Italy 2011

Rome to Benevento

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We arrived at Rome’s Fiumicino airport with unusual ease. Neither plane (IAD to FRA and FRA to FCO) was terribly late, and our bags arrived when we did! We walked an extra couple of miles getting to the rental car facility due to Italy’s typically poor signage. The line to get our rental car was short and quick. We hauled our bags out to the cars and were surprised when we did our walk-around inspection to check the condition of the car. The car had been seriously damaged. There were scratches – some quite deep – all along the passenger side of the car with the back door and back fender both dented significantly. Richard talked to the customer service rep who just marked an "X" on the areas on ...Read More

We arrived at Rome’s Fiumicino airport with unusual ease. Neither plane (IAD to FRA and FRA to FCO) was terribly late, and our bags arrived when we did! We walked an extra couple of miles getting to the rental car facility due to Italy’s typically poor signage. The line to get our rental car was short and quick. We hauled our bags out to the cars and were surprised when we did our walk-around inspection to check the condition of the car. The car had been seriously damaged. There were scratches – some quite deep – all along the passenger side of the car with the back door and back fender both dented significantly. Richard talked to the customer service rep who just marked an "X" on the areas on the car diagram and said that it wouldn’t be a problem. Yeah, right. We took pictures, trying to strategically frame the photos to establish that the photos were taken AT the airport BEFORE we moved the car. Whoever damaged the car did a truly impressive job!

The car, a Peugot, was a station wagon with 6 gears (plus reverse) and was big. HUGE. It was almost twice the length of my Civic. Getting out of the garage, I had to do 3-point turns as we made the turns down the parking garage levels because the car wouldn’t make a tight enough turn. I kept thinking that I just wasn’t accustomed to the car, as I was sure it ought to make the turns. (It turned out that, when we came back after driving the car 2.5 weeks and I was very accustomed to driving the car, the car really won’t make that turn. Maybe that is how someone bashed the whole side of the car!) Since the car rental facility was on the 5th floor of the garage, I had ample opportunity to practice maneuvering the car.

We headed immediately out of the vicinity of Rome, off to the A1 and then south towards Naples. We pulled off the highway at Ceprano to get food.
We drove through the town and found a small shop with a sign that said "Pizzeria." We went in, stood there for a few minutes, and then a young guy waved us toward a table. He got us a bottle of water and some bread and then asked if we wanted salad or primi (typically pasta). Richard said he would like pizza, and they guy looked at him funny and said that pizza wasn’t available. We ordered pasta. The place continued to fill up. It was clearly a place where laborers ate lunch during their lunch break. They were all sitting down to multi-course meals of pasta, salad, meat, and sometimes vegetables or fruit. Everybody could tell (a) we weren’t locals and (b) we were having some communication issues.

A television was on, and I saw that Steve Jobs had died. It is always weird to be in a foreign country and see news about the U.S. There was also coverage about Amanda Knox. That was pretty amusing because no one in the place was paying any attention to the t.v. until that story came on, and then all of the eyes were glued to it. When it went off, the men started talking loudly in what sounded like a debate. We have no idea what they were saying, but I thought it was funny to see grown men arguing over what in the U.S. was essentially a tabloid story.

We got our food – simple spaghetti with a red sauce. Richard had ordered a meat sauce, and I had ordered ‘pomodoro’ – basic tomato sauce. Ahhh, wonderful, al-dente pasta! Restaurants in the U.S. rarely serve pasta truly al-dente, and here was a dive with plastic chairs and card tables in a small town that made wonderful pasta. I thought the tomato sauce was a bit on the salty side, but I think it was actually a marinara and some of the saltiness came from the seafood cooked in the sauce. Richard liked his meat sauce too. Our server was the son, and his dad made a brief appearance when serving plates to another table. We paid the bill – about 15 U.S. dollars, including water, 2 plates of pasta, and bread!

We got back in the car and continued south, turning off towards Benevento before we got to Naples. The going got slower, having left the highway, and Richard napped. Finally, I was too exhausted to drive, and we switched. Richard drove us while I slept until we were almost to Benevento. We missed our exit and took the following Benevento exit and tried to work our way across town. That was a bad move – particularly without a detailed map of the city. After backtracking about 5 times, we finally got on the right road and pulled into the hotel parking lot, which was blessedly large and easy to maneuver the car in.

