Category Archives: Eating

Trip to Fabriano

So I am in the hotel and able to use my laptop to update and upload all my pictures so I can catch this blog up. Yay!

We left around 10AM. It is only about an hour drive. Very rugged countryside with lots of big national parks in the Appinine mountains. Big bald mountains and lots of gorges. It was pretty but supposed to rain later and quite cool.

We arrived in Fabriano about 11AM and found our hotel with the help of Serena, our GPS lady. We are staying at Residenza la Ceramica which got good reviews in TripAdvisor. I have to agree. It is a small boutique place right in the heart of the old town. One huge plus is they have a big, gated parking lot right out front.

We went in and checked in but didn’t ask if we could take our bag in as it was early. We headed right out to find the Giotto exhibit. I loved this town. Beautiful Centro with lots of nice small streets and lots of shops. Amazing that I had never heard of it but that goes to show you that the Marche region is way off the tourist track at least for Americans. We heard no English spoken today. The Marche has much to recommend it. Adriatic coast with beaches and cliffs, huge rugged mountains and gorges, lovey interior towns. Nice.

The show was good. It consisted of a main show in the museum downtown and three churches with frescoes. The show explores the vibrant fourteenth century. At this time Fabriano was considered part of Umbria as it had close links. It was close to Gubbio and Assisi and St. Francis visited regularly creating a culture of faith. At the end of the thirteenth century an entirely new western pictorial style was introduced. Giotto’s influence had found it’s way through the pass to Fabriano. Many of the masters are not known widely. Campodonico and Nuzi are among the best and had schools of their own. We looked at all the paintings, statues, and frescoes in the museum. Then we visited the Cattedrale di san Venanzio where a very nice lady showed us into very small, very tall chapels on either side of the alter where there were the remains of beautiful, very vibrant and colorful frescoes. Wonderful.n

Cathedral.

Pictures of the frescoes in the small, very tall side chapels.

Same church, one of the side chapels outside in front of the altar with amazing frescoes.

We then walked to the next church. Kind of a nice touch is that they have stenciled on all the streets the pathways between the churches and exhibits so one only has to follow them.

The next church we again had a nice lady take us into secluded chapels with gorgeous frescos. All about 700 years old.

The sky had clouded up and we found a place just in time before a huge thunderstorm hit complete with thunder, lightening and hail. But we were snug inside with our nice lunch and bottle of wine at Sbrodovino.

By the time we finished lunch the sun was out. We headed to our hotel where we checked into our very nice suite. It has nice skylights, two big rooms and a big modern bath. Very nice.

For dinner we went to Ehmbe. It was a modernish looking place inside an ancient building. It was FREEZING outside. Wow what a change. We had a nice dinner and returned to our hotel. The people at the desk are very friendly. We chatted a bit and headed up to our room.

Morning now and bright sunshine but it’s still cold. We are heading to Metalica (not the band!), a wine region south of here and then on back to Umbertide. I want to post this now while we are here in the hotel with good WiFi.

Catching up

I am still having problems with updating so no pictures right now. I will add them a little later since we are going on a short overnight trip and I should be able to use the hotel wifi. [added pics below]

Sunday was a most gorgeous day. It was sunny, 70s and the perfect blue sky with that beautiful fall sunshine. We had been invited to go to lunch with Susan and Gary and their two guests from California, Irene and George. We went to Calagrana which we had enjoyed once before. It is so pretty. I took some pictures and will add later. Irene and George are vegetarians and Susan had called ahead and they had made a few dishes that they could choose from. Top picture is my veal chop. Next is my porchetta appetizer. Last two are semifreddo desserts.

After lunch we went to Preggio, a hill town that was having a chestnut festival. The place was packed and there was not terribly much to see. Still, since we had to park miles away we got to walk off lunch and continue to enjoy the day. View from Preggio.

