The large mosque and the 1,700-year-old Roman bridge.
Adana is not a touristy city, but, here are the things one can do as a tourist. But, first things first. It is hot in Adana. From June through October, the temperatures can be above 86F/30C. Not super humid. In July, August, and September the temperatures are above 104F/40C. I recommend late October or April during the Orange Blossom Festival, Adana’s biggest tourist event.
Visit the old town around the clock tower and the old bazaar street.
Walk across the Roman bridge, still usable after 1,700 years.
Get a Turkish bath in a 500 year old bath house. Çarşı Hamami was built in 1529. Yes, you read that right. This bath house is located east of the main tourist street with all the shops. It is near the big clock tower.
A touristy sign in a touristy bit of Adana old town.
Visit the large mosque, Sabancı Central Mosque, the second largest mosque in the country. It is only 30 years old but is built in the style of the Blue Mosque which was built 400 years ago. While visiting the central park, walk along the river and maybe cross the hanging rope bridge.
The big clock tower and the main tourist street.
Buy some Turkish towels. I recommend venturing into the small streets downtown away from the touristy areas if you want better prices. I have seen Turkish towels range in price from $3 to $100.
For souvenirs, I recommend the womens’ cooperative, located near the clock tower.
Many years ago, I went to a fabulous hammam (the idea of it being a “Turkish bath” was introduced in 1644 even though the tradition is more than 2,000 years old and started as “thermae” in Rome) in Istanbul. Now that I live in Adana, I wanted to find the experience again.
I asked some colleagues if they went to the hammam. As one man said to me, “No, I do not like strange men touching me… and especially when I have no clothes on.” Fair comment, fair comment. I asked others who told me that they did not go the hammam. No tradition of it now that everyone has a bathroom in their own home. In the old days, people had no running hot water in the home so they went to the bathhouse.
The hamman tradition is a remnant of the Romans (again, it’s all about those roads leading to Rome). The Romans also had no baths at home. The bath houses were a place to do more than bath. One went there to exercise, eat, and socialize. Everywhere the Romans went, they built baths (and roads). Even after the “fall of Rome” the Roman empire continued as the Byzantine Empire, then as the Ottoman Empire. Fast forward a century, and the hammam still exists.
Recently I learned that in olden times (I assume Ottoman times), mothers would go to the hammam to find a wife for their sons… well, I guess that is a sure way to do a visual inspection. I cannot speak to the visual inspection thing, but what I do know is that most young people and many others do not use the public hammams anymore. On top of which at many of the hammams, they have private rooms.
A hammam in Adana which is easy to identify by the skylights.
Despite what the modern Turks prefer, I was looking forward to getting regular Turkish baths. So I went searching. Most of the hotels have Turkish bathhouses. So far, I can see that they are staffed with Balinese women. One hotel had Balinese women for the English speakers and Turkmen women for the Turkish speakers. Generally the price is around 2,000 to 2,500 for a Turkish bath at a hotel. You do not need to be staying at the hotel to use the hammam.
It may seem a mystery for many so I will explain the basics of the Turkish bath. The men and women are separated either by location or time (some days or parts of the days for women and others for men). You can make an appointment or walk in and see if they have someone available.
This is one of the hammams in Adana. They have a plunge pool. Note the Turkish towels on the shelves.
Some places will have blue “shower caps” for your shoes for you to put on before you enter the spa area.
Some of the shoe cover machines do not use blue shower caps.
Once you enter, you will be taken to a locker room where you put your belongings in a locker (including your underwear although I’m told that some people keep it on). Then put on the robe or cotton wrap and paper slippers. Some places will make you shower before, but some do not have showers at the beginning. Then someone will guide you to the sauna, then the steam room (the sauna and steam room are optional), and then to the room with the golden taps and golden dish to rinse yourself. The person bathing you will be wearing a Turkish towel as well or maybe that and a top (if a woman). After you, and they, have rinsed you enough, they will indicate that you lie down on the warm marble slab (which is usually octagonal and in the center of the room) where they have placed a Turkish cotton towel.
Then, the person will take a special scrubbing brush and scrub a few layers of skin off you. This will be all over you, except for the genitalia. But very close. They will indicate when you need to roll over, when you need to sit up, and so on. They will scrub your face and wash your hair as well. They will massage you a bit. Then you will be rinsed off again.
