Primavera

Springtime at Bosc di Sot.

It's warm enough to work in the garden in tiny shorts and a tank top, and freckles are popping up along my shoulders by the dozens.  I think they're so cute.

On a particularly sunny day this past week I took some photos from my bathroom windows.  Since then, the hills have gotten even greener.  The vineyards lacing Collio have begun to bloom, covering the harsh sandy earth with young, bright, snappy vines and patches of wild flowers.  Yesterday, thinking my lot out here in the country blighted only by the fact that I am now so far from Mt. Quarin (i.e. my beloved wandering ground), I took a walk over to Pradis.  Cormons (and Collio as a whole) is divided up into little areas, quartieri.  Little mini regions within a region, like...ooh, perfect example:  like athens, with it's Boulevard district, Normaltown, Cobbham, etc.  Anyway, Pradis is an area just over from us, a gorgeous plot of rolling hills, dappled valleys and rustic Villas.  Some of the best wineries in Cormons sit over on this side of town, and there's a road that winds all the way around Pradis leading into downtown Cormons.  I walked this road and, turning left away from Cormons, followed a sign that pointed up into the woods.  The sign read "Le Vigne Alte", and I could only see the path for about 100m before it got swallowed by trees.  This path led up into the "higher vineyards", surrounded by dense forest.  It was quiet and cool and untrampled, and I could hear wildlife stirring on all sides.  I walked for over an hour in one direction, having no idea where I would end up but knowing that it would be marvelous.  Finally, I came out at the top of a high hill, at the edge of a vineyard, overlooking the Castello.  There were so many other paths to take, some winding up, some winding down.  I'll have plenty to explore out here in my new neck of the woods.



This is the view East.  In the early mornings, when I wake up to go to the bathroom, I see the sun rising hot pink over the black mountains. 

 This is the view North.  There's Pradis and Le Vigne Alte, and the to the left is Cormons.  In the evenings, when I am taking my bath, I can see the sun cast it's soft pink glow over Mt. Quarin.  The Julian Pre-Alps in the background stick up stark white like hunks of silver, jagged ice.



Darling Marianne left this past Sunday, so Saturday we took a rather grand Tour of Friuli to give her a good idea of what this region has to offer (alot).  We had already gone to the sea the weekend before, to the island of Grado, where we had lunched on a chilled platter of fresh seafood in a charming restaurant at the marina, and walked the ancient-mixed-with-new streets of that city by the sea.  Before that we had spent the morning walking through a national park, a wetland reserve that boasts miles and miles of trails around lakes and swamps.  Wild horses graze (seriously), white and grey, and there are all sorts of birds, fish, plants and other animals to watch.  Its an amazing place.  I think we all felt a little like 12-year olds, our eyes wide with curiosity and awe when a beaver (or some animal similar to, a Friulian cousin) hopped into the water and swam toward it's dam, or a colt skipped along the swampy beaches.

So that was the first weekend, and then this past weekend we took her North.  There is a town called Sauris where they are famous for their artisinal beer and salami.  The drive there takes about an hour and a half, about 45 minutes of which is windey mountain road, hairpin curves along the sides of deep gorges, those stunning silver mountains that seem so close in sweet, rolling Cormons suddenly looking up triumphantly, aggressively right before our eyes.  The air turns cold and thin, and the atmosphere is tranquil, Alpine, chilly and serene.  We stopped at a gorge where the water had been dammed.  On one side there was a staggering drop, far enough to not be able to see the bottom clearly, which caused my head to spin.  On the other side there was a lake of bright green water, not yukky marsh green, just ice cold green.  It was the color of sea glass, soft and frosty, but electric, and the surface was impossibly still.  The white, snowy mountains surrounding the lake made the view rather surreal, and had it not been for the bitter cold against our silly, unprotected skin we may have very well stood there in a blissful trance for all eternity.

