Higher and Higher........

I'll start by saying we didn't go to Carrara yesterday. I got up feeling bad, refusing coffee, subsisting on toast and sitting around so definitely not in the mood for a road trip. Instead we went to grocery (since it was a holiday and Simply was closing at 1:00) and had just gotten back when Mark popped in to invite us up to see his house after lunch.

He came back about 1:30 and we loaded into his Renault, Maggi in front and took off up, up, up the hill. As we were getting in the car I noticed a dent in side and asked about it. Mark said his driving and his side of the car were fine but the mountain wouldn't move over. In case I haven't mentioned previously,  Mark is a Scottish transplant. He and his wife Molly came here about 22 years ago, fell in love with the area and bought and began building/renovating what he thought was a holiday home but what Molly decided was home period. I say building/renovating because nothing new can be built in the area but anything apparently can be renovated. The facade has to remain true to the original look and all changes have to be approved, most probably based on safety as opposed to aesthetics. Apparently you need to know the right people and be creative with your safety requirements. Apparently the extra windows we have in Il Mulinetto were to shore up the walls. Sounds logical to me. Molly died 3 years ago but Mark is going strong, still takes care of his places, picks many of his own olives, drives on these scary roads, etc. His house is lovely and the view is unbelievable. When it's clear (seems pollution is everywhere) he can see Lucca and also the small church that is on the mountain above us where Molly is buried.

After our visit up at his place he rode us to the top of our road too. I think Maggi was definitely ready to get out once back to Il Mulinetto as she had the front seat and overlooked all the nasty switch backs while I could really only see the side vegetation, or mountain edge, depending on inside or outside curve, going or coming. Anyway, it was a nice visit. We did learn that one of the big houses that was above us was where Marcello Mastroianni had lived, but when I don't know.

Once home, we started our map/driving/roads review and search for hotels for Monday's move back towards Orvieto. We have decided to cut it short a day here and drive down to the Chianti area, stay overnight at what we hope is a nice wine tasting place and then Tuesday pop down to Orvieto, turn in the car and get the train to Rome. I can tell you, neither of us is looking forward to schlepping our bags on the trains to either Roma Tiburtina station or Roma Termini station and then on to another train to the airport and then into a cab to get to the hotel where we are staying Tuesday night. What was I thinking when I packed this bag?

Nice ham and Emmenthal omelette for dinner with some toast, one glass each to finish our bottle of white, some delicious store bought tiramisu and an early night.

Felt much better today (Saturday) so we drove to the coastal village of  Viareggio (pronounced Via reddzo with a long o) on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The day was warm and we needed an outing since we had opted not to try to crowd Cinque Terre into a one day, knowing we'd probably end up being disappointed. We had called earlier in the week about a tour, still one day, but they did all the planning, work, transportation, etc. , so we felt it might have been easier, but it was full and no cancelations had happened when we checked back last night. We agreed it was not meant to be this time. Anyway, we at least wanted to see the beach and hopefully have some fish for lunch.

I drove over and Maggi navigated. We drove through downtown Viareggio where we realized that all beaches were private. We continued down the coast a bit to Torre del Lago where opera composer Giacomo Puccini had lived and worked. He is buried in a small chapel inside the Villa where he lived and no, we didn't stop. Remember...beach and fish! We ventured further on to Marina di Torre Del Lago Puccini in search of said beach and fish. We found both, as well as gratzi parking and that without 2-3 turns around that place searching. The fact that there is only one road in and out, and that the gratzi parking is on both sides of this road, might have contributed. Anyway, the tourists and holidayers obviously were not out yet as there was plenty of parking close to the beach end, but it was obvious that place would be a nightmare if busy.  We actually walked down to the beach, definitely not the white sands of the gulf, and decided not to walk to the actual water's edge. You're right, we're wusses but really didn't want that sand all over us for lunch or the drive back. After the requisite pictures proving 1) we were both really here and 2) we were at the beach, we went in search of lunch, preferably fish. We sat outside at one of the open establishments and had fried fish and real French fries. With the fish were also fried strips of what appeared to be carrots and zucchini. It was hard to tell by taste, they were fried, delicious and crunchy. I ate all of them. We have no idea what fish we had but they were very small, whole, some even with heads and not bad at all. I think, since the menu served them in other ways, the fish might have been European Anchovies. If so, they taste nothing like the stuff we get in cans and use for Caesar salad or what some people eat on pizzas(uck). A nice glass of white wine complemented the meal and Dolce was a stop around the corner at the gelateria on the way back to our free parking space. After all that we could have both used a bed on the beach but opted instead to head for home.

