Con voy (with you [plural]) as they say here in Damanhur.
When we contacted our current wwoof site, it was because of their spot on Wwoof Italia's monthly SOS email. Because we were looking for a third site, and they were in need of immediate help, we decided to go for a more "alternative" farm for a change. Boy were we unprepared. Our current farm, Primastalla is not simply one farm, but the farm adjacent to one "Nucleus" of Damanhur-a way, a people, and about 50km of land in Piedmonte, wedged between switzerland and France in the top corner of Italy. We were a bit ashamed upon arriving to admit that we had no idea where we were, what Damanhurians were all about, or that when they told us to pick animal names in poorly thrice translated Italian, they really meant that in Damanhur, one might earn an animal name after much time and study, and after becoming an official citizen of the place. If you're interested in a lot of details, google Damanhur and check out their website. In this short post I'll tell you that Damanhur is a small eco community with a nature-based spirituality that is pretty complex and is based in the idea of reincarnation and a combination of egyptian and eastern religions. They have their own capitol city-Damil-their own currency, and ancient sacred language. Damanhurian citizens live in "Nuclei" or small communities in the region where multiple families share a large home, expenses and meals together. Because the Damanhurian population has not been growing for a while, they have started the "New Life" project in which people who are interested can come and live in Damanhur, with all the rights and routines of a citizen, for a three month trial period (and a large cost). Because of this project we've met a lot of younger people who are new to the community as well and talking to both the older members and new blood has been really interesting for us. Damanhur is, to be honest, pretty insanely weird at times. We went on a tour of the capitol but not into the main temple, which we are told extends 11 stories underground and has the largest rose window in the world (65 euro to enter). However, we have really enjoyed the tight community feeling and the warmpth of the citizens while staying here. We were even allowed to skip work one day and take a day trip to the nearby Alps! Whiel staying here we live in "the box." A cabin-like structure at the far back of the farm, literally right nextdoor to about 100 cows who serenade us all night long. We have a tiny stream of water from the kitchen sink and no electricity to speak of, spiders galore and hot hot sun, but still very much enjoy our accomodations. Damanhur is a very tri-lingual environment, but Italian is truly the common language, which has really forced us to finally start learning some. I can proudly say that I can now hold a very short conversation about either the weather, the toilet or anything that is "bella" with our friends Faun and Jackal. Don't get me wrong with these far out descriptions, Primastalla is probably our favorite farm at this point and we'd both consider coming back to Damanhur, especially for the community and sustainable projects they have going.
We will be leaving, full of mixed emotions, early Saturday morning for Munich, where we will hopefully get to take a tour of the beer gartens and pay a visit to Dachau before hanging midair for 8 hours and landing on US soil.
Thursday 11 August 2011
Friday 29 July 2011
Public Transport woes and Super Touring
Our apologies, again, for leaving such a long empty space in our interweb life for a while. We have been very short on reliable internet, sleep, and free time lately.We had one seriously crazy week of touring after we left Ponteginori, doing two days each in Florence, Rome and Naples. In both Florence and Rome we stayed at campsites in tents provided by the site which was much cheaper than staying in a hostel in the center of the city. In Florence, an extremely walkable city, our campsite was located about five minutes from Piazza Michelangelo, a sort of hilltop piazza from which you can view all of Florence. In Florence we did a lot of walking around the city, eating in little gelaterias and cafes and visiting the Duomo, the Uffici and Santa Croce. Florence was beautiful, cool and far less jammed with tourists than we expected. From Florence we took a train to Rome, where we really picked up the pace navigating various types of public transport to get to our out of town campsite. In Rome we strapped on our chacos and sunglasses and wove our way into the masses of tourists trudging through the Colloseum, the Pantheon, The fourum, the Spanish steps, Trevi Fountain, and the Vatican city. Visiting all of these sites in 48 hours was a bit of an overload, but amazing nevertheless. I think I cried in the Pantheon and the Sistine Chapel and Nathan had a great time seeing the Colloseum and the Vatican City-a pretty surreal place to visit. On our last evening in Rome we made it to Giolotti, the world famous and highly reccommended (Thanks Erin and Chris!) Gelato shop where we helped ourselves to seconds and tried 6 flavors each-a great dinner. In our opinions the best were "The Italian Opera" (Hazelnut, pinenut and pistachio together), and the famous dark chocolate Gelato. The most interesting was the Champagne, which they had somehow made carbonated so when you liked it you felt the fizz along with the champagne flavor! We went to bed with sore feet and bellies full of sugar and woke up thinking we were headed into the center of Rome to hop on a direct train to Naples. About this, we were mistaken (skip to the next paragraph if you want to sidestep a story about struggling with public transport). What we have learned since that morning is that when all of Italy's public transport system goes on strike, they notify the public about a month in advance. Thi message however, neither passes onto the tourist offices or campsites and is forgotten by half the Italian public who, upon realizing, books every taxi in the city as a means of national travel. Thankfully we joined forces with an equally stranded British couple and planned our escape by Coach to Sorrento in hopes of getting a private train from there to Naples. With them we took a shuttle run by the campsite to the Vatican, where we managed to hail the only available taxi in the city of Rome and took it to the central train station. Upon arrival we discovered that the bus we had booked picked up from a different station (yup) so we waited in line outside the terminal for taxis that charged double the rate and took one to the bus station. We made the bus by ten minutes and took a four hour ride to Sorrento. Upon arrival we found that the Circumvesuviana-a private train circling Vesuvius had decided to join up in the strike for kicks and was not running until 5am. The amazingly kind couple that we had journeyed with let us sleep in their tent in Sorrento that night and in the morning we were able to get a trian to Naples. Whew.
