’ rear ends the colors of the Italian flag which made the crowd squeal. 

One morning in Menaggio, I wrote this .... As I stand with my back to the water on this small piazza at the shore of Lago di Como the sun shines on my balding head and after a perfect brioche con marmellata, all is well. The piazza is picture perfect. The surrounding buildings, each three stories, are in excellent state of repair. Their colors are varying shades of salmon, cantaloupe, mocha and sunshine. Wrought iron balconies enable one to step out for air, for the vista or to say hello to your friends and neighbors on the street. The 10:30 AM sunlight on the lake is brilliant glittering gold.

Wes and Marlow
Menaggio, Lago di Como, Italia
25 September to 2 October, 2019

Peru, Part Two: 4 May 2018

We enjoyed our stay in tiny Ollantaytambo. Once, long ago, Ollantaytambo was probably a sweet village. Though the Spanish clobbered it in the 1500’s, it remained more Inca than Spanish. The layout of the town, it’s stone roads and paths are all Incan. Today, as a point of departure for Machu Picchu, it’s tiny stone streets are jammed with a steady stream of cars and busses. They enter through one end, make a loop through town, and arrive at the train station. Our inn, the El Albergue, as I mentioned, was ten feet from the train station tracks. On the tracks, the air stifled with diesel exhaust. Remarkably, the inn was an oasis with almost zero evidence of train noise or smell. Inside, we stepped out from our rooms into an over-planted garden of fragrant flowers and shrubs. If we heard anything, it came from the dining room where a harpist played. I was seduced by his melody. It seemed he played only one song, but in so many different ways that it seemed ever different.   Later, I learned it was a huayno, which is an ancient Incan dance form. A huayno intends to express human emotion. It is celebrates triumphs and joy. And it expresses profound sadness. I read about the huayno, but without having read a thing that is how it made me feel. Our harpist moved gracefully. When he stood his motions were gracefully, as they would be underwater. When he played his closed eyes were raised upward. He never looked at his strings. His touch was gentle. His voice was, too. It was the last thing we heard in Ollantaytambo.

Then we boarded the train to move onward to Machu Picchu. Our train followed the Urubamba River. At times, it seemed a placid river. Then huge boulders appeared and the water was a powerful eroding force. The train cars were the panoramic type with windows that curve up and over the roof. The terrain transformed from dry to tropical. As it did, the trees began to show signs of wild orchids. Eventually, the trees were dense with orchids whose spores landed on the branches and made a home. The area was home to many animals. We did not see them in the wild, but they would have been pumas, condors, and snakes. After two hours, we arrived into Aguas Calientes. It was my impression it is built on the confluence of powerful rivers. Once, it must have been a village in it’s own right. Now, since about 1920, it is entirely a transit point. We disembarked the train and boarded a Mercedes Benz 30-seat passenger bus.

In the early 1900’s, an expedition from Yale University and National Geographic, lead by Hiram Bingham, arrived at Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was never really lost, so it did not need discovering. It was a specific residential compound built for a king and the intellectuals. It began far down at the river with terraces. The stone work of the terraces is extremely precise. The terraces climb the mountain like stairs for giants. At the top they spread into stone apartments with pitched-roofs of reeds. The apartments are mostly inter-connected and form something akin to an ascending hill-top condominium project. And overlooking the dwellings are two peaks, ??? Picchu and ??? Picchu. The area is one where everywhere your eyes falls are hundreds of peaks. But these two rise from the stone apartments and overlook them. Atop the two peaks are more terraces.

The Machu Picchu compound was built over one hundred years. It was then occupied for less than one hundred years, concluding around 1540. From then until Hiram Bingham’s arrival it became a squatter’s paradise. The squatters, though, did not maintain it well. The local guides credit Hiram Bingham with the preservation of Machu Picchu. Bingham made many photographs. They show the site was fairly well intact. Now, UNESCO is involved. Preservation, conservation, improvements and site management are dictated by their rules.

Throughout the Andes, everywhere you look there are terraces on the mountains. They are remarkable for the precision of the stone work. It turns out, what lays behind the facade of the stonework is wildly sophisticated. To begin building a terrace, push back the earth, build your stone wall, then push the dirt back up to the wall. You could simply pile stones, squirt mortar in the spaces and hope for the best. The Incas ground the intersecting stones so the sides which would touch were perfectly smooth and flush. To make them more secure they interlocked the stones by carving them into mortise and tenon formations. That element is not at all visible to us. When it came time to push the earth back up to the new wall, the new fill was put in in layers. From the bottom up, it was big stones, gravel, sand then rich black earth with grass and crops on top. The rich black earth was imported from the Amazon jungle. Barefoot Incan runners carried it in in sacks on their backs. The sophisticated, labor intensive, brilliantly designed end result looks to our eyes like “a nice terrace”.

