Sabina (again)

After just over a year we found ourselves in the Stimigliano station parking lot waiting for our HelpX host, Pauline. We had such a good time here over two weeks last September that we wonder if it can be as good again? The short answer - Yes! Casale Benedetti is Pauline's home in the country sporting first-class accommodation, a stunning view over the old hill town of Tarano, and a wide slope of giant brambles to clear!

The standard of accommodation we have to put up with ...

Those views from the house ...

Tarano from our bedroom window in the evening

and in the morning ...

Pyromaniac at work ...

Despite us having cleared about a third of the brambles last year, and other helpers in Spring having partially re-cleared it, it all had to be done again. Though progress was initially fast as we were redoing areas, it slowed once we hit the primordial forest. Needless to say we were both very sore, tired and scratched all over. And suffering from numerous bitey insects. But there are benefits - we are getting stronger and Vicki is in her element lighting and feeding numerous fires.

Happy strimming

Unhappy strimming

An olive tree rescued from the brambles

Missed a bit ...

We had expected to be picking the olives here this time (we were too early last year). But they have been badly hit by the fruit fly this year (as have many throughout the Mediterranean area). The fly lives in the soil and lays eggs in the individual olives which then ripen too quickly and fall off. It is a constant problem but this year is much worse, possibly due to a wetter than normal Spring. If there are only a few olives damaged this way then they can be harvested, though the infected olives may taint the oil. One neighbour has 1500 trees which he makes his living off. He was in tears as he won't harvest any this year. There also appears to be a bacteria hitting some of the trees in Italy, the only "cure" being to chop off infected branches or cut down the trees. We're expecting the price of oil to rise next year due to the very low harvest. Vicki did have the job of filling plastic bottles with a mixture of vinegar and washing liquid, putting small holes in them and stringing them from  the trees in the hope that they deal to some of the fly.

With Pauline, Maurizio and Corrado 

All this work is far outweighed by the benefits of being here. Once again we find ourselves with a very good cook who is also prolific. And plenty of dinner parties too! We’ve had a couple of groups over for dinner and been out to other people’s places several times. As is common with ex-pats living abroad most of their friends appear to come from the ex-pat community, though they are of very mixed nationalities they all speak good English – which makes conversation very easy for us.

How Italians eat pizza ...

This seems to be the norm outside of restaurants: for takeaways just spread boxes out on table and cut yourself a wedge with scissors. No other utensils required.

The end of another day in  paradise

The weather remains dry and warm. Still minimal rain since we arrived in Italy back in September, and the temperature just warm enough to take a dip in the unheated outdoor pool and laze in the sun after work. Love being in shorts and sandals for months on end.

Another birthday passes and we’re lucky enough to be invited to our friend Corrado’s for an evening meal. Superb food and plenty of Prosecco. We shared it with Corrado and Pauline plus Gaby (American) and Stefano (a real Italian). We had been to a pizza evening at their place the previous week where Stefano presided over the outdoor pizza oven

Orvieto snapped from the motorway

This is certainly an area we would love to spend more time in. Very rural but within easy reach of Rome (1 hour by train) and many interesting villages and towns. Orvieto is a great example of a beautiful medieval town set dramatically on cliffs with the main access being by a funicular. The cathedral frontage might even (just) eclipse that of Siena’s for beauty. A highlight was having coffee in a bar on the cathedral piazza and having the waiter – seeing us with our cameras – invite us down to the ancient cellars. It was full of racks of dusty old wine bottles, vats of wine, and old barrels that must still be full as many of them were covered in a white mould.

Detail on the cathedral

Orvieto cathedral

The bar above ground

The bar below ground

Mould!

It was sad to depart from San Giorgio for our flight from Rome back to England (where we were greeted by heavy rain – but that is another story). A big thank you to Pauline for looking after us so well and taking the time to explore the region with us. By the time this gets posted she will have been to the middle east, NZ, Australia, and then due to head to the Galapagos and back via the States. One of many epic trips for her.

And a final memory – popping down to the local supermarket and bumping into friends Frank and Sharon at the conveniently attached bar in time for superb food and wine for lunch. Ahhh, the Italian lifestyle is so good ..

Ciao!

Festas

Many villages throughout Italy manage to have a festival day (or weekend) sometime during the year. The summer weekends can offer many choices so, provided you have transport, there are always options for attending a festa. We were lucky that our host in Sabina – Pauline – took us to two and a half. The first (the half) was at the little old village of San Polo, just down the hill from Pauline's home in San Giorgio. The reason it only qualifies as a “half” is that we got there at midday and it was all over! And it wasn’t a true festa either. A group of Roman photographers (if you don’t want the image of people in togas carrying wax tablets then think of photographers from Rome) are making a year-long study of four historic villages, including two from near us: San Polo and Tarano on the other side of where we are staying. They turn up every so often and photograph the inhabitants and the buildings. The village turned on some “scenic” activities for them including horses in the streets and opening up the wine cellars.

