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Trip to Abruzzo

This is another trip report so if you are not interested just skip this post.

We decided just last week to take a trip for two nights to the province of Abruzzo. We had long wanted to go to Ascoli Pecena in the Marche region too and it is just north of the Abruzzo border. This province is just south of the Marche on the Adriatic coast.

We left in a rainstorm which only got worse as we drove along. We headed east when we reached Spoleto and headed into the magnificent gorge through the Appinine mountains. In fact there is no way to get to any of the coastal towns on the Adriatic without braving some very rugged countryside. In this case the Corno river cut a deep gorge to Norcia, which is famous for it’s lentils, cured meats, and truffles. After we left Norcia and headed up into the next range of mountains the skies REALLY let loose and we could hardly see the road. We also were behind a truck. This all made for a very slow trip.

We finally came down out of the mountains and passes into a pretty valley in which Ascoli Pecena is situated. We bypassed the town this day and headed south into the foothills to find a recommended lunch place. Little did we know that this was a hill town and presently, we were in a cloud! We groped our way up and up with fog lights blazing and very short visibility until finally the GPS said we had arrived. We actually couldn’t see them but the city walls loomed just ahead. Later we found out you can see the Adriatic from there. There are lots of benches for viewing. Also there is a large fortress. Who knew!?

We walked around in the lightly sprinkling rain. It was a very pretty little town and is supposed to have the narrowest street in Europe.

We found the restaurant in a hotel on one of the main squares. Zunica 1880 has been a family operation since 1880. The dining room was lovely and empty. We were well taken care of by a nice waiter who right away brought us the Nuovo Olio pressed just two days ago! It was bright green and grassy and very peppery in the throat. A treat.

We had a lovely Montipulciano d’Abruzzo to accompany the fine meal.

I was amused at the picture hanging on the wall. It was obviously a painting of the room we were sitting in. Notice the chandelier in both the room and the picture. And the walls, curtains and furniture were the same.

After lunch we visited Iluminati winery. Everyone was very busy with the crush. This winery was bottling and labeling wine to go to Russia. It is a big operation as you can see from the pictures. They took time to let us taste and we bought a few bottles.

We headed back to find our Agrigurismo, Emidio Pepe. It is an organic winery and normally serves dinner. For some reason they were not doing so on our visit. We were the only people there the first night and were joined by two other parties the second night. We had such a big lunch we had bought a picnic and had it in the common area where we watched TV and sat out on the porch. It was still raining and foggy so we would have to wait until the next day to see our surroundings. The next morning was rain-washed and partly sunny and I really loved the view. As you can see they haven’t brought in the red wine grapes yet. We snagged a bunch for our picnic and they were so Sweet!

After breakfast we headed out towards Pescara. Luther wanted to visit more wineries and I had hoped to see Pescara which is on the coast. There is a good, fast, toll road all the way down the coast. We got off and fought our way through sprawling, ugly suburbs and lots of traffic. Ugh! finally got into the hills and started looking for some wineries. We tried the GPS. It was not much help. It could find the towns but not the street addresses which were generally outside of town. It was beautiful countryside though and I snapped some very nice pictures of the olive trees.

After much looking we homed in on one place called Torre dei Beati. We asked and got directions. We couldn’t find it. We stopped again. We went – no go. Again we stopped. This time I asked and what a surprise. We were at the end of a tiny road that dead-ended into a farmyard. The woman I approached to ask if she knew where it was asked me what language I spoke and I said Englese. Turns out she was from NYC and had a very thick NY accent. How strange and what a small world! She clued us in that there was bad blood between the two wineries on her road. We again looked and found a very big operation but that was all. We gave up and went to find lunch.

We stopped at a fish restaurant called Carmine. Loved the name. The food was excellent and we had the wine from the winery we had still not found. Yum.

The seafood wasn’t bad either!

After lunch we were still determined to find. That. Winery. Persistence wins the day and we did find it. It had no sign at all. They were heavily into the crush too but the wine owner and maker was super nice and spoke good english. We enjoyed tasting his wines and looking around his place. Of course we bought some wine!

This is a picture of the big crusher at the winery up the hill.

Vines heavily laden with grapes.

At Torre dei Beati they hand picked and sorted their grapes.

The tasting room.

