Massimo called and said, "I have a new Morellino in... come and try it." And when Massimo tells you to come and try a wine, you do, because it is going to be good. So we went to Buscion. The day was rainy; it's been raining a lot this spring.

I'd never heard of Morellino before. Morellino di Scansano, from the southern coastal region of Tuscany. Tell me about it, I said to my friend, who's a bit of a wine guy. "Morellino is Chianti's little brother," he told me. "He's from the same region. Morellino is just a very local name for the Sangiovese grape from which the Chiantis and the Brunellos of the region are made. In the village of Scansano, in the area of Toscano called Maremmo, they call this grape Morellino." The wine was fresh and crisp, as Morellinos can be served young, as early as March after the harvest. Massimo brought over my vitello tonnato, a local favorite. Veal filets, sliced thin and served with a white sauce made of tuna, mayonnaise, and capers spread over the top.

"It's hard to grow up as Chianti's little brother," my wine guy friend continues, " in his shade... It's worthless to try to look like him, or to fight against his popularity. The only thing he can do, Morellino, is to have his own personality, and to stress his own qualities that make him unique. That way, even when his big brother Chianti is hanging around with his friends Brunello and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, little Morellino di Scansano will still stand out." And he does... Morellino was awarded the coveted DOCG designation in 2007.

And this is why I love coming to Buscion. It's a small place, local and friendly. Sometimes it's crowded with tourists, like this day when they were inside escaping from the rain. But I never have to choose what to try. Massimo always has a suggestion. and I always learn a new thing or two about wine.

I haven't read it yet... but I just heard that Susan D. Ree, of Salt Lake City, UT, has recently self-published her first novel, which is entitled Follow Me to Stresa. The reviews say that it's a part romance/part mystery/part travelogue story revolving around an American woman, Ruth Adamson, on a three-week tour of Italy, during which she becomes involved with a mysterious man, Jack Anthony, who she has met on the plane. Her tour begins and ends in Stresa, and apparently the details are accurate apart from a dinner scene in the grotto of the Borromeo Palace.

Here's the link to Follow Me to Stresa on Amazon.com.

The Stresa Festival will inaugurate its 48th edition on May 2, 2009 with the Spring Concerts, five open-air events entitled Pentagramme Fioriale, Flowery Staves. Staves are the five-line diagrams on which music is written, and the flowery no doubt refers to the exquisite garden venues which have been chosen for the five concerts in May.

The Settimane Musicali di Stresa, as it is known here, is without question one of the best known European classical music events, each year offering the opportunity to hear internationally famous artists perform in some of the most beautiful settings imaginable.

The Festival will continue in August with Musical Meditations, five more concerts in five other stunning settings, including the Bach cello suites again performed at Santa Caterina and a string quartet performance in the Hall of Tapestries in the Borromeo Palazzo on Isola Bella. Stresa Musicale: www.stresafestival.eu/blog Here you'll find more information, videos, and you can purchase tickets.

This is where the bus stops in Stresa. Wait by the pole with the sign. There is a schedule posted on the pole. The lake and the imbarcadero are to your right; the Chiesa di Sant'Ambrogio, the light blue, large church, is to your left.

Restoration work has been completed on the Borromeo Tapestries, and lucky visitors can see them again in the Palazzo Borromeo on Isola Bella. The tapestries have been reinstalled in the room which has been their home for the past 220 years, the magnificent, Baroque-Lombardy style Salone degli Arazzi.

The tapestries were woven around 1565, in Brussels, probably in the workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aalst. It was 1787 when Cardinal Vitaliano Borromeo acquired them. Their origins previous to this are not known with certitude; one theory is that they were part of a collection owned by Cardinal Mazarino, due to the great similarities they share in form, in border design, and in subject matter. And what subjects... The seven Borromeo panels all share a common background of greenery, forests. Then each, in turn, features a lioness and ducklings; a unicorn, monkey and eagle; a large unicorn tied up; ostiches; another lioness; a tiger; and serpents. The recurrence of the unicorn is not surprising; it is after all the symbol of the Borromeo family. The borders are identical on each piece, and all contain threads of gold and silver woven through with the wool and silk.