They have started to paint the apartment. It is a nice creamy white. Still have not begun to clean up. We got bad news yesterday. Our kitchen is delayed and won’t be installed until November 10th. Nuts.

Yesterday we looked at outdoor furniture. We need to measure before we buy but found some nice stuff. We also bought the living room lights and the ones for the guest bedroom.

As I said in the beginning of this post, we are off on our first trip. It is a town in the Marche called Fabriano about an hour away. They are having a special exhibit at their museum of Giotto works. But the whole town is involved so we thought it was worth an overnight. It will be the first time we left the cats alone.

Great visit!

Well we dropped our guests off at the train station around noon today. We had a great visit. They brought great weather with them. Now that they are gone it is pouring rain.

As you know we had toured Assisi a couple of days before where we learned about St. Francis who was said to be able to talk to animals and once preached a sermon to the birds. Anyway, Kaye was taken particularly with a story about St. Francis and a wolf.

Seems a wolf was eating the people and animals in a town. The desperate citizens asked St. Francis to help. St. Francis went into the woods where the ferocious wolf lived and convinced him that God wanted him to stop hurting the people of the town. The wolf bowed his head and placed his paw in St. Francis’ hand and they went together into the town. The townspeople were astounded and agreed to feed the wolf from then on so he wouldn’t be hungry. He lived two years that way and was buried in the churchyard.

We decided to visit Gubbio yesterday. I did learn a couple of lessons with our first guests, do some research! So I downloaded info on Gubbio. A happy coincidence! Turns out Gubbio is the town where the wolf incident occurred! Kaye said she thought the wolf and St. Francis were her favorite things from her trip. Here is a link to the Wolf of Gubbio Legend.

We tried to visit the Chiesa di Pace where a wolf skeleton was found in the 1800s corroborating the legend. It was closed. Too bad. We toured the upper town, took in the view and visited another church. Here are pictures in the church. One is a fresco of St. Francis and the wolf.

Another coincidence – we had made reservations at Taverna da Lupa (Tavern of the Wolf) so we were all excited that our theme was ongoing. It was a nice place. Not as good as our previous restaurants though. We sat outside. It also turned out to be a Buon Ricordo member. This is a group of restaurants that each have a specialty dish and if you order it you get a ceramic plate (I have probably 6 of them from many vacations – indeed a Buon Ricordo (good memory)). Kaye and I ordered Faraona al ginepro – roasted Guinea Fowl with Juniper – and got our plates. The dish was very good.

The Plate!

All in all a nice day. Last night we went outside so Luther could smoke a cigar. HORRORS! Bar Mary was closed! What was this! Even Cafe Centrale was closed. This morning we found out it is now considered the winter season so they close early on Tuesday. We went back up and got wine and glasses and sat outside. Susan and Gary and Mr. Luca dropped by to meet our guests.

Renovation news

We met with Manuele last evening after our sight seeing. It was good to see much progress. The air conditioning units are installed in the living room and the bedroom. We discussed covering the pipes on the patio. Manuele wants to uncover the old ceiling in the hallway where they installed the new stairway. It is now covered with wallboard but under that is the old vaulted ceiling. Of course we agreed with that! He also discussed with us the fireplace. He wants to change it so it doesn’t look like a Tuscan fireplace (who knew!). It has brickwork and he says they only use stone in Umbria. So I was fine with that as well. I believe he is not charging extra for this as he said “I will do this for you”. Also that Zona di Notte thing was again brought up. Manuele made a pretty good case for it and I think we will have him move a glass door which is at the head of the steps into the hallway. He will tint it which will make the master bedroom and bath more private. He said we could probably start moving in in a couple of weeks! whoo hoo!

Cake looks good!

Here is the finished torta. It is a recipe that I had saved. I wanted something we could have for breakfast and a snack. I only have metric measuring stuff here so had to convert all the amounts. Also the temperature for the oven which is in centigrade. Praise the lord for the internet which makes it very simple. I hope it tastes good! it looks close to what the recipe picture looked like. The sugar here is less granulated or finer so the topping looks a bit different.