Then you lie down on the warm wet towel again. And the best part happens… they take a cotton “pillow case” and suds it up in a cauldron. From there, they squeeze the suds and bubbles over you. It is marvelous. The warm bubbles effervesce on you like giddy bubble bath champagne. It is bliss.
A view showing the marble bench where you would sit and rinse yourself (also from the fancy place in Istanbul).
After the hammam is over, you may be covered in more towels and taken out to a rest area. There you may be offered tea or other restoratives.
Typical rest area in a hotel spa.
And then you pay. You can tip if you want to. Some places want cash payment which I find a bit…
The Roman Stone Bridge with the Sabanci Central Mosque in the background.
A few years ago, I lived in Rome, Italy. For the past two years, I lived in the “new Rome” of Washington, DC, in the USA. Now, I have moved to a place that is still connected to Rome (after all, all roads…) but it’s also near history from beforeRome. (Rome was founded in 753 BCE). I’ve moved to Adana, Türkiye.
A “simit” vendor on the Roman Stone bridge.
Despite being a city of two million people, Adana is a less famous than Istanbul (Istanbul is 575 miles/925 kilometers from Adana) but Istanbul is its own universe.
Adana kebab is minced meat. It is the most famous dish from Adana.
I’ve moved somewhere famous for its kebab (More on that later). Adana is also known for its Roman stone bridge (Taşköprü in Turkish), and more recently for being near the location of another famous bridge (Varda Viaduct) featured in a recent James Bond movie. But there are over 12,000 years of history in this area of the world including the famous Göbekli Tepe, from 9500-8000 BCE.
There is so much to explore. I look forward to the adventure!
With those words, Augustus (as Octavian was known from 27 BCE) declared the Roman Empire’s conquest of Egypt. As I was considering the end of my Roman adventure, I felt like I needed to go to Egypt so see that important part of the Roman world. Although Rome is modern, it seems to live on as the Rome of 2,000 years ago. Back then, Alexandria was the Roman capital of Egypt. I hear that modern day Alexandria is a very mediterranean city. I did not go there. I went to Cairo.
Cairo reminded me a lot of Dhaka. But a scarier, more aggressive Dhaka. In Cairo, I could see how as a single woman, one would feel danger. I didn’t feel scared but I was also never alone. When my friend and I were in the souk, she wouldn’t let us go into the long narrow stalls because it was too dangerous. She made the vendors bring things out to the street for us to look at. Maybe I was more oblivious back then, but in Dhaka, I never felt that the men were too aggressive. They tended to want to take photos and stare but I was not too worried about getting mugged or molested. Maybe it’s my memory changing the reality or maybe I was more naive. I was also almost never alone in Dhaka.
The oldest coffee shop in Cairo, on the right, in the Khan el-Khalili souk.
The first day, my friend took me to the souk, the Khan el-Khalili market, as that was my wish. It was hot so that trip was fast. I got my postcards and we left. We ate lunch at a place in the souk. It is a very touristy place and my friend had to insist on some of the local dishes rather than the grilled meat platters being pushed on all the other tourists. I had the falafel which in Egypt is made with fava/broad bean rather than chickpea/garbanzo, and I had the baba ganoush, and the other dips. I liked the stretchy flat bread. There was always too much food and I could see that the Egyptians are extremely hospitable. The next day, we went to a cosmopolitan bakery in the Maadi and that was also nice. That neighborhood had the same dusty streets and dusty buildings of Dhaka.
The next day, the sun was out and the sky was a pale blue color. Sort of. Another Egyptian friend, Mohamed, a former colleague who had worked with me in Dhaka, and a colleague from that time picked me up with a driver for a day out. When my friend picked me up, he had to come in and have a bit of fruit and coffee. Hospitality is king. The day turned out to be like one of those days in Dhaka which went from 9 am to 11 pm. The driver was filled with facts and his English was good. I told him that he should be a guide. He said that he was! My friends had hired him for the day. We went to the Coptic Cairo (Old Cairo). On this street, there is a famous ruin from Roman occupation times, 2,000 years ago (30 BCE when Augustus conquered Egypt). The fort was built in Babylon and years later, the Hanging Church is built on top of the Roman fortress.
From the ring road.
