We’re havin’ a heat wave 🎶

9 Replies

Yup. Italy is one of the countries in Europe that’s getting slammed the next week or so. I was feeling especially sorry for the tourists in Rome and Florence. Man is it HOT! 🥵 They predict 40s starting Monday. 42C Wednesday — that’s 108F. Compound it with crowds of sweaty people and waiting in-line (no shade) to get into the sights it will be miserable.

It is natural for people to want to see the “Big Three” major sights (Rome, Florence and Venice) especially on their first trip to Italy, but I strongly advise against it in any hot and high season. Especially this year with an over abundance of tourists after Covid. So what if you’ve got to wear a jacket? It’s so much better than what is going on here now. I was talking to my Italian teacher yesterday and she got rather worked up about it all. She is adamant that Italy needs the tourist dollars, and it does, but why can it not be spread out into regions with less crowds and just as amazing things to see? Not to mention you’ll see the REAL Italy. These mega tourist destinations will be a very sad initiation to Italy. There are so many undiscovered places. Tuscany is always overrun. But Umbria, Le Marche, Abruzzo are all wonderfully uncrowded and all in the center, equally easy to reach. Go to the “Big Three” in winter, late fall, or early spring, and in summer the countryside and small towns.
~~~~~~
In our new apartment we are getting used to managing the temperatures. I open the windows at night when it is this hot at 10pm-ish. And leave them open all night. I’ve got fans in every room pulling the cooler night air in. I watch the morning temperature closely and shut all the windows and shutters when it hits 80 outside. It stays fairly cool inside. It doesn’t get above 80 when the temperatures outside are mid nineties. The fans help a lot. At night we decided to move upstairs to the sofa bed. There are two AC units up there but that’s a big room with no doors and open stairwell to the downstairs so it doesn’t get terribly cool. But better than downstairs. Also, a bonus, it’s very quiet in that area.

Today I got out early (for me) to the market. I bought a bounty of veggies. Tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, arugula, cucumbers, potatoes, squash.

Believe it or not, between us we eat about 30 tomatoes a week.

Another thing I have to do is figure out how to make meals in this heat. Italian kitchens are usually tucked away from the main living areas. That’s good and bad. Our kitchen has a door to shut it completely off. Until today I thought that was stupid. I also have a very big hood that really pulls the heat out. So shutting the door, opening the windows and using the hood keeps it mostly cool and isolates the heat in that room. I still try to cook early, while it is cool, for dinner that night.

Today, when I came back, I roasted three tomatoes with garlic and I pressure cooked cannellini beans. Our dinner will be pasta, tossed with this sauce, beans, basil, pecorino cheese and bread crumbs. Served room temperature.

I also made pesto. I have four plants and they are all doing very well. I keep it producing by snipping the branches just before they bloom. I go down to the two itty bitty leaves below the big leaves. This allows those small leaves to grow and it doesn’t get rangy and ugly.

Remember my puny tomato plants. They are heirloom American tomatoes. A gift from my friend Joanne. Just look at them now! They look a bit messy. The basil is beside the olive tree. There are three tomatoes and a jalapeño plant. The tomatoes try to encroach on the pepper so I keep them tied up. I figure the tomatoes will ripen when we are on our cruise in August/September. My luck! My house-sitters will benefit.

I have a post half written about our upstairs kitchen reno. That is upcoming. Keep cool y’all! And Buon fine settimana! A la prossima!

Saturday market

8 Replies

We have entered the very hot days today. So I got off early to go to the market so I didn’t miss the good tomatoes. They sell out fast. There really is only one person who sells the kind of tomatoes I like. On the way I noted the Street Food festival that is on from Friday – Sunday. An annual event. Food trucks with interesting things . Wines. Micro brews. You load up and there are tables at which to sit. All in the shadow of La Rocca, our fortress.

But then, I heard the sound of a drum kit thrumming through the various drums. I spotted the band way up on a rooftop terrace. I was amazed. Those youngins will try anything! 😉

Into the market where, since I was early, the crowds weren’t very thick. I got my tomatoes, a whole lot of tomatoes! And some pretty green beans, onions and borlotti beans, first of the season. I visited various stands.

The lady at the above stand, also one of my favorites, knows me and that I have a blog so she gave me a flyer for an upcoming event. There is going to be a bi-lingual walking tour of Umbertide with a degustazione of foods at the end. It is all sponsored by Slow Food Alta Umbria and the Mercato della Terra di Umbertide. It’s July 22nd in case anyone reading this wants to go and happens to be here. I think a reservation is mandatory.

I bought mozzarella and eggs from my favorite cheese lady and I was finished. Except for one last chore.

I needed to photo the hours of our local electric place. Turns out, when we finalize our bill at Via Grilli, they ended up owing us €1,030. Which they gave us a credit for. Um, no. We do not use them for electric anymore so a credit isn’t going to work. It should be interesting trying to get the money back.
~~~~~~~~
We next helped out a friend who wants to buy a place here. We went to view two houses. Over near Lago Trasimeno. The first one had spectacular views through pretty arched windows. But it was very small. Just two small bedrooms, two baths, and an open plan living, dining, kitchen area. [edit] There is a swimming pool.

