For those of you who have not seen it, we finally got a link to the House Hunters International episode starring Joseph and Paul and, of course, Umbertide! Also linked from main Navigation above.
Addendum [Oh well. Looks like this no longer works. Too bad. Copyright issues.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAVv6oENZYE&sns=em
For us it has been a lovely time. We welcomed guests, had a small get together with the guests and friends, a beautiful Open House that we attended, a pizza Christmas Eve with friends, and a lovely Christmas lunch at Joseph and Paul’s house to which we all contributed.
Our friends arrived on December 18. There were three of them, two who live in Doha, Qatar and one in Jersey City, NJ. I know George from when he was a colleague of mine at MITRE Corp in the 1980s. We kept in touch and George and Mary visited us in Germany in the 1990s. Since then we know where each other are but seldom see one another so we were very happy that they got the time to come to Italy for Christmas. I am sure it is very different from Doha! Warren, their friend from NJ, we had not met but were very happy to make his acquaintance. We only had a short time so we took them to Assisi, which is the top stop in Umbria. It was lovely for Christmas dressed up with many Creche. The Basilica of San Francesco took their breaths away as it always does mine. I was absolutely amazed. When we arrived– We. Were. The. Only. People. In. The. Upper church!! I have been countless times but not in December. Wow. It was a very spiritual experience. We have always jostled with crowds. The vistas from the town, even though the weather was spitting rain, were pretty. We had a special lunch at Piazetta delle Erbe, our favorite restaurant there. It was very good here are a few pictures of the beautifully presented food.
Risotto
Lamb
Salmon
Pork
The next day we stayed in Umbertide for the morning market. Everyone tried the Porchetta, a local specialty of slow roasted pork with cracklin’. On a roll it makes the perfect breakfast! We perused the produce and checked out the “walmart” come to town with other wares. Afterwards they shopped at Buscatti for Umbrian textiles and the cashmere shop for beautiful fashions from Umbria. I bet many people don’t know Umbria is well known for it’s wonderful cashmere made right here.
We headed to lunch in Montone. a nearby hilltown, at a place called Tipico. Excellent, locally sourced Umbrian dishes. The day was beautiful. Not at all cold and blue skies. The views from Montone are spectacular.
This evening I had invited most of our American neighbors over to meet our guests and have a little refreshment. It was very much fun, I think, for all. Here is a very bad picture taken with my Ipad. Sorry.
Alas, all good things must come to an end and we escorted them to the train station and sent them on their way for a few days in Venice. It should be pretty at Christmas. Italian towns go all out with the decorations and Venice, with it’s canals, must be beautiful with the lights.
Now things have settled down for a long winters sleep. We watch the fields that, even now, are awakening with the winter wheat, bright green. January and February are long, dark and cold but we take heart that the days grow longer now and spring comes here in March. A belated Buon Natale and I wish you all a Buon Anno!
We brought the Christmas tree that we bought the first Christmas we were here inside for the season. It lives out on the terrace throughout the year except for December. This is the 2016 tree. it is sitting on the floor.
And THIS is the itty, bitty 2014 tree. It is sitting on a stool to make it taller. That’s no longer necessary!
Here is our town tree all lit up.
Today was an exceptionally foggy day. And, unlike many days, it lasted all day. I braved the cold and went out to see what sort of images I could get. I thought they would look better in black and white. Very atmospheric. Here are a few. Click for a larger version.
This is la Rocca or our fortress with a smoking chimney in front of it.
The bridge over the Tiber.
Road along the river.
Interesting tree.
The town walls and houses above it from across the river.
And finally, a lone fisherman.
Another gorgeous sunset. Mountains in the background and the river in the front.
Autumn’s last gasp. A few leaves hang on.
The town Christmas tree has arrived. It’s a bigun’ this year.
Maneuvering…
Decorating begins. It will not be lit until the beginning of Advent on Sunday.
For the last month preparations were being made for our Comune, or City Hall, to be renovated. First they built fences for all the equipment and daily I hear the crash of the debris being wheelbarrowed to the shoot into the dumpster. It is a big building, once a beautiful Palazzo, and still has the frescoes inside and a magnificent staircase.
