Villa Roncalli Foligno

... are teeming with families, young people and older folks just walking enjoying the cool weather, hot coffee and all sorts of chocolate products. I even caught a wedding happening on Sunday. We have another two days here and will return to Rome on Wednesday afternoon….just in time for dinner and a full day of touring before heading back hone on Friday morning.

Best to all back home,

Jorge

... was a spiritual contemporary of St. Francis and an enormously interesting woman! She founded the Sorelle Povere di Santa Chiara (Order of the Poor Ladies, now known as the “Poor Clares”). The Basilica di Santa Chiara, from the 13th century, has steep ramparts and a striking façade. The white and pink stone on the exterior of the church, brought in from the nearby Monte Subasio (the case with many of Assisi’s buildings), makes it look like it’s ...

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 ...

... absenthe.

Next we decided to explore the surrounding village before entering the crowds above. Perugia is a beautiful midieval village and very well preserved. Incorporated into this ancient setting are some very modern things like an underground moving walkway, taking you through the mazez below the pallazo. On this day, there were special booths set up for children and chocolate vendors.

Perugia, Umbria, Italy davefremland

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 ...

... My friend has a nice, sparsely decorated flat in the heart of the village. We settled in and then went to the neighboring town of Amelia for a nice dinner.

Licia had worked in that region for a few months and had been recommended to a good restaurant near Amelia. We drove over the rolling hills to the small hilltop village ...

(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 ...

... white clouds. It was idyllic.

Heading back down the hill we stopped at Castelle de Campo. The castle overlooks the Spoleto valley. People are living there today and the Duomo is fully functional inside the walls of this tiny medieval town. Reaching home again in the hottest part of the day we jump into the pool to cool off. Refreshed we drove into Campelle de Clituno for the daily gelato. Shopped the ...

... they need to use ladders to pick the grapes. We had a really wonderful chocolate almond desert, that was out of this world it was so good. It was a great nice again, and hopefully we made a new friend out of the evening. Then we headed to Spoleto the next day, which was a bit further away. It was a beautiful old town. We went for a tour to a Roman house, the mosaic tiles were so small but perfectly laid, and there was a pretty little pool to catch rain water ...