Luther with the winemaker

I am not sure if The Wine Guy will write about this place so the rest can wait.

Following another picnic dinner we left for home on Friday. I had wanted to go to Ascoli Piena so we first visited a winery (what else?) then the town. It was a lovely place, said to have the most beautiful piazza in italy.

Colonnades around the square.

We headed homeward planning to stop in Norcia for lunch. We went up through the passes and mountains, passing a place I really want to return to called Castelluccio. We had chosen Vespasia for a fine, last lunch.

We were the only people there. It is a hotel so has to stay open. Our captain named Andrea was super nice and had spent 15 years in Orlando, only returning to Italy last year. For love. He married and has a 2 month old son. Her family lives in the Montefalco area and has a winery with apartments that they run.

The lunch was spectacular with many “gifts”. I had the poached egg on potatoes and potato foam with black truffles. yum. Luther had the trout. We both had the special pasta. Here are some pictures. Sorry I took so many! Gift one, olive oil and crackers.

Gift two, Pork belly.

Rose and Montefalco roso.

Luther’s trout.

My potato, egg, truffle dish.

Our pasta.

Sorbet and truffles.

Grappa for Luther.

We had successfully completely filled every nook and cranny in the Porsche with wine and had just enough room for the luggage. A fun trip!

Sighişoara, Transylvania

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Romania trip report index

Part Four

Sighişoara is a lovely town. Pronounced ziggyshwara. It is fairly large when you count all the outlying suburbs but the historic part is the Citadel. It started life as a Church on a Hill, which became a fortress. It floats above the modern, lower town. It was built after the Tartar invasion of 1241 which scared the bejesus out of everyone so they fortified. Now it has hotels, inns, restaurants and more souvenir shops than you’d ever need. One thing though, it is a living town, not just a tourist area, with school children laughing through the squares and small streets, church bells calling the faithful.

Streets and scenes of Sighişoara.

We did the walking tour this morning. There are several gates and towers. Nearest our hotel is the Bootmakers Tower now housing the radio station. The main gate is the Clock Tower which is just next to the Monastery Church, now Protestant. There are also the furriers tower, the tailors tower, and the butchers tower. We hiked up the covered staircase, built in 1666 and has 175 wooden stairs. It carried the German school children to the school above. The school is just next to the Church on the Hill (Biserica din Deal), considered the most valuable historical monument in the town. It was built in the 13th century but stands on the site of a much older chapel.

Monastery Church

Main gate.

Mechanical clock in main gate clock tower.

175 steps up a covered staircase brings you to the German School and the Church on the Hill.

Door in the Church on the Hill.

Murals dating from 1483 were destroyed by a fire in 1776. A recent restoration brought back fragments of the frescoes.

Tombstones in the cemetery behind the church.

View from town up to the Church on the Hill.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Sighişoara is the birthplace of Prince Vlad Dracul aka Vlad the Impaler. He lived his first 4 years in this house, now a restaurant.

All the souvenir shops had T-shirts.

We had lunch in T. Josef Restaurant and Winebar just down the hill in the lower city. It was a pretty, dark paneled room with a great old bar. It was situated in the Park Central Hotel. It had good food and we decided to have dinner tomorrow evening there.

My tomato soup.

Bucharest, Romania

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This is going to be a trip report so if reading stuff like this is not your thing you can stop reading now. Also, I will be posting these after we returned. I tried to write them as we traveled but had to wait to return to have access to my pictures.

Romania trip report index

Part One

We flew from Perugia airport on Wizz Air. Despite the name the flight was on-time and fine. The odd habit of people in parts of Europe to applaud when the plane lands was performed enthusiastically.

We took a cab and it was rush hour. Wow what traffic. We are glad we are not driving. Our cab driver spoke Romanian and French. This turned out to be the norm. Who knew the second language in southern and eastern Romania was French?! The time is an hour later than in Italy so we got to our hotel after seven. We are staying in the K+K Hotel Elisabeta. We had booked a restaurant called The Artist for 8:30. It was too rushed for me. We walked on the advice of our hotel. We got a little lost and finally arrived about ten minutes late. But we were glad we went.