We stayed overnight at the Machu Picchu site. There is one hotel, only one. It is the Belmond Sanctuary Lodge. It is outstanding. Outside it’s main doors the Mercedes Benz 30-seat busses arrive continuously. The make the thirty minute drive, from Aguas Calientes, up the narrow zig-zag road. The bus is not the only way to arrive in Machu Picchu. Some people walk for four-days on a narrow stony trail to arrive. Some carry their possessions in a back pack. Others hire Incans to carry their heavy load. We huff and puff. The Incans glide like floating on air while carrying someone’s deckchair, air mattress, Evian and Pelligrino water and Egyptian cotton towel. It felt very “elite” to not hike in and to stay on-site in luxury, but I was never, since childhood, a trekker. As a little boy, everyone walked faster than I. I always stopped to look at a flower, an interesting group of clouds, or to close my eyes and listen to the wind. Also I was unsure footed. I was the kid who would fall up the stairs. Elite suits me fine.

From our room, we walked almost directly into the park. Everything is uphill, but after only a few dozen stairs, you can be at a magnificent vista point where if that is all you were to see you would feel you had seen the enduring magnificence which humans are capable of.

Machu Picchu and Lima: 7 May 2018

Machu Picchu was magnificent. It is, somewhat, the tip of an iceberg of magnificence in the Andes. Machu Picchu sits in a valley, a very long valley. The main river snaking and rushing through the valley is the Urubamba River. There is a museum in Lima, the Larco — one of the world’s great museums — which has a room of, what they call, “erotic” pottery. Each of our guides, on each of the ruins we visited, spoke of the Inca’s belief in the forces of nature. They honor the sky, the earth, and what is underground. Those are represented by birds (sky), felines (earth), and snakes (underground). 

They dwell on dualities. Male and female. Light and dark; the sun, the moon. Hot and cold. Weak and strong. And fertility is ever present. Fluids. Water for the animals. Water to bring forth life from the earth. Also the fluid, the egg and the coupling which lead to childbirth. In that sense, the pottery is erotic. I have never seen a clay pot moulded into a vivid sculpture depicting child birth until the Larco Museum. The clay rises up from the vessel in the shape of a woman on her back with her legs spread. Someone embraces her from behind to support her back. In front, someone helps guide the child out of the birth canal. That is in the specifically erotic section. In the general area, are hundreds of other depictions of people and animals and events. The museum left us speechless. The aesthetics of the ancient people of Peru were a combination of profound subject matter executed with unsurpassed technical skills.

But back to the Urubamba River. The ancients felt the water of the river and it’s ability to conceive and sustain life was sacred, hence the river was sacred, hence the valley, too. That is why it is called the Sacred Valley. Over the course of dozens of miles along the valley there are those stone terraces climbing up the mountains. Some are more significant. Those are the ones we visited. Saksayhuaman. Tipon. Ollantaytambo. Moray. Each one could be described in radiant words. They are like the pottery, profound, skilled and together inspire, in me, great respect for the humans who desired and created perfection. 

From Machu Picchu, from the outstanding Belmond Sanctuary Lodge, we rode the Merccedes Benz bus back down the narrow zig zag lane to the train. We road the train parallel to the Urubamba River. Past the trees full of wild orchids and back to the arid Ollantaytambo train station where we had left our suitcases at the El Albergue Inn. Where the blind harpist played his huayno music. A car and driver awaited us. We drove to the village of Urubamba. The Tambo del Inka Resort was an excellent destination. Behind tall walls and gates, it has monumental scale indoor public spaces. It also has display cases with more of the fine 2,000 year old pottery. Our room opened onto a lawn edged with giant eucalyptus trees. The eucalyptus was on the bank of the Urubamba River. Our room was a gem. The walls were covered with beautiful amber fabric printed with an ancient symbol. All other surfaces were beautiful woods. During the day we walked across the street to the local food market. Held in a cavernous space, if you squinted and looked from the balcony it was like opening a treasure chest. The carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, etc. shined like glittering gems. And the people, particularly the ones in traditional Andean clothes, were as colorful. It was beautiful. I took photographs. With stealth, I held my cell phone camera at my navel. I hoped I was capturing images. I was lucky and got a few. The local faces are beautifully weathered; full of character.

