Dinner at Al Morer

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Geo: 45.7923, 11.9117

After a busy day, we try to have a quieter day for the kids the next day, so we stayed home on Saturday, and did some school work. The kids really love the farm – one afternoon, they played being archaeologists, and went down into the vineyard to look for "things" – they uncovered a few broken pieces of pots (though Georgia suspects the pots were broken last summer and not in Roman days) and some interesting rocks! Contented times then spent washing and cataloging their discoveries.

That night, we took advantage of being home and booked for dinner at our own agriturismo. Every Friday and Saturday night, we had watched carloads of people turn up – about 80 people – for the home-cooked food. We decided we had to join the crowds! (And, it wasn't really any use trying to have an early night with the sounds of dinner plates and convivial conversation downstairs anyway! The restaurant noise wasn't a problem, but you could hear it and it was perfect that it was only operating on the weekends.) One thing about these Italians – meals are a long event, and they don't eat early – when Steven told the owner that we wanted to book a table for 7.30pm (which we thought was very late!) he said they couldn't possibly start dinner at that time, and tried to push us to 8.30pm – we compromised at 8.15pm!

We had a wonderful, slow meal watching the sun set over the vineyards, enjoying the meals prepared at our little house. The pickled onions were amazing (not the kids' taste!) and the salamis were really good too. Then a starter of pastas – loved the duck ragu! And then an enormous platter of meat, roasted over the fire – delicious juicy pork ribs and fantastic free range chicken (we know it's free range – the chooks are all over the farm, and generally under our car when we go to start it!) Matthew made a friend at the next table (an Italian boy about his age) and played cars with him, and Nonno got talking to the men at the next table – everyone had a lovely night. Rita and I tried a limone sorbetto – don't know quite what it was, but creamy, like a melted gelati with limoncello, and quite a kick. By 11pm, we convinced the kids that, despite other people with kids still being at dinner, it was time for us to go upstairs to bed – Italian children don't seem to have a bedtime, but just go until they stop!

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