Halloween and the All Saints’ Day Weekend are here already!

I’ve just realized it’s that time of the year already… Halloween or the All Saints’ Day long weekend! To me, it usually marks the first holiday of the holiday season and the beginning of the olive harvest, but this year it has arrived so quickly upon us that I am somewhat disoriented.

First of all, I am on my maternity leave: this means that I didn’t go back to teaching in September, so I was not counting days to the first long weekend as I usually do. It also means that we have spent over two months in Civitella, except for this past week when we came back to Pisa and time has literally flown by since we’ve been here.

Second, because I am so pregnant, I can’t help with the olive harvest anyway this year, so I didn’t need to organize my schedule so as to be able to participate. Plus, this year the fall has been so warm (it was still 25°C/77°F in Pisa yesterday…) and dry that we my parents had to start picking early, because olives are just falling from the trees.

Third, I had a big job interview last week (that’s why we are in Pisa) and I didn’t really think of much else up until then… And when I finally had the time and energy to start thinking about something else… well, we realized our baby was supposed to arrive in a month and we hadn’t bought anything yet!!! So we dedicated this past weekend to baby shopping… and we were shocked by the outrageous prices of baby stuff!!! People are out of their minds!!! Being our first child, we have nothing… and we also had no idea what we might need (I know… we must be the worst parents-to-be ever!!). So we did a lot of window shopping and then went and bought the most expensive stuff online, where you can really get great deals…

On presents for our baby and other generous thoughts…

To all those of you who have generously asked us about presents, we would like to say that we really don’t want anybody to feel obliged to send anything. Presents are neither required nor expected. Your loving thoughts are more than enough for us.

However, since some friends and family members have asked repeatedly, we have created a wish list online which is more of a “memorandum” for us than a true wishlist. You can find it here (the name is “gloriamarcel”). We would like to thank you all in advance, and to repeat once again that you don’t need to send us anything, really. And that we are just as happy if you contribute something to the fund for the people who suffered the terrible flood in Cinque Terre and Northern Tuscany last week. Their children are certainly in more need than ours at the moment.

A traditional Tuscan recipe for an alternative “treat”

Anyway, this morning I suddenly realized that it was Halloween when I saw lots of pumpkins outside the local food stores. That’s funny because pumpkins are certainly in season (and we have already eaten an enormous amount – I also need to thank Alexandra and Tommaso for the delicious one they gave us last week!), but the habit of decorating with pumpkins is not really in our tradition. I certainly remember carving pumpkins as a child, but not necessarily on Halloween.

What really reminded me that it’s the All Saints’ Weekend was a phone call from my mother asking me if I wanted some of the Schiaccia dei Santi that my grandmother has made. Of course!!! That is the typical dessert we celebrate with. We make  Schiaccia dei Santi (a type of focaccia)  and Pane dei Santi (a type of bread). They are typical of Siena and some areas of  the province of Grosseto.

They both include more or less the same ingredients but the “schiaccia” is thin, crispy and a bit greasier, whereas the “pane” has the consistency of a loaf of bread, even though it’s much sweeter. The peculiarity is that the dough is enhanced with walnuts, raisins and dry figs: essentially all the “poor” ingredients that are usually available at the end of the summer.

Now I can’t wait to be back home to have some!

If you want to try the traditional recipe of the Pane dei Santi (All Saints’ Day Bread – also known as Pane co’ Santi in Siena) here it is!

Ingredients

• 400g  walnuts
• 250g olive oil
• 50g brewer’s yeast
• 400g warm water
• 1kg all purpose flour
• 250g raisins
• 200g of dry figs
• 10tbs sugar
• 3tsp salt
• 3tsp pepper
• 1 egg yolk (to brush the surface of the loaf)

Sauté the walnuts with some olive oil in a small pan for a couple of minutes and let them cool down. Melt the brewer’s yeast in warm water.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, salt, raisins, walnuts, olive oil and pepper. Add the yeast mix. Mix until you can make a ball with the dough. Cover and let it sit in the bowl for at least 6 hours.

When the dough has risen, cut it in 4 to 6 parts and shape them as you like (either as a ball or in an elliptical shape). Make a cross-shaped cut on the top of each one and let them rise for one more hour.

Brush with whipped egg yolk and bake for 30/35 minutes at 180°C (350°F).

Let the loaves cool down and enjoy!  You can store them in paper bread bags and they last for days.

You can eat them on All Saint’s Day or give your Halloween a Tuscan flavour!

Happy Halloween and Happy All Saints’ Day!