The last four or five days they’ve been erecting the scaffold on the entire front of the building. Since we are across a narrow street from the Comune we have a birds eye view of all these proceedings. Now that the scaffolding is up I cannot see the equipment down below. I can, however, see at eye level the guys working on the building who will use the scaffolding. A little disconcerting on the fourth floor! Used to my privacy. This we can look forward to for a minimum of two years, and being in Italy if it progresses as usual, it will probably be twice that.
I will miss the weddings I used to watch from my window. And the weekly markets are squeezed onto one side of the Piazza. I feel for the businesses on our little street who are not nearly as accessible or visible as before. And it remains to be seen if there is room for the Christmas tree. Which, by the way, is due any day now!
Today, for the first time that I know of, Umbertide is celebrating the Festa di San Martino. It is celebrated with roasted chestnuts, new wine, sweets, prosciutto, and bruschetta. Lovely and one of my favorites. I took a couple of pictures, bought some chestnuts (which I love), and we engaged in the passagiata on the chilly evening.
Canaiola wine.
Roasting chestnuts.
The band.
Yesterday was a good day. We got lots accomplished. First and foremost was the everlasting issue of our immigration agreement. If you’ve been reading, it is recurring theme. As you may remember, we signed an agreement when we got our first Permessi di Sigorno to fulfill certain criteria. Well, since we had not fulfilled these, not because we hadn’t tried mind you, we got a letter in the mail telling us our two year period was over and we were on probation for another year after which we’d be deported. So, we decided to pay a visit to the immigration office in Perugia. We finally managed to find a person who knew what was what and could help us. Wow! Very friendly, nice, and helpful. We had, of course, pretty much complied. All we need to do is bring our proof of passing the A2 level Italian proficiency test, our deed that we purchased our house, our health cards showing we have gotten health insurance. They said that would be sufficient. Yay! Happy days.
We are just back from our trip to the US to help celebrate our nephew’s wedding. A good time was had by all.
We arrived in DC on a Sunday and crashed. Then we did a couple of days sightseeing and a day of shopping. We visited the newly re-opened Smithsonian Gallery of Art – East Wing. The building is in itself a work of art designed by I.M. Pei.
It’s only flaw was a limited amount of exhibit space. With this redesign it now has much expanded space and they opened two of the three towers. On the roof terrace is a big blue chicken sculpture by German artist Katharina Fritsch.
We also got to see the recently de-scaffolded US Capital building. When we moved away it was completely covered. Now it gleams in the sun. It has never looked this good.
We dined on some ethnic food to include Oyamel, a great Mexican place, and Rappahannock Oyster bar which has world class farmed oysters. We’ve missed them! The big splurge was Komi which many said should have received a Michelin star in the recently published guide. I will say it was mighty fine. There is no menu. They bring about 12 courses, starting small and getting bigger as they go along. So good. And we elected to get the wine pairing. We never do this but we were glad we did. The sommelier is excellent and all the wait staff made us feel very special. Recommend it.
On Thursday we rented a car and drove to The Homestead in Hot Springs, VA – about a 3 1/2 hour drive. We attended the beautiful wedding of our nephew, Dave and his bride Shira. It was a Jewish ceremony although our nephew is Christian. It was lovely. I did not take pictures. It was outside and the weather was fine. We partied into the night. I wish this young couple all the best in life.
While there we strolled the grounds and played a rousing game of mini-golf with Luther’s brothers family who were there from California. Again, the weather was perfect. The trees were beautiful.
We are back home and I am happy to say we have finished our travels for this year. I am glad to be home in tranquil Umbertide. Long trip back. While we were gone there were three (!) earthquakes of 5.6, 6.1 and 6.6 on the Richter scale. No damage in Umbertide but in the mountains just 40 miles away is devastation. So much lost. One of my favorite cathedrals collapsed in the town of Norcia. Here is the picture I took about 2 years ago. Sadly it is almost totally destroyed. My heart goes out to the people. The one good bit of news is, no one was killed.
