SURPRISE HOLIDAY

I had a number of errands to do today—buy groceries, go to Vodaphone to see why my Internet key doesn’t work, find a language school, go to the pharmacy, etc. etc. etc.  It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and my first stop was a café I found that has free Wifi.  I wanted to relax, have a cup of cappuchino, make a grocery list, check my email, and catch up with my several games on Words with Friends.  My next stop was the grocery store, which was closed.  There were four paper signs taped inside the door indicating that the store would be closed today—not sure why one wouldn’t have been enough—but I couldn’t figure out why. 

I continued on to try to find the Vodaphone store. 

When I got to the bottom of the hill, there was a crowd gathering by the bus station.  There was a band playing.  

There were lots of people with flags.  And there were more people with flags streaming off several buses that were stopped at the curb.  Clearly, this was a celebration of some kind, but I hadn’t heard anything about it.  I haven’t had Internet service since I got here last Saturday, so I’m a little out of the loop.

I couldn’t find the Vodaphone store that was supposed to be in that piazza, so I wandered back to the bus station, tried asking a couple of Italians about the holiday but didn’t understand their answers.  One woman motioned for me to follow the crowd that was streaming upward on the escalators to the city center.  So I did.  (Side note:  I've noticed a lot of people kissing on escalators here....people of all ages...not something I've seen elsewhere....is it just the passionate nature of the Italian people or vacationers amping up the romance?)

Shortly after I arrived at the city center, I heard a couple of women speaking English and stopped them to ask if they knew what was going on. 

I could see bunches of bright colored balloons lining the street leading to the main piazza and hundreds hanging over the piazza.  I was informed that today is Labor Day in Italy.  I learned that there would be a parade and a lot of speeches. 

I walked to the main piazza and got some pictures of the balloons.

And of the parade….leading it was the band I saw at the bus station.

Following them were several groups, representing different unions, each with a unique flag.

Some groups were in uniform, and there was even a group of pensioners with their own special flag.

On the way back to the down escalators, I found the Vodaphone store…closed, of course, as the majority of the shops and businesses are today. 

Clearly, I won’t get any labor done today, and I’ll be eating out!

P.S.  Since I haven't had Internet service for 6 days, I'm catching up on my posts.  I've posted five new entries today while doing my laundry.  YES, I have a washing machine!  YEA!

THE TRUFFLES OF TODI

Bernadette likes it so much here that she decided to skip language school and stay another day.  Our adventure for Monday was to take the bus to Todi, a town of about 17,000, built on two hills (of course).  It’s another walled city, and part of the one built in pre-Roman days still exists.  The most recent wall was built in 1244 and is mostly intact.  Archeologically, Todi’s origins date back to the fifth century B.C. and, like every town and city in Italy, it has been ruled by several different regimes over the many centuries since.  

There are no escalators or elevators to be found in Todi, so there was a lot of climbing up hills on this day.  

Across from the bus stop was this incredible Church of St. Mary of Consolation, which was constructed over one century, beginning in 1508.  The interior is in the form of a Greek Cross.

There were three polygonal apses and a semicircular one.  

There was wonderful statuary in each.

And a beautiful altar, of course.

Bernadette and I waited for a bus to take us up to the city center, but after 15 minutes, we decided we would try to walk up, having no idea how far "up" was.  I could do some whining about this ascent, especially about how I felt when a bus passed us by at about the halfway point, but  I'll spare you my misery. 

We passed by this impressive Church of St. Fortune on our way "up".  (I did not add these steps to my climb.)

And we enjoyed some beautiful views of the countryside during my frequent pauses.  

We finally reached the top of "up" and shortly entered the Piazza Grande, where the grandest of Todi’s buildings dominate the scene.  

There was the Palace of the People, which dates back to 1218 and is connected by a large staircase to the Mayor’s Palace.  

The Palace of the Priors, built in the first half of the 1300’s is similar in architecture.  

On the opposite side of the piazza is the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary. 

There was a craft show in the Palace of the People, and we looked at some beautiful woodworks, embroidery, and ceramics, and I almost bought a beautiful cashmere sweater for 200 euro.  Fortunately, I came to my senses, because what I don’t need are more clothes to add weight to my luggage!  I’m glad I didn’t have my ATM card with me, because I was very tempted.  Todi is an area with a plentiful supply of truffles, and we saw several shops selling "truffled" products.

