From the mouth of the Arno to Pisa, Florence and Siena

Rub the boar's snout to ensure that you return to Florence

On the recommendation of Anne and Gordon aboard Sarah Grace, we ‘sailed’ (a Mediterranean term for motoring into a headwind) from Elba into the mouth of the Arno River. Here, besides the big new Marina di Pisa complex, there are small marinas and jetties for a couple of miles along the river bank. Marinanova is a quaint and pleasant little spot where the two friendly marina dogs race to greet you before you see the “Please do not Feed the Dogs” sign. Paolo, who owns and runs Marinanova, has a PhD in Economics but he enjoys the simple life sleeping on his boat and keeping company with the local fishermen. Nets are strung all along the river bank and there seems to be plenty to catch, but thinking of the major cities, towns and farmlands upriver, we weren’t that keen on a seafood dinner. A regular bus service runs along the main road behind the marina so it’s easy to travel to the local town, or into Pisa or, with a couple of bus/train changes, to Florence and Siena. So that’s what we did.

Marinanova

Tai the Marina dog

Fishing huts and nets on the Arno

The first excursion was about ten kilometres to the city of Pisa to see the Field of Miracles and the famous Leaning Tower. No matter how many times you’ve seen it in photos or films, seeing the actual tower listing at that angle is a surreal experience. Galileo conducted his canon ball experiment here (whether it was an actual demonstration or a ‘thought experiment’ is still debated, though it’s fun to imagine him up there!) He thus proved conclusively that Wil E Coyote couldn’t possibly have been crushed by the ACME anvil that he pushed over a cliff to catch the Roadrunner (the theory does have some other minor applications.) A stroll across the bridge and through the lamplit town, and dinner at Osteria I Santi, was a lovely way to finish the evening.

The Tower

Detail - the Leaning tower

We managed to resist taking the 'holding up the tower' shot

Our next, more ambitious effort was a round trip to Florence for three days, the same in Siena, then back to Pisa. I feel quite inadequate to describe either of these wonderful cities, but I hope the photographs will provide some sense of their uniqueness.

My first glimpse of Florence was a day trip with our mates Jenny and Robbie, who spent ten days with us in Rome – but I want to leave that story for their Guest Blog. Terry and I booked into a nice little ground floor apartment, within easy striking distance of the Duomo, which of course is a spectacular must-see. Built from white, grey-green and pink marble from the outposts of the Empire, it is one of those buildings that proclaim, “We are the centre of the world” which, in the sixteenth century, Florence was. Inside, it is surprisingly plain: light and space provide the sense of awe rather than the usual spectacular decoration. Florence is the city of the Renaissance, a testament to what happens when great wealth, new ideas, enlightened leadership (the Medicis, of course) and genius in several fields (art, literature, architecture, science…) coincide and enhance each other.

The Duomo, Florence

So, it was off to Santa Croce, where several of the great figures of the time (and later times) are buried, to pay tribute. Besides the great Galileo himself, the scientists Fermi, Marconi and Barsanti (co-inventor of the internal combustion engine); artists like Ghiberti and the great Michelangelo; writers like Dante and Machiavelli, amongst many other notables in different fields, are buried here. Michelangelo created a beautiful Pieta for his own tomb, but sadly it is elsewhere and he is left with a fussy, ostentatious edifice which I doubt he would have appreciated.

Galileo

Michelangelo

Dante

Fortunately I had been to the Uffizi with Jenny and Robbie – there was no getting in this time around with the holiday crowds in full force. It’s a strange phenomenon that only the really major tourist attractions are ever crowded – perhaps this is because of the itineraries of cruise lines and tour buses? Pompeii will have a hundred thousand tourists, while Ostia Antica has ten! In Florence, places like the Bargello (sculpture museum) and the Pitti Palace (home of a rival family to the Medicis, housing a great art collection) were not at all crowded, making it easy to stroll around and really look at things properly. Donatello’s sculptures, beautiful paintings by Rafael, Titian, Rubens, Caravaggio – what a feast!

Donatello's rather camp David

Living large Renaissance-style in the Pitti Palazzo

Amazing detail from an inlaid stone table

Rafael Madonna and Child

Titian's beautiful repentent Magdalene

Rubens bringing dynamic movement to Florentine art

And speaking of feasts, we enjoyed several including this Florentine bistecca at Rubaconte Ristorante -  simple but sensational.

Florence is one of those inexhaustible cities to which you could return again and again, and it would still reveals more layers, more treasures. I hope we can return some day. And now, to do justice to the equally beautiful, but quite different city of Siena, I think I will save it for the next blog.

Sun sets on Marinanova

Porto di Roma to Elba

Grand sea views must be something we’ve only recently come to value. It seems that in the past, explorers would discover a lovely island or a dramatic bit of coastline and say to themselves, “This spot would make a splendid prison/asylum/leper colony/cemetery!” The island of Elba, largest of the Tuscan Islands, would have to be one of the world’s most beautiful prisons – though I suppose that’s a bit of a stretch as Napoleon had a pretty free range of the island and he was only here for nine months. The Elbans remember him fondly; an incurable leader, he organised to have roads built and reformed the punitive tax laws on the island. His death-mask has pride of place in the palazzo which is now a museum.

