Wednesday August 30 We arrived in St Malo at about 9am. This time we were at anchor so we had to take the ship tender across to the pier. We got the 10:30 tender, the first one. St Malo is a walled city right on the sea. Its history began in the first century BC. In World War II it was bombed by the allies and destroyed. Of course it was rebuilt. The buildings are all very similar. I would love to see pictures of it pre-bombing. The book “All The Things We Cannot See” took place here. It is a great read.
We walked all around the town. It is mostly a tourist destination and we had plenty of time before our planned lunch where we were meeting an on-line friend of my sister. The town had some nice shops. Many restaurants had the local specialties of the buckwheat crepes used to make sandwiches.
Our lunch was beside the embarkation pier in a restaurant called L’Amiral. We arrived first and Dominique arrived just after. She lives in Paris and loves to come to St Malo for breaks. She is very French and conversing was difficult but fun in it’s own way. The sailboat was outside in the harbor. They begin a single-handed sailboat race from here called the Route du Rhum, destination Guadeloupe. The Brittany coast is the land of the oyster. I used to gobble up oysters by the dozen. But in the last few years I get sick every time I eat one. I assume I am allergic. So sorry I can’t eat them. They look amazing. I had the fish, sea bass, on puréed parsnips all floating in a sea of butter. They DO like their butter around here.
We stayed in port in St Malo until 11 pm. I had terrible connectivity so I am just finishing this post now. In the meantime, we had an “At sea” day. We sailed all night, all day, and all night. They try to plan lots of activities to keep us busy, such as a Vive La France wine tasting. Champagne, Burgundy, Rhône and Bordeaux.
Bye-bye St Malo
I was just happy to have time to finish reading my book. I highly recommend it — “Beneath a Scarlet Sky”. Takes place in Milan during the end days of the Second World War. It is based on a true story and it was amazing. I’m always interested in what happened in Italy during the War.
At this time we have docked in a town called Loriente. Apparently there isn’t much to see here. But we will go out for a walk and find lunch maybe. The skies have just started clearing and the rain has stopped.
Tuesday 29 August Last night we dined up on the deck and saw a lovely sunset. And later the blue moon rising.
Yesterday we visited Caen and from there we booked a private tour of some of the D-day beaches and cemeteries. There was a slight mix-up. We arrived at the coast and navigated a lock. Then they debarked all those who had booked the Windstar tour. It was full or we would have done that. Since it was full we booked a private tour. But it goes out of the actual city of Caen. So we traveled up the canal which took 2 hours. This meant we met our driver a full hour later than planned. It was OK we would do what we could do. It was a perfect day. Sunny and cool.
All was not a waste though, sailing through the estuary was beautiful and we actually went through the Pegasus bridge draw bridge. It was cool. Lots of folks there waving at us and our captain blew his big ole whistle several times. Here are some photos along the way, and of Pegasus bridge.
Pegasus Bridge. Originally built in 1934 and replaced with a new design in 1994. It was one of the most important bridges during the invasion in Normandy during World War II.
We docked at precisely eleven and found our young and enthusiastic guide, Victor. We had a black Mercedes mini-van. Our first destination was Pointe du Hoc. This beachhead was between the two American landing sites of Utah and Omaha beaches. It was a German stronghold with six enormous guns which could spin 360 degrees and shoot 12 miles. Enough to reach either Omaha beach or Utah beach. About six hours before the main invasion a division of U.S. Rangers landed. There were 254 of them. Their job was to take out as many of the guns and Germans as they could. About 30% of them were wounded, killed, or MIA. I am impressed that the left this place just as it was at the end of the battle. Easy to picture what happened there. Here are pictures with subtitles.
One of the gun emplacementsAnother gun emplacement.A barracks where the German soldiers slept and also used as a bomb shelter.One of the craters from the shelling.Cliffs that had to be scaled to reach the Germans. Just on the other side of this piece of land is Omaha beach.And in the other direction.Flowers growing on the ground where so many died.Omaha beach. Over 3 miles long. American soldiers were dropped in the water off shore because of the many barriers place there by the Germans. Many drowned on the spot. If they made it in they had to cross this wide beach.One of the guns.If you look down this beach you’ll see the cliffs of Utah beach.