We checked in and found our room to be large and tastefully decorated, with three balconies – two from the bedroom and a third from the bathroom. Like many hotels in Europe, there was no electricity to the room unless a key was inserted into a spot near the door to activate the power. We didn’t immediately activate the power, and opened the windows wide to let in the sunlight and warm breeze. The day was gorgeous with bright sun and moderate temperatures. Read Less

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Trattoria Nunzia

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Trattoria Nunzia Photo - Trattoria Nunzia, Benevento, Italy

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Trattoria Nunzia is a family-run restaurant in Benevento. Hidden away on a narrow street a block off the Piazza Roma, the restaurant has 9-12 tables varying in size. The interior is shaped like that of a wine cellar with high vaulted ceilings and small chambers. There is no menu; the proprietress or her son will come to your table to explain the primi (pastas) and secondi (meats) available for the day. There are also offerings of vegetables, or you can request contorno misto (an assortment of vegetable sides). The wine options are phenomenal, local, and unbelievably inexpensive for very high quality wine. We ate there both nights in Benevento, as Richard had eaten at a variety of restaurants on ...Read More

Trattoria Nunzia is a family-run restaurant in Benevento. Hidden away on a narrow street a block off the Piazza Roma, the restaurant has 9-12 tables varying in size. The interior is shaped like that of a wine cellar with high vaulted ceilings and small chambers. There is no menu; the proprietress or her son will come to your table to explain the primi (pastas) and secondi (meats) available for the day. There are also offerings of vegetables, or you can request contorno misto (an assortment of vegetable sides). The wine options are phenomenal, local, and unbelievably inexpensive for very high quality wine. We ate there both nights in Benevento, as Richard had eaten at a variety of restaurants on a previous trip and thought Nunzia was the best by far.

Over the two nights, we had for primi: strongozzi in a tomato "meat" sauce (no meat in it but cooked with meat), gemilli in a goat cheese/tomato sauce, and capellini in a chunky marinara sauce (complete with chunks of fish, capers and tomatoes). For secondi, we had beef rollatini (beef rolled with garlic and other herbs) cooked as part of the sauce for the strongozzi, octopus cooked in a tomato sauce, and beef roast cooked in onions. The roast beef was a very nice roast slow cooked in onions for 6-7 hours until the onions were basically a sweet mush – unbelievably good! They have a rich offering of fish dishes, which is all brought in fresh daily, mainly from the Adriatic. I’m just partial to beef.

Both nights we had contorno misto. The first night we had eggplant cooked in a tomato sauce, fried zucchini (no breading), zucchini parmesan, and a bean and pepper mixture. The second night we had the same plus grilled eggplant drizzled with white wine vinegar and roasted eggplant. They also brought out an appetizer of roasted vegetables from a local farmer: tiny tomato slices, tiny asparagus (made baby asparagus look enormous), artichoke hearts, and baby broccoli all drizzled in olive oil and vinegar. The tomatoes had been sliced and dried before cooking. They were delicious and quite unusual.

For wine, we had a local Aglianico del Taburno from Fontanavecchia (see separate review and story) and a Taurasi. Both wines were fabulous. The 2007 Fontanavecchia was absurdly inexpensive – 12 Euros for an exceptionally structured, rich, full-bodied red. The 2005 Taurasi was as full-bodied but a bit smoother and more expensive.

For dessert, we had "baba" a local yellow cake soaked (and I mean drowning) in rum. The son, Antonio, explained the story behind "baba"… A local noble, who was a drunkard, went to France where rum was available from the New World and always, in his drunkenness, dumped it on his cake. He brought the dish back to Italy, where it has become a popular dessert. Somehow, despite being drenched in rum, the cake doesn’t get soggy. The cake remains light with a nice texture – just dripping with rum.