Finally, I had to see the pyramids. They recommended the ring road. The pyramids looked quite nice from the distance and from an air conditioned car. I remarked so. At one point, the guide slowed down so that I could get the ultimate photo of a lush green field, a camel and donkey under two palm trees, and in the distance, the only remaining wonder of the ancient world, the pyramids. For breakfast, around noon, we went to a place that my Egyptian friend chose. It was a place where they make “Egyptian pizza” or “fatayer” which is thin layers of dough with filling. One was with honey and others were savory. We had one with mozzarella, bell peppers, and thin slices of dried meat. Then we had another with smoked sausage. All beef. This dish is my favorite Egyptian food so far. The dough is fried in clarified butter and the pastry takes on the sheen of golden stain glass windows. Yummy.
Fatayer, a “pizza” of a sort.
Later in the day, Mohamed asked if we were ready for dinner. My other friend recommended “Hagooga” a local place. Very local. So new and local that even Mohamed had never been. We went around 6 pm and it was not to busy but most of the 40 tables inside were filled with families and others. Only Egyptians. We sat indoors. This restaurant was so local that even the locals ignored us, the only foreigners.
“Whisky” water made from the salad dressing.
I got to try the famous “whisky” which is the salad dressing water from making the salad. We got the grilled meats, and other dips or “mezze” – not sure what it’s called in Egypt. I still preferred the breakfast pizza. At one point, Mohamed told me not to fill up on bread because we still had dessert. When were stepped outside, the courtyard was light with string lights and every table was filled with diners. There were twenty people waiting for tables. Another entertaining thing about Hagooga’s is that everything is branded with her smiling face and name. Even the brass lamps had her name stamped out.
Hagooga knows how to brand!
Most of the local women I saw in Cairo had their hair covered. I asked if this was law and although it is not, they cover their hair. It is windy, sunny, and dusty in Cairo, so I could see why it would make sense to keep one’s head covered. My friend also told me that most of them go and have their hair washed once per week, so maybe that is another reason.
El Rehab City mall.
For dessert, we went into Rehab City, a gated city. It was like entering Miami. We went to an outdoor mall/market and Mohamed got us platters of sweets. I recognized baklava but I don’t know the names of the others. I teased Mohamed that this, the eating of dessert, was the most serious I had seen him all day. The weather was quite pleasant at this point and I can see why the Egyptians are night people. I also saw a chicken shawarma that was at least 200 pounds. After the sweets, Mohamed said that it was time for gelato. We protested but then he mentioned that they have mastic/mistica. I had to try it. I first tried mistica 20 years ago in Greece. In Greece, the mistica, a white honey like textured resin from a mediterranean bush, is served on a teaspoon in a glass of water. One licks a bit of the mistica off and sips a bit of water, each sweetening the other. This gelato was not like that.
One of the gates of old Cairo.
Finally, the fun day out was over. Just like my tour of the ancient Roman empire, and Rome.
Ruins of Baths of Diocletian, near the main train station in Rome.
Two thousand years ago, in Roman empire times, you would have gone to the baths for your daily toilette. It was a necessity but also a social venue. In Bath, England, the Roman bath still exists but one cannot swim in it. In Algeria, there is a Roman bath that is still in use today.
When I moved to Rome, I did not realize how much of a spa culture Italy had. It is a normal thing to retreat to a spa town to take the waters. Ischia is an island famous for its waters.
Modern day spa baths on Ischia.
The modern spa and retreat are all modern day equivalents of the Roman bath system.
Clearly the Romans took their bathing culture to Germania.
Even today, one can get massages, treatments, food, drink, and socializing. All at the spa.
One of the wonders of living in Rome is the amount of Roman ruins everywhere. It seems so commonplace that I have become immune to it.
Not only in the city of Rome which is a living open museum of ancient Rome, but also outside Rome. Any drive outside Rome is a constant journey through time.
Roman bridge or viaduct outside Rome.
In thew few years that I have lived in Rome, I have never gotten over how old things are. I remain impressed.
Roman statue in Rome. This is probably Achilles, a Greek god.
As my time in Rome draws to a close, I realized that I had not visited many of the areas that were once part of the Roman Empire, especially those that were once behind the Iron Curtain. Back in August, I decided to make it the “Fall of the Iron Curtain” and draw back the curtain from the top in Estonia down to Albania. I did not succeed.
If you are a map geek like I am, try looking at Vox’s active map as it shows the rise and fall of the Roman empire. Rome was vast and when I did visit parts of the former Roman empire, I did in a plane ride what would have taken a Roman more than 20 days. That was in modern day Albania. In Roman times, modern day Albania was known as Illyria or Epirus, on the coast of Dalmatia and Macedonia. It was very Greek. One can visit Greek temples in Albania, and it seems like someone invested a lot of money on roads in the area around them.
