Changing Water to Wine

We departed Cinque Terra on Saturday, May 24th and headed for our "second beach time" at Cap d'Antibes, just west to Nice, France. During our time in Cinque Terra, we were lucky to have 2 sunny days during our five day stay, that served as respites from our well-worn layers. As we drove west to the French Riviera, however, the weather and the forecast only worsened. Sadly, there is a socked-in low pressure zone all around here, with rain forecasted daily for the next 10 days everywhere we looked. Our desire for warmth and sun started some manic internet searches and brainstorming of new plans. Maybe we could.... drive farther west in France (rain all to the Atlantic), fly Ryanair from Marseilles to Spain (rain and cold to Malaga)..... basically rain and cool now from Portugal to Croatia, excepting very southern Italy, but I'm afraid to take the new mini to Naples.

So, 2 grumpy souls gave up on the beach plan and loaded up the car, and headed back to Germany Sunday morning. We did appease ourselves by stopping at the gourmet sandwich shop for smoked salmon and chevre sandwiches for breakfast (with god bless it McDonald's Coffee), and fois gras/fig preserve/chevre sandwiches for a lunch picnic.

However, while driving the highway through the Piedmont area of Italy, we were reading about Barolo and Barbera wines, and spontaneously decided to pull off and go visit these areas. We have learned that wine tasting in sunny weather is nice, but it's not so bad in the rain. We had fabulous luck to find a wonderful guesthouse, with friendly host Daniela at La Gialitta (in Barolo, we recommend!). We have an apartment in her house, decorated like a Tuscan cellar, complete with kitchen, fireplace, books, Wifi!!!! For 68 euros a night! We threatened that we'll stay for a month, but I think that we're still getting weary of life out of a suitcase, and we'll head back to Ramstein soon. There is no "home" anywhere-- what isn't in Sarah's basement in Landstuhl is in a box mid-Atlantic. This makes me look forward to arriving in Georgia and setting up house even more.

To end on a positive note, I had I think that most delicious item 2 days ago: one large homemade ravioli, carefully filled with a ring of light spinach/ricotta mouse, within which was set a raw egg yolk. Somehow, the ravioli was sealed, gently and quickly cooked, topped with chopped asparagus and parmasan and butter. On puncturing the ravioli, the gooey warm yolk gooed all over the mousse/pasta/asparagus....mmmmmm. Very decadent.