Slovenian and Italian Alps

We've been treated with a lot of clear days lately...rare in our part of Italy but more common in winter. This photo was taken looking north from the top of Monte S. Michele up in the Carso just outside Duino. You're looking at a panoramic view of the Slovenian and Italian Alps. Bellissimo!

Alps from Trieste

Today we had maybe the clearest skies we've seen since we moved to Italy over a year ago. This photo was snapped with an iPhone from Piazza Unità in Trieste looking northwest over the Adriatic Sea towards Duino, which you can pick out as the near cliffs on the right edge of the photo. If you know what you're looking at you can actually see the Castello Duino and Kristen's school buildings on the left side of the cliffs. And behind all this, well see for yourself...the snow-covered Alps were creating an amazing panoramic view from Trieste today!  Thought I'd share this one image of this special day in northern Italy!

Ciao,
Tom

Sardegna Photos

Blogging about surfing inspired me to go through my photos from our trip to Sardegna last summer! I posted a bunch of photos from our trip on Facebook so if you want to see more go to this link:

Sardegna Photos

It was easier to post a lot of photos this way, so hopefully anyone who wants to check them out can view them on Facebook. I picked this one photo for the blog because I think it shows the beauty of Sardegna really well. It was the "bluest" place I've seen outside of Crater Lake, Oregon! Deep blue water, pink sea cliffs, marble mountains, green forests...vibrant colors we don't get to see in our part of Italy.

Sardegna was our favorite place we've been in Italy...I think I can speak for both of us. Besides the sheer beauty of the place, the people were incredibly warm and welcoming. The islander mentality definitely thrives there. The thing we probably liked the most about Sardegna was it's wildness. Nature in Italy has really disappointed us. Every inch of land has been touched by man...for thousands of years. Sardegna still had the feeling of wilderness. The big marble mountains and steep sea cliffs have probably kept many areas from being developed. And the remoteness of the island itself has certainly kept too many people from settling there. There are signs of early settlers everywhere in the form of Nuraghi (see the photos), but modern civilization has not taken over Sardegna like the rest of Italy. If you want a wild place to visit in Italy, go to Sardegna!

The Search for Surf in the Adriatic

It must be breaking somewhere. That's what I always say when I watch a swell, whether it's a developing windswell or a full on groundswell. Here...it's always going to be a short period windswell. For all you non-surfers out there, that's not what you want. The long period groundswell is what we surfers really get excited about. But to get that you need a lot of wind blowing over a big, deep body of water over a very large area. The Adriatic Sea is too shallow (on relative terms compared to say the Atlantic Ocean), and there's not enough fetch (it's too narrow so the wind can't blow over a very large area unless it's coming from just the right direction). Fortunately, we have no shortage of strong wind here (see my old blog post about the Bora). So I watch the windswell waiting for ANY opportunity to surf. This week...I finally had my first opportunity to surf!

Before I tell you about the "epic" day of surf I had, here's a little description of what it's like to be a surfer living on the Adriatic. Like I said, it all starts with the wind. This time of year the Bora starts to blow. When I wake up to the sound of that howling wind out of the northeast I know it's time for a quick look at the sea from the Duino cliffs. A couple of days ago we had our first real Bora of the fall, so I ran up the road to find this beautiful scene. The wind was blowing about 30 knots from the east-northeast, a bit more east on it than a typical Bora, but still a good direction to send swell to a couple of potential surf spots I've been watching (more on these spots later). The gusts were super strong, another typical thing about Bora. This particular morning the gusts were blowing the tops off the waves sending mist up the cliffs.

Feeling that spray on my face standing some 50 meters above the sea I knew there just had to be waves breaking somewhere. So the next stop was a quick look at a viewpoint facing southwest, the direction the windswell was running, to see where those waves might be headed. What a sight looking out over the Adriatic this morning! Waves were running straight towards at least three surf spots on my radar! And they were bigger than I've ever seen in the Adriatic. OK, not big by "ocean" standards, but BIG for this small sea. So after shooting a few more pics I ran home to hit the road...my first time chasing waves since moving to Italy! I can't believe we've lived here for more than a year and THIS is the first time I'm chasing waves. In my late 40s and chasing waves still makes me excited like a kid every time!