The second was a huge place down on the flats below and near the lake. The bare glimpse of the lake was visible through an upstairs bedroom window.

We parted ways with the real estate agent Valentina, who was very nice. Then, we managed to hit a big pothole and got a flat tire. Damn. It was hot and we were in the sun but we managed to get it changed and got home OK. Now to see about buying a new tire! It was nothing if not an eventful day.

Buona fine settimana a tutti!

It’s July alright.

2 Replies

The heat has finally hit. It could, and probably will, get hotter but this is hot enough for me! In July Umbertide is really jumping. Jumping as much as it ever will. All the people with holiday homes in the hills around here are back. And all the people who rent rooms, villas and apartments are here too. The bars, markets and restaurants are full. Supermarket parking lots have a plethora of license plates from all over Europe. On certain days it’s like grand central station when the weekly rentals change over and everyone new is buying groceries.

It’s really no wonder that so many people come. Although Umbria is not famous like our next door neighbor, Tuscany, it is just as beautiful. It is quieter with less tourists, an oasis of Italian food, wine and beauty. This picture was taken on a farm just outside the Umbertide city walls. The girasole, sunflowers, are a big crop here for their oil, but also a big part of our July landscape. 🌻

Posted on the Umbertide Facebook page. Photo by Pietro Migliorati.

Here are a few terrazzo pictures. First one is of our fish, Qua and Quo, who are increasingly more friendly because they know where the food comes from. The rest are garden pictures and the new rug. Captions below the pics. As always click for larger versions

Qua and Quo – at breakfast
Margarita. Italian for daisy.
Lavender
Dwarf Japanese maple
Tomatoes! Can’t wait!
Baby jalapeño
I swear the olive is twice it’s original size!
New rug and pillows. Finito!

