Here's the thing. I love pizza. Always have, always will. I loved it since I was a kid and my Mom would make it in our little kitchen. She'd give me a little ball of dough to make a tiny one just for myself. The smell would waft out into the halls in our little apartment building, and my cousins--who lived upstairs--would know it's time to invade. I also hung out at the local pizzeria when I was a teen. I worked in the back helping to make dough and sauce, folded delivery boxes and delivered for tips... and got a lot of free slices. Dripping hot, cheesy, burn your tongue hot slices on a cold winter's Friday night--that's the best. But it wasn't until about 8 years ago that I became determined to make my own pizza at home. A baking stone, a good cutter, bread flour and a professional oven peel and almost a year of practice and lots of so-so pizzas. I even remember one time when I forgot to put the stone in the oven and shoved the pizza off my wooden peel right onto the oven rack. What a mess! Somehow, I managed to get most of it off the rack and folded it over and made my first ever Stromboli. I now consider myself somewhat of a pizza expert. I can manipulate the dough recipe to make it more crisp, more fluffy, more thick like a focaccia, super thin and more. I can make a Sicilian style, an upside down Chicago deep dish, rustic shaped, pan pizza, heart shaped and dog bone shaped. I've even made double crust stuffed pizzas and my own version of the edge-stuffed crust. Dessert pizzas are killer when we have friends over. And at Thanksgiving time there's my Thanksgiving Pizza made with turkey, stuffing, cranberries and gravy. You can't believe how good that one is. I'm so into the nuances of pizza-making that I even noticed how a rainy day has a great effect on my pizzas... rainy day pizzas are better. Now I'm going to where pizza was invented. I'm going to sample pizza all around Italy. But not the tourist pizzas you get across the street from the tourist hot-spots, but the real pizzas from the little mom & pop pizzerias and bakeries. I'm going to take notes with my mouth, my tongue and my belly. I'll see if there are differences between pizzas in Tuscany, Rome, Puglia, Amalfi or the mountain villages of Basilicata. I'll take pictures when the pizza is blog-worthy. I'll come back with new recipes and perhaps a few new techniques. Maybe I'll get a brick pizza oven someday so I can make those smoky, semi-charred pizzas. Stay tuned... and have a slice on me. --Jerry Finzi Of course, I want this voyage to change Lucas' outlook on life and have a long-term effect on who he becomes as a man. When I went to live (for just under a year) in France in the Seventies, it changed my whole outlook on life, politics, food, and culture. I learned some of a new language. I saturated myself with French folklorique musique and put up with the likes of Johnnie Hallyday "rock n roll". In Italy, I want Lucas to see the miracles of The David and the Sistine Chapel, but I don't want to bore him with waits on extremely long lines and hall after hall of statue after dusty statue. I mean, how much marble can a young boy take (that is, unless they are the colorful, rolling kind)? Of course, I will try to give him what he wants, too. One of his "must-see" things in Italy is the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so we will take him there. In the same region is Vinci with its great Da Vinci Museum--a great fun and education place to take kids. And of course, in Rome the Colosseum with its stories of Gladiators fighting to their bloody death appeals to most kids. But I want him to notice all the small things too... how we are the same but oh-so-different from people living in another culture: Clothes hanging on the balconies to dry, tiny grocery stores selling really fresh and flavorful fruit and strange looking veggies, lemons as big as grapefruits, weird 3-wheeled cars, roads so curvy and twisty that you have to hold your breath around each hairpin, "old" buildings not just 200 years old (as we have here in Pennsylvania) but over 2000 years old, and after dinner a stroll (passagiata) instead of watching an overly long episode of America's Got Talent.... and the language. I want him to listen and speak in Italian. We have already been playing our Pimsleur Italian CDs in the car every time we go someplace. It's become a game to see who can remember the lessons and who has the best pronunciation. And of course, he's going to experience different food--he's already got a pretty broad palate for an 11-year old. I've also loaded my Google Earth pin maps with lots of other interesting and fun options: Italian go-karting (a real sport there), a cool amusement park (for a fun break), a huge cavern (Grotte di Castellana near Bari), thousands of real dinosaur footprints (Puglia), a prehistoric "caveman" (Altamura Man), bread that can last for a month (Pane Altamura), a hot air balloon ride over Tuscany, the "Manhattan Towers" of San Gimignano, a Ghost Town or two, a volcano, a night sleeping in an Oz-like house called a Trullo (near Alberobello), huge radio telescopes, an abandoned missile base, sea grottoes, a boat ride below the cliffs of Amalfi (I'll let him drive the boat), a tremendous, ancient sinkhole (he became a sinkhole expert after last year's science project), and some other surprises that neither Lucas or Lisa know about. Maybe we won't get to all of them, but depending on the mood and the weather, there are lots of things that I hope will keep him from getting bored, and knowing what's in the area we are driving through ahead of time will help me make up some pretty cool days in Italy for Lucas...
