Ah Assisi....

Ciao! And Happy Memorial Day, if you’re reading this in the U.S. – and are you sure you have enough food to get through the day, as we know what happens with a holiday in France, don’t we??

Well let’s see now, when last I wrote, I believe we were attempting to recover from the COOP adventure on Saturday night?! Whew! Not sure we have, as of yet! At any rate, a quiet evening (thankfully!) after we got back with all of our groceries and settled in to our apartment. Sunday morning dawned, and we were able to meet our hostess, Rebecca – an ex-pat from Chicago who fell in love and married Stephano, an Italian farmer. They now have two little boys, and he farms and she runs the Agriturismo – when she’s not making soap, wine, olive oil, etc. She was able to provide us with a special connector for the phone, though, that enables us to hook up the computer – YEA! It’s really S-L-O-W – slower even that the last place, but at least it’s a lifeline to the rest of the world! The other thing that they have here is SAT+ TV – which is truly ODD. (I’m just upset because I was able to get Eurosport 1 and 2 yesterday, and then last night, poof! - gone! Now I can’t get them at all! Very upsetting!) But this TV has something like access to 500 channels – from ALL over the world! And, while we can only get some of them, I have now seen TV from Iran, Sudan, Lebanon, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria – and those are only some of the countries! The Romanian channel looked like it was Lawrence Welk – with a hat ... truly a hoot, but as I say, if I can’t get Eurosport, we will entirely miss the French Open, which I am indeed going to miss!!

At any rate, moving back to yesterday. I wanted 1) 10,000 steps, and 2) not too much car time to rest my back (sounds odd, but walking has never bothered it!) So, we decided to drive the 5 km or so back into Assisi and stroll there. We had been to Assisi two or three times before, seeing the churches, so really had no need to do that (and supposedly here, if you’re in shorts, it’s No-Go into the churches, although our shorts are longer than some of these young people’s skirts! – and as it was definitely warm, (in the 80's) we were definitely in shorts!) So, decided to forego the churches in favor of strolling. Parked the car in the Piazza Mattiotti parking garage, which is at the top of the town (good for walking in, NOT for walking out...Much of central Italy has built over their Roman origins, (which is our favorite part) so we went looking for the remains of the Roman amphitheatre. Only thing left is the wall – but it is a lovely wall, and now part of a restaurant and hotel. Then strolled into town. As I say, we’ve seen Assisi before, but always coming up from the churches. As R says, the eastern end, where we were, was incredibly beautiful! Lovely ancient stone buildings, incredibly well-kept, with lots and lots of colorful flowers everywhere! (See pictures...if we can get them to upload!) R wanted to go into the museum, which wasn’t much, but is actually part of the old Roman town, excavated, way below street level. Very damp and musty smelling, but again, fascinating to walk on the street that Romans walked on! From there we decided to get lunch, and found a little place on a side street (by this time, the tourists had arrived en masse – or is it “en busse” and things were getting crowded!) R had a very odd Insalate Cesar (Cesar salad) with cucumber and eggs and something that looked like a cross between our bacon and Italian pancetta, but he enjoyed it. I had the bresaola (is there a rut here?) but this time it was served rolled up and stuffed with what had been described as gorgonzola cheese (but wasn’t) on toasted croutons. The cheese was very mild, so unless it was a very young gorgonzola, that wasn’t the cheese – but it was terrific, and made for a perfect size lunch ... that and the gelato I had afterward – and why is it that I always manage to get chocolate somewhere about my person when eating gelato? Is this enough, we ask ourselves, to change flavors to something a little easier to get out of clothes?? Hmmmm....Back to the apartment about 4 so that R could make pasta sauce! As he said, making pasta sauce in Italy is a bit like carrying coals to Newcastle...but it was GREAT, and the apartment had such wonderful smells! Spaghetti bolognaise (sp?) (which, since our adventure in Bologna I’m not allowed to use anymore) has always been my favorite comfort food – and while I didn’t really need any comfort food at the moment, it was a GREAT change from our standard cooking menu (without a microwave or an oven, things really are limited to what you can do on top of the stove – and as this particular stove has burners that don’t really regulate the flow of gas, it’s difficult to do things like simmer...) At any rate, really enjoyed our plates of pasta, and have enough (of course) for left overs ... for the next several weeks!! A storm moved in late afternoon, and we had a lovely gentle rain – as well as some thunder and lightning; just beautiful! Quiet night, and now we’re up and getting ready to face the week! Today we’re going to do a drive to Bevagna (where we stayed with Mom several years ago) and Spello, which apparently has the best Roman ruins in the area! So – more later!!!

Much love, and happy holiday to everyone who is having one!!
m