We found an archeological museum, but didn’t go inside, because it was just a lovely day to be wandering the streets outside, which is exactly what we did.  After a couple of hours, I was famished, and we had lunch at a restaurant that had been recommended to us by a man at the train station in Perugia.  He was from Todi originally, and he had played soccer with the owner of this restaurant.  His nickname with the team was “the bomber”, because he scored a lot of goals.  

Unfortunately, the owner didn’t remember “the bomber”, but we had a lovely lunch on the patio overlooking the surrounding countryside.  

I was very tempted by the gnocchi in cream and truffle sauce, but I’ve been wanting to try a dish with boar, and there was a stew on the menu that looked good.  It was.

There isn’t a lot to see in Todi.  We wandered through the side streets for another hour or so after lunch, enjoying the charm of the narrow streets and arched passageways.  

We caught a bus to the train station at mid-afternoon and headed back to Perugia, arriving in time for Bernadette to pick up her bag at the apartment and take another bus to a different train station for her return trip to Florence.

It was really wonderful to have Bernadette’s company for my first weekend here.  I don’t know how I’m going to find my way around without her as my excellent navigator.  I imagine I’ll get lost a few times, but I’m very motivated to find those escalators and elevators again!

A HILL OF A CITY

Fortunately for me, my friend Bernadette, who came to Perugia with me to spend the weekend, is a born navigator.  This woman has the most incredible sense of direction, and where there is a problem, she will find a solution.  She discovered escalators and elevators almost everywhere we went that allowed me to avoid climbing up scores of steps.  So what could have been an exhausting exploration of the city turned out to be not half bad.  

Perugia is the capital of the province of Umbria, the eastern neighbor of Tuscany.  The countryside, in my opinion, is not as spectacular as Tuscany’s rolling hills, but it places a very close second.  Vineyards and olive orchards dominate the landscape here, just like Tuscany, and this area is also known for its wonderful truffles, lentils, and the delicious pecorino cheese made from the milk of the flocks of sheep ranging in the hills.  Ah, the truffle.  The season is from October to March, so there are still some fresh truffles around, but not for long.

Perugia is the center of art and culture in Umbria.  There is a large university here and thousands of students roam the city streets.  The student population of approximately 40,000 makes up a quarter of the city's entire population!  The historic center is surrounded by two rings of Etruscan and medieval walls.  

In the center of the city is this beautiful fountain, Fontana Maggiore, which is the symbol of Perugia.  It stands in front of this huge Gothic cathedral.

In the same piazza there is also the Palazzo dei Priori and the National Gallery of Umbria.

The day was too beautiful to spend time inside galleries and museums, so Bernadette and I just roamed the city, taking in whatever sights came before us.  On our way up to the city center, we discovered some of the escalators (a set of four) and found a variety of shops inside the stone tunnels at the top of the last one.  

These vendors must have to pack up their wares every night.

I loved these funny clocks, one a dog.

And the other of cat.  Can't you just picture them at each end of someone's fireplace mantel?

We encountered a couple of other markets—Sunday is a big market day in Italy—in one piazza there was an antique market, in another there were vendors selling the food products of Umbria.  This is truffle country, so I am in heaven when I can buy sausages with truffle, cheese with truffle, truffle oil, truffle cream, etc. etc.  For starters, I bought some truffle sausage and some truffle cream, as well as some outstanding pecorino cheese and these incredible cheese biscuits made with 10 different kinds of cheese.  A loaf of local bread rounded out my market purchases.

Bernadette and I wandered the city for several hours and captured some of the sights along the way. 

Since this city is built on a hill, you often encounter fantastic views like this.

And this.

On our way back down the hill to the apartment, we stopped at the supermarket to buy supplies for dinner.  

I made a wonderful risotto with that truffle sausage, mushrooms, and red bell pepper, adding a dollop of the truffle cream at the end for extra truffle deliciousness.  That, with some bruschetta, made for a delicious meal. 

I was pretty exhausted at the end of the day and didn’t even mind sleeping on my slightly lumpy mattress.  