Elba - mountains, forests, clear blue bays

Our passage to Elba from Porto di Roma wasn’t ideal – sloppy short chop and variable winds all the way.  We bypassed Isola Giglio as the moorings didn’t look at all inviting, checking out the site of the Costa Concordia disaster on the way through. More slop and chop, then finally a couple of hours of sail until we put down the anchor in Porto Azzura, Elba, at 1700. Any excuse to get in the water, I checked our anchor and found a surprising bonus - right beneath us was a perfectly good mooring block, still with loop, but minus float! Terry hooked us up, we left the anchor down as a decoy and voila! We weren’t going anywhere.

 

Sea turtle rescue! We found three floating mid ocean - gave them away to kids

Rocks where the Costa Concordia struck

And that was just as well, as our second day saw the arrival of one of those sudden, spectacular thunder storms that appear out of nowhere in these parts, no doubt because of all the warm humid air being pushed up mountains and cooling quickly. Well this one precipitated great lumps of hail that really hurt when they hit you, but were handy for cooling the evening Aperols.

Thunderstorm - I snagged a lightning strike!

 

Porto Azzura is a stunning anchorage, with room for at least 100 boats at anchor –and that was just as well too, because the summer crowds were out in force. Despite this, Elba felt very relaxed and friendly – it is a fertile island and has a bit of a rural feel to it once you get away from the immediate waterfront in the main towns. We hopped on a local bus to see some of the countryside, which is mountains, forest and rich farmland, and the main ferry port at Portoferraio. The port is so named because Elba has some good iron ore deposits, which have been mined and shipped from here since ancient times – so this is where a few of those helmets, swords and bronze gods in the museums had their origins, perhaps.

Porto Azzura

Fertile farmlands in the valleys

Five days of exploring, swimming, reading and a few drinks and excellent meals ashore passed surprisingly quickly, as is the whole summer, in fact. So, with so much more of Italy still to see, we decided to park Common Sense in a low cost marina at the mouth of the Arno River for a week and jump on a train to Florence and Siena…

Pizza - simple and perfect

Portoferraio

 

Beer Blogger hard at work

 

Porto Ercole and the Feniglia (Terry)

Marina Cala Galera

We are in the most upmarket marina we have ever been in – Marina di Cala Galera.  We always thought of Tuscany as rolling hills, vineyards and olive groves but it has coastline, too, and the marinas are as expensive as renting a villa (enough to make a Perth Dietitian cringe at the thought)

Not a lot of wind about in the bay

We arrived in this bay last week sometime, perhaps Wednesday, perhaps Thursday, and stayed out in the bay on the anchor for a few days.  First we were down the Ansedonia end, anchored off a beach that separates the sea from two separate salines.  The beach is part of a strip of land called La Tombola di Feniglia, or most commonly “The Feniglia”.  No cars here, just a bike track for 7kms to the other end, the Porto Ercole (yes, Hercules was here, too!) end.  

La Feniglia showing the first of two lagoons inside

The beach is crowded from morn-to-mosquito-time, when the sods come out in their gazillions.  We can confirm this as we dinghied down to get a geocache and were almost bodily removed from the earth.  A can of Mortein mightn’t have done for them all but it would have evened the odds and made me feel better.

In the forest of the Feniglia - small deer here, too.

The Beach of La Feniglia

The beach was the site of the death of Caravaggio, the Admiral’s most admired painter, and a cause of pilgrimage wherever one of his paintings is on display – of course, there are many in Rome to visit and also there is his most famous in Malta, the death of John the Baptist, a theme he painted several times.

Caravaggio monument

We dinghied in to Porto Ercole twice, then decided to move up the bay a little closer.  More jumping in to clear water, swimming, reading, drinking Italian beer and generally slacking off and a visit to the Macelleria and Grocer for supplies.  Armed with fresh produce, we had steak with local garlic and onions one night, then chicken legs in egg, breadcrumbs and herbs another.

Finally, we decided to move into the marina here, Cala Galera.  Our first inquiry was met with “€130 per night”.  Well, we might be foreign but we ain’t that dumb so we passed, with good grace of course.  A return phone call offered €110 per night, again not enticing enough to leave the real estate of the bay.  Finally, unexpectedly, a call came from the lady who owned the slip we are in offering €70 per night.  Now this is way over what we would ordinarily consider, having just paid €56 a night in Rome in the high season but we reasoned that we are only in Tuscany in summer once in our lives so shut up and pay the lady.  She lives over by the thermal mud baths near here and has an estate with a lake on it, so we assume she is reasonably well-off.  She does drive a kidnap-avoidance vehicle, though, which is smart (a Hyundai).  The rest of the clientele in this marina are in Range Rovers, Jaguars, BMWs, Porsche Boxsters, Porsche Cayennes, and even one Ferrari Testarossa.  

