Category Archives: everyday life in Umbria

Morning walk

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I am determined to start walking more regularly so today I got up and headed out before it got too hot. I walked up-river. There were a lot of fishermen out. I walked along the river then cut up into the farm fields and along a small road and back to the river where I took the “high” road. It is a small, shady path above the river path. I took some pictures.

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After I got back I went over to the apartment to get some more coat hangers, clothes and to clean out one of the planters that had dead plants in it. It was much harder than I thought it would be. The plants had been there a long time and the roots were throughout the entire planter. I finally managed to get the dead lavender and the live rosebush out. I would like to plant some herbs in it. Maybe at the Saturday market I can find some. I also need to find some soil. The other planters are full of succulents and the soil is rock hard. Here’s a picture of the planter I cleaned out.

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Garlic and short tents

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Yesterday was market day. We ventured out and found a few things were different. The biggest truck was missing leaving a large hole in the center. The beer guy was in that spot. Just outside our door was a new stand with piles and piles of garlic and onions. That’s all he was selling. As we strolled around looking at the wares we noticed a tent was set up with only half of it’s leg height extended. It had nothing under it.

We finally figured out that the big missing truck and this person were on their summer vacation. I guess the short tent guy must have had someone set it up to keep his spot from being stolen. Ha! So the summer vacations run from mid-July to the end of August. Nothing gets done in Italy during this time. Even the government offices close and the libraries.

The produce is really hitting it’s high summer stride now. The tomatoes are fabulous. They just have four kinds. Romas for sauce, normal red ones, cherry and striped ones for salads. No heirlooms. They sell them ripe and nearly green so they keep for a week and ripen. We bought some from the local producer stand – tomatoes, basil, arugula, zucchini, eggplant. A lot of the produce is from far away like Puglia and Sicily. With the makings of a salad we bought two balls of mozzarella di buffala. We bought a quarter watermelon. We bought pecorino cheese. We also decided to try the porchetta. There are about 4 stands that sell it. It is a whole pig that is boned and rolled and slow roasted. It melts in your mouth. We got some from each end and a little of the crackling crisp skin. We had it along with the tomato mozzarella salad for dinner last night and it was great.

Here is a shot from our window at the aftermath of the market. The screen in the window messes it up but you can see all the trash they leave behind. The town cleans it up.

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We also met up with Emanuele and the lighting lady. We walked over to the apartment and she and Emanuele discussed his ideas. He had been in the apartment yesterday and tore up some of the floor in the kitchen to see what was underneath. It was good news, tiles.

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That means the floor doesn’t have to be reinforced to lay new tile over the old tiles. He also had brought samples of 6 different tiles. We chose the one we liked best. He will use a slightly different one for the patio which is more textured so it won’t be slippery.

Here is a picture of the big floor tile, the quartz counter top sample and the sample of the cabinet finish.

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Aqua and house reno choices

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The last two days have been very, very busy! Monday we had an appointment with Cecilia at 11AM to transfer the water contract. The office is only open from 9:30AM to 12:30PM on Mondays. Closed the month of August. We had to read the water meter before we went. At least we didn’t get called banditos this time! We had to borrow a screw driver to pry up the metal plate in the street and then we wrote down all three numbers. We had been told it was best to go to the office in late morning as the line was shorter. We got number 49. They were serving number 27. It took half an hour to get to 29. Not very encouraging. The good news is that they will serve you even if it’s after 12:30. We finally got it at 12:45 and got it all taken care of. Still, it was a very long wait.

Next we went home to grab something for lunch and we had an appointment at 2:30 to meet Emanuele to go look at kitchens at Pedini Cucine. Click to see the beautiful kitchens! Pedini is in Fano which is over by the Adriatic sea. It is in the Marche region. We didn’t see the sea or the town, just the industrial area. We got there around 4PM after getting lost in the little suburban neighborhood. Emanuele is a good, fast Italian driver. Only made us nervous when he was texting (!)

They have an English speaking person named Sabrina at Pedini. She was super nice and very helpful. There was also a man named Roberto who had lots of opinions 🙂 Well I had already been on the website and had an idea what I wanted. I quickly picked out the finish, the counter top material and color. Then I had to pick out all the different sorts of cabinets and their inner workings. They are really quite amazing. I also had to pick out appliances. I am springing for a very good stove. The other appliances will be Siemens which is German. The bad news is that the kitchen won’t be ready until late October 🙁 Now I wait with bated breath for the estimates.

Here is the double drawer I picked. I couldn’t find a picture of the corner cabinet but it is amazing!

