Livorno Ferraris

This past Saturday Maurizio and I caught the 8:35 train to Milano, we then caught our 12:15 connection to Livorno Ferraris where we stayed with Maurizio’s parents. We were going to visit with the family, this was my first visit since December so it was well overdo.

When we arrived to Livorno Ferraris Maurizio and I had decided that I would go ahead and do my long run so I could get it out of the way before Sunday when all the family would be coming for lunch. I don’t know the roads very well at all near his parents’ house. Maurizio’s parents live in the country and there are just miles and miles of fields. They are famous here for growing rice.







Before we had left Firenze, I had already mapped out a route with Maurizio’s help. We weren’t exactly sure where we were going but in order to cover the full 12 miles we had to pass through 3 different cities (small towns). We started off and things were going okay. The roads were quite different here than in Florence and I had to run on everything from asphalt, to muddy trails, to grass, and on streets made of pebbles. It was quite treacherous on my feet. We had no problems finding our way with the map and Maurizio was, again, on bike so he could go ahead and make sure we were going the right way. By mile 8 things went DOWNHILL! We came to a street where we were supposed to cross the railroad tracks but they had recently put up a gate so you couldn’t cross. We had to go further down the road, and literally hop and hike over some small streams and muddy hills in order to find another spot to cross the tracks. Once we crossed the tracks we were already lost, we had to go a bit backwards and find the street we needed to take. After a little work, we found our street and we were back on our way for miles 9 and 10. We were doing fine again but we must have missed a turn because next thing we new we were already close to another city and near the autostrada (major highway). We had crossed a river and we could just barely see the town where Maurizio’s parents house was. We were seriously far away. We had come to the end of some trails and met the river again. The crossing was way to wide to jump across and we couldn’t find any way around it. We needed to be on the other side of the river. So, our only choice was to turn around and go backwards. By this point, I had already been running over 2 hours. I was getting exhausted and my feet were killing me since I wasn’t used to the terrain.





We started back and when my watch got to 2hr 15mins I just couldn’t take anymore and I had to walk. It took us another 30-40 minutes to walk the rest of the way to Maurizio’s parents house but we finally made it. Those country roads can be quite hard to find but in the end we were home and I still got my run in, even if it was a little disastrous. So, how many miles did I actually run, we have no idea. I am pretty positive it was over the 12 miles that I intended to do.


I made Maurizio hand over the bike at the end and do some running! :)

Saturday night we were both exhausted and we didn’t get back to the house until around 5:30pm. Thankfully, we planned to make pasta and I was able to get some good carbohydrates back in my body. Maurizio and made this awesome baked ziti, it was so good. Maurizio’s dad, who doesn’t eat much, even had seconds. I was pretty happy. After dinner and some much needed showers we went to bed early.

The hours just changed here in Italy and we totally forgot so, Sunday morning when we got out of bed at 9am it was actually already 10am and the whole family was to arrive at 11am. Whenever Maurizio and I go to his mother’s house we always have to cook the meals and plan the menus so getting a late start was really a bad way to start the morning.

We immediately got to work preparing the antipasti (appetizers) and secondo (main course). Rosanna, Maurizio’s sister, had planned to make the pasta, which was spaghetti with a salmon cream sauce. For appetizers we had toast points spread with herbed cream cheese and then half were topped with bresaola (cured beef) and half with smoked salmon. We also had plates of cured meets, carne tritata (which is raw ground beef to this we added lemon and garlic) and nervi (nerves) marinated in olive oil and spices. It might not sound so appetizing (the tritata and nervi) but they are seriously delicious!





After the antipasti we moved to the pasta that Rosanna had prepared. Even though I was reluctant to have salmon pasta and Maurizio hates Salmon, we both enjoyed the dish. For the Secondo, Maurizio made two beef tenderloins, one he simply roasted with herbs and the other he made beef wellington. For Contorni (sides) we had roasted asparagus and baked tomatoes.

Finally it was time for dessert and since we were celebrating the birthdays of my niece (Francesca, 18) and nephew (Davide, 10), we had birthday cake. Along with the cake we had fresh cut strawberries tossed with a little bit of sugar and lemon juice. It was delicious but too much food, as normal.



After lunch we proceeded in watching the two open their gifts. The 18th birthday here is a big deal. In the USA for the most of us, the first really significant birthday is 16 years because we get our drivers license but here in Italy, the first one is 18. Francesca was absolutely darling!! As soon as she read the sweet card from her grandparents she was already in tears and when she opened their gift, which was a brand new laptop computer the tears of joy just started flowing. She was so excited and you could tell how surprised and how happy she was. It was so sweet. She said her birthday was better than Christmas, besides the computer she got a new digital camera (from us), some money, a Tiffany’s bracelet from her parents, some ear rings, and some other small gifts. She was so thankful and grateful for everything. She truly is such a sweet person; she is so open and has such a big heart.





After presents, Maurizio and I took our niece Matilde (6 years) and our nephew Davide for a walk into the town for some ice cream. This gave all the parents a little break and most of them were able to get some naps in.







When we returned from town it was getting close to dinnertime and we needed to re-set the table and get ready to start all over again. For dinner we had a much smaller selection and no antipasti or primi (1st courses consisting of rice, pasta, or soup). On the table we had: leftover contorni from lunch, bresaola topped with raw marinated artichoke salad, leftover nervi, and meet stuffed artichokes. We followed dinner with more cake and strawberries and by about 8:30-9pm, everything was cleaned up and everyone started to part for their own homes.


I finally got a shower, I hadn’t had enough time that morning, and I packed our bags. We hit the bed and woke up at 6:45am the next morning to catch our train at 8am back to Firenze. We had a really nice 2-day visit and after about 6.5 hours of traveling we finally made it back to Firenze.