Not a Ferrari Testarossa - an old Fiat with ancient Roma plates on it

Their boats are not shabby either, with thundering great V8 diesels filling the air on Saturday and Sunday when they come up from Rome for the weekend.  A fair proportion are sailboats of considerable fitout, and the owners are no mere fancy-pants owners.  They sure can handle their boats with skill, some even skidding through the anchorage outside first before heading West to the Tuscan islands for a weekend stay without a hint of a collision.

Porto Ercole

We have been in to Porto Ercole every day since being here, having been shown a shortcut up behind the naval works (they used to make boats here), around a mountain track and down onto the main road.  Neat.  Last night, we tried to eat at a famous pizza place but it was crowded out so we moved a couple of doors up to a restaurant we'd had lunch at a couple of days ago.  Lots of beers, Aperol Spritz and simple seafood pasta dishes and we were full for the walk home back around the base of the mountain.

Lampada Restaurant

Today, we found the pizza place uncrowded at lunch and had simple pizza slices for €0.50c a slice.  The drinks were twice the price of the pizza!

The owner, Antonio, is reportedly planning to take his pizza to the USA.  It is certainly special, with a mixture of OO flour, Soy flour and some unspokens also– his pizza is light to eat and there is no heaviness at all.  

Strangely enough, I happened to be wearing my Route 66 Oatman Arizona tee and he stared and then said “I have the exact same tee.  I went camping there with my father in law!”  Small world – Oatman is only about 15 miles from Carol’s mother’s house.  Small world #2 – the lady who owns the slip we are in has a gardener who has looked after her place for about 10 years.  Originally from Sweden, he migrated to ….. Fremantle, Western Australia – she asked if we knew where that was?  Yes, that’s where Common Sense is home-ported.  She was amazed.  It’s where his children are, one an engineer and the other a Headmistress of a school.

A trip up to the closest fort to find a geocache was unproductive.  Not sure where it is but it appears to be on private land and that for us is a no-go, even if we are in Italy.  Up the hill for quite a way, down the hill, into town, up the far end of town, back again, back to the far end to the old quarter and then finally back to the Co-op and around the mountain to the marina.  

On our last day, we indulged in that favourite adventure of cruisers "Let's see where the bus goes to?"  Buy a couple of tickets, find out when the last one back is and off you go to wherever it finishes up.  Great cheap fun.  We took the bus to Orbetello, the small city on a strip of land in the middle of the two lagoons.  It has been a settlement since Etruscan times, 8th Cent BC.  Unfortunately, the museo only opens on the weekends and public holidays so we couldn't check out the artifacts collected around there.  Took the opportunity to get another Geocache and had a nice lunch in a Pizzeria that has been trading since 1958.  Easy to see why they are still in business given our two meals and drinks for the grand sum of 10 Euros.

The 2nd lagoon, Laguna Ponente

Some of you may know that I did considerable damage to my big toe in Rome several weeks ago and have been warding off infection and the like ever since.  Well, the hike didn’t help matters at all so I think I’ll have to stay off it for a while now.  It was also very taxing on Carol so a nice sea voyage is in the planning.

Scario

 

Scario is just a small fishing village and holiday resort south of Napoli in the Gulf of Policastro, but we found it a delightful place to spend a few days. Nestled in amongst the rugged cliffs, caves and grottoes of the south west coast of mainland Italy, Scario shares the picturesque qualities of the Amalfi coast without its overexposure. The houses are weathered stone or stucco in creams, pinks and yellows, and the town clearly takes pride in its gardens. At this time of year fruit trees are laden and there are vivid flowers everywhere, while shade trees provide relief from the intense sun of high summer. The town’s backdrop is mountains skirted by pine and cedar forest.

Tourism seems to be fairly low-key. Families from Rome have their holiday villas and apartments here, along with a scattering of foreigners, but the town seems to be a ‘real’ town with butchers and hardware stores as well as the restaurants and bars, along with a sense of community.  On the evening we arrived, the church was filled to overflowing with people celebrating Mass accompanied by the local children’s choir. The evening passegiata along the waterfront was always a friendly and colourful affair, with stylish summer fashions, new babies on display, the elderly arm in arm with a strong young grandson or daughter and of course all the children high on gelato at midnight.

Waterfront promenade, before the evening crowds

 

The old boys gather for cards

 

We had a couple of excellent meals at a family ristorante called La Piazzetta where I had a lovely rich seafood risotto and a lesson in the correct way to eat cigale.  Terry had pasta with mixed mushrooms.

 La Piazzetta

Besides a sheltered harbour at reasonable cost, Scario also has clear water for swimming, pleasant places to walk – and did I mention the gardens? We happened to see a post in the real estate agent’s office offering a ‘small villa with garden’ for €98,000 – very tempting!

 

 Old buildings nestling amongst the villas

 A beautiful waterfront