Maggi drove back and as we honked our way up the hill, it started to sprinkle.  The Travel Gods have definitely been with us. Since we are getting close to leaving, laundry occupied the latter part of the day, as well as catching up and communicating with all our loved ones and friends ( even some of you following this I bet) that are at least 6 hours behind in time. Dinner was another hassle with the grill from he?? , but again we managed to cook the chops perfectly and when you added a nice caprese salad, wine and tiramisu, was spectacular.

Ciao, until next time.

Up by the Old Mill Stream...continued.

Sorry, appears blogger will only post so many words so here is Page 2.

We can both feel heat when its on,  and I have checked several times for flame, and its there, so we decide to put the chops on and try cooking them by holding the knob down. They'll cook sooner or later, we're sure. I take back over and chops are getting brown but no sizzle lean, what the crap is going on, am I going to have to pan sear?  Finally, after holding down for a good 15-20 minutes with no let up to check, we get what appears to be ignition. Smoke tendrils start coming off the lava rock and this time when I remove my hand from the knob, the grill keeps burning. It's a miracle and it's about darn time. Maggi wants to give the grill the benefit of the doubt...its not been used since last year so needed to be "primed.". I think its just broken, hold down the knob until it gets hot my a##!  Anyway, alls well that ends well. We cooked the chops to a perfect medium, devoured them with all the caprese salad we made, smeared our toasted bread with roasted garlic, finished off a wonderful bottle of a Nobile Red and concluded the meal with a slice of lemon torte and a little dessert wine...Yummy. 

Today was Maggi's turn to drive and we headed out towards the wilds- The Garfagnana.  Mountains, quaint villages, winding roads...ahhh Italy. We started out mid-morning, honking our way down the hill and turned towards Lucca. Wouldn't you know it, we ended up right back down one of those same city streets we had explored several times yesterday. Thank goodness we finally found a way to turn left and on to an unfamiliar but "taking us out of the city" road. What a surprise when we realized we had turned around on it yesterday too, trying to find that darn parking area.  This time staying on it took us north out of Lucca and into the less traveled areas, at least we thought. I can tell you that based on the cars, trucks and motorcycles always making us feel we were going too slow, it's not that less traveled. We drove along the Serchio River to Bagne di Lucca, an older spa town, moving over for tailgating drivers,  but sometimes just ignoring them and making them stay behind us on those narrow, curvy, ascending roads. After a brief stop we pointed ourselves, we hoped, towards Barga. Neither of us realized it was a hilltop(mountain) town reached by switchbacks with those nasty outside curves and what looked like alleyway roads, but reach it we did. We were never lost, but we "explored" quite a bit, many times off the wider, straighter roads. Does it sound like the roads are my big focus, well, maybe they are. Driving here is a challenge and the drivers are only part of it. I will never be comfortable that you can run into someone coming around a blind curve on what to me is more like a one lane road, at any time. Maybe I should only drive the Autostrada. Naaw, just grin and bear it. We have 100% insurance coverage.

Obviously, since I am writing this, we made it home fine, as we have each time. We honked our way back up the hill, decided on a light dinner and made plans for tomorrow's road trip to Carrara. I think it's my turn to drive......

Last night we honored National Garlic Day with light dinner of wine, roasted garlic, toasted bread of course and the rest of our lemon torte.  We reworked our itinerary for rest of stay, deciding to leave here a day early, Monday, to drive through the Chianti area. Since it's on the way back to Orvieto and car drop, it just made sense to not return back up the hill. Ciao until tomorrow, maybe.

Up by the Old Mill Stream.....

Ok, this is a catch-up blog post since I'm a few days behind.

Monday we left Orvieto for the second leg of our Italian stay in northern Tuscany. I drove and Maggi was the GPS, We had an almost uneventful drive up the A1 and across the A11 autostradas, including paying the tolls using a credit card at unattended kiosks. The almost part was when the manual GPS said go right and the driver went straight. This small bump happened north of Firenze (Florence) as we tried to get from the A1 to the A11.  There was one exit, it wasn't marked like we're used to and I was in the wrong lane. Fortunately we successfully got off the A1 at the next exit, pulled in to what Maggi translated was a shoe store, reassessed our position, decided to forego Prada and Gucci purchases and retraced our steps back to the confusing interchange, which in my opinion was still just as confusing.

