Ruth Paget's Honeymoon in Italy: Arrival in Florence, Italy

Savvy Mom Ruth Paget’s Honeymoon in Italy: Arrival in Florence, Italy by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I was happy to sit on a train to Paris (France) the next day and rest after my wedding outside Tours to Laurent.  The smile muscles in my face hurt from all the photographs.

I was not a savvy mom on my honeymoon, but I wanted to have a “cultured lifestyle” to go with my education at the University of Chicago, so I could raise my children well and contribute to my neighborhood as a mom.  

Laurent and I saved money for a 6-week honeymoon vacation in Italy; the Languedoc region in France; and Barcelona, Spain.

I could hardly wait to get to Florence, so we could start our honeymoon.  I had taken all the classes necessary in college to be an art history major in college, but chose to be a Far Eastern Languages and Civilizations major, because it would marry well with an MBA.

At the moment, though, I felt thoroughly prepared to serve as the tour guide for us throughout Italy.  I watched the Alpine villas roll by our windows on the way to Florence.  Pretty soon, we were in tunnels speeding towards Florence.

The train arrived at Santa Maria Novella Station.  I immediately began gawking at the alternating green and white marble stripes on Santa Maria Novella and asked Laurent, “Isn’t that amazing?!!”

I was excited to see a church that I had studied in an art history class when I was looking at Santa Maria Novella.

“We’ll have plenty of time for tourism after we get to the hotel,” Laurent said unromantically.

The early morning sun was already beating down on us, and pretty soon we were drenched in sweat in the July heat.

I began to agree with Laurent that there was time to sightsee when I would not be walking through town with a backpack.

Laurent expertly guided us through octagonal-piazzas and diagonal streets to our hotel in a Florentine fortified apartment with a tower.

I loved the ochre-colored buildings that had floral paintings on them around us as well as the sturdy stone towers that kept marauders out in less peaceful times.

Whole families occupied entire buildings that were spacious apartments now.  Our room opened out to a private terrace with potted plants on it.

After getting our bags situated, we walked to the university district for dinner.  The Florentines wore shirts that had creases in the sleeves from ironing I noticed.

The women all seemed to have pedicures with red toenail polish, which their sandals set off to advantage.  I even saw one pair of sandals that had turquoise inlaid in the thong part.

“Italian women have the prettiest feet,” I remarked to myself.  I though they were wonderfully thin, too.  I thought all Italian women were going to be plump, pasta eaters.

We were looking for restaurants where we could have a real Italian meal and settled on a trattoria with lots of Italian men inside eating big lunches.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Agecroft Hall - A Restored Tudor Mansion outside Richmond (Virginia) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Agecroft Hall – A Restored Tudor Mansion outside Richmond (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My sister Kathy, Florence, and I set out for Agecroft Hall outside Richmond (Virginia).  Kathy had seen this restored Tudor-era mansion on one of her gardening television shows.

We took photos in all the gardens and ran around like little kittens with a ball of yarn in this super cute place.

Agecroft Hall is an English Tudor mansion from the 1500s that was brought to the United States stone by stone from Lancashire (England), a major mining center.

It was saved from destruction by Richmond’s Thomas L. Williams, Jr., who had it dismantled, transplanted, and rebuilt in the 1920s.

In a manor house such as Agecroft Hall, the role of the great hall of a fortified castle changed when servants and masters kept separate quarters.  Separate quarters for servants and masters was a physical manifestation of the beginnings of the stratification of English society.

A suit of black armor stood in this room.  Our guide said that the origin of the word “blackmail” comes from knights trying to raise money for their armor.

The dining room held its stories as well.  A big salt cellar was always placed by the family head’s seat during a meal.  Salt was a valuable commodity.

The saying, “a man worth his salt” dates form the Tudor Age.  The dining room table was called a “board” during the Tudor Age and gave rise to the expression “chairman of the board.”

The family head decided who got what choice parts of the roasted meats in much the same way a modern chairman of the board divvies up perks and corner offices; divvying profits, however, is overseen by auditors.

An interesting Tudor Christmas custom was to put live blackbirds in a hard pastry crust and release them for effect during dinner.  Birds in the house obviously did not bother the lords and ladies.  (Bird flu must not have been identified as a disease during the Tudor Age.)

Some of the windows in Agecroft Hall held stained glass windows.  Our guide told us that stained glass was very valuable, especially as the art has been lost for the truly lustrous windows.

When Henry VIII (House of Tudor) dissolved the monasteries as part of his break with the Catholic faith, looters immediately took the stained glass from the churches and monasteries.

Outside in the gardens, we looked at a black gate painted in black pitch. 

I thought of the song by the Rolling Stones “Paint it Black” as little Florence let herself out through a small door inside the larger, pitchblack door.

Kathy and I followed her out.  I drove back to Norfolk as Kathy laughed through the mountains and tunnels under the Chesapeake Bay this time.