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Today, Tuesday, we went with Emanuele to the lighting place up in Citta di Castello. It was a nice place with lots of very ugly lights. The Italians have some very strange taste. Lucky for me they also had some more clean lined, simple fixtures. Emanuele has some pretty strong opinions and it is just lucky that I happen to agree with him most of the time. Our taste is similar. If we didn’t I’d have to do a lot more push back. We are going to do cable track lighting in all rooms except the living room where I want to do floor lamps. I think Emanuele wants to do lights in there too so there may be a struggle over that. Cable track lighting is cool because Emanuele can come through the steel support of the vaulted stone ceilings and just make one hole then attach the cable which gives electricity to the individual little spot LED lights that hang from it and runs the length of the room so you can aim the spots for optimal coverage where you want it. It’s very sleek and modern. You can have up to 6 spots on each cable. They will also all have dimer switches. We left with an appointment at 10AM tomorrow for them to come see the house.

This afternoon we meet and Emanuele will have the tiles to look at and he will bring them to the apartment so we can look at them on the floor. He also wants to bring his plumber so they can look under the kitchen floor to see what is there.

So after tomorrow morning everything will be in motion to get final estimates for the Kitchen, lighting, tiles and the construction work. Not that there’s any hurry now since everyone goes on holiday in August and so we might as well relax. In September work will start and hopefully it really will be done by late October. I have a little doubt though. I hope it will be done by American Thanksgiving!

Weekend

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It was a good weekend. We went to the market on Saturday morning. I like the Saturday one better than the big Wednesday one. That evening we had reservations to attend a concert at the Civitelli Ranieri by Jamaaladeen Tacuma one of the fellows. He is probably around our age and grew up in Philadelphia. He is a bassist. He had 3 other musicians backing him up, or playing with him. The first number was one of those jazz pieces that I just detest. I was dreading the rest of the show. But after that one I liked each one better than the last. It was a great show. Susan and Gary went with us.

On Sunday we went to Spoleto accompanied by Susan and Gary to see the furniture I mentioned. We drove down and followed Betty’s perfect directions to the parking garage. We phoned them and Betty and Bob walked down to meet us and lead us to their house. They live right in the centro storico. Lovely area. Spoleto is a beautiful city. probably about 40,000 people so not too big, not too small. I had thought of moving there but couldn’t really find anyone or any real estate while searching.

Bob and Betty have lived in Spoleto for five years. They rent an apartment. They also lived in the Sudan, Croatia and Serbia before moving there. They have decided to return to the US, somewhere in California.

The furniture was really pretty. Bob is an engineer and designed much of the furniture we saw. It was built to fit their space so making it work in ours would be difficult. I did like the bedroom sets and the chairs in the living room. There were many small appliances and things we could use. I am still thinking about whether to buy anything. The only issue is getting it to Umbertide.

After we left Bob and Betty we went up to the Piazza Mercato. It was the big Jazz festival called 2 Mondi in town so it was decorated nicely. Below are bells strung on blue ribbons. They are sister cities with Charleston SC and they each do a Jazz festival every year.

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I was looking for Osteria del Matto supposed to be just off this Piazza. It is a pretty vine covered place. They were booked but let us go down into the cellar where there was a table set up for 6 people. It turned out to be a great place to sit. It was quieter than the room above. Here we are just before lunch began.

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I had been told it was a quirky place and it lived up to it’s reputation. I also heard that Mamma is in the kitchen and they feed you what Mamma makes. It was remarkable. They brought a plate of each of 10 course. You served yourself so I could do portion control. Everything was great. Here is what we had.

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Bruschetta with tomato
Bruschetta with anchovies w/greens
meatballs
salad
Fried ricotta
Pork with mustard sauce
fried zucchini blossoms
tomato porcini pasta
sweet ricotta with fruit

The service was pretty unique as well. We had a woman and a man who came with the food and wine. I believe that the man is Matto who is the son of Mamma. He was pretty amusing.

The total bill was 25 euro per person including 2 and a half liters of red house wine. We were there about four hours but the time flew. The conversation was fun.

Back we went to Umbertide. I will go back to Spoleto and probably visit Osteria del Matto again too.

Last night was the world cup. The Piazza was packed. We saw Jim (our real estate agent) for the first time since he had returned from Croatia. It was a fun weekend.

Slow Friday

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Today was kind of a slow day. We drove back down to the big Coop that Susan and Gary took us to in the mall and I took my time going through the store. It has a much bigger selection than the Umbertide one and kind of reminds me of the Wegman type store in Virginia. It was probably that big. Here’s a picture of the mall.

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And here are the whole proscuiti in the store.

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I found some products I wanted to try like cinghale ragu in a jar. Also found chicken broth which none of the stores in Umbertide had.

We came back home and I asked Luther to drive into the fields outside of town so I could take some pictures of the girasoli or sunflowers. They are in massive fields and in full bloom right now. Here are some pictures.

