Italy Day 6 Badia a Coltibuono

We began our last day in Tuscany with a tour of the abbey property of where we were staying. The guide gave us a small history on the 1000 year old property, from the 800 years of the monks who built, to the current lineage of family that later purchased it from the monks after the rule of Napoleon.  The primary area we saw was the wine cellars. After the tour we had our scheduled cooking class where we learned how to make fresh pasta. We prepared ravioli stuffed with spinach and local Italian cheese, covered in a fresh tomato sauce made with whole tomatoes that we diced. In addition we made fresh homemade focaccia bread, one with coarse olive oil (made on the property), sea salt and rosemary, the other with olive oil, tomatoes, sweet onions and fresh oregano that I removed from the stems, and it had the most fresh and strong aroma I have ever smelled with oregano.

Upon finishing the first portion of our meal we sat down and enjoyed a glass of wine made at their winery, along with the food we prepared. In our group it we also had a couple from Charlotte, N.C. which was very kool, and the other couple was from the Boston area, all areas I had a personal connection to.  Upon finishing our meal we returned to the kitchen to watch the second phase of our meal, where a pork roll was prepared in a beautiful sauce me with vinsanto (a dessert wine).  In addition we had a vegetable tar tare we made together, and salad. This portion was served with a glass of wine from the winery as well.  We ended the meal with a glass of the vinsanto (wine of the saints) and an espresso in the garden area. We said our goodbyes in hopes of crossing paths again.

Time was tight as we then rushed to see St. Dominic in Bologna.  Personally I have a small devotion to him, due to the zeal he had to light the world on fire with the true gospel, thus the image of the dog with the torch in its mouth (below is an image which depicts this). St Dominic spent many years rebuking the heresies of his time, just as any period in the universal (catholic) Church. The larger purpose of this stop, was that this is the patron of my mom’s parish. I created a special holy card specifically for her parish with a unique prayer, and image of the statue in front of their church. I wanted to place these cards on St. Dominic’s tomb as a small gesture of bringing a piece of him and his shrine back to them as a 3rd class relic (If you look closely you can see the cards on his tomb.

Just when one would think that was the end of the day, it was really only half way done. We traveled to see my other cousin (the sister of Sergio, who we previously visited). She was north of Venice and a nice detour to our final destination of the day. She ordered some wonderful pizza for us, and introduced us to her very kind husband and adorable son, who quickly fell in love with Monica swooning her away with his Italian charm.  After a short stay we finished the day with a short drive to Venice to prepare for the feast day of San Marco (St. Mark patron of Venice, author of the gospel of Mark).  It was quite the expedition to find our hotel through the water ways and canals of Venice. We finally made it to our hotel around 2 a.m. with many detours as it was a challenge, but thankfully we did so, that night, as it allowed us to be on time for mass in the morning with the patriarch/bishop as we had planned for the large gathering.

For more photos click here.

My cousin Daniela and her family.