I also need to keep up with the precedent I set last year with these spooky Tuscany stories for Halloween… so here we go…

We are spending Halloween and All Saints’ Day in Pisa this year. So I guess the best I can do is to tell you about the ghosts in Pisa… (are you scared yet?!).

Apparently, Pisa is a very haunted city. Some people say that every once in a while, at the National Archive on the Lungarno, the noise of a horse galloping up the stairs is heard. It is said to be the ghost of Lord Byron, who lived in this building in 1820-1821 (Pisa was very popular with English poets in the 19th century). The legend says that he would climb the stairs riding his horse and that he spent hours writing in the dark underground rooms. The building is Palazzo Toscanelli, a white building with a 16th century façade ascribed to Michelangelo himself.

Another spooky place in Pisa is the quarter of San Francesco, and most precisely the area around the old church of Sant’Andrea, now a theatre. Over the years, several people have reported having seen, late at night, a man in medieval clothes, wandering around in the dark and narrow alleys of the area and finally disappearing inside the church through the closed door. This spooky presence is believed to be Pietro della Vigna‘s ghost, a diplomat, jurist and poet who lived here in the 12th century and committed suicide in the church after he failed defending his master from accusations of heresy.

You can read about more ghost stories in the Quarter of San Francesco.

The library of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Piazza dei Cavalieri is also known for being a spooky place. In the 80′s some students reported hearing constant crying coming through a wall. The mystery has never been solved, but people believe that was the cry of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca‘s children. Once Pisa’s Podestà, he was imprisoned in the Gualandi Tower by the Archbishop after being accused of treachery. The latter is said to have thrown the keys to the prison into the river Arno, and left the prisoners to starve. Dante tells the terrible story of Count Ugolino in his Divine Comedy: driven insane with starvation, he is said to have dined upon his children’s flesh. When their bodies were found, they were buried in the Church of San Francesco, and moved to the Gherardeschi family chapel only at the beginning of last century.

The Count himself apparently likes to come back to Pisa every once in a while… at the beginning of the last century, two women were almost scared to death by a ghostly encounter with the Count on the Lungarno. They said they saw a man in torn clothes, with evil eyes, pulling at his hair at the entrance to the garden of what is today the beautiful building housing the “Fiumi e Fossi” offices. That is the only garden opening onto the Lungarno and on those grounds once stood the tower house of Count Ugolino. The house was destroyed after his imprisonment and the ground was cursed, so that over the centuries nobody has ever had the guts to build there again. The two ladies reported that the ghost was very displeased to see his house had been destroyed.

For more spooky places to see in the city, check our guide to Pisa.

Happy Halloween!!!

Many ghosts populate the ancient buildings of Tuscany. In every village, town and city there are stories about haunted houses, weird presences and inexplicable events. Even my village has a few. My great-grandmother used to work at the old Abbazia Ardenghesca as a maid. Once a powerful Abbey, the house was then a rich farm with a 10^th century church still standing on its grounds. My great-grandmother used to tell me that the big turtles that every once in a while came out in the small churchyard in front of the church were in fact the monks that had come back in disguiseto supervise their abbey. She swore she had seen “real” monks, or rather their ghosts, walk around the church at night and suddenly disappear after realizing that they were observed. She claimed that, on the spot where she saw them disappear, the following day workers found some skulls while digging ditches for agricultural purposes.

She used to freak me out with these stories… For years I’ve been terrified of the old church and I’ve never been able to walk alone there just in case, you know…, her vivid imagination was actually a case of good memory!

She once told me that she had seen my great-grandfather’s ghost sitting by an old shack in the fields they owned. He had not spoken, she said, but he didn’t look too pleased. Who knows what she had been up to to provoke such a reaction (or at least to imagine it)!?!?

She used to tell me these stories when she walked me home at night. We had recently moved to an apartment in the new residential area of the village and the roads didn’t have street lights yet. So in the summer, after spending some time with the other kids in the old square of the village, she would walk me back home in the dark. I promise I’d have been much better off on my own, as I can still remember with terror some of the stories she would tell me!!! She used to say to me “don’t worry. You shouldn’t be scared because at night there are exactly the same things as there are in the daylight out there”. She would then pause, and add  “it’s true, though, that at night we cannot see very well… and you know, you don’t know everything that’s out there…”. And we would walk so fast that my heart would almost come out of my chest, because, by the end of the walk, we were so scared that more than once my mum had to drive her back home!!! She had age as a good excuse, but I’d be ready to bet that she was terrified of walking back alone in the dark by that house where she had grown up and where she had once seen the ghost of her grandmother. I still walk past that house with suspicion after dark, I’ll give you that.

