8 Valuable Tips on How to Swap Your Home

Ed. note: I’ve always wanted to do this — have a free vacation while swapping my home with a simpatico family. I just didn’t know where to begin. Home exchange expert Shelley Miller explains it all for you . . .

Right now you’re thinking holidays and snow and family, but soon 2013 will arrive and you’ll begin to think summer and vacation and fun. I’ve got an idea for you to consider. What about trying a home exchange? This is when you and your family agree to swap your home with a family in another city or country, and you live in each other’s home while you’re on vacation. For free.

Lucky 13—This Moroccan villa in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, is where we enjoyed our 13th house swap. We lived here for 10 days. Yes, for free.

My family has swapped our home 14 times in 12 years. Our children, Dillon and Michele, were 8 and 12 years old when we joined this wonderful world of home exchange in 2000. Together we’ve enjoyed a home exchange vacation in places like Italy, Mexico and Hong Kong. And yes, in our own country too; where we arranged swaps in Seattle and Cape Cod.

 8 tips to make your dream vacation a reality with home exchange

1. Select A Home Swap Club — There are more than 70 home exchange companies around the world; approximately 30 are based in the U.S. Four clubs I suggest are: HomeLink International, Home Base Holidays, Home Exchange.com and Love Home Swap. The fee for most home exchange clubs is around $100 per year; this is cheap when you consider the fact that many hotel rooms are over $250 per night.
2. Write An Engaging Home Swap Profile Page – After you join a home swap club you’ll need to create a “Profile Page” on their website. Does your town have an interesting claim to fame? Do community leaders boast about its history? Include these fascinating facts on your home’s profile page. If your city has a visitor’s bureau or a chamber of commerce read their brochures, visit their website, find out how they promote your city and then borrow their ideas.
3. Fabulous Home Photographs Required – You’ll want to include lots of home photographs on your profile page. High quality photos of your home are the single most important way to attract a top house swap. Open the drapes, clear the clutter off the table and put out a vase of fresh flowers. You know the best features of your home more than anyone, so show it off! I write a blog about home exchange and the #1 article that most people read is this one, 7 Photo Tips To Promote Your Home.
4. Select Your Dream Vacation Destination – This one is such fun. Take a walk with your travel partner and DREAM. Where have you always wanted to travel? Your dream vacation could be located across the country or across the world. Now is your chance to vacation there! Also decide on your best travel dates; try to be flexible. If possible choose a window of time, for example “anytime between June or July,” this will make scheduling a house exchange easier.
5. Start The Process At Least Six Months In Advance – To schedule a house exchange vacation for July, you should begin the process in January. With that said, I just received an e-mail asking if we’d like to exchange our home with someone in Lyon, France 12 months from now! Finding the right house exchange partner usually takes one – two months.
6. Write A Snazzy House Swap E-mail Message – So you’ve completed your profile and uploaded your fabulous photos. Now you get to write the e-mail message to send out with your house exchange request. You want your message to sound friendly yet professional. Write it and save it in your computer so you can cut and paste your way around the world. You might find this article helpful: Catch A Fabulous Home Exchange With A Great E-mail.
7. What To Look For In A Home Swap –When researching possible exchange partners the first thing I do is glance at the city and country; then I spend the most of my time reviewing the photos. The home doesn’t need to be perfect, but it does need to be clean. Is the kitchen neat? Does the living room look comfortable? Next I glance at the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. I note the professions of the home swappers too. What is the type of home, is it an apartment or a single-family home? For me, it’s only then that I glance ideal travel times. I suggest you select about a dozen house swap prospects, then cut and paste your snazzy message request. Finally, and this is important, click the submit button.
8. Book it! – Once you exchange a few messages with your house swap prospect you’ll develop a feeling about them. Is the tone of the e-mail pleasant? Do they ask appropriate questions about your home and your vacation travel dates? Does it feel right? Then one house swap family will progress from prospect to possibility. There will be a few more e-mails and finally, you’ll just know that you’re ready to swap. That’s when you write, “Let’s do this!”

Montecatini Alto, Italy - My daughter and my husband play a game of Gin Rummy at our 2-bedroom/1-bath home swap.

I hope these tips inspire you to try a home exchange vacation. You will realize that your dream vacation IS a possibility and the world is at your (home swap) doorstep.

Shelley Miller is a Home Exchange Expert who offers home swap tips to people who want to travel the world and stay for free. Miller, her husband and two children lived in Europe from April to August 2000 and exchanged homes with five different families in England, Ireland, Germany, France and Italy.

