Category Archives: Cars

Calagrana has reopened!

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Today is Sunday, clear and cold with pretty blue skies. Susan and Gary told us that Calagrana, one of our favorite restaurants has reopened after being closed for much of the winter. Alberto, the chef and co-owner with his wife Ely, had taken a catering gig in Wales to make some extra money since winter is so slow here. He’s back and cooking! So today we went for lunch.

There was one table there when we arrived and one table set for fourteen! We were urged to order before they showed up, which we did. Alberto out-did himself. One of the menu choices was little plates for antipasti. There were probably ten different things. Each coast 4.50 Euro. We each ordered two or three. Then most of us ordered the roast chicken. Here are pictures to make your mouth water.

Susan ordered polenta with roasted tomatoes and little cakes made from chickpeas with a dipping sauce.DSC03841

I had little roasted onions filled with onion and gorgonzola and goat cheese with sprouts on roasted beets. DSC03842

Luther had baked cod cakes, vitello tonato, and something he can’t remember but liked.DSC03843

Our roasted chickens.DSC03844

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While we were eating another guest informed us that we had a puncture in our tyre. That’s British for a flat. Something to look forward to. Here are the valentines day cupcakes Ely made. So pretty!
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We walked out and I snapped a picture of the stone guest house and views. This is an Agriturismo as well as a spectacular restaurant. It is a working farm as well. It has beautiful rooms and in summer is a dream! Go to their website to see more Calagrana. Susan and I agreed that the Niccone valley, where Calagrana is, is the prettiest valley in Italy. Even in the dead of winter.

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Now for the fun bit. Fixing the flat. New car to Gary. It, like most cars has no spare. It had the little kit that you squirt something in and then plug a pump into the cigarette lighter and pump it up. It worked well and wasn’t too hard. Fortunately we were in a beautiful place, in the warm sun, and not on a busy highway.

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When we got back home the Piazza was filled with little kids in costumes throwing confetti at each other. From upstairs I watched some of the events and plays for the kids I guess. Another puzzling Italian thing.

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New car caviar!!

Well it finally happened. We got a CAR!! Gary gave us a ride up to Citta di Castello and we picked up our shiny, very white, VW Golf. It is pretty basic but should be a good car for us here. Plenty of room for four people and luggage, or toting stuff. It gets about 60 miles per gallon which will be great and it is a diesel engine so fuel is “cheaper”. Since we arrived here last June the price of diesel has fallen from 1.48 Euro per liter to 1.32 now (about $5.00 a gallon). To top that off the Euro has fallen from 1.49 to about 1.18 now. Anyway, we are very happy with the Golf.

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It would have been good of them to mention that new cars here come with ZERO gas! We noticed on the Superstrada and quickly got of with the range on the odometer at zero. We lucked out and found a station but not without some angst on our part! Apparently this is normal but we didn’t know.

We immediately went to the grocery store to buy big heavy things we couldn’t buy without a car. We got a couple of cases of wine and 4 bags of pellet for the stuffa.

When we got back we made an appointment with Marco who owns some buildings just across the river. He has a bunch of underground garages and we are looking into renting one. It will be for the Porsche eventually but right now we can use it for the Golf.

Other than that exciting news I mentioned in my last post that it was Epiphany. Sure enough, they had a gigantic rally of the Vespa club in the piazza. There were hundreds!

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The Christmas tree was sawed up into little piece on the 7th, the day after Epiphany. They sawed off all the limbs, then chopped up the trunk. Much faster coming down that going up. They also took up all the red carpets and removed all the lights in the streets. So it is now bleak January. It is really quite warm right now. I was out on the patio and it was like spring. We hope we have some good cold snaps because it is needed to kill off the bugs that infected the grapes and olives last year.

Here is a final photo of my Bolognese sauce cooking on our stove in my Mom’s big ole cast iron pan. Just nice.

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January 2, 2015

We enjoyed our New Years Eve at Patrick’s Enotecca. He had a nice spread of food, some of which was from the Tyrol in northern Italy as his wife comes from there. It was paired with some wines from that region as well. The town shot off fireworks at midight which we watched until we were too cold. Afterwards we walked back into town and the band was in full swing. We headed on into our house while Susan and company stayed out and hopped up and down to the music as the Italians do. The noise was quite bearable and the cats seemed to have acclimated to the constant fireworks which everyone seems to have.

On January 1 we had a very nice New Year lunch with Susan and Gary and her sister, husband and Joseph and Paul. Very nice food catered by Colagranna. My cold caught up with me and I was a tired puppy afterwards and hit the sack early. Too much partying!

Today, January 2 I felt better but still not back to normal. Today was the day we had to drop off the Clown Car. We had decided we could live without a car for the time we needed to wait until our car was ready. We dropped the car at the train station in Perugia and then took the MiniMetro (only 2 blocks away) up to the top of the town. Then we wandered down to the Etruscan Museum that we had wanted to see. It was very good but a few more English write ups would have made me happier. After we were there a couple of hours and I was all Etruscan and Roman artifacted out we went up and had lunch at Pasticeria where we had eaten a couple of times before. The place was PACKED. It had always been pretty empty before but this time they had two big groups and lots of families with little children making it pretty chaotic. We had a nice lunch though and walked down to the OTHER train station. This station is a short line that only goes from Perugia to San Sepulcro. But it is pretty convenient and it dropped us off right in Umbertide.