Map is from Vox.com
One of the reasons why I visited Malta was a curiosity to see the influences of the Roman world. In modern times, it can be hard to recall that the Romans looked up to the Greek empire as an ideal. But, in places like Sicily which was part of Greece (Magna Greca) for hundreds of years, one can see the Greek influence in Italy. Italy has only been a unified country for 150 years. The Roman empire lasted about 900 years.
In places like Tirana, the modern capital of Albania, it is hard to see traces of the Roman empire. Except perhaps in the faces. In Montenegro, it seemed quick obvious that it was once a Roman area.
Statue of Mother Theresa near the airport in Albania.
The town of Budva looks much like towns in certain parts of Italy. In contrast, the people are giants compared to Italians.
But, back to Albania. The people there were not giants. The contrasts of rich and poor were quite apparent in Tirana. There were many non-touristy things about Tirana. But, if one escapes to the sea, then one can see why it is compared to northern Greece. Another odd thing I noticed were the men wearing headbands. Then I realized that they had hair implants. I guess this surgery is very cheap over here. The food was good in Albania. Fresh seafood and surprisingly good sushi. The most striking thing about Albania is that Mother Theresa was from there.
In terms of tourism, Albania has the potential, with Greek temples, good beaches, cheap bus and taxi options from the airport, and some English speakers. BUT, 90 percent of Albanians smoke. This will keep the tourists away.
In conclusion, I did not make it to all 20 (or so) iron curtain countries. Looking at the map, I realize that I have already been to many of the far edges of the Roman empire. More from my adventures next time.
After having more than 30 visitors in the last year, I thought I would share my “food tour” of Rome. This is an addendum to my “Tourist Information for Rome.” While I recommend going on a tour with a professional guide as they are worth it because it is a rigorous test and it takes two years to pass the test to be a licensed tour guide. Not sure what the regulations are for food tours. But, maybe you want to do one or two things, in which case, you can try some of my suggestions. Many of these places are mentioned in my list of Roman restaurants to try.
Go to three markets to see three different markets: where normal Romans shop, the touristy version, and zero kilometer (everything produced from within a 100 km/68 mile radius of Rome). I recommend going to Trionfale, Campo de’ Fiori, and the San Teodoro (Campagna Amica Circomassimo) farmers market. I wrote about local markets earlier. Trionfale is the large central market and you will experience real normal Romans doing their shopping. Campo de’ Fiori will bring you into a mix of what was once a real local market now overrun by tourist tat vendors (limoncello, spice mixes etc.), and San Teodoro (only open on weekends) will show you a yuppy farmers market where many social media influencers can be seen filming. But, ignore them and hone in on that fact that everything, from olive oil, cheese, meat, wild greens, bread, honey, pasta, and wine, was made locally.
Look at these beautiful “weeds” at the San Teodoro market.
Markets are open Monday-Saturday from 7:30-2, generally. The San Teodoro market is only open on weekends (closed all of August) from 8-3. If you want to go when it is quiet, try 9 am. If you love the crush of old ladies in housecoats cutting in front of you in line, go at 11:30 am. I do not recommend going after 1:30 pm, as the vendors are hangry at that point (they have been up since 4 or 5 so not in the best of moods at 1:30 pm). If you want to go to another “real” market, try a local one or Esquilino. For a market with a combination of local, touristy, and influencer plus with more restaurants, try Testaccio.
Trionfale, Via Andrea Doria (near the Vatican so you could do it on your way).
Campo de’ Fiori, Campo de’ Fiori (it is a plaza).
San Teodoro, Via San Teodoro 76 (near the corner of the Circus Maximus, around the corner from the Mouth of Truth, and behind the Palatine hill).
Sample spreads and dips at San Teodoro market.
Testaccio, Via Aldo Manuzzio 66B (but any taxi driver will know where it is — say, “mer-CAT-oh-test-AH-chi-oh”)
Grab breakfast at the market. Or explore and eat at a bakery or coffee shop. The “cornetto” (croissant) is a normal breakfast food, but so is pizza. Any “forno” sign you see is a bakery. Buy a piece of white pizza (no cheese and no toppings other than salt and oil) and enjoy that or get something more substantial.
Forno Monteforte is my favorite Italian bakery/cafe. Via del Pellegrino 29. You can sit down and people watch. This is the place for you if you like classy elegant types of places.
