I forgot to mention that when we went to the wine co-op near Castiglione del Lago (the place with the wine pumps) I noticed something amusing. Luther has his Gambero Rosso or Red guide to wine. It is how he chooses where we will go to taste and buy wines. They are rated by price and quality. He picked this co-op that we visited from this book. Before we go into a winery he checks which wines got the best scores.

So we go inside and we go over to the shelves and find one of the whites he is interested in. It cost €2.63 a bottle (about $3.00). I could see he was conflicted. It just really goes against all things holy that a good wine should cost so little. I smiled at him and said “It really kills you to buy wine this cheap doesn’t it?” And he admitted that it was true! But we did buy a half a case. And you know what? It is really good!! Just goes to show that you can’t judge that a wine is good just because it costs more.

We did a bit of exploring yesterday. We visited a few towns we had not been to before. Chuisi, Citta di Pieve and Ficulle. We had lunch in the last place. Here are a few pictures. The first two are of Chuisi.

These two are at the restaurant where we had lunch. These nice Italians were so cute and loved that I took their picture. I will say one thing about Italians that we meet, they usually ask if we are English and when we tell them we are Americans their faces really light right up! They like Americans!

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned the fact that a Bar in Italy is not like a Bar in the US. They are places to get your morning (or late morning, or afternoon) coffee and a cornetto for breakfast. Most have gelato in the summer. You can get a beer, wine or grappa as well. Or you can meet up with friends.

Each Italian town has at least one Bar in each neighborhood. Sometimes they are just a block or so apart. Each has it’s own clientele from nearby. But Italians cannot be far from a coffee so you can find Bars along the roads and autostrade too. Even gas stations have Bars. Then you are assured to never be far from a caffe.

In Umbertide just in a 5 or 6 block area I counted 10 Bars. In the Piazza in front of our house are two, Bar Mary and Caffe Centrale. It is very amusing that each of these has it’s own loyal clientele. Mostly the Americans who live around here go to the Caffe Centrale but there are some who have loyalty to Bar Mary. Caffe Centrale is a lot nicer than Bar Mary. Nicer tables and chairs, nicer inside, nicer outdoor covers over the tables. Bar Mary has cheap plastic tables and plastic chairs that stack that are so rickety they recommend you stack two together to sit in! They also have four big yellow square umbrellas to cover the outside tables. They are always crookedly set up and look a bit messy. Bar Mary attracts most of the Brits around here. Also all the old men who play the Italian card game called Briscola gather at the tables in front of Bar Mary and in the winter in the back room to play. It is rather odd that none of these old men ever buy anything to eat or drink while they are there. Also anyone else can sit outside without buying anything.

The owners of Bar Mary are Mary (duh) and Irene (pronounced Eh-ray-na), sisters probably in their late forties or so with very over processed and permed hair. Bright yellow it is. They are both very sweet though and very friendly to us. They know exactly what we want to order each time of day. Cappuccino sensa scuma in the morning, beers if it’s noon or late afternoon, red wine for when Luther smokes his cigar on the Piazza. Oh I probably don’t need to say Bar Mary is “our” bar. We chose it as our Bar when we were here in January and Jim our Realtor told us it was his “office”. He lives in the country so when doing business in town Bar Mary is his place. So it’s ours too now. He calls the two girls the Straw Dogs. It’s pretty descriptive.

Right now things are not right with the world in the Piazza Matteoti because the Bar Mary is closed! Yes CLOSED! for vacation. I am happy for the Straw Dogs because those ladies work very hard. They are open from 7AM to 1AM every single day of the year except their vacation week. They work the place alone except for a man whose relationship to them I have yet to figure out. He is handsome in the Italian way, shaved head, nice build but has a bad overbite. He “may” be married to Mary but I am not sure yet.

Last Sunday we were out for a beer in the afternoon. It was just before they were closed for the vacation week. (They went to the beach) Anyway. we went in to pay for the beers and Irene leaned across the counter to give me a double kiss! I guess I am accepted in the Bar Mary. My Bar.

Yesterday we went to a hilltown called Pietralunga. It is a quite remote area past Montone up into the hills. Pretty drive and a very pretty town.

There were little patches of carpet each with a chair next to it along the streets and walls. It seems the town encourages artists to come and bring their work with them to sell and exhibit. There were a number of artists here as well as many empty spots (you can see some of the art in the 3rd picture below). It is a good idea to promote their town and bring visitors. We had come to the town to view the Civiteli Ranierie artists’ works which we did. They were interesting if not terribly notable.

Here are some pictures of the town. The first two are the main piazza and church (dating from the 8th century) area.

At the top of the town was this tower and these arches also dating from the 8th century.

These next two pictures are interesting. All buildings in Italy have metal covers over the water, gas and electric meters. In Pietralunga many of them are painted by artists. You can see that these are little doors. Much prettier than the ugly gray covers we have on our house in Umbertide.

After our visit we headed out to find lunch which was more difficult that we thought it would be. We ended up at Trattoria di Botticelli. It was along the road between Montone and Pietralunga. It was quiet and they cooked us a nice lunch to include antipasti of meats and cheeses as well as deep fried squash blossoms and bruschetti. Afterwards we had pasta and the guys got yummy desserts and they brought refreshing after dinner drinks of either melon or banana. These had been kept in the freezer and were frozen and slushy and yummy. It was fun.

Here is a picture from my walk this morning of a pretty chicory flower. The picture below that is of a farmers cart full up with buckets of roma tomatoes destined to become sauce. I love tomato season!