We next visited the American Cemetery. A moving place. Over 9,000 crosses and stars of David. The average age was 23. Most died in June and July of 1944. The cemetery is overseen by a caretaker, boss of the cemetery. He or she must be American or Canadian. The caretakers house is on the cemetery grounds. The cemetery is immaculate. I always cry here. This is my second visit.
Omaha beach from the cemetery.
It was a terrific tour. We all liked Victor. We had lunch in a restaurant on Omaha beach. I had Moules Frites. Delicious.
Monday 28 August Docked at about 10am this morning. Cool with partly cloudy skies. Le Havre is the second largest port in France. Harbor art.
We had arranged a tour of Honfleur, a very ancient seaside town. I had been there thirty years ago. It is busier, but otherwise the same. The coach was comfy and our guide very nice and informative. We walked into town and around the tiny streets and along the shops which were along the waterfront. We admired the half timbered buildings. And the ones built all of slate to protect from the salt air. Then we walked up to the very cool church which was built by shipbuilders. The roof inside looks like the upside down keel of a boat. The bell tower was built a distance from the church. Since both are all wood they figured if one caught fire, the other had a chance of surviving. Here are my pictures.
Half timbered houses.Slate house.I liked the storm clouds and the sun on the buildingsWaterfront
These next ones are the shipbuilders church.
It was a nice day. The weather wasn’t too cool. It didn’t rain. I had fun. Now we are headed to Caan. We have booked a tour of the D-Day beaches but it looks like this could be cut short because I think we are arriving late. We’ll see!
Sunday August 27 After our marathon at sea we were very happy to get onto land for a day. The weather is quite chilly for August. This morning when we got up it was 54 degrees! And raining 😢. It is supposed to get up to about 70. And it looks like showers intermittently.
We caught the shuttle bus from the Star Legend to the center of the old town. Rouen has a long history going back to the Gauls. The Romans also occupied it and it is where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. It was claimed by both England and France during the Hundred Years’ War and was badly damaged by bombs in the Second World War. It’s most famous sight is Rouen Cathedral with its Tour de Beurre (butter tower) financed by the sale of indulgences for the consumption of butter during Lent. 😁 The cathedral’s gothic façade (completed in the 16th century) was the subject of a series of paintings by Claude Monet, some of which are exhibited in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
The weather was changeable. We had rain and sun intermittently all day. Windstar provided a shuttle bus. It was only a 15 minute ride. We walked down to the famous cathedral.
The old part of town is full of half timbered buildings. The Gros Horloge – or Great Clock, whose face was golden, shone in the intermittent sunshine.
Cool bookstore. It was Sunday so no stores were openVery crooked house. Look at the beams just above the front door.Our restaurant
Lunch was the only meal that I have reserved on this cruise. It was at La Couronne, pictured above. The restaurant has been there since 1345. It is known as the restaurant where Julia Child had her first French meal. I read her book describing the meal as a revelation to her. And as we all know, she was known as the French Chef and wrote books on French cuisine.
The building is full of pictures of famous people who have eaten there. It is dark and quaint and so very French. The meal lasted three hours. Most of us went for the Dover Sole Meunière, one of two signature dishes. It is what Julia ate. It was good but the meal was so rich we were worthless the rest of the day.
Sole meunière The cheese chariot. Love French cheeses!Heating the glass for Luther’s Armagnac.See the blue flames? Quite a show!
We returned to the boat and crashed. We skipped dinner. Sail away wasn’t until 1am. Then we would sail back down the Seine to Le Havre. We have a tour of Honfleur booked. We were there once, long ago and loved it. Another place where the Impressionists painted.
Thursday August 24 – embarkation day on the Star Legend
We had plenty of time until the 1Pm boarding so we went to a little cafe for croissants and coffee. Excellent croissant. Hot and flakey with butter and jam. Perfetto! We did some wandering about and later went out for a quick lunch because who knew when we could eat on the ship. The weather has turned rainy as was predicted. We went back to our hotel and retrieved our luggage. They called a cab and we were off to the ship.
