Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sofa and Spello

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We woke to a rainy Tuesday. Reminded me of our January trip but warmer. We decided to go visit Divani & Divani which is the Natuzzi store down between Assisi and Perugia. I was not expecting to buy anything, but when we arrived we realized it was their July sale, one of two sanctioned by the Italian state. No one is allowed to have a sale other than in January or July in Italy. Many of their sofas were on sale for 50% off. I really loved some of the sofas and even though we really can’t use it until our house is done it was such a savings we decided to go ahead and buy one. I toyed with the idea of leather as we had in Alexandria but remembered the damage the cats claws caused to it. In the end we went for a nice big beige fiber (cotton and linen) one. The covers all can be removed so I assume they can be cleaned. Here is a picture:

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It will be delivered next week.

I am pretty excited about it. It is my first nesting thing and I feel very good that I have done at least one thing towards the furnishing of the house!

After that we had planned to go visit Spello which is a pretty hill town we have never been to and to a winery Luther wanted to try called Sportoletti between Assisi and Spello. We had a nice tasting and purchased a mixed case of 3 of their wines.

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Next we drove the short distance to Spello. The densely inhabited town, built of stone, is medieval, and is enclosed by medieval walls on Roman foundations, including three Roman gates (Porta Consolare, Porta di Venere and the “Arch of Augustus”) and traces of three more, remains of an amphitheater, as well several medieval gates. Spello boasts about two dozen small churches, most of them medieval. The town is famous for the Infiorate which includes a whole night of work to create over sixty flower carpets that adorn the streets for the Corpus Domini feast. Here is a website with some pictures from the Infiorate in 2014. It is important to note that these are all made from wild flower petals that are gathered in the hills. It is incredible. I plan to go next year!

Here are some pictures I took today:

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We went to Enoteca Properzio in the center of town. It is a wine store and restaurant. It was a hoot. It was a lot of show but fun. We didn’t know what to expect so just went with the flow. The father, Roberto, son, Luca, and daughter Irene were all present. They had the show down pat. They poured wine by the glass and we had bruschetta to start with a Grechetto white Umbrian varietal. Excellent. The bruschette were, two with olive oil from two local producers to compare and contrast, and one with lovely fresh tomatoes from their garden. Next we had a Sangeovese also an Umbrian varietal red. We had it with the two pasta courses, one with the black summer truffles shaved liberally over and the other with tomato sauce. Last we had a very expensive, jammy red, also Sangeovese but 2011 vintage. Excellent wine and paired with two cheeses and balsamic vinegar. Everything was good but I could have made any of it. It was notable for it’s fresh local ingredients that blended very well with the wines and were appropriate for the summertime. Pictures!

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A really weird “small world” thing happened in the restaurant. The person we met a number of weeks ago at the wine bar across the river from us in Umbertide, Geoff was at the table next to us! How strange is that? Like we know a lot of people here (not) and one of the few should be in the same restaurant that is about 30 miles from where we both live.

Saturday outing

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It was a slow day so we decided to go to Todi about 45 minutes south of us to visit a winery. Sadly it was not open even though we were there during designated open hours. That’s Italy for you!

So we decided to go to Todi for lunch at Ristorante Umbria. Todi is a beautiful example of an Umbrian hill town. You can see it for miles around. There is traffic in it but we always park in a lot outside the walls and walk UP. And it is always up. Here are a couple of pictures.

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Arches near the Piazza Popolo up at the tippy top of the town.

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Cherry picker working on medieval tower – interesting contrast don’t you think?

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House with pretty terrace below restaurant – note the Etruscan satellite dishes.

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Pretty table outside of our restaurant.

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Picture from our table on the restaurant patio.

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Us using my remote shutter for a pic at lunch.

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My yummy raviolini with arugula and fresh tomatoes.

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Luther’s faro, broad bean and chick pea soup. YUM!

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Proscuitto e melone appetizer.

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The wine.

A fun trip back to a place we had been to with our friends Vicky and Tommy a number of years ago. Still very good and soooo pretty!

Wine wanderings

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Yesterday we drove to the Montefalco wine area. So sorry I forgot my camera! But I borrowed a few from the internet. It is about 25 or 30 miles south of us. It is a really pretty area all planted in grapes and olive trees.

We stopped in Torgiano, home of Lungarotti the huge wine conglomerate and they have a hotel, spa and restaurant. It is really lovely.

We drove through Bettona, an ancient hill town. Very cool looking. Borrowed picture below.

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We stopped at a couple of wineries. They do tastings and they are totally free (unlike in the US!). And they pour quite a bit in your glass. You can’t do too many of them or you’d be drunk.

We visited a little town called Bevagna. It is completely surrounded by it’s old walls. And it is FLAT! Down on the plain beside a small river. Very cute place. Here is a borrowed picture.

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Then we had lunch in a place called Trattoria di Oscar. We sat outside. I borrowed this picture from the facebook page for the restaurant. Nice outside terrace. They even brought out a copy of Saveur magazine who chose the restaurant for it’s “Best of” article.

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I had ravioli stuffed with ricotta and in a really good tomato sauce with drizzled olive oil. The oil was incredibly flavorful. It really sang out in the dish. Luther had the tagliatelle with ragu. Yum!

