Moving to the farm

Today was a travel day. We drove from Greve in Chianti to Pescosolino, Italy. It is located inland between Rome and Naples. We will be spending the next four nights in an Italian Agritourismo. To qualify as an Agritourismo, a farm must derive at least 70 percent of it’s income from farming. Farm Stay Italy is an organic farm that has volunteers from around the world living here and working the farm.




We booked a tour to a local sheep herder’s farm tomorrow to watch him make cheese. He is one of only two sheep herders left in the area, and he still does things the old fashioned way (not sure what that is exactly, but I will be sure to let you know).We will get to watch him milk the sheep, and then make Pecorino and ricotta cheeses. At the moment, Tom and I will be the only ones on the tour. Some other guests were coming in tonight and may want to join.



We are also going to a pizza party tomorrow (if it doesn’t rain). This farm has another rustic property (no running water/indoor plumbing), that is manned by a couple of employees and some volunteers. The farm has a stone, wood burning pizza oven that we will make our pizzas in. Sounds fun. Fingers crossed on the no rain thing.



We went out for pizza tonight and had funghi/potato pizza. Sound weird? It was yummy. We went into the pizza place and I ordered a “Vegetariana”. The lady working the counter fired off a long speech in Italian until I finally said “I don’t understand. I only speak a little Italian” (this was all in Italian) She continued on, as if I’d understand if she kept talking. She pointed at her watch. I wasn’t sure if that meant it would take too long and you had to order ahead, or if they were closing in the near future so not enough time to cook the pizza. Finally her co worker pointed at a row of slices of various pizza under the counter window. OK, it’s a take what you can get kind of place. Got it. We choose what we thought was (kind of like)mushroom (fungi). It turned out to have very thin slices of potato on it also, with just a little spice. It was tasty.



We were lost when we arrived in town. I asked directions from three people. No English. Pizza Parlor, full of people. No English. Farm Stay, so far one person who speaks English, and it’s not her first language. She is from the Netherlands. The trouble with speaking a little Italian, is that everyone has over inflated expectations of my skills. Including my travel partner. Epecially my travel partner!