Ahhhh...our crappy little Fiat Punto looks so nice with a board on the roof! That's one of our SUPs up on the roof. My shortboard is in the front seat. I've learned that it will probably be a rare session that I can actually surf on my shortboard here, so I have decided to always bring a bigger board just in case. Only thing left to decide is where to go? To be prepared this fall, Kristen and I have scoped out a bunch of potential surf spots the past few months...of course this was entirely Kristen's idea (haha). Here's a map of our area with those spots:

C - This is Duino, where we live. Not a surf spot. That is unless some giant swell manages to break in the harbor in Porto.

A - Grado. Probably the closest spot that will break with a strong Bora blowing. Two spots to surf here. The first is a nice looking stretch of beach breaks with several piers that should offer some protection from the wind.

The second is a left point break where the swell should wrap around a seawall that will provide very good wind protection...but it'll probably need a bigger swell to break. About a 30 minute drive from home.

B - Villaggio del Pescatore. Villaggio is 5 minutes from our house, but will likely not break too often. Good protection from the wind on a nice looking right point break, but it's location will keep most swells from breaking. I think it will only ever really be an SUP spot...but remember it's only 5 minutes from home! (Photos of this spot a bit later).

D - Isola (Slovenia). A very nice looking right point break that "should" pick up strong Bora swells with good protection from the wind. I think. Maybe. Hopefully. This photo was taken when there was only a moderate northeast wind blowing, nothing near Bora strength. Look at that little wave wrapping around the point over the gravel bottom. Really wets the appetite! Only a 30 minute drive and it's in Slovenia which would be very cool if I ever get to surf there.

E - Novigrad (Croatia). Another right point break, and several reef breaks. About an hour drive into Croatia. This spot will probably only break on south swells created by the Scirocco winds that come from the Sahara Desert and blow hard out of the southwest. These are actually more common than Bora winds, and are typically the prevailing winds in the Adriatic. So I really have my eyes on this spot! But not for this swell.

So where do you go on a swell like this? OK, let's assess the situation. It looks to be about a 3-4 foot short period windswell heading west-southwest. That means either Grado or Villaggio. Grado will definitely be bigger, but Villaggio is on the way there so it's worth a look. Besides, I kind of want to know if that spot will ever break and I think these are the conditions that should make it work. So Villaggio is the first stop. Very excited!

Here's what I found at the point in Villaggio. Not very big, as I expected, but it is breaking. So Villaggio, a spot 5 minutes from our house, just might be a surf spot after all! Like I thought, only really rideable on an SUP. Waves were peeling to the right off the point at about knee high. Ordinarily this would not seem too exciting, but remember...I have still never surfed in the Adriatic. For a moment I think about driving to Grado. But will it really be much bigger there? Will I be able to ride my shortboard or will I still ride the SUP? I decide to take what I'm offered in Villaggio and get wet now!

Getting my 11-foot SUP off the car in 30 knot wind with 50 knot gusts was quite the challenge. So was paddling out into that wind. A couple of times the gusts got up under the board as I tried to go over the waves and I was flung into the air with the board going over my head sending me under water. Funny...I thought it would be easy to surf knee high waves in the Adriatic. Not so much with gale force winds in your face as you stand on a boat of a board. But man was it worth it.

Here's proof that you can surf in the Adriatic!

Sold! (well, almost. . . )

Our big news this week is that we have almost sold our house in NJ.

If all goes well, the buyers will have their mortgage soon and the house will join the list of "stuff" that we sold.  Cars, boats, and surfboards have already found new homes.  Now our home will be someone's new home, too.

Tom and I spent the weekend cleaning out the house.  It was pretty much four days of packing boxes followed by trips to storage, trips to goodwill, trips to the dump.  Deciding what we "needed" when we haven't really used it in a year and a half.  Most of the clothes that were left went to goodwill, some furniture we no longer wanted (remember the kid's dining table we bought at ikea when I moved to Philly to use as a coffee table, Mom?) to a neighbor, and the food to the first person who wanted it.  I left Tom to clean out the shed and the yard, and he will have to sleep on the floor until Friday.  It was a busy weekend but well worth the effort.