L’Officina della Pizza, Via Cicerone 22: Not only the most delicious and varied pizza “al taglio” (by the slice, but really by weight), but they also make fantastic house sliced potato chips. They only have high tables but you can take your pizza to Piazza Cavour which is nearby and eat your breakfast there. Or eat it while walking and let the olive oil run down your hand. Yummy!
Mushroom pizza in the front and a pumpkin pizza sandwich in the back, topped by a potato pizza at L’Officina della Pizza.
Stop for some gelato. Gelato can be eaten any time of the day from 8 am to after midnight. It is not dessert. It is a separate thing. I like Gunther’s but Neve di Latte is also good. Otaleg in Trastevere is one of the best in Rome and they make the best sorbetto (non-dairy sherbet/sorbet).
Osteria del Rione, Via Basento, 20 (near Villa Borghese): This place is a real local place located in a basement. They have an extremely limited menu (basically what Bruno, the owner, tells you he has), and a set menu for 10 euro. The food is always good and “on point.” The only downside is that this place is mostly a lunch place so go at 12:30 to get a table.
Fuoco Lento, Via Flavia 63/65: Old school waiters, outdoor seating, never had anything bad here (But I would avoid the proscuitto as it is house cut and too thick for my liking). It’s my “go-to” place. Open on Sunday night as well. Outside the touristy area so much easier to get a table.
Saltimbocca, Via di Tor Millina 5, is on a small street off Piazza Navona so if you find yourself down there, you could go here for lunch (even at 3:30 pm) for an authentic Roman experience.
Then do some food shopping. Go to a wine tasting. Or olive oil tasting. Or cheese tasting. If you go in to a cheese shop, they will usually let you try their cheeses.
Beppe and His Cheeses, Via di S. Maria del Pianto 9A (in the Jewish Ghetto so a good anchor for your visit to the area of Rome that had Jewish people 500 years before JC). This shop/restaurant will vacuum pack your cheese so you can take them with you. The last time I was there, I sampled seven cheese, including one they put on a piece of bread, and they gave us a glass of Prosecco… it’s a fun place. Also, sells pasta and many other delightful things. Take a sturdy bag with you.
Castroni, Via Cola di Rienzo, 196/198: Visit this emporium and buy gianduia gold nuggets. There are other branches of this store but I like this big one. This is also a place where you want to take a backpack or other sturdy bag as you will invariably buy many things.
Gold bars of gianduia (like fudge nutella) at Castroni.
Colline Emiliane, Via degli Avignonesi 22 (near Piazza Barbarini): This place makes delicious food. It is the cuisine of Emilia-Romagna (Bologna, Modena, Parma, etc.). Small and with no outdoor seating. But, they have a window where you can watch the pasta being made fresh every day. You have to call to make a reservation. It is a very popular place so I recommend walking past one night and making a reservation for the next night.
Tratteria Valentino, Via del Boschetto 37 (in Monti): great local place on a side street in Monti. Near Quirinale palace. Hidden in plain sight because they kept the old facade from when the space was a ice shop. (Not to be confused with Trattoria da Valentino on Via Cavour, which is also fine.)
MiVa, Via Ezio 23. This is a bit out of the way (although not far from the Vatican) and they make excellent food with modern offerings but NOT molecular cuisine. There may be foam but it will play a supporting role, not be the WHOLE dish.
I list other places but these places are currently on my “Rome in Two Days” food tour when people visit… which are doing a lot…
Also, check out my Instagram @madventures.me to see what I’m up to on the daily.
One of the things to see in Rome is the keyhole of Malta. Visiting Malta is so much more than that glimpse into the world of the knights of Malta. The tiny central island just off of Sicily is as fantastical as one imagines it to be.
Upper Barakka gardens, Valletta.
I visited on a cold winter day with torrential rains bucketing down like biblical times. Yes, I still loved it.
Photogenic shop in Valletta.
Maybe because of the weather, it was a better experience — free of the millions who flood the island every year searching for Gladiator or Game or Thrones…
The island of Malta has a long history as a embattled island due to its central location in the Mediterranean. To borrow from the Visit Malta site, “the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans and the Byzantines” and then the Berbers, Knights of Malta, French, and British all had influences on the island.
Famous harbor seen from the Upper Barrakka gardens.