MOVING DAY

I have only casually mentioned going to language school in Florence.  And I will only briefly mention it here.  I had a great experience there and was very fortunate to have an excellent instructor for grammar.  We covered some of the same material I had already learned in Sorrento, but the instruction methods were much superior, and I think I actually understand some of the usage patterns of prepositions (although it’s doubtful that I’ll remember them in conversation), and I have a better handle on irregular verbs and indirect pronouns.  I’ll be looking for a school in Perugia, but I’m a bit handicapped, because I don’t have Wifi in my apartment here, and I can’t seem to get my Internet key to work.  So I need to locate the store of my telephone/Internet carrier.  This will be difficult without Internet and with a landlady that speaks little English.  At least I get a chance to practice my Italian with her.  However, I haven’t learned the language of washing machines, and thermostats, and TV remote controls.  The TV remote won’t matter, because I have NO English channels here. 

My friend Bernadette decided to come to Perugia with me for the weekend, and we took a train from Florence.  Fortunately for me, there was a very nice young man who helped me get my heavy luggage down one set of steps and up another at the Perugia train station.  Every month, there are adjustments for me to make, as I move from one place to another.  The appliances are different in every apartment, I have different kinds of cookware and dishes, and the beds and pillows all feel foreign at first.  When I entered the building, I discovered my apartment was downstairs, and I thought I would be in a basement apartment with little light (and maybe be cold again!).  But when I walked in and opened the shutters of the one huge window in the apartment, I found myself with the view from the second floor.  How could that be, you ask?  Because I’m in a city built on hills.  

So I’m pretty happy with the view I have of a beautiful tree across the street, but not so happy with the fact that the street is a very busy one with traffic 24/7, although there’s not much in the middle of the night. 

 And I was absolutely daunted by the 183 steps we had to climb to get to the city center.  I was on flat land in southeast Asia and Florence was also, for the most part, so now I have to get my mountain goat muscles back into condition. 

Oh, I cannot forget to share my delight that this apartment is WARM!  It may not be as artistically decorated as the apartment in Florence, but I won’t be shivering under blankets here.  

ARRIVEDERCI FIRENZE

It was sad to say goodbye to Florence.

No more idling on the bridges, enjoying views like this.

              Or this.

No more crossing through the Duomo piazza and having my breath taken away every single time by the magnificence of this cathedral.

No more sitting on the steps of some wondrous church and seeing something interesting happening, like people whipping around the piazza on these whatchamacallits. (Someone please tell me what they're called.)

I'll surely see more statuary, but not the number per square foot you find in Florence.  (It's not David's tush, but it's a nice tush.)

Around every corner you turn, there's something that captures your interest.  It's a city rich in art and culture, and unfortunately, gaggles of tourists everywhere.  I won't miss navigating my way around tour groups galore.  I was surprised at the number there were this early in the season.  

And I won't miss being cold all the time.  Here's hoping I have a warm apartment in Perugia!

WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP

Yesterday was a national holiday in Italy.  It was Liberation Day, celebrating the end of Nazi control over Italy.  I thought there might be some special celebratory events in Florence, but there really wasn't much going on, so I decided to take another trip into the rolling Tuscan hills.  I could do this every day!  

The destination was Chianti country, and, according to the tour billing, we were going to take a walk through the vineyards, have a typical Tuscan lunch, and then enjoy a medieval festival in the little town of Panzano.  The advertisement for the tour said "you need to be able to walk".  Well, I can do that, so off on the tour I went.

We arrived in the main piazza of the small town of Panzano and had a coffee before setting off on the hiking part of this tour.  I had some reservations about whether I should do this hike, because I could see now that it would require going up and down the slopes of the Tuscan hills.  Our tour guide, Giacomo (English translation is James) suggested that I walk with them for part of the way and turn back when I felt uncomfortable going further.  That sounded like a sensible plan, so I set out with our small group of only 8 people, 5 of whom were under 25.  Well, the beginning was all downhill.  At the point I should have turned around, I reasoned that going up the hill at the end of the hike couldn't be much worse than returning up the slope we just descended into the valley.

So I trooped along with the group, and I was really enjoy the walk through the beautiful country with vineyards and olives orchards rolling around us. 

There were lots of wild flowers, and an occasional red poppy brightened the bouquet.  

Here's another loner by an old grave.  They popped up all along the way, always just one lone flower.