Connect with Shelley at:

Blog: HomeExchangeExpert.com

Twitter: HomeExchangeKey

Facebook: Home Exchange Expert

LinkedIn: Shelley Miller

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

One of Tim's amazing early morning shots

The Changing Light

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

For us it was important to create the right atmosphere, so that people who have discovered us can really have the space and time to escape into a different world. — Co-owner Edward Tobin

Books stores are my favorite places. I love a great independent bookstore, whose selections, design and events reflect the personal quirks and preferences of the owner. But I even enjoy spending time in my local Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million, to be honest. I don’t care where I find books — browsing and choosing just the right addition to my collection and making new discoveries is a glorious pastime. And if there’s good coffee available, well, I’m a happy girl.

The Bookery

On our trip north of London a few weeks ago, we stayed for a few nights in a lovely B&B called Upper Buckton in Hereforshire, part of the Wolsey Lodges family of very special accommodations in the UK and France (watch for a story on this in the near future). As we spoke to the owners, they mentioned a little bookshop nearby and said it was worth stopping in. And so we did.

Aardvark Books, run by Sheridan Swinson and Edward Tobin, is housed in a beautiful 19^th century barn that sits at the intersection of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Wales. Known as the Bookery & Cafe, Aardvark is in the historic village of Brampton Bryan between Leintwardine and Knighton on the A4113, and is open seven days a week. Sheriden’s mother runs the Aardvark Café which offers six filter coffees, together with cappuccinos and espressos, a range of quality leaf teas, home made cakes and hot soups. You’ll be served wonderful fare along with fantastic stories about her life.

Aardvark contains more than 50,000 volumes: new, secondhand and rare, so there’s absolutely something for everybody. And of course, Sheridan is more than happy to track down any title you like. There are also cards, mugs, journals, walking sticks, and other book-related bits to savor.

Last July, The BookBurrow opened, a dedicated book and play space for children of all ages. Designed by local artist

The Aardvark Cafe

Ciara Lewis, it offers a cheery and comfortable space where children can browse, read and take part in special events created just for them.

This is a destination bookshop, as you’ll see from the website. Sheridan and Edward are completely devoted to their customers and their community and are involved in a great many events throughout the year. If your travels take you anywhere near Wales, make this a stop before you cross over. And, dear readers, I am here to tell you that this part of England is well worth putting on your wish list. Watch for my story about Wolsey Lodges and make plans to go. But stop frequently at Aardvark Books for a nice browse and a great cuppa.

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst. — Wallace Stegner

The problem with keeping an appointment at Yosemite National Park is that there are too many outrageous things to see on the way up to it. Neat small towns, like Greeley Hill (population 915) and historic Jamestown; startling hills and drops around every corner; and vistas that go on forever and require that you pull over and have a look. That sort of thing.

I was late for appointments two days in a row because of a million photo stops, towns either too strange or too charming to simply drive through and businesses too good to pass up. Take, for example, the Chinese Camp Store and Kiwi Tavern.

Welsh flag by the side of the road

The first thing we noticed as we pulled out of Sonora to go up to my appointment with the National Park Service was a huge Welsh flag flying by the side of the road. Then the name of the establishment caught our eye, and we had to stop.  Both American and New Zealand flags were also in full display as we approached the small rustic building.

The sign over the front door said “Established 1934.” Curiouser and curiouser. Why here? Chinese Camp? Kiwis? We walked in and found the usual display of sodas and chips and other trail supplies. Cowboy hats. Lanterns. An abundance of Native American dream catchers in an array of sizes. Engine oil and other treatments. And then, emerging from the back of the store, was the Chinese Camp’s owner of 35 years, New Zealander Mike Reid.

We started talking with him and got the skinny on him and the so-called town. It turns out he was

Mike, Tim and the Evans book

deep into reading a book by a Mormon named Richard Evans and showed it to us. He found solace in the sayings and quotes that Evans had collected in the volume. Things had gotten slow in these parts since the end of the Gold Rush. Mike told us about the ghost town that was this Chinese Camp and that it was about to come back to life. Maybe. Rumor was someone had recently bought it.

Here’s what the Historic Landmark No. 423 says about it:

Mark Twain Bret Harte Trail

Chinese Camp

Reportedly founded about 1849 by group of Englishmen who employed Chinese as miners. Much surface gold found on hills and flats. Headquarters for stage lines in early 1850s, and for several California Chinese mining companies. First Chinese tong war in state fought near here between Sam Yap and Yan Woo tongs. Present stone and brick post office built 1854, still standing. St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church built 1855, restored 1949. First Pastor, Father Henry Aleric.

Most folks know about Mark Twain and his jumping frog, an event which still takes place in Calaveras County, just north of Sonora, not too far away from here. Twain spent a lot of time in California. Apparently Brett Harte did, as well. There’s everything from a Brett Harte Trail to a Brett Harte Mini-Storage enterprise. You can’t escape it.