After Urubamba, another car, another driver, took us to ruins en route to our next destination. One of the ruins, Pisac, again atop a hill, looked across a narrow valley to a mountain face poked with dozens of holes. The holes had been sealed grave sites. Buried with dead were gold and sacred objects. The Spanish conquerors, when they realized there were sealed tombs, went about unsealing and grave robbing. It is not a black and white situation, the Spanish and their conquering. But they were so heavy handed. They had zero curiosity about the people they had come to dominate. They required each Incan to be baptised catholic, to give up speaking Quechua, to take a Spanish name. The Spanish dismantled much of the Incan architecture and planted Spanish colonial buildings atop the old foundations. They were alphas. Clobber. Dominate. Subjugate. Look what it got them. Three hundred years later, they lost all of south America, Latin America and all of the western United States. The Incan Empire existed for about four hundred years. They did not, poof, come out of nowhere. They evolved from many earlier Peruvian cultures, three thousand years worth. When they went about taking over villages and other societies, their method of conquering was to use persuasion. To offer improvements and respect to those they conquered. That did not necessarily make their empire last longer than the Spanish empire, but it was a kinder more human existence. All the artifacts — whether ruins of five hundred years old, or pottery of two thousand years of age — speak through the centuries with profound radiance.

From Pisac we visited Tipon. The ruins of Tipon are mainly about it’s system of irrigation canals. Though that term makes them sound as attractive as a sprinkler system, they are quite beautiful. Channels were cut into the earth. The channels were clad with stones, mostly flat, but with some protrusions to create an attractive burbling sound. They channels at times go underground then reappear in time to flow down to a lower terrace like a small waterfall. As with all the other ruins, the surrounding vistas are breathtaking. (Too many superlatives, but all warranted).

From Tipon, Wes directed us to a Hacienda (it’s name escapes me at this moment), a Spanish ranch. It used to be one thousand acres until fifty years ago. Then, there was a coup or junta, some military related change of power. They enacted what are referred to as “agrarian reforms”. I have not read up on them. Their effect was to reduce the Hacienda’s acreage from large to small. I do not know much more than that. What remains, the one hundred acres, is idyllic. Spanish style buildings.  A green lawn with an arbor and morning glories climbing up it’s tall posts.  One small building made me remember my mother’s description of a childhood house in Taos, New Mexico. The Hacienda owner took us into a small two room structure. Inside, the floors were smoothed adobe. The walls were stones smoothed over with adobe. In a corner, in an adobe fireplace, more cooking fire than fireplace, there was a fragrant log burning. It lit the room with a warm glow. From under the wall’s adobe benches, dozens of guinea pigs peeked out. One of them must have given the “all clear” signal, because they suddenly all came out at once. Our host tossed a pile of fresh green alfalfa toward them. They made the cutest squeal. It sounded like they were saying, “cuy cuy” (coo- eee coo-eee). And in Quechua, that is what they are called, cuy. They are adorable, but as much as they are adored, they are raised for eating. We did not eat cuy. But we did eat fresh mountain trout for lunch under the morning glory arbor. To the side of the green lawn was a large rectangular patch of bright white corn laid to dry in the sun. Once dry, the kernels will be taken from the cob, sent to Lima and finally to Trader Joe’s to be sold as Inka Corn. I remember that snack in the 1960’s as “Corn Nuts”. This Hacienda supplied the corn for both products. They have a somewhat lucky situation. That variety of corn grows only in the Sacred Valley. Other places around the world have tried without success to grow it. The Hacienda has been family owned for many generations. 

Eventually, we arrived into Cusco, the main city of the Andes. The population is about five hundred thousand. The terrain is hilly. The altitude is some ten thousand feet. Cusco was once the capital of the Incan empire. The four quadrants of the empire met — like our four corners spot where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, etc. meet — in Cusco. The Spanish dismantled the buildings. They left only the foundations and maybe walls of eight or so feet high. Earlier, I described walls of that sort. Precision cut. Mortise and tenoned in their unseen joint areas. Also they are angled ever so slightly inward for structural stability. Not so much that it is pyramidal, you hardly perceive it. As you wander the city, you are walking along side the Incan walls. You can tell because there is no space between the stones. You cannot fit a credit card nor a piece of paper between the stones. I do not know if the sidewalks and streets are also Incan. The sidewalks, all narrow, are stone; slippery when wet. The streets are, as in Rome, black rectangular cobble stone.

