Category Archives: Peregrinations

This is the birthplace of the Renaissance, and after driving through frightening traffic (I told the concierge to simply have Hertz come here and take the car away), we arrived at the Four Seasons, the former Medici Palace. We are installed in the Nobel Suite, and I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

The mural on the bedroom ceiling.

Entering the bedroom.

The living room looking toward the second bath.

The detailed ceiling of the living room.

Part of the gardens from our windows.

A hidden row of closets down another hall.

From the bedroom looking into the living room.

Master bath.

The fireplace.

Looking toward the entry.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Tomorrow we head for Florence from Forte dei Marmi.

• The mountains white not with snow but with marble.

• The impossibility of getting a bad meal.

• Very friendly, confident women and very argumentative insecure men.

• Cyclists who are defiant, rude, and dangerous.

• Streets built for chariots accommodating modern cars.

• Breathtaking countryside with cities build around churches and farms built around fortresses.

• The best food in the world.

• Truly remarkable red wine and passable white.

• Fun and cheerfulness and activities that defy any reports of a troubled economy.

• Dashing carabinieri who primp in the side view mirrors of parked cars.

• The most sophisticated, intelligent, automated highway toll collection system on earth, accepting credit cards, coins or bills, and sending you away with “Arrivederci!”

• Lamps older than America.

• Fleas markets with designer merchandise (not knock-offs).

• Women who look you in the eye and don’t stare at the ground.

• Indifferent airline service.

• A sometimes shocking personal body aroma from even lovely women.

• A happy marriage of old towns and news products.

• A joyousness in the mornings as people greet the new day.

Bread as gator in Lucca

One of 70 churches in Lucca

Delivering my sermon

The fabulous restaurant Buccadisanantonio

Fabulous facades on the churches

© Alan Weiss 2013

Forte dei Marmi is nestled between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Carrera-marbeled Appennine Mountains like a spoiled child. Gated villas with huge hedgerows impossible to see from the tree-canopied streets populate the town. The shops are Prada and Gucci and Savorski and for the very well off.

This is still the slow season, where you can get into any restaurant and gad about without crowds.

The Tuscany postal system: a babe on a motorbike, smoking a cigarette along the way!

Carrera marble in the mountains

Part of the coast

Maria under her ancestral shopping logo

© Alan Weiss 2013

My wife’s ancestral home on her father’s side is Carmagnola, outside of Torino. We see her cousin Francesco once or twice a year. He owns a hugely successful wood design firm with global clients. Since my son won a stunning villa for a week in a charity poker game, he invited Cousin Jimmy’s family to come along and visit the homeland. Here are just a few of the 80+ photos I shot today.

This is about one-fifth of Francesco's operation.

Part of the valleys where the Barolo, Asti, and other grapes are grown.

A typical fortress village that exist all over the area.

Jason, Maria, and me.

A village street.

Another view from one of the fortresses.

Francesco is in the middle, he's 78, and the rest of the family crowds in. That's Cousin Jimmy, immortalized in one of my signature stores, in the light blue shirt on the right.

© Alan Weiss 2013

It’s a crap shoot connecting from Tuscany, visit my Facebook page for photos and some comments on this incredible, one of best-ever trips with the extended family.

The car picks us up later today to go to Logan Airport and we’ll fly from Boston to Rome overnight, pick up a car, and drive to Forte dei Marmi (the marble fort). You can see our villa here: http://www.villafortedeimarmi.it/villa-gallery.html

My son won this in a charity poker game, along with his and his latest squeeze’s airfare from LA. We’re all converging, including the legendary Cousin Jimmy of one of my signature stories, and his wife and daughters. The place sleeps 10 and has a staff. On Monday we visit my wife’s and Jimmy’s ancestral home in Carmagnola, outside of Torino. In the square is a monument with the names of the founders of the village, where prominently listed is “Gallo.” (And my wife’s upset with me because I put a sign along our two-acre pond, “Alan’s Lake”!)

We have about a three-hour drive from Rome, but we may take a longer detour to drive along the sea.

I was up at 4:30 am on Wednesday for a 5:00 am limo to Boston to head for Seattle for my last scheduled Almost Free Workshop. (I don’t like to fly out of Providence and change planes.) I stayed at the Four Seasons, overlooking Puget Sound. We had a sold-out room and a great day.

Thursday night I flew to San Francisco (where I once lived) and checked into the Ritz-Carlton. I worked the next day with one of my Growth Cycle groups, had dinner at Boulevard (which is always terrific) and worked one-on-one with Daniel Lock, a group member who flies in from Australia (the Growth Cycles have people from five countries).

Then home for a 1:00 am arrival in Boston this morning!

One of the trip highlights: Libby Wagner and Kim Wilkerson treated me to Canlis Restaurant in Seattle, which immediately vaulted into my top ten in the U.S. We had a wonderful meal, ridiculously outstanding wine (Harlan Estates Maiden 2006 followed by Opus 2009) and then the owner took us on a tour of the kitchen and wine cellar.

A wonderful trip, and it sure beats working!

The kitchen at Canlis

Part of the wine cellar. Note the Methuselahs on the left.

My wealthy good friends, Libby and Kim.

© Alan Weiss 2013

The rather upscale bar the Pierre Hotel provides in its suites; Katz’s classic pastrami on rye (“order mayonnaise at your own peril”); and a part of the 15,000-volume private library at the JPMorgan Museum.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Our server in a restaurant housed in a 250-year-old plantation in St. Thomas, The Old Stone House, reveals, while escorting us through the kitchen, that she also works at 22 Bowen, which is in Newport, 25 minutes from our home, where we often dine. Our server in Oceana, one of the top restaurants here, also works in The Galley in Nantucket, where we’ve dined on every trip to the island for about 15 consecutive years.

I always wonder about people I didn’t ask about themselves!

Fresh food in the kitchen of The Old Stone House

Maria, in the part of the kitchen where you sign your name on the walls.

© Alan Weiss 2013