Six ay em, back at the same café as yesterday, cappuccino, same crowd (except for two giggly, beautiful French girls; the conversations around me are muted as everyone is paying attention to these two) I even recognize a few of the same people as they ride or scurry by. The bells toll right on cue, the sun kisses the woman in the front row a minute later than yesterday; the sweet rhythm of life. I wonder, as summer turns to fall, then winter, does she move a table at a time to the south, lingering later and later every morning until she is touched by the sunlight?
The French girls wander off arm in arm, and every man’s heart follows them as the sunlight kisses them; they disappear around a corner.
The bike rider comes by, the table of four breaks up, the girl on the moped bumps down the stairs…
Easy to settle in here.
But… the road calls, there is so much still to see. Slow breakfast, Punta is fetched up (Have I mentioned we named our little Fiat Punto, “Punta?”), and we start winding through the back roads of Istria. We have three places we'd like to be, the rest we can just make up. Bartonville, surrounded by wine fields, and I have a line on a place for lunch. Motovun, the "wow" hilltop town of the region, and finally Groznjan, the small, out of the way hilltop village where we are staying with a wine maker's family.
At least that is the plan.
Somewhere in the past few days, maybe crossing from Bosnia to Zagreb, we have crossed the superstition line. Everywhere south the "all seeing eye" was for sale, in all its varying forms, hung on businesses, boats, houses, taxis... now there are no eyes, but suddenly the various saint medallions, crucifixes and crosses are everywhere: houses, taxis, stores, etc.
It seems we have also passed out of the war zone after Zagreb. No one talks about it, no signs of damage, no more war-history books for sale.
The countryside, architecture, food... I really feel like we are in Italy.
And so, I embark on a new adventure:
IN SEARCH OF THE FAMOUS ISTRIAN BLACK TRUFFLE.
Istria is Trufflevania. TartufiTown. Tartufi Central. And I am going to find the best Truffle Pasta.
Beautiful winding roads through small towns and fields of Istria. The sign says "Motovun 4KM" but we are in the woods on the side of hill; suddenly the road winds around and POW! There in your face across the valley, Motovun sits on top of the next hill over. We have to park just out of town and walk in on the only street. The town is laid out along this one lane that is laid out like a string wound around, a spiral climbing to the summit. We pass through the only gate in the old town walls into a neat little, giant tree-shaded square, in front of the cathedral. It takes all of an hour to walk the town, during which time I work up enough of an appetite to have a plate of black truffle pasta. My goal today is to try truffles in each town in which we stop. So far I am accomplishing my goal. This first truffle plate is fair. Looking for excellence. We walk back to the car and move on.
Cute town with steeple, after cute town with steeple (take a photo of one and you have the basic idea of all). As we near Brtonigla the hay fields yield to vineyards (always a good sign, those vineyards) and we enter another cute hilltop town with church steeple, except this church is painted bright yellow. This town is so small that a two minute walk in any direction puts you back out in the vineyards. We have about four cafés to choose from. We pick Astarea (finally, some of the missing vowels show up!) and take a sit on the covered terrace. The Adriatic is on the horizon, and a warm breeze sweeps over us. The next table over has an old, probably drunk, vineyard owner and two helpers from Italy. They talk with us in a mixture of German and Italian and their three English words… in fact they greeted us in German but were very, I mean VERY pleased to hear we were from California.
"…Und wie gehts Schwarzenegger? (And how is Schwarzenegger?)"
Er is sehr gut, danke.
“Sei stato a “Otel California?”
Si. Si bello, molto bella!
And the old guy smiles his missing tooth, wrinkled face old smile and says, "My love California!" so we talked in a really broken, accented almost incoherent blend of German, Italian and English with lots of smiles and repeating.
The old guy said over and over, "My love you." at first I thought he was enraptured with Gail, but he said it to me, to the restaurant owner, the waitress, as punctuation, as a greeting and in parting. “Ciao! My love you!”
The owner came to take our order. Nino sat down next to Gail, leaned in (for a kiss?)
"So. Would you like fish or meat?" Pencil poised at 45° above his order pad.
