Steak Florentine

When Americans think of Italian cuisine, this is what usually comes to mind.


But for many Italians, especially Tuscans, meat  defines their diet...every bit as much as pasta.

The king of meat dishes is steak Florentine...

...huge slabs of beef that make one wonder how can one person, or even six, eat all that?

Steak Florentine comes from special cows...Chianina.  


These cows got their name because they we originally raised in the Val di Chiana, which sits on the other side of our neighboring town of Montepulciano.

At dinner one night, inside the packed restaurant Osteria Acquacheta, we got to see how they make steak Florentine.


Full disclosure:  This restaurant lives off the tourist trade.  The owner, whom we later learned grew up in Pienza, is a character.  At the end of the meal, he comes and tallies your bill on the placemat you ate off. 

This night, about half the people you see in this photo ordered the specialty of the house.

(We got these photos because the restaurant was so packed, they seated five of us at a table for two in the very back.  Three of us ate our dinners sitting on the steps up to the kitchen)

The cooks start with huge chunks of beef.  


During the course of our dinner, we saw them bring three of these mountains of meat from the basement locker up to the kitchen.

As the customer places his order, they cut the meat into two-inch-thick slabs...

...and then bring it to the table for the customer's approval.


Hard as it may seem to believe, one customer actually sent his slab of beef back because it wasn't thick enough.

Carol and Roger often joked that Tuscan restaurants never really cooked their steaks; they just walked them past the oven.

Italians in this part of the world like their beef extremely rare.

But at Osteria Acquacheta, the meat actually went into the wood-fired grill.

...and came out seared and rushed to the table piping-hot.

It Gets Bigger Each Year

For the past several years, the neighboring town of Buonconvento has hosted an classic bike race, known as L'Eroica Primavera.

People from all over Europe...in fact, from all over the world...come to ride antique bikes over 150 km of steep back roads...many of them gravel...of the Tuscan countryside.  Carol and Roger met both Brits and Americans who had come to Buonconvento to participate.

Antique bike rallies have become so popular among collectors and fans that L'Eroica now sponsors events world-wide...from Britain to South Africa and the United States.

At lunch in Buonconvento, we met Giancarlo Brocci, the man who conceived of L'Eroica in 1997 and spread it world-wide, and Wesley Hatakeyama, chairman of the US event, held each April in Paso Robles, California.

The town of Buonconvento decks itself out each Spring for a three-day festival celebrating antique bicycles.  Most shops place old bikes or bike clothing in their display windows.

This year, the barber shop offered haircuts, beard and mustache trims in a style to match the vintage of your bicycle.

The big change both Carol and Roger noticed was the increased number of women participating.

The day before the actual ride, there's a large open-air market, with nearly 30 vendors selling antique parts...

                   ...clothing...

...and expert advice on getting just the right replacement part to keep your bike an authentic classic.

For anybody with the last-minute impulse to join in, a new vendor joined the fray this year, offering to rent a classic bike that meets the strict standards required by the event.

Each year, the route of the ride itself comes through Pienza.


Last year, it came into town up a gravel road with an 18% grade.  Participants groused it was too difficult for even them to manage.



So this year, the organizers altered the route...

...and it came up the long, winding hill...

...passed right under the walls of the Duomo  (Cathedral)...

...and into town where riders got their cards stamped.

Getting your card stamped at several stops along the way is necessary to prove you rode the whole route and didn't take any unauthorized short-cuts.

It had rained heavily the night before the ride, so the gravel roads were muddy and slow.

This man was the first to make it into Pienza, and he was more than an hour later than expected.

Please note, this event is authentic down to the food they serve at the rest stops.  No energy bars here; just bread, wine, and cheese.

The route is so brutally hard that stamina and pacing are more important than speed.  Coming in early to Pienza is no guarantee you'll even finish the event.



The man at the right rode into Pienza more than an hour behind the leader.  He ended up finishing second over-all, or so his sponsor...a local winery-owner...told us.

After leaving Pienza, the event wends its way along back roads almost 50 km back to Buonconvento, where...led by a pace car...the leaders sprint five times around town before crossing the finish line.

Roger, who was no match for even the weakest of the L'Eroica riders, rode a small portion of the course (carefully avoiding the big hills and gravel roads), and got his hand stamped...just for bragging rights.

May Day

Carol and Roger have returned to Toscana for a bit of the Spring.


If we hadn't already been totally in love with the local countryside, we would have fallen hard this visit.


It's easy to see why.

Spring has already arrived, though rainstorms are frequent this time of year.

The gardens are in full bloom...as the roses in the garden outside our apartment attest.

The herds of sheep that produce the milk used to make the town's famous pecorino cheese have doubled in size with the addition of new lambs.

Today was May Day...perhaps Pienza's biggest non-religious holiday.


It brought out the town's brass band.

A parade of farm tractors crawled down the Corso Rossolino, the main street usually reserved for pedestrians.

A few of the town's younger residents got their first chance to drive grampa's tiller...

...much to the delight of their even-younger admirers.

