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Published: October 2nd 2010
Date Sunday 26th September 2010
City Pescara to Foligno
Climate low 13c - high 22c - fine and sunny
A cool morning but it dawned clear and sunny. Perfect for our drive north-west into Umbria - which would be home base until next weekend. We now realise that the hot weather we enjoyed earlier in the month is drawing to a close. It is now well into autumn and the scenery is lovely. We drove mostly on the autostrada to save time, but we did have lunch in the seaside town of Civitanova Marche. It was a lively place with a Sunday market happening and plenty of families out and about. The streets were more appealing than Pescara although the beach didn’t appear as inviting. There was quite a breeze coming off the ocean but still good enough to walk along the beach and eat our ham and cheese rolls. Once back on the road we took a wrong turn and ended up on a country road. We quickly realised that this wasn’t the right direction and we were soon back on track and heading inland towards Foligno. Our journey took us quite high into the mountains and we saw
some wonderful views, with a multitude of villages precariously balanced on the tops of mountains, all competing to be higher than the last. As usual Shaun did a great job of driving and together with Jennie on map duty we arrived at our new home Casa Mancia at about 2pm. Our room is lovely, spread over two levels with additional beds and another bedroom in the attic! Once unpacked and settled we thought about exploring the town and finding somewhere for dinner. The receptionist told us that the hotel restaurant isn’t open on Sundays and so we would need to go into town. On asking for recommendations she advised us about the “i primi d’Italia” the XII Festival Nazionale dei Primi Piatti - www.iprimiditalia.it or as we would know it as, a food festival! The town was hosting the national festival over the weekend - from the 24th - 26th of September - meaning tonight was the last night. What luck! We would definitely find something to eat with all the festival had to offer. There was a combination of restaurants offering small selections of their fare (28 venues), entertainment and special events (11 different sites). Some of what we
observed was: a large marquee conducting Italian cooking classes; another one with a huge selection of gourmet produce for sale - including truffles and liquorice; a grand piano set up in a main piazza; and many restaurants offering selections of food with accompanying glasses of wine. After looking around for a bit we selected a restaurant to try. It was Ristorante “Da Angelo” serving zuppe e tipicita locali - and for 7.50eur each we were treated to a glass of wine from the local province and a tray of Zuppa di ceci al rosmarino con raviolo di baccala, polenta con finferli di lenticchie e seppioline, pennette con carciofi e rigatina di cinta umbra (rough translation - Chickpea soup with rosemary and salt cod ravioli, polenta with mushrooms and lentils cuttlefish, penne with artichokes from the Umbra area). This was no small tasting plate either - actually it was spread over 2 plates - each! We waddled out of the ristorante full and feeling welcomed into this new village we were to call home for the next 6 days.
Date Monday 27th September 2010
City Assisi
Climate low 10c - high 23c - sunny with scattered showers
We
almost had a sleep-in this morning to 8.30am! Since the weather was looking a little bit dodgy today we were going to check out some of our environs to let the surrounding villages know that we were here. Today’s lucky winner was Assisi. After enjoying the breakfast provided in the dining room, we gathered our things together and left just before lunch. As the weather is cooling down a lot compared to what we’ve been used to, the plan for the week is to do our sightseeing earlier in the day and make it back for a couple of hours by the pool in the early afternoon when the sun is at its best. We left a little later than the plan but it was a great day out. Assisi is another walled town which has retained many of its old buildings. St Francis was born here in 1182 and the ornate 13th century basilica is dedicated to his memory. We spent a couple of hours in this medieval pink-stoned city where the highlight was St Francis’ Basilica. This is adorned with Giotto 14th century frescoes in both the lower and upper basilicas. Even further underground we saw the tomb
of St Francis. A very large and interesting structure that dominates the city as seen from the highway below. Within this gorgeous town we came across a fabulous restaurant on the way back to the car - set within a 14th century building where we bought a healthy salad for lunch (we are sick of pasta and pizzas now!) and admired the stunning view from our terrace table. After lunch we made tracks for the pool at our hotel, only managing an hour on the loungers before the clouds closed in. We went shopping at a small local supermarket for some salad ingredients and had our dinner on the bed watching what was to become our regular (if not slightly confusing?) Italian game show on television.
