Tastes & Textiles: Woad & Wool Virtual Tour

Another tour that didn't take place due to the coronavirus. Since many of you enjoyed the virtual Celebrating Sardinia tour and the Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese course, I’m going to lead you on a virtual Woad & Wool tour. Arm yourself with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and enjoy the journey.

One of my companions at Oasi San Benedetto during my research trip for this tour.

Since my tours take you far away from the well-trodden tourist routes, a couple of maps will help you get your bearings. 

We meet at Arezzo (see the green pin). It’s on the direct train line from Rome and Florence.

Here are all the places you're going to visit during the next ten days.

Saturday 16 May 2020

​You’ve already arrived at Arezzo, a beautiful little town in southeastern Tuscany. I advise arriving a day or two before the tour so you can get to know it. There are many things to enjoy, and I only take you to the ones you probably won't find on your own.

Wouldn't this little dragon make a nice pet?

You’re probably a weaver or spinner or dyer, or maybe you’re interested in beautiful handcrafted objects even though you don’t make them yourself. You definitely like eating good natural food made with local ingredients! Right now we’re having lunch at my favourite restaurant in Arezzo, La Tagliatella, where mamma is in the kitchen, a son is a distinguished sangiovese wine sommelier (Chianti is mostly sangiovese grapes) and I’ve never seen another tourist. I introduce you to my dear friend and co-leader Cheryl Alexander of Italian Excursion, and we’re all talking excitedly as we get to know each other.

Ciao, Cheryl!

Tagliatelle handmade in house.

After lunch we drive east and slightly north, over a mountain pass from Tuscany into the region of  Le Marche. Take a good look at the trees. They were felled and floated down the Tiber River to be used as beams for many of the magnificent churches of Rome. We descend to the Metauro River valley and arrive at Oasi San Benedetto, a 9th-century former Benedictine abbey.

The windows in the wing at the right are the rooms. They're plain but comfortable with en suite bathrooms.

You'll probably have time to go into the church. The austere interior will fill you with peace.

In the abbey dining room, dinner cooked by the inimitable Patrizia Carlo is super-abundant and anything but plain. The first of our stomach-stretching exercises.

Elderflower fritters

Tiny lentils stewed with herbs

Patrizia loves cooking coloured dishes like this riso venere (black rice) with a saffron sauce.

Sunday 17 May 2020

Today we get to know the Metauro River valley. Fifteen minutes down the valley is Mercatello sul Metauro. Beatrice Cantucci has organised our morning, which starts with a tour of her mediaeval town.

One of the many details you learn about from Beatrice is the blocked up opening with the sign. All the mediaeval houses have them. They were doors for the dead through which corpses were removed. It would have brought calamity on the household if the living and the dead used the same door.

As fascinating as her tour is, it’s the women of the local lacemaking club and the men of the Academia del Padlot who win the day. The women are such good and patient teachers that you manage to make a creditable strip of lace even if you’ve never touched a lace bobbin before.

At first figuring out which bobbin to move next seems like mathematics, but soon you realise it's a pattern, like weaving.

Of equal skill among the pots and pans of the kitchen are the men who cook our lunch in their clubroom over a bar (=pub).

They’re delighted when I ask if we can come into the kitchen to watch them at work. I’d be incredibly nervous frying so many eggs, but there’s no better combination than perfectly fried egg and the crispy fried goleta di Mercatello (pork cheek similar to bacon).

Perfect timing. I think he's done this before.

Merlettaie means lacemakers. You probably know pecorino as a sheep's milk cheese, but in this case it's a variety of white grapes.

After lunch some of you might opt to go back to the monastery for a virtual rest, but I wouldn’t advise it because our visit to the Roman house in Sant’Angelo in Vado is too interesting to miss. Unfortunately for the inhabitants, but fortunately for us, in the 6th century AD the Ostrogoths totally destroyed the town and it was completely silted over by the Metauro River. The mosaic floors of the Domus del Mito (House of Myth) are so well preserved that you feel as if the Roman family, who lived here toward the end of the 1st century AD, have gone shopping and will be back soon. 

Here’s a mosaic depicting the hanging oil lamp that would have illuminated the room. In the centre you’re looking up at it and in the corners you see it from the side.

Monday 18 May 2020

Today is our virtual woad dyeing workshop with Max, one of the highlights of our virtual Woad & Wool tour. We roll out of bed, grab some breakfast and meet Max next door at his Museum of Natural Colours.

