Bella della zia!

It’s holiday time, work is slow and I’m on a roll! You could say I’m on a blog roll….Hahaha…

Last Saturday was our little niece, Carolina’s 5th birthday, and so, being the generous zii that we are, we went and bought the biggest gift we could find (it would appear that the physical size of the package is of vital importance when buying presents for small children – we’ve slowly caught onto this over the past few years). Given the family bar/caffè/restaurant business, it seemed entirely appropriate to give her the latest in hospitality technology for the under 6s: the Bialetti mini-kitchen, complete with old-style espresso caffettiere and mini-vileda magic mop! It was a huge success, with Carolina and her younger sister, Maddalena taking it in turns to serve fake coffee to the whole family, taking care to fake-stir the fake sugar and fake-mop up the fake spills. Oh to have the imagination of a five year-old!
The other big success gift-wise was the princess dress you can see in the picture above (I couldn’t resist sharing)– personally delivered by Zia (Auntie) Concetta, who had made the trip from the wilds of inland Sicily, specifically for the occasion. I had never met this aunt before (Luca’s mum’s sister), and despite attempts to warn me, I wasn’t quite prepared… Imagine if you can the typical Zia Concetta – fat and jolly, who arrives in Milan unannounced on a one-way ticket, bringing with her two suitcases filled with home cooking, Sicilian cakes, oil, wine, ham, cheese and all those other items that people from the south are convinced don’t exist north of Rome. Booming voice, the tendency to hug the breath out of you and sloppy kisses on pinched cheeks… she had it all! When we asked her how long she was planning on staying, the response was a long, over-exaggerated shrug and that very Italian expression that literally means “no idea” – “boh!”. This, accompanied by copious eye-rolling by Luca’s dad and a combination of amusement and exasperation by his mum. Luca’s managing the restaurant on Easter Sunday so I will be taking myself off to the family lunch without him. No doubt I will come away with plenty of stories, a couple of extra kilos on the hips and enough leftovers to get us to ferragosto….

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!!

A refreshing change

Despite having lived in Milan for over two years now, I had never made it into the mountains and so, being in need of a little (or a lot) of TLC, we booked Easter weekend at the Terme delle Dolomiti, which is a health spa built on a natural spring – the highest in Italy. We set off late afternoon on Saturday (Luca had to work until 5 – grrrrr) and by 10:30pm we were there (including 3 stops, one of which involved a failed attempt to fit the tangled mass of snow chains to the car…)
The village we had chosen to stay in is called Pàdola, situated at 1300m in the Val Comelico – one of the highest points of the Veneto region, and not that far from the Austrian border. A real picture-postcard place, blighted only by the low cloud which covered what would otherwise have been spectacular views of the mountains. Mountain people are very different from the Milanesi, as far as I could gather. In the mountains, people will stop and offer assistance if they see you in difficulty – for example the elderly man who insisted on helping us with our snow chains even though it was 10 o’clock on a Saturday night on an icy mountain road in -8 degrees, and who then insisted on leading us down to the nearest village even though he was going in the other direction. Also, they eat a lot of pork – ham, salami, sausages, chops, smoked, un-smoked, cured, boiled – you name it, they eat it. They also tend to combine these many pork variations with onions, cabbage and pickles, the likes of which I have never seen in Italy before (good though!). The spa itself was great with just one drawback – the number of children, and their combined effort at turning the place into something that resembled Naples’ piscina comunale. At one point, I was lying in the outdoor hydro-massage tub, with snow coming down on my head, drifting into some sort of trance, when a fat 10 year-old boy decided to belly-flop into the pool right next to me, screaming like a banshee as he did so. That was the last straw – I pulled on my towelling robe, and made my way passed all of the “Silence”, “Please respect the relaxed atmosphere”, “Please ensure that children behave appropriately at all times” signs displayed on every wall. I mentioned to the receptionist that it was getting chaotic and she sent one of the massage therapists to ‘have a word’ with the parents. “Unfortunately we can’t prevent children from coming here” she said, “No?” was my reply, “I would!”. She looked a bit taken aback. I have nothing against children, but I would say that a health spa is exactly the sort of place where “No children” is a good idea – in the UK, under 16s are often excluded from these places. Italy is very child-orientated, and the little darlings are generally allowed run wild in bars, restaurants and shopping centres – so is it too much to ask that we have one place just for us? In any case, 10 year-olds don’t need health spas – it’s us 50-hour-a-week workers that really need the place!
Having left Pàdola on the Monday morning, we drove down the mountain towards Belluno, passing through a village called Domeggè, where we stumbled upon a medieval-style enoteca, a sort of wine cellar place with all kinds of local products – cheese, meat, patès etc – each prepared in the form of a bruschetta (on toasted bread), with a variety of sauces, salsas and pickles. Our intention was to drink a glass of wine and try a couple of bruschettas before going on our way. We ended up drinking three glasses, and eating 10 different types of bruschetta, followed by an enormous sausage and onion sandwich. Needless to say, our next stop was the river just below the village, where we slept it off before continuing on our journey!
A few hours later, we were stuck in traffic, travelling at the speed of (to quote the legendary Blackadder) “an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping”. Having got as far as Peschiera on Lake Garda, we decided to cut our losses and hang out there for at least a couple of hours, while the traffic calmed down. Good decision. I’ve been to most places on Lake Garda before, but this was my first time in Peschiera. Despite the ubiquitous presence of the day-tripping builders from Brescia which is seems to be a feature of all of the resorts on Lake Garda, I really liked it. As the crowds moved off, we settled into a fantastic restaurant on the waterfront – the Bella Vista. OK, so the name is a bit cliché but we ended up eating the best Spaghetti allo Scoglio (seafood spaghetti) of our lives. Luca, being Sicilian, is both a food expert and very hard to please, so it must have been good!
We returned to Milan later that evening, feeling relaxed and content at our brief but very much needed weekend away. The following morning I got to my car to find that someone had stolen a wheel. We are now looking for a place outside the city…