We also had a cheesecake covered in a sugar icing with bits of chocolate in it. It was a green half-dome of cake with a layer of cheesecake covered with the sweet, green, hardened icing over it and with a chocolate chip on top. Antonio suggested that we have a glass of Malvisia from Sicily with it. Laura, who never likes mixing dessert wine and sweets, thought the pairing was unbelievable. The dessert and dessert wine were made for each other. We also had a nougatine semifreddo covered in chocolate sauce and a mint/vanilla gelato infused with Strega liquor. (Strega is made in Benevento.) While we enjoyed the chilled desserts, I think the first night’s desserts (baba and cheesecake) took first place. Read Less

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on August 25, 2012

Trattoria Nunzia
Annunziata 152
Benevento, Italy

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Fontanavecchia

Attraction | "Forget Tuscany"

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Fontanavecchia is a family-run winery in Torrecuso – a small town near Benevento in Campania – not too far from Naples. The winery was easy to find by following the brown/yellow signs after exiting the highway at the Torrecuso/Ponte exit. Without an appointment, we received a tour of the winery and a wine tasting. We also expressed an interest in their olive oil, and we received a sampling of bread with olive oil to taste. The proprietor’s son – probably near our age – gave us the tour and the tasting. He told us (in Italian) that he had learned English in school, but that he remembers almost nothing, as the lack of English-speaking tourists has not given him an opportunity to speak it. We commu...Read More

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on August 25, 2012

Fontanavecchia

Torrecuso, Benevento

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Wining and Dining in Benevento

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We got off to a late start. We had breakfast at the hotel breakfast buffet just before they stopped serving breakfast at 10. Then, we went back to the room and took a nap to relieve the jet lag. Richard got up and went running. When he got back, we headed out to go wine tasting. The Aglianico wine of Campania is wonderful, and we were looking forward to trying some new wineries. We were getting a late start, though…Upon exiting the highway at Torrecuso, the direction to the winery was clearly marked with the typical Italian brown/yellow attraction signage. The turn into the winery was unexpected, however, as the large asphalt turn-in went over a hill and immediately dropped down int...Read More

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Driving in the "Toe" of Italy

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Parco Nazionale dell'Aspromonte Photo - Calabria, Italy

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The plan was to drive across the "toe" of Italy to Bianco, taste the Bianco di Greco wine, then drive south along the coast before heading inland to visit the towns of Roccaforte del Greco and Condofuri to have Greek pizza (which we had read were great there), then continue the rest of the way along the coast back to Scilla. We missed the turn-off to cut across the peninsula, so we thought we would do the trip in reverse – except that we were not on the autostrada. We hit Reggio-Calabria. Hit is a very good word for it; the complete loss of momentum felt like we had hit a brick wall. While we didn’t actually collide with anything, that was by sheer luck. Imagine a street about two car widths wide...Read More

The plan was to drive across the "toe" of Italy to Bianco, taste the Bianco di Greco wine, then drive south along the coast before heading inland to visit the towns of Roccaforte del Greco and Condofuri to have Greek pizza (which we had read were great there), then continue the rest of the way along the coast back to Scilla. We missed the turn-off to cut across the peninsula, so we thought we would do the trip in reverse – except that we were not on the autostrada. We hit Reggio-Calabria. Hit is a very good word for it; the complete loss of momentum felt like we had hit a brick wall. While we didn’t actually collide with anything, that was by sheer luck. Imagine a street about two car widths wide plus, maybe, an extra foot or so. Then imagine cars parked half on the sidewalk, half on the road – on both sides. Imagine that this is a two-way street with heavy traffic in both directions. Now add in people randomly crossing the road without looking for traffic, people flinging their doors wide open to get into their parked cars (those cars half in the street), cars darting to make left turns across traffic without signaling, cars pulling out into traffic (again without signaling)… I’ve seen driving video games that were (a) less difficult and (b) more believable. I remember in driver’s education class, driving a simulation where a person flung their car door wide open and thinking what a stupid simulation it was because no one would be that dumb, as they were likely to either get killed or at least lose their car door. Apparently, the Reggio-Calabrians have a great deal of faith in the capability of the drivers’ ability to dodge obstacles or stop on a dime.