By then we needed a rest stop and lunch so went in to one of the Autogrilles on the Autostrada to see what was available. After eating the Umbrian Tipico bread (tasteless, saltless and sugarless I am pretty sure) my ham and swiss on foccacia and her veggie sandwich tasted devine, even eaten in the car. We got off the A11 at Lucca east, wound our way along the outside of the city walls and followed the pretty detailed directions our proprietor Mark had provide by email. Good thing too as we are situated up a very narrow, windy one lane, in my opinion, road. If we had met anyone coming down the mountain as we were driving up we both would have probably wet our pants.

Arriving at Il Mulinetto, The Mill, was really like arriving at a picturesque chalet in the woods.  The house is partially hidden behind a beautiful cedar tree.  The driveway runs along a small creek originating somewhere up the mountains that arrives after cascading over 5 small waterfalls, all located directly behind the house. We are treated to the continual sound of the falling water as it moves along it's journey, makes sleeping nice. I digress... In it's past life, many years ago, Il Mulinetto was a working Olive mill, located amid the olive trees, with a water wheel, run by said water, operating the press. It was in ruins when Mark and his wife Molly bought it in 2000 and required a complete renovation from what was pretty much just a shell. The reno took 4-5 years and if the guest book is any indication, they began renting it out in 2006.  Most of the old mill works are in a local museum now since Mark was unable to use any of it either as a mill or incorporate in the house for health reasons.

It was cold and overcast Monday and Mark had a wonderful wood fire going downstairs in the Vermont Castings fireplace insert. It even has a blower to send all that warm air into the room.  The floors are terracotta tile and chilly underfoot and although there is a central heating system fueled by hot waster, we later realized it was set on the night or sleep program and not heating our room radiators so bedrooms and poor cold us, the bathrooms, weren't warm. Of course that was only really obvious to us that evening, after Mark had left.  It's down right cold when you use a fully tiled bathroom when it's 40° outside and probably 50° in the house. But, we are nothing if not inventive in taking care of ourselves. That fire was banked in the evening and back blazing as soon as I came downstairs the next morning. But I'm ahead of myself.

That afternoon we made our first trip down the hill. This is a continual  death defying drive/ride for both of us, both down AND back up. Blind curves abound, the road is pretty much one lane, and although I have managed to meet and inch by a couple of cars over the last few days, it's still scary, but we're here and we're making the best of it. It took us until yesterday to realize that we could save lives (ours of utmost concern) by honking before each switch back. Only after that did we realize there was constant honking in that bucolic bliss- duh!!!  So we have become the honking Americani, we honk at every curve, whether we can see around it or not, whether we are going down or coming up. Better over honk than be sorry. Just think of us as the Honking Queens, and put that to ABBA music.

That night, after a dinner of wonderful ham and assiago cheese omelets (yea, we finally got to eat some eggs) we locked up every window, closed all the shutters, added blankets, wore multiple layers of clothing and went to bed in the cold. Didn't take me long the next day, after the fire was again raring, to start flipping switches on everything until I discovered how to manipulate that thermostat. Now who ever is up first(Maggi) flips it to manual to warm up the bathrooms at a minimum. I really appreciate a warm bathroom.

Tuesday we made it down the hill unscathed (before becoming the Honking Queens) and then on to the local market a few villages over. The market is called Simply. We learned how to weigh and price our produce, look up meats to figure out what they were and that there's no Greek yoghurt in this burg! Also, we discoveted that the pane brutto, (ugly bread) is the best bread we've had in Italy so it's on our buy list every time we're there.

We lunched at what must have been the local working man's pizzeria as we were the only women, again, and of course thought we were out of place. Questioning Mark later, he indicated that many local establishments serve pranza di lavoro, or worker's lunch. It's a limited menu for a fixed price so most workers take advantage, oh, and that women dining out by themselves or in pairs was not unusual. Sure....  

Not wanting to drive up that hill in the dark, and because dinner usually involves wine...and that hill would definitely get the better of us then, so far we have eaten our evening meal here. I'm pretty sure Tuesday's was uneventful because I can't even remember what we had.