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After we schlepped all that stuff up to the apartment we went across the river to Pizzeria Pomarancio. It has such a pretty back deck overlooking the town and the river and on a pretty day like today it is really nice to eat out there. Here are some pictures. The top is the town from the terrace. The bottom one is one of the fishermen. They are having a big tournament right now and there are tons of fishermen with all their spectacular (and I’m sure expensive) gear.

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Permesso di Soggiorno applied for!

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A quiet Sunday. A picture of the Piazza on a Sunday afternoon. Very quiet.

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Here are our boys on Neighborhood watch Italian style!

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And a pretty balcony in the Piazza.

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We did our construction homework from Emanuele today and went through the house carefully noting anything that we would want changed or fixed. I emailed that list off to him.

We also worked on the paperwork for our Permesso and got ready to make copies on Monday morning. Since we don’t have a printer/scanner/copier yet we went to the Tabacchi which is a shop that sells all sorts of useful things. They make copies, they sell tax stamps called Marca da Bolla, they sell train and bus tickets, lottery tickets and sundry other things depending on the shop. We had to make copies of all the documents that we took when we got our visa. Also had to make copies of EVERY page of our passports! We purchase our Marca da Bolla which is necessary for the Soggiorno.

We then went to the post office with all of our paperwork, 4 passport photos, copies of everything, and our Marca da Bolla. We had a bit of trouble figuring out which button to push to get our number in the waiting line but after reading closer it was clear that we needed the “P” line. There didn’t seem to be any lines servicing “P”s but we kept waiting and finally one came up. We probably had to wait at least an hour but we got everything done, got a receipt that we had applied, got an appointment at the Questura (police) for July 27 in Citta di Castello the next town north of us. We have to take copies of nearly everything to the police as well as our photos etc and get fingerprinted etc. It takes a few months to get the final Permesso.

Next step is to see if we can get our carta di identita or Identity card. The rule, we are told, is that you have to have your residency to buy a car or a TV set. And you can’t get that until you have your Permesso finished. SOME have said you can use the RECEIPT you receive from the post office and buy a car. I am not sure how to find out whether this is true. But we have our car rented for 3 months so have some time to figure it out.

So today was yet another hurdle managed. Baby steps. Things get done as they will. Tomorrow we visit Emanuele about getting our estimates for the construction work.

Meeting with our Geometra

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This morning we had a meeting with Emanuelle and Antonio, his engineer. They first went up into the attic for him to check the roof. GREAT news, the roof is fine. That makes my day. Then they came down and did a lot of measuring on the patio and in the kitchen.

After Antonio left I worked with Emanuelle on the kitchen design. We came up with a very nice solution and I think I will be very happy with it. Now I need to go on the kitchen site and pick what cabinets I want. We also need to come up with a checklist of all the things we want done to include all outlets for lighting and plugs, etc.

This afternoon he will bring his electrician and plumber over to have a look at 4:30. Things are moving!

Today is Luther’s birthday. We had asked Susan and Gary to join us for lunch at an agriturismo called il Melograno about 30 minutes from here. The word means Pomegranate tree. They informed us that it was a prix fixe lunch which is fine but you know it would be multiple courses. It was good, if basic Umbrian food. To start we had a small plate of pearled faro in a donut shape. It was cool and lemony. Then an antipasti plate with so many things I can’t list them all. Some were french fries! rice ball, sweet cheese and nut ball, prosciutto, salami, small flat bread, tomato mozzarella in crunch cup with watercress, eggplant with roasted tomato – more that I can’t remember. Next was the primi or pasta course. It was ricotta stuffed ravioli with tomato sauce. Secondi was roasted pork tenderloin with salad and thin sliced sauteed potatoes. Tiramisu for dessert which only Gary had. It was good and tasty and very reasonable.

Sorry no pictures, forgot my camera!

A lovely dinner with our Geometra and his family

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This was a last minute invitation that was communicated to us by Gary from Emmanuelle. His mother was making her famous cinghiale or wild boar. We were invited to join the famiglia. What fun we had!

They were such a nice family, so inclusive. There was Antoinette, the mother of Emmanuelle. Her husband, Lucio, Emanuelle and Barbara, his wife and their two boys who did not join us at the table. And of course Susan and Gary. We started with American hot dogs! they were on actual hot dog buns. They had cut the dogs in half long ways and then in half the other way. They had mustard and catsup too!. It was because it was July 4th and they knew we celebrated. They thought we would want turkey! Ha! I guess because of Thanksgiving they think all of our celebrations involve Turkey. Susan had told her no, just at Thanksgiving but for July 4th we had hotdogs and hamburgers. Hence the hot dogs! I got a nice flatbread with proscuitto. It was great. Then the main event, the cinghiale. It had been marinated and stewed until it fell apart. Lovely dish with a tomato base. Also there was a spinach and beet green vegetable dish. After that we had a nice green salad with cold green beans. Finally for dessert we had watermelon! It was perfect and light. There was much wine and the patriarch of the family brought out his home made sweet liquor. It was based on hawthorns (but I don’t know how – as far as I know hawthorns don’t have fruit) and it was very sweet, pretty potent, and very good. I had a small glass.