You can't make this stuff up

Mike’s happy here. Been here a long time. Gets to talk to folks who stop by the store and sell ‘em a Coke or bag of chips. Before you know it, you’ve talked too long and are late for your appointment back in the real world. Or are you?

I hope Chinese Camp stays the way it is, even if the ghost town starts to come back to life. I’d hate to see Mike get so busy he couldn’t sit and talk.

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

 The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. — Calvin Trillin

I haven’t been to a lot of California, but where I’ve gone, I’ve eaten well. Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Francisco, Corte Madera, Sausalito and Tiburon have all demonstrated creative cooking with high quality ingredients and profferred selections from wondrous local wine lists.

My recent trip to the Left Coast took me from Marin to Sonora and Yosemite, down to Silicon Valley and back up to San Francisco proper. And while the eating is good pretty much everywhere — A++ to Ike’s Place for sandwiches in the Castro (despite the 40-minute wait) and D- to Yosemite’s microwaved bunned hot dogs at a staggering $4.75 — two places are stand outs. I’ve written about one of them before, but three more meals in two days proved to me that I had to give it another rave.

A well-stocked bar

First is Portola Kitchen, at this writing, a two-month-old venture in Portola Valley near Palo Alto, serving rustic Italian cuisine prepared by Chef Guillaume Bienaime. The former executive chef of Marche in Menlo Park and consulting chef at Cuisinett in San Carlos, Bienaime has always wanted to do authentic Italian cooking and he is showing diners how it’s done.

The proprietor of Portola Kitchen is Mike Wallau, who owns three other restaurants in the area too, including Il Fornaio in Palo Alto — so he knows Italian. This is the team’s chance to offer high quality Italian food while keeping the restaurant true to its reasonably priced neighborhood dining roots.

First, let me say that the restaurant really looks good when you walk in: there’s a huge, well-stocked bar

Guillaume & his slicer

and the décor is California rustic, with a large covered outdoor seating area left over from the prior restaurant, Mike’s Café in Ladera. Nothing stuffy here. Go to the back of the restaurant, where the action is, and you’ll see the pride of Chef Bienaime — his high-end, lipstick-red meat slicer, imported straight from Italy. There is also the fancy pasta machine, because all the pastas are homemade here. They even support local farms whenever possible, so eating here just feels good.

Chef Guillaume

I started with the Beet and Arugula salad, nicely accented with oranges, pistachios and crescenza cheese. Tim had the evening’s special appetizer, a flavorful smoked salmon and fennel plate. For dinner, I had the Chicken Rosemary Sausage, with the finest, smoothest polenta ever and Tim had the Ricotta Angolotti with gamboni mushrooms. They brought us an amazing dessert, made with ice cream, chocolate sauce and a crunchy peanut brittle candy — and then the chef brought out a new fruit tarte that was absolutely sinful.

If you’re in the area or even remotely nearby, I suggest you try this. Portola Kitchen is the new gem in the neighborhood. Unpretentious, daring and welcoming. Mangia!

The Lights of Saha

Appearing for the second time on this blog is Saha,

Fattoush Salad

located in the Hotel Carlton on Nob Hill in San Francisco. We remembered this restaurant so fondly from two years ago, that we ate two dinners and one breakfast here on this most recent trip.

Chef Mohamed Aboghanem learned to cook from his Yemeni mother, and it is a blessing for all who try his Arabic Fusion cuisine. Although originally from Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, Mohamed traveled extensively, learning the traditions and flavors of the countries he traveled to. Finally settling in San Francisco, he worked at some of the city’s finest restaurants before opening his own cafe, and later his own restaurant, Saha.

His food is suitable for meat lovers, vegetarians and vegans alike, all intriguingly spiced and all able to be

To start: warm bread with oil & roasted sesame seeds

prepared for a gluten-free diet. Saha — which means “to good health” — aims for best-in-class environmental practices, using biodegradable take-out containers and non-toxic cleaning products. Most of Saha’s food is organically grown and locally sourced. When you remember a salad for its intriguing combination of beets, mint and figs two years later, you know you’ve got something remarkable. Who remembers a salad? You won’t forget these.

Mohamed is a master soup maven, and he can do things to legumes, tofu and mushrooms that are borderline illegal, they’re so good. Spiced so you know it (without creating a fire in your mouth) his lamb, duck, seafood and veggie plates delight the eyes as well as the palate. Is it California cuisine? Is it Yemeni? Is it all a crazy invention? Who cares? Next time you’re in the City by the Bay, make a point of stopping by Saha on Sutter Street. Even better, stay in the Hotel Carlton and just go downstairs for dinner. Then go down again for breakfast in the morning. It’s your new home away from home.

