Monday July 28: Art Tour and Dinner at Tenuta Barbato
After staying up late Sunday night, we were all late to breakfast on Monday morning. We weren’t sure if breakfast was ready at 8 and ended up half sleeping and dragging ourselves to get there at 9.
I felt a little hungover, so I drank coffee and ate some bread but not too much. I really wanted to go back to sleep. We had planned to try to go to a winery but they were booked up for Monday and Tuesday, or maybe not open. Sometimes hard to understand in translation. It was super rainy and not a good beach day.
We ended up going back to the room and we opened the windows and watched the rain.
Around 11:30, my mom wanted to go into town to talk to the mayor about someone driving them after we leave. While she was busy with that, Phil and I went around to each tiny little grocery store and picked up items to create a picnic lunch for ourselves. From one place we got tomatoes and mozzarella, another store we got salami and olives, another store we found a knife and salt and olive oil. It was surprisingly hard to find olive oil, probably because most people make their own or get it from family. It was a fun little adventure especially because no one really speaks English here but they have no worries about speaking in Italian whether you understand or not.
The funniest part is how slow everything is. Every store we went into there is just one shop owner and no one is in a rush. They chat while they fill the orders, they jump between people waiting, at one point a bunch of kids ran in and went behind the counter to take what they wanted. It’s all so casual and community oriented.
The lunch we created was absolutely amazing. The mozzarella di bufala and tomatoes with bread and olive oil were my favorite part.
After lunch we made plans for a 4:00 visit to the house of Mario Romano who is my cousin’s uncle and a famous painter in Italy. He used to travel a lot as a painter and display his works at galleries all over the world but in his later years he decided to turn his house into a museum. This allows him to continue to show his art and brings some tourism to Gioi. He painted 2 out of the 3 churches in the town of Gioi but unfortunately we didn’t get to see the churches during our time.
Mario mostly speaks Italian so my cousin Sandra helped translate. Although he painted a lot of religious art for the churches, his favorite thing to paint was the farmers and farm scenery. His sketches of the local buildings were my favorite. I loved seeing the art in his home. Galleries are cool but I think it’s fun to see the art where is truly lives every day, rather than in a sterile museum environment.
The Italians are not big on air conditioning so it was quite stuffy. Mario was an excellent host and they brought out some sodas for us to sit around the table and enjoy. After the chaos of trying to take a family photo, we decided to go outside and get some air. Post rain it was quite cool out!
We walked around for a bit and took some pictures of the town and scenery. We admired gardens and saw snails on the walls and wandered the narrow streets of Gioi before ending up back at Bar Max for a cocktail. They open at 6:00 and we were at the door!
There were 8 of us at the bar and after about an hour we started talking about where to eat. It’s a Monday night in Gioi and there are only 3 restaurants in walking distance. The bartender basically is like, I think they are all closed. She calls all 3 and no one is open. It’s inconvenience but at least we have a car and can go somewhere else. The cousin half of the group don’t have a car.
The bartender then calls the agriturismo across the street from where we are staying, about 5 minutes down the hill. They say they will take our party of 8 and even send someone to pick up the half of the family that doesn’t have a car.
When we get there, the owner is telling my cousins that he remembers when their mom got married (50 years ago?) and he wants to give us a tour of his property. Turns out, they are a buffalo farm and make mozzarella di bufala, which is mozzarella made with buffalo milk. He says he has 150 buffalos on this farm!
Now as we are touring the farm, you can probably imagine the smell of 150 buffalos. They are funny because they all seemed very attentive to us. Sometimes you see cows and they don’t really know you exist. With these buffalo, their eyes seemed to follow as we walked around their stalls. At one point, the smell was so intense that I had to walk away. Then, some chaos…one of the buffalo made a huge splash in the mud/shit and it got all on my mom’s white pants and Nancy’s white sweater. It was gross but we all laughed quite a lot.
Finally at the table for dinner. There was a lot of buffalo meat on the menu! It’s the circle of life I guess. The menu was sort of extensive but then when we went to order they didn’t have everything available. Phil and I decided to share a mixed appetizer platter (15€), a ravioli dish (€12), and a mixed meat platter (€25). We also ordered wine and a side of veggies.
As we sat and waited for our food, it occurred to me that not everyone ordered a 3 course meal. I felt a little worried that others just ordered one thing. My one cousin had a small cheese app and my mom and Nancy had some bruschetta. I took this picture when I thought this was the mixed apps we ordered.
But then the plates kept coming. Next one had some veggies, then a plate of zucchini, then a plate of mixed fried items, then a plate with eggplant, then green beans, then a different eggplant. It became an absolute comedy as Phil and I received 10 plates of food while Sandra and Jay across the table hadn’t ordered an app at all. This “appetizer” could have been the entire meal. We laughed so hard we were crying. We could imagine how we could continue to eat after all of this food. Thankfully, the waitress at least offered to cancel our side of veggies. Turns out my mom ordered the veggies too and their idea of “side” is actually 6 sides in one.
We barely survived eating the entrees. Luckily the ravioli weren’t that good so we didn’t eat them. The French fries were quite yummy though. It was man vs food and we absolutely won. Side note, I love the plates everything was served on.
Post dinner, we drove back up to town to walk around a bit and burn some calories. We had another drink at a different bar and enjoyed the night view from the top of the mountain.