On our way home we stopped for provisions. I spied, of all things(!) corn on the cob! Now, if you’ve been reading this you know I have searched for decent sweet corn since our first summer here. I found some inedible this past summer. So I slyly put my finger nail into a kernel and lo and behold! it squirted juice. This meant it wasn’t totally gone to starch. I notice they are grown in Umbria so are local. I bought two cobs and cooked them last night. They were decent! Sweet. Not as good a fresh summer corn but, good. The only thing that puzzles me is…it’s November! I mean who heard of corn in November?
Coincidentaly, I had ordered corn to be sent to my sister. I picked it up on our trip so next year I will have corn! I hope to find someone with garden space to lend or rent. But one of these packets has “Container Corn”. It can be grown in pots! So next year my terrace will be farm-like. I am pretty excited about this!
I just put up a page, accessible from the top navigation, with a summary of information about moving and living in Italy. It is called “So you’ve decided to move to Italy”. I will constantly update it with things I learn that I think will be useful. Go to the page here.
It was a success! There were fire eaters, dancers, music, burlesque, beautiful stilt dancers, costumes. We had some friends come and have dinner with us Friday night. We joined in the merriment and were serenaded by the Briganti. Speaking of which, they got up to their usual antics on Saturday when they took over the town. This year they had a “christmas” theme. If you look back over my previous Otto Cento posts you will see they are very naughty boys.
An antique cycle. It was a cycle inside a big wheel with what looked like training wheels.
The decorated town.
The “christmas” tree. Look closely.
Victory flag.
We are having spectacular weather. Highs in the 80s and cool at night. We have been enjoying it with the occasional Gelato or Aperol Spritz. Last weekend we had the local Vespa club arrive in all their thundering glory.
We also had a great time creating and attending a BBQ at an Agriturismo of friends, Simone and Simona. They are from Milan and now living rough, off the grid on the old family farm of Simone. It was abandoned for many years and they have spent years working mostly on their own to make it into holiday apartments. They first fixed up the old barn for themselves. And have spent a LOT of time just on the structure of the old buildings. It is in an earthquake zone so there are lots of rules for stabilizing and protecting everything. They are now getting ready to finish the first apartment inside. Here are some pictures.
This is the main building. Underneath are the large, airy barns where the animals used to live.
The views are nothing short of spectacular. They are very high on a ridge. The electric grid stops before their property. They use mostly solar and batteries.
The picturesque old chimneys. I love these. They are all over our part of Italy.
The BBQ grill with Fabio and Gary.
I had initially invited everyone to our house and was going to make the ribs. But Simona wanted us all to come there. So I got up early to prepare the ribs. I wanted it to be all American so I brought spicy guacamole, spicy salsa with the wonderful tomatoes we have now, and my moms potato salad. We found tortilla chips in the store! Everyone was open to the experience and had fun. We also had great, grilled vegetables, and one of their chickens. He was supposed to be grilled but he was deemed too tough so he was stewed. Dessert was a very light cheesecake and cool watermelon. What could be more perfect?
Random scenes. Here is the wind ruffled Tiber one afternoon.
I found CORN!! it is one of the things I miss most about the US. Summer, sweet corn. Alas, it was not to be. Tough as an old shoe. Horses probably wouldn’t touch it! BUT the good news is that I have started volunteering at the Books for Dogs booth at the market. It is run by mostly British women. They take donated books and DVDs and sell them to support several dog sanctuaries. Anyway, one of the ladies also bought corn. Later I asked her if we could plant a few rows next year in her garden. So MAYBE next year we will be able to taste that sweet summer corn!
Impending storm.
Volunteer sunflower against a blue sky.
The placid river in morning.
Here is a spider who has caught a tasty fly on our pepper plants. If you click you can even see the spiders little face. It looks so much like a human face.
Finally, we are looking forward to welcoming our next guests, Mary and Lenny! Their first trip to Italy and great old friends of ours. They will be with us for five nights and we will do some lunches, markets, wine tastings and sightseeing. Stay tuned…