Yesterday we hit Lucca, the walled city. Yes they're all walled cities if they're old enough - think Roman conquests, medieval fortresses, Knights Templar, warring factions, Dracula - oops, wrong country. Anyway, I could go on, but you get the picture. Most of these places have been here a really, really long time and all had to have defenses. We spent most of our time driving in circles ( I was driving and not happy!), trying to find the parking area Mark had indicated for us as free, retracing our path on some of the same roads 2-3 times I'm pretty sure, and of course, never located it. When we finally gave up and pulled into pay parking we spent more time trying to figure out how long we could park for an euro, etc. The whole experience was comical in retrospect, but after driving in circles for an hour, that emotion completely eluded us at the time. The city is doing spring cleaning/upkeep and there are scaffolding and covers on many buildings. Guess old walled cities take big time upkeep. We wandered around, visited some of the churches, bought some post cards, I went to Sephora and purchased nail polish (yeah, I know- Sephora, in Lucca, whodathought?) we climbed up to the top of the wall and walked part way and realized...oh no!...parking time was running out. By the time we made it back outside the walls and across to the parking, of course seeing what appeared to be the parking police working the area, we said screw it..let's go back home.  Lunch was sandwiches on the front porch, sitting in the sun, dozing and this is where it gets interesting, at least for me.

Maggi went upstairs to try to nap after almost falling out of the chair so I decided to paint my nails. That completed, I went outside to sit in the same lounge chair I had been dozing in previously, to let them dry. As I was carefully adjusting the back of chair, it broke. Now, these are the green, kinda hard, plastic chairs and my experience says weather kills them pretty quickly, but then again,  maybe I killed it. Anyway, the bottom gave out, arm broke and I ended up with my butt almost on the ground, body in a v position, legs in the air and remember....wet nails. I didn't have any remover and was not going to mess them up so I just sat there for a good 20-30 minutes, feeling pretty stupid. I just knew Maggi would come down, see me, get her camera, take picture and next thing you know it would be on Facebook. That whole image finally motivated me to make the chair fall over sideways and I literally crawled out of it but..I saved my nails, not a mar on that polish. After that the only salvation was to have wine.  We originally had planned to  go down the hill  for dinner but that drinking and driving up the hill thing came up so we went down the hill to Simply instead. We would cook, what a novel idea. We would buy fish and use the inside grill. Il Mulinetto was equipped with everything, right?

We were looking for that overfished delicacy, sea bass. As we perused the fish offerings we decided salted cod was definitely out, smoked salmon was not grillable, and since neither of us could ask the fish guy would he fillet the sea bass...nor were either of us going to do it... sea bass was out too. Instead we opted for already butchered and packaged pork chops, pretty butter lettuce, tomatoes, fresh basil, buffalo mozzarella and lemon torte. A feast that evening for sure. Up the hill we went. 

Let me set the stage….......Table is set, pork chops are marinated,  garlic is roasting, bread is cut waiting on that garlic, caprese salad is ready,  wine has done all necessary breathing and is in our glasses of course and now it's time to start the grill. The inside grill is gas with the burner covered in lava rock and as we got ready to start it,  we remembered that Mark said you had to hold the starter down until it heated up and would stay lit. How hard could that be? I can light the grill at home, even without the electric clicker. So I proceeded to light the grill burner, holding down the knob for a couple minutes, all the while listening to that stupid clicker. I heard the burner light so knew we had flame.. I could feel heat beginning to come off the grill so I let the knob go, and voila, the flame goes out. I did it again, 5 minutes this time..same result. Third times a charm, right? Not! Now I'm getting peeved.  I'm holding down the knob and thinking nasty thoughts about the grill...it's been 20 minutes or more since I started this charade and my fingers are getting tired.  Maggi comes in and offers to hold it for awhile and gives it a try, still no dice. We can

Down Time...Two if by Weather and Then We're Off

I want to preface this blog with the following statement. I am not the sole author, Maggi has been a contributing author and editor for the whole trip. You are reading our words, not just mine.

Friday dawned icky, cold, windy and by mutual agreement it was decided a rest day was in order. We had knitting lessons, ate leftovers for lunch and really didn't venture out much until dinner, except to get something in addition to sugar for breakfast. We returned with real sliced bread, butter, yoghurt, milk, granola and a few pastries from the Sicilian bakery. Couldn't find eggs. That evening, after a required stop at the Bankomat for us both, we stumbled on a very small trattoria down what I call an alley and apparently Italians  charmingly call a Vicolo, Trattoria dell'Orso. Orso translates to Bear.

This tiny restaurant had a menu on the door that spoke to both of us...Ommelette Formaggio, cheese omelet and even with mushrooms. We have been egg deprived (but if we found some, I have yet to be able to figure out how to turn on the stove, but back to the menu.) Thinking we could get something besides pasta, pizza and pane tipico, a euphemism for the worst bread ever,  we ventured in, following a couple who looked like they knew where they were going. There were only 5 tables in the front room, 2 of which were occupied. We took one on the side wall and the entertainment began.