The Star Legend is one of three identical yachts in the fleet. They hold 300 passengers. We boarded uneventfully and found our cabins. Then headed to the top deck for a welcome champagne. It had stopped raining but remained gray. We were required to muster at 4:15 to be briefed on emergency evacuation procedures. But at this time we were informed we would not be sailing that evening as planned. There was a problem with the ship which needed to be investigated by a certified scuba diver!
This is a disappointment. It means we will have to alter our cruise destinations. IF we sail out we will still miss seeing Bruges Belgium which was to be our first stop.
In the meantime we eat! Dinner in the main dining room named Amphora, was ok. We had a great wine steward. He kept the wine flowing freely. I enjoyed my entree of spicy shrimp on polenta. We watched a little of the news together. Todays big story, Trump turns himself into the Fulton County Jail in Georgia.
Next morning we listened to the Captains announcement. He said the divers were beginning work. We found out there was a repair needed on the inside of the ship but to get to it there was a pipe that needed to be welded outside the ship, underwater. He said we should get underway by mid-day.
I had maple French toast for breakfast. A rare treat for me. ~~~~~~~ At 12:30 we did manage to get underway. We sailed out of the estuary in the rain and sailed all day and all night and most of the next day because we had to skip our intended first stop. It was pretty cold and pretty wet. This ship was our next door neighbor.
These were along the estuary and while we were at sea.
After sailing for two whole days and having no internet we were very happy to finally see land and get some dots back on our phones. We had sailed along the coast and through the Straights of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel. Now we turned into the mouth of the Seine. It took over four hours to sail up to Rouen. At first it was very industrial with many refineries and tanks of oil I presumed. But eventually it started to get very picturesque. Lots of pretty quaint towns and even more interesting old French style houses. Lots of half timbering and even some thatched roofs. There are a lot of these but you can skip if you like. And you can click to get a bigger version of the pictures to see more details.
By the time we docked we were having dinner. It was a long time to be at sea! Tomorrow we tour around Rouen. It has a beautiful old town and Cathedral and we will lunch in La Couronne where Julia Child ate her first French meal.
These next few posts will be about our trip. I will be breaking it up like I did on our German trip last year since people seemed to like that.
Tuesday August 22. Departed Umbertide for Amsterdam, Netherlands
We drove ourselves and our cat sitters down to Foligno station to catch the Frecciabianca – fast train to Rome. We left them with the car so they could take in the sights. They are Sue and Bev, one lives in Canada, the other in Michigan but both were born in Canada. They have known one another since childhood. They came recommended by Liz one of our previous sitters. I am sure they will have fun. This week they will probably lay low because it’s hitting 38 degrees Celsius which is 99 Fahrenheit for a couple days. Hot! But next week cooler.
Negroni with our sitters at Bar MaryBev in front of the Collegiata
All went well on the trip. Train to Rome, caught the DaVinci express to Fiumicino airport. ITA Flight (formerly AlItalia) was 25 minutes late getting off. Miraculously we landed on time in Amsterdam. It is refreshingly cool in Amsterdam, just 22C or about 74F. We had arranged a driver who took us to L’Ambassade hotel. It is on Herengracht canal. Beautiful area. Nice hotel. We spent a night here in 1984 on our first trip to Europe. It has changed a lot! View from our window.
After refreshing ourselves, we met my sister Cindy and her husband Bill for dinner. This is our annual trip so we get to see each other once a year. So great to see her! Off to dinner at ‘t Zwaantje. Dutch food. It was busy and popular, but the food was not so much.
We walked back to the hotel bar for night caps. Cindy & Bill had arrived from the US that day and did the usual, stay awake all day then crash. Next day you are mostly over the jet lag. They made it almost to 10pm.