Upon our grateful, though exhausted arrival at Giovanni's, Giovanni himself gave us a 45 minute talk about what to see and do in Naples and insisted we begin our tour immediately. Though not immediately, we were out eating Napoli pizza in the hour and took a tour of the subterranean Roman cisterns by candle that evening (so cool). The next day we took the 8am train and managed to see Herculaneum, Pompeii and Vesuvius all in one day. We had dressed for Italian weather and were quite surprised to find the temperature dropping drastically on the bus halfway up the mountain. Hiking 30 minutes up to the crater was a windy, chilly experience in shorts and Tshirts, though well worth the climb. THere were clouds in the crater that day swirling in and out with the windcurrents and, though not the warmest, it was a really amazing experience. From Naples we had planned to head to the Amalfi coast for a week but, persuaded by the ever passionate, enthusiastic Giovanni, we decided to go a bit further down the coast to Praia a Mare. Here in Praia we are taking a short break from traveling in a beautiful hostel just a ten minute walk from the 40km volcanic rock beach next to an aqua blue Medeterrenean. While here we've taken a boat tour to the various grottos in the surrounding Islands and gone cliff jumping from 5, 8 and 15 meters above the sea. Our next wwoof site is outside Torino on the 4th so tomorrow we are heading to Interlaken Switzerland for a long weekend before hitting the soil again. Our next wwoof site is a community of Bahai (sp?) people, and while there we have to abide by a set of respect for nature rules including taking the name of an animal or plant while we are there. Our contact, Turkey Walnut (not kidding), will hopefully be waiting in Chivasso station on the 4th and will drop us back there so we can head to Germany for three days before flying home on the 16th. No reliable internet connections in sight so look forward to more pictures from Germany or good ol Iowa. Until then, suggestions for our animal/plant names? Prayers to Gaia to get us safely from Praia to Interlaken in one day? Heres hoping the public transport powers will shine favorably upon our sore backs. Ciao!
Upon our grateful, though exhausted arrival at Giovanni's, Giovanni himself gave us a 45 minute talk about what to see and do in Naples and insisted we begin our tour immediately. Though not immediately, we were out eating Napoli pizza in the hour and took a tour of the subterranean Roman cisterns by candle that evening (so cool). The next day we took the 8am train and managed to see Herculaneum, Pompeii and Vesuvius all in one day. We had dressed for Italian weather and were quite surprised to find the temperature dropping drastically on the bus halfway up the mountain. Hiking 30 minutes up to the crater was a windy, chilly experience in shorts and Tshirts, though well worth the climb. THere were clouds in the crater that day swirling in and out with the windcurrents and, though not the warmest, it was a really amazing experience. From Naples we had planned to head to the Amalfi coast for a week but, persuaded by the ever passionate, enthusiastic Giovanni, we decided to go a bit further down the coast to Praia a Mare. Here in Praia we are taking a short break from traveling in a beautiful hostel just a ten minute walk from the 40km volcanic rock beach next to an aqua blue Medeterrenean. While here we've taken a boat tour to the various grottos in the surrounding Islands and gone cliff jumping from 5, 8 and 15 meters above the sea. Our next wwoof site is outside Torino on the 4th so tomorrow we are heading to Interlaken Switzerland for a long weekend before hitting the soil again. Our next wwoof site is a community of Bahai (sp?) people, and while there we have to abide by a set of respect for nature rules including taking the name of an animal or plant while we are there. Our contact, Turkey Walnut (not kidding), will hopefully be waiting in Chivasso station on the 4th and will drop us back there so we can head to Germany for three days before flying home on the 16th. No reliable internet connections in sight so look forward to more pictures from Germany or good ol Iowa. Until then, suggestions for our animal/plant names? Prayers to Gaia to get us safely from Praia to Interlaken in one day? Heres hoping the public transport powers will shine favorably upon our sore backs. Ciao!
Sunday 17 July 2011
AVoiding Vamps in Volterra
Our most recent WWOOF site is located in a small village called Ponteginori. Our village is surrounded by a few other small villages and cities including Cecina, saline, and Volterra that are all no more than a 20 minute drive from one another. We were given three days off from our weeding in the hot sun, and with them we spent a day on the beach in Cecina and one in the walled medieval city of Volterra, but I'm going to talk about our day in Volterra! First and most importantly, for those of you who don't know, a chunk of one of the Twilight movies was filmed in Volterra. I actually don't know that much about it but I guess the town got some well deserved screen time in the most recent movie, since it serves as the vampire HQ of the world or something in the books. You should probably just google the city to see for yourself and appreciate how cool it is, but I will also explain it as well! First off we can see the city from our wwoof site at night. It sits on the very top of the highest tuscan hill that we can visably see, and once the sun sets the city lights illuminate
a corner of the otherwise completley barren landscape. The city sits on the very top of a hill encompassed by a fully intact city wall. In fact to enter the practically pedestrian only city you still have to locate one of the city gates to even get inside. There are no sidewalks within the city because cars are not allowed into the city walls without a special permit. The only cars we encountered were ambulances and vans delivering goods to some local shops, squeezing tactfully through the slender streets that were quite crowded during the daytime.
However the Italian sun is not very forgiving when it comes to heat, and these narrow paths ment buildings close on either side and they did a great job of providing lots of shade and keeping Sarah and I sun burn free, not to mention made the weather perfect.