Max is curious about everything to do with dyes and dyeing and wants to hear your contributions to his already extensive knowledge.

The lengthy preparation of blue dye from leaves of the woad plant (Isatis tinctoria) made it affordable only by the aristocracy. One of those was Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, who ruled this part of Le Marche in the 15th century. I’m sure you know this portrait by Piero della Francesca, who we’ll meet later in the tour.

Perhaps the most famous nose in history. Legend recounts that he lost his right eye in a tournament and had a portion of his nose removed to give him 180˚ vision with his left one.

He’s depicted in red, but in fact the Montefeltro colours were blue (woad) and gold (reseda or dyer’s weld). I hope this year was a better year for reseda. Since last year was terrible, we used imported annatto instead.

Playing around with blue and gold.

​Max does lots of workshops with children, and besides the dyeing, you find yourself grinding pigments and painting with them.​

Have you decided what to paint? Figurative? Abstract?

In the afternoon we join Patrizia in the kitchen for a lesson preparing food of various colours. 'I just got some local violet potatoes’, she says excitedly. ‘Let’s make gnocchi’. And you do. 

Amethysts in the rough. They taste delicious too.

Tuesday 19 May 2020

Sad to say, this morning you must leave the virtual Oasi di San Benedetto, but I promise you that the rest of the virtual Woad & Wool tour will be equally entrancing. We drive from the region of Le Marche back over the mountain pass into Umbria. A friend of mine who studies history obsessively explained to me that Le Marche translates as ’The Marches’ which in mediaeval Europe was a border between realms, in this case three: Tuscany, Umbria and Romagna (now part of Emilia-Romagna). We are touring the orchards at the Archeologia Arborea (Arboreal Archaeology) with the inspirational Isabella dalla Ragione.

Isabella (left) telling you so many interesting facts about her fruit collection.

With her father she started salvaging ancient local fruit varieties, many dating back at least to the 15th century. She studies their representations in paintings and books and has discovered recipes for how they were used. There are so many more interesting facets to Isabella’s life that I can’t tell you everything in this small space. A good reason to come on the real tour in May 2021.

This Renaissance apple ‘Muso di Bue’ ('Ox Muzzle’) masquerades as a pear, but look carefully—the bulge is at the stem end instead of the base.

A dead tree looks as if it’s wrapped in a shroud, but it’s an old friend and is staying here for awhile longer.

It’s a 10-minute drive into Città di Castello where we have lunch at Trattoria Lea, take a quick look around the town and meet at Tela Umbra a Mano for a private tour of the linen mill and its museum.

​Can you believe, they are still weaving fine linen sheet-width fabric by hand! Two women sitting next to each other at each 19th-century loom.

We’re lucky today; a warp thread has broken and the weavers show you how they mend it.

Here’s the vertical cylindrical warp winder.

​In the museum you see antique Perugia towels, the blue decoration dyed with woad. Sorry no photos allowed, so you’ll have to come to see them. And there’s a touching love story and a friendship with Maria Montessori, the founder of Montessori schools. We could easily spend more time in this fascinating city, but it’s getting late and we have a half hour drive to our accommodation at Agriturismo Terra di Michelangelo.

Wednesday 20 May 2020

Last night our virtual Woad & Wool tour took us to Agriturismo Terra di Michelangelo. Yes, that most famous Renaissance artist was born only 10 minutes from the farm. I’m not taking you there because on my research trip I decided, although they’ve done their best, a simple house is just a house. Instead we’re going to Anghiari to visit the much more exciting Busatti weaving mill. It’s still in the private ownership of the Busatti family, and the first time I went I was privileged to be shown around by Giovanni Busatti himself, who even took us up to the private guest apartment on top floor.

Giovanni Busatti & my friend Marta holding woad-dyed linen yarn

Today Michelangelo Formica, head of sales, leads us into the bowels of the building where the 19th-century jacquard looms are clanking away.

There’s also a wool carder from Napoleonic times. No spare parts still in stock. When something goes wrong, they have to make the defective part in their machine shop.

Michelangelo shares my philosophy about the value of quality. When he’s at an international textile fair, if he’s approached by a buyer asking for his lowest price, Michelangelo replies, ‘I’m not the right supplier for you’.

Everything is finished by hand.

At the end of the tour, you can’t resist buying some of their luscious linens. It’s worth checking the scrap room where you’ll find real bargains.

