A Trip to Italy - Cousins' Reunion

This July we had the great fortune to join our Gingold-Gerhardstein cousins for a wonderful week of vacation in the northern part of the Lazio region of Italy.

It was our chance to finally meet Milo David's cousin Oliver, son of Jeffrey's first cousin Ben and wife Katy. We discovered that Oliver is every bit as cute and communicative as reports suggested.

And oh yeah, we got to see the rest of the family too!

Cousins Jessica, Adam and wife Meredith giving Oliver a Lion-King-style sunset baptism.

Uncle Al

Auntie Mimi

Cousin Ben and son

Katy with her baby boy

The region of Lazio is in between the more popular regions of Tuscany and Umbria, and thus is less overrun by tourists, the villages are more sleepy and charming, and the countryside less developed, with many abandoned farms.

The Gingold-Gerhardstein crew stayed in an amazing house in a village called Benano.

We stayed ten minutes away at a beautiful organic farm called Agritourismo Pulicaro.



Our farmhouse lodgings ended up being the ideal place for a little convalescing, when on our first day Milo surprised us with a number of bumps appearing on his face and body – chickenpox! Luckily, Milo seems to have a strong immune system and he didn't get a bad case, but he wasn't quite his normal chipper self, and so our vacation would have to take a slower pace than we'd expected.

But Italy in the summer tends to make everyone want to slow down a bit anyway, especially in the midday when the temperature can go into the 90s and above. During those hours, a lot of time was spent in the shade of the big tree at Pulicaro!

We nonetheless had some active days as well, visiting the neighboring city of Orvieto with its stunning gothic cathedral, enjoying a hike together in a nearby natural park, and discovering the beautiful volcanic lake of Bolsena.

 

Lunch in Orvieto

 

Milo's first dip in a lake, he loved every second of it!

We had the opportunity to visit a vineyard overlooking Lake Bolsena, Le Coste di Gradoli. The vineyard is owned by Gian-Marco and Clementine, an Italian and French couple who I met at a wine tasting in Paris. As luck would have it, they were very close to where we were all staying, and were nice enough to give us a tour of the vineyard, and teach us about organic/biodynamic viticulture and about making wine without additives or sulfites.

Showing the layers of soil and volcanic ash.

Gian-Marco showing us his favorite plot, a mix of olive trees and 80+ year old vines at 400m altitude.

It was probably the most beautifully situated vineyard I've ever seen, and the cellar in town Gian-Marco took us to was also one of the most amazing I've visited. Deep underground, it was very, very cool, very, very old, and the wines were very, very delicious.

On another day, we went on a trip with Uncle Al and Auntie Mimi.  We headed north to Tuscany to visit the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo  This late Medieval church is renowned for its frescos by Piero della Francesca about the Legends of the True Cross. These are the frescos featured in a famous scene from the movie The English Patient.

An antipasti and pizza picnic followed, as well as a trip to Pienza for a gelato and some authentic Pecorino cheese.

Milo's first taste of Italian gelato - mmm, I like great auntie Mimi!

Meanwhile, the Pulicaro farm was a great place for our family to return to for naps, recuperating or quiet evenings.

The young owners Marco and Chiara with their infant daughter were the kindest hosts imaginable.

It was a fun place to wake up to in the morning, with dogs and cats and chickens there to greet us, and fresh baked olive oil cakes for breakfast.

After breakfast, we could play outside and go for walks.

And we could go pick fresh organic vegetables for meals whenever we liked. 

 

The Fennel was very good!

It was a good season for fruit, with cherries and raspberries heavy and sweet, and many other fruits on the way to ripening. 

Milo ate his first strawberry -

But he seemed to prefer potatoes...

The pick of the day...

And best of all, there was always a bidet to play with in the bathroom!

 

One evening a couple hours before dinner time we drove down the road a little way and walked up a gravel road until we came upon an abandoned farm. Milo was napping in the baby carrier, and so we sat down in the grass surrounded by the old farmhouse buildings and pulled out some peanuts and a little white wine for an aperitif. When Milo woke up, he was thrilled to find himself be in such a tranquil, bucolic setting.

In the evening, it was always nice to have a bottle outside before bedtime.

And Perrine and I loved our little sunset meals as well.

Our most enjoyable meals though were the ones we shared all together with the family. We had an amazing pizza dinner thanks to a pair of talented Sicilian brothers, apparently distant cousins on Uncle Al's side, who showed up to man the wood fire over at Benano.

The pizza was amazing, even compared to the local version, which can be topped with everything from zucchini flowers to truffles!

The pasta was sublime as well - I loved mine with porcini mushrooms...

Another special meal was a BBQ night we had at Pulicaro.

The good wine and food, the delicious evening air and the slow setting sun and drop dead gorgeous surroundings made everyone very giddy,

One of the most memorable evenings took place on the night when the village of Benano, where all the cousins were staying, celebrated their patron saints, and the whole village turned out to have a mass and banquet together. The little chapel was literally right in front of the cousins' apartment's front door.

As it happened, word reached the priest that there was an American couple celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary, and halfway through the ceremony, Mimi and Al were called up to the altar to be given an anniversary blessing!

After the mass, everyone walked out of the old fortified town and over to the community center, over looking the valley below.

There, the people of Benano showed their Italian hospitality and generosity, feeding everyone with roast pork sandwiches and rice salad, local wine and home-baked desserts.

We all gave it our best to communicate in our most intelligible Italian.

Afterwards, the cousins all took a walk up the road to soak in one more sunset and frolick in the fields around Benano.