Rifugio Perugia Norcia

... ceramic store and found a little dish with the iconic olive design and a little egg cup to remind me of the first leg of our romantic journey. Then nap time.

Dinner at home tonight with last night’s leftovers and a sauté of fresh eggplant, tomatoes, garlic and olive oil. We ate outside and enjoyed the caress of the evening breeze. Tomorrow off to Orbetello with our friend Alessandro behind the wheel.

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 ...

Rome Day 4 I got up at 8:30, but Shiny only got up at 9:15....so had breakfast around 9:30 and got back to the room at 10:00. We didn't have a chance to see St. Peter's Square, so we walked there (only 2 mins from the hotel). It's cool to think that there is another country within that country. :) We sat and staired at the church, the line was too long for us to go in it. We also had to check out by noon and get a train at 1:47pm. So we checked out around 11:30 and took the subway ...

... France. The French have villages that are equally as beautiful, if not more so. Food? There really isn't anything to add. BUT, the French are so serious, self involved and almost neurotic compared to the Italians, and from the very first day we all fell in love with the Italian or at least Umbrian way of life. Of course, the Italians do have they're shortcomings. One of them is called Alitalia, which is in the process of going broke. I don't think too many ...

... reaking of body odour. We had a water fight, BBQ and went swimming. There was an amazing water slide about 25m tall, which breaks your back and other parts of the anatomy... It was great and then we went on to florence... Stay tuned for more info!

... round, stone olive presses in the extensive garden. The Olearium dated back to the 1400s and the entry section had the original, brick-vaulted ceilings. In addition, there was a terraced garden with views of trees, the Vomano River and the Gran Sasso as the backdrop. In the garden was an old turret, which our hosts had put an outdoor table ...

... had to settle for the Italian version: Pizza. Getting home was ah...interesting. Here we would just like to take a moment to give a heart felt thanks to the Italian public transport system. We won't go into boring details but let's just say the night involved chasing after departing trains, finding buses that didn't exist, and dealing with super friendly salesmen. But overall, the day was an absolute blast, a definite highlight of our holiday so far!

... that there was another course to come, and I was alarmed. As we discovered late, what the waiter had been miming at the beginning, was that we should only have one antipasto between us, and one secondi. Thank God! Formagio: Pecorino and honey with a chiolled liqueur of "an ancient wine". At this point, I was sure I could taste just a hint of fennel, and the waiter beamed and responded "si, si, Finnochio" Dolce: Crema Pinoli tart, served with vino passito and lemon delicious ...

... they are as different in flavour to other fungi as porcini is to other mushrooms. I give up. I'm never going to succeed in describing them. What I can say, is that adding a small grating of truffles to the top of any dish, adds at least $15.00 to the cost of the dish. The other thing that confuses about "tartufo", is that they have nothing in common with "tartufi" which is the chocolate icecream, and yet we have seen tartufo liquers. Now, knowing the Italian male penchant ...