Day 7 – Back to Tuscany

Thursday, July 9, 2009

It took us five hours to drive back from Sorrento to Gli Archi. We felt like we had taken a mini vacation on the Amalfi coast. We made it to the grocery store in Carmuccia in time to pick up a few things for our picnic the next day.

The owners of Gli Archi put on a pizza night every Thursday and for 10 Euros per person we decided to join them for dinner. All the women including the grandmother, who talked to me nonstop in Italian, even though the daughters kept telling her I didn’t understand, were involved and busy chopping and frying toppings.

Onions were fried for the toppings of a focaccia appetizer and we had a choice of four different pizzas, all created in the little kitchen beside the outdoor brick oven. One of the women was assigned to oven duty and would point the paddle which was at least 10 feet long, into the kitchen while another woman slipped the pizza on it. She would have to then back up and start manoeuvring forward like she was jouster and march towards the oven and slip it off the paddle right onto the oven’s stone floor. You wouldn’t want to get in this woman’s way!

We all were seated at picnic tables – There were about 30 people, a mixture of adults and children from all over the world. We joined a couple and their son, originally from Belgium who now live in Abu Dhabi. We exchanged stories while enjoying our focaccia, pizzas and homemade wine. Then came watermelon and Vino Santo. She plopped a biscotti into it and smiled. Of course there were other desserts as well...a meringue, chocolate cake and cookies.
We toasted with homemade limoncello to tomorrow.... market day in Pienza, a visit to Montepulciano and a hunt for a particular setting with cypress trees that Dan was determined to find in the very early morning light.

Arrivederci
Stay tuned for Day 8... ...