But about how we arrived to Volterra...busses in the italian countryside are slow, infrequent and require payment sooo We hitched! Don't worry mothers it's actually quite safe in these parts. Both our current and previous wwoof hosts suggested it because past wwoofers have done it as well and had great success, and we countinued that trend I suppose. Likely because we look like a nice young traveling couple, we got picked up in less than 2 minutes. I think to be exact it was the 4th or 5th car that picked us up. It was a young man, driving a nice car who also had a child. He was really nice and it was a comfortable situation despite the rough language barrier. Because he was a resident of volterra he dropped us right off at a city gate and we started our day. We initally walked around a few shops to see what they had to offer. This area of Tuscany is known for having lots of alabaster, which is a very soft stone, which makes it incredible for carving into, and Volterra is known for its alabaser workshops. We saw more random alabaster trinkets than we perhaps wished to.Reusable wine corks with an alabaster top for gripping, lamps through which light penetrated, some really cool chess boards and pieces, painted fruit, delicately carved statues, creepy owl heads, eggs, rings, jewlery, anything you can think of pretty much. Fun to look at but not very practical for us to carry along with for the rest of our trip. Next on our mind was food. Food was actually on our mind most of the day in Volterra. There were pizza shops and gelato shops everywhere. I'm going to be honest it was not a very healthy day. I think Sarah and I together probably bought gelato close to ten times, and I don't regret any of it. We tried chocolate, pineapple, orange, peach, hazelnut from 3 different shops, stratchiatella, strawberry, fudge, banana, and probably some others we cannot remember. And then we ate pizza, a few different times. It was pretty much the best day ever. Between binge ice cream eating we did see some pretty cool things too. I really liked the roman ampetheatre located just outside of the city. Sarah and I skipped the entrance fee and saw the whole thing from an arial view ontop of the city wall. What was really interesting is the ampatheatre had only been discovered 50 years ago. Before, it was burried in trash and debris and no one was the wiser. Parts of it were still being excavated when we were there. It was still in pretty good condition although the romans decontructed half of it to make a suana/ roman baths area behind it, once they apparently no longer used the theatre. There was a nice park within the city walls that Sarah and I walked around for a while and relaxed and rested our feet from cobblestone walking. We had some wine at a nice outdoor cafe located at a very high point of the city. Looking over the city wall revealed miles of tuscan farm land and hills, including the one our very own farm perches on!
The city does not stay open late, it usually closes down around 11-1130 so our orignal plan was to go see the last Harry potter film, as they just so happened to have a cinema in town and were showing it on opening night! We assumed that it would include Italian subtitles as well as in English with the actors orginal voices. We assumed wrong. No worries though the information desk was able to inform us this before we bought tickets. So instead of seeing Harry Potter we drank some more wine. Regional Tuscan rose wine to be exact. I'm not much of a wine drinker but the wine is really good and cheap here I am devleoping a taste for it, and Sarah loves it. Also Sarah's uncle Rick and now our WWOOF hosts have both generously served us very nice wine with every dinner so have tried lots of different kinds as well. After we had some drinks we grabbed some amazing dinner outside in a medieval alleyway lined with tables. It was one of the best meals I've had on this trip so far, SO good! We ate dinner pretty late so once we paid out our bill we decided to head back to our accomodations which were located just out of the city wall, making it much cheaper than the ones within. Only 20 euro each actually (we usually pay twice that, each). This price was also because our room was a recently converted cell in a monestary. Though don't get any ideas about cold stone, this place was spacious and lovely. The place was really old, and not perfectly clean, but it had SO much character and charm. Since it was a monestary, the hallways around every corner were extremley long and resonant. The celings were highly vaulted and there weaslots of artwork on the walls and heavy oak furniture. All of the rooms used to be the monks quarters, and you could even go out into where the inner cloister was and see the refectory and chapel and gardens. We had a really good view, being on top of a hill and looking down into the parts of Volterra that fell outside of the city wall. With the windows open at night at that height it was really cool, unlike our usual sleeping arrangements here.
In the morning we grabbed some gelato and french baggettes for breakfast and took the bus down the forever steep and windy road. Sarah got sort of car sick from the windyness of the road but was able to recover once we made it to the bottom. In a moment of irresponsibility we lost our wwoof hosts phone number and were thus unable to call her to pick us up from Ponteginori (ten minute drive from the farm). Lucky the day before I had made a mental note of how to get back to our farm just in case we had to walk sometime. Walking from town to the farm takes probably a little over an hour, but 3 minutes into our walk Penelope, our host came across us on the road and picked us up. Such luck, we were saved from sunburn again! All in all volterra was amazing, a nice little relief from hectic large-city tours. Tomorrow we are off on a crazy week of touring in which we will visit Florence, Rome and Naples before settling down on the Amalfi coast for a few days. until next time!
Ciao Ciao!
a corner of the otherwise completley barren landscape. The city sits on the very top of a hill encompassed by a fully intact city wall. In fact to enter the practically pedestrian only city you still have to locate one of the city gates to even get inside. There are no sidewalks within the city because cars are not allowed into the city walls without a special permit. The only cars we encountered were ambulances and vans delivering goods to some local shops, squeezing tactfully through the slender streets that were quite crowded during the daytime.
However the Italian sun is not very forgiving when it comes to heat, and these narrow paths ment buildings close on either side and they did a great job of providing lots of shade and keeping Sarah and I sun burn free, not to mention made the weather perfect.
But about how we arrived to Volterra...busses in the italian countryside are slow, infrequent and require payment sooo We hitched! Don't worry mothers it's actually quite safe in these parts. Both our current and previous wwoof hosts suggested it because past wwoofers have done it as well and had great success, and we countinued that trend I suppose. Likely because we look like a nice young traveling couple, we got picked up in less than 2 minutes. I think to be exact it was the 4th or 5th car that picked us up. It was a young man, driving a nice car who also had a child. He was really nice and it was a comfortable situation despite the rough language barrier. Because he was a resident of volterra he dropped us right off at a city gate and we started our day. We initally walked around a few shops to see what they had to offer. This area of Tuscany is known for having lots of alabaster, which is a very soft stone, which makes it incredible for carving into, and Volterra is known for its alabaser workshops. We saw more random alabaster trinkets than we perhaps wished to.Reusable wine corks with an alabaster top for gripping, lamps through which light penetrated, some really cool chess boards and pieces, painted fruit, delicately carved statues, creepy owl heads, eggs, rings, jewlery, anything you can think of pretty much. Fun to look at but not very practical for us to carry along with for the rest of our trip. Next on our mind was food. Food was actually on our mind most of the day in Volterra. There were pizza shops and gelato shops everywhere. I'm going to be honest it was not a very healthy day. I think Sarah and I together probably bought gelato close to ten times, and I don't regret any of it. We tried chocolate, pineapple, orange, peach, hazelnut from 3 different shops, stratchiatella, strawberry, fudge, banana, and probably some others we cannot remember. And then we ate pizza, a few different times. It was pretty much the best day ever. Between binge ice cream eating we did see some pretty cool things too. I really liked the roman ampetheatre located just outside of the city. Sarah and I skipped the entrance fee and saw the whole thing from an arial view ontop of the city wall. What was really interesting is the ampatheatre had only been discovered 50 years ago. Before, it was burried in trash and debris and no one was the wiser. Parts of it were still being excavated when we were there. It was still in pretty good condition although the romans decontructed half of it to make a suana/ roman baths area behind it, once they apparently no longer used the theatre. There was a nice park within the city walls that Sarah and I walked around for a while and relaxed and rested our feet from cobblestone walking. We had some wine at a nice outdoor cafe located at a very high point of the city. Looking over the city wall revealed miles of tuscan farm land and hills, including the one our very own farm perches on!