I held my breath for most of the drive (not a good thing to do when driving) and found myself hunching over and closing my eyes, waiting for the impact, every few seconds. Remarkably, the crunch never came. We dodged, weaved and braked our way through town and made a beeline for the highway at the first opportunity. The city was ugly, industrial and very, very crowded. We did not make it anywhere near the city center or the coast, though, so perhaps there is a gem in the center? At any rate, we merged onto the A3 and drove a few kilometers before the autostrada ended. We were on a better road than before, but there was a great deal of traffic again. I couldn’t wait for the turn-off to head into the mountains and get away from all of the cars and people. Careful what you wish for…
Eventually, we creeped and crawled our way in traffic to the Mélito di Porto Salvo exit and headed north on SS-183. In a U.S. hierarchy of roads, there are the interstates, the U.S. highways, the state highways, in some states – the rural roads still maintained by the state, then the county/city roads. The SS roads are the equivalent of the state highways. This road was generally two lanes, except through towns where it sometimes dropped to 1.5 lanes. We twisted and turned our way up into the hills, rising quickly from the ocean. After 7 km or so, we turned off onto what I foolishly thought of as a Texas farm-to-market road. It seemed well-maintained and still generally at least 1.5 lanes wide. In San Pantaleone, the through street wasn’t marked, and we took a wrong turn. The road became narrower and narrower until I had to back up (in a cute little area of town with bright, new, red paving stones) to let another car go by. I (mistakenly) thought that the road was supposed to go through the center of town (not uncommon), so we continued on, turning in the side mirrors to squeeze between the buildings. It wasn’t until I had to backup to let the "school bus" turn around that we realized that we were definitely not on the right road. We headed back through the winding road, back through the cute little plaza, and tried following the signs to the church. We never saw the church, but we did come out on the other side of town and continued heading up the mountain. San Lorenzo came and went without problem. Then the road became very steep and winding. (If you had asked in San Pentaleone, I would have said that the road was very steep and winding. It turns out that that is a very relative concept.)
[Trip to Aspromonte continues] Read Less

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Driving in Aspromonte

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After San Lorenzo, we saw very few cars (fortunately, as the road wasn’t truly wide enough for two). I should also mention that we have an ENORMOUS rental car. I think it is the biggest, longest, widest station wagon made by Peugot. It is a very nice car – 6 gears! – and actually can hold our ridiculous amount of luggage, but it is very long and the tight turns are tricky.When we arrived at Roccaforte, a little stressed from the climbing, tight turns, we found a town that was completely shut down. There were no obvious businesses. There were cars, and there were houses, but we did not see any sign of a restaurant, a bar, a pizzeria. All of the store fronts were closed with those gara...Read More

After San Lorenzo, we saw very few cars (fortunately, as the road wasn’t truly wide enough for two). I should also mention that we have an ENORMOUS rental car. I think it is the biggest, longest, widest station wagon made by Peugot. It is a very nice car – 6 gears! – and actually can hold our ridiculous amount of luggage, but it is very long and the tight turns are tricky.

When we arrived at Roccaforte, a little stressed from the climbing, tight turns, we found a town that was completely shut down. There were no obvious businesses. There were cars, and there were houses, but we did not see any sign of a restaurant, a bar, a pizzeria. All of the store fronts were closed with those garage-door looking gates. Maybe there was a once a pizzeria. Maybe there still is but it was closed with no sign outside the closed gate. Who knows? We clearly weren’t getting lunch (or a bathroom break) here. And so we continued on. The road began going downhill, which was far more pleasant than the twisting climb. There were a few turns but the going was pretty easy. We passed through Ghorio where several people outside working stared at us as we went by.

Up to this point, the hillsides had been very arid with low grasses and short olive trees. Every now and then we would pass a grove of enormous olive trees. We had no idea olive trees could get so big. Some were as tall and wide as an oak. (They had several trunks, growing very differently than an oak, but just as large overall.) Generally, the plants were fairly short, though. As we came down into and then through Ghorio, we entered a dark forest with tall trees and moss on the ground. The shade was noticeably cooler, even inside the car. A car ahead of us stopped and picked up a guy who had been walking down the road and then turned and came back up the hill past us. Another guy continued walking down the hill, cutting across the switchbacks of the road. Right about that time, we passed an old, rusty sign that said "Attenzione" and something else illegible – partly from rust, partly from all of the bullet holes in it.

It turns out Richard didn’t see that sign. I saw it and didn’t think anything of it. I’m from Texas and have been seeing old, rusty signs full of bullet holes out in the country my whole life. Often times those signs warned of dangers long past and had never been taken down. I can remember many specific examples of this, particularly on "Old Houston Road" near where I grew up. Had Richard seen it, maybe we would have turned around. Maybe we would have continued on. He didn’t see it, and we drove down the next switchback and the road got a bit rougher – a few potholes, a few rocks from a rockslide some time ago. Nothing too bad.