"Asparagus" she relied. This kind of really threw him off, first asparagus is not available and out of season, and second, it is not fish or meat.
"Vegetarian" Gail helpfully explained.
"Ah-ha!" Bright smile. "Fish!"
Eventually Gail got a mixed platter of goat cheese and I got pasta with truffles. Half litre of the house white wine and litre of water.
Nino walked off scratching his head, puzzled by us I am sure.
Meanwhile the old man kept getting in the conversation: “My love Obama! My love California! My love you!” and we all had a good laugh.
One of the field hands finally got across to me that this old guy owns the vineyards that the red wine comes from.
Oh! I smile and point, “My love vino rosso!”
As the afternoon passed we watched Nino sit at every table, engage every guest, suggest fish or meat? Later I passed through the dining room where a fire was burning low and fresh caught fish were on an open grate over it.
The wine was excellent. Like $50 bottle excellent. For a mere 17K ($3 USD).
Funny thing, this pasta with truffles was totally different than the first, flat noodles vs. tight tubes, flat shaved truffles vs. little shaved spikes, no sauce vs. cream sauce. This time the taste was more subtle, but really complemented the wine. Gail suggested I add some olive oil to it and that turned out well. Rated: fair plus.
This is turning out to be a fun experiment!
A couple KM down the road we come to Groznjan, our home for the night. We abandon Punta in the public parking lot just out of the city walls, walk in, turn right in the castle courtyard and we are there. We have an entire floor in a farmhouse, living room, kitchen, bedroom and bath. Another old, old home, real stone walls and wood beamed ceilings. This hill town is pretty isolated, so the streets are mostly empty of tourists, though there are many art galleries. We are up so high we are looking down, way across the valley, on the other two, hilltop towns we were in today. For such a small, compact town it takes a surprising amount of time to explore all the alleys. We find a bar with terrace built right on the edge of the wall, so we are looking 500 feet down the cliff side at the valley, and then mountains across from us. The bar has WiFi, yea! since our farmhouse does not. We find a nice place for dinner, and the criteria here was that they must have home made pasta with truffles. So we while away the late afternoon and early evening wandering the maze of art shops, then drinking cheap house wine (about seventy-five cents a glass. Yes. $0.75. How can you not drink wine when it is cheaper than water?).
Around 21:00 we decide to head over to dinner at Konora Bastia. Silly us, this is such a quiet, small town with two guest houses and a smattering of rooms... With no reservation we cannot eat out on the terrace, at the edge of the cliff (same view as the bar, up one block) so we end up in a back terrace, up a level in a roofed terrace with arched entrance, surrounded by trees and colorful, shuttered buildings. Actually, we have had so many days of such wildly spectacular views it is kind of nice to give our eyes a rest!
Without hesitation I ordered a half litre of red wine and home made pasta with truffles. Gail got white wine and caprese salat.
Well, if the quality of the cheap, simple dark, dark red house wine is any indication of the food, I have already won!
You know when a soccer game on TV is close, and the home team gets a goal?
Well, before my plate hit the table I could smell it.
SCOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRE!!!
The truffle pasta of my dreams!
Oh. My. God.
Homemade, thick chewy pasta noodles. A pile of shaved needles of truffle, and a wonderful thick cream sauce that clings to it all.
I can actually taste it before it is even in my mouth.
And to just top it off, the wine brings out and prolongs the taste; I feel as if my nasal passage and tongue are coated in truffle. Amazing.
So now you know. Due to my sacrifice and diligent research on everyone's behalf, the perfect truffle dish is waiting for you and you know exactly where to get it. Try finding that in any guide book.
You're welcome.
My taste buds and stomach were happy to sacrifice.
In celebration I followed it up with a dessert of home-bred chicken gnocchi. Three plates of pasta, one of gnocchi... I am trying to think of what I should taste test next. Gelato? Shrimps or oysters? Maybe return to France and test cassoulette, or Italy and test pizzas?
We spent the evening walking the little maze of streets, then listening to the music festival going on in the town square.
Tomorrow we leave Croatia and enter Slovenia. I hear it is wonderful, maybe better than Croatia. We are ready to find out.