And if all this fails, there's gelati... pizza, more gelati... then more pizza... then gelati... --Jerry Finzi We've booked two different car rentals for Italy... one the Tuscany part of our Voyage, and another for the souther leg of our trip from the Amalfi Coast, through Basilicata and then on to Puglia. We reserved a Fiat 500L for each region. So, this week my wife Lisa tells me that the first rental charge showed up on the credit card bill but the second never did. I should call and make sure the reservation is good to go. Ok, so I call... and I'm so glad I did! It turns out that although this reservation still was in their system, they said it was set up for us to pay at the rental broker in Naples when we pick up the car. Huh? I set these up the same time and both with the same charge card. Not only that, but the Hertz rep on the phone (very nice actually) asked if I had the "voucher" numbers for each rental. Vouchers? All I have is the original confirmations when I booked them online. Not good enough. Apparently, they needed to mail (takes 2 weeks or more) or fax (ever hear of email?) the vouchers to us. This should have been done months ago when I first booked the cars. And, get this... they would not have given us the cars without vouchers!
With less than three weeks to go I wasn't about to take a chance with the mail, so fax it was... er... but it's been so long since we received a fax I forgot which of our two phone numbers the fax was on. Uh... Ok, I think it's the second number. I told the rep that number and the second line started ringing.... so I run up two flights to our office and the fax is not being answered. I find the phone line is not attached and that it was really trying to come in on the line I was talking to the rep on. Ok, easy fix. But the phone jack is mislabeled. I quick give the other number and tell them to try that one. Long story short... it was over an hour before I had the two fax vouchers in my hand, BUT BOTH PHONE LINES KEPT RINGING for the next hour or more! Somehow, there were doubled up faxes cued up on their end that kept coming in. So, I had to plug in one line and then sit there receiving fax after fax until that line stopped ringing. Then I hooked up the other phone line and started accepting more faxes. Stress! But at lease I have the right vouchers and will get the cars. Lesson learned: Even if you THINK you've crossed all your T's and dotted all your I's, when booking a car rental in Italy, make sure you get them to send you the actual rental vouchers BEFORE you leave for Italy! Sigh. Italian pizza had sure be better than my own... --Jerry Finzi It's no wonder that some people opt for a cookie cutter, travel agent planned trip--or even (ugh) a cruise with integrated bus tours. It must be easy to sit in a travel agent's storefront and tell them your likes and dislikes and <P U F F>... all of a sudden, your trip is planned for you. Well, I've been planning every little detail of this trip for months. Yes, months. This week it's been getting the details of our technology straight. Skype. Dropbox. Global Calling options added to our cellphones. Making scans of documents to upload to Dropbox (just in case we loose something) or put on our Kindles and phones. Making certain we have all the cables labeled and ready to go. Getting a new charger that uses higher voltage and can quick charge up to 5 devices at once. Reading manuals for a new camera we got for the trip. Whew! And maps. I'm still not quite done but getting there. I've used Google Earth to plan where to go and what to see--creating pin maps organized by folders (by region of our trip). I then saved each folder separately from Earth as a .kmz file which can be be copied to my PC, then onto either a smart phone or tablet. When I'm in a particular area I can load up "North Tuscany.kmz" and it will pop up in Google Earth! I can then plan our day before we leave our WiFi equipped apartment. As for actual driving routes, I've used Google MAPS to get DIRECTIONS for each specific route. Now the tricky part... After you name and save the resulting map in MY PLACES, then click on MY PLACES, click again on the new map name, and you'll see a little link called KML. This will let you save the map as a .KML file which also can load up into Google Earth! Slick. For the days when we are just meandering through the countryside, I got a new Tom Tom GPS unit with the European maps already installed. I was trying to buy the Euro maps for my old Magellan but after a week of trying to download them with constant error messages I discovered from Magellan that no one in the world could get those maps due to server problems on their end. I couldn't even get them to send me a set on a memory stick (which is still an option on their web site for the same price as a direct download.) Anyway, the new Tom Tom is pretty easy to use and has some nice features. Plus, I'm adding addresses and phone numbers for all sorts of contacts in Italy--right into the Tom Tom. Am I finished with all the planning and preparations? Not by a long shot... but I'm getting close. --Jerry Finzi Today's word of the day is... Uschita (Exit) Pronounced: oo-SHEE-ta The first thing I noticed when we landed in Italy was all the signs saying "Uschita". When I learned how to pronounce it, I just thought it sounded really funny! OO SHEET AH! Like, "Get out of my way... I gotta go OOO.... SHEET--AH!" Today's post will come up soon! --Lucas Finzi Today I'm starting the school year. BUM BUM BUM! (No, not really). I like school, but sometimes I'm still happy to get a few days off school. For Italy I'm getting like a few weeks! My grades are excellent so the school said it's OK for me to take this trip. In fact, the school superintendent of the whole district said it's OK!
