Author: casachiesi
Stanley Tucci Searching for Italy – An inspiration!
Can I say that ever since Betti and I started watching the first series last year of Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy we were immediately hooked!
The way he covers each region and his Italian heritage is so elegant and super far away from the typical American approach towards showing the beauty that is Italy (no Olive Garden sponsors on this show!)
Now in it’s second season he takes us along diverse regions of Italy that are off the beaten path (quite similar to our Casa Chiesi blog but with a better budget and obviously he is Stanley Tucci!)
The shows run for about an hour and take you into the depths of what each region has to offer from a culinary point of view along with some nice artistic highlights even if the emphasis is on food!
If you have not had the chance to see this great show on CNN USA we highly recommend! Here are some links that you will definitely enjoy.
Link to the show site:
Stanly Tucc’s Searching for Italy
a recipe from the show:
Enjoy!
Nazim
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Our Blog was highlighted in Top 35 Italian Blogs!
We must be doing something right! Our Italian Lifestyle Blog (now in it’s 7th year) got highlighted over at Feedspot in the 15th position! You can find us over at this link. Also love to see that we are in wonderful company with other fellow bloggers that are extending the love for this beautiful country that is Italy!
Pork Loin Salami Coldcut : Betti shows you how!
As you can all probably tell we are still under travel restrictions around the beautiful country that is Italy (but do not worry we were able to prepare some new material which we will be publishing soon!) but that does not stop Betti from coming up with wonderful recipes such as this amazing Pork Loin Salami!! Yes…that’s right! You heard it here. A simple and delicious appetiser that you can serve your guest prior to the traditional Italian 3 course meal or why not just along a nice cheese plater!
Here is the full video on this simple recipe:
Pompeii: A Virtual Walk through Pompeii
We are itching to go visit Pompeii this year but thanks to the pandemic that is not posible. So here is the closest thing to a real on site visit:
On another note our dear friend Marco Fabri is highlighted in this documentary which was recently aired on RAI Italian Television (in italian but well worth it…)
Marco Fabri interview (in italian)
Ferrara City Tour : Our first trip after the Covid19 Lockdown
Last month we had a chance to do a short trip to cover a couple of cities in the Emilia Romagna and Marche area. One of the first cities was the wonderful town of Ferrara which is a great town to cover by bike. I definitely loved the scale of the city and the marvels it had to offer during our two-day stay.
We stuck to a full apartment AirBnB which was wonderful and wore a mask all during the visit when going into restaurants and museums. The city was relatively empty considering that it was the middle fo the Italian Summer which is quite normal considering the circumstances.
Here is our video for your enjoyment!
Nazim
[socialWarfare]
An Italian Holiday during COVID 19
So as most people know the month of August in Italy is a month when the country comes to a near standstill and people go on their coveted and long-awaited Holidays. When I moved to Italy back in 1992 it was usually a four-week event and as you can all probably imagine I was quite surprised and pleased since I was coming from a culture where to accommodate a week-long yearly break you had to prove that you deserved the break due to your outstanding performance and make sure that someone could cover your back at the moment!
In Italy, it is a diverse approach but in the last years, it has been reduced to a two to three-week time frame which is still not bad! Taking advantage of the so-called calm COVID 19 controlled situation we opted on push starting our Casa Chiesi travel adventures back into action (remember we have gone through a severe indoor lockdown that started in February and dragged on till middle May with a slow return towards a very timid venturing out approach.
Along with Betti, we opted for a visit to her Mom who is up in the Val Seriana region of Italy (where we discovered this beautiful lake) and from there, the idea was to explore two art cities Ferrara and Ravenna (watch this space for upcoming articles!) to then close it out down at our dear friends place down by Recanati in the Marche area.
I have to admit that the approach was to avoid large crowded areas (such as beaches or isolated islands) so as not to risk any issues with the virus. We also rented out full home settings via AirBnB and constantly wore masks everywhere we went.
All I can say is it felt great to get back in the swing of things as travel bloggers even if most sites had access restrictions and the number of tourists we encountered where mostly Italian and in way smaller numbers than expected.
So all I can say is that Casa Chiesi is back with new articles very soon…
Nazim
[socialWarfare]
The Magical Lake in the mountain : Lago Moro in Val Camonica
As most of you probably can assume we are still in a sort of dream-like state with the COVID 19 pandemonium so before our trip on Friday down to Ferrara, we decided to do a quick pitstop and visit Betti’s Mom who every Summer spends the month of August up in the beautiful mountain setting that is Val Seriana precisely in the town of Bratto.
We have been coming here for about 27 years now but have never ventured out past this valley to visit the wonderful settings that this area has to offer. On a whim and thanks to the previous exploration of Betti’s sister Patty, we decided to visit a location called Lago Moro after hearing the wonderful and enthusiastic descriptions from her sister.
By the way this location is relatively close to the famous Gleno Dam which Betti covered a couple of years ago at this previous blog post.
Yesterday we set out along with our niece Camila, her son Olmo and Betti’s sister Patty by car towards the curious lake located in the middle of the mountains. I was already in a relatively sour mood after I saw the prospects of us skipping a nice Trattoria lunch and having to stick to our diet regime of Bresaola and Integral crackers.
So as we arrived and parked we started our descent from the parking lot toward our destination and loa and behold we stumble upon the most breathtaking view of this beautiful lake: Lago Moro which I immediately decided to call “il lago magico” (the magical lake).