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

A FULLY BAKED GUEST POST: This week’s post comes from writer Barbara Worton, author of the highly acclaimed children’s book, Too Tall Alice. Her work has also appeared in Memories of John, edited by none other than Yoko Ono, and various other publications. Like me, Barbara is the child of one Italian parent who very much identifies with that (dominant, let’s face it) Italian side. And the fact that we’ve known each other since we were seven years old means that I can attest to the fact that every word here is true. As is every calorie . . .

Bolea's cookie case

I love Italian cookies, pastries, cakes and gelato. Cannoli, St. Joseph cakes, sfogliatelle, struffoli, zeppole, torrone, cassata, confetti, spumoni, tortoni, tartuffo, and regina, pinwheel, tri-colori, and pignoli cookies make me happy. That love affair began in Brooklyn, New York in the early 1950s and has been rekindled at a number of pastry shops across New York, New Jersey and Italy—the latest being Panificio Bolea Bakery & Café in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey.

Made in Brooklyn

My Italian-American story, like so many others, begins in Brooklyn, where I was born and spent the first five years of my life. These were the days of penny candy stores, ice cream parlors, soda delivered in cases and left on the front stoop, and Nunzio’s Bakery on 22^nd Street and 4^thAvenue. I think that was the name of the bakery. I remember it more by its buttery, sugary warmth than its name.

White Chocolate Gelato

My mother was the Italian in our family of five; born in the U.S. in 1922, the first of Antoinette and Pasquale’s 11 children. The house she grew up in—by the time I knew it—was a tumbled-down Brownstone with a small yard, growling German Shepherd (named Rex, like all of my grandparent’s dogs) and outdoor toilet that had been converted to a full inside bathroom. Yep, my grandparents didn’t have buckets of money. On Sundays and holidays, however, you would never know it.

The Sunday pilgrimage

We traveled to Brooklyn from Massapequa Park, on Long Island, right after the 8:00 a.m. Sunday mass at Our Lady of Lourdes RC Church. The Southern State Parkway was always mobbed. Our cars—until my parents bought their first new car in 1967—were always on their last legs, so we packed gallons of water before we left home, and we drove, eyes fixed on the temperature gauge to make sure the car wasn’t about to overheat.

Eventually, we’d arrive at my grandparent’s house. There was always a parking space waiting right out front. My grandfather would cone off a space outside the house the night before—one of the perks of my mother being the oldest of 11 was preferred parking. And every Sunday as soon as we came around the corner, my grandfather would be on the sidewalk ready to guide whoever was driving our car to parallel park. This usually involved a lot of screaming and hand and arm flailing.

The warm welcome

Best olive bread — ever!

The minute we passed through the front door I could smell my grandmother’s Neapolitan sauce, heavy with meatballs, sausages, and beef braciole bubbling away on the stove. The dining table was always set—of course, with mismatched plates and flatware—for about 30 brothers, sisters, children, cousins, aunts and uncles who squeezed around the grownup and the kids’ tables.

The ritual before dinner was always the same. The women saw to the pasta and grating the cheese—and yacking about their husbands and kids, the price of this and that, and the miserable state of the country—in the kitchen. The men went to bring in the soda and smoke a cheroot or a Camel, and the kids chased each other around the house. It was chaos. Then, the front door would open, and my Uncle Frank and Uncle Pat would walk in with stacks of white bakery boxes tied with red and white striped string. Forget the pastas. The Italian cookies and pastries—the sweetest, creamiest, crunchiest desserts anywhere in the world—were in the building!

The 1960s hit my Italian-American family hard. Politics and religion and race and women’s lib and rock ’n roll and peace ’n love and the Vietnam War drove a wedge between us. But no matter what the differences, when the boxes from Nunzio’s came out, we came back together. That’s the way it was until my grandparents left this world, their children scattered across the country and eventually joining them in their Italian-American hereafter.

Back to Brooklyn in one bite

Robert at work

My husband, Geoff, and I like to go out for breakfast on Saturday mornings, and that’s how we stumbled upon Panificio Bolea Bakery & Café. Tired of our usual egg and muffin spots, we were cruising the neighborhood for something new, and there it was, an unassuming storefront in downtown Ho-Ho-Kus. Two steps inside—cookies; all the real Italian cookies—not those dry, dusty, tasteless imposters you find in the supermarket dressed up in cellophane like those goodies that memories are made of. And Bolea had cakes, cannolis, mini-pastries, gelato, bread—lots of different shapes and sizes, including the best olive bread I have every eaten—confetti, prosciutto, press coffee, and an open kitchen and ovens where customers can sit and watch all the magic happen. Geoff and I sat, we ate, we oogled the goodies, we drank about six cups of coffee—mine decaf—and we signed up for baking classes.