The food was really good. The service, less so. It is a small restaurant with about 13 tables. It is in the old town which is chock-a-block with eateries and drinking venues. They have an interesting idea to let you try a bite of each course if you want. It’s called Spoonfuls. We tried that with the appetizer. It was great! There were also some “gifts” from the chef, one of which they poured a liquid into the dish and it steamed like dry ice. Pretty nifty. Another was a tall glass of gingery palette cleansing liquid. My entree was pork “ravioli”, really one big sandwich. A nice dinner.

Our first day we had a most excellent breakfast and headed off for a walking tour. Bucharest, having been the most repressive communist country, is a city in transition 26 years after the fall. It has gorgeous Orthodox churches, modern buildings next to decrepit crumbling ones. There are horrible communist buildings that are very ugly but there are also many old houses that survived communism which are beautiful if in need of a lot of TLC. Ceaușescu tried his best to raze the city but a lot managed to remain. I think it will become gentrified eventually.

After our long walk we headed back to the old town where we had lunch in a touristy place. I had a basic caprese salad. Back to the hotel to kick back for a while before dinner at Bistro GUXT. It turned out to be nice. The owner was very enthusiastic about wine, food and beer. I liked that it had a few Asian inspired dishes. So, I had a nice half portion salad with Gorgonzola and pears, and for an entree I had spicy prawns in coconut milk with rice. Lovely after such a long time without anything like it.

So that ended our first day. Here are some selected pictures. I hope it gives sort of an overview of the differences throughout the city.

The first four are of the oldest Eastern Orthodox church. Such beautiful detail.

This was just a random frieze on a building which I thought beautiful.

This was the Armenian cathedral.

Turns out their were many famous Armenians that immigrated to Romania and beyond. Cher and Steve Jobs are just two. They had a memorial to them.

The good the bad and the ugly. First the ugly. Note the added air conditioners.

There was a good bit of Dada inspired architecture. This one needs major help but note the facade.

Could be beautiful. Needs TLC as many buildings do.

Beautiful French influence in many of the buildings.

New roof. Venetian window.

And the bad old days of Communism. This is Ceaușescu‘s Palace.

Guest-less for now

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Our latest guests, Steve and Shiromi have gone on to new adventures in Turkey. We very much enjoyed their stay. After our visit to Gubbio we decided the other big town to see would be Perugia. We did some shopping and explored what is left of the fortress built after the Salt war. It was commissioned by the Pope as a symbol of Papal power and was built in 1540. They rased an entire borgo (over 100 houses plus churches and monasteries) to include the houses of the Baglioni family whom the Pope hated. It is eerie to wander what were the streets of the borgo and see the remains of all the houses, which were built of stone as opposed to the brick of the fortress. Here are some photos. It is hard to show the scale of the place. the ceilings are very tall.

This is a street sign (!) underground.

We also visited the enormous Etruscan gate. It was built 2,400 years ago and used no mortar. Impressive.

When Cesar Augustus conquered the city he carved his name into the gate.

Relaxing in the main piazza. Note the little buzzer in the center of the table to call for service. I’d never seen this before.

We had a lovely lunch at Ristorante Antica trattoria san Lorenzo. We had been here before and enjoyed the very innovative cuisine. Steve and Shiromi enjoyed it too. We all had the lunch special. This first picture is the little “gift” from the chef before we got the appetizer.

This was the rabbit.

We bid Steve and Shiromi goodbye on Thursday. Since then we have been relaxing a little. Right now Umbertide is having the week-long concert festival called Rassegna Bande Musicali Citta di Umbertide. The concert bands come from towns all around us and are very good, most performing excerpts that are very familiar like the march in Carmen. Sorry for the blur!

I also learned an interesting factoid. Here in Italy you are buried on a Friday, married on a Saturday, and christened on a Sunday! I enjoy watching the weddings from our window. Yesterday there were two that I noticed. The first had an impressive Lincoln stretch limo. The picture below is of the second wedding. This bride was really rocking it out! They had a very loud sound system set up and a DJ spinning the tunes. And note her red shoes!

Tomorrow we greet Ron and Linda, Americans who live in Florence. We met them in Virginia before they moved to Italy about 5 years ago. We were at that time just dreaming of moving here so we picked their brains about how they were accomplishing it. They don’t have a car and use the rails to travel. We’ll pick them up at the station and visit some places they can’t reach by train. I am looking forward to seeing them.