Long story short, about 8-10 switchbacks lower, the road got a bit more washed out. It was still obviously paved, but the potholes were a bit more frequent, the rocks on the road a bit larger, and areas of gravel and dirt a bit thicker and broader. We were clearly crawling toward an enormous, dry, riverbed. We could see the MASSIVE concrete bridge, so there wasn’t really a concern that the bridge was out, but the road was still very rough and very steep and very twisting. Richard was clearly getting nervous with the steep drop-offs and the loose gravel, but there was no place to turn around. Finally, FINALLY, we got to the bottom and crossed a large bridge wide enough for two cars but with no railings. By the look of the road on either side of the bridge, I would guess that the river has gone over the bridge before.

Let me pause a moment to describe the ravine. It turns out that there was actually a running river in that riverbed. It looked tiny compared to the size of the bridge and the size of the riverbed. I think it was probably a bigger (and rougher) river than one would really want to cross on foot if hiking, though. I cannot fathom the volume of water that must pass through this ravine to have topped the bridge. It is THE largest non-suspension bridge I have ever seen.

Not really wanting to go up that mess of a road that we just went down, we continued on. The next town was visible on the hillside ahead of us, and presumably the road would get better. Probably the road between the two towns was just not well-maintained as it was obviously impassable whenever the river was swollen with water. We continued crawling along in first and second gears up an improbably steep, narrow road. At first, it seemed like the road on this side of the river was in a little better shape. Then we hit the first switchback, and the road went back to scattered gravel and rocks and potholes in the pavement. Again, the road was obviously paved but had been badly damaged from runoff and rockslides. Unlike other, (nicely) paved roads where a huge chunk of the road was simply missing from a landslide, this road was consistently a little over one lane wide. It didn’t seem to have the instability problems, with huge areas of land simply giving way. I think the rough road was primarily caused by water rushing down the road and washing out sections of asphalt. We twisted and turned, occasionally having to back up to make the tight, narrow switchbacks.

As we wound our way up the last few switchbacks, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Roghudi was creepy. The town was vacant. Dead. Richard and I had both been warned not to go down small roads like SS-183 because "there are bandits in Calabria." We had dismissed this as the bias of northern Italians against southern Italians. Now, all of those warnings stared out at us from the black, windowless buildings. We had been warned to avoid small towns; this was much worse. This was a whole town that was deserted…in the middle of nowhere…accessible only by a terrible road. We both had the same thought: this would be the perfect hide-out for criminals. The Calabrian mafia might be running a drug business out of this town. Or maybe this is where they took kidnapped Americans to hide while they tried to get a ransom…. Read Less

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Escaping Aspromonte

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As we drove through Roghudi -- or what was left of it -- and not wanting to let on that I was also worried, I tried to reassure Richard and told him about an article I had read that morning in a travel magazine in our room at the B&B. It had been about an abandoned town in Calabria. I couldn’t remember the name of the town – maybe it was this one. It was a suggested location for a day trip, and the article explained that a combination of earthquakes, floods and economics had caused the town to be deserted. The article had suggested that the deserted town was a great place to roam amongst historic buildings. I didn’t convince either of us. We flew through the town, eager to put it...Read More

As we drove through Roghudi -- or what was left of it -- and not wanting to let on that I was also worried, I tried to reassure Richard and told him about an article I had read that morning in a travel magazine in our room at the B&B. It had been about an abandoned town in Calabria. I couldn’t remember the name of the town – maybe it was this one. It was a suggested location for a day trip, and the article explained that a combination of earthquakes, floods and economics had caused the town to be deserted. The article had suggested that the deserted town was a great place to roam amongst historic buildings. I didn’t convince either of us.

We flew through the town, eager to put it behind us. Again, we were thinking that the road between a dead town and a tiny mountain town with a big ravine in between had to be a low priority for repairs. Perhaps this dead town was a tourist destination but most people arrived from the other direction. Maybe, just maybe, the road would be better going out of town. There was no way we were going back down into that ravine and crossing the big bridge.