Cusco is a hive. It is abuzz with locals and tourists and women in traditional Incan costume either carrying a month old live alpaca or leading an adolescent alpaca on a leash. The alpaca may be as adorable as the cutest puppy or kitten. They, at least the ones on the streets, are docile with large eyes and fluttering eyelashes. We had a brief opportunity to see other local animals in a rescue zoo. I thought I saw large stones; they were ancient tortoises. There were the shaggiest llamas and alpacas. Wes petted one’s wooly neck. Clouds of dust puffed out in the sun. In a large glassed in area were two tapirs. In appearance it is a cross between a weasel and a raccoon. It is an infamous animal. You may have read of the most expensive coffee in the world. Hundreds of dollars per pound. What makes it so special?  (Really, it is special. Maybe not in a good way.) The tapir is fed the coffee beans. The tapir does not digest the beans. They pass through it’s digestive tract entirely intact. When they do, someone cleans the tapir poo off them. From there, they make their way to the coffee cups of the rich and famous. No, we did not sip a cup. We saw an adorable toucan with a chipped beak. Really, it was adorable. We passed by the puma cage. There were four sleek, lean, muscular, impatiently pacing pumas. They look powerful and lethal. Finally we entered a warehouse large cage. Inside, were the unprettiest birds, the condors. They are unimaginably large. They were made to fly for us from the far end of their cage to where we sat. It was an impressive whoosh when they flew a few feet over our heads. I did not know whether I was in danger in their cage. Probably not, as long as I was alive. They are scavengers of dead animals. Another day, we happened upon the condors opposite, a lovely small bird whose color seemed derived from powdered aquamarines.

From Cusco, we made an excursion to several tiny villages to see catholic churches. One of them is referred to as the “Sistine Chapel of South America”. It was a style similar to many old Spanish adobe churches in New Mexico. Not at all European. Beautiful folk art painted walls. One was sweet and scary and funny (ha ha) all at once. It depicted judgement day. One side was heaven. One side was hell. It was different from all the Incan art we had seen. It was melodrama. It was meant to induce fear. The Incan art seemed meant to induce inspiration.

I had been a bit luke warm about visiting Peru. Wes, as always, knows better in these and in all matters. He aced his research. The places he chose to visit, the sequence of events, the modes of travel, the accommodations. He is a virtuoso. It unfolded effortlessly and with inevitability. I only give myself credit for having a good amount of curiousity. I am probably a handful at times, but look at all the impressions Peru made on me. Los Angeles is coming in to view. We have so much to dream about tonight.

Peru: 29 April 2018

We are five days into our Peru trip. We arrived into Lima on Monday in the late afternoon. It was still daylight for our drive to the Hotel Antigua Miraflores, which happens to be in the neighborhood called Miraflores. Miraflores is upscale. There are Embassies, red clay tennis courts, the city’s top restaurants and it is all fronting on the Pacific Ocean. In fact the drive from airport to hotel was quite similar to driving on Pacific Coast Highway with tall irregular bluffs on one side and ocean waves full of surfers on the other. The bay here even curves much like Santa Monica’s.

I had low expectations for Lima. I know it was a long time ago, thirty nine years, but when I was first there it seemed hard and urban. Maybe I did not know what to look for. This time, I liked it a lot. The city, at least on the surface, seems well managed. Basics like police patrols, garbage collection, transients and litter seemed under control. We went to two classical concerts. They were well attended by well behaved audiences; many young children showed wide eyed enjoyment. In the mornings, we saw uniformed kids being walked to school by parents. Then there was the food.

Maybe, food is not a reason to travel somewhere. But it makes a trip quite a pleasure when the standard of restaurants is as high as Lima’s. Our dollar is very strong in Peru which makes the absolute top, highest quality, highest priced restaurants seem know more than a drop in the bucket in cost. Ingredients are fresh. Presentation is beautiful. Portion sizes are perfect. Several of the restaurants are listed in the “top fifty best restaurants in the world”, a distinction given usually to European or North American restaurants.  Does that distinction mean something in practical terms? Sometimes it does not. If it has the highest rating, but the food is too fussy or gimicky or too precious you might not enjoy it. But in all the places where we ate, the food made us ooo and aaa.

Yesterday, Friday, we flew to Cuzco. It is high in the Andes Mountains, but not in the highest part. The highest peak of the Andes is 22,800 feet. Can you imagine? The next highest is in the Himalayas.  Relative to that, we are in baby altitude territory. The mention of Machu Picchu usually stirs discussion of “the altitude”. Machu Picchu is 7,900 feet. Durango, where we spent the past eight summers is 8,700 feet, so we will be just fine.

From the Cuzco airport we were driven to Ollantaytambo. Okay, take a deep breath and break down this name. Repeat after me: oh yawn tie tom bow. On the drive to Ollantaytambo Wes arranged for us to pass through Maras to see a unique ruin. It is not of a building. It is an agriculture site. Imagine excavating eight large concentric circles into the earth to a depth of 450 feet. From the air it might look like an archers round target board. Each circle is made tidy by a precision cut stone wall. Each circle also is a, was a, planting bed. The Incas brought soil from different regions and crops from different regions. Then the circles were planted as a science project to see what crops would thrive in what soil. The descending, terraced circles also created different exposures to sun and wind to see what effect it had on crops. Crops were potatoes, quinoa, various peppers (not necessarily hot, though some are extremely so).