St. Francis and the wolf…redux

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Last year we had company, Kaye and Jeff who were very interested in the legend of St. Francis and the wolf. See post for the legend. We had tried to visit the church in Gubbio where a wolf skeleton was found buried beneath the floor but it was closed. Kaye was bummed. So yesterday, with friends of Kaye and Jeff named Shiromi and Steve, we tried again to visit the church and it was open!! We descended into the crypt and found the stone that was covering the grave as well as a stone cut of the wolf and St. Francis. It was very cool.

Stone cutting.

Stone from the grave.

Upstairs in the same church we found a surprise. First I have to tell you that every May Gubbio has an enormous festival/race. The town is divided into three neighborhoods. They compete to carry something called a Cero or candle up from the bottom of Gubbio, to the top of the mountain. The Ceri each weigh around 700 pounds. In the back of the church we found the stored ceri. They are immense. They attach to a frame and are carried upright. They must be very top heavy. The crowds are frighteningly large. We have not gone as we have been warned. Here are the three ceri (sorry for the blur).

It was a hot day and we did some good hill climbing. I also found a ceramic shop I had been looking for. I will return to buy a thing or two there. Here is an old iron ring to which horses were tethered.

And this one I just thought was pretty.

We had lunch at Ristorante Lupo (Wolf ) at the request of our guests. Here is a picture of Steve’s pretty carpaccio dish. We also got another Buon Ricordo plate while here.

For our breakfasts with Shiromi and Steve I decided to try a new coffee cake. It has been a hit. It is very moist and keeps well getting better as time passes. Shiromi told me I had to share the recipe so here it is.

Marmalade Cake – 8 to 10 servings
Adapted from the Boonville Hotel

1 small to medium orange
1 lemon
6 ounces raw almonds
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
4 large eggs, ideally at room temperature
½ tsp. table salt
1 ½ cups sugar
2/3 cup olive oil
Confectioners’ sugar, for serving

First, get to work on the citrus. Put the orange and the lemon in a saucepan, and cover with water. (They’ll want to float. Don’t worry about it.) Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; then reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 30 minutes. Drain, and cool.

Meanwhile, toast the almonds. Preheat the oven to 325°F, and set a rack in the middle position. Put the almonds on an ungreased sheet pan, and bake until they look golden and smell warm and toasty, 10 to 15 minutes. (I tend to get nervous about burning them, and consequently, I always try to pull them out of the oven too soon. Don’t do that. Let them really toast.) Set aside to cool completely. When the almonds are cool, pulse them in a food processor until finely ground, the texture of coarse sand. Set aside.

Set the oven to 350°F, and grease a 9-inch round springform pan.

When the citrus is cool, cut the lemon in half, and scoop out and discard the pulp and seeds. Cut the orange in half, and discard the seeds. Put the lemon rind and orange halves in the food processor – there’s no need to wash it after grinding the almonds – and process to chop finely, almost to a coarse paste.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.

Combine the eggs and salt in a mixing bowl. Beat until foamy. Gradually beat in the sugar. Fold in the flour mixture. Add the citrus, almonds, and olive oil, and beat on low speed to just incorporate. Do not overmix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in its pan on a wire rack. Remove the sides of the pan. Before serving, dust the cake with confectioners’ sugar.

Note: This cake tastes even better on the second – or even third – day, as the flavors meld and mellow. Store it at room temperature, covered with plastic wrap.

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Today we took a nice walk, stopped for coffee in the Piazza, and were joined by our friend Michelle. They are also having an antique car show here which we visited as they were setting up. We plan lunch at Calagrana a bit later. It is a pretty day so it will be nice.

American guest

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I know I have been quiet but we have had some company. His name is Gene and he stayed for about a week. We went to Assisi, Perugia, wine tasting and Bevagna for lunch and Luther took him by train to (very crowded) Florence. I am glad I opted out of the later! We also took a trip to Isola di Maggiori in Lago Trasemeno. This last was a first for us. We had been meaning to go for some time. It is a nice, down kind of day after a lot of climbing up and down hill-towns. We had lunch at Da Sauro on the porch. The food was not notable. Still a nice day trip

This is a picture of Bevagna. I was liking how blue the sky was and the big white cloud.

Lunch at Trattoria Oscar. They have a nice terrace. Gene and Luther.

I couldn’t resist taking a picture of my Gaspacho (italian spelling). It was sooo beautiful and cool.