The city does not stay open late, it usually closes down around 11-1130 so our orignal plan was to go see the last Harry potter film, as they just so happened to have a cinema in town and were showing it on opening night! We assumed that it would include Italian subtitles as well as in English with the actors orginal voices. We assumed wrong. No worries though the information desk was able to inform us this before we bought tickets. So instead of seeing Harry Potter we drank some more wine. Regional Tuscan rose wine to be exact. I'm not much of a wine drinker but the wine is really good and cheap here I am devleoping a taste for it, and Sarah loves it. Also Sarah's uncle Rick and now our WWOOF hosts have both generously served us very nice wine with every dinner so have tried lots of different kinds as well. After we had some drinks we grabbed some amazing dinner outside in a medieval alleyway lined with tables. It was one of the best meals I've had on this trip so far, SO good! We ate dinner pretty late so once we paid out our bill we decided to head back to our accomodations which were located just out of the city wall, making it much cheaper than the ones within. Only 20 euro each actually (we usually pay twice that, each). This price was also because our room was a recently converted cell in a monestary. Though don't get any ideas about cold stone, this place was spacious and lovely. The place was really old, and not perfectly clean, but it had SO much character and charm. Since it was a monestary, the hallways around every corner were extremley long and resonant. The celings were highly vaulted and there weaslots of artwork on the walls and heavy oak furniture. All of the rooms used to be the monks quarters, and you could even go out into where the inner cloister was and see the refectory and chapel and gardens. We had a really good view, being on top of a hill and looking down into the parts of Volterra that fell outside of the city wall. With the windows open at night at that height it was really cool, unlike our usual sleeping arrangements here.
In the morning we grabbed some gelato and french baggettes for breakfast and took the bus down the forever steep and windy road. Sarah got sort of car sick from the windyness of the road but was able to recover once we made it to the bottom. In a moment of irresponsibility we lost our wwoof hosts phone number and were thus unable to call her to pick us up from Ponteginori (ten minute drive from the farm). Lucky the day before I had made a mental note of how to get back to our farm just in case we had to walk sometime. Walking from town to the farm takes probably a little over an hour, but 3 minutes into our walk Penelope, our host came across us on the road and picked us up. Such luck, we were saved from sunburn again! All in all volterra was amazing, a nice little relief from hectic large-city tours. Tomorrow we are off on a crazy week of touring in which we will visit Florence, Rome and Naples before settling down on the Amalfi coast for a few days. until next time!
Ciao Ciao!
Friday 8 July 2011
Italia!
Throughout our travels we've heard horror stories throughout the wwoofing comunity about bad wwoofing sites, sites that describe lucious, well tended land where wwoofers end up cleaning toilets for a week or working twelve hour days instead of five. We had our qualms about our Italian farm before arriving, and because we thought we were due some less than perfect accomodations after the wonder of Old Chapel, we're prepared for the worst. Thankfully, the wwoof gods have shined upon us once again. Nathan and I have our opinions about which site may be better, but both of us agree that our current farm is also amazingly breathtaking and that we have almost too much space to ourselves. Here we are about to spend our second night in our own apartment overlooking Tuscan hills over which the sun sets every night on fields of heavy headded sunflowers. Wwoofing is hard guys. Though don't forget we spend our days trekking the cracked clay under a red hot Italian sun, we're pretty happy doing it (at least when we reflect during our siesta.) More soon! Ciao for real!
-Sarah
Update: We left Rick and Lindas on the sixth to meet up with our next wwoof host on the seventh. We woke up at 6am, to catch a train from Luxembourg at 645. It took about 14.5 hours for us to get from Luxembourg to Pisa. We were super brilliant and forgot to pack food, and also didn't have enough time to get food at our transferrs and as a result all we ate were some peanuts and three granola bars, sorry mom. Anyway, i was a lot of sitting, but some how it seemed shorter than our 8 hour flight. We had more room on the trains and with 4 connections we switched trains so with the changes maybe that makes the difference. Either way it was a long and non-productive travel day, though worth it since it was practically free with our eurail passes. We ended in pisa around 1030 and had to catch us a bus in the direction of our hostel, then walk the rest of the way. We then had one of those amazing accidental travel moments when the bus happened to drop us right next to the old city walls. Across the wall I saw the top of the duomo and Sarah wanted to investigate. Just as we crossed under the archway, we saw the leaning tower, lit up in the night at the end of the piazza. We had no idea we were that close to it and because it was late at night all the tourists were in their hotels only some of the locals out on walks, and it really was amazing to happen upon. Someone was even playing guitar at the base. We would have stayed to sit but we unfortunately still had our packs with us so after a short stroll we continued our march. After the site seeing we took a sketchy walk under a dark graffitied bypass and through a not very well lit street, untill we found our hostel/camp site. It was actually fairly nice, I would describe it as a small hot caravan within a trailer park. Which most people think is trashy but after all the places we've stayed we're not picky, and this place was clean, had a bed, and good storage for our overpacked rucksacks. We even had an outdoor stove and oven to use, which we unfortunatly didn't have the time to try out. The next day we went back to the duomo area to see it in the light and walk around it more, since we did not have our packs this time, along with thousands of other tourists and huge stands of knick knacks. It was super hot and we sweated out all the water we had
in our bodies. Sarah got kind of sick, but it was mainly on the train so she was able to sit for a while and recover. We took a train to Cecina, took a bus that we almost missed since it looked like a tour bus, which would have screwed us over royally to getting to our WWOOF site, to Pontigenori. We spent 15 minutes figuring out the italian pay phone, so we could call our hosts before they picked us up.The place is amazing. we are on a hill in the middle of Tuscany and we get our own little apartment.We cook our own lunc here but our groceries are provided by the hosts. The place is really nice and well kept. Our hosts are quite well
off, they both used to be lawyers and have lived all over the world, and in the past few yeras decided to retire on a farm I suppose. The sunset, which is happening right now, is also, I'm going to say it again, amazing. Sarah can probably write a better poet description than that but it really is great. The red sun sets over rolling hills with only the lights of a small city in one corner, and when the sun sets behind the hills the horizon is lit with faint oranges and red, and the hills almost look foggy or hazey, with the peaks of the hills cresting over purple haze. It's spectacular. The work here is fairly laid back. we work 5-6 hours a day independently on tasks we are assigned. Here we can decide our hours as long as we work around
the required number. It's definitely different than working at old chapel, but nice to have time to ourselves. The big house, and attached apartments, and area they live in is so well kept and clean and beautiful.
