Rome

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Sunday, November 23, 2008
Day 3….Spoleto to Rome
We arrived on Friday morning and have packed an entire vacation into 3 days. After arriving in Rome at 8:00 am we hopped into our rental car and drove towards Spoleto…typically an hour and a half trip. Unfortunately, we missed our turn and routed ourselves through Orvieto and Todi. Not a bad alternative to trip taken many times! It afforded us the opportunity to see a few new sights. Upon arriving in Spoleto we were shocked to discover the main corso in total disarray…torn from end to end. Hopefully by December the road will be repaved and perhaps a new sewer system will be in place…who really knows! Because of the construction, Bar Vincenzo’s was closed so we were unable to have a cappuccino at one of our old favorite hang outs! To the great disappointment of our girls, all…yes ALL, the gelato shops were closed for the winter! Who would have thought that gelato was just a summer treat!

Our accommodations at the hotel Aurora were quite nice. Hot water and heat! Our room looked out over the roof tops of Spoleto, which is quite a treat! The hillside was a blaze in fall foliage…truly spectacular! Breakfast was served in a little room, complete with meat, cheese, breads and corinetti’s.

Friday night was spent with friends in the nearby town of Montefalco. Alessandro and his daughter Rachelle joined us for dinner at an Enotecca called Alchimista. A super place with great wine! The girls ate antipasti of mixed meats and cheeses and pasta with oil and cheese. Jim and I had stangozzi with truffles…yum! It is the seasonal time for the new olive oil to arrive and we were treated to many different types at this particular restaurant. New olive oil…opposed to the regular stuff, has quite a different flavor and was quite tasty! We ended the evening with some grappa…needless to say, that pretty much did me in! I slept well my first night in Spoleto!

On Saturday we toured around Spoleto and the Umbrian country side. Our main mission was to place a little piece of Grandma Ida’s hair on top of Monteluco, at the ancient marker, in the sacred forest. We felt that a little piece of her needed to be in a place that held such great memories for all of us here in Italy! Saturday afternoon we stopped into to visit Marcella….after she finally realized who we were, she let us in…and proceeded to scold us for not staying at her home. At age 82, her memory is not as good as it used to be and somehow she did not recall that we had stayed with her a couple of summers ago. She kept recalling the year that Cristiana stayed as a baby….finally though her memory grew clearer and we were able to reminisce about the “old days”! We really shocked many people by showing up in Spoleto during the winter time….Dinner Saturday night was spent at Filipo’s. We were able to meet his new wife and son…what a proud papa! After our 4 hour dinning experience, we walked to Café Colicola for a hot chocolate with Andrea. A good way to end our stay in Spoleto.

Today we drove to Rome….Although I absolutely love Rome, I was not thrilled that we were sightseeing via the car vs. public transportation. I am not so adventurous, and I was a little stressed about the whole deal (especially since I just read an ariticle on the increased number of fatalities of tourists driving here!) Jim on the other hand was at ease touring through the streets of the Eternal City in our Ford Fiesta…after all, all roads do led here and so it is essentially impossible to get lost! HA! Being the confident driver that Jim is…and the wonderful navigator that I am, we not only got to where we wanted to go, but we also got back to the airport Hilton…in one piece! Today the parking gods happened to be with us….and we secured places in the center of the city…two times and by the Vatican…what luck! We enjoyed our day in Rome and ended the day eating at a Pizzeria that I read about in the book “Living in a Foreign Language”. It was fabulous!

We are back at the hotel and the girls and Jim enjoyed a swim at the pool. We are going to bed now so we can be up early to catch our flight to Sicily.

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