St. Paul was shipwrecked here in current era 60 (AD). This is a big deal. Christianity is a big part of the island. The Knights of Malta were a Christian order which is considered sovereign, but now they are a Christian humanitarian organization. They have had different names at different times in history but they ruled Malta from the 1500s (when they were given Malta as a territory after fleeing Rhodes after the rise of the Ottoman empire) to the 1800s.
This mall also has subsidized public housing, right downtown, for as little as 30 euro per month.
Valletta has been the capital for 450 years and has a uniform look to it because it was built in three years. The buildings of the old town are all made of the same pale yellow rock that was quarried from the exact place where the buildings were built. In some ways, Valletta reminded me of the towns of Apulia like Lecce, Bari, and Polignano a mare. Maybe that is why I liked it so much. The stone is the same color as the stone used in Jerusalem.
Another instagrammable shop and remnant of the British influence.
Malta had a capital before Valletta was chosen. The old capital goes back 4,000 years and is located about 20 minutes drive from Valletta. Mdina, not to be confused with Medina, is the old capital and right outside its gate is Rabat, not to be confused with Rabat.
Gate of Mdina, the former capital. Mdina is crushingly quaint.The eight pointed star is symbolic for the eight “langhe” or rulers of Malta.Mdina is a perfectly preserved walled city.Mdina has a few pops of color other than the sandstone color of the native rock.
The language of Malta, like the people and culture, is also a mix. It has many words that are the same in Italian but I did not understand Maltese at all. No matter as they speak English as well.
The Beheading of John the Baptist by Caravaggio is in the church in Valletta.
Another reason to go to Malta is to see a Caravaggio painting. The church is also beautiful but to be in front of a Caravaggio is a special moment. This brings a visit to Malta full circle. Many consider Caravaggio to be the first cinematographer for his use of dramatic light and shadow. Malta, with its dramatic history, seems most famous now as a movie location.
This is such a well known expression. While “all roads lead to Rome” is an idiom, I don’t think it gets used that way as much these days. People seem to take it literally. Everyone wants to visit Rome. As an idiom, it actually means the opposite, that there are many ways to approach the same subject. No one seems to know if the Romans ever said this. The earliest example of its use in English is from Chaucer. If you want to geek out about this, read this article.
Great place for a bike ride.
On a beautiful sunny day, it is hard to imagine the atrocities carried out along this road 2,000 years ago. The Romans crucifed people, famously Christians, along this road. But, this road was also used as a graveyard and many of the most famous sites today are the remains of mausoleums. This road was built more than 2,300 years ago. In 71 BCE, the famous Sparticus fought along here. Over 6,000 slaves were crucified as a result of that slave revolt. At that time in the Roman Empire, one in three people were slaves.
The large paving stone are original and have the groove marks from chariots.
The Appian Way goes all the way to Brindisi in Apulia. I would like to see it down there too. But, closer to Rome, one Sunday, I decided to go walk on the most well preserved part of Roman road, near Rome. Today, this road is a park and tourist attraction. There seems no trace of the sorrow of the past. And the only armies one sees are joggers, walkers, and bikers.
One can get to the archeological park and join a bike or walking tour, or just choose a spot and go there. I took a 20 minute car ride out to a spot where a modern road intersects with the Appian Way. It seemed so far out. Cars are allowed on the Appian way but there are parts where most drivers choose the highway. The taxi service had no problem finding me when I wanted to return. One can walk from the center of Rome and walk out but the road is busy for the first five or six miles (8-10 kilometers). One can take the bus or metro as well. My taxi ride cost 29 euro each way. It was so far removed from central Rome that I saw bales of hay and chatted with farm hands.
Wonderful wine tasting tour and experience! Sally and Guido and lovely hosts and easy going. They make you feel like friends that they are showing around their magical valley of demi-umbria (the area was part of Umbria at one point). Just 40 minutes by local train outside of the mega-metropolis of Rome, is this secret otherworld of vineyards and olive trees. Book for Sally and Guido for a countryside experience to see how sweet life can be.
Guido speaks excellent English and is engaging to talk to.
Sally and Guido pick you up from the local station and drive you around the countryside, max eight people or maybe ten? One can, of course, drive oneself, but then the designated driver would be… that just wouldn’t be fair! So, get picked up at 10 am at the station, taken for a fun jaunt from vista to vista on the way to a vineyard.
The view from their home.