Wednesday August 23
Big day! We met up at 9am for our ticketed visit to the Van Gogh Museum. It was about a 25 minute walk. It is hard to walk here. Narrow brick sidewalks slope toward the street. There are millions of bikes traveling at speed. It seems like they couldn’t possibly stop if someone walked in front of them but my sister accidentally tested that, and damned if he didn’t stop in time. The motto here is, don’t be a squirrel. Like make up your mind in what direction you’re going and stay the course. And always look before stepping to a street. They say 63% of Amsterdamers travel by bike. Some pictures.
Entry to the Museum district
The Van Gogh museum was very good. Many floors. A permanent and a temporary exhibit. I took a lot of pictures of the art. It was interesting with many short write-ups about the art and about Van Gogh. Such a troubled man. Only 37 when he took his life. The last room was dedicated to suicide prevention which I thought was interesting. Just a few of the paintings I saw. I took a lot more than this! This first one was one of my favorites. Almond blossoms to celebrate new birth. It was on the occasion of the birth of his brothers baby, Vincent. Treasured by the family, especially after his suicide.
All of the next ones were painted just before he died. Most of them in the two months before his death and in that two months he painted 75 paintings. More than one a day.
We went to find lunch which we did in Restaurant Red. There turns out to be better choices but we don’t know the city or where to look and by this time we had been standing for many hours. I was anxious to sit down and for some icy cold water.
Luther’s lunch
This evening we had reservations at an Indonesian restaurant named Tujuh Maret. Funny thing about Amsterdam that I noticed. When you reserve a table they have a beginning and end time. You get the table for 90 minutes. Having lived in Italy where the table is yours for the whole night it was a flashback to the US dining where they rushed the meal and brought the check, getting you out as fast as possible so they could turn the table. In Italy meals are relaxed affairs and you pay and leave when you are ready.
Anyway, we ordered the big Rijsttafel. Indonesia was a colony of Holland and food migrated with the people who came to Amsterdam. Now it is a specialty. I had had one of these many years ago and I told my sister I don’t care what else we do, I just want one Rijsttafel dinner. This one was 18 individual dishes served in the center of the table. With rice on the side. They were served in sets of six — mild, medium and spicy. Some of the spicy ones were pretty spicy but not too much for me. It was yummy. Ranging from tofu, beef, chicken, veggie, salad, sweet, sour, hot. So many different flavors. We all had fun except maybe Bill. He is a trooper and goes along but he isn’t a foodie and is not an adventurous eater. I hand it to him, he tried most of them. But he said the meal was only ok.
Sunday we finally managed to go to the Infiorata in Spello, a small hill town not far from Assisi. A religious ceremony – Corpus Domini – which is celebrated the ninth Sunday after Easter each year by many towns with flower carpets on the streets. But Spello goes all out for this religious holiday. It draws thousands of visitors each year, to see the flower carpets. All up and down the streets are amazing, religious themed, creations made out of mostly flower petals, but also other organic and plant material.
About one quarter of the population of 8,000 volunteers in some way to help make this event happen. It is a huge undertaking because there are busload after busload of people coming. And parking lots in fields for the thousands of cars. All of this must be managed and coordinated. Then there is the art itself. The people in the town spend weeks plucking petals from flowers and gathering wild flowers for the creations. It works essentially like the old paint by number paintings. The designers create the designs. I am sure this is another whole layer of work unseen by most which must take months to finalize for each creation. They use chalk to draw the designs on the pavement under tents erected to protect the workers and the flower petals from the elements. The workers work all night making the creations. All the bars and restaurants stay open all night. They are supposed to be finished by 8am but some were still working when we got there at 8:30.
This is an example of the tents that cover these while they are created. As you can see the framework is just being dismantled and the workers are still hard at it after an all-nighter.
I tried to get a picture of the design which was posted next to each creation so you can see what it would look like had I gotten overhead. Luther says next year we should have a drone! This is the design of the one above.
Some of the raw materials used in the creations. I wonder how many flowers they go through!
This board had the petals and the corresponding numbers. And they even included the name of the flower they came from. As I said, paint by the numbers!
I think there are 60-70 of these carpets and I did take a lot of pictures. I hope you enjoy them. There will be less to read…but more to see! I will caption them where needed.