Old-world baking credentials

Robert, the owner of Bolea, is the bread man, trained at his uncle’s bakery in Abruzzo. He’d gone over to visit family for a vacation, helped out in the store and decided to stay. Six months later, he moved on to Milan and spent 18 months apprenticing there. Then it was home and working in some top-notch Italian bakeries on Staten Island. A few career moves later, Robert opened Bolea.

The Sunday baking class was brilliant. Miguel, the pastry chef, and Robert took us through making

Even the cake is happy!

vanilla sponges, crème patisserie and butter cream icing. What we learned: Measure by weight and in grams, not by volume. Use the right cake flours—King Arthur—and order pasteurized egg yolks in bulk. Pass the crème patisserie through a sieve to give it that silky consistency. Chill the sponge cakes before icing and decorating. Rotate the sponge slowly while you slice it into three layers with a serrated knife . Brush the top of each layer with simple sugar before piping the butter cream icing around the diameter of the layer and filling in with chocolate crème patisserie. Piping and smoothing the icing was a challenge for Geoff and me, topped only by decorating the sides and top. It took some time to master the border decorations, but at the end, our cake was done and in the display counter, looking professional, and when we sliced into it, tasting just as good.

Generous helpings

Barbara, Geoff and the cake!

Robert and Miguel at Panificio Bolea Bakery & Café were so generous with their time and knowledge and stories of Italy and cookies and passion for baking. Panificio Bolea Bakery & Café is their 20-hour-a-day labor of love. Geoff and I enjoyed every moment of the class, and inhaling the butter and sugar and vanilla brought back so many memories. I was back in Brooklyn—the best of it. My mom was there, telling all of us that just about every famous person in America was Italian, my German/Dutch American father rolling his eyes and laughing. And I was happy: little kid, you just can’t stop giggling from the love-of-it-all happy.

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

The sunflower is mine, in a way. — Vincent van Gogh

And who could argue with this? Of course it is Vincent’s.

But sunflowers are also my favorite flower. There’s nothing like driving through Tuscany or Umbria and seeing acres and acres of them dancing in the light breeze. They look so cheery and substantial. They are my favorite flower by far: yellow, orange, rust. Tall or short, big or small. They make me smile.

We have had several sunflower arrangements this spring and summer and I have tried to capture their essence in a few photographs here.

I’d also like to share a poem I wrote a few years ago. It didn’t make it into Up at the Villa, but it appeared in my chapbook, Sono italiana. I hope you enjoy it. Stay sunny.

Buon viaggio!

Girasoli

Our name takes up six pages in the Florence phone book.

But what would I say to any of them?

Even if the language were there, where would I begin?

How communicate the history, the longing, the fear?

My father did not want to come; maybe he was right.

He might be at home here, and what good would that do now?

Too late, I would have buried him among the sunflowers

Near Siena, from whence our family came.

I can imagine him among the fiery yellow stalks,

Loving the wine and the olives into rich soil,

Watered and warmed by the hand of God

Who is present in every thing.

c. 2003 Linda Dini Jenkins

In the Ropes Garden, Salem MA

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything. — Charles Kuralt

Sometimes, you’ve just got to get off the road.

The LIly B., sans rigging

Last Sunday, Tim and I took a road trip with some friends. Actually, with Tim’s sister and his new friend Verlon, the very talented carpenter who built Tim’s new boat, a nifty 20-foot Sharpie named the Lily B. We were headed down from Richmond to Deltaville — once the wooden boatbuilding capital of the Chesapeake Bay — where Lily had spent a lot of time, scouting out locations for a future sail.

It was such a gorgeous day, so we took the “slow” road. And after a while, we found ourselves in New Kent County and saw the sign for the New Kent Winery and, well, you know . . .

We’re now the proud owners of six commemorative JEB glasses, which were created to celebrate

One of our "JEB" glasses

JEB Stuart’s ride through the area some 150 years ago. And we spent time sampling some of the winery’s offerings. We have not always been pleased with Virginia wines, but I have to tell you — they’re getting much better. And the New Kent Winery is one of the best.

The setting for the winery is magnificent. The first thing you notice (after the vineyards) is the building, made almost entirely of recycled materials, like pre-Civil War bricks and heart-pine beams and floor timbers that were saved from structures more than 100 years old. It claims to be one of the most eco-friendly buildings on the East Coast.

New Kent Winery

The winery is actually part of a Master Planned Community called Viniterra, which features a Rees Jones Signature Golf Course, The Club at Viniterra and, of course, special events at the winery.