Selling the house gives us a degree of freedom that we haven't had since we moved here.  We still don't know where our next move will take us, or even when, but now we have the ability to actually make that decision, rather than going back to our house in NJ.

Don't get me wrong, if the deal falls through and we still have a house in NJ, I would be fine with moving back to it.  It would be easy in so many ways--with dozens of school districts, I could find work, we both have friends there, I would have the gym and Tom would have surfing again, and we know how to get to Target with our eyes closed.

The thing about selling the house is now, if we want to go back to NJ, we can make that a conscious decision.  And if we want to move somewhere, anywhere, else, we can make that decision too.  If we have a house in NJ, we simply wouldn't be able to afford to move somewhere else.  Without the house to tie us down, we really can make our next move when and where we are ready.

So we're hoping that the buyer gets a mortgage and we actually close the deal.  Ideally before we make too many more mortgage payments. . .

Chronicles. . .

This will be a bit rambly, but we have been busy lately and I want to share some of our adventures with some of you.  So feel free to skip around and read the parts that are interesting to you.  Here's hoping you find something. . .

Two weeks ago, Tom's sister, Maria, arrived to visit.  We went to Gorizia, a city on the border of Slovenia, the night she arrived for their international food festival.  Hoping to find some different types of food, we walked through blocks and blocks of food stands of Serbian food.  From what we could see through the (too many) drunk people waiting in lines and the smoke pouring from the boots, Serbian food is grilled meat on bread.  We kept walking.  Eventually we found the "Latin" food, which consisted of one booth of Spanish food (paella), one booth of Mexican food (tacos) and one booth of Brazilian food.  The main draw of the area seemed to be the Havana Club rum booth.  By then we were starving and cranky from being around so many people, so Tom and I picked the shortest line and had a delicious chicken sandwich from the Brazilian booth.

Maria had two friends from Colorado join her at our house and Tom played tour guide for part of the week.  In the seven days they were visiting, they went to Trieste, Padova (Padua), the Duino castle, Venice for two days, and Ljubljana, Slovenia.  They might have made it to Croatia but our car decided to break down in Ljubljana.

So, you may think, what does one do when you are in a foreign country and your car dies?  Your car, which is under warranty in Italy, but probably not in Slovenia, where you don't speak the language and don't know anyone.  After two long days, one rental car and one school van, an extra trip to Ljubljana, and countless push starts, we managed to get the car to the garage in Italy where it WAS under warranty.  There was a moment when I was ready to just leave it in Ljubljana and walk away, but now that a week has passed and the car is fixed, I'm glad we didn't do that.

A day after Tom's sister and her friends left, he left for NJ.  We have sold our house, and the closing is scheduled for later this month.  He is packing boxes and moving to a storage unit, and I'll fly back for a few days to help.

That's what we've been up to.  By the next time I check in, hopefully all the furniture will be out of the NJ house and my quick trip home to help with the packing will have been uneventful.  Fingers crossed.

Sardegna...under water

Coming soon...some pics from our summer trip to Sardegna!  

(This is just to wet your appetite)

Just Like Old Times

Last year we got into a nice routine with our neighbors.  We would sit and have coffee or pizza, in our house or theirs, while their baby played or slept, and visit.  Tom and F talked music.  Within a few minutes, one of them would take the guitar off one wall or another and start strumming.  A and I would talk school, shopping, men, family, tv shows, whatever struck us that day.  We would drink tea or beer, eat cookies, play a game, or watch a movie.

These times made Duino our home.  We had friends who we could talk to about nothing or everything.   We could each get out of the house and go for a walk with someone who spoke English.  After a bad day, or a disagreement with each other, we each had someone else to talk to.  Don't get me wrong, we love each other and all, but we spend so much time together that a little space and different audience is a gift.

You can imagine how sad we all were when we learned that A and F would move to the Netherlands over the summer.