Everything was going very well in these mountain realms until Pizarro showed up in the 1520’s. He seemed to measure himself against Cortes. Cortes had clobbered Aztecs, gave them small pox and took their gold. Pizarro maneuvered the same destiny for himself. It is recorded history that he captured the Inca’s leader, Atahualpa and demanded ransom. The ransom amount is shocking. He asked for a room full of gold. Then the same room filled twice over with silver. The gold totaled 14,000 pounds. He got the ransom, then murdered Atahualpa. I think he even made off with his wife or daughter. The gold was brought in the form of intricately worked ceremonial and decorative objects. It was all melted down. Centuries of historic gold smithing melted.

Similar to the Aztec situation, when the Spaniards arrived the locals thought they were gods. The Spanish arrived on horses. They had iron weapons. The Incas knew how to work gold and silver, but the technique of creating and forging iron was foreign to them.

Today, we walked through the terraced ruins of Ollantaytambo. The first Spanish attempt to take the town was unsuccessful. The second attempt succeeded. The locals who survived retreated deeper and higher into the jungle. They may still be there. The locals speak Spanish. They also speak Quechuan for the past 900 years.

We also visited an unusual salt site, Salinas. There are mineral springs, salt springs, which in a particular area bubble up from underground with double the salinity of ocean water.  The bubblings are directed to a patchwork of adjacent flat pools. The sun dries the liquid. What remains is the salt.

Tomorrow, we will take the train for thirty-some miles to Machu Picchu. Six months ago we visited Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is part of a collection of ruins. Yes, it is extraordinary, but in it’s area there are many extraordinary ruins, yet Angkor Wat through the star power of it’s name recognition gets all the glory. It is the same here in the Andes. There are many extraordinary ruins, but Machu Picchu gets all the attention. What is undeniable and without question is that this entire region is rich in natural beauty. The mountains tower around us. The peaks are dramatic. There are rivers, audibly rushing, crisscrossing the area; the snow melt from the snow capped peaks.

The buildings are made mostly from adobe. It amazes me, the uniform ingenuity of the human brain, to develop the same solutions for their survival. Adobe can be found here, in Africa, in New Mexico. And the same type of stone walls (precisely cut, interlocked, without mortar) are found here, in Cambodia (Angkor Wat), in Spain (Segovia’s aqueduct). How did they all develop similar techniques when there was no communication between the continents? It, in mind, just has to be, the human brain wherever it finds itself, has the consistent ability to analyze a problem and develop a solution using materials at hand.

Our hotel in Ollantaytambo is the El Albergue located at the train station, ten feet from the tracks. It has been here for decades. The owner, Wendy Weeks runs it with her two sons. We are staying in a fairly large room. It’s style is a blend of adobe, hand hewn wood, stone, and iron framed windows and skylights. Two bedrooms. A full kitchen. A dining room. Outside our door is a lawn with hammocks. Also on the lawn are moveable bunny cages. The bunnies keep the grass nicely short. There are gardens jammed with fragrant flowering trees and shrubs and flowers. Then just up a few stairs and across a path is their organic garden. It is big operation. The beds of vegetables are planted quite freely with volunteer flowers popping up and weeds, too. They have pens with animals. On cage has turkeys; small, medium and large. There is a long table, piled with ears of purple corn. Under the table is a long caged space with the cuyes. A cuy is a guinea pig. They are so cute. I put my camera to their cage mesh and they cowered at my presence. They practically lifted their little paws to their faces and shivered with fear. I do not intend to eat them. Though we did have some alpaca skewers. It tastes like lamb. There are a lot of lambs here. There a lot of pigs here, too. Big ones followed by their little itty bitty ones. There are bulls with horns tethered in fields on leashes twenty feet long.

Today, after climbing down from a ruin we sat on a bench. Behind our backs was a barbed wire length. Beyond the wire was a narrow, twisting, rushing river. A fifty-something year old woman was doing the laundry. I guarantee she does not have to join a gym for exercise. She and three small grandsons gripped their heavy blanket as the river ran over, under and through it. Then they put it on the grass and beat it with a plank. Meanwhile, a small boy, shirtless and barefoot in shorts jumped up and down in a large plastic cauldron. His feet smushed clothes in the soapy water. She saw me watching. I felt conspicuous. Other people blatantly pointed their cameras at her. Speaking for myself, I would not feel kindly toward strangers putting their cameras on me as I did my chores. At the foot of 800 year old ruins with the sound of the rushing river and the sun shining and breeze blowing and a bull wandering the field and a woman doing her laundry the old fashioned way, it was a sweet moment. I walked to the barbed wire fence and called out to her. I said, mi abuela tambien lavaba ropa en el rio; este me hace recordarla.  (My grandmother, also, washed laundry in the river; this makes me think of her). She gave me a lovely smile and we went off to wander the old Inca village.