Michelangelo thinks this would be the perfect apron for Sapori & Saperi dyeing workshops and cooking lessons. What do you think?

Until you come on the tour in May 2021, you can shop online at here. If any restauranteurs are reading this, Busatti will work with you to create unique table linens for your restaurant. Sorry if this sounds like an advertorial, but I love the people and the establishment. 

Depending on how long you spend shopping at Busatti (last year Jenny bought fabric for a huge table cloth), you have free time to explore Anghiari and have lunch. I have two favourites. Last year I went to Talozzi Bistro, so today I’m going to the Cantina del Granduca (the Cellar of the Grand Duke). It sounds posh, but don’t forget it’s his cellar where a mother and son preside. You can even get a good salad, which by now you’re really craving.

Anghiari is nearly as captivating in daylight as it is at night. It's a fortified town overlooking the plain where the battle of Anghiari took place in 1441, which Leonardo later painted. The original is lost, but you can see a contemporary copy in a museum in the town.

Soon it’s time to meet in the main piazza for the 10-minute drive to Sansepolcro. The early Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca was born here, and we’re going to the Civic Museum to see some of his work. The masterpiece here is his 'Resurrection'. Aldous Huxley called it the greatest painting in the world.

My photo doesn't do it justice!

This absorbing video gives you an excellent foundation for our visit. After the museum, some of you visit the Aboca Museum of medicinal herbs and others wander through the town. I’m going to the duomo to revisit a painting that makes me laugh. 

I can hear a very cross Madonna telling baby Jesus to sit still and stop trying to reach St Catherine’s spiked wheel on which he’ll for sure hurt himself.

Now we return to our agriturismo to learn how to make the classic Tuscan cantuccini (you probably call them biscotti), which are so good after dinner dunked in vin santo (Tuscan dessert wine).

On our research trip Gabriele, owner of Terra di Michelangelo, shows us his cook's cantuccini ready to go into the oven.

​But first a relaxing aperitivo on the terrace. Gabriele serves us the salumi (prosciutto, salami, etc) he makes from his heritage Cinta Senese pigs.

What a view for our aperitivo!

Thursday 21 May 2020

Today the virtual Woad & Wool tour heads north into the Casentino. Never heard of it? You’ll know it well by the end of the tour. It’s only an hour’s drive through rolling hills to the mediaeval fortified town of Poppi where we meet Luca Bellugi at the workshop of his late aunt Elisa. She was an accomplished weaver and fashion designer, but is most famous for having woven a blanket for the Pope and curtains for Jacquie Kennedy.

A selection of Bellugi's designs.

Last year Luca confided that he had always wondered how she wound the warp. Lin stepped up and gave him an impromptu lesson.​

It’s lunch time, and I hope by now you have complete trust in me. If not, your heart will sink as we drive onto the forecourt of an Esso station. We enter the small marquee at the side and there before us, as if by magic, is an elegant dining table. Course after elegant course of local food paired with local wines arrive in the hands of the three Marzi brothers and their nephew Francesco.

Raviggiolo (a fresh sheep's milk cheese) surrounded by prosciutto of the grey Casentino pig.

After our virtual gourmet lunch at the Esso station, we’re happy to reach the Castello di Porciano above Stia where we’ll stay until the end of the virtual tour on Monday.

Beds of blue irises remind us of woad.

Martha Specht, owner of the castle, gives us a private tour and shows us some of her favourite artefacts, many found in the ruins of the castle which her parents restored.

​Now we’re dining at the water mill Mulin di Bucchio, very near the source of the Arno River, the one that flows under the Ponte Vecchio at Florence and down to the sea at Pisa. You can see its strange route here from top right (near where we’re sitting) running south and hanging a U to go back north to Florence.

Photo credit: https://www.055firenze.it/art/135177/fiume-Arno#.XtvHpp4vNZ0

​I don’t know why, but water mills fascinate me. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of the machinery (even I understand how it functions) and the energetic efficiency.

Each grindstone had its own horizontal paddle wheel below it. The cups used to be made of wood. Now they're made of steel in the few mills that are still in use.

​Naturally flour is the protagonist of the meal.

Aren't you tempted to reach into the photo and grab some focaccia?

Friday 22 May 2020

Everyone who wants a virtual morning walk in the sun down the hill from the castle to Stia should leave now. Those going with the driver can relax for another 15 minutes. We arrive at the Museo dell'Arte della Lana (Museum of the Art of Wool) for our tour and weaving workshop with Angela Giordano. The museum is in a woollen mill, a beautiful example of 19th-century industrial architecture.