Observations about sex

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OK, I know the title is titillating! Ha! But it is odd here. Earlier this week, when I was walking with Susan, we touched on an interesting difference between the United States and here in Umbertide. Men and women do not do things together. The men have their pals and pretty much associate with them exclusively. The women stay home and have their women friends. Marriage is more of a business relationship. Sort of “Sex, children, division of labor, man earns money, women do the house”. Kind of like it used to be in the 50s in the US. I am sure it is different in a more sophisticated city like Rome, Milan or Florence but here in the more old fashioned part of Italy it is still done the old way.

Susan said Emanuele asked her when he found out they were moving over to Italy “but what about Gary’s pals?!” That would be the attitude of an Italian man in Umbertide. When asked whether a man is a friend with his wife the answer is no. When you think of it, it is just the old way. In the middle east and in Eastern Europe it is still done the old way. And so it is here too!

Tonight we sat in the Piazza and Luther smoked his cigar. The tables were all full…. with MEN. There were 2 other women other than me out there. Just another example of the Sex thing.

Garlic and short tents

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Aqua and house reno choices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Printer, lunch & haircut

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A couple of days of catching up to do here. Yesterday Susan and I took a nice long walk along the Tiber river. The weather had turned and it was fresh and cool. It was a fun walk and the time flew by.

Yesterday was also market day so we bought some fresh vegetables, wonderful aged pecorino cheese, some mortadella and salami, beautiful melons, and some more wine and one artisanal beer.

Gary called and said that he and Susan were going to the “Mall”. Susan had written about this mall in her blog and I was eager to know where it was. It is very much an American style mall anchored by a huge Coop food store and a really big Media One store with everything electronic and all appliances. In between were lots of smaller stores including a McDonalds Cafe. We were in the market for a printer which I was really missing. We got an HP. Susan got a new case for her IPhone. Hopefully bounce proof 🙂

It was lunch time just about and Susan and Gary never miss a chance for a good lunch. We went to an amazing old palazzo out in the country called Villa Taticchi in Ponte Pattoli between Umbertide and the mall. We had a glass of Prosecco in the garden and then had lunch inside. We had, to start, a fat spaghetti with an eggplant and tomato sauce and I think pistachios. Then a nice cold roast beef with arugula and shaved parmesan. Both were excellent.

We ate in last night and then went out into the piazza to enjoy some wine and Luther’s cigar. The last semi-final game in the World Cup was being played. It was between Argentina and Holland. There were two tables of Hollanders one even decked out with a headband with flags attached. Too bad, Holland lost. But it was a great game.

It rained overnight and got very cool. We decided to just hang out today but my main goal was to get my haircut. I was pretty terrified. I have seen some pretty bad hair cuts and I didn’t want to end up with one. I looked up all the possible words I would need and walked across the bridge to a shop just on the other side where Susan goes.

Well they were very, very nice and tolerant of my inability to speak Italian much. I took a picture of myself with a haircut that I liked and she did a very good job. Her name was Anna and she was the shop owner. I am SO relieved. Here is a selfie I took.

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The only other news is that I have been emailing with an American woman, Elisabeth, who lives in Spoleto and she and her husband are returning to the States in the fall. I think it’s fate because I went on the Internations site which I very seldom go to and randomly was looking around and in the Marketplace section was an ad from them about selling their furniture. I got in touch and she sent a list and prices. We plan to go down on Sunday to take a look. Also, I am looking forward to seeing Spoleto again as I have only been once a number of years ago. Susan and Gary will join us.

More renovation decisions and a visit to Citta di Castello

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Today we had another meeting with Emanuele. He has used our homework list and has really worked out all kinds of options. We discussed electrical issues. He recommends dividing the house into 3 zones with 2 kilowatts of power to each zone. Not being an electrician Luther later told me that in the US a townhouse like ours had 60 Kilowatts coming in!!! In Italy it is 10 times less! I guess because power is so expensive.

We talked about air conditioning the living room. We discussed the dining room window and wall. He thinks after the winter we may decide to add some insulation to that wall. Also the window is problematic. It is pretty and a big picture window but doesn’t swing open so it will be hard to clean. He recommended sliding glass door style window. I’ll think about that.

We talked about adding track lighting in all the rooms because that will allow us to not tear up the walls too much. He talked about tiling the kitchen floor and for continuity tiling the pantry and the patio with the same tiles.

Anyway we met for about an hour and a half and our next thing will be to go with him to the lighting store, the kitchen store, and the tile store. He gave us the bad news about the timing of the construction. Because in August all of Italy pretty much closes down even if we start in July it will be well through September and into October before we’ll be able to move into the house. Not happy but nothing I can do about it.

After our meetings Luther and I decided to go out to lunch and drove up to Citta di Castello which is 18 kilometers north of Umbertide. We got there around 11:30AM and the place was really jumping. It is about double the size of our town and the centro storico is mostly walled. It has lots of little streets and some very interesting architecture.

We had brought a list of places recommended for lunch. The first one was on it’s weekly day off. The next looked pretty closed up, maybe for good. The last one was open. It was called…Trattoria Lea.

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It was OK but not notable. While we were eating lunch I asked Luther when do you think it would stop seeming like we are on vacation and begin to believe we were living here. It is very hard since we’ve traveled in Italy so many times and now – Well, we live here! But it has not sunk in yet.

Here are some places we passed by on our stroll around the city.

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Nice statue in a niche.

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Tall tower.

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Pretty street.

Meeting with our Geometra

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

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

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

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

Sorry no pictures, forgot my camera!