postcard 53: italian groceries
Discovering hidden gems close to home.
I’d imagined Trieste, the Italian port just across the border, would look like our sleepy town of Pula, just with an Eataly, but as we drive in I’m shocked by the hustle and bustle. We’ve been sleeping on this huge Italian city, an hour and a half away. The parking garage we’ve picked is full and Topher does an amazing job calmly navigating the car through the maelstrom, dodging ambulances and Vespas and erratic Italians as I gawk at the narrow streets and stone statues. Finally, we find a garage further away from the tourist heart. It’s on top of a hill and a mile from our destination, but we’ve got all day. Hazelnut leads the way as we pass by Roman ruins and busy shops, tight streets and a little canal. There’s massive cruise ships docked at the port and in the distance a sea of cranes makes the few in Pula look like kids’ toys. Container ships wait in the bay for their turn to dock and a huge, spaceship looking vessel is parked offshore, crowded by sailboats. We’ll later learn it's a Russian oligarch’s yacht that’s been there since its seizure by the Italians when Russia invaded Ukraine.
We get slices of pizza on schiacciata, a thinner foccacia, and eat them in a small piazza while Hazelnut stalks pigeons. She’s overcooked pretty much immeadiately and we have shopping to do, so she heads back to take a nap in the garage and we get our steps in, stopping at our favorite Italian clothing store (if you’re imaging Gucci, please refer to the last twelve pictures of me in the same oversized band tee and imagine a unisex skate shop) and taking photos of every building we pass.
The point of this day trip, other than experiencing a new place, is Eataly: the mega Italian grocery store that sells specialty products from all over the country. Italian grocery stores are just elite. We stop at one every time we’re over the border to grab meats and cheeses, pasta and blood orange Gatorade, Topher’s favorite crackers. But Italy is so hyper-regional that the stores in Venice are so different than the stores in Parma. Enter Eataly, which definitely marks up their wares a bit but brings together products from across the country. We buy Parmesan and mortadella, passata and straciatella cheese, a bit overwhelmed by everything on offer. There’s a cafe inside, with huge glass windows overlooking the marina full of sailboats and we order glasses of wine and watch the world go by.
There’s a castle perched on the sea that Topher showed me a photo of and even though it’s evening already we have to stop. Archduke Maximilian, a Hapsburg who was also briefly the emperor of Mexico (weird, right?) build Miramare as his summer home, a huge estate and grand house jutting out into the sea. It’s the most beautiful we’ve seen in our time in Europe, the massive chandeliers glowing through the windows as the sun sets, and we explore the grounds, promising ourselves we’ll come back to tour the inside. Hazelnut has never met a castle she doesn’t like and is elated to wibble-wobble along the wall above the sea.
Back at home, we decide not to cook a proper meal and pull out the contents of our Eataly haul. (Good!) bread swimming in Croatian olive oil, fried zucchini blossoms with baby zucchinis still attached and steamed artichokes from the market. I love this little life.
A school of sardines flashes their silver bellies in the sunlight and Hazelnut and I follow them down the coast. It is not warm and a cold wind buffets us every so often, but the water is so clear and the fish are beckoning us in. We eat our sandwiches (mortadella, pistachio pesto and straciatella from Italy) and watch the sailboats and finally I can’t take it anymore. I’m getting in. I change into my swimsuit and strap Hazelnut into her lifevest, dodging the urchins as I plunge into the ice-water sea. It’s shockingly cold but we paddle out, not ready to say goodbye to summer. When Topher greets me with a towel, the air suddenly feels exceptionally warm.
Our fellow American expat friends left me a bike when they moved back to Texas in the summer. It’s been too muggy to want to ride the last few months, but the crisp fall air has us dusting cobwebs off the handlebars and putting air in the tires. We pedal through town, to our favorite restaurant overlooking the water, and order cappuccinos.
Topher has finally gathered enough Croatian to get one of the table tennis (we don’t say ping pong in this house) clubs in the area to respond to his emails and he’s been driving 40 minutes to a random rec center in another town to play two nights a week. One guy speaks English but otherwise he’s totally lost, but having the time of his life. I’m so proud of him.
The jolt of anxiety hits me in the mornings when I wake up, or when I’m trying to sleep, or at random moments throughout the day. I'm trying to be present and notice the color of the sea and drink my coffee on the patio and eat far too much prosciutto, but it’s impossible not to count the fleeting days. Leaving feels absolutely impossible.
-Mikaela