The under 14 year olds had a few entries. I should mention that these are all judged and prizes (plaques) are awarded in different categories.
I like the freeform spray of flowers in the yellow circle.
Close up of whole flowers being used in the above.Design poster. Titled Vincent’s Love. The woman had striking eyes. Note the tic tac toe game with hearts – love wins out!Entire creationDetail of Vincent’s love.Elephants, goats, birds.Peace on earth. Goodwill towards men.
This next design, followed by the creation was my favorite. Entitled The Choice. I liked it for the design and especially the creative use of artichokes in the dragon detail.
Artichoke leaves as dragon scales.Loved this one as well. The colors!
Some were simple
Ladybug.Liked the perspective on this one.Chess board.
Another of my favorites. The materials, the monotone greens.
Follow the yellow brick road
Labyrinth- life of Jesus. Design.
The next four are another example of the use of different plant materials in the designs.
Elephant out of seed husks and sage leaves.More husks and this time bay leaves. It smelled lovely.Rosemary and capers. Capers grow wild all over Umbria.Wild garlic flowers. Also grows everywhere.
We finally made it to the top!
The beautify that saves the world. Interesting perspective on the crucifix.
And now for a few pictures from around town. They not only do awards for the carpets they also judge the flowers that residents grow and decorate their windows, doors, balconies.
Loved her poppy dress.
The crowd. The streets of Spello are narrow. Add the carpets that you can’t walk on, and the 100,000 or so visitors and you’ve got…well…a mob scene. 😳 And it was very warm, nearly hot.
There was a holy Mass at 10am and then the procession began. This is where I wanted to cry. They walk right on and over the creations. Then the faithful who are following the holy procession do too. The beautiful carpets of flowers that took thousands and thousands of hours of work only live for a few hours. Then they are gone. But I remembered, it is not about the flowers or the art. It is about Corpus Domeni.
As you can see we had a birds eye view of the procession. Thanks to our friends Steve and Roselyne who invited us to their apartment to recover. They own this apartment right on the Main Street with a nice balcony so we got a good view.
I hope you enjoyed this photo essay of one of the iconic fests in Umbria.
It has been since last September since we have gone anywhere mostly due to the move. I wanted to concentrate on that for the last months and had no desire to go anywhere.
Now we are moved and things mostly livable we decided we needed to go somewhere for a short get-away. The problem was, we had no cat sitter anymore. Paul, our friend and cat carer was farther away and also leaving Umbertide for their move after selling their house. What to do?
We have a new housekeeper named Linda. She is from Albania, I think. I have known her husband for a while. She picks up jobs doing different things from home health care to cleaning houses. She cared for a friends husband during his last months in his home, and another good friend who is house-bound. So I felt she was reliable. After she had cleaned for me a couple times and I learned she has 3 indoor cats I thought maybe she would want to help us out with ours. She doesn’t live far away so I thought it wouldn’t be too hard for her to sit for them. She seemed happy to do so and earn some money. So this trip was essentially a test to see how it all worked out.
We went for three nights. We decided on Cremona in the Lombardia region, and Parma in the Emilia Romagna region. Cremona is the home of the most famous violins. There has been very bad flooding in the Emilia Romagna region in the past week. 15 people have died and tens of thousands are homeless. It is a horrible disaster. The bad flooding was at the mouths of the rivers in the coastal towns. Rimini, Ravenna, Cesena, Forlì and many more smaller towns are badly damaged. We knew our hotel was just near the big Po river so asked if all was ok before we left. It was, they said, ok.
After a longer drive than necessary due to traffic we arrived at our hotel, Antica Corte Pallavicina. Well, we sort of arrived. We drove down a dead end road and were at a building with many signs. Pointing many directions. After driving on this tiny muddy roads we finally went in the building there and it turned out to be the hotel. It is pretty soggy here after the rains.
Amazing building built in the 1300s just next to the River Po. It is a working farm. They have a lot of white cattle in the fields around the house (Eden😉). They also sell the famous DOC controlled ham called Culatello. They grow the vegetables in the gardens that are served in the restaurants (there are two, a Hosteria del Maiale, and a fancy place, same name as the hotel – a Michelin one star) They grow the wheat with which they make the delicious bread. The bread here is nothing like Umbrian or Tuscan bread, which has no salt and is tasteless. This is yeasty and salty. Yummy.