They had a great opportunity to further both of their careers, they would be closer to one set of grandparents (but farther from the other), and, eventually, little I will have a great school to attend.

Tom and I would be fine--our Italian is good enough to get by in grocery stores and restaurants (most days).  We have a car now, so we can get around easily.  We know other people in town, and surely we will make new friends.

This weekend, we went to visit them.  After work, we had a 1.5 hour drive to the airport, an hour flight, and another 1.5 hour drive to their house.  Saturday we went on a bike ride and saw the town of Maastricht.  We joined A's family to celebrate her mom's birthday.  Sunday we went on a long walk from their house into the maze of bike paths that cross the country.  Then we got back in the car, another 1.5 hour drive, 1 hour flight, 1.5 hour drive to get back to Duino around 11 pm.

Was it lots of travel?  Yep.  Typical stressful European travel?  Yep.  Did the house cleaning or the laundry get done this weekend?  Nope.  But what do I remember about the weekend?

Sitting in the living room Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea.  I (the baby) napped.  Tom and F strummed guitars, planning their show they will someday, somewhere play together.  A and I just talked.  Just like old times.  With so many changes for us in the past year and a half, it's nice that some things don't.

Duino from a Different Perspective

We thought you might like to see our town from a slightly different perspective...from the water!  It's taken a year, but we finally have some watercrafts over here in Italy!  No, they aren't kayaks and no we did not sail our 14-foot jonboat across the Atlantic.  We bought two SUPs (standup paddle boards)!

As you may or may not know, the most difficult thing about living here in Duino for me personally has been the lack of any waves to surf.  Except for our trip to Sardinia last summer (another blog post is coming about that trip I promise) I haven't surfed in Italy at all.  So a compromise had to be made...buy an SUP and deal with it.  I had previously vowed to never own an SUP (it's a surfer thing), but I have been pleasantly surprised by how much fun it is having these boards!

Just look at how much fun we're having!  We bought one board a few weeks ago to see how much we liked it.  We quickly bought a second board once we realized just how much fun it is to paddle around in the Adriatic.  I think I can speak for both of us that we are thrilled to be back on the water!  We both missed the various ways we had to be on the water back in NJ...maybe we didn't realize just how much we missed it until that first paddle around the castle, seeing the cliffs that we've hiked on so many times from this different perspective down on the water.

While it's not quite the same as surfing waves, it's surprisingly a very decent substitute.  The muscles that you use and the balance that you need are very similar...and you're "standing" on the water just the same.  Surfing is surfing.  Did I just say that?  Am I really prepared to be an SUPer?  Just look at Kristen on that board standing out on the Adriatic...very relaxing just like riding a longboard on a little peeler in glassy conditions.  Maybe I can be an SUPer?!?

Having the SUPs also gives us a real escape from our small town.  There's a quietness on the water that you can't get in town.  The cliffs block all the noise from the roads, the train tracks, and the students.  In the evenings, when it's the best time to paddle here because the wind drops every afternoon, there are hardly any boats on the water either.  Who knew that such solitude was just a few hundred meters down below those cliffs.

Well that's enough rambling...want to experience this for yourself?  If you can't come and visit us to take a paddle for yourself watch this video to see how it feels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q02PocgT9hc&feature=youtu.be

A dopo!

2 Hour Road Trips

In less than two hours, we can drive to four countries (maybe more). We can get to great beaches, hiking, skiing in winter, and historic cities.

In Padova: A boat in a moat

This year, we have vowed to get to those places.  Our car gives us freedom to do just that.

Last Sunday, we woke early ready for a hike in the mountains of Slovenia.  The weather had other plans.  There was rain to the East (Slovenia) but it was beautiful to the West.  So we changed plans and visited Padova (Padua) instead.  Padova is an old University town, and still has that feeling. Some beautiful churches, artwork, and outdoor cafes make it feel totally Italian. We also enjoyed the botanical garden, where they have been collecting and studying plants from all over the world for hundreds of years.  There is even a palm tree that Goethe visited and they named after him (just that one tree, not the whole species).   I didn't really get why they named the tree after him, but when an author's most famous work has your last name in the title, and then you see a palm tree that he sat under a few hundred years ago, it's still pretty cool.