Here is the picture from the recipe.

Carsulae, San Gemini and goings on…

So we finally met up with Emanuele at the apartment after the ceiling incident of which he was aware. He found it incredibly amusing that Josephine (the one with the key who showed us the damage) only really wanted him to pay her 10 euro to clean up the dust. And even more amusing was that our downstairs neighbor came to him complaining about the construction and that she was going to the police. Emanuele explained he had all the permits. You may remember this is the same neighbor who called us banditos when we were trying to determine which meter was ours. She went to the police that day as well. After Emanuele explained he had the permits she asked about the floor in the kitchen which he had torn up. Turns out she was just trying to shake him down. She asked him to give her the wood to burn in her fireplace and she wouldn’t go to the police! He was fine with that so everyone is happy. And laughing.

Here is a picture of the pasta I made last night. It is called Bucatini number 9. It is fat spaghetti but it’s hollow! Very popular here and I like it too.

Today we went on a day trip way down to the southern tip of Umbria to a Roman ruin called Carsulae from the 2rd century BC. There is a road called the Via Flaminia that runs from Rome to Remini. It is long! The Romans built that road. There are highways that run it’s route today. This ruin contains a small portion of the original road along with ruins of a town with a theater, forum, and amphitheater. Here are some photos. This is the road, it even has curbs and gutters and you can see the worn places where the cart wheels rolled.

The archway entering the town. Still standing; no mortar!

What’s left of the forum.

We were looking for lunch and were near a town that the books said was one of the prettiest in Italy, and that’s saying a lot! San Gemini is the town. Up on a hill. We did indeed find a nice little restaurant inside the walls called Taverna del Torchhio. We sat outside. It was a beautiful day with light breezes, perfect temperature (finally) and blue skies. I had the beef carpaccio with arugula and cheese and then orecchietti with pesto and a cheese I was unfamiliar with. Luther had panzanella – the typical bread salad and then roasted lamb. All very good. Here is the view from our table.

Here are a few pictures of the beautiful town. The first is a little walkway along the walls. The next is a 11th century church, then the courtyard outside the church and finally a passage through to the walls with the view over the valley.

As I mentioned we are in the middle of the band festival. Last night we were treated to an orchestra with a rock group from Pisa. They even had a man and a woman who danced. It was all very wonderful. The guitarist, bass and drummer in the band were some of the best I’ve ever heard. We actually went out to the piazza to watch. Here’s a picture.

The work has started!!!

I was so excited to run into Emanuele in the Piazza last night while Luther was smoking his cigar. He told us work had started in the apartment today! I went over this morning and sure enough they have moved all the furniture into the living room and have removed the TV and refrigerator. Sorry to say they also removed the built in bookcases in the office. That took me by surprise but oh well, what’s done is done. I believe they started cleaning out the attic too. Here is a picture of the future kitchen with pull down attic stairs.

Today we went to Sansepulcro in Tuscany only 30 kilometers from Umbertide. It is a pretty little town with lots of little streets. They also have a museum with many 15th century paintings which we visited.

Aldous Huxley called this painting the most beautiful painting in the world. It is called the Resurrection. When up close and personal it is extraordinary which this photo doesn’t really get across.

There was an amazing collection of old locks and keys. They were extremely intricate and many were beautiful. This picture shows one of them with its key. Notice the triangle and below it the flower and then below that another shape in the key. The lock is just beside it and you can see where the triangle and the flower fit (you need to click to enlarge). They were pretty incredible.

This is the madonna in a picture from the 1400s by Santi di Tito. She is looking at the Christ child. All of his paintings were wonderful.

These were random items that I was drawn to.

After the tour we went to Ristorante Al Coccio for lunch. It was a very “traditional” looking place with lots of knick knacks.