The room was not what I expected. We were in one of the two towers of the original building. There is a big living room with armoire, table, two chairs and a sofa. And a bathroom with shower. Then, up a very scary set of stairs is the bedroom, situated in the tower. It has itty bitty windows around the room. About the size of a 3×5 index card. I suppose for keeping a lookout? Shooting arrows? (They’re also windows like these on the bottom floor). But the whole idea of having to go up and down those stairs in the middle of the night to the bathroom was not to my liking to say the least. I guess what do you expect from a 14th century castle?
Scary stairs
We had a nice glass of wine on the terrace. There is a peacock here. He is extremely loud and displays often. I haven’t seen any peahens yet. There is also a kind of a pond which is full of frogs all in a high state of sexual arousal calling (or should I say croaking out?) for love. Then there are the cats. Very very pretty cats. Some with long hair. A real menagerie.
Dinner was disappointing. I loved the place. The ancient building. The look of it. And there was a shop selling the famous ham called Culatello. The Hosteria is a stop gap for the night the fancy restaurant is closed. Our starters were good but the secondi were definitely not good. But it was OK. We took our bottle of red wine onto the terrace where Luther could smoke his cigar. There was a group of four motorcyclists also there. Two from Germany and two spoke English, so English was the common language. There was another couple here as well.
The shop
Culatello. This ham is only the thigh meat so has much less fat than prosciutto. Personally, I like prosciutto better. But both are good.
~~~~~~~~ Tuesday May 23
We headed out to breakfast in the same building as the dinner last night, where we were ignored. Place is strange. The breakfast was serve yourself from a buffet. We ordered a bottle of water which never came. There were no plates so I had to ask for them. The good thing was I liked the cheese a lot. Very unusual. During my 3 breakfasts the man never asked if we wanted coffee. Got cereal once. No spoons. The bread was horribly stale. And as a teaser there were fresh loaves being sliced right on the counter opposite. Oh well, we ended up fed.
The cheeses were amazing. This was my breakfast one day.
After breakfast, off we went to Cremona. The day was absolutely glorious. The Giallo Angelo with the top down for the first time this year. It took around 30 minutes of winding around the local highways to get into town. This part of Italy, all up and down the Po river, is extremely industrial. So it is unattractive. But once we got into Cremona we enjoyed it a lot.
The city was a real surprise. It is a city of 71,000 so it is not terribly big, and the traffic was light and polite. We parked and walked into the center. Lots of shopping. Pedestrian streets and cafes and bars everywhere. And extremely quiet. Sometimes we could see nor hear anyone. I don’t know if I have said, but I like less frenetic and crazy-busy cities. Smaller mid-sized towns are for me. Cremona fit that bill just right. Bikes are the preferred way to travel.
Our goal was the Museum of Violins. Cremona is the city of art and music. The great luthiers all lived and worked there. Also many great composers. The Museum was great. It took you through the process of making a fine violin and then there was a room that kind of took your breath away. Full of the finest violins from the 1500s onward. Incredibly beautiful and delicate. Made by the famous Luthiers Stradivarius, Amati and Guarneri. The last room was a small theater where they were showing videos of artists playing the fine old instruments we had just seen in glass cases. We assumed the instruments benefit from playing. And the music was ethereal. Good violin music always makes me cry.
Luthiers workshopThe “treasure room”. All the oldest instruments made by the Maestri.This one was the oldest. Made in 1566 by Maestro Andrea Amati
After this we walked over to the cathedral. Amazing piazza surrounded by old buildings and the 11th century cathedral and the tower 112 meters / 369 feet tall. Hard to take it all in, in photographs. Needless to say the cathedral is nothing like the original having been added to and changed throughout the centuries. The interior was ginormous. Just an immense space. No stained glass, which surprised me. Many highly ornate altars etc.