The only problem is the heat. It is 100 times hotter here than at old chappel, and there is not one ounce of rain or a single cloud in the sky. We are constantly putting on sun screen, sweating tons, and being attacked by bugs. Sarah as developed a new found hate for giant scarabs, and is known to run from them as they dive-bomb, it's actually kind of funny. We've worked two full days and the heat has really drained the engery out of us.We have two more work days then we get two off. At that point we think we will head to Cecina and spend a few days at a seaside hotel and on the beach. We have some manic travel days ahead once we leave so we're just taking it a bit easy when we can. Until next time.
Ciao!
Nathan
-Sarah
Update: We left Rick and Lindas on the sixth to meet up with our next wwoof host on the seventh. We woke up at 6am, to catch a train from Luxembourg at 645. It took about 14.5 hours for us to get from Luxembourg to Pisa. We were super brilliant and forgot to pack food, and also didn't have enough time to get food at our transferrs and as a result all we ate were some peanuts and three granola bars, sorry mom. Anyway, i was a lot of sitting, but some how it seemed shorter than our 8 hour flight. We had more room on the trains and with 4 connections we switched trains so with the changes maybe that makes the difference. Either way it was a long and non-productive travel day, though worth it since it was practically free with our eurail passes. We ended in pisa around 1030 and had to catch us a bus in the direction of our hostel, then walk the rest of the way. We then had one of those amazing accidental travel moments when the bus happened to drop us right next to the old city walls. Across the wall I saw the top of the duomo and Sarah wanted to investigate. Just as we crossed under the archway, we saw the leaning tower, lit up in the night at the end of the piazza. We had no idea we were that close to it and because it was late at night all the tourists were in their hotels only some of the locals out on walks, and it really was amazing to happen upon. Someone was even playing guitar at the base. We would have stayed to sit but we unfortunately still had our packs with us so after a short stroll we continued our march. After the site seeing we took a sketchy walk under a dark graffitied bypass and through a not very well lit street, untill we found our hostel/camp site. It was actually fairly nice, I would describe it as a small hot caravan within a trailer park. Which most people think is trashy but after all the places we've stayed we're not picky, and this place was clean, had a bed, and good storage for our overpacked rucksacks. We even had an outdoor stove and oven to use, which we unfortunatly didn't have the time to try out. The next day we went back to the duomo area to see it in the light and walk around it more, since we did not have our packs this time, along with thousands of other tourists and huge stands of knick knacks. It was super hot and we sweated out all the water we had
in our bodies. Sarah got kind of sick, but it was mainly on the train so she was able to sit for a while and recover. We took a train to Cecina, took a bus that we almost missed since it looked like a tour bus, which would have screwed us over royally to getting to our WWOOF site, to Pontigenori. We spent 15 minutes figuring out the italian pay phone, so we could call our hosts before they picked us up.The place is amazing. we are on a hill in the middle of Tuscany and we get our own little apartment.We cook our own lunc here but our groceries are provided by the hosts. The place is really nice and well kept. Our hosts are quite well
off, they both used to be lawyers and have lived all over the world, and in the past few yeras decided to retire on a farm I suppose. The sunset, which is happening right now, is also, I'm going to say it again, amazing. Sarah can probably write a better poet description than that but it really is great. The red sun sets over rolling hills with only the lights of a small city in one corner, and when the sun sets behind the hills the horizon is lit with faint oranges and red, and the hills almost look foggy or hazey, with the peaks of the hills cresting over purple haze. It's spectacular. The work here is fairly laid back. we work 5-6 hours a day independently on tasks we are assigned. Here we can decide our hours as long as we work around
the required number. It's definitely different than working at old chapel, but nice to have time to ourselves. The big house, and attached apartments, and area they live in is so well kept and clean and beautiful.
The only problem is the heat. It is 100 times hotter here than at old chappel, and there is not one ounce of rain or a single cloud in the sky. We are constantly putting on sun screen, sweating tons, and being attacked by bugs. Sarah as developed a new found hate for giant scarabs, and is known to run from them as they dive-bomb, it's actually kind of funny. We've worked two full days and the heat has really drained the engery out of us.We have two more work days then we get two off. At that point we think we will head to Cecina and spend a few days at a seaside hotel and on the beach. We have some manic travel days ahead once we leave so we're just taking it a bit easy when we can. Until next time.
Ciao!
Nathan
Tuesday 5 July 2011
6/7/11 Traveling on...
Ciao!