Maurizio (left) getting our "glasses" filled

Though we missed the main event we, with the help of an Italian friend, Maurizio, were shown around the cellars of a house where wine was being bottled. Of course we were “forced” to sample some and I’d have to classify it as somewhat agricultural. Full of flavour indeed. We were then invited into someone’s house where Maurizio was having lunch, and duly made to sit down and provided with the best lasagne we’ve ever had - apparently made by someone's elderly Mum. And plenty more farmyard red (which I’d develop quite a liking for). It wasn’t awkward at all as there must have been 20 or so people including most of the photographers. The usual wonderful hospitality we’ve found here.

At San Polo

San Polo clocktower

Italian fashion, circa 1350

Our first real festa was a visit to the town of Civitella San Paolo. We knew this was a big event when we saw people walking along the roadside before we got near. And this is serious as you never want to walk along a road in Italy unless desperate – the roads are very narrow, poorly maintained, no footpaths, and full of psychotic wannabe F1 drivers in old Fiats. They had managed to put on a park-and-ride and, for the first time in Italy, we saw people forming an orderly queue.

The old parts of the town are surrounded by a castle wall and inside the inhabitants were dressed up in medieval costumes selling traditional goods at stalls. They even had a vat of boiling water containing silk worms from which the threads were picked up and attached to a spinning wheel. The event finished with a sound-and-light spectacular depicting an event in history where the townspeople beat off invaders who supported an alternate Pope. All a bit lost on us with our lack of Italian.

Traditional board games

Citta della Pieve

Judging at the theatre

Our second big outing was to a saffron festival at Citta della Pieve. We rented an apartment in the old town with Pauline and a couple of American friends Meg and Chris. While it wasn’t a big event there was a market with stalls selling all sorts of food flavoured with local saffron, from cheeses to chocolates. Unusual for this area the walled hilltop town is made of brick, reminiscent of the east coast towns. 

One highlight was a music competition featuring two teenage boys in an old theatre. The only audience was the five judges and a few onlookers like us who had sneaked into the boxes.

Chris, Meg, Pauline and Nigel getting their morning caffeine fix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inhabitants of Citta della Pieve

"Kisswoman Alley" - one of the narrowest alleys in Italy

Discussing shoe sizes at the market

And a couple more of Civitella San Paolo ...

Rome

I don’t know how people survived driving into strange cities before GPS. With our cellphone using Google Maps it was just feasible, though it often lagged behind reality, not telling us which way to turn till we had passed the point of no [re]turn. As we drove south from Viterbo we were lolled into a false sense of well-being, on quiet country roads through a forest. Even when we joined a motorway to enter Rome itself the traffic was light, but once we neared the drop-off point for the hire car near Termini railway station things got a little chaotic. We had to drop the car off on the 5^th floor on an un-signposted parking building with lanes only suitable for mountain bikes and parking spaces 2mm wider than the cars. Or so it felt.

We had a few hours to kill before we could go to our Airbnb apartment (a downside to Airbnb – you have to wait for the owner to be available). After seeing the queue at the left-luggage counter in the railway station we decided to take our bags with us for a couple of hours. This seemed sensible until we hit our first cobbled street. We decided to impress the girls with the “big one” by going straight to the Colosseum, by way of San Pietro in Vincoli, the church with a good Michelangelo statue and the chains that (allegedly) bound St Peter. Not surprisingly (he says belatedly!) it was closed for lunch. The Colosseum is spectacular though even with its growing cloak of scaffolding, which we'd witnessed last year.

It was Joan and Julie's first trip on an underground when we took the Metro to our apartment. Though the Metro is in good order it was very crowded so they probably didn’t enjoy the experience. Coming out of the Metro station it was very quiet so, after checking which exit we needed with my cellphone and Google Maps, I then put the phone in my pocket before lugging a bag up the stairs. A group of men suddenly appeared and one helped Vicki with her bag. After saying thank you I found my cellphone had disappeared – the bag-helper was the distraction.  We were very lucky to have an Airbnb host like Claudia – she took us to the nearest police station to help us report the theft (for insurance purposes). There are several different types of police in Italy: Carabinieri (originally the army police), local police, traffic police and financial police. Claudia decided that the best was to report it to the Carabinieri as they were most likely to be the quickest. We had to take a bus ride to another suburb and then walk to an obscure building on a side-street and be buzzed in through a locked door.  Once inside though they were brilliant as an officer took a statement immediately and printed out a form for me. They didn’t look at all busy as everyone else seemed to be chatting and smoking in another room. A couple of lessons re-enforced:

1. Always keep your valuables in a safe place. We are normally very good about this and my “man-bag” is a special one that is reinforced with wire and special locks. My wallet and phone live in it or, occasionally in a zipped-up trouser pocket. However, in this situation I popped it in an unsecured pocket while I carried a bag up a single flight of stairs when I thought no one was around. No - never let your guard down!
2. Secure your phone! How many people even bother with this? With a smartphone it isn’t just the cost of losing the phone (insurance should pay for most of it - less the excess) but it is all the personal information you have on it or the access to various websites, e.g. Facebook, email, Skype, etc. – all with no need to input a password each time. Personally I have a PIN number on the front screen that comes on if the phone hasn’t been used in a matter of seconds (i.e. by the time any thief has had a chance to look at it), I use a (free) antivirus security package that puts a PIN on some applications, and I have tracking software enabled (in my case Prey). My assumption is that they won’t be able to readily get at my data – except what is stored on my memory card - or even use the phone. If they ever manage to fire it up and connect to the internet then Prey will let me track them and control the handset, but to be safe I immediately changed all my passwords on my web accounts. A hassle for sure but potentially saving a much bigger hassle.

Anyway, back to Rome …

Last time we were here we choose to look around the Roman and Renaissance parts, knowing that the Vatican is a Big Day Out in itself, and best left until you have lots of energy. This time we were all up to it and got there about 8:30 in the morning – the ticket office to the museums opens at 9am. There appear to be two main options: walk around St. Peter’s square and then queue for seeing inside the church (all free), or queue for the museums (including the Sistine Chapel) at a cost of 16 euros each. Our plan was to queue for the museums first before the queue really built up and afterwards go for a walk around the square and pop into the church if the queue wasn’t too big. We hadn’t been prepared for the ticket touts and their very heavy sell. The queue was very long even at this early hour and moved very slowly once the ticket office had opened. So we were standing targets for the touts who were offering tours which give you preferential entry. And they were insisting that we had another 2 hours to go in the queue. Being cheapskates we hung on in the queue and got to the entrance in 45 minutes or so. Here we saw how it all works – they would let in all the groups with preferential entry followed by a group from the commoner’s queue. This meant our queue moved very slowly, however when we got inside the foyer it was relatively quiet and only half the ticket booths were occupied and there was no queue. So, as clearly they can handle a greater number of people entering at a time, the scheme seems to be to constrain the main queue to encourage people to pay more for preferential entry. Undoubtedly an un-Christian thought of mine ..

The museums are in a building shaped like a U – a very long corridor of interconnecting rooms containing the various museums, the Sistine Chapel at the end, then a return to the start via another long corridor of rooms. Only those who have paid for the preferential entry tickets are allowed to sneak out at the Chapel and head straight into St. Peters, the rest have to walk the return leg of the building and then walk back its length on the outside to St. Peters. Several kilometres of walking in total. Hence the first half is an absolute nightmare until the crowds thin after the Chapel. It is very hard to stop to look at anything and full of tour groups surrounding all the best bits. I found it like trying to read a good book with someone else turning the pages just a bit too fast. All of which is a pity as the sheer immensity of the buildings, the richness of the paintings, and the number of objects which they have purloined over the centuries is mind-boggling.

The Sistine Chapel is impressive but, embedded in so many other wonderful rooms, doesn’t stand out as much as expected. Clearly it is the highlight as it is packed with people all looking at the ceiling and strictly controlled by guards who rigorously enforce the “no photographs” rule. As we arrived we witnessed an angry young American (wearing shorts and a cap - both not allowed) delete his photos from his cellphone and then get directed to the exit by the equally angry guards, who added he was disrespectful.  We're inclined to agree with the guards - the rules are clearly stated - if you don't like the rules, don't go there.

Back near the start we found a café with seats outside in a garden, cheap prices, and quiet – where were all those thousands in that queue? Joan and I decided to relax there while the girls went back for a second go at some of the rooms. I was very impressed by what was in the museum and that it was all immaculate, but I didn’t enjoy the experience: far too many touts, far too many people, too rushed through the wonders, too much to take in.  We did walk around to the square and saw the church from the outside, but couldn’t face another queue to get in.

With limited time there is a temptation to walk around and try and see everything, with the result that you get very tired and don't enjoy the experience or really appreciate what you see. Unfortunately with limited time there are limited choices, you could sit in a cafe and enjoy life going past but then it is a long way to come to just do that. So we walked and walked and made it to the Trevi fountain even though we knew it was covered in scaffolding. Though you can't now appreciate how beautiful it is nor the scale, the crowds were smaller and they had built a bridge right up to the front of the sculptures so it did give a different view. My two (other than the Colosseum) favourite Roman sites are the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona. The Pantheon impresses both for its size and sheer age: 1900 years old. It had rained the previous night so the centre of the dome inside was roped off as it is open to the sky and water drains off the slightly concave floor.