Another hour of winding, mainly climbing, switchbacks on an awful (still paved) road full of potholes, large rocks, and gravel crawled by. The car engine started to get hot from all of the first gear climbing. We stopped in a rare pull-out to let the engine cool and bit and to take a few pictures. I noticed a road across the valley. The washed out road was visible with a gigantic section of guardrail dangling in the air, suspended on either side of the washed out section of road. It was difficult to judge, but it looked like there might not be enough road left to cross. Surely, surely, our road was not going to take us there. We would have to turn back and go back through miles of narrow, winding switchbacks to Roghudi and more switchbacks to the bridge, and more switchbacks to Ghorio. The road couldn’t be washed out. It just couldn’t.

We crawled down into the valley and crossed a small stream. We saw a guy out walking. Maybe this was a good sign; he was the first person we had seen in several hours. We continued climbing, finally reaching the ridge and crossing to the other side of the mountain. At least this was a positive sign that we weren’t headed towards the washed out road… After another 15 minutes or so of winding switchbacks, the road seemed a tiny bit better. The potholes were smaller and less frequent. The rocks from rockslides were smaller. There was less gravel washed onto the road. We saw hiking trail signs. We wound through more switchbacks. We saw a shepherd with his sheep. The road got marginally better.

Then, we passed a farmhouse and entered a forest. The road quite suddenly became good pavement again. The land had changed completely. We were sailing along a fairly level, but still winding, road right on top of the ridge through the middle of a dense conifer forest. The temperature dropped. The car cooled noticeably. We saw an actual sign to Bova – the way out! We flew along the road. Signs of people were everywhere – buildings, farm animals, lots of hiking trail signs. We marveled that anyone would feel safe hiking here…

We crested the ridge, left the forest and breezed through another intersection with a sign to Bova. On we went, eager to get back to civilization and away from the ghost town we imagined to be full of criminals. As we got farther away, the oppressive dread that had burdened us vaporized. How silly we had been. Of course, it was just a ghost town – just like the old mining towns in the western U.S. We had let all of those rumors of bandits get to us. We should have stopped and taken some pictures because the views really were spectacular.

Feeling much better, we continued along, winding through more switchbacks, but the road was smoothly paved! What more could anyone ask for! And then we came to a screeching halt. We came to a T intersection. We had to turn left or right. There was no sign. Why were there no signs to Bova? There had been no other intersections since the last sign!

We rolled forward into the intersection, looking left and right. Nothing. No clue which way to go. Both roads went downhill. They almost looked like they would join up on the other side of the hill directly in front of us because they both curved away towards one another. We chose right. We curved around the hill back towards the left and saw rocks in the road. Not big rocks, but after the road we had been on…rocks on the road were not a good sign. The road also appeared to go into a series of switchbacks slowly working their way into the valley deeper into the hills. We wanted the ocean!

Naturally, there was no room to turn around. I shifted into reverse and drove backwards up the curving hill all the way back to the intersection. I pulled back up into the road we had come from and again we stared at the T. Right hadn’t looked good. I back up a little farther and pointed out to Richard that the pavement we were on was a darker color than the pavement going to the right. The pavement to the left appeared to be the same as the pavement we were on. Maybe the "natural" turn of the road was to go left…

So, now we went left and started climbing again. Definitely not what we wanted, but we were headed toward the ocean. Then we came over a rise and saw the hills descending before us with the glittering, blue Ionian Sea, sparkling like an oasis in the middle of a desert. We wound down and down and down, twisting and turning, slowly making our way back to the ocean and the towns below. We made it to Bova. It seemed a pretty town and had lovely castle ruins perched above the town. We didn’t stop, though. Maybe we could still salvage some of the day (and get some food!) and go to Bianco for wine tasting. Read Less

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More Time in the "Toe" of the Boot

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Moonrise in Bianco Photo - Calabria, Italy

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Having finally made it out of the Aspromote National park, we entered Bova Marina on a road that looked like a back alley in an industrial area. We could see the highway, suspended high, high above on a massive bridge that bypassed the town. We wandered through the town to the left and couldn’t find the way up to the highway. Of course there were no signs! We went back to where we started and tried going straight. That landed us underneath the highway in a place that appeared to be the unofficial town dump. Back to where we started and off to the right… That turned back up into the hills on tiny drives. We turned around again and went back to where we started in the back alley. Le...Read More

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