Well it was all just such fun. Susan and Gary said now WE are famiglia and all will be right with the world.

We walked over to the Piazza where the world cup was on and there were lots of people watching. Luther had his cigar with some grappa. Emmanuelle and Barbara came over to see their friends.

Market day and lunch

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Today marks the anniversary of our first week here!

Today is Wednesday which is the big market day here in Umbertide. It it HUGE. In front of our apartment in the Piazza is the food part of the market. There are maybe 6 or 7 vegetable and fruit vendors, probably 5 or 6 Porchetta (whole suckling pig that they slice for you) vendors, 2 fish dealers, 3 or 4 cheese vendors (some specialize in Mozzarella di Buffala others in fresh ricotta), two flower and plant dealers. Then the market sprawls around the castle complex and there were probably 30 clothing, shoe, household goods like sheets, dealers. It was amazing. Here are pictures of the castle (first) and one of the aisles in the clothing market.

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I bought some vegetables and fruit and some little, tiny clams and calamari to make a spaghetti dish. Love those little clams. Everything was very crowded and you had to compete with a lot of people.

I ran into Michelle who I met at the Cuba Feste. She is the one taking care of the alpacas. She told me a funny story about the first morning she went out to tend them. The male had gotten in with the females. She has NO IDEA how but they were very calm after a busy night 🙂

We decided to go across the bridge to the wine shop we had visited a couple of days ago. They served lunch several days a week. They had 3 tables out front under umbrellas. The food was very good. We had some good bread with olive oil, and a couple of slices of proscuitto and cheese. Then we both had the tomato eggplant pasta. Perfectly al dente. The funny part was that both of the other tables were full of english speakers! One was all Brits. The other was a couple of American women who had been on a painting holiday in Tuscany and their friend Geoff who lives in Umbertide and is British and another man who is German. One of the women heard us speaking and came and sat right down with us and asked us where we were from. We had a nice conversation. Turns out she is from LA and the other woman lives just near the French Embassy in Georgetown in DC. Small world. I got contact info from her and Geoff. Geoff is a builder and real estate agent here. He is interested in having a website so I may have a little work from our encounter.

Another interesting day. It is warm with brilliant blue skies here right now.

An Evening at Civitella Ranieri

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Our friend John sent us an email about a concert being held at Civitella Ranieri. It is a 15th century beautiful castle on top of a hill just outside of Umbertide. We decided to go last evening. Civitella Ranieri is a non-profit foundation (based in NYC) which hosts Fellows and guests who are musicians, writers or artists. Lucky Fellows! This place is magnificent and they cater to the artists every whim. The concerts are free and start with a reception with wine and snacks. Then the concerts starts around 6PM or so. They do it early because the artists go to dinner at the castle after the concert.

It was not what I expected at all. First off the castle was just amazing. Here are some pictures:

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The room where the concert was held was one of the visiting artists studios. Each artist gets a private room and bathroom and a study or studio. Here is a picture during the performance:

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There were 7 performances. They ranged from classic to extremely modern. The first one was a flutist. It involved a lot of percussive movements of the lips. Not my favorite. Next was a beautiful pair of songs played on the violin and sung by a mezzo-soprano. She had a beautiful voice full of passion. They were adapted from medieval French folk songs. I liked it. Then came a saxophone quartet. It was amazing and impossible to describe. Very modern but I liked it a lot. The next thing was a violinist. The piece was all harmonics. It was kind of “look what I can make my violin do”. It was interesting. It sounded like we were listening to the violin from a great distance. Sometimes it sounded like birds. Sometimes it reminded me of music from a film like The Exorcist. Then there was a flute and piano piece – modern too – the composer was sitting next to me. It was titled Ruin of the Cypress. Next was a pianist playing a very modern piece. Last was the mezzo-soprano and a pianist. The song was an ode to a sub-culture of Peruvian people who are oppressed. She sung it so plaintively! It made me cry.

It was a great evening and I look forward to going again soon.

Here are a couple more pictures. First is a flower in the garden and then a picture of the table set for the Fellows to eat dinner al fresco. Nice.

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We returned to the apartment and a quick dinner. Here is the sunset from the apartment. So pretty!

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