Just kidding, we're still in luxembourg practicing our Italian. Tomorrow we leave for our second farm near Pisa, Italy and know much less about our accommodations there than we did at Old Chapel. Since this could potentially be our last free connection for a while, we thought we'd use the opportunity to write even if it's just for you, dear mothers.
Our stay in Luxembourg has been really amazing-a break I'm not sure we knew we needed but are ever grateful for. Today Rick, both our angelic German translator in purchasing extremely complicated rail tickets, (as well as food and wine) and knowledgeable European guide, took us on a day trip to Bern, a beautiful German village in the Moselle valley. It was a spectacular, very non-British day, where enjoyed great views of the vineyards lining the valley and strolled through the classic wine village of Bernkastel. In Luxembourg it's been great to get to spend time with my cousins playing kickball in the back yard and walking to a nearby park and eating delicious dinners outside on my aunt and uncle's patio.Tomorrow we rise before the sun and shoulder our cousin-sized packs once more to catch our first of 13hours of trains, eek! Hopefully we will find ourselves camped out Pisa for the evening before trekking to our farm the next day.
Until then...
Toilette-obvious?
Fattoria-farm
Ostello-hostel
Siamo alla ricerca di fattoria di Penelope, ma non sappiamo il suo nome- We are looking for Penelope's farm, but we do not know it's name.
Spiacenti, non possiamo americano-Sorry, we are American.
Just kidding, we're still in luxembourg practicing our Italian. Tomorrow we leave for our second farm near Pisa, Italy and know much less about our accommodations there than we did at Old Chapel. Since this could potentially be our last free connection for a while, we thought we'd use the opportunity to write even if it's just for you, dear mothers.
Our stay in Luxembourg has been really amazing-a break I'm not sure we knew we needed but are ever grateful for. Today Rick, both our angelic German translator in purchasing extremely complicated rail tickets, (as well as food and wine) and knowledgeable European guide, took us on a day trip to Bern, a beautiful German village in the Moselle valley. It was a spectacular, very non-British day, where enjoyed great views of the vineyards lining the valley and strolled through the classic wine village of Bernkastel. In Luxembourg it's been great to get to spend time with my cousins playing kickball in the back yard and walking to a nearby park and eating delicious dinners outside on my aunt and uncle's patio.Tomorrow we rise before the sun and shoulder our cousin-sized packs once more to catch our first of 13hours of trains, eek! Hopefully we will find ourselves camped out Pisa for the evening before trekking to our farm the next day.
Until then...
Toilette-obvious?
Fattoria-farm
Ostello-hostel
Siamo alla ricerca di fattoria di Penelope, ma non sappiamo il suo nome- We are looking for Penelope's farm, but we do not know it's name.
Spiacenti, non possiamo americano-Sorry, we are American.
Sunday 3 July 2011
7/3/11 Alive!
Bonjour all!
I am currently writing you, alive and well traveled, from the computer at my aunt and uncle's house in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. We apologize for our lack of recent postings and must unconvincingly blame it on busy days, a dying travel computer and expensive internet connections.When we left off we had just begun a great week at Old Chapel Farm, and we both had trouble leaving in the end. I still find myself missing my spidery loft bed and am oddly comforted by the earthy/manure/grass smell that lingers on my work boots...weird I know. We finished out our week by helping prepare for the exhibition that Kevin had in the Old Chapel, a showing of his stone carvings and handmade baskets by another artist. We also went bracken beating (picture a line of wwoofers marching through a prairie swinging long sticks samurai style at ferns), spent a Sunday evening at a local pub listening to traditional welsh music on various drums and stringed instruments, a rusty nail went through my boot (all healed now, Moms) and Nathan helped in the construction of a well built "muck" shed aka shit shed. During our time we got close with our garden and a few other wwoofers and cherished our dinners around the old table eating great food from the farm with everyone and drinking homemade elderflower wine. I also had a sad goodbye with my little lamb, don't worry, more pictures to come....
After a teary goodbye we were on our way back to London on a very late, though cheap train that happened to get quite delayed and thus lead us to our hostel around 4am, just in time to see the summer sun rise.... We revisited the British capital to attend a show in Hyde park and saw Mumford and Sons, one of our favorite bands, play in the same lineup as Arcade Fire and Beirut. Here, we had our final lesson in British weather management when we planned using the "SUNNY" forecast for the day and, having not brought our rain coats along, got poured on for about half an hour during the first band. No complaints though, it was definitely a really amazing show overall and we're glad to have returned and spent so much time on that beautiful, though expensive island.
Due to scheduling mishaps we cut our time in Amsterdam in half, and after only having 24 hours there are definitely planning on returning. After a spin around the Van Gogh museum, a night out and very few hours of sleep in Tulip land and a we took an early six hour train ride to Luxembourg where we were thankfully met by my uncle Rick and cousin William at the station. Let me tell you that after hopping off in entirely unfamiliar cities up until this point, it was a great relief to be met by a familiar face and driven to our destination. Here in Luxembourg we've gotten to spend time with my three little cousins, went to a 4th of July expat celebration and enjoyed a tour of the city in my uncle's open air WWII jeep.
Among the multiple changes to our itinerary already in progress is our addition of another wwoof site in Italy, near Florence (!!) and an exchange of Greece for the Amalfi Italian Coast as a little break...we'll try to be better at posting from here on out, promise!
-Sarah
I am currently writing you, alive and well traveled, from the computer at my aunt and uncle's house in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. We apologize for our lack of recent postings and must unconvincingly blame it on busy days, a dying travel computer and expensive internet connections.When we left off we had just begun a great week at Old Chapel Farm, and we both had trouble leaving in the end. I still find myself missing my spidery loft bed and am oddly comforted by the earthy/manure/grass smell that lingers on my work boots...weird I know. We finished out our week by helping prepare for the exhibition that Kevin had in the Old Chapel, a showing of his stone carvings and handmade baskets by another artist. We also went bracken beating (picture a line of wwoofers marching through a prairie swinging long sticks samurai style at ferns), spent a Sunday evening at a local pub listening to traditional welsh music on various drums and stringed instruments, a rusty nail went through my boot (all healed now, Moms) and Nathan helped in the construction of a well built "muck" shed aka shit shed. During our time we got close with our garden and a few other wwoofers and cherished our dinners around the old table eating great food from the farm with everyone and drinking homemade elderflower wine. I also had a sad goodbye with my little lamb, don't worry, more pictures to come....