Stairway in Bevagna

Here are a couple of pictures from our excursion to Isola di Maggiori. First a couple of the main (and only) street.

View of the town from ferry pier. It is a 10 minute ride from Tuoro.

You can walk a good distance around the island, but not all the way. Here are Gene and Luther during our walk.

We said Ciao to Gene on Sunday.

Yesterday we visited a winery. The Wine Guy is getting backed up on his posts so be patient. This winery also offered many other products like sausage and prosciutto, and olive oil. I visited the future prosciutti housed nearby.

Finally two in a series of another sunset. Sometimes they can be pretty spectacular.

We are getting ready for another set of visitors from Australia so I will be writing about that soon.

August trip down the shore…

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We had two birthdays to celebrate back in June and July but found we were too busy to go anywhere. We wanted to go to Senigallia which is on the Adriatic coast. There is a wonderful seafood restaurant just perfect for a celebration. SO we decided to celebrate late and I made reservations for August 10th for an overnight.

I had not really been to this coast and was excited to go to the shore. We really needed more than a day though. We drove through the very rugged and magnificent Appenine mountains, the tallest of which run like a spine through Le Marche. There has been a road through there for thousands of years winding along the river that cut the gorge. Now there is another road which is under construction. They have to drill many tunnels. You can see them along the way, half completed. It took just about an hour and a half to get to our destination. Traffic was pretty light. I was not sure what to expect given that this is August and the sea is where everyone goes.

We arrived at the town and drove to our hotel which was the Terrazza Marconi. It was situated right on the beach in the best position. We checked in and went to their little seaside cafe for a light lunch. Each hotel has a little piece of the beach where they have restaurants, cafes and their umbrellas. It is free for guests. We were surprised at how uncrowded it was. They had just finished a week long feste so that may have had something to do with it. After lunch we walked along the promenade and watched all the people playing all sorts of games like volleyball, basketball, something like soccer played using heads, knees, chests to hit the ball over the net like volleyball (just no hands) and other games.

That evening we went to Madonnina del Pescatore. It is rated a one star by Michelin. Lovely place with minimalist decor. We opted for the 8 course tasting menu called Vicino alla Tradizione. Here is a run-down of our courses. No pictures. Thought it may be tacky. First (and not counted among the courses) was a parmesan cheese ice cream sandwich. It was a square of frozen parmesan ice cream between thin, cheesy crackers. Good but rich. The other courses were: A plate featuring anchovies; cold anchovy soup, and featured three other ways. Then thin sliced seared tuna with a mayonnaise. Next Octopus salad. Then salt cod salad with panzanella and balsamic vinegar. Then a very light lasagna filled with shrimp (we think). Then a sort of soup with shellfish. Finally dessert which was strawberries with a meringue top, coconut and lime. The final dessert was kind of precious. They brought little plastic maps of the world with the volcanic areas in red. They brought tiny chocolate balls with flavors for that part of the world. I can’t remember them all but the mexico one was with chili powder, Italy was with basil, Japan had wasabi in it. There were others. They brought out a gigantic cotton candy cake for the birthday people. We all pulled off chunks. It was a lovely dinner.

The following day we had breakfast on the 5th floor roof. What a wonderful view. The breakfast was spectacular. Here are pictures. The beach stops at a breakwater nearby. A couple of people told me they must have hired Germans to do these umbrellas. It DOES seem somewhat non-Italian!

This is the most famous sight, a beautiful pavilion.

This is the view from the roof down the other direction which is the main part of the beach.

We went out and sat on the chairs under the umbrellas for an hour or so before leaving. We all really liked the hotel although the rooms were VERY small. The lady at the desk said to contact them directly and they would give us a sea view room with balcony next time. So I will be sure to do that. There is an old city that we did not even begin to explore. It was established in the 4th century BC on the river Misa. A friend told us when we go back we should search out the digestivi that they are famous for in Sinigallia called Trinchetto. Sold in the tiny sweet shop on the main shopping street near the river gate.

On the way out of town we were amazed to see this car –>

Blast from the past! I wonder how they afford to drive it. Must have gotten 12 miles to the gallon and a gallon of gas here is about $7.00! Ouch!

