September 30
Friday. Wow the week has flown by. We plan to go to Perugia today. It's another nice day.
We drove to Perugia to first, buy our train tickets and second, to tour the town. We found the train station and parked. Buying the tickets was quite the show. Back and forth we went from machine to machine trying multiple credit cards all to no avail. Finally we managed to scrape together enough cash to buy the 6 tickets - so mission accomplished.
Next we drove up into the town. The roads up were bigger than the roads to most hill towns. We followed the Centro signs to the parking. We exited the lot at the bus station and there were escalators up into the town. I think I counted about 5 of them. They all worked too! Not like the DC Metro escalators. There was one part where it came up into great vaulted spaces which, we found out later, were left over from the popes razing a guy named Bagliani houses who'd pissed off someone he shouldn't have apparently.
We came out onto a really pretty square. I read there are more trees and green spaces in Perugia than anywhere else in Italy. We walked down Independencia street and came upon a bazillion news trucks with giant satellite dishes. News cameras were set up and a guy was doing his spot. It was the jail where Amanda Knox is being kept. I believe the jury is out right now deliberating on her retrial. Pretty exciting.
We went to the Piazza VI Novembre. There is the town hall there and facing it, the Duomo. In between is a 25-sided fountain of pink stone (left). Quite pretty. We spied our lunch restaurant and made a reservation.
We went and had a coffee or hot chocolate in my case (right) and people watched for a while. We headed to the west side of town. Great shopping along the streets. Down the tiny streets we went. There were arches and churches and Etruscan gates. All very cool. We went back to the Piazza and to our restaurant da Cesarina.
We had thought we had to sit inside because they were having an event but when we arrived they put us outside. So nice! There was a pretty good breeze and it was cool but not too cool. I split the Norcia ham plate with Luther and then Carpaccio again. It was covered with shaved parmesan and arugula. I drizzled olive oil over it and it was wonderful. We had Montefalco wines. Luther and Bill got the veal steak, Sophie got the arabicatta pasta, Brad got the Umbricelli pasta with truffles, Cindy got the spaghetti with olive oil, peppers, olives and anchovies. Everybody pronounced it one of the best lunches. See the food!
Da Cesarino for lunch |
Lunch outside - nice day |
Gryphon - town symbol |
Lion Perugia symbol |
Etruscan archway |
Angel detail |
Amanda Knox |
Amanda Knox |
We walked back and Sophie bought a top and a belt and some jewelry. We drove back and I'm sitting on the terrace. There is no wind for a change and it is very very pleasant. Dinner tonight was using up all the roma and little tomatoes and some of the onions and garlic with some pepperoncino. It was quite yummy - we put it on fat spaghetti type pasta.
October 1
Another gorgeous day. We checked out with Louie and Deborah who we really liked and were great hosts. We didn't tax them too much while there I think. We got our deposit back. We piled all our luggage into the car and headed to the butcher to pick up lunch. We bought cinghali sausages, great ham, great cheese, half a loaf of bread and 3 bottles of wine. We packed it all into the cooler and headed for Perugia. We gassed up on the way. We dropped the van off and were 1 hour late so they charged us another whole day. Pretty sucky of them.
We had to kill an hour or so and our train pulled in a little late. It was a slow commuter. We found seats (they were comfortable) and watched the scenery go by. At about 1 we decided to eat. It was a messy affair but we all got fed. We couldn't drink any wine though.
We arrived in Florence and wandered around looking for the restrooms. Finally Brad asked. It was a pay facility but that was fine because it was very clean. We all felt better. Headed for our platform and our train was there. We boarded and the train was packed. It had come from Rome and was going through Bologna, Padua, Venice Mestre and Venice Santa Lucia which was our stop.
We had some trouble with seating. We had chosen seats all together but of course that didn't work. We managed to get the couple next to us to trade with Cindy and Bill and Brad and Sophie moved farther down the car so Brad could ride facing forward. When we got to Bologna the train emptied out considerably.
Arrival in Venice was as usual and the first view of the Grand Canal was breathtaking. We got a water taxi (right) who charged us 80 Euro for all six and all of our luggage. He went very slowly down the canal and it was a short ride to Campiello del Renner. I called Judit (our agent) and she came along shortly after.
The apartment (left) is pretty weird. Furnishing odd. Lighting strange. Pink refrigerator. We were shown around and unloaded the cooler. Then we headed out to find the supermarket for breakfast stuff. We promptly got lost. As always. After a couple of back tracks we got to Strada Nuova a wide road. The city was packed with people as I've never seen it before.
We got yogurt, paper products, cream, sugar, bananas, bread for toast and butter and some wine. We toted it all back and unloaded then headed across the Rialto bridge to find Restaurante alla Madonna. The bridge was packed with people. We managed to get across and walked along the canal where all the tourists were eating, then turned right down a narrow alley where we could see the sign. We went right in and got seated. We were gratified to see that there were mostly Italians. The food was pretty good. I had octopus in olive oil and lemon and a grilled Branzino. Luther got the seafood antipasti and a veal chop. Brad got mussels and the chop. Bill had scallopini in butter sauce. Sophie got pasta fagiole, Cindy got caprese salad and fried shrimp and calamari. About half way through the meal I was looking at Brad sitting across from me and suddenly - poof! He got about 8 inches shorter! Turns out the seat of his chair had fallen out from under him! Ha! Sorry no food pictures here!
Venice canal at night |
view from our bedroom |
View from apartment daytime |
View from apartment at night |
Rialto bridge at night |
We walked back and stopped into our local wine bar and sat outside and people watched which was pretty good. Back and to bed.