Cleaning tapestries of this age and delicacy is no easy task. First dust and the lining are removed. Then, all traces of any previously done, perhaps poor quality, restorations. An aerosol cleaner is next used, and then the tapestry is reformed on a special table where it can dry and breathe. Next, fragile parts are resewn, to strengthen them. And finally, a new lining, of pure linen, is connected to the back of the fabric. And now, clean again, colors flaming, golden threads shining, they are proud and ready to be seen again.

Villa San Remigio

Here's the story of Villa San Remigio, which adjoins the property of the Chiesa di San Remigio in Verbania. While the church is one thousand years old, the villa can only boast a few more than one hundred. But instead, it does have a great love story...

It was the mid 1800s, and the Browne family from Ireland was traveling through Pallanza when their carriage broke down.

Or maybe it was destiny that stopped them in that spot.

Because while waiting for repairs the family discovered the old church on the hill with its view over the lake, and the Browne daughters convinced their father to purchase the adjoining land.



Jump ahead now to the end of the 1800s. Mr. Browne's granddaughter Sofia has grown up on this property. And she has been in love with her cousin, Silvio Della Valle di Casanova, since they were childhood playmates. They married in 1896. He, a poet and musician, and she, a painter, had a grand vision and a dream for the land, and immediately began putting that dream into action.

From the years of 1910 to 1916 they employed thirty gardeners full time to mold and shape the land to their exacting whims. They terraced the steep hillside, creating levels with different themes. The result is a succession of fantastic spaces, so close to each other, and yet so different. The spaces are intended to evoke certain feelings, certain emotions.


Flights of staircases, paths, and narrow passages lead you through the different environments. The Garden of Hours is a remembrance of their happy childhood. The Garden of Joy, a colorful homage to happiness. There is the Garden of Sadness, shadowy and melancholy, and the Garden of Memories, designed with a sense of nostalgia for the past. And the Garden of Sighs, an area intended to soothe and heal the soul.

This park is the culmination of their combined artistic talents, their masterpiece. Together they chose every statue, every fountain. The motive was to create a space where artistic shapes and natural beauty are one and the same.

And like all artists, they wanted their work to be seen, to be loved by others. As soon as the garden was completed in 1916 they opened the doors to the public. They charged a small admission. And they donated all of the admission fees to charity.

What an incredible amount of creativity and good their passion fueled.

The garden was closed to the public upon Silvio's death in 1929. Silvio and Sofia's daughter donated the property to the province in 1977. The villa, spectacular in its own rite, is used as offices for the Province of Verbania and is available for weddings and private events. The gate was locked when I was there; the garden is open for guided two hour tours in the spring and summer, and I was two weeks too early. The Chiesa di San Remigio still sits next door, much unchanged for almost 1000 years. I almost went inside it also, but that's another story...

I was a little bit late, and a little bit lost. I was walking through a section of Verbania that I didn't know, looking for a place I had never been before. In addition, it was all uphill, and the day was hot.

Now, I have stumbled onto information about that old church. And how I regret that I didn't stay longer, look around, go inside. I was at Chiesa di San Remigio, a Romanic-style oratory built in the 11th and 12th centuries. Yes. One thousand years ago. The front porch with its arched ceiling is new by comparison; it was added in the 16th century.

Had I ventured inside this is what I would have found. A church built entirely of square stones, all neatly arranged, with two naves of different lengths. It is assumed this is due to the position of the church on the rocky promitory where it sits. Inside I would have found cross vaulting, decorated semi-capitals, and frescoes dating from various ages, beginning with the early medieval era. In the lower apse there are images of Christ blessing a figure kneeling before him. This dates from the mid-eleventh century. And in the higher apse, a series of paintings from the thirteenth century depicts activities carried out in different seasons of the year.

Sigh...

If I had walked in there, not even knowing the age of the building or the paintings, but if I had walked in and discovered this, I would have considered it the luckiest of accidents. And I can't show you what's inside. You, like me, will have to wait until I have the opportunity to find San Remigio again. And I must remember, take the extra minute, take the chance, open the door...

A full month after I watched the forsythia bloom in Stresa I am seeing them bloom again, this time at my home in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Nice to have two springs in one year...

Wishing all a Happy Easter, and a bit of spring always...

I needed to find the perfect wedding gift for a good friend in the United States. She loves things from Italy, but her house and her tastes are both ultra contemporary. And so I wanted something Italian, modern, and special. Luckily, I was in Stresa. Which is only 20 minutes away from the world headquarters of the world famous Alessi design company, in Omegna.