Kathy took out a pasta roller she had given me for Christmas and showed Florence how to make handkerchief egg pasta. 

She made two flat sheets of pasta and then put basil leaves between the pasta and ran them between the pasta rollers one more time as I made a homemade tomato coulis (tomato sauce with olive oil and a little sea salt).

While the pasta was boiling, I made a homemade fruit salad that was followed by Lavazza coffee.

We talked about how much fun it was to visit Agecroft Hall, but I still preferred American solutions for living quarters.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Home (Virginia) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello Home (Virginia) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget – Ruth Pennington Paget

My sister Kathleen came to visit Florence and me while Laurent was away on a cruise.  We went to visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home outside Charlottesville, Virginia.

We took the tour.  The guide said he wanted to break with everything British including Georgian architecture.

Jefferson studied the Renaissance Italian architect Andrea Palladio’s approach to country villas and used them for inspiration in his Monticello home.

Monticello is Italian for “Little Mountain.”  The dome on Monticello was the first constructed in the United States.  The dome is modeled after the one used in Palladio’s La Rotunda Villa in Vicenza, Italy.

I liked the entry hall with its maps of Asia, Latin America, the United States, and Europe hanging on the walls.  Jefferson wanted to educate his guests as much as he wanted to entertain them.

The seven-day clock he invented stands in the hallway along with artifacts that Lewis and Clark brought back with them, including a buffalo skin with a war scene painted on it by Native Americans.  Florence said she liked the mastodon bones.

The “bedroom” with a bed between walls allowed Jefferson to either go into his study or go into his dressing room.  He invented a machine that would make copies of his letters as he wrote them.

Our tour guide said that Jefferson wrote 19,000 public and private letters.  He often complained that the ink in his pen would freeze during a Virginian winter.

Jefferson made the most interesting inventions in his dining room.  He had acquired a liking for wine during his stint as ambassador to France.  He liked wine served at cellar temperature like the French.

To make sure that his wine did not heat up during the blazing, hot Virginian summers, he installed a dumb waiter that went directly from his cellar to the dining room.

He also had a Lazy Susan door installed for serving food, so slaves would not interrupt the flow of conversation at the dinner table.

Jefferson came up with yet another idea for his dining room that people with snow-filled winters can appreciate; e installed double-paned windows on the north-side of his house.

I liked all the skylights in Monticello.  They lightened up the interior and made the house seem larger than it was.

Our guide continued, “Jefferson also put in mirrors on opposite sides of rooms so that they would appear larger.”

I was impressed by how clever Jefferson was.  The guide said, “Jefferson’s mind seemed to always be at work on home improvement.  He was also the first person in the United States to have parquet floors laid down at his home.”

According to our tour guide, “Jefferson took one of his slaves named Peter Hemmings to Paris with him when he was ambassador to that country.”

The guide went on to say, “Hemmings learned to cook French food very well.  Jefferson said he would give Hemmings his freedom, if he taught other slaves how to cook French food.”

Hemmings did just that and earned his freedom.

My sister Kathleen bought a video about Jefferson that said he wanted to be remembered for 3 things:

-writing the Declaration of Independence

-writing the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Religious Toleration Act

-designing the University of Virginia

(The living quarters at the University of Virginia use the same separation of living quarters between masters and slaves current at the time that Jefferson was ambassador to Paris. 

This same separation between living quarters for masters and servants can still be found in Parisian maid’s apartments in Haussman Apartment buildings that are so beloved and cherished today.)

Happy Touring!

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Heloise and Abelard: The French Touring Game for Brittany (France) about Sinners, Saints, and Haints by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Héloîse and Abelard:  The French Touring Game for Brittany (France) about Sinners, Saints, and Haints by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

Introduction

The Brittany Peninsula in northwestern France that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean is famous for cuisine that would appeal to young people with yachting in the blood, interest in love stories, and yearnings to be a Celtic druid.

Brittany’s Cuisine – Simple yet Nutritious and Satisfying

-raw oysters (belons – huîtres plates are the most famous)

-pré sale lamb (salt marsh lamb)

-alcoholic apple cider

-towering seafood platters with homemade mayonnaise

-Muscadet white wine (goes great with seafood platters)

-steamed mussels made with Muscadet white wine and crème fraîche and chopped, flat-leaf parsley

-fleur de sel sea salt from Guérande, Brittany

-galettes (buckwheat crêpes for savory ingredients)

-crêpes for sweet and savory ingredients

-far cake studded with cognac-marinated prunes

-garden vegetables such as bibb lettuce, strawberries, green beans, and small potatoes for side dishes

-butter cookies to go with tea

King Arthur’s Camelot

Brittany is famous as the setting for Camelot in Chrétien de Troyes Arthurian Romances.