At the vineyard, you go on a tour of processing, bottling, and aging cellars, before tasting three wines. Guido speaks excellent English and will translate and explain everything. The wine maker, presents all three wines but then leaves you to enjoy while Sally fills up your glasses (no small sip here! If you want/need a full glass to evaluate the wine, you get it!). There is a bit of bread and local olive oil to line your stomach, and so that the wine doesn’t go strait to your head. Then, you have an opportunity to buy the wine, and not just the types that you tried. The wines are very different and some are made from local grapes that you will never have heard of… Even wine nerds will discover new things.
Wine being made…
The wine is well priced at eight to 10 euro per bottle. For DOC! It’s kind of ridiculous how inexpensive it is to buy really good wine. The vineyard does ship (although not to the US yet) but it’s better to take it there and schelp it with you. You will thank yourself later. I bought four bottles of the yellow label wine because it was so zesty and fruity. A lovely white.
Then, another jaunt through a magical Tuscan/Umbrian/Roman landscape and you arrive at their home for two more wines and delicious local dairy and sausage. Oh, and bread. Yum. Yum. Yum.
As a bonus, we got locally made chocolate.
To contact them, go to Wine Tours Rome or email them at info@winetoursrome.com. Sally and Guido also conduct cooking classes through their company, Convivio, and they have a B&B where you can stay while taking classes. The cost of the half day wine tasting is 79 euro (discount for groups so we paid 75). They also do tours in the countryside and olive oil tasting. Because they have these two companies, it can be a little confusing to find them on Google or TripAdvisor. I will be going again because I want to see the little villages and visit the linen workshop in demi-Umbria, the secret valley of Lazio.
The creamy cheese on the right is called Robiola. It was like butter and ricotta combined.
PS. Yes, Sally and Guido know Johnny Madge and their tours are in the same magical valley.
Romans truly eat by season. They get excited by what is only available at certain times of the year. Of course, all year, there are imported vegetables and fruit in Rome, but the Romans still find joy in the seasonality of fresh vegetables. And, it seems like chicory is always in season…
Three types of asparagus with the expensive wild version in the front.
Cicoria (chi-CORE-E-ah) or chicory is “Italian dandelion” and is a bitter green leafy vegetable that looks a bit like spinach. If you live in the U.S. and want to plant some for your self, this farm sells the seeds.
January: puntarelle (puhn-tah-R-ALE-eh), or cicoria di catalogna or cicoria asparago (although no one in Rome uses these names) is in the chicory family but looks more like a thick stemmed dandelion. The Romans eat the white stems, cut to curl up, in a salad with an anchovy garlic dressing — like a zero-carb caesar salad. No cheese. In other parts of Italy, puntarelle are cooked. In Rome, only the trimmings are cooked as part of a general vegetable stew. But, the white inner stems are the treasure.
The first stage of the preparation of puntarelle.Puntarelle ready for dressing.
March: agretti, asparagi selvatici (wild asparagus), fava beans, and artichokes. Wild asparagus are slimmer and have a stronger taste. Agretti (Salsola Soda, opposite-leaved saltwort, opposite leaf Russian thistle, Roscano, or barilla plant) is almost unknown in the English speaking world, although recently becoming a bit of a thing with chefs.
AgrettiPeas and fava beans are both eaten fresh and raw when young. Fava beans are eaten with pecorino cheese.
April: Strawberries, agretti (monk’s beard), peas, beans, and small artichokes.
May: Peas, beans, spring onions, garlic chives, etc.
June: Apricots, peaches, green beans, potatoes, etc.
July: Melons, peaches, plums, nectarines, pears, lettuce, etc.
August: This was hard to figure out as most of the markets close in August… but at the back of the Trionfale market, there are still some zero kilometer farmers who sell their produce. So it’s all about peaches, cucumbers, pears, walnuts, water melons, cantaloup melons (called so because they were grown in Cantalupo just outside Rome), lettuce, grapes, nectarines, plums, and apples.
October: pumpkin, potatoes, gourds, squash, nuts, cabbage, lettuce, and peppers.
November: potatoes, clementines, and nespole/medlars.
Medlars which one eats when they are brown and toffee like.
December: puntarelle, artichokes, and clementines.
clementines
Every restaurant will have “seasonal vegetable” on the menu and it will always be cicoria/chicory greens. Very healthy. One of the nice things about living in Rome is that it is possible to eat pesticide free food and in a perpetual “farmer’s market” all year round. I have to admit that I’m excited for artichoke season after not having artichokes for six months.