Our wine taster was Peggy Nickles, who ably guided us through the New Kent selections. The winery was first planted in 2001 and served up its first selections in 2005. The vineyard grows five kinds of grapes: CabFranc, Merlot, Chardonnay, Norton and Vidal, from which they currently produce nine selections:

• Chardonnay
• Chardonnay Reserve
• J.E.B.’s Red (a Meritage)
• Merlot
• 2005 Reserve Merlot
• Vidal Blanc
• White Norton
• Sweet Virginia
• Patriot

The Patriot selection was interesting (but too sweet for me). It is poured only on Sundays and $1.00 of every bottle sold goes to help the families of fallen solders via the Patriot Foundation. Peggy also says that, with 5% residual sugars, this wine could be consumed in Baptist churches!

While pouring the Chardonnay Reserve, Peggy said, “The best thing to go with this wine is more

Peggy with the award-winning wines

of it.” The tasting was like that. We had a blast. Go and take the tour; you won’t regret it.

After more water and wine crackers and a few purchases (we bought the Merlot and the Vidal Blanc) we found our way down to Deltaville. First stop? The Galley, for lunch. Three soft shell crab sandwiches and one crab cake sandwich, please. Yum. Then on to NaughtiNells for a look in the back room for some helpful used nautical books and charts. Then to the old ball field for a look. Finally, to the huge West Marine store for some necessities for Lily. She’s going to have a great time down here.

Governor's Cup Award Winner

And on the way home, we pulled off the road so that Verlon could climb up a tall fire tower. Tim followed, of course, but it had been a dream of Verlon’s to do that for years. They saw all the way to Richmond and came down safe.

So we got where we need to get to, but we had an even better time by turning off the road. I highly recommend it.

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

This cooking tour is dedicated to the people who taught me to live, to cook and everything about life. — Anne Robichaud

Anne serves the pasta

I’d known about Anne Robichaud for almost two years before I finally met her. My friend Rosemarie hired her as a tour guide when she went to Assisi in 2010. And her name is all over the internet in connection with Umbria, including on the Italian Notebook site. When I learned that Anne was coming to the U.S. to do a series of cooking classes and lectures, I had to go and meet her.

Anne has been living in Assisi, in Umbria, since 1975. A French Canadian, born in Massachusetts to an Irish mother and raised in Wisconsin, Anne became enamored of Italy on a junior year abroad program through Loyola/Chicago. It brought 280 students to study in Rome from all over the U.S. and many of them are still very good friends. The class I went to was, in fact, hosted by a woman from Anne’s program and there were two other former students in attendance.

After her gap year, Anne went to graduate school at UC Berkeley and then set off with about $900 to try to get around the world. She ended up teaching at the International School in Rome and over the Christmas break she and a friend decided to go to Sicily. When their two weeks were up, they got on a packed train to go back to Rome. Little aware that you don’t leave Sicily on January 7 — because it’s the end of Christmas vacation and the day after Epiphany — the train was overflowing with immigrants going to all parts of Europe, and there was no room to sit. They spent half the night on the floor, but about mid-way through, they found seats and there was one empty seat next to Anne, and Pino — the man she would marry — sat in it.

Pino went back to Milan, but he and Anne reconnected a month or so later and friends who had this rundown farmhouse in the hills outside of Assisi invited them to stay. When the friends were called back to the States, Anne and Pino (who was originally from Palermo) rented it.

“There was no hot water, no electricity, no passable roads. And we went with, I think, $118.26 between us, but we had a tremendous desire to work the land,” she recalls. “And people later asked, ‘Is that because you grew up on a farm in Wisconsin?’ And I said, ‘No, it was because I was at Berkeley in 1972.’”

They learned everything from their neighbors — farming, animal husbandry, cooking, attention to detail and hard work —  and later found out they all had bets about how long she and Pino would last. Well, it’s been nearly 40 years and they’re still there, still working hard.

“We did not depend on the nine acres of land to give us a living,” she says. “Pino went to work with a stonemason (he’d been a chemical analyst) and he’s now considered really one of the best in the Assisi area in the restoration of medieval architecture.”

As the children came along, their farm labors decreased and now they only have token donkeys and goats. But at one time they had pigs that became prosciutto, cappicola, salami – and there were always rabbits to slaughter. Pino killed them and Anne had to gut them. Pino killed the ducks, geese, guinea fowl, chickens, turkeys and he’d throw them on the kitchen table and she’d have a boiling cauldron of water in the fireplace. How? Put the bird in, pull it out, pluck, split it open, gut it and cook it. She was cooking what she’d seen the farmwomen cooking because they all collaborated together.

Outside of their children, the neighboring farm people are the most important people in their lives. Like Ashley and Jason Bartner in Le Marche, Anne and Pino came to be “adopted” by the locals who were keen to share their traditional cucina povera with the newcomers — once they believed the newcomers were really serious about staying, working and learning!

Anne, The Umbrian Tourist Board

On September 26, 1977, while Anne was director of the Assisi Elderhostel program, an earthquake hit.

