Olive oil in the Chianti region

Another stop on our tour was at Pruneti Olive Oil Mill where we learned about the process of growing olives, care of the olive trees and pressing olives for oil. This small, family-owned mill only produces extra virgin olive oil. We toured the facility and then did an olive oil tasting, sans bread.

The olive press room

Olives waiting to be pressed.

Our taste-test leader, Emanuele, was very serious about olive oil. When someone in our group suggested mixing balsamic vinegar with olive oil for dipping bread, he held up his hand in a stop gesture and said, “If you are going to mix balsamic vinegar with olive oil, please, just don’t tell me.” A purist, I thought.

Olive oil tasting room

From Gaida, the Villa owner, to the people at the goat farm, to Sergio the potter, to Emanuele, what amazed me the most about them was their passion. Each of them works very hard and each has a pride in her or his work.

Perhaps it is in the nature of the people of Italy or perhaps these hand-selected folks were the perfect choices to show and teach us about Italian life and culture. I was continually impressed with the level of passion we observed at each of our stops.

Since returning home, though, I have wondered where I could find that kind of passion here, where I could find people willing to commit their lives to what they love, even if it is hard work with little monetary reward. I wondered about my own passion and commitment. What is it that gets me juiced up? that animates me? that burns so brightly inside me that others can’t help but notice?

A day in the life

A big part of Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.) is spending time with people as they go about their everyday lives. On this tour in Tuscany and Umbria, we spent a day at Podere Le Fornaci, an organic farm run by Amanda, Valentina and Nocolo. They raise goats and make goat cheese which is sold in local markets.

First, we met the goats and learned of the history of the farm and the people who work the farm. Then we learned about making goat cheese and helped make some cheese. We ended the day with a meal that incorporated varieties of goat cheese.

This is Liugi. On this small goat farm, every goat has a name. Liugi was the most rambunctious of the goats we met.

An introductioon to goat farming and the goats

Our Group Tour Leader Giacomo

A lesson the varieties of goat cheese. I learned that goat cheese can be aged–for a bit at least.

Our group making goat cheese.

Ready for lunch

Exploring Tuscany

We drove south from Florence and made a stop at the Florence American Cemetery, where more than 4,000 Americans are buried. This cemetery is maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Our guide, who was from New York, shared the history of the cemetery and told a few stories of the service people buried there. Then we had some time to walk through the grounds.

It was now the end of the day, and our guide asked if we would help her take down the flag. We walked to the flagpole as Taps played from a loudspeaker.

This happned to be on Veterans Day, November 11, 2022.

A day in Florence, Italy

Our walking tour in Florence began on top of a hill outside the city.

We walked through the Rose Garden, and even though it was November, roses were still blooming. The garden is maintained by volunteers, and I imagine in summer it is full of color and scent.

Given my love for whimsy in the garden, I could not resist cozying up to the man on the bench (our tour guide said this man was known for bringing luck in love–still waiting).

Our Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.) tour group posing with a whimsical suitcase photo frame.

From the Rose Garden, we walked down the path and through the gates into Florence.

Italian marble quarries

Our first excursion outside Lucca was to the Carrara Marble Quarries, about an hour’s drive northwest. I had never given any thought to where marble comes from, so I was awestruck when I learned that what I thought was snow on the mountain top was actually a mountain of marble.

We were greeted by the company’s owner and given hard hats.

And then we walked inside the quarry. As in the limestone quarry in Les Baux, I was entranced by how high the quarry walls are. In this working quarry, we learned about the history of marble and watched marble being cut into huge slabs.

Marble being cut.

This is the blade used to cut the marble from the mountain.

Looking up along the saw blade, inside the quarry.

A wall of marble

Sights on the streets of Lucca

I was in Lucca, Italy, for six days and walked the twisting, turning streets (and often felt lost, although I was following Goodle maps). I enjoyed the sights along the streets and fell in love with the City.

A canal runs through the city.

One of the early gates into the city. Later the city walls were moved out to enlarge the city.

A sculptor on the street.

The streets of Lucca twist and turn.

Towers were once a symbol of wealth.

I thought there might be something magical or miraculous about the water in this fountain, but it is just water the locals drink.

Next stop, Tuscany, Italy

After twelve days in France, I flew to Florence for an Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.) tour of Tuscany and Umbria. The tour began in Lucca, a walled city about an hour west of Florence.