Notice the curved brick architraves above the windows on the right, and the decorative 'wings' on either side. Beautiful attention to detail.

All the machinery was powered by water. It finally closed in 2000 after a steep decline due to competition from synthetic fabrics. The strong, warm rustic wool is called panno casentino.

Panno casentino was often dyed orangey-red with dye extracted from madder root. Now the colour is obtained using synthetic dyes.

After being woven the fabric is fulled (washing and beating to compact the fibres) and napped (pulling up fibres using hooked needles to create a fuzzy surface). Both processes increase the water resistance and warmth of the fabric, important characteristics in a shepherd's cloak as well as garments intended for an aristocrat's draughty castle.

Napping used to be done using teasles fitted into an iron frame.

I first heard about the museum when I received an invitation to a temporary fashion exhibition there.

Here's the fun exhibition that was on when I did the research trip for this tour.

Angela leads us in a weaving workshop. Experienced weavers can do monk’s belt weaving, and the rest backstrap weaving.

Backstrap weaving is very satisfying for novices since you can produce a pretty, narrow band in a day.

​It’s only a 5-minute walk to our restaurant on the old main street of Stia. On our way we step into Pieve Santa Maria Assunta. When you’re in a romanesque church, always look up. The capitals of the columns often depict strange pagan creatures.

Is that a mermaid I spy, or a modest woman in pantaloons?

​Filetto restaurant next door presents a short menu of typical Casentino dishes. I’m having acquacotta. It means ‘cooked water’, but is in fact yet another Tuscan dish for using up stale bread. You stew onion, celery and tomatoes in vegetable broth, and at the end of the cooking poach one egg per person right in the pot.

Acquacotta is served on toasted stale country bread in small terracotta pots.

After lunch we finish our workshop with Angela, before going next door to Tessilnova. where owner Claudio Grisolini is expecting us. It was his father who popularised panno casentino culminating in Audrey Hepburn wearing a coat made of it in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.

Claudio continues to weave the fabric, now dyed in many colours, and made into exquisite garments which are hard to resist. In the foreground is a white version of the Audrey Hepburn coat.

​Claudio takes us behind the scenes to a vaulted room which was part of a woad processing mill.

Interesting experiments Claudio has been doing with woad dye.

It’s been a full day. Time to relax with an aperitivo and dine at Osteria Toscana Twist—local Tuscan ingredients prepared with a modern twist.

How exciting: some green vegetables!

Saturday 23 May 2020

Virtual yesterday was dedicated to weaving and textiles. Virtual today it’s food. We’re off to visit cheesemaker Lorenzo Cipriani and his pasta wizard mother Miranda. Picture yourself travelling along winding mountain roads and then a dirt track to their sheep farm at the end in the Casentino Forest National Park. It’s a beautiful day, and Lorenzo decides to make cheese outside. In the photo below he’s taking curd from the pot to make raviggiolo. You probably haven’t heard of it, partly because it’s only made in a few places in Tuscany, but mainly because you have to eat it very fresh, within two or three days. Way too short a shelf life for supermarkets! We  have it as antipasto for lunch drizzled with Lorenzo’s olive oil.

Raviggiolo is soft and moist. I'm explaining in English that you don't cut the curd and let the whey drain out.

Next out of the cheese pot is pecorino. Lorenzo cuts the curd to allow the whey to come out, then gathers the curd with his hands, lifts it from the whey and puts it in moulds to drain and eventually to age.

Pecorino cheese is made with sheep's milk. Pecora means sheep, and pecorino little sheep.

​In the kitchen we gather around Miranda to watch her make tortelli di patate (potato ravioli), a speciality of the Casentino. We don’t make them in my part of Tuscany. To you they might sound like carbohydrate stuffed with carbohydrate, but they’re wonderfully light and flavoursome served with sage butter and grated pecorino.

Do the blobs of potato stuffing give you any ideas for a weaving pattern?

Taste them for yourself on the real tour in May 2021.

​You have a free afternoon on the virtual Woad & Wool tour. Maybe you walk on one of the many paths around the castle or maybe you write emails to family and friends or maybe you relax in the sun.

The people who take a walk see this impressionistic carpet of poppies.

