I got up and out the door this morning to a beautiful perfectly still Tiber river and a good walk.

We decided to go to the local market in the piazza. I like the Saturday market because it is quieter and all local products from right around here. I found a man with gorgeous heirloom tomatoes. Up to now I had not seen any. I bought a bunch of my favorite Cherokee Reds that I remember I could get in Virginia.

After stowing our purchases we headed down the street to the car. We said hello to our neighborhood cat Sirene. As you can see she probably gets fed by all the neighbors!

It was a beautiful, cool day and we had decided to go over the mountains to Lago Trasimeno where we had done so much of our house hunting in January. We found it much more crowded around the lake as there are tons of holiday makers out and about. Slow trip behind bicycles and 3 wheel Ape trucks. We stopped in a wine outlet of Duca della Corgna. This is the first place that I have been to where they will fill your bottles up for you from their “wine pumps”. Ha! As you can see from the picture there are 3 types of wine and the prices are per liter. It works just like a gas pump! (click to see it bigger)

We headed up to Paciano. If you read the blog about the house hunting trip you will remember that this was the pretty hill town into which we nearly bought. It was the dead of winter and the little town was quiet as a could be. I had always wondered how it would be in the summer.

We parked and there were a lot of folks at the bar at the base of town. We walked up into the town and it was almost as quiet as before. The other bar had some folks at the outside tables in the center of town. It was as pretty and tidy as I remembered, but oh so dead! We agreed that we were glad we had not moved there. Much more fun in a happenin’ town like Umbertide.

We drove on the beautiful tiny road along the hillside to the other hill town of Panicale which I have always wanted to visit after reading some blog posts by residents there. It is a really pretty place quite a bit bigger than Paciano. Great views from the walls across the lake to the mountains beyond.

We wandered about a bit and found that most of the town was just houses and a couple of churches on little twisty street. Very picturesque. The only real activity was in the main piazza where there were several shops, a busy bar and two or three restaurants.

We chose Lillo Tatini for our lunch which we were determined would be a small one. We sat outside with a nice view of the square and the food was very good and not too much. I would come back.