I sat outside all day yesterday. There was a lovely breeze. I just need to get Pino, the electrician, back for some outlets and lighting outside. Oh and to fix the lights that don’t work.
~~~~~~
All y’all stay cool!

Happy 4th

7 Replies

I decided to christen our terrace with all its new furniture with a small Fourth of July celebration. A few friends came and we had guacamole and salsa and chips for a pre-lunch nosh and then four salads for us to enjoy. Basmati coconut rice with shrimp, chickpea tomato artichoke and roasted pepper, smoked salmon avocado egg and greens, and sesame peanut noodles. It was fun. The weather was lovely, here we are minus Steve, our photographer!

Thanks for coming everyone and Happy Fourth of July!

The Arezzo Antique and Flea Market

4 Replies

Today I met up with friends at the Arezzo antique/flea market. A huge venue with a really diverse selection of things for every want and every taste. It is the first Sunday of every month and the Saturday prior. It was a beautiful day. The forecasts were for storms and rain. But we saw nary a drop. And the temperatures were perfect.

Arezzo is about a 50 minute drive from Umbertide. The city is in Tuscany and is said to be the most affluent in that region. It has a population of around 100,000. The city center is an amazingly beautiful city. Known as a city of gold and high fashion, it was home to artists and poets. It was originally Etruscan and later Roman.

The market itself sprawls throughout the city. I heard more American English being spoken than I have in years. I was reminded by one of my companions that this was, after all, Tuscany. The biggest magnet to American tourists. So close to Umbria with all its treasures. But I am ok with that. Let Tuscany keep the crowds! Here are pictures of the market. Luther asked for the book stall pictures. He didn’t come because he loses interest in these things rapidly.

Seats from an old cinema
Loved this carved stone chess set

We stopped for lunch at Cavour 42 Trattoria. It was a very pleasant place. The outside tables were in a pretty covered arcade. There was a cool breeze blowing through and it was quieter and calmer than most places in the market. I enjoyed my lunch but it wasn’t great. The company I had made it perfect. Doug brought Georgia, his dog, and there were lots of other dogs including a sweet pitty at the table opposite. We had a nice Rose from Chianti.

I didn’t buy anything. All three of us have new homes to furnish so it was fun. I did see some things I liked. I’ll go back again. Maybe I can get Luther to come next time!
~~~~~~~~
We have been blessed (?) with a mourning dove nest on our terrace. There are finally two chicks. They are looking like they are getting close to fledging. We try to not scare them.

Finally I have the funniest little teeny stunted hydrangea that came up from left over roots. It has bloomed. My hand in photo for reference to size. Plants are amazing.

Buon weekend, and happy Fourth of July to all! We have a group of Americans coming for lunch that day. It will be fun!

R.I.P. Qui

1 Reply

Sadly I must report the loss of our fish, Qui. I found her/him floating in the “pond” this morning. He was fine yesterday. The cause of death is not known. Sad to loose him/her. We are trying to decide whether to get another. Qua and Quo are doing fine.
~~~~~~~
We had friends over for dinner last night. We are still working our way into entertaining upstairs here with no kitchen. I decided three salads would be nice since it was hot outside. I did all the hot cooking, rice, toasting pine nuts and coconut etc early in the day. Then later I assembled what could be done ahead of time. The last minute stuff was just before our guests arrived and I took all the salads up on my cart on the elevator to the 3rd floor. It all worked out perfect. Our guests have sold their home here and are leaving for a new life in Florence. The are ever thoughtful and brought a beautiful, shade loving plant for us. We will miss them 😢

~~~~~~~
Tonight we had a nice mozzarella di bufala with the amazing new tomatoes.

Ciao for now!

I knew it would be an adventure!

7 Replies

Boy, was I right. I picked up Ariela at the bus stop in Umbertide. I had volunteered to drive her as she is exploring fairly rural parts of Umbria and she doesn’t drive. She is a Doctoral Student at John’s Hopkins whose expertise is Medieval religious art. It was already 2:30 so we were off to a late start. Our destination was Mercatello sul Metauro in the Marche region. Umbria abuts this region. I have been through this area once a long time ago on the way back from Udine.

There were two possible routes. The first mistake was trusting Google maps. Google maps said it takes an hour. The shorter, faster route is the one we took. We headed up into the mountains. The road was very small. This was not the one I remembered from before. Eventually we made a left turn onto a strada bianca (white road) which is unpaved. Well, no turning back now so off we went. I asked Ariela how far we were from Mercatello…15 kilometers (!). The going was slow because the road had ruts from the rains. We saw not one single structure on this entire road. I must say the scenery was spectacular. High, rugged mountains with huge bare cliff-faces and deep gorges. I kept praying we wouldn’t get a flat. When we finally turned onto asphalt, I practically knelt and kissed the tarmac.

We entered the little town of Mercatello – population about 1,000. It was mostly churches. There was a cute little bar near where we parked. The town was beautiful.