Aquileia and Trieste: 21 May 2019

On the drive from Udine to Trieste we made two stops. The first stop was to see the urban planning oddity which is Palmanova. Built in 1593 as a Venetian city in the form of a nine-point star. The concentric streets radiate outward from the central piazza. Aside from the three entry points, what you see from outside is a tall hill; it snakes around the city. The idea was “a city as a fort.”  It did not catch on. Eventually, people were lures there by free lots.

The next stop was Aquileia, the home of mosaics from the year 313.

Also in 313, Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan. The edict entitled people to freedom of religion. More significantly, it legalized christianity. In Aquileia, Bishop Theodore built a basilica. It was one of the first buildings created for christian worship. To make bible studies easier for those who could not read, the main stories were put into pictures. The main floor is about sixty-feet wide and 100-feet long. In appearance, it looks like a huge carpet. And it is divided into sections. Each section depicts a different theme.

Aquileia had already been a Roman city for five-hundred years. Underneath the basilica floor is a basement with the remains of those older houses and more, even older, 2200 year old, mosaics.

The city was mostly destroyed by Attila the Hun in 452. Though, the floors survived. The basilica was rebuilt and destroyed many times.  In 1031, Bishop Poppone, rebuilt what we, more or less, see today. He covered the mosaics with a floor of red and white marble pavers. They pavers remained until 1909 when the mosaics were rediscovered.

No one walks on the mosaics. There are no pews or furniture. An elevated glass walkway travels the perimeter of the room. There are also frescoes from 1100 and 1400, though they are difficult to focus on in contrast to the floors.

Two images made particular impressions on me. One is Jesus as a teenager with a baby lamb around his neck. By virtue of it being the oldest image, the one closest to the living person, does that make it definitive? The other image was a series of depictions of Jonah. But he is not tangling with a whale. It is a sea monster. A dragon like creature. He assaults it from a boat with a stick. Later, it spits him out. He is seen flying from it’s mouth like a cannonball. Finally, he is reclining under a tree. I am confused; who called it a “whale”? Is it a whale or a sea monster?

A few hours later, still pondering “whale? Sea monster?”, we arrived in Trieste. It feels like a big city. Right on the waterfront. Hills oriented toward the Adriatic Sea. The main square, Piazza Unità, has Imperial Austrian monumental scaled buildings on three sides, fronting on the sea. Our hotel, a former mansion, was on the main piazza. The hotel was furnished with attractive antiques. The floors were burnished parquet wood. Lots of brass. Comfortable wood framed chairs with velvet upholstery. Walls covered in floral fabric. The staff was attentive. The bar had great cocktails and local wines. Our room looked toward the piazza.

Reading the city’s history made my head spin. I cannot imagine living through the chaotic events of 20th Century Trieste.  Without getting into the complex history pre-1900; in 1914 Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated in Sarajevo.  Immediately, their bodies were sailed to Piazza Unità in Trieste. There were death rites and processions. The city was draped in black. Their coffins were sent by train to Vienna. Four years later, Europe exploded into World War One. So, until 1918 Trieste was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From 1918 until 1943 it was Italy. In 1943, Nazi Germany occupied it. They built a crematorium. In April 1945, Yugoslavia moved in, but were swiftly ousted by U.S. and British forces, which stayed until 1954, when Trieste was ceded to Italy.

It was hard to relax into Trieste with that aswirl in my head. (I had similar difficulty in Dresden and Budapest and Berlin.) The only thing to do was eat and drink. Shift gears to dwell on what is present today and hopeful for tomorrow. We went to Caffè Tommaseo. It has been open since 1830. We ate jota. It was a cold and rainy night. We walked about with bright red hotel umbrellas.  The piazza buildings lit, were like wedding cakes. Jota is a local, cold weather soup; beans, potatoes, cabbage. We drank Malvasia and Schioppettino wine. We crunched on brutti ma buoni (ugly but good) cookies.

The next day, we went to Al Bagatto where we had four breads: sepia ink, traditional, soft brown with cardamom. There were five olive oils made from Puglia olives, Roman olives, and one from strong local olives. A small puff of fluffy Bacalao puree, with citrus gel and red currants. Our glasses were full of Pinot Grigio, but not ordinary PG. The local wine makers let the juice sit long with the grape skins. The juice takes on more flavor and an orange hue. The call the wines, “orange”, for the color. Our Pinot Grigio was this type, macerato. And we had Ribolla Gialla, another local, outstanding white. A caponata arrived; mild, easy on vinegar, no hint of capers or salty olives, not particularly sweet. Then fresh caught branzino marinated in ginger, raspberry vinegar served with trout roe,  slivers of asparagus. It was sweet uncooked fish, salty roe, sweet tiny sliced asparagus tips; flavor and texture zings and contrasts. The room sat 16. Everyone was Italian. We caught more and more of the conversations. Then risotto arrived. It had cuttle fish and shrimps. There was a pasta with swordfish. I asked the waitress, “how do I express these thoughts?” She taught me: Molto bello, molto bene, molto carino. The boss of Al Bagatto has every surface covered with important wines. He is friends with the local great growers and makers.

