Martha and I are currently getting everything together for our fall trip, which will include the Lunigiana, where we’ve a house, and Istanbul, not to mention a trip down the boot to Pompeii, where we’ll see the ancient city at night, then head over across the arch to Puglia and the spur. You can follow it all with our new newsletter, which you can sign up for: The Wandering Europe Newsletter. It will come out every week or so and will not be obnoxious unless there’s good reason.
What will I look forward to? Well, the ever changing mountain scenes and mountains villages that spread themselves over the ridgetops like the picture on the right. You can click it to see it way larger. It’s nice just driving around, to tell the truth.
And of course there’s the food. When you’re attached to someone who doesn’t eat pork or beef, I gotta tell you, it’s nice you can get a guinea fowl or even a flavorful piccione from just about any supermarket or small store with a butcher shop; there’s a butcher in Fivizzano that raises their own and goodness are they good! Or you can go out to the coast in 20 minutes and grab some fresh—I mean real fresh—seafood. I’m tired of unwrapping putrid shrimp I bought the same day in California. Basta!
What’s in the picture though is what the local folks call “Sgabei”, a pillow of fried dough that really goes with all those cured meats, salumi (which might contain salami) that you can get before the serious part of the meal starts.
Of course, I’ll also be looking at the telephone poles along the streets for those Sagra Posters that tell me the folks in the country are celebrating some bit of food and cooking up a storm. I can hardly keep my mouth from watering.
So, you sign up for that newsletter if you’re interested in traveling around the Med, or start planning a trip. When you gotta go, you just gotta go, I always say. Unless you’re referring to one of those squat toilets in a sleezy bar, then I figure I can wait.
More Stories of the Lunigiana
Lunigiana Saffron: Terre di Bigliolo
Mille Miglia 2018: Colorful Classics Come to the Lunigiana
Dr. Sukkar and the Mediterranean Diet
The Last Pizza on the Terrace 2013