She once told me the story of Nanni (who he was, I don’t know). He had been locked in the church by mistake and he had watched in terror as the limbs of Jesus fell from the ceiling piece by piece and reunited to form the statue that is still standing on one of the altars. The statue had even cried blood for a long time after that performance… Do you think I’ve been able to pray alone in that church ever again?! Forget it! I don’t want to see any sacred limbs falling from that ceiling!

So, as you can see, I haven’t grown up to be a very brave person… too many spooky stories as a kid I guess. But I sort of miss that vivid imagination now. After all, it’s Halloween and a good spooky story would be suitable today… I have dug one out for you.

Veronica Cybo: she was a determined woman, who would not put up with her husband’s crap. She was the descendant of a feared family from the Lunigiana, the Cybo-Malaspina family, who had married a Florentine nobleman, Jacopo Salviati. He was a charming man related to the Medici family and was the counselor to Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Nevertheless, it seems she was not very happy with this arrangement and didn’t enjoy her new accommodation in the center of Florence. This, and the alleged fact that she would not give herself very willingly (or very often) to her husband, did probably put quite a strain on their marriage and the husband ended up finding a source of solace in his mistress, Caterina Brogi, the young wife of a rich 70 year old merchant.

When Veronica found out, she was certainly not happy about it, and she hired two killers to murder the young woman. On New Year’s Eve, helped by Caterina’s step-children, the two killers entered her house and killed her and her maid and cut their bodies into pieces which they spread throughout the city. Except for the head. In the 17^th century, on New Year’s Day, wives would give their beloved husbands a present and Veronica had a basket delivered to her dear Jacopo with some fresh linen under which she had placed his mistress’ head.

Horrified, Jacopo had the Grand Duke find the killers and execute them. He could not do the same to his wife though, as she was the descendant of a noble family. So he had her exiled to Villa Cerbone, in Figline Valdarno. Over the years (she died at 86), she repented and led a very pious life. Interestingly, for centuries after her death, her tomb in the Cathedral of Massa was a popular place of worship. Maybe betrayed wives asking for help?! Who knows!

Anyway, Villa Cerbone is nowadays a hospital, Spedale Serristori, and a plaque commemorates those terrible events.  Many people swear to have seen her ghost in the hospital. Some people say a mysterious woman in a long dress chatted with them for a while. A man reported that a nice lady reassured him on the positive outcome of his child’s operation. A doctor claimed that she pulled the sleeve of his scrubs. Others have said that they have felt sudden gusts of wind, or unusual perfumes, and a painter said that he found footprints in a room which he clearly remembered having locked before leaving. Everybody, though, agrees that the ghost of Veronica Cybo is a benign presence.

If you are interested in a different facet of Tuscany, check Secret Tuscany and the many great stories told by Claudio Aita: I love the legend of the Bishop Donusdei howling to the moon by the Castle of Crevole and the ghosts of the Strozzavolpe Castle!

Happy Halloween!

Urban trekking is an excellent way to discover the lesser-known parts of the most beautiful cities in Italy. It is a way to slow down and experience the local life and it is the most sustainable of all forms of tourism.

When it was “invented” (well… walking around is certainly not a new thing, but the “label” is), urban trekking was meant for tourists and locals alike. Through this activity, tourists would discover spots off-the-beaten-path, and establish a deeper emotional connection with the destination. For residents, urban trekking was supposed to be “a healthy lifestyle and a way to regain possession of their spaces, and to get to know them better“.

These might seem a bunch of empty words, the rhetoric of a project outline, but if you live in a city like Florence, Siena or Pisa, you’ll understand very well what feeling the need to “regain possession of your spaces” means.

Sometimes I have to walk through Piazza dei Miracoli to go to work (yeah, I know, poor me…) and from March to October it can be challenging. I much prefer walking through the teaching hospital buildings where I don’t have to watch out for people suddenly stopping to take a photo, or those shopping for some tacky souvenir, or those walking ssssllllooooooowwwwwwwwwwly while wondering how the heck that tower is still standing. The walk back from the office, generally after dark, when the crowds have left, is much, much nicer. In the evening, when I walk through Piazza dei Miracoli I can enjoy the beauty of the place. And I understand why so many people make me late for work every morning!

The other thing is that when you live in a place, you often don’t get to visit it as well as tourists do. There are many exhibitions that I haven’t seen, galleries and museums I have never visited. And listen to this: I have never climbed up to the top of the Tower. I know, it’s unforgivable. I don’t even have a photo of me holding it up. Just sad, I know.

Urban Trekking is indeed a good way to make your city your own space again and certainly to get to know it better. There is another part that I really like in the definition of Urban Trekking: it says that it is an activity that everybody can do in order to tone up one’s muscles, heart and brain.