The Pantheon

The Piazza Navona contains three beautiful fountains. I didn't take any photos this year so some from last year will have to suffice.






 


As it was our second to last night together we went out for a Roman meal, trying suppli and numerous other dishes our over-enthusiastic waiter/chef decided we ought to have, regardless of what we had actually ordered. We were completely stuffed by the end. Certainly an experience to remember but we weren't keen on all the staff smoking nor watching the restaurant rubbish being wheeled out through the restaurant! The following night we kept it simple and had Chinese in a very hygienic restaurant ...

Joan and Julie's Italian holiday was now over and we accompanied them to the airport train with a few tears in all our eyes. They were very easy to travel with and it was so good to share their wonder and excitement. We will certainly miss them and it reminds us that traveling is often best when you can share the experience.

Viterbo

Just another town on the way ...

We continued our theme of village sightseeing by spending a few days at Viterbo, about 1 hour’s drive north of Rome, before finishing our holiday in the busy-ness of the ancient city. This was partly because Vicki had seen some amazing images of villages in this area, and secondly because that was where we found suitable Airbnb accommodation.

Grapes on the way ...

Driving down from Tuscany was glorious and I regretted having arranged to meet our Airbnb host at 3pm as we could easily have spent hours and hours more on the road, or, more precisely, standing next to the road taking pictures. The southern Tuscan scenery is full of rolling farmland with big stone farmhouses and long lines of trees flanking their driveways. The picture at the top of the previous post is a great example. Just after taking it we remarked that all it needed was a red car on the driveway. As we then drove past the entrance we saw three red Ferraris driving up it for a photo shoot!! Needless to say there was nowhere for us to stop …

Viterbo has a nice old walled centre surrounded by a larger modern town. Our apartment was in a newish block just a short walk away from an entrance gateway to the old town and turned out to be beautiful and modern inside. The best accommodation we have had to date.

Only one way in ...

Our first day trip was to Civita di Bagnoregio. Though 2,500 years old its population dwindled to just 6 a few years ago as bits of the town keep falling off due to erosion, though personally I think it is more to do with having to carry your shopping up the hill. It is now an island reached only by the long toll bridge (3 euros for entry and we were all puffing by the time we got to the town). Inside it is quaint and very neat with nothing modern, if you excuse the numerous cafes. Tourism is its only chance of survival.

Momentarily tourist-free

Starting the walk

Gelati on the beach

Driving down to Viterbo we passed the largest volcanic lake in Europe, Lago di Bolsena.  As it looked so pretty from the hills as you drive past we decided to return. The town of Bolsena is built on the lakeside with a small harbour and a good swimming beach. It has some very upmarket villas that we imagine are owned by wealthy Romans. On a warm day we sat beside the beach at a near-empty restaurant drinking cappuccinos and eating gelato, watching the fishermen, and not wanting to leave. A delightful spot though I imagine on a hot summer 

weekend it would be anything but.

Yet another picturesque village on our itinerary for the day. Vitorchiano is spectacular and not overly touristy. We walked up to the tourist viewing point overlooking the town (why are there no footpaths on these narrow roads?) for the obligatory snaps and I was surprised to find in the carpark the only Easter Island statue outside of Easter Island! At least the placard claimed that was the case. Outside of the main gate into the town were three gentlemen who took a shine to Julie (or was it the other way around?), especially when she asked for their photograph and was invited to sit with them. Inside the town was tourist-free with just the friendly locals out for their evening walk.

Irresistible?

Unexpected

As the last afternoon in Viterbo looked a bit dodgy weather-wise we decided not to venture too far. Indeed we were treated to a spectacular thunderstorm later that evening. We had read about the various hot springs in the area, well-known to the Romans. Some may well now be inside posh spas but the three that we found were very basic and un-signposted.  The first was in a field past a Roman ruin down a dusty gravel road and was fenced off with a carpark that deteriorated into an area full of campervans, possibly full of Germans. We had a wander around the various pools (not too hot) and there were a few people in them. Five euros admission gave access to the 'portacabin' change rooms and a toilet. We declined the offer and went in search of more. The next two we found were in fields next to an airforce base. Both were free but had no facilities at all, just a few Italians lounging in the warmer pools. Both had a central fenced-off area where the water was bubbling to the surface which was then channeled into a race that filled the various pools. Not all of them looked clean. Once again we declined the experience.

As we departed Viterbo to drive to Rome we said goodbye to our lovely host Elena. She presented each of us with gifts: handmade (by her mum) crocheted cacti in terracotta pots. Hard to know what to say.