We immediately discovered there was no real menu, that what we saw was probably an all inclusive list of what they (2 men) might think of fixing at any time. That night we were offered a choice of 3 pastas and 3 meats, no omelet and further, over here it was an omelette (om-eh-let-tay). For you tonight we have pasta with zuchinni and artichoke, pasta with mushrooms and truffles, pasta with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella, the meats are little pieces of lamb with artichokes, chicken cacciatore or guinea hen. Now let me back up, I'm slightly ahead of myself.

Remember, we followed a couple into the Trattoria. They were already seated by the time we came in. The proprietor was talking to them and we overheard them say they wanted the Rick Steves something. We immediately pegged them as Americani. We're really observant that way and had readily adopted the Italian past time of watching everyone and anyway, it was impossible not to overhear, remember -  5 tables. So the host continues with selection at their table first and low and behold he says guina and the American man blurts out pig? Of course at that point we're laughing hysterically and we can't help but intervene as we'd already had our wine apertivi at home, in other words we were primed. The whole night just started there.

After ordering our pasta, yes pasta again, we introduce ourselves and found they were a couple from Reno, Nevada taking what we're both pretty sure was a 21 day self guided tour either from Rick Steves or following a Rick Steves itinerary with no car, using buses and trains and their feet I suppose. They were in Orvieto overnight, had to be up and at local Orvieto bus area by 7:10am to the funicular to then catch another bus to go to Civita de Bagnoragio for a quick morning to again catch that bus back to Orvieto to catch the train to Sorrento that same afternoon. _(We came home and looked up Rick Steves tours and decided neither of us are Interested in pursuing that type of endeavor. ) We swapped stories and quickly realized we had the better deal. They had gotten caught in a train strike with what then became worthless tickets, she had planned for warmer weather and wanted a coat and clean clothes, everything was one day and catching some type of public transportation. She seemed ready to fold, he had apparently done a Rick Steves before and seemed to be completely enjoying himself.  Maggi asked how long they had been together and she said they weren't together. She said, either seriously or humorously, we couldn't tell, they were just traveling companions at this point. She also volunteered that she had travel insurance that said if something happened to either of them, the other's travel would be full paid and that if we hear about a woman tourist in Sorrento meeting a tragic end she was charging us to come forward as witnesses to this conversation.  Maggie said later that its more likely based on our observations that maybe he could meet a tragic end. Banter and laughing prevailed for the rest of the evening.

Back to the food. We weren't interested in multiple courses but they on the other hand apparently had expected something called the Rick Steves tasting menu. Now he didn't seem to care that that the host had misunderstood but she got out her book or itinerary and politely asked about it again and the host seemed to then understand. He then  brought them both meat, sides, wine, dessert, etc. We just had dolce (dessert), what Ciro the host called a parfait pistachio. It was kinda like a small pistachio custard with sauce, delizioso. Before we left Ciro presented us with a digesitivo, our first from any place. As we left I commented to Maggi on walk back that I had read comments on TripAdvisor that the cost of the tasting menu wasn't €30 for both like people assumed based on Rick Steves book but €30 each and that if this was true those 2 were in for a shock when they got il conto ( the bill). It was late and we were tired so went right to bed.

Next day was Saturday and again the weather was non cooperating. Fog  as thick as soup all day, 20mph winds and highs in 50s. Another "rest day". Maggi began her scarf in earnest, I worked on mine, trying to finish the cast-off of just under 1600 stitches and we turned heat up and caught up on things. We ventured out to the Sicilian bakery around 6:30, walked up and down Corso Cavour and ended up back at Trattoria dell'Orso for dinner again. We were the first diners and caught Ciro just setting up for dinner. As we sat and waited, the phone on back wall rang and Ciro answered and called his partner, Gabrielle to the phone. Again, this is a small room and we could overhear the whole conversation, and it was in English. It was a complaint call from, you guessed it, the Rick Steves people about the cost of the tasting menu. It's really funny that we were privy to the prior night's lack of communication about the menu, my comments when walking home about the surprise that couple might get and this night's complaint call.  Gabrielle handled it well, agreed it was a misunderstanding and indicated that they would clarify future requests by asking if they wanted One Menu for Two or One Menu for each? Maggi and I both agreed it was billed as a tasting menu and would have been clear to us, but in a foreign environment clarification might be necessary. We are pretty sure the Nevada woman complained. The guy didn't seem to care and multiple times had told her to leave it alone.