Insalata di Fagiolini e Patate

News went around the world that the Basilica of Assisi had collapsed, and tourism virtually ground to a halt in Umbria. Most people do not go to Orvieto or Perugia or Spoleto unless they also go to Assisi. What to do?

First, her former Elderhostelers started to write to Anne: are you alright, is your family alright, is there anything we can do? And she wrote back to them: Yes, and please get out the word that we’re fine, and that the Basilica did not collapse. Two couples wrote to her because they knew she was a lecturer with a vast knowledge of Umbrian history, architecture and cuisine. They said, “You put together the slide lecture and come over and tell America that Assisi is still standing.”

Knowing that Anne was going to America to bring back tourism, the Italian government got her into sites to photograph that were off-limits to most people. AlItalia paid her long flights and the Commerce Board of Assisi paid all her interior flights. She left in February 1978 and, thanks to her Elderhostel and gap year contacts, lectured at Vassar, Smith, American University, Portland Fine Arts Museum, University of Texas/Austin, NYU, UCLA, USC, St. Louis University, Loyola Chicago – 26 lectures in very prestigious venues. She was even televised in Ohio. Thus began Anne’s annual spring pilgrimage back to the States for a lecture and cooking tour. Umbria was back on the map.

To find out where she’s going to be in 2013 and how you can attend a lecture or cook with her, check out her website.

The only American licensed tour guide

Ready to cook

As director of the Assisi Elderhostel program for 12 years, Anne naturally became fascinated by what she was hearing from the guides about Umbrian art and history, and in 1992 decided to close her language school to focus on taking the guide exams herself. A friend in Florence had told her that they were even tougher than her doctoral dissertation, so Anne buckled down and studied everything Umbria for two long years. During the written part of the test (all in Italian, of course) half of the 500 people being tested walked out of the room. Of the original 500, only 35 qualified to take the second (oral) part of the exam, scheduled for four months later. She passed — and is still today the only American tour guide in Umbria.

I asked Anne what she likes best about Umbria, and if she has a favorite city. She said she loves the variety of what Umbria has to offer. Assisi is best, because she lives there. Gubbio, because it’s a perfectly restored medieval town. Perugia because it has the most exquisite Renaissance period in all of Umbria. Spello, because it’s what Assisi would be like if Francis hadn’t been born there. Deruta, for its pottery. Narni, for its 12^th century frescoed church in a grotto discovered under a 13^th century church 12 years ago by rock climbers.

If you’re going to be in Umbria, be sure to get in touch with Anne before you go. She’s licensed throughout the region and will give you a unique insight into this historic and drop-dead gorgeous region that is known as “The green heart of Italy.”

The Food of Umbria

Anne has some very strong opinions about how food is “done” in the U.S. vs. in Umbria.

La Bandiera — red, white and green

“Food is communication,” she says. “I talk about how colors and smells and tastes transmit messages to people, and how it’s important for young mothers here to say something other than, ‘Put your coat on, we’re going out for dinner.’ Tomato sauce on the stove when you get up in the morning is a different kind of message from a mother.”

Umbrian cuisine is a classic example of the Mediterranean Diet: seasonal ingredients, picked, cooked and eaten as quickly as possible after they leave the garden. If it’s meat, it’s slaughtered almost immediately. The characteristic foods of the region are legumes, truffles, and prosciutto. Wine-wise, if you can get your hands on a bottle of Sagrantino, you will be in heaven, no matter what’s on the plate.

For our cooking class, Anne wrangled 18 people around a medium-sized kitchen in suburban Bethesda, MD and — providing us with recipes for appetizers, salads, main courses, pasta and desserts — choreographed us into a lean, mean Italian cooking machine. When we finally sat down to partake in our shared experience, it was glorious, and well worth the time and learning curve.

Today, Anne’s farm neighbors are teaching her the regional recipes and the traditions because their own children are leaving. The kids don’t want the traditions anymore. And what are they going to do with 17 acres of farmland or 50 acres of vineyards, anyway? (Give them to me and Tim, maybe??? Pleeeeeeze. . .) So the locals are opening their arms to these newcomers because they’re thrilled that somebody is paying attention.

“But I’ll tell you something else,” says Anne. “They wouldn’t want their kids to do it. They want the famous word benessere – well being – for their children. They’re all sorry to see it end but as they say, it’s inevitable.”

As is, I hope, a trip to Umbria for you. You’ve got to go. And you can’t miss an opportunity to meet up with Anne, whether it’s on her own Assisian turf or back here in the States next spring. If you’d be interested in seeing Umbria with Anne, let me know and we’ll plan a trip!