The Alessi family says they have been living here, on the shores of Lake Orta, "since time immemorial." Giovanni Alessi was a talented sheet metal worker who started the company in 1921. During the Second World War, Alessi produced brass stars for uniforms, parts for Savoia Marchetti airplanes, and, brass ladles for the U.S. Army. But after the war Giovanni's son Carlo, trained in industrial design, was able to design what he wanted to. His son, Alberto, now runs the company. Alberto describes it not as a manufacturer, but as an industrial research laboratory. Do not even think of calling his products average household items. Alberto says,

"Alessi products are still considered as being handicraft items made with the aid of machines"

“a true work of design must be able to move people, to convey feelings, to trigger memories, to surprise, to go against the grain... We work on expressive languages and on the expressive potential of the items.."

"Our role as a “Factory of Italian Design,” somewhere between manufacturing and art, has gradually attracted the attention of museums of applied arts and industrial design from all over the world, and there have been many exhibitions of our work."

He is not bragging. Many Alessi products are instantly recognizable. In fact, you may be more accustomed to seeing them in museums than in shops, because they are part of more permanent museum collections around the world than those of any other design company. And maybe that is why, when you first enter the company store in Omegna, it feels a bit like a museum. A fun museum. You turn off from the main road when you see the giant teapot statue marking the entrance. Continue down the driveway to the parking lot, where you'll see a 40-foot-tall plastic statue of the Alessi toilet bowl cleaner. There's one more statue by the door... The familiar smiling face of the Alessi corkscrew. Inside the shop each collection is grouped together. Only one piece of each item is on display. The collections are, in turn, classic, whimsical, fun, elegant, thought-provoking, and overall, beautiful.


Decide what you want, then a sales associate will bring stock to you from a storeroom. There are two prices on each product, indicating a normal price for a 'first', and a greatly discounted price for a 'second.' And I mean greatly discounted. Dinner plates for 3 euro, large platters for 15 euro, and the famous Alessi tea kettles for about 25% of what they would be in a store in the U.S.


Therefore, it was a little difficult to not overdue. For my friend I chose the Aldo Rossi 1986 tea kettle, along with a set of moka cups and saucers, and another set of espresso cups. Another friend received the Michael Graves tea kettle. And from me to me, I chose some white porcelain, square and rectangular dishes. Which I test drove, before they even left Italy, when I made my first real Italian lasagne.

The best seat in the house at the Giardino Botanico Alpinia

There are four major botanical sites for which Stresa is known. There is Villa Taranto, where a Scottish sea captain cultivated 20 hectares of beautiful English-style gardens. Isola Madre's gardens were designed in the 1600s by Carlo IV, of the Borromeo family. On Isola Bella there is the fantastic landscaping behind the palace. And high above Stresa, looking down over the other three, is the Giardino Botanico Alpinia.

Plants are clearly labeled in beds

As it name implies, this garden specializes in plants which grow in alpine and subalpine climates. It boasts over 1,000 different species of these. It also has a very fine collection of Asian plants, with species indigenous to China and Japan.

But what it has, most of all, overall, is its location, and its view. Located 800 meters above Stresa, in the mountain valley between Lago Maggiore and the summit of Mottarone, the Alpine Garden is reached by taking the funivia, the Stresa - Mottarone cablecar, from the station at the Carciano boat dock in Stresa.

The cablecar has a midstation, where passengers change to the next gondola to continue up the mountain to Mottarone. Or, they can get disembark at this midstation and walk to the entrance to the gardens, 300 meters away.

Here, nature has created a shelf, a natural balcony covering 40,000 square meters. Here, visitors can take in sweeping views of the lake and the mountains. They can stroll along the stone paths which traverse the 4 hectares of gardens. Walk down to the pond. You can even hike back down to Stresa on clearly marked trails. Or, you can just sit on that bench, take in that view...

Chef Denis Croce makes an amazing Filetto di Maialino con Mele Caramellate al Calvados at his restaurant, Marconi's, in Crodo. And he makes it look easy. As with the other dishes he prepared at the cooking lesson I attended, this dish uses very few ingredients. Here's what you'll need:

Pork Fillets

Golden Apple

Cane Sugar

Salt and Pepper

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Calvados

Flour