The place was relatively full of lake bathers that take advantage of renting out beautiful homes close to the lake but all and all I have to say that quite friendly and predisposed to free up some space so we could put down our stuff and immediately jump into the water. Betti and I were expecting super-cold freezing water but to our amazement, the water was cool and perfect temperature along with a crystal clear water quality which we were not expecting at all!
After a fantastic swim along with the whole family (plus I forgot to mention our niece’s trusty dog Bolla who made sure that the whole “branco” was protected under his trusty watch. A small picnic calmed my trattoria temptation and was why better due to the beautiful setting. The lake roughly covers 8 km so right after lunch, we decided to take the wooden walkway around the lake from which we shot these photos.
If you ever get a chance and our in this part of Italy I urge you to visit “my magical lake” Lago Moro!
Nazim
Lago Moro in Val Camonica
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Casa Chiesi makes Feedspot Italian Travel Blogger list
One of the pleasures that we have here at Casa Chiesi is planning future articles and trips (specially once Covid19 starts giving up it’s grip on this wonderful country that is Italy).
That is why we are supper happy to have been indicated as one of the top 10 Italian Travel Blogs over at Feedspot which covers Bloggers worldwide in a vast amount of categories!
Some awesome news in these times when travel is slowing reopening worldwide. Viva Italia!!
Link to Feedspot is here
Nazim
[socialWarfare]
Adopt a Hostel : A great initiative to support Hostels Worldwide
We had the inmense pleasure of meeting some wonderful people when we attended last years Traverse 19 event which was held in the beautiful city of Trento – Italy. Being one of our first every Travel Bloggers experience Betti and I were super happy to engage and take advantage of the fantastic tours along with mind opening lectures and presentations from fellow Bloggers.
Of these we had the pleasure of meeting Kashyap Bhattacharya and his partner Sabrina Wulf. Kashyap is the mind behind Budget Traveller, a fantastic blog and the author of a great book that covers Hostels (The Grand Hostels: Luxury Hostels of the World) of which he is definetly an expert in.
Due to the non-existent travel situation we currently find ourselves in they have both embarked on supporting a movement called AdoptaHostel to give a helping hand to a series of Hostels worldwide via a system of coupons that one can purchase for future use once this whole situation hopefully comes back to normal.
We love the initiative and invite you to check it out over at https://www.adoptahostel.com/
Nazim
[socialWarfare]
Covid19 Italian Lockdown : How does it feel?
As we have reached the 51t day of our lockdown status here in Milan, Italy I have decided to give our friends and followers an idea of how things have evolved in these last 6 weeks at the Chiesi-Beltran household. As most of you know this Italian Lifestyle Blog is our platform on which we express our thoughts and love for this beautiful country that is Italy. You can read a bit more of the people involved since we started back in the Summer of 2014 here at this link
As most of the people we know around the world the arrival of this virus has affected everyone’s life in one way or another: from major health concerns plus the economical impact on our pocketbooks this one comes right up there with something that at least I have personally not come across in my 60 years on planet Earth.
From seeing the images of our empty cities on the news along with information on the web to hearing accounts from friends and family of which direction this might take us it becomes quite hard to dispense optimism and empathy but still….we maintain a positive outlook
and try our best to keep a level of calm which we clearly know is hard to do based on a month (plus or minus) of lockdown.
But now for the positive stuff that has come out of all of this. Human beings need to have a sense of communication that before all of this had somehow gone lost in the crazy and production-based society we live in. Betti and I find ourselves with extra time to explore all those things and ideas that before were not possible to envision or develop. We tend to leave the Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other distratcions as an evening only option and somehow now look at all of it with a different eye. In fact, Betti would rather prefer to watch documentaries on subject matter which is culturally enlighting instead of a bizarre shows such as the likes of Tiger Tail or similar.
From a work standpoint of view, we are fortunate in the sense that my work revolves around the digital transformation of companies and even if Betti is a make-up artist and for now fashion is on hold she is teaching remotely to the diverse schools that she is involved in and working on a new project that revolves around Make-up. I am blessed to be married to such a talented person!
Our daughter Zoe is also in the house and being a 25 year old woman we were concerned that she would go in a downward path being locked up for so long but to our surprise, she is upbeat and working on her career as a photographer and digital entrepreneur. We are quite impressed!
Another beautiful thing that has come out of all of this is that we have established a close relationship with our neighbors which has evolved towards the idea of having a weekly Saturday dinner party which we do on the landing of the fifth floor between both apartments placing a plant in between and keeping a safe distance but setting up candles and cooking phenomenal Italian Food. Tonight is Saturday so we are already preparing for what we end up dreaming about all week long: la cenetta con il vicini!
Another interesting thing that has occurred in this period is that we have decided with the advance of the days and then the weeks to tune out from the news which in the end only brings negative vibes to the whole equation. Better to concentrate on positive stuff and learn or polish new skills related to both our professions.
In regards to our Casa Chiesi project even if the whole travel scene here in Italy has come to a grinding stop we are still writing and posting material about our love per Italia! Once things slowly pick up we will be back on the beaten path traveling and showing great sites, food, art, history, and traditions.
To all our dear friends and followers big hugs and stay as healthy and safe as possible.
Baci e abracci a tutti
Nazim
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