The Château des Ducs de Bretagne is where King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Queen Guenivere lived in myth.

I always told Florence when we visited Nantes that we might see those three in windows or walking around the gardens.

Middle Ages Lovers: Abelard and Héloîse

Brittany boasts being the tryst land for two Middle Ages lovers named Héloîse and Abelard.  Abelard was a priest, and Héloîse was his student.  Héloîse became pregnant.

The church superiors castrated Abelard.  Héloîse had to become a nun.  The two were allowed to correspond. 

Their correspondence has been preserved and published.  Spoiler - In the end, Héloîse starts making fun of Abelard, which is why it has been in print for centuries, begging for a movie.

Anne of Brittany: Queen of France Twice

Another famous personality from Brittany was a real queen named Anne of Brittany (1477 – 1514).  She became the queen consort of France twice.

Her first husband was Charles VIII and her second husband was Louis XII.  Both kings added her territory of Brittany to that of France.

She lived in the Château of the Ducs of Brittany, which is in downtown Nantes (Naoned in the Breton language).

I have some suggestions for places to visit in Brittany in the blogs that follow.  You can go to Nantes by TGV (French Speed Train) and rent a car to see the places I have described in the blogs:

Level 1: Books about Brittany and its Famous People

To better appreciate the culture of Brittany, you might want to do some reading before you go:

-DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Brittany by DK Travel

-Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes (various publishers)

-Letters of Abelard and Héloîse (various publishers)

-Twice Queen of France: Anne of Brittany by Mildred Allen Butler

-The Complete Sailor – Second Edition – by David Seidman (You can rent sailboats in some places)

-Crêpes and Galettes from the Breizh Café by Bertrand Larcher

-The Oysters of Locmariaquer by Eleanor Clark

Level 2 – Views from the Air

If you wake up in time, you can see evidence of how Brittany’s inheritance laws differ from England’s.

Level 3 – Places to Visit in Downtown Nantes

-Gothic Saint Pierre – Saint Paul Cathedral

-Château of the Dukes of Brittany

-Dobrée Museum

This museum holds many treasures documenting Nantes’ participation in the Triangular Trade with the Americas (slaves, sugar, rum, cotton, and salt cod).  

French slaves might have come from the modern nations of Senegal, Cameroon, and Benin.  (Information could be available in the poems of Senghor - the first African president of Senegal and leader of the Negritude Poetry Movement.)

Bordeaux also participated in Triangular Trade with the Americas before it converted to growing wine and selling it to the English.

-Jardin des Plantes

This garden by the Château of the Dukes of Brittany has trees in it that ship captains brought back to France from their travels around the world.  There are many magnolia trees in this garden.

-Musée des Beaux-Arts

This museum houses many portraits of the wives of shipping companies in Nantes, who made the city wealthy.  When slavery was outlawed, the city converted to making butter cookies to maintain its contacts in the Caribbean and markets.

There are also many Tenebrist paintings in this museum by the painter Georges de la Tour.

Level 4 – Breton Meals

I talked abut some Breton dishes in this blog’s introduction, but what kind of menu would you put together for a nice Saturday dinner for your family and/or friends using the dishes I listed as Breton cuisine.

Level 5 – On the Breton Pilgrimage Route to Santiago de Compostela

Parthenay Stop

See my blog on this Savvy Mom Ruth Paget website.

Level 6 – Dobrée Museum

Maritime Trade Financier’s Art Collection from the Triangular Trade with the Americas (slaves, sugar, rum, cotton, and cod fish)

See my blog on this Savvy Mom Ruth Paget website for information.

Level 7 – St. Gildas des Bois

A granite, French church that has stood in the forest for centuries

See my blog on this Savvy Mom Ruth Paget website for information.

Level 8 – Redon: A Breton Venice

Redon is a Breton Venice with cascades of red geraniums tumbling down to canals from bridges in this town that has won a “Ville Fleurie,” or “Flower Town” award.

See my blog on this Savvy Mom Ruth Paget website for information.

Level 9 – Rochefort-en-Terre

Regional center where processions of the Virgin Mary sometimes take place

See my blog on this Savvy Mom Ruth Paget website for information.

Level 10 – Celtic Menhirs and Dolmens at St. Just

If you are Celtic, you can commune with your ancestors’ designs here before heading out to a larger site such as Carnac (France) or Stonehenge (United Kingdom).

Level 11 – Puy du Fou Medieval Theme Park in the Vendée Region

Just below Nantes is the region called the Vendée where there is a re-enactment of the history in this region. 

There is a medieval theme park with cobblers (wooden shoe makers), coopers (barrel makers), blacksmiths (horseshoe makers), and candlestick makers here along with shows featuring falcons and drawbridges to run across in the medieval theme park associated with this re-enactment site.

Have fun in Brittany (France), which is relatively close to Paris thanks to the TGV (High-speed French trains)!

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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