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…

When we return home, we can put what we’ve learned — our newly acquired broader perspective — to work as citizens of a great nation confronted with unprecedented challenges. And when we do that, we make travel a political act. — Rick Steves, Travel as a Political Act
  

I want to tell all you travelers or soon-to-be travelers about something really important. It’s not new and it’s doesn’t rely on the latest technology. It doesn’t cost a lot and you can do it either in the US or overseas. You can do it alone or with somebody else. You’ll be richly rewarded, though, no matter how or where you do it.

It’s easy: You can become a SERVAS host or traveler — or both.

SERVAS was created in 1948, shortly after the end of World War II, by a Danish conscientious objector. He believed that it was possible to build stronger foundations for world peace by building a network that would bring concerned people from around the world together to meet and learn from each other — and to recognize that we all belong to one world family.

The word SERVAS itself is Esperanto for “serve” and it truly captures the spirit of international mutual service that characterizes the movement.

In Verona with old friends & SERVAS friends

Tim and I first learned about SERVAS when we lived in Salem, Massachusetts. A neighbor came over one day and asked if we would be interested in hosting two fellows from Italy. Since we are nuts about Italy, we immediately said yes, but wanted to know more about how he happened to know two fellows from Italy who needed a place to stay. That’s when Bill told us about SERVAS.

He and his wife Marlene had been members for years, it seems, and they had traveled all over the world with SERVAS. They were US hosts, as well, and had people coming to stay later that week. So when they received the request from the Italians, they couldn’t accommodate all of them, but didn’t want to say no. We said yes and it was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Laurent and Roberto are still friends of ours nearly 10 years later and we see them whenever we get to Bella Italia. We also joined SERVAS.

Since joining, we have moved to Virginia, just outside of Richmond, and it’s not exactly in a tourist hotspot, so we don’t get a lot of travelers. We had a couple of young Danish fellows once who were en route to LA and Latin America. Last week, we hosted a couple from New Jersey, who were driving up from their winter digs in Florida. Turns out they’re very big in SERVAS, ex-officio board members, and we got bitten by the “international traveler” bug while listening to their stories of visits in over 100 countries.

So we’ll be trying it out in the UK this September and we’ll let you know how it goes. Here’s what the “brief history of SERVAS” reports:

Volunteers were first found in countries of northwestern Europe who gathered lists of people who could offer free hospitality to approved foreign travelers. It was hoped that, by traveling in the open-door style, people would build links between groups and individuals seeking a peaceful and just society.

A group of leaders from several pacifist organizations in England gave sound roots to the hospitality system, which was known by several names: Peacebuilders, Work-Study-Travel, and Open Doors. Meanwhile, a dedicated Gandhian and Quaker woman in California, “Grandma” Esther Harlan, created the even more extensive hospitality system in North America — using only correspondence to compile a roster of people identified as potential Peace Builders. Within a few years, the movement had taken root in a number of other countries.

Lists were circulated of those willing to open their doors to travelers within the system. Early US hosts included leaders in race relations, Quaker, Jewish, Protestant and Catholic leaders, leaders of cooperatives, peace leaders and village rehabilitation workers. Though a peace-oriented organization, it has never excluded non-pacifists; it has, in fact, welcomed travelers in uniform. From these humble beginnings, SERVAS has reached out to people all over the world, driven entirely by the efforts of concerned volunteers.

Today, SERVAS has hosts in more than 130 countries and has more than 14,000 member hosts and travelers on its books. And since 1973, SERVAS has been recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) registered with the UN’s Economic and Social Council.

The idea of SERVAS, boiled down to its basics, is this (and these are my words, not theirs): if you actually spend

Our newest SERVAS friends

time with people from other countries and exchange ideas and get to understand a little bit about their politics, religion and other points of view (and they, ours), we might be less likely to blow each other to smithereens in the next awful war.

So what exactly do you do as a SERVAS host? Pretty basic. First you agree to accept travelers regardless of age, race, creed, nationality or sexual orientation. You spend as much time as you can with your traveler, understanding that they probably want to go out and be tourists some time and you may have to go to work. You share ideas about your life, community and interests. You provide a minimum of two nights’ accommodations and make every effort to share at least one meal with them. No money is ever exchanged — they stay with you for free. They may want to reimburse you for food or offer to pay for a meal, and that’s okay. But accommodations and friendship are free.

This has been such a rewarding experience for me and Tim and we are very much looking forward to being on the other side — as international travelers — in a few months. I highly recommend that US readers go to the website at http://www.usservas.org/ to learn about fees and other specifics; readers in other countries should go to the link up top. This is not only a great way to travel, it’s also a great way to make friends around the world and gain a better understanding of what’s really going on out there, as opposed to just listening to the droning, divisive, fear-mongering media these days.

Pardon me if I sound a tad political. But go, do this and travel in peace.

Buon viaggio!

Linda Dini Jenkins

Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…