Now, ready for a light lunch, we went right across the street to a cafe. Nothing makes me happier than to sit on an ancient piazza in the outside air of a gorgeous perfect day with some vino and watch the people. And the lunch of salads was just right.
We walked back to the car and headed back to the hotel. All along the road were signs for cherries for sale. I think cherries are my favorite spring fruit. They are also having a cherry festival nearby.
Back at the hotel the peacock yelled at us as we walked past to kick back for a couple of hours before dinner.
Dinner was a disappointment considering it was a Michelin One Star restaurant. Pretty room. The people were way too serious. They had several big tasting menus. They explained them to to us. Neither of us felt up to a big long dinner so we decided to order a la carte. Two courses each. It was as though they kind of lost interest in us at this point.
After our two courses we left, didn’t even give them time to ask if we wanted dessert. Outside it was lovely. We enjoyed the moon and Venus setting in the sky.
Wednesday May 24 Off we went after another breakfast where we were ignored. It was amusing at this point. Today, it was Parma. About a forty minute drive on smallish roads with lots of trucks.
The city has 175,000 people, so it was quite a bit bigger than Cremona. We found parking and walked into town to visit the Palazzo della Pilota which has the Teatro Farnese within its complex. The Teatro Farnese, in Parma, was the court theater of the Dukes of Parma and Piacenza. It was built starting from 1618 to celebrate the stay in Parma of the grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II, on his way to Milan. It was finished that year but not inaugurated until 1628 because of an illness that caused Cosimo to cancel his pilgrimage. It was finally inaugurated for the occasion of the wedding of Odoardo, Ranuccio’s son, with Margherita di’ Medici, Cosimo’s daughter. The theater was only used eight more times due to the complexity and cost of it’s use.
We left the theater because a woman said we couldn’t go back the way we came. So we ended up entering a door to the gallery of art and going backwards through the exhibits. Didn’t really matter much. Here are a few pictures.
Loved her expressionThis is a Leonardo da Vinci
Off we went to see the cathedral. We used our google maps to navigate but we could hear the big bell tolling for midday and could follow it’s sound. It was a really big bell. Deep and and slow. Many more than 12 times. I love bells. Bad news is that it closed at noon. We arrived at 12:15. Oh well. We decided to have a pre-lunch glass of wine.
Look at this place! I would love to know who lives here. High in the sky above the cathedral piazza.
Our lunch destination was Osteria del 36. A very old (since the 1880s), very traditional restaurant. Just what the doctor ordered. The cameriere was super nice and friendly. We had some very delicious food. I started with the tortellini in brodo, Luther had a gnocci dish topped with smoky scarmorza cheese. I got the duck breast which was prepared just right IMO. The gelato crema was too good to pass up but it was a big bowl. It was very soft, like soft custard cones in the US, and had chocolate sauce. Best gelato ever.
Duck, so perfectly cooked.
On the way back to the car we stopped into a prosciutto shop. They also had other local specialties, wines, parmigiana reggiano .
Thursday morning we checked out and headed back home to our boyz. Rocky and Simba. Here is a picture of the cantina under the building full of Parmigiana reggiano being aged.
We got home in 3.5 hours. Along the route there was ample evidence of the flooding in the coastal areas. But the worst was in the mountains through which we must go to get to Umbria. The rains caused many landslides and the evidence of the normally small river rampaging through the valley was significant. The good news is our boyz were fine with their new caretaker. So this will allow us to travel in the future for shorter trips.
We are settled back in now. It is raining steadily, day and night. This encourages the Tiber river to jump it’s banks. It is supposed to rain for most of the next week. It could get higher.
~~~~~~ This is a kind of wrap up from our vacation. Best and worst. Some random pictures from my big camera. I have to wait to get home to off-load them. The first three are the Alsace. I adored that dog who knew how to chill. The last picture is of the alps in Germany covered with new snow.
See the dog?
