Thursday 27th October
You would not believe how worn out I am feeling at the moment but I continue to strive and send you the entertainment that you so dearly need now that Strictly Come Baking is going over to the other side – we get the news here as well!!
I should have sent out a blog last night but we have arrived in free wifi land and it was so good to get my fix that I forgot all about you so you will be getting two blogs today, one of todays activities and one of the previous two days. I need to do it this way because tomorrow is a big church frenzy day and you’re already 150 photos behind.
We left you in Montefalco, a tidy little village set at the top of a mountain.
Except for the water tower which you can not miss and is described by our guide book as exceptionally ugly. It almost dominates the town which is a great shame.
Monteflaco is so famous, everyone flocks here in their thousands. The wine here is unique and highly valued, so highly valued we decided that €16 per bottle would be wasted on heathens like us. The olive oil is also considered to be the best olive oil in the world (by the Monteflaconese of course).
Inside the town we found a table workshop and this took our fancy. If only we had a decking area the size of Dave Marshalls’, we were going to ask the price but we noticed it didn’t come with a bag.
Another table, can you imagine having to pass Karen Ropers vodka along a table that length?
Small alleyway between houses trying to keep each other upright.
And at the top of the steep climb the “Balcony of Umbria”. There is a large round plaza and if you could knock all the buildings down you would have a great view in all directions but they don’t like you doing that type of thing in Italy.
The only other thing that Montefalco is famous for is the frescos inside the church. This one dating from 1319 to 1348 and ascribed to Ambrogio Lorenzetti.
And this from 1400.
Across the valley was a town called Trevi and on the guide books advice we viewed from afar.
Our German friends from the other night gave us a few sneaky places to park, the first of them was a supermarket where we managed to grab a bottle of the Montefalco nectar reduced from €12 to €8 which is still a bit rich for us but since it was so highly recommended…
We had prepared another weeks worth of menus and this time the bill came to €98 – bit different to the last weekly shop of €38 in Germany. One of our blog readers, Sue O’Shea asked if Italy was expensive and at the time we really didn’t know but we now know that it is. It’s not too dissimilar to the UK but if there is a chance to charge you extra the Italians will seize it with mucho gusto. We did get three tokens so we could have got 24 hours worth of electricity or three minutes worth of water, we didn’t need any of them so moved on to the waterfalls at Marmore.
It was just a car park for a visitor attraction, the waterfalls, and we decided bravely to stay the night. It wasn’t a sosta, it was just car parking but it was the quietest night we have ever had, there was no traffic until 10am the next morning. I did have a rant the other day about (some of) the things I don’t like but what I do like about most of the Europeans and I’ll include French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italians, is that they don’t really give a damn about what you are doing as long as it doesn’t affect them. Imagine opening your bonnet in Britain and you’ll have half a dozen know it alls surround you, over here they won’t even look over. Basically, park where you like, no one is that bothered.
Anyway, back to the waterfalls. Big waterfalls, very pretty, €10 each to get in a have a look around. Not us, we walk along the road, past the little closed hut with warning signs on and wander about.
All very pretty until the uniformed guards come along and guess what? They don’t give a damn, we are left to wander ticketless.
Beer of the day is provided by the expert brewers of Denmark, only because the Danish are too discerning to buy it. The Italians wouldn’t know a good beer if it jumped out at them and I wouldn’t worry too much if it was only 59c a can. Next time I might be slightly more discerning.
Not only beer of the day, you are also getting Stroopwaffel of the day, Two layers of waffles biscuity stuff with caramel in the middle. Stick it on top of your coffee for a minute or two, turn it over and try and gauge it just right so that it doesn’t go too gooey and fall into your mug. This is the last one that we had. We’ll have to look out for an Aldis.
today you are truly blessed. Limoncello of the day as well. Stick it in the freezer and then drink it as slowly as you can – nearly finished and that’s after five minutes, very moorish and now very empty.
We went to move onto to Civita Castellano on Wednesday but the sosta was dire which was a real shame because the town itself was very similar to Ronda in Spain with a huge chasm separating the two halves of the town. It didn’t help that it rained all day as well which adds to the miserability factor.
Anyway, we have ended up just outside Rome on a 4 star camp site, I don’t know who splashes these stars about but he was a bit generous here. Two years ago, when I still worked, I bought 20 camping cheques thinking they might be useful at some time. We used 9 in Barcelona 2 years ago so are using up the rest as we can. We paid #14.95 per night but have to add €2 per person per night tourist tax!. Anyway, we are here, we have done all the washing, the battery is fully charged up as are all the tablets, laptops and camera batteries. We’ve got the sun canopy up and tried sitting out for a while until the mossies got us.
I’m sitting here at about 5.30pm last night and the van started shaking side to side. Obviously kids so I rush out to confront them – no one there, so I sit in the dark for 20 minutes and they don’t come back, or even peep out from behind a tree to laugh at me, so I go back inside. 7.30pm and it happens again and whoosh, I’m out the door again – they’re bloody quick on their heels.
Next morning Lucy is reading her BBC news app which tells her that there were two earthquakes last night so that is a first for us. Thanks to everyone who was worried about us.