Ariela had made an appointment with Don Fabio the Priest at the Chiesa di Santa Maria. It is a small church, there is a painting there that the building was built to house. It was built in the 1400s. The reason Ariela wanted to come was a crucifix with movable limbs and covered in skin. It was made in the 1500s. She wanted to see it. I was intrigued. She said it was one of very few examples in Italy. There are many articulated crucifixes but few are covered in skin.

I tried to research it and found it difficult to find a lot of information. The purpose of these articulated Christs is that they are used in recreations of Jesus’ life on holy days and the Christ manikin stands in as the real Jesus. They are still used today. The crucifixion is realized with the statue of Jesus with the articulated arms. I even read this bit online.

…the hair on the statue of Jesus is laid down by girls after their first menstruation. The images are treated as living people and create the fusion of the statues with the characters in flesh and blood; this fusion between reality and the appearance of being real makes humans and statues protagonists of the scenes in which one and the other, indiscriminately, seem to belong to the same mystical dimension…

So the people worshiping in the procession actually believe this IS Jesus. This seems to happen more in the southern parts of Italy. Although we have processions in Umbertide it isn’t to this degree. Anyway, I took some pictures. First the church.

Don Fabio is seated on the left.
Our first view of the figure. He is kept in a niche behind the altar, behind a long painting that covers it and behind glass behind that.
The figure is just under two meters long or around 6 feet. It is disturbingly lifelike.

The covering on the figure is very flexible. It is said to be human skin that was tanned and that is came from a Turk. The man who was showing us the figure picked up and bent the limbs so we could see. One other interesting fact, no one knows what is inside of the figure. How it is constructed etc.

Ariela was thrilled. She lives and breathes this stuff. It is her life. She will be writing her thesis on this. I had to pry her out of there. 😁 We returned on the good road. It was just as I remembered. Well paved and extremely curvy. It goes through the very high mountains between Le Marche and Umbria.

So that was my excellent adventure. It is amazing the treasures Italy has hidden away.

Shelves, sofa, things!

9 Replies

My cabinetmaker Paolo, works slowly. I’m not in a big hurry. It is a good thing I’m not because it has taken since February so far! He finally finished two of the three things I had asked him to make. I just went and looked and it doesn’t seem I took pictures of the supports for some shelves the sellers left sticking out of a wall when they removed, and took the shelves. These supports are iron and embedded into the building so they couldn’t easily be removed. They were also ugly. If I were the sellers and had shelves custom made to fit onto these supports I – Would. Not. Have. Taken. Them! But that’s just me. So, of necessity I needed to replace those shelves. They had to be thick because the supports actually insert into them. Paolo finished these shelves last week and installed them. I also replaced some other shelves the sellers took in a small space. It is a good place to store things. Kind of a pantry. One thing remains to be finished by Paolo, a custom built corner cupboard in the hall from the front door. He says he will be finished by next week with this piece.

I really don’t have enough “stuff” yet. I suppose over time they will fill up.
The space is narrow, but still works as a pantry.

A woman who lives just outside of Umbertide is downsizing at her house. She advertised some things and I bought a few. I can use the crocks and urns for flowers if I want, and they are pretty. I still need some decorative things especially for my bookshelves. I paid her a visit today. Their house has a spectacular view. They are up in the hills to the west of Umbertide. The view is of the entire city and also our big Monte Acuto and other big mountains to the east. I just learned the old name for the big mountain is Montaguto. Aguto is an archaic way to say acute just like Acuto. Here is their view. They lived here for 25 years and have now moved back to the US – Maryland. They return here twice a year. She says less stuff is better when they aren’t there all the time. Here is the view. Click for larger picture. You can see it better.

I bought a pretty group of hooks for coats with grapes. I didn’t get a picture. I still have to mount it. I also got two antique crocks (American). I had some back home. They are very useful as well as pretty. One of these will hold my utensils in my new kitchen, if ever I get one!

The others are purely decorative. She said they were Egyptian.

