ITALY:  CAN IT BE AS MAGICAL THE SECOND TIME AROUND?  By Scott Chase Most of us have traveled to a wonderful destination, enjoyed good times and returned home with fond memories.  Those memories almost force us to return to that place for more of the same, but how many times does the second trip turn out to be the equal of the first?  Well, I can confirm that, at least as far as Italy is concerned, the second trip to some of my earlier stops was more as enjoyable than my first trip.  Perhaps it was the recognition of the freshly-made regional dishes that I didn’t appreciate to their fullest the first time around or perhaps I finally knew how to enjoy la dolce vita.  If so, I hope this report will spur you to travel to Italy and find those regional specialties and to enjoy the sweet life.   CINQUE TERRE.  Our first stop was the Villa Gnocchi in Santa Margherita Ligure, a picturesque seaside town on the coast of the Ligurian Sea, just south of Genoa and within an easy train ride of the Cinque Terre.  We returned to Villa Gnocchi because we were able to get the same marvelous room that we had in 1997 with a panoramic view of the Gulf of Tiguello and the nearby mountains.  Villa Gnocchi is efficiently run by Roberto Gnocchi who, since our last stay there, had added a deck for dining that duplicated the stunning view from our room.  Sr. Gnocchi is also the chef and he turns out superb dinners, featuring (depending on what is available locally) homemade pesto (a Ligurian specialty), chicken Alfredo, grilled sausage and vegetables or roast chicken and accompanies a continental breakfast with homemade fig preserves from his own fig trees.  He also serves the delicious local red and white wines.  A room with a magnificent view and delicious food is under $120/night.  His email address is Roberto.gnocchi@tin.it.  The Cinque Terre itself is a hiker’s dream, with a trail that winds around the seaside cliffs and through the five towns that make up the area.  All the towns have restaurants, but Vernazza seems to have the best, Al Gambero Rosso.   While we were staying in Santa Margherita, we also drove to Camogli up the coast about 20 minutes and had an inexpensive, but delicious, lunch at the Cenobbio Dei Dogi, a resort hotel right on the Ligurian Sea.  If you want to eat lunch with a view, there are lots of seaside towns to choose from, including Portofino which is also very close to Santa Margherita.  Camogli seemed to have more gelaterias than most small towns, but you can find intriguing ice creams and sorbettos in all Italian towns.     TUSCANY.  Our second stop was also a return engagement—this time to Villa Vignamaggio, a16th century villa in Greve in the heart of the Chianti Classico wine region in Tuscany.  Villa Vignamaggio is reportedly the ancestral home of Mona Lisa and was the location for the movie Much Ado About Nothing.  Our room was again the same room that we had in 1997 and overlooked a pleasant courtyard, vineyards and the picturesque Tuscan farmland. Rooms range from $110/night to $180/night, including breakfast.  Quite a deal in the Tuscan countryside!!  Their website is www.vignamaggio.com.   The proprietors offer one evening meal each week that is combined with a “happy hour” so that the guests get to know each other.  If you book there, be sure to find out which night the meal is offered.  The villa is fully functioning as a vineyard and olive oil producer and hikes into the vineyards are a fine way to work up an appetite that can be sated at many fine restaurants in the area.    To name our recommendations:  Ristoro di Lamole (favorite dish: ravioli with pear puree) in Lamole, a town east of Greve with magnificent views of the Tuscan hills; Il Vescovino in Panzano (favorite dishes:  risotto in red wine sauce and braised rabbit); Café de Logge in Greve, with its unforgettable local pasta specialty, branzano with truffle sauce; Albergo de Verrazano, on the main square in Greve; and Taverna Guerrini, with rustic grilled meats in Montefioralle, a hilltop town just a 5 minute drive south of Greve.   While visiting Tuscany, the local specialty is a vegetable soup known as ribollita and it is a “must-have.”  Each restaurant has its own version and it is fun trying each version to see which one is tastier.  Ribollita contains swiss chard, carrots and bread, among other ingredients, and is either stew-y or soupy.  Whether with a fork or a spoon, all ribollita is delicious.  Another common food in Tuscany is rabbit and it is cooked many different ways.  Of course, trying all the local Chianti Classico wines is daunting, but enjoyable, and topping off a meal with a local, flavorful vin santo or grappa is satisfying.  