My dad told me not to get sick in school, because if I do before the trip, the venture to Italy is GONZO! So I have wipes, a small bottle of hand sanitizer, and if I see someone sneezing, I'll duck for cover! Hopefully I won't get sick and this trip is a GO! --Lucas Finzi, Fifth Grade Student P.S. I just thought about it. When I'm in Italy, all the Italian kids will be in school, but I won't! Whoo Hoo! Setting Up Old Reliable, The Computer... Yesterday I sat down in my room, installing things that we need for the trip, like Google Earth (which won't work.), update the computer, etc. Old Reliable is what I call this old Windows laptop, like from 1990-something. We will probably use it to post posts on the blog and check my Gmail inbox. I found something out about that computer, it's like we haven't used it in 20 years (which we probably have) because up to the hour you're reading this, it's probably still updating. What Should I Bring to Italy? What should I bring?, What should I bring?, What should I bring?, yeah. Really, what should I bring. Whenever mom and dad ask me I always answer: "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I don't know?!" Okay, so I think I've figured it out. We each have a bag, and part of it will be clothes (I mean like, 3/4!) So probably next post, or the post after that, I might be able to share a little computerized drawing of what will be inside my bag (probably BORING stuff, like clothes, notebooks, a stinky old 3rd gen Kindle and 2 stuffed animals (I LOVE DOGS!) Well, I hope you enjoyed this double-feature post, that's all for now! --Lucas Finzi I got all my ducks in a row months ago with the packing plan. I got a credit card that allowed us one checked bag each for free. Whew. Saving lots of money and not needing to lug baggage around the airport. I was a planning rock star. Then, whap! Hubby announces that from all his research, he has come to the conclusion that we should avoid checking ANY bags. To save time. Huh? Three weeks of clothes in a single carry on bag? How on earth was that supposed to happen? He gently explained we would not carry 3 weeks worth of clothes, we would have to do laundry whenever we could (or wash underwear in the sink if we needed to). Uh, OK. I'll keep an open mind, or at least try to. Airline max carry on dimensions were 9 x 14 x 22. The first bag he ordered as a trial didn't look too bad--smaller on one side than the other, but still staying within total linear dimensions. Maybe I could work with this. Then suddenly--a new regulation change--the sneaky airlines removed "total linear dimension" flexibility. The trial bag was officially now too big. When the smaller bag came, I broke into a sweat. I was sure I couldn't fit even a week's worth of clothes in there, let alone all the accessories I needed. And so, we embarked on a trial packing session. He packed--no problem. When all you need is two pairs of jeans and a couple pairs of shorts for a 3-week trip, you can't go wrong. But I'm a GIRL. I need a hairdryer. And shoes. And well, STUFF. We knew Lucas would not be a problem (he'll follow orders). And so, we embarked on a trial packing adventure for moi. I laid out all the clothes I wanted to bring--no not 3 weeks worth, enough for about 7-10 days. We folded, rolled, packed, squeezed (I continued to sweat) and squeeze some more. And you know what, it is possible to pack carry on only for a 3-week trip, provided you are willing to:
I won't lie, the girl who expects to have a nicely ironed change of clothes for every day is still getting used to this new way of travel. But I'm still not feeling washing underwear in the sink...stay tuned! --Lisa Finzi One of the main considerations when planning a flight to Europe is what you can't bring on the plane. At times it can be very confusing depending on where you're getting your information, and if the rules have been recently changed. Here's a great link for the TSA online tool that let's you search for all sorts of things to find out whether they are permitted on board or not. The TSA also has a Facebook Page where you can ask specific questions or even post photos of what you want to bring on-board a flight. --Jerry Finzi It's been about three months since I started researching and planning our Grand Voyage to Italy. I'm going to try and give you some tips and advice based on what I've learned. Here's the first big tip. Google Earth. I can't tell you how valuable this tool has been in researching places to stay, sites to visit, the best viewpoints for vistas, the best scenic drives, where to park, and how to avoid the dreaded no drive zones found in most tourist towns (zona traffico limitato). Google Earth is easy and free to install (DOWNLOAD LINK HERE). While Google Maps is best for planning driving routes, Earth allows you to save pin maps sorted by folder for each region or town you will be visiting. I have a folder for Puglia a folder for Rome and so on. I've pinned the best parking spaces, best views, hotels, bakeries, delis (salumerias), cheese shops, Hertz locations, and of course, all the sites I'd love to see in a given area. And the best thing about Google Earth is dragging the little man to see the street level view, in 360°! This can prevent you from booking and agriturismo that looks more like a factory, how seedy a particular neighborhood really is, or how thick the crowds really are at all popular tourist site so you can plan accordingly. You might even discover areas worth visiting you had no idea about before actually seeing them on Earth. While looking at a town you might be staying in or traveling through, turn on the Photos layer on the Google Earth map and look for clusters of little blue squares in the surrounding area. Clicking on the square pops up a photo of something interesting. I've found many "things to see" in different areas in this way--things that I had no idea existed in the area--castles, waterfalls, caves, belvederes with wonderful vistas and more. Try exploring with Google Earth months before your trip. It's both addictive and enlightening. My son doesn't want to see too much on Google Earth because he wants to be surprised... But after all, I'm the grown up and realize that surprises while traveling is not necessarily a good thing.
--Jerry Finzi |
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