Now we’re at dinner at La Buca in Soci, just down the river from Stia. Last night was your chance for vegetables. Tonight the speciality is tagliata. Tagliata means sliced. In Tuscany it's a thick rib steak, grilled rare and cut vertically into slices. There are other dishes on the menu, but if you like beef, this is the place to have it. They serve it with the most more-ish fried potatoes I’ve ever eaten.

The only thing I like better than tagliata grilled to perfection is the bone. I must have been a dog in my previous life :)

If I hadn't had the tagliata bone, I could have eaten every one of these fried potatoes too.

Sunday 24 May 2020

I’m so excited about today’s activities on the virtual Woad & Wool tour. I’m taking you to the Osteria da la Franca at Corezzo for a hands-on lesson making the tortello alla lastra and then to the herbal pharmacy and hermitage of the Benedictine Monastery of Camaldoli. Tortello and raviolo are members of the same family: little stuffed pasta pillows (if they end in ‘i’, they’re plural). What you call them depends on where you are and what they’re stuffed with. The tortello of Corezzo is stuffed with potato, similar to the tortello Miranda made for us, but they’re not cooked in boiling water. Instead they’re cooked on a lastra, a slab or sheet or plate, in this case of stone which is heated over an open fire, like a griddle.

Owners Daiana and Mattia (and their three young children) welcome us and introduce us to their cook Loredana. ​​She’s a patient teacher and you’re excellent students.

Did you think you were capable of rolling pasta by hand? Now you are!

You spread the potato filling on the sheet of pasta.

Loredana shows you how to fold the pasta over and beat it flat with a stick.

You cut squares or rectangles by rolling the edge of a plate on the flattened tortelli.

Mattia prepared the fire and heated the stone to toast the tortelli.

You’ve got to come on the real tour to taste how good they are.

Don’t eat too many! Loredana and Mattia have prepared a big lunch for us.

Two more kinds of tortelli!

As we drive along the mountain road to Camaldoli, are you thinking, ‘Why another Benedictine monastery? We’ve already stayed in one.’ Camaldoli is different. There is still a community of monks and hermits living here. The setting is extraordinary. Not bare and rocky like the nearby and better known Sanctuary La Verna where St Francis is said to have got the stigmata. Here the mountains are lush and wooded, because for centuries the monks planted 4–5,000 fir trees every year, helping prevent global warming before it became critical. We visit the herbal pharmacy at the monastery. The museum is full of fascinating instruments: stills for distilling essences and huge ceramic storage jars.

​I would have liked to have walked up to the hermitage, but since it’s raining lightly, we drive. We glimpse the hermits’ simple houses through a gate.

Whose turn is it to mow the lawn?

But it isn’t all austerity, as testified by the interior of the chapel.

Our guides explains the symbolic meaning of what seems to us pure decoration.

​We take a different route down and pass a clearing full of Eremurus bulbs glowing like candelabras in the misty air.

We arrive slightly chilly and damp at the Locanda dei Baroni, opposite the monastery, happy to find a fire burning in the hearth.

Some of us order potato tortelli. We just can’t get enough!

Monday 25 May 2020

It’s the last day of the virtual Woad & Wool tour and time to leave the castle where Federica, Martha’s righthand woman, has looked after us so well. Don’t be too sad. There’s one more adventure awaiting you at Arezzo. We have a virtual visit to a painting restoration studio. It was recommended to me by the woman who also told me about the wool museum at Stia. Before my first visit in 2017 I had no idea of how you restore ancient paintings. The work is detailed and painstaking, but also exciting. I’ve visited three times and the women, who call themselves Art Angels, have always been working on a polyptych of 13th-century wooden panels painted by Pietro Lorenzetti, the older but less famous brother of Ambrogio, whose 'Allegory of Good and Bad Government' you might have seen in Siena. Marzia shows you the techniques they use to uncover the original painting. 

There are difficult decisions to take about what was over-painted later and what was original.

The good news is that they finally finished! The opening was scheduled for 17 April, but had to be postponed due to Covid-19. I wonder what they’ll be working on next year.

And now it’s time for virtual hugs and kisses (allowed under social distancing rules) before we scatter to further travels and home.

If I’ve whetted your appetite for Tastes & Textiles tours, head on over to my Tastes & Textiles web page to find out more. You’ll find dates for tours in 2020 and 2021. 

There are still places on the Wine to Dye For tour starting on 15 September 2020. If you’re interested, let me know. I’m not requiring a deposit until we’re all more certain about the possibilities for travel this year.