...as well as our little room, opening up to its rooftop garden 

In the still of the morning, the river, the bridge, at peace with each other (remember the floods of some forty years back?). 

Now that’s Italian!

Friday

In Assissi there are churches of every shape and hew: pink, yellow, striped, you name it. It is, in fact, a gorgeous little town, fresh and clean and restored (especially following the 1997 earthquake), ready to accept the pilgrimage of those in search of the St. Francis aura (and his remains) that is so evident in everything from the souvenirs to the frescoes on the thirteenth century church walls.

There is also a lovely little piazza where you can, after a cultural-artistic indulgence, sit back and contemplate the wonders of a peach and blueberry gelato. If you run out of cash, you can hop over to the ATM machine, slip your visa card right inside, get a printed receipt documenting your 250 E withdrawal (cash flows fast and loose when you’re vacationing) and wait and wait and wait… and watch the cash NOT emerge. What then?

I tried banging on the (closed for the day) bank door only to wake the lethargic guard who then fetched the signora in charge who reassured me that indeed, the international line hadn’t been working and so they weren’t able to pay out the 250 E. But, prego! I have the receipt showing that my account has been debited by this amount! A famous Italian shrug. Alright, alright, let’s negotiate the Italian way. Signora, I am going to go back to the US this Monday and I will surely find that I have $300 less in my account. Then what? Ah, she tells me, then my bank will write to her bank and they will straighten it all out.

Now I am not dumb. I know that the young teller in the little branch bank on the corner of Gammon and Mineral Point in Madison Wisconsin already got confused when I asked her to forward the down payment for the farmhouse rental. No way is she going to know how to get in touch with the non-English speaking signora in Assissi to straighten anything out. But I am told not to worry – the transaction probably never really happened! Paper? What’s a piece of paper? Go ahead, try it again, it’ll work this time!And so I did, and it worked and I am running on hope that she is right about the failed first transaction and that I will never have to do business with the bank in Assissi again. But you never know.

Assissi: the less serious, blueberry and peach moments 

Assissi: up one street, down the next, a noteworthy church around every corner. 

Saturday

Highlights from this afternoon:

* Sitting absolutely still on the highway to Florence (the week in Umbria ended today), then moving back to the 100 miles per hour normal cruising speed, then sitting still again. For no good reason.

* Arriving in Florence and not getting lost in the maze of one-way streets.

* Discussing what is more important in a hotel room in Florence, the inside, or the outside? The inside, in my opinion, can be very simple if the outside opens up onto your own terrace with a view like this:

Florence: a room in an ancinet house, but with a patio. Now if it only had WiFi... 

Finding a phone line in your own room that allows you to connect a computer is pretty amazing as well. But I am only in Florence for two days and so time is precious. More later. Maybe.

A day in Umbrian hill towns

Thursday, continued

Climbing up the Campanile of San Fortunato in Todi is one of those things that you feel you must do because you’re there and it’s there and it only costs 1.5 Euro. The view? Sure, it’s fantastic, but the views here are magnificent from every vantage point in this place. Having made the climb, I feel compelled to post a photo.

Halfway up, a pause for a photo. Todi is at the very top of a large hill, so this puts me nearly at the top of the top 

below the bell tower, a shop with...junk or antiques? 

-->I came to appreciate how few tourists there are in Todi when I went elsewhere in the afternoon*. In Todi, you hear nothing but Italian on the streets and in the restaurants. In the morning, the women and men congregate for their shot of espresso or cappuccino at the cafés and you can tell they are regulars – they get their drinks and pastries without having to put in a request. The shop-keepers speak only Italian. And they do you favors – in the way that people do favors in small towns that haven’t yet been worn out by the incessant demands made by visitors (like me!). The person in my favorite breakfast pastry place gave me some of their Illy coffee because I could not find any in town and I have a thing for it. And as I leave, they wont just say politely “buon giorno,” they’ll say “buon giorno, arivederci, ciao!” And (grazie!!) they’ll let me use their phone so that I can make my local call and collect to the Internet.

* Orvieto has perhaps the finest XV c. cathedral in Italy and so it deserved an afternoon visit. It also has perhaps the largest number of shops per square foot in any of the hill towns. And, not a small number of tourists. The most interesting were the religious groups – nuns staring at the ceiling frescoes of the chapel with such reverence that it almost made me jealous. To me, the figures depicted in stone and on the walls were a reminder of how grotesque and graphic the Biblical stories became for artists of previous centuries. Consider the scene from a detail of the church pillar (below). Apparently it served as a warning that hell, brimming with snakes and reptiles, was ready and waiting for the immoral townspeople.

suddenly, turning the corner, you come face to face with the Duomo 

3

row after row of suffering mortals

* Okay, this little gem of a village (see photo below) has even fewer tourist. It lies at the foot of the Todi hill. The bridge is over the Tiber River. But forget the nice approach, it’s the name that gets me every time as I drive in to pick up my morning bakery treats.