We reached Sauris and had lunch.  Yummy, traditional Friulano fare, and the view out the cozy restaunt window afforded a scene cut from a story book: a steep, grassy hill, grazing horses, snow capped mountains, little wooden houses of the style that Heidi must be partial to.  We just kept shaking our heads, disbelieving that a place like this exists in this crazy world.  So untouchable, so pristine, and Marianne wondered out-loud what the town had been like before someone came and put that big road in, the road to reach civilization and a world of commerce, high-speed internet and hairsprays.  We walked about the town for a bit, but became winded rather quickly, all of us taking comfort in the fact that it was not our fault that we couldn't breath after a short hike up a hill- the air was too damn thin.  I had a light headache, a sting in my chest, and we decided to check out the surrounding towns from the comfort of the car.

We came back down the mountain, our lungs refilling themselves, our energy boosting, and we decided to keep exploring.  FL took us to a lake that same color of electric sea glass, a lake that was perfect for (super cold) swimming in the summers.  We drove through a town that celebrates butterflies, almost every house decorated with a colorful mural of a farfalla.  Heading back east through the mountains we reached the medieval town of Venzone.  Once a real fortress town, harboring a real king in a real castle, built out of giant stone and surrounded by a real moat, it is now a pretty much perfectly preserved little city, an isolated bit of history set in the mountains of Friuli.  They are famous for their products made with pumpkin, and indeed, every halloween the town holds a pumpkin festival, complete with medieval costumes, knights on horseback and hundreds of jack-o-lanterns lining the streets.  There's a tiny museum in a church inside the walls that houses 5 mummies- random people who's corpses were attacked by a strange parasite that preserved their bodies forever.  They have teeth and fingernails, withered, well, parts and tufts of hair.

After Venzone we took a gorgeous drive through Collio Orientale to the city of Cividale, once a seat for the Romans and temporary home of Julius Cesear.  The name for this region is derived from the history of this fair city: Cividale was once known as Forum Juli, a name which was eventually garbled into Friuli, which is now the title for the northern, more mountainous areas where the Romans once held court.  Cividale is a beautiful, aged city on the banks of the Isonzo river, with thousands and thousands of years worth of history tucked away in secret monasteries, creepy underground graves (created by the Celtics) and Roman ruins.  We toured a bit, seeing sights and marveling at the graceful, historical powerhouse that is Cividale, and then decided to stop for a drink.  I saw a sign offering La Birra di Sauris, the mountain town where we had lunched earlier.  As our heads at the time had been too light to even walk straight, no less drive back down the mountain, we had opted out of drinking the local brew.  But now, halfway back to sea level, we decided to give it a go.  There was a little bar built into the side of a building, just a window with stools lining the street.  I ordered us each a beer, and the man behind the bar, who was flipping sausages on a tiny grill, handed me a plate stacked- literally, stacked- with fatty, salty goodies.  "It comes with the beer," he said, and chuckled at our shocked expressions.  It was a plate that God himself could not have improved upon, as far as I was concerned.  Polenta, salami, sausage, thick-cut pancetta- it was by far the most delicious snack plate ever offered along side a chilled beer, and we all just giggled and ate it up with our fingers, shaking our heads at the wonders the day had held.

For dinner, we did what was the only option to end what had been a perfect, perfect day: we went to Sale e Pepe.  This trattoria, tucked away in a tiny town miles and miles from civilization, is a culinary goldmine.  FL and I had eaten there once before, in the autumn, and we figured it was now spring and time to come check in on the seasonal dishes.  We ordered wild asparagus and deer salami, spatzle made of nettle with a wild boar ragu' and gnocchi in the shape of flowers, stuffed with white asparagus and local cheese.  For the main course we split two pork dishes, one with a delicious sauce made from a wild red berry and the other with dried apple and figs.  Dessert and grappa came afterward, and we drove home through the pitch black mountains, the moon half-full, glowing and guiding our way.


What we have here is...some photos of one of the incredible dinners that we made while Marianne was here.  Well, rather, one of the incredible dinners that Marianne made...

 Carpaccio of swordfish, wrapped around a bed of arugula and shaved fennel

 

 Calamari, marinated and cooked to perfection

 Salad of baby shrimp