Tomorrow, October 31st, is national urban trekking day. Obviously, the itineraries will be Halloween-themed. The official name of the event is “dolcetti e scherzetti camminando in città“, meaning “tricks and treats walking in the city“. I think it’s a fantastic idea, really entertaining. Professional tour guides will lead trekkers through the mysterious sites of the cities of Tuscany, telling stories about real, or supposedly real, dark events set in the various buildings and places touched by the itinerary. Here are the programs in the Tuscan cities:

• Arezzo: from Piazza della Liberta to the Medicean Fortress, trekkers will have to be really brave to put up with the spooky stories they will be told by their guides! If they resist, the treat is a plate of roasted chestnuts in the Neighbourhood of Porta Crucifera! Download the brochure (in Italian only, sorry).
  
• Lucca: a real ghost tour of the city. Not to be missed. Download the brochure (in Italian only, sorry). The perfect weekend to go to Lucca if you like comics as well: check Lucca Comics.
  
• Massa: a scary walk through the narrowest alley of the center to the old castle. Mystery stories will be told along the way by mysterious characters… Download the brochure (in Italian only, sorry).
• Pisa: an itinerary entirely devoted to the macabre story of Count Ugolino, whose sad tale is told in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The legend says that, left to starve with his children in a tower, he ate them to survive and for this reason his house was destroyed and the ground where it once stood was cursed and never built on again. Today it’s still the only garden that opens onto the Lungarno. Treats available at Dolcemente, a fabulous exhibition of locally produced sweets. Download the brochure (in Italian only, sorry).
• Prato: the itinerary is devoted to the most beautiful cloisters in the city and to an exhibition about Italian and Russian fashion between the 14th and the 18th century. Download the brochure (in Italian only, sorry).
• Siena: an itinerary to discover 6 mysteries in the city, with legends and spooky stories. Siena is indeed always a magic place. Download the brochure (in Italian only, sorry).

In Italy, we celebrate Ognissanti or simply I Santi (All Saints’ Day) on November 1st and I morti (All Souls’ Day) on November 2nd. Only the former is an actual holiday. Traditionally, this marks the beginning of the olive harvest in my family: starting November 3rd, we all spend a few hours in the olive groves every day, until all the olive trees have been harvested. This year it promises to be a good, “tiring” year, as, contrary to most people in our area, our trees are loaded with hundreds of (still) green and purple berries!

Obviously, Ognissanti, il Giorno dei Morti and Halloween all have roots in some “pagan” festival, promptly substituted with a religious festivity as is common in the history of the Christian church. I think it was Pope Gregory III to pick November 1st  for All Saints’ Day in the 8th century, so that it would overlap with the Samhain, the Celtic celebration of the New Year. All Souls’ Day was a later addition. The Abbey of Cluny started celebrating the memory of the dead on November 2nd only at the end of the 10th century was this habit extended to the entire Roman Catholic Church.

All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are celebrated with the family (what holiday is not in this country!?). Ognissanti is a festive day, on which people go to mass and then have lunch together. In Tuscany we celebrate Ognissanti with two typical desserts: Schiaccia dei Santi (elsewhere schiacciata, meaning focaccia) and Pane dei Santi (meaning All Saints’ bread). Schiaccia dei Santi is a type of focaccia and it contains raisins, figs and walnuts. Pane dei Santi is exactly the same, but instead of being crispy and thin, the same ingredients are added to bread dough. Castagnaccio, a delicious cake made with chestnut flour, is often prepared in this time of the year.

On All Souls’ Day, I Morti, people go to the cemetery and pay their respects to their beloved departed ones. Most people who have moved away from the village return for the occasion and bring flowers. The traditional flower for the occasion are chrysanthemums. They symbolize death in our culture, and are always associated with cemeteries and graveyards (so don’t give them as a present!). Il Giorno dei Morti is somehow a sad day, but also a day in which you meet people you don’t often see and get a chance to think about the people who are not here anymore.

Over the last few years, people have been organizing Halloween parties in almost every large town and city. Halloween themed decorations and candies are sold in shops and it’s not uncommon to see people dressed up in Halloween costumes. Every year the Catholic Church does all it can to remind people that Halloween is a “heathen tradition”, but apparently, consumerism is managing to bring back what Celtic people had to give up a few centuries ago.

Some of the Halloween traditions, though, are also popular in Tuscany. I remember carving pumpkins with my grandmother when I was a kid, and putting them on our balcony with candles inside. Pumpkin carving was more a seasonal activity though, rather than being related to a particular day.

I think that, this year, I’ll indulge in some Tuscan Halloween stories anyway… Just because I really like mystery stories!