A famous cafe where intellectuals drink coffee and have intellectual conversations

The Botanical Garden

"Goethe's" Palm

Tom kisses drinks from a fountain

A sunny day in Ljubjana

Yesterday we went to Ljubjana, Slovenia's capital.  We didn't know the European Basketball championships were there this weekend, so it was quite busy when we arrived around lunchtime.  The weather was perfect and we enjoyed a fried cheese burger for lunch.  It wasn't what you think--it was literally fried cheese.  No meat.  Not sure why it was called a "burger" but it did taste good!  We spent the day wandering the streets and poking around in little shops.

NOT ice cream and coffee?!?

Later we stopped for coffee.  I asked the waiter about a picture on the ice cream menu.
"Is this ice cream and coffee?"
"No, it's ice coffee."
"Ok, I'll have that."
I watched them make it. . . three scoops of ice cream, coffee poured over the top, with whipped cream and chocolate syrup.  I don't know how that isn't ice cream and coffee, but it was delicious!

Culture Shock

As you know, the students returned this week.  In our residence, we have 17 2nd year students and 33 first years.  The first years are 15, 16, or 17.

When I was 15, I went to Germany for 6 months to study and live with a host family.  My most vivid memory of culture shock when my host father opened a bottle of champagne the night I arrived and insisted I share a glass with them.  I said "I don't drink," (being the rule-following kid I was) and, although my German was terrible and he didn't speak English, he said something that made me believe I would insult them horribly if I didn't partake.  My moral dilemma (don't drink and insult host parents or drink and insult my real parents) ended with me sharing a small glass of champagne, and going on to enjoy six months with a loving, caring, host family.  And my real parents let me back into the house despite having sampled some alcohol in Germany.
So I thought I had some idea of culture shock.

Starting year 2 here, I'm pretty sure that is nothing compared to what these kids are going through.

Yesterday, I showed a student how the sheets are supposed to go on his bed.  He had been sleeping on the bare mattress for four nights.
"Do you do this at home?" I asked as I explained the difference between the sheet, pillow case, and duvet cover.
"No, it's hot at home.  We don't have these,"  he replied.
I didn't ask if "these" were sheets, pillows, or even mattresses.  It is entirely possible he meant all three.

I took a walk with two girls to help them buy phone cards and show them how they worked.  One was from the Middle East, another from Africa.  When I asked if they liked Italy so far, both said they loved it.
"What surprises you the most?" I asked.
"I'm from the Middle East.  Everything." replied one of them with a laugh.
After almost getting run over by a car who didn't stop at a stop sign, I said "That's one of the things you have to watch out for here."
"But in my country, no one follows the signs or arrows.  Here they do.  I'm used to this!" the same girl replied.
Then it was my turn to laugh, because compared to the US, the drivers here are kind of awful.

Then there was the girl who couldn't figure out the washing machine.  She washed everything (jeans, colors, and whites) together in hot water and panicked when her red shirts had blue spots and her white shirts were a mix of red and blue.  A quick lesson on how to change the temperature on the machine and a re-washing of some of the lighter clothes resulted in only one ruined shirt.  I assured her that EVERYONE messes up their laundry once in a while, and eventually her tears stopped and she agreed that it wasn't the end of the world.

Once classes start, everyone will quickly get into a regular routine and most of the students will forget how much they had to learn in these first few weeks.  I, too, will forget.  I will have to remind myself that they are just kids, thousands of miles from home, trying to figure out how to survive in a new and very different culture.

A list for today. . .

We know, it has been FAR too long since we've updated this.  We were too busy living all summer to stop and write about it!  Maybe, one day, we'll write a post about our trip to Sardegna (absolutely amazing) or the trip with 25 students to Ecuador and the Galapagos (not so amazing for many reasons), or the quiet two weeks we had back in Duino before the students came back.

But right now we are too busy enjoying the last warm-ish evenings and swimming in the sea to do any of that.

