Good Morning from ASSISI

The hotel room is still dark and quiet, Camillo is just stirring and I am ready to go down for breakfast.  It is astonishing that I can even consider being hungry but I am and I really need my cup of coffee to get going in the right direction. 

The schedule that I posted on Sunday has been changed – modified – to meet the needs of our travel companions, Paulo and Lenira.  They want to see Pompeii – so we have given up Gubbio and will travel today into Roma and on Wednesday they will go to Pompeii.  We will stay in Rome with Camillo’s sister.  It is a good trade off. they get to see more and we get to rest and visit.

Here we are in our final week in Italy and I am going to backtrack again to Arezzo.  We have seen so much, so many small towns, each with something really special to talk about that I don’t want to go out of the Arezzo area until I have given you all a good overview of the area.   

For example, one afternoon while in Arezzo we  drove about 30km to see Anghiari – we had lunch, walked around for several hours, then drove back to Arezzo.  This town is definitely worth seeing – the view of the local countryside is spectacular and we (I) had a superior lunch.  I will give the details of the lunch and then just show you photos of the town and area.

     LUNCH in the Alighiero Ristorante: we ask for a mixed antipasto highlighting tastes from the area.   Silvia, the German owner since 1991, made us individual plates which included (in small portions thank goodness) Tomato / Bread soup, Radicchio / liver salad, Crostini (toasted bread) with liver pate, ham (etc.) selection, Ricotta with Tartuffi sauce.  I am so bad at taking notes so I don’t have down what everyone else ate but I chose an Orange Salad made with arugula/fennel/small orange wedges and parmesan cheese – and to top it off, no one else wanted to share a desert so Silvia made me a small portion of a dark chocolate mousse.  For me a perfect end to a perfect lunch. (no picture – I just ate the whole thing – Silvia assured me that it was not fattening. ;-))

           

(Just found a bootleg internet connection so I could post – written on Monday morning. Spent 2 days in Frascati, buying bread and roast pork, sweet olives, and fruit for a picnic at Tuscolo.  tonight one of Mirella’s famous dinner parties, and on Sunday we return to Rio.)