Best and worst. Best room — the apartment in Potschach Worst room — Maison Bergdorf Interlaken Best breakfast — tie between Herrsching and the last night in Slovenia. Best lunch — tie between Gasthaus Obermühle and Osteria del Centenario in Locarno Worst lunch — Das Pumpe, Klagenfurt (not awful, but awful for you!) Best dinner — Hiša Franko Best lake — Königssee ~~~~~~~~~ Today is election day here in Italy. I am sorry to read that the far right parties are predicted to win by a landslide. Anti-immigration. Anti-abortion. Sound familiar? You just can’t get away from it, it seems. The only ray of sunlight is that the coalitions probably won’t last and there will be a new election.😑
Thursday, September 22 I got up this morning to see the lake and mountains shrouded in a thin layer of fog. Beautiful.
Goodness! What a ride today! We left Pörtschach at about 10:45. It was a nice and relaxing stay. The apartment was comfy. Everything was very low-key. I chose a route that took us through the mountains to get to our next destination. Oh my. It was thrilling, scary, and beautiful. We took an autobahn south out of Austria and into Slovenia. Then, when we got to the turnoff to Bled we exited. We had visited Bled once before. Very pretty lake with an island, and there is a castle high on a bluff.
The road headed up a long valley with high mountains and a pretty river. When the road got to the head of the valley we headed up up up. It was a very narrow paved road with many switchbacks. Many kilometers later we reached the summit at around 1,500 meters. There was a camp ground and a restaurant there. It was 12:30 so we decided to stop. Nice place which had some cabins and I am sure ample hiking. We had salads. Mine was roasted veggies, a fried cheese and lots of greens. We didn’t want to eat too much since we were destined for a nice restaurant for dinner.
We descended from the heights. At one point we met a tractor trailer coming upwards towards us. Where he was going up there I have no idea! There’s not much up there. I wasn’t exaggerating that the road was narrow. It was not for the faint of heart! As we got lower there were a few more towns. Then we were in another valley. The mountains were spectacular. At one point we had to stop for cows being driven across the road. Here are a bunch of pictures! They are all shot from the car so none are great.
Luther wanted this one…guess why.
We arrived in Kobarid. It is the capital of its province but has only 4,400 people. There is a beautiful river called the Soca, which draws rafters. We found our destination, Hiša Franko, a Michelin 2 star restaurant. People checking us in were very nice. We have a nice room and our dinner is at 7:30. Wine on the patio after a long drive was just right.
I loved these chairs and tables. Woven textiles.
~~~~~ If you aren’t a foodie or person who likes food experiences, you should skip this part.
Where to start? How does one describe what is called what is called Reincarnation 2022? Hiša Franko has a set 14 course menu. They make changes for those who say they have food intolerances, or for those who have allergies…but they dont like it 🙂. We have none so they were happy when we went with the ”experience “. Instead of describing all the dishes I took a picture of the menu. Sorry it got a little wrinkled.
So now for the pictures…in order of the courses, except for anything I captioned.
My cocktail.
So — how did we like it? We really did enjoy the ”experience”. It was one-of-a-kind. I could happily go back. The people were great…if quirky. Actually the whole place was quirky. But it added to the fun. A bit of a blow-out for our last night on vacay.
Breakfast was amazing too. So many choices. Home made yogurt that you could drink. All sorts of fruit. Cantaloupe, blueberries and a whole bowl of other fruit. Granola, juice, bread, good coffee, cookies, honey, jam and butter. You could also order special things but we did not. It was nice.
Dining room and breakfast room.Outside the reception area.,
~~~~~~ Guess where we are now. 🙂 Yep. Back home in Umbertide. At our local market buying good things to eat. Our great house sitters have gone. We really appreciated them. They allowed me to have no worries for my cats while traveling.
Now it is time for all the chores that must be done in the fall. Stufa cleaning. Inspection of the caldaio. And we are trying to sort out a clogged up gutter. The gutter is high above Via Grilli which is very narrow. When it rains hard, it is like a waterfall into the street. What will this entail? Well, we aren’t sure but it looks like we need a cherry picker truck, an operator, and maybe a plumber. Oddly plumbers install gutters here. We have enlisted help from our friend and former real estate agent Jim. He knows alot, but he admits, this is all new to him too… stay tuned!