I did think some of you would like to see a list of the countries that are represented this year in our residence hall.  We have 50 students "sharing" our home with us again this year.  Here is where they come from, in no particular order:

Singapore, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Poland, Russia, Guatemala, Bulgaria, Spain, Ukraine, Serbia, India, Denmark, Palestine, Italy, Honduras, Ecuador, Canada, Libya, Macedonia, Israel, Cambodia, USA, Russia, United Kingdom, Barbados, Nepal, Somalia, Albania, Malawi, Turkey, Yemen, Montenegro, Belarus, Slovenia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Venzuela, Zambia, Belarus, China, France

And if that doesn't make us a truly international community, I don't know what would!

It's All About the Figs!

Che Figo! That's what I think about having figs (fichi) growing in our back yard!  That expression means something like "cool", and comes from the Italian word for fig (fico). Since we moved in last summer, right at the tail end of the fig season, we've been looking forward to this year's harvest which is just beginning. For some reason we had an early batch of figs, most are just beginning to ripen now, and I took advantage of this by making my first ever batch of fig jam.

We actually have three fig trees growing out in our back yard...more figs than we could ever eat on our own. But we'll try!  The trees are completely loaded with green figs right now. When they're ready to eat, they turn yellow and then purple and get a lot softer. It takes about a kilo of fresh figs to make a batch of jam that will fill two large mason jars. That's about a half a kilo in that plastic tub.

Making the jam is pretty easy once you get up in the tree to pick the figs. You just clean them and cut them up into small chunks, skin and all, and put them in a sauce pan and start cooking. Here's the super unhealthy part...sorry to all my health nut friends.  You add the same amount of sugar as figs! That's 1 kilo of figs to 1 kilo of sugar!  I know there's probably a better recipe, but this is really good. The only other ingredients are lemon juice (for some pectin) and fresh ginger (for a little kick). After about an hour you get a brown mushy gooey delicious mess and it's ready...

...to sit in the shade under the fig tree and have a snack! Che Figo!

Umbria Take 2

It's been a while since I posted anything on our blog, so Kristen kind of called me out in her recent blog post about our trip to Umbria by saying I had more photos.  OK...she's right!  Here's a quick blog post from me with some more photos from our trip.

The first shot on the left is another view of the Pian Grande up in the Appenine Mountains in Umbria. The peaks of the Sibillini Range completely surround this high elevation, flat, glacial plain.  Right now, the plain is covered with white, yellow and purple wildflowers. A really special place!


To the right is another shot of the Pian Grande, this time looking towards Castelluccio which is the highest town in the Appenines.  This mystical looking alpine town sits on top of a small peak at the end of the plain, with a backdrop made up of some of the highest peaks in the Sibillini Range.

We stopped for lunch here in Castelluccio at this food shack on the side of the only road leading into town.  The name of the place was "il Sentiero del Lupo", or "the trail of the wolf".  There really are wolves in these mountains...our cook showed us a recent picture that he took on his cell phone of a wolf right there on his property!  I personally found it very funny that this old time shepard living in a remote Italian mountain village whipped out a smart phone to show us a picture of a wolf.

The food here was really unbelievable by the way!  Homemade sausage grilled out in the rain...lots of fun.  That's Kristen, Filippo, Annemarie and Isabel having fun!

Our base for our Umbria adventure was a Dutch campground in Castelvecchio (a different mystical castle town).  The Sibillini mountains are known for witches and hermits...these photos show you why people have long thought that this was the place to come to put a spell on someone, or to get one removed.  Left to right:  our luxury cabin, the foggy gorge we drove through to get there, and the nearby town of Preci peaking out of the fog.

We really enjoyed hiking in the mountains and fields of wildflowers, and visiting the many medieval hillside towns in Umbria.  Here a few final photos of our trip:  a mountain field of wildflowers, Kristen's muddy foot from the trail in that field (that she mentioned in her blog post), and my favorite shot from our visit to Norcia (the sausage and truffle capital of Italy).

Success!

Well, I think it was success.

Today, as Tom and I headed out for some groceries for dinner, our neighbor stopped us and asked us a question.  In Italian.  This was the first time that we talked to her, beyond "Buongiorno,"since we arrived.