One featured wine maker, Edi Kante, we tried to visit. We drove to his country farm. We saw his chickens and ducks and peacocks and turkeys. But we did not see him. Perhaps, he was underground. The local hills are limestone. The serious makers have caves carved into the limestone hills. His caves are known to be particularly elaborate. In his caves he paints. For each new special wine he creates a contemporary painting for his pleasure and for the bottles’ labels.

Since we did not get to eat his food, we knew there was a rustic, local spot near by. We drove four minutes, parked the car and followed the laughter and merrymaking sounds. There was an open gate. There was a cluster of branches on it. Later, we learned that is the secret sign of an osmiza. Inside the wall were lots of tables. Some shaded by trees. Ours shaded by an awning. There was food and drink, but it was not a restaurant. An osmiza is a place which creates wine and cheese and cured meats. They are allowed to open to the public only a few days a year. We lucked out. The twigs on the gate is the sign. We asked for food. They gave us what they wanted to give. Platters of meats and cheeses and pickled vegetables and wines and crepes filled, one with strawberry and one with chocolate. We shared a picnic table with two Italians and a Czech. The weather turned wet. It rained. Then it poured. Our awning leaked, but the setting, the food, the drink, the company, the conversation in fractured english, french, italian made it a day to remember.

Wes and Marlow
Aquileia and Trieste
21 May 2019

Udine: 19 May 2019

We had a smooth transition from Vienna to Udine (Italy); several days ago. We rode a train. It’s route has UNESCO World Heritage status because it passes through villages which are a hold over from a century or two ago. There are no “cities” on the first half of the route. There are villages. Bucolic. Nestled, snuggled, into lush greenery of rolling hills. Alps, massive and snow covered, loom tall in the distance. Lovely, slow cows graze on more fresh greenery than they could possibly eat. Alpine cottages have carved wooden balconies with blooming red geraniums. Turquoise rivers come in and out of view from the train.

We are staying in the Astoria Hotel Italia. After Vienna’s Hotel Imperial suite, most rooms would seem plain. This room is plain, but entirely satisfying, quiet and comfortable.

We are in the historic center of Udine. The city of Udine is in the Italian region, (there are twenty,) of Friuli Venezia Giulia. For centuries, the cities of Friuli Venezia Giulia were pulled and tugged at by Venice and Austria. It did not settle into it’s Italian nationality until the end of World War II, when it chose to be in Italy.  (Though parts of it ended up in Slovenia.) Present day, the people speak, depending on the village: italian, slovene, german and friulian. 

In Udine, the Venetian influence is evident in the architecture. The city hall is striped by alternating layers of pink and white marble, reminiscent of the Doge’s Palace in Venice. On a tall pedestal, there is a statue of a winged Venetian lion. Beside it is an ancient statue of Hercules and a wonderful clock. The clock is topped with a large bell in between two huge, bronze, nude men. On the hour, the men bang on the bell with their long hammers.


We are enjoying Udine. We walk under ancient stone porticos from one piazza to another. Each piazza is teeming with local color. Children, accordionists, outdoor cafè life, pampered dogs, chiming church bells.

Our first food was a platter of San Daniele ham. The town of San Daniele is a dozen miles west. It is said, the cold alpine air from the north, as it meets the southern air from the Adriatic creates a special and perfect
climate for curing ham. The San Daniele ham, compared to garden variety prosciutto, seems more sweet and less salty.

Our platter arrived with three local cheeses and an assigned eating order. The mildest, young cow’s milk cheese first. The last was something “salata,” which is soaked in a salt brine. I did not get the cheese names. The busy waitress juggled serving the five tables in the small room. It was joyfully chaotic. The sound of spoken italian was like music. I mean no disrespect to spoken german, but it does not caress the ear, nor induce smiles.

This Italian region is famous for it’s white wines. By now, we have sampled many from a particular region, Collio. The grapes in Collio are typically Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia Istriana, Chardonnay, Pinot bianco, Pinot grigio and Sauvignon blanc. Many of the wines are not blended, but made from the juice of a single type of grape. We have also had a red wine called Schioppettino, which, in the ones we have tried, have tasted young, light, fresh and of berries.

Here is a quick romp through visits to the surrounding towns.

Chapel of the patron saint of pork butchers in San Daniele.
14th C chapel. 16th C frescoes. 