One delight in Greve since our last visit is Cantine de Greve, which is a wine store with an unbelievable tasting procedure.  The store has a number of kiosks, each containing about 15 bottles of wine available for tasting, with each kiosk grouped by type of wine.  Each bottle is in a computerized shelf and the pour for the tasting is triggered by putting a pre-set, Euro-denominated “smart card” into a slot above the bottle of wine to be tasted.  Each pour costs between $.50 and $2 and, not surprisingly, you can go through $10 worth of pours pretty quickly.  But it was a fantastic way of trying all sorts of wines or grappas that are available in Italy. We also visited two (new, for us) areas in Italy, Emilia-Romagna (Parma area) and Lake Como.  The drives from Santa Margherita L. to Greve to Parma to Lake Como are each about 3 hours in length, mostly by autostrade, so seeing this part of north central Italy is rather easy.   EMILIA-ROMAGNA.  While not as well known as other parts of Italy, this is the culinary home of Mario Batali (‘nuf said).  This area is rolling farmland and, among other sightseeing adventures, you can enjoy olive oil, proscuitto and balsamic vinegar tastings in ancient producing facilities. Our stay in Bussetto, which is just west of Parma was highlighted by visiting the birthplace of Guiseppe Verdi in Roncole and visiting his villa where he composed many of his operas.     The dining highlight was Osteria Ardenga in Diolo, a flyspeck of a town where you would not have expected such well-prepared food.  The highlights there were tagliatelle with truffles and gnocchi with gorgonzola and an unbelievable home-made sorbetto.  The meal was also enhanced by the hospitality of the proprietors who went out of their way to make us (non-Italian speakers) welcome on a cold, rainy night.  We also ate at Locanda Lupo in Soragna (a hotel dining room that was very good), Trattoria Roncole Verdi (where we liked the local, frizzante red wine), the Gran Hotel de Milan in the 1890’s spa town of Salsomaggiore and Due Foscari in Bussetto, which had a superb wine list and where we had our favorite wine of the trip, LaMassa Giorgio Primo 1997.  We stayed at Palazzo Calvi in Sambosseto and enjoyed the peace and quiet of this small inn out in the countryside.  This inn also has a highly-rated restaurant but it was closed while we were there. While in the Emilia-Romagna area, you may be tempted to have a meal consisting of entirely salumi, or locally cured pork cold cuts.  The varieties include Parma ham (proscuitto), culatello, coppa (sausage) and salami and many restaurants feature all products made on the premises.  These restaurants vie with each other for the most unique spice or drying technique, but beware of the culatello that is basically flavored lard . LAKE COMO.  Finally, we went to Villa Belvedere in Argegno, on the west side of Lake Como.  The Cappelletti family runs this wonderful inn, where our room was steps from the water and sunrises were glorious as the sun came up over the sub-Alpine mountains that surround Lake Como.  Villa Belvedere has its own chef and dinner was very good, especially the night that we ate pizzocheri, a specialty of the Lake Como area that combines buckwheat pasta, shredded cabbage, potato and lots of cheese.  The hotel, which is only about 20 rooms, also has wonderful breakfasts, including cooked-to-order eggs.  A room, with 2 meals per day, is under $150/day and the email address is capp.belvedere@libero.it.  We also had lunch at Villa d’Este, one of the finest hotel restaurants in the world, where the service was excellent and the food equal to the setting overlooking Lake Como.  However, the best view (and great food, including a grilled local lake perch) was at Al Veluu, high in the hills in Rogaro overlooking the lake.    Although the Como area itself does not produce very much wine, it is very close to Lake Garda, where both tasty red and white wines are produced. All in all, the second trip to Italy was equal to the first and certainly the food and wine were worth going for, particularly since almost every regional specialty will have been made with the freshest ingredients possible.   Article written by. Scott Chase on 11/22/02. Questions or comments about this article can be sent to him at schase@airmail.net . Do you have any questions, comments or suggestions? Email: jwdineline@aol.com Copyright © 1998 Inter Active Media Solutions. All Rights Reserved. The interactive components of this site require that you use a current browser version of Explorer; be sure to maximize your window out so you can see the entire page. This page was created by Inter Active Media Solutions.