I arrived three days before the tour began, and I used those days to explore Lucca.

On my first day, I took a walk on the top of the walls and also visited the Palazzo Pfanner, a home and garden inside the walls. Even though it was November, there were plenty of flowers and lemons (I stopped counting the lemon trees at 25. I thought maybe they used all those lemons for limoncello, but I was told they just like lemons).

Palazzo Pfanner as seen from on top of the city wall. Those are all lemon trees lining the walkways.

I stayed at the San Luca Palace Hotel inside the walls. It was a great location and a wonderful hotel. The staff was extremely welcoming and helpful. Since I was on my own those first few days, I appreciated their suggestions and directions. I highly recommend staying at this hotel because their attention to service was outstanding.

I arrived in early afternoon, and even though it was not meal time, one of the staff offered to make me something to eat (a delicious ham and cheese panini).

Then, I needed a manicure, and the Hotel receptionist recommended a nearby salon. Even though no one in the small salon spoke English, we were able to communicate through gestures, and I got the best manicure I have ever had!

Day one in Italy was the beginning of a wonderful adventure.

St. Donato’s gate.

Doors of Vienne, France

On our walking tour in Vienne, France, several doors (and door knockers) caught my attention.

Lessons from travel

“Piano, piano,” our tour guide Giacomo advised our group of ten as we navigated the cobblestone streets of medieval towns in Tuscany and Umbria. “Piano, piano,” he repeated as we climbed stone steps that have been worn down by centuries of use and had no handrails to steady us.

Piano, piano means slowly, slowly in Italian.

Good advice, I thought. Not just for traversing medieval towns in Italy, but for me, good advice for daily life, because I tend to move too fast, rushing as though I was always running late.

Travel makes me slow down, because I am aware of how dangerous rushing across cobblestones can be.

Traveling with a group makes me slow down because I sometimes need to wait for those who can’t move as quickly as I do.

It is good for me to slow down, and every time I had to stop and wait for someone to catch up, I felt invited to look up and take in the sights around me (walking on cobblestones requires lots of looking down). Those moments of waiting were invitations to notice what was in front of me, like little carvings in walls or unique shapes of doorknockers.

Slowly, slowly invites me to appreciate the here and now.

Travel also shakes things up. It is like a snow globe where I am tossed around a bit and when the snow settles, everything looks different. The people, places and food are unfamiliar, and my equilibrium is off. I join Dorothy in saying, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

A man at church recently toured the Holy Land. Before he left, he told me he had been nervous about traveling to such a potentially dangerous place until he learned they were staying in a Westin Hotel and then he thought, “If I didn’t know any different, I could still be at home.”

“Then what is the point of going?” I asked.

When I travel, I want to be shaken up and to experience what is different. I want to know how it is for people who live in that place and to have my assumptions and stereotypes challenged. I want to be changed by my experiences, to learn something about another people and place—and about myself.

One of the features of touring with Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.) is that we visit people in their homes. On this tour, our group was split up among three homes in Carrera (after a tour of the nearby marble quarry). My small group had lunch with a couple and one of their sons.

Later in the tour, we visited Spello and were entertained by an Umbrian folk music group in the home of one of the musicians.

Massimo Liberatori & La Società dei Musici

During my two weeks in Italy, slowly, slowly became my go-to gear, and I pledged to myself that when I got home, I would try harder to stay in slow gear, to remind myself every day (and even multiple times a day), piano, piano.

Our Overseas Adventure Travel Group Tour Leader, Giacomo, aka Captain America

A visit to Mackinac Island

Earlier this week, a friend from Delaware and I spent a couprle of days on Mackinac Island, which has been voted the Best Island in the Continental U.S. by Travel and Leisure Magazine.

I had been before, but my friend had not. We decided to tour the Island by carriage, which was great fun (and educational). The first half of the tour, on a carriage pulled by a two-horse team–took us through the town, past the Grand Hotel and to a little village where we visited the carriage museum.

One of the carriages in the Carriage Museum on Mackinac Island.

Then we switched to a three-horse team and continued uphill through the state park and on to Arch Rock.

Our three-horse team

Arch Rock

We were surprised at the beautiful flowers and gardens around the island–given it is the end of September.