After a teary goodbye we were on our way back to London on a very late, though cheap train that happened to get quite delayed and thus lead us to our hostel around 4am, just in time to see the summer sun rise.... We revisited the British capital to attend a show in Hyde park and saw Mumford and Sons, one of our favorite bands, play in the same lineup as Arcade Fire and Beirut. Here, we had our final lesson in British weather management when we planned using the "SUNNY" forecast for the day and, having not brought our rain coats along, got poured on for about half an hour during the first band. No complaints though, it was definitely a really amazing show overall and we're glad to have returned and spent so much time on that beautiful, though expensive island.
Due to scheduling mishaps we cut our time in Amsterdam in half, and after only having 24 hours there are definitely planning on returning. After a spin around the Van Gogh museum, a night out and very few hours of sleep in Tulip land and a we took an early six hour train ride to Luxembourg where we were thankfully met by my uncle Rick and cousin William at the station. Let me tell you that after hopping off in entirely unfamiliar cities up until this point, it was a great relief to be met by a familiar face and driven to our destination. Here in Luxembourg we've gotten to spend time with my three little cousins, went to a 4th of July expat celebration and enjoyed a tour of the city in my uncle's open air WWII jeep.
Among the multiple changes to our itinerary already in progress is our addition of another wwoof site in Italy, near Florence (!!) and an exchange of Greece for the Amalfi Italian Coast as a little break...we'll try to be better at posting from here on out, promise!
-Sarah
Tuesday 21 June 2011
6/21/11 Two redheads in a potato field...go figure
Warning: Giant blog post follows this message
We have been to three different cities since our last post so it is time to catch up! After we left the lake district we spent some time in Liverpool, which I might add, is a city that has a lot of bright character, but is also still kind of scary at night. It used to be a very poor city, and that definitely shows in most of the town architecture and in the feel of some neighborhoods.
For those of who do not know Liverpool is the hometown of The Beatles. There is a famous street, Mathew street, where the Cavern Club is located. The Caver Club is a small underground bar where The Beatles made a name for themselves. They played 241 shows in that bar and slowly rose to fame because of that place. It was pretty busy, full of tourists I'm sure, but it felt amazing to stand in front of the stage where it all began.
We also visited Stawberry fields, which is only a closed gate now, but when they were kids it was a popular park in their neighborhood. We managed to capture a picture of us standing next to Penny Lane on our way to strawberry fields as well. Nothing really interesting is on Penny Lane nowadays, it is merely a street name, but after visiting it I often wondered what significance this road had for the Beatles as kids.
On the last day we got a tour of Anfield, Liverpools famous soccer stadium. Surprisingly enough the stadium is quite small. Kinnick stadium is definitely far bigger. That being the case the waiting list to get into a Liverpool game at Anfield is over a year, which is crazy because the soccer season spans from August to May, depending how well the team does that year. The coolest fact we heard on the tour was the dual functionalitly of the soccer field. It is part soccer field and part grave yard, minus the bodies. Anfield is only one of two soccer fields that allow people's ashes to be spread across the grass. Even Man U fans!
-Nathan,
onto Sarah...
After Anfield, we spent two days in Chester, a small Cathedral city about halfway between Liverpool and our first wwoofing site. The first night we stayed in a hotel for the first time, that was unfortunately in far poorer shape than any of the hostels we've yet to sleep in-even the bedbugs one! I'll apologize in the middle and in advance for all the Cathedral hubbub you'll probably read about and see in pictures from this trip, I am a medieval art history student, after all. Anyway I drug Nathan through two REALLY amazing cathedrals in Chester, and afterwards we found ourselves in the mist of the audience of a midsummer parade in the cathedral square.
Yesterday we entered Welsh country for the first time and after about 10+ tries I learned to prounounce my first Welsh word-Caersws ("Car-Sews" in a british accent), the name of the train station we had to get to where Kevin, our host picked us up and took us to our very first Wwoof site! After arriving I've been mostly baffled by the much more challenging pronunciations we've come across including the name of our little village "Llanidlous" (which begins with a "Ths" sound that is mostly a hiss) and "Aberystwyth" the nearest town.
I'm honestly a bit concerned that we're to be disappointed from here on out by our other wwoof sites because our first is so truly epic. Old Chapel Farm perches about half way down a valley in the middle of sheep-strewn picturesque Welsh hillsides and includes two stone circles, an ancient renovated chapel, an 800-year-old yew tree and the farmhouse the family lives in that dates to the 1600's. Here each Wwoofer is given their own plot of land and animal to take care of during their stay. I've been given Dylan, a motherless lamb to bottle feed twice a day and Nathan has been given a flock of 30 sheep, ten mothers and their twins to (wait for it) count twice a day and check for any sickness. We are looking after the topmost garden on the farm, which is actually fairly large and includes a small potato field and beds of many different kinds of herbs and vegetables. Nathan and I are bunking in the loft of the barn, which is quite nice minus the bugs...
After being shown our accommodations on our first day we really jumped into things by meeting our respective animals and being given the task of herding the whole of Nathan's flock into a small pen and then checking them for worms. This, my friends, involves peering closely at their bottoms to see of they, in plain terms, have just gotten over, or are currently experiencing a bad case of the runs. Once you have noticed said runs on said lamb or sheep, you then capture them by getting one person to straddle the sheep in the small pen and hold onto their horns while the other (Nathan) measures and squirts medicine down their throat. On his first day as shepherd Nathan noticed a tiny lamb looking quite unwell by the outer fence and notified Fran, our other host who took him into the sick pen. To our dismay the little guy, who is actually Dylan's twin sister, died this morning, but as is life on the farm I suppose...
