At the Villa. Yesterday we ended up going to Spoleto instead of Perugia. We walked around a while before deciding to go get food. We wandered down a windy, shoddy stone staircase and found the city wall:
We followed it around a bit until eventually we found Il Tartufo, perhaps the finest restaurant in Spoleto. We had a very impressive truffle based meal, and the wine spider made an appearance in Joan’s glass. What a tricky creature he is!
After lunch we headed back to the car to drive down to the Cascata delle Maremore, a Roman made waterfall that only runs when the power company feels like turning it on. At 165m tall, it is amongst the tallest in Europe.
After viewing the waterfall, we pulled off the road to take some pictures of the urban decay:
We drove back to the Villa, and were unable to buy a newspaper. We decided that there must be a guild that controls the selling of them, and that you need special powers to get one. Or perhaps there just are no Sunday papers in the Catholic country?
When we got back we pretty much crashed. We ate some of the Pecarino we bought in Spoleto (so delicous) and sat in front of the fire, and headed to bed around 10PM. I woke up around 8:00am today.
Galleries:
Spoleto
Cascatta delle Marmore
At the Villa – We spent an hour or so in downtown Perugia wandering around. I took some pics, and saw some great views and the pastry snake:
Then we found our way to the villa a bit before our 4pm check-in time. Miss Teodora, the keyholder, was already there, so we dropped off our deposit, and learned that gas was 4 Euros per m^3 since we were so far out of town. We decided we would try to limit our gas usage, and we got some extra wood for the fireplace.
After we settled in we decided to go grocery shopping, and then we would decide if we would go out to eat or eat in that night. We found a PAM grocery just a few km down the road. We bought some food and such and then went back up the mountain to the Villa.
We bummed around for a bit and then decided to cook in. We had strangozzi with a tomato sauce with some turkey and chicken sausage in it, spinach and some bread. Unfortunately we did not construct a potato robot with the extra selenium potatoes we bought – well maybe some other day. The dinner was simple but quite nice and filling. The 2 Euro wine we had with it was quite nice with it. After we finished we did the dishes and lit a fire, at which point it was 9PM and Fred and I had been up for more than 30 hours. We sat around talking for a while, and at about 10:30PM we decided to call it a night. Under the blankets in my bed it was quite warm!
I woke up at 3AM and layed around before deciding to play DS for a while. I then slept from 5AM to 6:15 or so, waking up hungry. I ate a little banana loaf thing I had gotten on the plane and drank from Aranciata. At 6:45 I decided to shower, which was exciting because the stall was tiny and moving around moved the lever that controlled the pressure and temperature! After I got dressed I went out and took some pictures of the area:
I found Joan’s wallet on the driveway near the car, luckily we were in a remote place, so nothing was missing! Fred made french toast and soon we will head back out to Perugia.
Galleries:
Perugia
San Lorenzo della Rabatta
1050 CET. In the Fiat, heading out of rome – Fred and I landed at 7:20 then were quickly out of passport control, just a quick scan of our passports, a stamp, and we were on our way. Cool. After we got our bags we found the aweosome Leonardo Express to Termini station, where we were to meet Joan and Chris. It took us a few minutes to figure out how to buy the tickets, and soon enough the train arrived, and we piled on and were on our way through the outskirts of Rome, towards the city center.
Once there we found Joan and Chris, after a bit of up and down with our heavy bags. We took a stop at Cafe Moke for coffee and a pastry, and then grabbed a cab to the Hertz location. The cab driver was quite awesome, driving at incredibly fast speeds, weaving and dodging and honking – very exciting! Eventually he put the radio on the local English language station (for our benefit?) but then started singing Italian songs. Soon enough we arrived at the rental location, safely. We rented the car,then went to the hotel where Joan and Chris had stayed the night before to pick up their bags before heading north to Perugia. There were 5 hours before we were supposed to meet the keyholder for the Villa, so we had plenty of time.
Oh, as we were driving along the Roma loop, we saw a FIRT lose its hubcap. So exciting!
1540 EST Dulles – The flight from SFO was perfectly cromulent. The next leg is considerably longer.