Monday is the day Befana comes to town. In Italian folklore, Befana is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve (the night of January 5) in a similar way to St Nicholas or Santa Claus. But children get gifts from both Father Christmas and Befana. Lucky kids. I will keep a watch out for her arrival. Maybe grab a picture or two! But here she is as I could find her on the internet.

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Next week we pick up our car… or we THINK we will. After all this is Italy. One never knows…

Carta d’Identita!! And Buon Natale!

WOW! Today a red letter day! Here is what has been happening. Since we received our Permessi last Saturday we have been working hard to get our Residenza. We went to the Comune (city hall) on Monday morning and they did the paperwork for our house. Putting it into our name and showing we will move in at the end of the year for garbage tax etc. We took that to another department where they filled out our papers to get our Residenza which will include a visit by the Police to our house to make sure we actually live there.

On Tuesday we went car shopping in Perugia. It was not very hopeful. We thought we were going to have to order a car which would take a couple of months minimum. We decided we’d go up to Citta di Castello on Wednesday, Christmas Eve, where they have an auto row type street to see about ordering an Alfa. We went to the VW dealer first. The salesman was pretty helpful. We explained we needed to buy a car as soon as possible. He found a VW Golf Diesel with most of what we wanted in Arrezzo (not too far away). They would install the GPS for us at an additional charge. Seemed like a good deal. We told him we would think about it. We wanted to try the Alfa dealer. He pretty much laughed at us saying what we wanted was impossible. Since we did have the VW in hand we decided to go back and buy it.

We did so. They explained that our Permessi were not enough to buy it. We had to have the Residenza. SO when we got back to Umbertide we decided to visit the Police to see if we could speed it up some. Serendipitously we ran into Jim (our realtor) as we were turning away from the Police door after reading their hours. Jim is not put off by closing time. He rang the bell and ushered us right in. He talked to the Policeman who found our visit request at the bottom of a big stack. He explained where we lived and he stamped all our papers and called ahead and we went up and GOT OUR RESIDENZA permits!!! I think getting our Permessi and Residenza in only 3 business days must be a record.

This means we can actually close the deal on the VW and return our rental without extending it (we hope!). This is a most welcome Christmas present for us!

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Other things of interest
We got our guest bed head and foot boards.
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Looks and is comfy!

We also went to Castiglione del Lago with Susan and Gary for lunch on Sunday. It was a lovely, very mild day. Lots of folks out and about. We had a great lunch at Monna Lisa. This is a seafood restaurant that we were sure Susan and Gary would love as we had eaten there with Jodi and Don recently.

Pictures of Castiglione.
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Finally, at the end of a very eventful year for us, we want to wish everyone a Buon Natale! We will have a nice Christmas Eve dinner with friends tonight.

Car shopping

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Sunday we had a delightful lunch at La Collina in Citta di Castello with Susan and Gary. Here’s a picture.

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We sat outside. The weather has been delightfully cool after a short hot spell. We had two plates of assorted Bruschetta. One with meats, the other veggys. Susan said they were known for their brace or grilled meats. Luther and I had the mixed grill. It was only OK in my opinion. The chicken was nice and moist. The lamb not so much. It was fun.

Yesterday we decided to go down to Perugia to “car alley”. Just about every single type of car has a dealer in the same general area. We are shopping for our “practical” car. It has to have seats for four and decent luggage space so we can pick up people who visit. Since it is “my” car I want to like it as well. Not that we can actually buy a car yet. We still have to get our Permesso and residency before we can buy a car. Stupid rule. We have no idea why it is so, but it is.

So we started with Alfa Romeos. I love the little Mito. It may be a tad too small though but I still love it. I want to keep the price around 25,000 Euro or less. When the actual time comes to buy there seem to be a decent amount of used cars at the dealers too so that would be an option. Luther likes the larger Alfa Guilietta. It is a really nice car too. I have pictures of the Mito.

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Cute huh?

Next we saw the BMWs right next door. The One series is what I was looking at. I can’t afford a new one but there was a nice little used one there for about the right price. Here are pictures.

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Next we saw the Mini Coopers because they were housed in the same building as the BMWs. It is too expensive and I don’t really like the Countryman which is the big Mini. Here’s a pic anyway.

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Next we visited the Opel dealer where the Opel Corsa is about the right size and the price is about right. It doesn’t call out to me though.

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Next we went to the Skoda dealer. This car is way cheaper than the others with nice features. It also gets very good reviews. BUT, and it’s an interesting BUT, there is some stigma attached to a former eastern Europe brand. Now it is owned and built by VW. Here are pics.

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We stopped into the Porsche dealer but they had nothing. Only Cayennes and Panamaras. Next door was the VW dealer so we stopped in to look at the VW Golf. We rented one of these and liked it a lot. It is a nice little car with plenty of room.

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After we looked at cars we went to a recommended place for lunch (natch!) and it was nice. I had the pasta with seafood. Luther the “little ears” pasta with fresh tomatoes. Nice bottle of wine from just south of where we ate.

When we got back home Luther went on the internet where you can “build” your car. It is very funny that the base price is for the car with the smallest Gasoline engine. We want a diesel because they are way more economical and are just as fun to drive. When you get the diesel add about 4,000 Euro to the price right off the bat! Also there is no dealing on the cars. All dealers will charge the same price. This makes shopping kind of nice as there is no pressure. Everyone was fine with us just checking out the showroom cars.

So now we just have to wait until we can actually BUY a car!