Many of the on-lookers were carrying red roses (sold by our friend Danielo) to symbolize solidarity with the left-wing political parties that seem to have co-opted this national holiday for their own ends.

Some of the older band-members got downright emotional when the band played Bella Caio...

...the anthem of the anti-Nazi partisans during World War II.

But the most enthusiastic response from the crowd came when the band played The Internationale.

(This man was belting out the words.  Sorry that we caught him with his mouth closed.)









Our next blog post will cover an ever-more-popular tradition in this part of Toscana.

Opulence and Decadence

Venezia is everything it's reputed to be...

...beautiful...

...decadent...

...romantic...

...and a fascinating playground for history buffs.

On most days, the tourists outnumber the residents.



















In many ways, not much in Venezia has changed since the 1700's...when it was considered the most sophisticated city in Europe.

The Canal Grande now has power boats in addition to gondolas plying its waters, but the buildings that line the canal look much the same as they did 300 years ago.







Venezia was once Europe's largest city.  How did that get to be..and what's happened since?

Venezia first became a city when the barbarians toppled the Roman Empire, and thousands fled to the islands in the Venetian lagoon for safety.  In 726, it separated from the remnants of the Roman Empire, established itself as "The Serene Republic of Venice," and elected its first Doge (duke in Venetian dialect).

In the 900's, it competed with Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi to become the dominant trade center of the Mediterranean.  By 1200, it had succeeded enough that this man...

Marco Polo...expanded Venezia's trade partnerships by opening overland trade routes with the Orient.




Marco Polo was not the first Venetian to travel to China, but he became a very successful merchant.  His book about his travels was a best-seller in the days before the printing press.

His house was located here...in the Milion neighborhood...so named because of the wealth his and the other trading houses brought to Venezia.


By this time, the Serene Republic had become a potent political force.  It had wiped out the Dalmatian pirates, set up vassal states in Split and Dubrovnik, and conquered Crete, Cyprus, and the Greek islands.



While the other city-states in Italy were scheming  and jockeying among themselves for power, Venezia had its attentions turned outwards.

For centuries, it dominated the Adriatic, the Balkans, and relations with Constantinople.

Venetian interest in the Byzantine East is commonly reflected in its architecture...

...including the Doge's Palace, the seat of government during the 900 years of the Venetian Republic.

The Doge's Palace was built in 1172 but damaged by fire on two occasions.


The second fire, in 1577, forced the complete renovation of the interior and gave Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese among other artists a life-time of work.

At this point, Venezia was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe.



The city displayed its wealth in its public places with a show of opulence never before seen in the West.

The Hall of the Great Council was, at the time, the largest room ever built...quite an engineering as well as artistic achievement.

The walls of the Hall recount Venezia's military successes...like this Tintoretto depicting the battle of Zara...


...where the Venetians defeated the Hungarian Army and preserved Croatia as a vassal state.

Or, this detail  from the Battle of Leponto, where the Venetian Navy defeated the Ottoman Turks, to gain dominance of Mediterranean sea lanes.









Just below the ceiling of the Great Hall are portraits of all the Doges who ruled Venezia...save one.

Marina Falter tried to overthrow the government of the Republic...and failed.  He was disgraced and publicly executed.  As a final indignity, his portrait was blacked out in the Great Hall.




All the things that led to Venezia's success eventually sowed the seeds of its demise.  The Ottoman Turks conquered the Balkans.  Venetian traders returning from Asia brought the Black Death with them...killing off one-third of Venezia's population not once but on four different occasions.  Finally, Portuguese and Dutch traders, inspired by Marco Polo, proved sea trade with the East was more efficient than overland travel.


By the mid-1700's, Venezia remained a trend-setter in fashions, but its dominance in trade with the Orient had waned.

In 1797, Venezia lost its independence when Napoleon conquered Italy.  After Napoleon's defeat, it was annexed to the Austrian Empire.

Today, the city has declined to a state of what critics call "elegant decadence."





Its population is one-tenth what it was at the height of its power.

The baroque interior of San Marco cathedral... once the Doge's private chapel... is still jaw-dropping but glitters a bit less than it did in its heyday.

A close look at any building shows the effects centuries of decline and weathering have had.

The city is slowly sinking into the lagoon.




As the buildings settle over the centuries, the bell towers of many of the 139 churches list to one side...proving once again that Pisa is not Italy's only city with a leaning tower.

The narrow canals that run through the city turn its calle into dead-end labyrinths that even a good map can't help a tourist navigate.



Even the occasional motor launch put-putting down a canal barely interrupts the quiet you get with a car-free city.

For the even slightly-adventurous, wandering down the narrow calle provides a great way to get lost...

...and to stumble upon an unexpected treasure.

For years, we have been telling our friends about our favorite detective series...Donna Leon's Commasario Brunetti mysteries.


We therefore couldn't resist a visit to the Palazzo Falier...where, in the novels, Brunetti's in-laws live.


The palazzo is real, though it's not actually the elegant home of the fictitous conte and contessa Falier...who never fail to provide insights into the lives of Venezia's wealthy elite.

The winged lion...the symbol of Venezia