Saturday 4 August 2007

Pisa in August......



...is a ghost town! Sergio is taking his annual break - leaving his shop door wide-open behind the grille while he's away, to air the place out - as is Claudia ( so pasta is off the menu for the foreseeable future) , and the fruit and vegetable market is practically deserted. To the extent that you almost expect to see tumble-weed blowing gently around the place, amongst the ghostly remnants of the deserted stalls. Antonella has disappeared - presumably off to Ischia, as usual - as has the stallholder next to her, and the one next to that. This morning, the usual bustle around the cut-price clothes stalls in Vettovaglie was missing, and I wondered why the one stall that remained in place had even bothered. Everybody has gone! (The cheap clothes stalls, by the way, are one of the reasons that we ended up choosing Pisa. In other towns, the oldest and most venerable square in town would have been long given over to businesses selling scented candles and novelty soaps and other 'artisanal' products aimed at the discerning tourist. Pisa, in its infinite wisdom, has instead surrendered its most venerable square to purveyors of cut-price knickers! It speaks volumes.......)

Of course, this annual exodus means that menu planning and provisioning at this time of year become a little like drawing up and executing a military strategy. Sergio is back on Wednesday, so that's ok, but then Maurizio disappears for his break on the eleventh, and the fish shop will be closed after the seventeenth, right through until next month! And then, to cap it all, the fifteenth of this month is Ferragosto, at which point anybody who's still around closes for the day anyway........celebrating the birth of the virgin, I believe. It won't be tumble-weed blowing around the deserted streets on that day, but groups of tourists, wandering bemused at the fact that not even a cafe is open to take their custom on a day at the height of the holiday season!

However.......the weather is blissful - apart from the dramatic thunderstorm yesterday morning, when the heavens ripped open and it rained chair-legs (as the Greeks would say); but even that was rather splendid in its intensity - and the sense that every day is Sunday has its definite good points. The garden is flourishing, and ripe with huge agapanthus globes and the scent from the many-blossomed Crinum Vanillorum. I expect we'll somehow survive the challenge of the next couple of weeks............we normally do...

Tonight's Dinner:

Garlic Prawns.

Baked Sea-Bass, with braised Fennel.

Fig Ice Cream.

2 comments:

The Passionate Palate said...

Your words paint a haunting picture of deserted Pisa. It must be eerie and a bit mysterious. Enjoy the solitude and don't go hungry!

Pomiane said...

Hungry? In THIS house?? Little danger of that.......