Gattapone Spoleto

Back to the land of pay toilets. Don.t know why that bothers me so much but it does. It just doesn.t seem right. Anyway, we are now in Assisi. We got off the boat and it was raining, and then we had to take a detour to Assisi. the road was very narrow and hilly, It was a little tense for awhile. Saw St Francis ...

... earthquake about ten years ago and received a lot of funding, and with the money left over they actually pressure cleaned the majority of the old town. All the buildings and walls are back to their original colour and look very nice.<br> After the tour Witek and I continued our never ending search for Birkenstocks. I only bought sneakers and thongs in the way of comfortable shoes and I had been looking for Birkenstocks ...

Wednesday, We are alone in an Italian villa. It was magical. We slept in and then had breakfast on the veranda.<br><br>I made a picnic lunch out of the things we bought yesterday and feeling very brave we drove to Pettino. It is a small mountain village about a half an hour away from M &amp; J's house. Reaching Pettino, we blinked and were out of town. Turning around and heading back down the hill to find a place ...

Today Mike takes us for provisions for our picnic we are planning for Tuesday. They leave for NY today and we will be on our own. Mike has us drive so we get the feeling of Italian roads and drivers. He takes to the local butcher, Hugo, an artist with meat. He makes beautifully aged prosciutto, 15 months, compared with the 2 months in the US ...

... br>When we got to Orvieto I got off at the train station, and there was a train to Florence leaving in 15 minutes. And I was able to buy a ticket and get on the train. I was very thankful to not have to wait very long. I had done an awful lot of waiting around today, and not much sightseeing. <br><br>I used the 2.5 hour train ride to prepare some blogs. But there was also a beautiful sunset along the way. I arrived at Florence about 9 pm and took my bags straight the hostel.<br><br>Ciao!

... then I boarded a bus to the center of town, near where I was staying. I was hoping to at least drop my bags off, but the doors were closed. So I kept them with me.<br><br>I spent the next two hours walking around the city of Orvieto. It was very beautiful and extremely quaint. All of the buildings were made of stone, with tiny stone streets. I went to a couple of places where you could walk along the edges of the city, and the views of the surrounding countryside were incredible ...

... and wine. We savor food and conversation for hours. Jet lag finally brings overwhelms me and Jill took us home. After we left, their friends exploded with questions about who were we and where we live, which made for more lively conversation. It inspired the poet, who hadn&#8217;t written all summer to write about what was discussed.<br><br>The next morning as Mike showed me their lovely Umbrian villa, we discover Jill doing ...

the francescan monks must have been part mountain goat.this palce is unbelievably hilly.also it poured with rain and thundered and we got drenched.we slept in an 1800 year old nunnery in single beds of course<br>we went to the church of saint claira and saw her tomb

We are excited to visit the Basilicas of two famous saints, for which both have cities named after them in the Bay Area. San Francisco was named after St. Francis by the Franciscan monks and Santa Clara was named after St Clare. Both St Francis and St Clare were born into wealthy and powerful families and both turn their backs to ...

... di Cerretto, Arneis del Roero, Erbaluce di Caluso and C******nay Pinot. Piedmont is also world famous for its truffles. There is a huge truffle exhibition every year in Alba where it is possible to taste and buy truffle and every kind of its derivates. It is most interesting to attend this exhibition, but as a good tip: if you (and you really should) go to Alba during these days, book your accommodation many ...