Date Tuesday 28th September 2010
City Foligno
Climate low 10c - high 23c - sunny with patchy cloud
We allowed ourselves another late start with a relaxing breakfast before heading out to explore our village. So far we had only seen it on the last night of the food festival, with thousands of people gorging (in all meanings of the word!) in and out of marquees and the hidden ristorantes. From
that night we had a sort of understanding of the layout, so we were keen to explore more. We walked the length of Via Septembre to the far side of the town where we picked up a map - yep, we know that’s backward! We found the local post office and sniffed out another supermarket before deciding to find a ristorante for lunch. After searching for an hour, with shops closing around us for siesta, we fluked upon a great find called ‘Ristorante Il Cavaliere’ on Via Septembre that we had walked past a handful of times already. We relaxed over a bottle of regional wine and delicious home-made pasta with fresh funghi. We were finally getting a hang of this lark and retired to our pool for a siesta and to work on our much needed tan!
Keeping with our “healthy living once a day” philosophy, we threw together another tasty tossed salad from our plethora of ingredients in our gargantuan mini-bar fridge! Now, what time did that game show start? We had a great Skype call with Jennie’s parents who are now home from their travels; and called it a night around midnight. We were determined to make
the early start tomorrow.
Date Wednesday 29th September 2010
City Perugia
Climate low 8c - high 23c - sunny with scattered cloud
After the relaxing day yesterday we were off to explore Perugia bright and early, so that we could relax by our pool in the arvo again. Off at 9am in a chilly 8 degrees C we drove north to this ancient walled town which stands on an isolated hill overlooking the Tiber valley. We parked on the outskirts of town and enjoyed walking up through the quaint streets to explore the many wonderful historical buildings. We spent some time at the Fontana Maggiore built between 1278 and 1280. The lower basin of the fountain is decorated with bas-reliefs of the twelve months of the year accompanied by the signs of the zodiac. We wandered around it trying to pick out all the symbols relating to people we know and their birthdays. We stopped to buy some stamps for postcards, Shaun memorising how to ask for two stamps - one for Argentina and one for New Zealand. The woman obliged with exactly the right ones and Shaun was convinced that she had no idea he wasn’t
Italian! We decided to grab a coffee and sit at a table on the pavement Italian-style and watch the world go by for a moment whilst writing a postcard. The day was by now lovely, with the sun warming us through and reminding us of the pool awaiting us back at home base. Having walked up quite a large hill to the top of the township we discovered there was a quick way down through the Rocca Paolina fortress This was built in the mid 1500s but was razed to the ground in 1860 with only the basements remaining. This basement area went underground over 5 floors and was absolutely jaw-dropping, with large open areas supported by ribbed vault ceilings, numerous tunnels angling off in all directions deeper into the rock and opening on to a multitude of rooms, grafted out of the solid rock. The amazing thing is these basements are criss-crossed by escalators taking people up and down through the hillside, with the more modern city amenities below.
Shaun wanted to go exploring the fortress basement so he was to meet Jen at the bottom. Well that plan went out the window! Needless to say Shaun didn’t listen
to his instructions properly and lost Jen in about 10 minutes! So 1½ hours later we finally met back at the car after Shaun did a 10km run around the town looking for Jen. We headed back for Foligno for a well deserved swim to cool down and chill out.
Then it was out exploring for our favourite things - yes you guessed it, supermarkets! We found a commercial area that had a huge supermarket, discount store and clothes outlet all in one area. Our 30 minute sortie turned into 2 hours! Shopped out, we made for our digs and a home-made salad for dinner.
