That's Italian!

Stu came home early today so we threw together this lunch....Mozzerella, tomatoes and basil, wine and grapes....Life is good!

Lunch at Angela's

Today we went to my girlfriend Angela's house for lunch. What a great day! I couldn't believe the size of her Dad's garden! And even more than that, we works it all by hand, no tractor or Stu's favorite, a tiller!

The grapes look great, soon to be crushed into the Nectar of the Gods, or wine to you non belivers... Her Dad makes his own, and it's delicious!

This is a parsley plant they have let go to seed so they can keep the parsley coming, great idea!

This is an old oven that Angela's Mom used way back when to make bread...I can't even imagine!

Angela's brother Bruno his wife Maria and thier son Luca were visiting from London...How cute is he?

Orte, Italy

As I said when we go up this morning we could hardly move the beds in San Gimignano were so hard! Just the though of sleeping on yet another European luxury bed was enough to bring tears to our eyes! So we decided to head home. There is another hill top city along the highway that we see all the time, and keep saying that we want to stop, but never do...well today's the day!

This is Orte, it's half way between Rome and Orvietto, about 1/2 an hour from each

The day we were there, they were having a big festival the Saint'Egidio Abate's Day and Ottava of Saint'Egidio. A Medieval festival with shows, fairs, conventions, seminaries of study, art exhibitions of art and archery competitions like the "Palio", contented by the archers of the Seven Contrade, which are the different neighborhoods. So walking through the streets, each family had their flag flying high. But of course since it was lunch time, I think we may have seen two other people walking around, I guess they were all sleeping getting rested up for the evening events.

We had lunch at La Groticella

The food was good and the staff were very friendly and helpful!


We chose the local menu


Pane caldo all' olio - toasted bread with olive oil and tomato juice

Gnocchi with salt, pepper and cheese

Filetto Speziato, Insalatina Balsamica

Cafe Sorbet

This was right next to our table, pretty cool! The young girl that was serving us gave us a phamplet for the underground tours. As with most hill top towns, they too have an underground area...ahhhh a reason to come back!

More flags...

This is the piazza where all the competitions take place

In the middle of the pizza there were stairs, we though it would lead to the underground, but instead it was a cistern, not sure if I would want any water out of here, but I'm sure people still do!

A beautiful roof top, what a view they must have!

Still more flags...

This is the view from the top

Here we go, hitting the road again, homeward bound!

San Gimignano, Italy

So we changed our minds again... after getting all kinds of information on Florence everything and everyone said that, as with most big cities, there is no place to park. And since we are in the Infinity A.K.A "the Bat Mobile" we decided to skip it this time around and take the train up next month. So we are off to San Gimignano!

This guy was holding up traffic, once we saw what he was hauling (grapes)...all was forgiven! Tis the season!

This is one of the many gates leading up to the historic center, and what a beautiful day! Not too hot and not a clound in the sky!

Another tourist Mecca....

This is the hotel we stayed at... L' Antico Pozzo

Which means "The Old Well"

And, it explains why this is in the lobby...

This is the view from our room, the hotel was nice enough, good location, but the beds were horrible!

A little courtyard in the hotel

The woman at the hotel did give us a great reccomendation for lunch though!

La Mangiatoia loosley means "the trough"...I love it!

Stu enjoying a glass of the local vino

This was my first course, Ribolita... It's a really thick beans, greens and bread soup, it was great!

Stu had the pappardelle with wild boar ragu...he loved it, me...not so much.

For the second course we split the stewed wild boar...it was awesome! Melt in your mouth!

And to finish it all off we had what they call "Cafe con Mosca", which literaly means coffee with flies...Obviously this isn't coffee and those aren't flies (actually, I wish it had been...) it was grappa with coffee beans.

Church in another piazza were all the locals and tourists gather

This is the cute little main Piazza, lots of restaurants, ice cream shops and souviner shops...What more could you want?

A little shop selling local goodies...including wild boar

There were neat little passageways like this one all over

Ahhhh, the view!

Stu under the Tuscan Sun...hee hee!

And me too!

It was so nice to be able to walk down the street without doing the Naples two-step around the trash!


The church and tower as the sun fades away



We had dinner here, not so good...but then they all can't be winners!

When we got up the next morning, or at least tried to, we were both crippled! The bed was so hard, we could barely get going! We had big plans of climbing one of the many towers in the city, but just couldn't do it! Ouch!

We did make it back to the main Piazza for one last cappuccino, then it was on the road again.