The leaves on the grapes vines were just beginning to show.  This vine must be ancient.

We also passed by a number of these tabernacles, and it wouldn't be long before I had good reason to pray when I came upon one.

We passed through a beautiful stand of cypress trees.  They smelled really good.

I was doing fine when we stopped in this olive orchard for a short rest.  This is our tour guide Giacomo.  He was one of the most laid back Italians I've ever met, with a real  "Don't worry.  Be happy" attitude.  He does these tours only on weekends and holidays.  He said his weekday job is real estate and that his family had invested in a number of properties.  He must be doing okay, because he has traveled extensively and for long periods (like three months in Australia recently).  


After a short rest, off we went for the uphill portion of this hike.  I could continue with a whining account of my upward trek, but I know you'd just get out those little violins and be thinking, tongue in cheek,  "Oh poor Colleen, she had to walk up a hill in this beautiful Tuscan countryside.  What a pity!"  Okay, I don't get a pity party, and I did make it up the hill without passing out from exhaustion.  But this confirmed for me that I'm definitely not a hiker.  I can walk long distances on flat ground, but put steps or hills in front of me, and I'm a definite wimp.  All the way up, I was thinking about that tour advertisement that said simply "you must be able to walk".  Harumph!

I told the rest of the group to go ahead and let me go up the hill at my own pace.  By the time I made it to our destination at the top, this church, I was dripping with sweat.  That was a 2-1/2 hour hike, and the last hour was all uphill!

After gulping down about a half gallon of water from a water hose by the church, I sat down to recover trauma I inflicted on my aging body.  As I was trying to recover my positive feelings about the view in front of me, I saw this old woman, probably in her early 80's walking up the hill, and I just couldn't whine any more.  She probably did this every day and she slowly, but steadily, reached the top of the incline and continued on her way into the church.  

On our walk back into town, there were a few more inclines, but slighter.  We passed this contraption on the side of the road.  It was once used to press oil from olives.

By now, we were all famished, and our lunch destination was the house of a noble Tuscan family who owned vineyards and olive orchards in the valley we just traversed and produced a number of different wines, as well as olive oil.  

We first had a tour of the centuries old wine cellar.  This is our host Lorenzo, who is carrying on the tradition of this family who have produced wine for seven generations.  I've been on a number of wine tours, so there was really nothing new that I learned here.  The only difference, I think, is that Italians make grappa from the grape skins.  I don't know what American vintners do with that refuse.

We had lunch at a huge table in what I think was the dining room of this old house.  This is the old fireplace that was right beside us.  When I went upstairs to use the bathroom, I passed by walls completely covered in family portraits.  You could tell by the dress of the men in the older ones that this was a noble family.  I thought it was a shame that this noble young man, Lorenzo, was reduced to serving a pasta lunch to a bunch of tourists and selling his products to us.  I bought some olive oil--it's the best I've tasted in a long time.

The medieval festival parade marched by Lorenzo's house just as we were leaving.  They were going uphill, and I didn't follow them.  Instead, the only other member of the tour group who was over 50 and I went downhill into the main piazza and checked out the wares of the many vendors who were showing their crafts.  

The paraders came back down the hill, having swelled in numbers by townfolk dressed in medieval finery.  

A prince with his lady friends.

There was a mock hanging planned and the executioner was in a cart pulled by these huge white oxen.  

This harnessed buffoon played around on the edge of this balcony, pretending to jump, and finally did.  

We were treated to some performances...like this sword fight.

And this flag twirler.  

Then the procession went back up the hill, without me, although I thought about hitching a ride with one of these gallant knights.

In the middle of the piazza, there's a huge wine bottle, a fitting sculpture for a town that makes its living producing some of Tuscany's best chianti.

I saw this building with three flags flying.  The one in the back is the U.S. flag, the middle is Italy's, and maybe the one at the front is the flag of the province or the town.  I was just surprised to see the American flag, but then I remember the holiday and the U.S. role in freeing Italy from the Nazis.







We caught our bus back to Florence at 6:45 p.m.  By the time I walked back to my apartment, I was one tired puppy.  Even though I drank some of that delicious wine, I slept like a babe for 9 hours straight.  

Tomorrow, I leave beautiful Tuscany to explore the neighboring province of Umbria.  I hope I love it as much.