Gabrielle (chef) came out to the floor and I said, Rick Steves complaint?  We were here last night when the couple was here getting the tasting menu. He pointed up and said He performs the miracles, not me. What the F... did they think they were getting with all that food in perfect English. We just burst out laughing uncontrollably. Later that night when Ciro sat with us he said Gabrielle has spent 12 years in New Jersey before he came back and bought the place.  Both spoke pretty good English. We went on to have another enjoyable night, Maggi having the same pasta with truffles but I had the little pieces of lamb with artichokes. Molto delizioso!!!  The dolce was freshly made Tirimisu and we ended with another gratis digestivo, this time bay leaf. Ciro then provide the recipe for the digestivo. As we left, Gabrielle asked if we were returning tonight and Maggi said maybe. We would definitely be there if we knew the menu offerings were changing.

It's Easter Sunday as I write this and we observed a day of rest. We caught up on blogs,  ate toasted fresh pecorino and tartufo sausage paninis for lunch with dolce being whatever was left from our Sicilian bakery purchases and enjoyed a nice glass of Orvieto Classico.  We packed so we can leave the area tomorrow morning for Lucca and now are finishing the bottle of Orvieto Classico. Since we doubt a menu change at dell'Orso, we're off to John's Etruscan Well around the corner for our Easter, and last night in Orvieto dinner at 7:30. Arrivederci Orvieto. Ciao Lucca.

Le Velette

Thursday we returned to Tenuta (estate) Le Velette, the home of Cecelia (remember pronunciation, its kinda like chichillya with short i's like "it") Bottai (long o long a) for our promised tour/wine tasting/buffet. We arrived shortly after 11 since manual GPS (me) got us turned around coming out of Orvieto. The Rick Steves group had already debussed and was in the garden taking pictures on what ended up as a cold, blustery day. We joined another American couple as extra participants and were all seated outside in the cold and wind for a short overview of history and the estate. We then quickly went inside and proceeded through the working kitchen, with a roaring fire in the hearth,  down to the historic Tufa wine cellar. Although not used professionally any longer, it houses a significant amount of vintage bottles (Cecelia calls it family fun wine) still used for the family's private consumption and of course for tour backdrops. That cellar was originally dug/cut into the Tufa 500BC by Etruscans and they found artifacts when her family explored that are now in some of the Etruscan museums.  Each progressive owner has added area and it is now the largest original underground cellar in Italy, stretching 1/3 mi long. We learned there is no real way to duplicate the perfect conditions in those cellars. The wine knows if the temperature changes, I.e. ac goes out from no electricity even for just a few hours, if people walk on flooring, if lights constantly go on and off, etc. Not an issue in the caves/cellars like her's. It is always the perfect temperature 57°-65°(with or without electricity), stable humidity, dark, no movement, quiet, etc.

We also learned every bottle of wine can be the perfect bottle if you remember 3 things, memory, mood, and temperature. Memory - if you want to forget a bad day, drink a light wine. Use a robust wine to really reinforce a memory. Mood, we forgot her words because we drank too much white wine?,  but ties to memory most probably.  Temperature - light cool wine for warm day, robust red wine for cooler temperatures.

After the cellars we went upstairs for the wine tasting and a light buffet. We tasted 4 wines and learned about different pairings. Traditionally Umbrian wines were white such as the standard, Orvieto Classico, but now they have moved into reds. Le Velette now bottles 11 estate wines from light white to very robust reds, including a sweet  white that we tasted with both a biscotti-like cookie called cantuccini and a filled cake of which we never learned the name but could easily have packed for leftovers. I know you'll all be amazed, as were we, but we didn't buy any Le Velette wine to go, although not by intention. We just missed the opportunity at the time, but did get the name of the US importer and also found out ABC Liquors carries at least their Orvieto Classico at a reasonable price, thank goodness for the internet. Before leaving we captured the wonderful view of Orvieto from the garden (back yard) and I tried to get the entrance with less luck.

Returning home we decided domestic housekeeping activities were is order, read that as wash, turn on heat and hang clothes all over the bedrooms and bathrooms. There is a clothes line outside Maggi's bedroom window but there are pigeons too.  We weren't taking any chances. Speaking of pigeons, dinner was a visit back to the "especial place",  John's Etruscan Well, where Maggi actually had the Gnocchi with Ragu of Pigeon. Yes, that's what I said, PIGEON. Guess what, it tastes like dark meat chicken. I, on the other hand, ate conservatively and had the Truffle Tortellini. Boringggg - Not! Ciao.