Cividale de Friuli. Tiny. Seemed affluent. The buildings, residences and businesses, looked in excellent condition. The aquamarine Natisone river rushes through town. Ponte del Diavolo (bridge) crosses over it: constructed in 1442. A chapel, also, overlooks the river. The Tempietto Longobardo chapel was built around the year 750 and still has several of it’s original statues. It’s frescoes are relatively young, just 600 years old. At the start of the bridge is an excellent pastry shop where we had our first taste of gubana. Gubana are like a brioche stuffed with a paste of almonds, raisins, cocoa and cinnamon. It was love at first bite.

Natisone river

The small city of Cormons was part of the Austrian Hapsburg Empire from 1497 to 1918. Today, they still toast, on his birthday, the last Emperor Franz Joseph. Just outside Cormons, we had lunch in what felt like a forest. Under the canopy of mature trees, surrounded by wild shrubs, on tables crafted of rustic cut logs we had lunch at La Subida. We drank the white Ribolla Gialla and the fresh red Shioppettino wines. We ate a salad of paper thin sliced white and green asparagus. They served, yet another variety of cured ham, Oswaldo, which was even sweeter than San Daniele. As if the pigs ate cherries or berries with their acorns. There was also duck breast with perfumey strawberries. And risotto with herbs. And sautéed spinach. And sweet peas.

Dear Venzone is a phoenix risen from the ashes. It is an ancient and tiny walled city. In 1976 it was hit, two months apart, by massive earthquakes. The first one severely damaged it. The second one flattened the town and killed hundreds of people. By 1990, the city was restored. Even the cathedral, 80% destroyed, was reconstructed as close to what it had been. It was an absolute labor of love. I cannot describe the special ambiance of standing in their treasured church, which they loved too much to just cart away the rubble, but had to restore it.

San Daniele, the village where the famed ham is cured has a small chapel, Chiesa di Sant’Antonio Abate. Built in 1308. Believe it or not it is a chapel to the patron saint of pork butchers. It is notable for it’s extensive intact frescoes painted by Pellegrino da San Daniele (1467-1547.) We had an outstanding lunch at L’Osteria di Tancredi. We began with San Daniele ham and wedges of two-month old Montasio cheese (cow’s milk.) And a small bowl of “agrodolce verdure”, which were red pepper, small onion, zucchini, carrot, asparagus marinated in oil, vinegar and local honey. We drank Pinot Bianco (from Strum Vineyard) and Collio Friulano (from Pascolo.) Then came Pappardelle with Anatra (duck ragu) and Tagliolini di Pasta Fresca Artigianale alla San Daniele. The pastas were memorable. As if mamma were in the kitchen putting all her love into the sauces. Dessert was a tiny glass dish two-thirds full with Bavarian Cream, one-third full with fresh cooked wild berries, then sprinkled with chopped pistacchios. I used Google Translate then memorized my lines.  I said: Noi siamo molto felici.  Ricorderemo a lungo la tua cucina. (We are very happy. We will remember for a long time your cooking.)

Agrodolce verdure

Before we visited those villages. Before we ate and drank all those things. On our first full day in Udine, we had lunch at Al Vecchio Stallo. Wes, during his trip research, found a wonderful book about Friuli. It has an odd genesis. An American pilates teacher visited Friuli for a conference related to the large rubber Pilates exercise balls. She fell in love with the food and the villages and the history and she put it all into a book. So for our first lunch, we, more or less, ate what she ate and where she ate it from, which was L’Osteria Al Vecchio Stallo. The building is a former horse stable. The interior is eclectic. Very sweet. Full of personality. And not a word of english spoken. Which was great for us. Impossible to be shy, we plunged in with our best effort at Italian. We were grateful for their patience and great suggestions. We began with Gnocchi di Sauris. Then Cjalsons. Then  fennel. And caponata. Followed by a plate of Frico with polenta. And a plate of salami with polenta. The gnocchi were made, not from potato, but from bread. Cjalsons are stuffed pasta. Take a circle of pasta dough, stuff with greens, fold over, crimp shut, boil, then serve grated with Ricotta Affumato (hard smoked ricotta cheese.). The fennel was braised. The caponata was stewed eggplant with capers, olives and tomato. Frico is a significant wedge of Montasio cheese seared to a crisp on both sides. It is served with polenta. But the polenta is white not yellow and is toasted and similar in appearance and texture to crustless toasted white bread. The salami was more sausage than salami. It was cooked in something tasty. All the dishes had sauces full of wonderful and sparkling flavors. I did not have the time nor the language skill to decode everything.  And I am certain all the recipes are in the book by the Pilates teacher with the most wonderful taste in food and destinations.

Wes and Marlow
Udine, Friuli Venezia Giulia
18 May 2019