Finally, after many delays, we got our outside sofa. First I received an email saying delivery would be between such and such date and such and such date. A week in duration. Well that came and went. So I got a phone call. They would come Monday. Monday came and went. No sofa. Another call on Tuesday. They would come Wednesday. Sigh. Well, a guy did show up all by himself. I had paid for delivery a casa, and assembly. Riiiiggghhhttt. I asked him why there weren’t two people. He shrugged and said “it’’s Italia”. He said if he complained he wouldn’t have a job. Poor guy was so sweet. He was apologetic he couldn’t assemble it. But he did take it out of the huge box and brought it up piece by piece. Watdaya do? So we spent some of our anniversary and the day after assembling the sofa. Picture.

I like it a lot, which is good! And it will be nice to watch the sunset. It faces west. Speaking of anniversaries. June 21 is a special day. First, it is the Summer Solstice, happy holiday to all the Druids and Pagans out there! And for us, it is our wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary to us! Finally for me, I retired 10 years ago on June 21. Never a better decision was made. 💕

I also had an excellent adventure yesterday but I will save that for a future post. Ciao for now!

Qui, Qua and Quo

4 Replies

I bet you’re wondering what this will be about. 😉 Those words are Latin. And they happen to be the Italian names for Huey, Dewey, and Louie — Donald Duck’s nephews. And now, they are the names of our new fish 🙂. Of course we don’t know if they are male or female but that doesn’t really matter. To me Qui, Qua, and Quo are not gender specific. At first they stayed hidden but this afternoon I went out and fed them and they came up to eat. I have always had a small “pond” with 2 or 3 fish. I had not gotten the fish yet and noticed the water of the unfinished “pond” had mosquito larvae. The LAST thing I wanted. Qui, Qua, and Quo already took care of those!

I finished the pond yesterday after gathering a ton more rocks out in the mountains. There is a quarry and at the entrance are lots of nice rocks. Then, I added my little fountain. It makes a pleasing noise.

Finished “pond” with fountain.

Here are other pictures of the flowers and plants. They are doing Ok. One or two seem to be struggling. I also have a “vegetable garden”. I was gifted by my friend Joanne with three tomato plants, heirloom tomatoes grown from seeds from the States. I hope they produce! One seems to be doing well, the other two maybe not so well. And I’ve got one jalapeño. Plus all the herbs.

Next to the pond, ferns, a hosta and ginger which is a ground cover. Also an impatien for a bit of color.
More ferns and a survivor hydrangea. Plus petunias.
Lavender, daisy, more ferns.
Vegetable garden.
Herb garden.

My little lemon tree is super happy here. I’m amazed at the number of baby lemons! I counted 25 but it is still blooming and I assume there will be more.

We are headed for a heat wave, our first this year. We will see how this house is in the heat. So far I’m closing it up by around noon. Closing the shutters keeps it dark and cool enough. Now is the time for more salads for dinner. We both like them. Last night we had a delicious Greek salad. I bought arugula at the kilometer 0 market which has a nice bite and fresh sweet tomatoes which offset that bitterness. Dressed with good olive oil, lemon juice from my tree, oregano and feta. Perfetto!

Buona domenica !

L’Arte del Caffè

2 Replies

By day it is a lovely bar just across the street. Quiet. Outside tables. Nice bariste. Since we live here now it’s nice to go there for a caffè or an aperitivo. Now that it is summer we are learning it has another side entirely. Like Doctor Jeckle and Mister Hyde. By night, it is party central. But thankfully, so far, not often. You might want to turn your sound down a tad. 😉

Blessedly it will end around midnight.
~~~~~~~~
An addendum to my last post about the infiorata. Thanks to my friend Doug, who accompanied us, I have an update from my last post from Spello. He tells me that La Schelta (The Choice) my favorite, came in second. The crucifixion one with the extreme perspective came in first. To answer my own question, they use over 1.5 million flowers in the creations. Not sure if that includes artichokes, bay leaves etc.

Buon weekend a tutti!