We chose it because of the aroma wafting from it. It just drew us in! The food was quite a bit different than the Umbrian food we have gotten used to. We started with a traditional Tuscan bread salad as an amuse bouche. The thrifty Tuscans use up old bread this way. By moistening it in the salad dressing of oil and vinegar it softens it up. It was quite refreshing. I had a mushroom flan (never saw that in Umbria) with a cheese fondue and truffles as an antipasti. Then I had the ravioli with Chianini meat sauce from the famous Chianini white cattle. Luther had taglietelle with duck ragu. It was all very good. The people behind us tucked into two big Chianini steaks. We’ll have to go back and get that sometime instead of a primi. It sure smelled wonderful. Here is a picture of my ravioli.

This evening we met up with Michelle and her partner Paul for a drink in the Piazza. She will be leaving in just 3 days. I will miss her a lot. Paul was interesting and he will be here for 10 days after she goes. He is Dutch. Perhaps we’ll see her again before she leaves. We swapped contact info so we can keep in touch. Maybe someday we will meet again…

Tomorrow I will go over to the apartment so see how Giovani did today. I met him while I was there this morning taking a look at the work.

Porchetta

Yesterday was market day. I decided to get my first porchetta panino. In Italy panini are not grilled or heated. It is just the word for sandwich. Porchetta (pronounced por-kay-ta) is sold from trucks and is the most wonderful concoction. It is a whole pig that has been boned and then wrapped in it’s own skin and roasted for a long slow time. The outside gets crunchy crispy and the inside is soft and juicy. At the Wednesday market there are 3 different porchetta trucks. All the time I’ve been going to the market there is always an enormous crowd around one truck. I always figure that that would be the place to get porchetta as obviously everyone else seems to know.

For some reason when I was passing THE truck I noticed there were way fewer people. In fact I was served almost immediately. I asked for a panino and they sliced the pork up right onto a soft roll. I intended to save it for lunch but alas I almost didn’t take a picture of it before it was gone! My favorite part was the unexpected crunch of the salty cracklin’ skin.

My cousin Meg asked me to put up a picture of our sofa in situ in our living room. So here it is. It is very large but fits the space perfectly. It will seat a bunch of folks or two lying down 🙂 I put our two new pillows in the corner.

We have a friend here whose name is Michelle. She is living in a house just behind us owned by a woman named Hillary who owns Alpacas. Michelle is house/alpaca sitting for 10 weeks while Hilary goes back to England to see her new grandbaby. We met Michelle just when she arrived. She was born and raised in Bermuda and speaks with an American accent. She is adventurous and has lived in many places most recently Cypress in a goat shack as she describes it. She likes to garden on the terrace of Hilary’s place so I brought some of the plastic planters with succulents from our terrace to see if she would like to replant them. In turn she brought me a bag of alpaca shit. I spent a bit of time getting it up to our terrace in stages as it weighed a ton. She tells me that unlike horse manure it doesn’t need to “cure” to be used as fertilizer. I will save it until I get new planters. Michelle will only be here a few more days. I will miss her as she is an interesting person. She is going to get her teaching certificate from Montessori and then she thinks she will move to Vietnam for a while. Her partner crews large tanker ships around Africa. Scary nowadays with all the pirates.

Yesterday evening around 9PM or so we heard a lot of people talking from BEHIND our house. This is unusual as it is a tiny little alley of a street and is normally very quiet. It is the same street that has the cat ladder I mentioned. I peered down from our window and saw a bunch of folks and several long tables with benches all set for feast. And feast they did!

It got very loud and they had an accordion. It sounded like the perfect Italian celebration. We weren’t sure of the occasion but I think it was an engagement party. I suppose it could have been an anniversary party for a long married couple. Whatever it was it was obvious they were having fun. I got up at 12:30 and it was silent and there wasn’t a trace of the party. The picture above isn’t very good but it will give you an idea of the tiny street and the people gathered there.