Date Thursday 30th September 2010
City Spoleto
Climate low 10c - high 23c - fine and sunny
Today’s adventures were to lead us to Spoleto so an early breakfast was had. We left a t 9am and the drive south to Spoleto was quick - just 34kms away. We drove through the twisting, narrow streets to the top of this polygon-shaped walled town to check out the enormous Albornoz Fortress, built in the 1360’s under order of Pope Innocent VI as a defence against the rebellious dominion. You could see why they
chose this hilltop as you enjoyed a commanding view over the whole valley! Looking down from the fortress we spied a massive 13th century aqueduct called the Bridge of Towers, crossing a deep gorge and guarded at both ends by the towers of 2 fortresses. The challenge was there so we had to cross it. After traversing the aqueduct we headed back to the feisty Lancia and negotiated our way through the one set of traffic lights and out of the narrow streets. We had spotted a little town that Shaun had to go to- ‘Bastardo’. So Jen had the job of trying to navigate us through small country roads using our big Italy map! We found it after travelling some gorgeous country roads, took the obligatory photo and headed back to Foligno. There was only a slight smattering of cloud so chilled out by the pool for the arvo.
Another healthy salad for dinner while we finished off the Limoncelo, did some washing and caught up on our blog.
Date Friday1st October 2010
City Montefalco
Climate low 10c - high 21c - overcast and some showers
Destination Montefalco. We left the hotel at 9.30am. A crisp
morning but we were hopeful for a warm afternoon. We had passed Montefalco on the way back from Spoleto yesterday and so knew it wouldn’t take long to get there. This would have been correct had we taken the most direct route around the town of Foligno and out towards it. Instead, trying to take a short cut we ended up way out of range of the target. So back into town and out the correct way. We arrived bout 10.30am and by 11am we had seen the town, almost. It is cute as pie and has lovely narrow cobbled streets and for such a tiny place it boasts nine churches. From its elevated position Shaun spied another hilltop town in the distance and said “ let’s head there and check that place out”. It looked easy enough from the benefit of height and visibility of the surrounding townships - but once on the road it got a little tricky! We persevered and eventually made our way into yet another cute town - Gualdo Catteneo. It had an impressive fortress tower but that was it. We always get the sense that people are staring at us and that we are
imposing into their quiet, tourist-free existence. Not wanting to overstay our welcome - or get a parking ticket we were gone in about 10 minutes but it was well worth the 10km detour though. On our way back we admired the grape vines, laden with grapes and ready for harvesting. Approaching Foligno the weather was looking quite grey so we went to our favourite pastime - the supermarket - the only thing open at 2pm in the afternoon. We also drove around our town to seek out a suitable place to have a nice restaurant meal out tonight. We found one that was closed but Shaun noticed a menu on an outside display table and thought it a good idea to take it home with us to research the meanings of all the dishes using our translator on the internet. What a brilliant idea! But we discovered a major flaw in our plan back at the restaurant - it was actually the lunch menu!! Oh no, we didn’t know what the other dinner dishes were - although our command of the language is growing daily and we could guess at least a few of the ingredients. With the help of
our waiter, who spoke a little English and was also good at recommending the house “specialities” we were treated to an awesome dinner. The restaurant was L’Accedemia Ristorante, (Via G. Garibaldi, 64, Foligno) and we had a lovely warm appetiser to start which was like an egg sponge soufflé with truffle shavings and truffle cream. Shaun’s main was two portions of pork fillet - one wrapped in prosciutto and the other crusted with mustard. Jennie enjoyed a wonderful funghi and onion risotto. We really wanted to pass on dessert, however the waiter insisted that Shaun had the tiramisu and it would have been rude to say “no”! We also had a lovely bottle of 2004 Rosso from Montefalco, where we had visited today.
This was an awesome way to finish off a great stay in Umbria.
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Di
non-member comment
Fantastico
Ciao, I am enjoying reading about your adventures. You are certainly going to some wonderful places. I envy you!! :-) Keep it up! xxxx Di