Today was our first full day here and for breakfast we got to try the butter we had helped to make the previous night on our toast and had milk from the cow 100ft away in our cereal. It rained (yep) for most of the time we were in our garden, and after lunch we began preparations to cook dinner for ten strangers. During their time here each wwoofer has to cook dinner once, and on our second night here we were called upon. Having only the contents of a farmer's kitchen and little to no inventive cooking skills, we panicked a bit, but came out in the end with large portions of Tikka masala and baked potatoes to share. We have heard that during our short week here we will make cheese, dandilion wine and hopefully get to see a bit of progress in our overgrown garden. It's been a very busy day and a half and I'm sure we'll have far too much to share for one blog post in a few days. For now, did you know that a cow produces 4 gallons of milk a day and that a lamb can explode if it sucks too much air while being bottlefed? Wish us luck!
-Sarah
We have been to three different cities since our last post so it is time to catch up! After we left the lake district we spent some time in Liverpool, which I might add, is a city that has a lot of bright character, but is also still kind of scary at night. It used to be a very poor city, and that definitely shows in most of the town architecture and in the feel of some neighborhoods.
For those of who do not know Liverpool is the hometown of The Beatles. There is a famous street, Mathew street, where the Cavern Club is located. The Caver Club is a small underground bar where The Beatles made a name for themselves. They played 241 shows in that bar and slowly rose to fame because of that place. It was pretty busy, full of tourists I'm sure, but it felt amazing to stand in front of the stage where it all began.
We also visited Stawberry fields, which is only a closed gate now, but when they were kids it was a popular park in their neighborhood. We managed to capture a picture of us standing next to Penny Lane on our way to strawberry fields as well. Nothing really interesting is on Penny Lane nowadays, it is merely a street name, but after visiting it I often wondered what significance this road had for the Beatles as kids.
On the last day we got a tour of Anfield, Liverpools famous soccer stadium. Surprisingly enough the stadium is quite small. Kinnick stadium is definitely far bigger. That being the case the waiting list to get into a Liverpool game at Anfield is over a year, which is crazy because the soccer season spans from August to May, depending how well the team does that year. The coolest fact we heard on the tour was the dual functionalitly of the soccer field. It is part soccer field and part grave yard, minus the bodies. Anfield is only one of two soccer fields that allow people's ashes to be spread across the grass. Even Man U fans!
-Nathan,
onto Sarah...
After Anfield, we spent two days in Chester, a small Cathedral city about halfway between Liverpool and our first wwoofing site. The first night we stayed in a hotel for the first time, that was unfortunately in far poorer shape than any of the hostels we've yet to sleep in-even the bedbugs one! I'll apologize in the middle and in advance for all the Cathedral hubbub you'll probably read about and see in pictures from this trip, I am a medieval art history student, after all. Anyway I drug Nathan through two REALLY amazing cathedrals in Chester, and afterwards we found ourselves in the mist of the audience of a midsummer parade in the cathedral square.
Yesterday we entered Welsh country for the first time and after about 10+ tries I learned to prounounce my first Welsh word-Caersws ("Car-Sews" in a british accent), the name of the train station we had to get to where Kevin, our host picked us up and took us to our very first Wwoof site! After arriving I've been mostly baffled by the much more challenging pronunciations we've come across including the name of our little village "Llanidlous" (which begins with a "Ths" sound that is mostly a hiss) and "Aberystwyth" the nearest town.
I'm honestly a bit concerned that we're to be disappointed from here on out by our other wwoof sites because our first is so truly epic. Old Chapel Farm perches about half way down a valley in the middle of sheep-strewn picturesque Welsh hillsides and includes two stone circles, an ancient renovated chapel, an 800-year-old yew tree and the farmhouse the family lives in that dates to the 1600's. Here each Wwoofer is given their own plot of land and animal to take care of during their stay. I've been given Dylan, a motherless lamb to bottle feed twice a day and Nathan has been given a flock of 30 sheep, ten mothers and their twins to (wait for it) count twice a day and check for any sickness. We are looking after the topmost garden on the farm, which is actually fairly large and includes a small potato field and beds of many different kinds of herbs and vegetables. Nathan and I are bunking in the loft of the barn, which is quite nice minus the bugs...
After being shown our accommodations on our first day we really jumped into things by meeting our respective animals and being given the task of herding the whole of Nathan's flock into a small pen and then checking them for worms. This, my friends, involves peering closely at their bottoms to see of they, in plain terms, have just gotten over, or are currently experiencing a bad case of the runs. Once you have noticed said runs on said lamb or sheep, you then capture them by getting one person to straddle the sheep in the small pen and hold onto their horns while the other (Nathan) measures and squirts medicine down their throat. On his first day as shepherd Nathan noticed a tiny lamb looking quite unwell by the outer fence and notified Fran, our other host who took him into the sick pen. To our dismay the little guy, who is actually Dylan's twin sister, died this morning, but as is life on the farm I suppose...
Today was our first full day here and for breakfast we got to try the butter we had helped to make the previous night on our toast and had milk from the cow 100ft away in our cereal. It rained (yep) for most of the time we were in our garden, and after lunch we began preparations to cook dinner for ten strangers. During their time here each wwoofer has to cook dinner once, and on our second night here we were called upon. Having only the contents of a farmer's kitchen and little to no inventive cooking skills, we panicked a bit, but came out in the end with large portions of Tikka masala and baked potatoes to share. We have heard that during our short week here we will make cheese, dandilion wine and hopefully get to see a bit of progress in our overgrown garden. It's been a very busy day and a half and I'm sure we'll have far too much to share for one blog post in a few days. For now, did you know that a cow produces 4 gallons of milk a day and that a lamb can explode if it sucks too much air while being bottlefed? Wish us luck!
-Sarah
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