Here is how I think the conversation went (remember, all of this was in Italian!):

Her:  Are you on vacation?
Me:  Yes, we are!
Her:  Are you staying here, or going away?
Me:  Staying here.
Her:  In Duino?
Me:  Yes.
Tom:  For two weeks.
Her:  And then?
Me:  Then we go to. . . . umm. . . (in English, I say: Tom, how do you say the US?)
Tom:  The US (he is speaking Italian again at this point)
Her:  Ah, I see.  And your neighbors, with the baby, are they here?
Me:  No, on vacation.
Her:  In the Netherlands?
Me:  No, just on vacation for one week.
Her:  Then back to Duino?
Me:  Yes.
Her:  Then they move?
Me:  Yes.
Her:  I see.  See you later!
Me:  See you later!

To be fair, Tom was more involved in the conversation than that.  But I had a hard enough time keeping track of what I was saying.  And I'm pretty sure that my translation isn't exactly right, but I do hope that I have the main ideas correct.  On Monday I start a one week intensive Italian course, so I'm sure by next Friday I will be able to say more than yes or no, perhaps I'll even ask her a question!

We high-fived each other as we walked away, happy to have had our first real conversation in Italian.  We even celebrated in the most appropriate way possible:  with gelato!

Road Trip!

Tom points to our campground in the distance

Last Saturday, we packed up the car and drove south into Umbria, to the mountains in the center of Italy.
We drove past Venice and Bologna to the East Coast of Italy.  After a quick picnic near the Adriatic, where locked fences kept us off the empty beach, we turned west and headed into the middle of the Apennines.  We past rolling hills and fields full of wildflowers dotted with poppies and grazing sheep, and arrived here to meet our Dutch/Italian neighbors for a few days.

The weather didn't exactly cooperate, so we crowded into their little chalet where Tom and I had twin beds on opposite ends of the loft.  We had a little trouble with a collapsing bed but the view from the porch was wonderful.  And it rained plenty, so we were happy we didn't have to camp!

We spent Sunday on a long hike up and down muddy hills.  I managed to sink into the mud once just to the top of my boot (stay tuned for pictures) but the rain held off and the views were spectacular.  We cut across some wildflower fields at the end of the hike to get to the little bar at the bottom of the hill where gelato was waiting for us.  Tom then jumped in the freezing cold pool, even though he didn't have the required swim cap, and we got a little more sun while enjoying books at the campground.

Flat land with no steps and
soft places to fall--heaven for
our neighbor's daughter!

The Pian Grande, a HUGE plain
surrounded by hills

More stairs--the towns were literally on
the tops of  hills!

On Monday, it was cold and rainy, but we found plenty to keep us busy.  We made our way to the Pian Grande.  Between rain showers we walked in the fields and enjoyed lunch at a roadside stand that deserves it's own blog post (more on that later).  We also visited some medieval towns built on the tops of hills, which meant more walking, and found some perfectly creepy places!


Tuesday we were supposed to head home, but the sun came out just before we left so we stopped for another hike.  This one took us to an old Abbey.  Tom was worried that it would be busy.  It was, relatively speaking, but we saw a total of 6 other people, all of them when we arrived at the Abbey.  After a picnic lunch and a hike back down the hill to the car, we drove past Perugia to Florence.

An old Abbey, built around 500 AD

The sheepdogs kept us far away from the herd!

The idea was to stay in Florence and spend an hour Wednesday morning walking around the city before leaving, but after over an hour in traffic and finding no hotels (except the Villa that was 450 Euros per night), we ended up only seeing the city from the surrounding hills.  It was beautiful from up there, though.

We ended up in a chain hotel near a shopping mall, but the bed was super comfortable, the room was quiet, and the shower was the best I've had in Italy.  Florence will get it's own trip later this summer.  We had an uneventful drive back to Duino, but arrived just in time for one last thunderstorm.

Stay tuned for Tom's better pictures of the weekend!

Dinner near, not in, Florence--at an
American restaurant.  Chicken tenders, fries,
a cheese steak and fountain coke!  We should be
embarrassed, but it was so good!