Just saying it out loud makes you smile 

these breakfasts give just the right kick to the start of the day 

An evening at La Mulinella

At 8:30 the sun is gone but it’s not yet dark. La Mulinella is outside of town, on a side road, hard to find. Tables are scattered on a graveled surface, underneath a huge shade-giving tree. A large number are set for large parties of ten or twelve. These are just starting to be filled with several generations of diners. The youngest are around three or four, the oldest – in the late seventies perhaps.

No one orders, but dishes with food start coming right away. Pitchers of wine are placed on the table, plates of crostini are set out at both ends. Eventually the pasta dishes arrive, then plates of grilled meats, roasted vegetables, and so it continues.

When I get ready to leave two, three hours later, I notice that the others are all still there. The younger children have moved to the laps of grandfathers, the somewhat older boys are leaning on the shoulders of their fathers, held there in a loose embrace, some restless little ones have wondered off to other parts of the garden. Bowls of tiramisu are at the table. It’s dark now, but no one is in a hurry.

La Mulinella is irresistible*. I ate there twice and each time the menu was the same but the food came out just a bit different, depending on what was available, what the kitchen wanted to put out. I took just one photo – of a first course: home-made gnocchi with an aromatic mushroom sauce. I can guarantee that it will be one of the first dishes I’ll try to recreate back home, though I know it’s hopeless. La Mulinella gets it exactly right for a million reasons, only some of them having anything to do with the preparation of this dish.

homemade gnocchi for starters 

* One of the charming things that the restaurant does is that it rounds DOWN the total on the check. So that if a (four-course, with plenty of house wine and numerous bottle of fizzy water) meal for four rang up at 104 Euro (which it did), they will cross out the total and write 100 E on the bill. It is just one of the endearing little habits that the waiters engage in to make your evening there pleasant.

Far’ niente (the art of doing nothing)

Wednesday

If I had exactly 24 hours in Ravello, how would I spend it?
Doing nothing. It is a town that invites exactly that. In the past, I tried hiking but it is treacherous. I’ve looked at the “sights” but they are minimal. Even sleeping a regular cycle is a waste of time because it cuts into your “doing nothing in the evening” time and your doing not much in the morning” hours.

True, eating a meal figures into this mentality. In fact, if truth be told, much of the impetus for this little sojourn could be found in the recollection of a past perfect dinner here (at the family-run Villa Maria, where one can also stay overnight). It was simple: a pasta, a grilled fish and a dessert. But each component, infused with herbs and lemons from the garden, is near-perfect. And the setting – yes, on a terrace, suspended over the northern shore of the coastline.

evening: a slow dinner on the terrace 

scialiatelli: a thick noodle that I can only have in the States if I make it myself 

inside the souffle: half lemon, half chocolate 

After the meal, it is time to move yourself to the main square, for several late hours of “doing nothing” there. Children chase each other, young adults flirt outrageously, older types stand or sit in groups talking with the animation you’d normally have only if you’d been locked in isolation for the past two months. It is a glorious way to spend the late hours of the evening.

Breakfast is, of course, leisurely. Same terrace, with views, this time, over the bay in the pink morning light. Lemon marmalade is made from the monster lemons grown in this region. They have a special taste – tart and sweet at the same time.

a pink morning: view from the breakfast terrace 

breakfast with lemon jam 

a lemon transaction 

I admit to breaking from the routine then and taking a brief stroll up the winding streets of Ravello. True, it required some exertion, but I admit to having a hard time shedding my “do something” routines. Passing through the center of town (which, btw is closed to traffic) you come across the ceramics of the region (Ravello is known to have the best ceramic shops in the country).

the lemon motif, in yellows and blues 

I moved up into “alto Ravello,” where an occasional vineyard crops into sight, always framed by the spectacular coastal scenery.

vineyards and views 

back alleys, upper Ravello 

But eventually I come to my senses and remember that I am out of step with my surroundings. Thus I retire back to the square, where I sit at one café, eating a prolonged lunch, then switch to another, on the other side, for a café and a gelato. There you have it, a Ravello 24 hours.

La casa e tutto… (home is everything)

Thursday

Returning to Umbria and the farmhouse feels like coming home after a vacation. I could do without the 3-centimeter scorpion inside and the snake outside (both apparently harmless; how reassuring), but still, it is so beautiful that one can forgive these little imperfections.

In the morning, I take my sunrise walk and am again greeted with the cheerful grin of the sunflower. Several kilometers down the road I turn the corner and find this view of the distant Todi. But it’s the fourth photo from the ones below that brings the agricultural elements of the region together for me: sunflowers, vineyards and olive groves.

a cheerful greeting 

Todi (in the distance) at sunrise 

morning walk: fields, forests, flowers 

Umbrian trilogy: olives, sunflowers and vineyards