Mooching in Manciano
It’s very easy to be seduced by the slow pace of life here in this part of Tuscany. Manciano is a little off the beaten tourist track, so traditions like siesta are strictly observed. Woe betide us, by around 12.30pm, we haven’t driven the 5km into town to buy bread for lunch, check our emails or do any banking. Everything shuts down then until 4pm – and the post office doesn’t open until the next morning!
There’s much to be said, though, for reclining in a comfy chair on Angela and Franco’s sunny patio overlooking the rows of olive trees below, and looking out to the distant hills. Reading in such a setting is even more of a delight than usual!
I finished my Egyptian antibiotics last week and the dreadful veil of nausea has lifted. I’m at last feeling well enough to work on Lachy and Merry’s wedding quilt with enthusiasm, and stitching some of Manciano’s magic into it!
The olives on the trees are ripening to a glossy black, and yesterday our idyllic silence, usually only broken by the buzzing of bees and flies, was intruded upon by the growl of a generator on the next hillside. The olive harvesting has begun! I can’t wait until they come closer to the house so I can go down and get a better look – even try out some harvesting for myself. Nets were spread under the trees, and men and women held extendable poles with a rotating head on the end (powered by the generator). The “fingers” on this head agitated the branches when they spun, causing the ripe olives to tumble down onto the nets.
My nephew, Matthew, and his girlfriend Michelle are backpacking around Europe, seeing much more than Boak’s and my reasonably sedate Baedeker-type travels. Fresh from Croatia, via Venice and Rome, they met up with us in the Piazza del Campo in Siena last Saturday and then we brought them back here to Manciano to do their washing and enjoy a couple of nights in comfortable beds. It was my birthday the next day, so it was a special joy to have them with us for that.
The day dawned unusually hot, and so we all mooched around on the patio reading, stitching, or (in their case) studying the Eurail timetable and the Lonely Planet guide to Europe planning their moves for the next week or so. In the afternoon we made the Manciano excursion but found nothing open, except a museum about prehistoric finds in Manciano. Feeling desperate for some sightseeing, we paid our entry, but found that all the explanations were in Italian, and spent most of our time sighing over the sublime views of the countryside from the windows, and taking lots of photos of this and the beautiful rustic terracotta rooftiles.
That evening, at “Il Rifuge” in Manciano, we dined on home made mushroom soup, followed by pork in several forms. Boak and Michelle enjoyed it roasted with porcini mushrooms (no doubt gathered by Papa that morning), Matthew had wild boar cutlets, and I devoured with relish a dish of cighiale alla cacciatore.
The menus of the local eateries are crowded with pork dishes presented in many exciting ways. You can choose from baby pig, grown-up pig, or wild boar, which I understand to be ‘redneck’ pig, the kind you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, with absolutely no manners or breeding. It’s this bad attitude that sets wild boar apart from your more domesticated pork and imparts a rich dark gravy and round, full taste to dishes such as cighiale alla cacciatore (wild boar casserole in the huntsman’s style). Yummm. Though your regular pork, roasted and often sprinkled with fennel seeds, is not to be sniffed at either. Porcini mushrooms are plentiful, too, and the local mushroom soup is to die for, unlike anything we’ve ever tasted at home.
The back packers got an early start the next morning, Boak driving them 1.5 hours to Orvieto where they would catch the train to Florence. (Boak was actually gone for much longer because he got lost coming back, but he’ll tell you that story another time….perhaps…). After around 8 hours in Florence (“you do the outside of the Cathedral, dear, and I’ll do the inside”) their plan was to catch a night train to Vienna. This was cheaper for them, as, having a Eurail Pass already, it meant not having to pay for board and lodging that night. It had been a delightful interlude for us, and we were glad to be able to offer these intrepid travelers some good food and home comforts for a time.
Now, if the internet connection here in Manciano doesn’t choke, I’ll try to send you some photos.
There’s much to be said, though, for reclining in a comfy chair on Angela and Franco’s sunny patio overlooking the rows of olive trees below, and looking out to the distant hills. Reading in such a setting is even more of a delight than usual!
I finished my Egyptian antibiotics last week and the dreadful veil of nausea has lifted. I’m at last feeling well enough to work on Lachy and Merry’s wedding quilt with enthusiasm, and stitching some of Manciano’s magic into it!
The olives on the trees are ripening to a glossy black, and yesterday our idyllic silence, usually only broken by the buzzing of bees and flies, was intruded upon by the growl of a generator on the next hillside. The olive harvesting has begun! I can’t wait until they come closer to the house so I can go down and get a better look – even try out some harvesting for myself. Nets were spread under the trees, and men and women held extendable poles with a rotating head on the end (powered by the generator). The “fingers” on this head agitated the branches when they spun, causing the ripe olives to tumble down onto the nets.
My nephew, Matthew, and his girlfriend Michelle are backpacking around Europe, seeing much more than Boak’s and my reasonably sedate Baedeker-type travels. Fresh from Croatia, via Venice and Rome, they met up with us in the Piazza del Campo in Siena last Saturday and then we brought them back here to Manciano to do their washing and enjoy a couple of nights in comfortable beds. It was my birthday the next day, so it was a special joy to have them with us for that.
The day dawned unusually hot, and so we all mooched around on the patio reading, stitching, or (in their case) studying the Eurail timetable and the Lonely Planet guide to Europe planning their moves for the next week or so. In the afternoon we made the Manciano excursion but found nothing open, except a museum about prehistoric finds in Manciano. Feeling desperate for some sightseeing, we paid our entry, but found that all the explanations were in Italian, and spent most of our time sighing over the sublime views of the countryside from the windows, and taking lots of photos of this and the beautiful rustic terracotta rooftiles.
That evening, at “Il Rifuge” in Manciano, we dined on home made mushroom soup, followed by pork in several forms. Boak and Michelle enjoyed it roasted with porcini mushrooms (no doubt gathered by Papa that morning), Matthew had wild boar cutlets, and I devoured with relish a dish of cighiale alla cacciatore.
The menus of the local eateries are crowded with pork dishes presented in many exciting ways. You can choose from baby pig, grown-up pig, or wild boar, which I understand to be ‘redneck’ pig, the kind you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, with absolutely no manners or breeding. It’s this bad attitude that sets wild boar apart from your more domesticated pork and imparts a rich dark gravy and round, full taste to dishes such as cighiale alla cacciatore (wild boar casserole in the huntsman’s style). Yummm. Though your regular pork, roasted and often sprinkled with fennel seeds, is not to be sniffed at either. Porcini mushrooms are plentiful, too, and the local mushroom soup is to die for, unlike anything we’ve ever tasted at home.
The back packers got an early start the next morning, Boak driving them 1.5 hours to Orvieto where they would catch the train to Florence. (Boak was actually gone for much longer because he got lost coming back, but he’ll tell you that story another time….perhaps…). After around 8 hours in Florence (“you do the outside of the Cathedral, dear, and I’ll do the inside”) their plan was to catch a night train to Vienna. This was cheaper for them, as, having a Eurail Pass already, it meant not having to pay for board and lodging that night. It had been a delightful interlude for us, and we were glad to be able to offer these intrepid travelers some good food and home comforts for a time.
Now, if the internet connection here in Manciano doesn’t choke, I’ll try to send you some photos.
posted by Di at 10:00 AM
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