What transpired…

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On the way out of the train station, I tripped and fell flat hitting my chin on the platform. Ouch! I did cut my chin which proceeded to bleed for several hours and my jaw and teeth were badly shaken, knees bruised. Just lovely!

Well when we got to the dealer the car was sitting right where we had parked it. They hadn’t done a thing. Long story short, the very rude service manager curtly told us they couldn’t even look at it for five days. So we left. The tire was holding air. We were nervous but what could we do? We drove five hours and made it OK. Not a very comfortable trip.

Luther got on the phone while I drove and lit some fires under the Italian Porsche roadside assistance people. Finally getting someone who said they could repatriate the car – I guess that means they’d tow it back. And give us a rental. But by then it was too late. Maybe they should have done that sooner. Oh well.

So now we are in Bled Slovenia, our last stop. It is a very beautiful place among pretty mountains with a lovely lake, island, 1,000 year old castle and small village. Our hotel is called Blec Hotel Garni. It is extremely alpine with lots of wood and flowers everywhere. We have a nice, big room with balcony. A little worn at the edges maybe but very comfortable. Here is our balcony and the view from it.

We took a walk down into the village which is very small. There are a few restaurants and shops. Luther got a couple of bottles of room wine. We sat at an outside terrace beside the lake for a glass of wine and to enjoy the view. This is the village church.

This is the island and lake. I am sure I’ll get better pictures tomorrow.

We had a very nice dinner at the sister hotel called Pensione Blec. They have very fine dining on the lawn, weather permitting. It was very good. I had black risotto with octopus and a lamb confit. Luther had a cheese and meat plate and mixed grill.

I am OH so happy to see the backside of Hungary. I found the Hungarians less than friendly. If you asked me now I would say I will never return.

Today we plan a walk around the lake. It is about 6km. I should get some pretty pictures.

Budapest – day one

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We left the pretty Bergenland and drove the short 2 1/2 hour drive to Budapest in Hungary. The countryside at first was flat as a pancake with fields of crops stretching off. Through the fields ran high tension pylons in all directions. Not terribly picturesque. We got off the highway for a while and drove over to the Danube thinking it might be more scenic. Nope. We did find an ATM in one town so we could buy some Florints. It has been very strange to use a different currency. There are around 265 Florints in a dollar. Hard to convert.

Budapest is not an easy city to drive in. We had a pretty hard time finding our hotel but finally we did and got checked in. Budapest has several main areas. Central Pest is where we are. There is also the Parliament district and the Castle district. The city is divided by the Danube river.

We did a little preliminary looking around and got our bearings. We tried unsuccessfully to go to one restaurant so made a reservation for two nights hence. We ended up eating at a Russian/Hungarian place across the street from our hotel. It was not notable but the people were friendly and we could eat outside. It was cool enough that they brought a blanket to put around my shoulders.

Friday we headed out after a good breakfast with most anything you could want. We decided to explore the Pest side of the city and go to the Buda side on Saturday. We walked a LOT. Our guidebook had walking tours of the main shopping area and the Parliament district. We took both of them. We had a nice lunch at Klassz. Mine was a beautifully seared tuna steak salad. The tuna was coated with sesame seeds and on a bed of spinach with apples and a wasabi dressing. It was hot enough that I did a little dance with my feet as my eyes teared and it went up my nose. It was good though. I hadn’t had anything like that in a long time.

Here are some pictures from our tour. Budapest is known for it’s Vienna Secessionist architecture which managed to survive communism. There were some incredibly ugly buildings of THAT era too but I didn’t take any pictures. This doorway was incredible.

This was the top of the Egypt bank building. Very ornate

The first walking tour in the shopping district. It had lots of nice cafes where you could sit with a coffee or beer.

This is the Buda side of the river from the Pest side. That is the Palace.

A museum near Parliament.

More of the Vienna Secessionist look.

Main cathedral

Our lunch wine. Hungarian Pinot Noir and very good.

Parliament buildings. They charged about $20 a head to go in if you weren’t EU citizens. Seemed a bit unfair to me! So we didn’t go inside.

Department of Agriculture building.

Monument to Imre Nagy. He was a pro reform communist prime minister who rose up with the people in 1956. It cost him his life 2 years later. It was a nice monument.

Finally, the roofs on the buildings around Budapest are very ornate and beautiful. Here are two examples.

