Hotel Il Barbarossa 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 ...

... the market emerging in the center. Che bella!!! The festival was in full force with booths of chocolate and related prodects as far as the eye could see. Unfortunately, also were crowds as far as the eye could see.

My camera batteries had taken a surprize turn and I needed to go find a tobacco shop to buy more and Licia opted to wait in the center. Unfortunately, i got a little lost on the way back ...

Hi Everyone!

This past weekend was the Perugia Chocolate Festival…It was amazing! Basically, I was in heaven. It was a chocolate lover’s paradise. We took a bus from Florence and arrived in Perugia by mid morning. It was a bitter day which gave me a perfect excuse to have some out of this world hot chocolate and churros. A bunch of my friends and I had lunch at a ...

... br>We had a traditional dinner consisting of foods from that region. I had a pasta followed by the most sumptuous lamb. And Licia had the same. We took a stroll through the charming village and then drove back to our village for the night.

It was quite cold but with the fresh air and quiet, I got a great night's sleep.

(Steve)
After saying goodbye to the splendour of the seas, we made our way to the Venice train station and boarded the next train to Perugia. Known as the 'green heart' of Italy, Perugia reminded us a lot of Tuscany but greener. We were staying in a farmhouse so we had to catch a bus out of the city and after finding a few helpful locals we were pointed down a long dirt road.
Our first day at the hostel was spent lazing around ...

After seeing most of what Florence has to offer we decided to head back to Perugia our original stop six days ago and see if we could actually get further than the train station.

With our 11 o'clock departing on time for a change we were soon headed out of Toscana and into the rolling hills, jagged mountains, swathes of olive orchards and ancient stone buildings that make up Umbria.

The scenery on the train ride down (although we had ...

... lunch we stumbled on a look-out and found a little Italian family having lunch there as well. We scouted a grassy spot under some trees and laid out our quilt and had lunch. We drank our chilled white wine while eating our pecorino cheese, prosciutto, fresh bread and juicy peaches. I took pictures, Marty read until we both dozed off, while hearing the happy sounds of the Italian family under the bright blue sky and ...

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 ...

... on the terrace. I join her and relish in the cool morning air while performing Jill’s Anusara routine. Lovely.

Off to Spoleto we wind through the narrow cobbled stone streets to the top of the town. Jill and Mike show us an ancient amphitheatre, the one the Roman’s gave to the town of Spoleto for defeating Hannibal by pouring hot oil his troops. It is still being used today. We visit the town’s Duomo ...

... his own sand which is how he gets the coloration...........................re ally DIFFERENT work. I got him to sign a couple of things which I got there! So off to the bus stop. We missed the first bus back and noone seemed to be able to tell us the next time............finally at 5:45pm the bus arrived and we ALL, including the dog rode the bus back to ...