For dinner last night we treated ourselves to a Michelin one star called Onyx. We had a good time but it was a bit over the top. To start they tried to sell us two glasses of white wine that cost about $40 a glass. Luther was on the ball and turned that down. Still the red we bought was very expensive. We were not up for a tasting menu so ordered a la carte. They brought an amuse bouche of a potato soup with a crisp fried dumpling. Then the bread chariot came over. It was a big rolling cart full of house made breads. There must have been 30 different types. The man heaped our breadbasket. No two humans could finish it all. Then two more amuse bouches – one a crisp potato chip with sour cream onion and buffalo on it. I couldn’t discern the buffalo but the rest tasted like good old fashioned onion dip! The other was a potato cake with the famous Hungarian pork on it. I can’t remember the name of the pork but it was full of accent marks as is everything here.

For our orders. We both got the tuna tartar to start. I had venison for a main. Luther had a flank steak. It was yummy. We didn’t have a dessert but they brought petit fours. They even gave us each a little box with two “cookies” in it. It was good but not great. We took taxis there and back as at least my feet were not up to walking a long way after all that walking and sight-seeiing.

Tomorrow the Buda in Budapest.

Onward 458 kilometers to the Bergenland

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We had a nice drive yesterday in good weather. Before we left we went out in Udine and purchase a picnic of proscuitto, cheese and bread. Luther also had his wishes come true and purchased two cuban cigars. Oddly, another incomprehensible Italian rule says you must pay cash for tobacco products. Anything else you could pay with a credit card. Go figure.

We flew(!) mostly on autobahns through Italy/Austria but got off about 100 km from our final destination to put the top down and have a picnic to save ourselves for dinner. They have pleasant picnic areas along the highways.

Our next destination, Mörbisch is in the Bergenland in Austria south of Vienna. It is just at the bottom end of the Neusiedlersee, a large lake with marshes, home to many birds, foremost of which are the storks. Every town had many of the large metal nest spaces on their roofs hoping to attract the big birds to nest. They are said to be good luck. So far every town had at least two nests with mom and two babies.

We checked into the Weingut Schindler which has 6 rooms it rents out. Frau Schindler met us and offered us a glass of their wine which we enthusiastically accepted. The Weingut has an interior courtyard full of flowers and tables at which you can enjoy their wine. Our room is nice. Not fancy but fine. We are staying three nights. We walked around town, checking out the restaurants and pretty alleys full of flowers. We stopped at a Heuriger which is an establishment that serves wine and snacks – typically they have a bough from a tree to indicate they are open for business. Earlier our Frau had recommend the Sommer restaurant for dinner so we searched it out while on our walk.

Restaurant Sommer had nice outside tables. We enjoyed typical German-style food. Both of us had Weiner Schnitzels as entrees. Lucky for me I ordered the small portion! Luther’s was HUGE. We also enjoyed the local wines, the red was produced by the family who owns the restauruant. It began to rain while Luther was smoking his cigar. We huddled under the umbrella then walked (quickly) back to the Weingut.

This morning dawned cold, gray and rainy. Too bad. We had breakfast at the weingut which was nice with most things you could want. We headed out to the capital city of this area, Eisenstat. It was nice enough but since the rain was steady we drove on to Forchtenstein which has a Schloss and fortress. We visited. I couldn’t take any interior pictures but here it is on of the outside approaching.

It was impressive but the family Esterhazy were pretty disgusting. In order to be able to rule what is now Hungary they had to prove a long line of ancestry. They pretty much made it up with portraits of their non-existent relatives in their hall of the ancestors. Very pretentious folks.

The rain continued all afternoon. We went back to the lake to Rust for lunch at a seafood place. I had a nice spicy soup which, to me, seemed very Hungarian which is not so strange given we are about 2 miles from the border. Luther had a roasted chicken which was reminiscent of KFC.

After lunch we visited the Sommer Weingut. Tasted wines and endured their terrible two year old, Felix. Their wine was quite nice. We bought a case.

It is now around 7pm and happily, the sun is finally out. I looked up the weather and it should be nice through our Budapest leg of the trip. I had to buy a sweater this morning as it was only 14C today. Brrrr.

Nancy Goes to Italy

A record of an American's dream to live in Umbria

Category Archives: restaurants

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What transpired…

Budapest – day one

Onward 458 kilometers to the Bergenland

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