I thought it would be a good day to visit my neighbouring monastery of Sant'Eutizio, just a few kilometres from Preci. When I arrived, I was slightly surprised to see a coach tour, thankfully just leaving. I didn't realise it would be on the mainstream tourist trail. Although maybe they were religious tourists. Dressed in Sunday best anyway.
The site owes its architectural integrity to the bad times the monks had fallen under by the 1200s. Previously, they had been wealthy enough to fund the grandiose building schemes, but no major changes were made afterwards. It's a nice, ancient, deeply peaceful place. Hard to capture in photos, although I did try.
One photograph that I'd seen several times prior to visiting -- in fact there's a print of it on my bedroom wall -- looks like an aerial shot, but I guessed that it had to be from a neighbouring hilltop. Sure enough, the road led winding upwards to the village of Aquaro, over seven hundred metres above sea level. I got my picture, and came back down the hill to return the short distance to Preci.
I parked in the lower village, the Borgo, so that I could visit the "other" grocery shop, the one I hadn't been in before. I was out of wine (again) and also needed a couple of other things. But I came out with nothing. It's not a bad shop for food essentials, but hardly any wine, and just the basics otherwise. It does include a butchers', if that's your requirement. I took to the car again and nipped up to the shop in the upper village. They sell all kinds of things: wine, cleaning equipment, toothpaste, perfume, wine, bread, cheese, wine.
They had reorganised the wine shelves since my last visit to display more bottles, but I'm sure that was just coincidence. I bought a cheap bottle of white to have with lunch (shortly), the first time since arrival that I'd drunk alcohol in the afternoon. It has its advantages and disadvantages.
The hire car belonging to the Dutch couple, as I still think of them, was still parked when I left in the morning, but was gone by the time I got back for lunch, and I had the place to myself again for the afternoon. Just me and the lizards.
It had occurred to me earlier that all the lizards I see around the house are roughly the same size, with the smallest no shorter than about ten centimetres from nose to tail tip, and this led me to wonder where the baby lizards were, and how big they are when they hatch. Just a centimetre or so, I'd guess. But when I was out I noticed one green fellow with an orange-coloured throat. Perhaps mating season colouration, I thought.
And sure enough, when another slightly smaller lizard approached, he bit her at the base of the tail to hold her still, and then gradually transferred his hold higher while twining round. The girl lizard (presumably) wasn't putting up any resistance, just trembling her tail in an unusual manner. When the two were entirely twisted together, I guess that was the critical moment. Which didn't last long. When they separated, both carried on as though nothing had happened, although I suspect that baby lizards may be on the way.
In late afternoon, when it got cooler, I did penance for lunchtime mellowness by going on a short hike up the nearest mountain. Later, when I was cooking dinner, I heard voices outside which seemed to indicate new tenants, but I couldn't see what was going on without being totally nosey. Since I was staying in, I turned on the television and had the choice of an Arnie Swartzenegger movie, a Yul Brynner Western, CSI, an other American film with that chubby black guy, and a compilation of awful musical turns and odd performances, like the man who played the accordion blindfolded. Using one foot and one hand. Or the two girls who danced to Cuban music dressed as Laurel and Hardy. (Eh?) That sort of thing. It was gruesome, but easily the best option.
I got up at a reasonable hour and heard and saw three small children outside, reinforcing the theory about a new set of neighbours. Although when I went out later there was no additional car or any activity. Maybe they were at church. The Curaçao-ers' car had come back some time after I'd retired the previous night and their apartment was closed and shuttered up until at least noon. I like that. Contradicts my predjudice about Dutch people being strict, eager and puritanical. Sleep on, friends.
I made myself a nice salad for lunch and had some more of the white wine. I know I said it was cheap (€2,15) but it's all right chilled. Still very quiet out. It was another very warm day, and I opened the apartment's front door and back window to get a flow of cool air. Actually, I only have three windows. What I called the back window (merely to get the idea of a flow-through of air into your head) is the window of the sitting-room-kitchenette. It looks out directly across the valley, and apart from the electricity pole bringing power to run my computer, the view is classical Italian, like a Sienese painting, with tall cypresses and mountains and winding white roads.
The bedroom window, at right angles to that, looks along the valley, out over the hillside that sweeps down towards the village. That field has been planted with a crop, or grass for pasture, and looks very smooth and exceptionally green. There are a couple of characterful old trees to add scenic value. The only other window is the bathroom one on the courtyard side. It's tiny, and like all the ground-floor windows here, barred with a big old iron grille.
Speaking of puritans, which I was a moment ago, I don't accept the concept that you have to do penance to atone for sins. I mean, I don't even thnk that the occasional indulgence in bodily pleasures is a sin anyway. I'm more a believer in moderation; a balanced life. I did certainly finish the rest of the cheap white wine with lunch, and I did later go on another moderately strenuous exploration of the adjacent countryside in the later afternoon. They're just not related.
This time it took the form of a walk, or at times a scramble to the village of Sacciovescio, which you can see clearly from the farmhouse, at a couple of kilometres distance. The two are at about the same altitude. In fact, from the village sign at one end and my GPS at the other, to within a couple of metres. The escapade therefore became an exercise in not going up or down too much, to minimise effort.
At the first little wooded canyon, near where the forestry workers have been cutting and stacking logs, there's a path round the side with an old, rickety wooden handrail in parts. After that, it's more a case of sticking to the contours of the hills through the fields, although one unfriendly farmer near the village has fenced his property, causing a diversion through undergrowth and scrub.
The village is quite pretty, with both old and new houses, but no particularly ugly ones of the latter. There's a public terrace overlooking the valley, where I assume evening events would be very pleasant. Several houses were for sale, with the estate agent in Preci. It wouldn't be a bad place to live, although there seemed to be no "facilities": no shop, not even a bar (a nice old church though). You'd have to drive the short distance to Preci for everything, or like Preci, another twenty kilometres for anything major.
I drove the forty-odd kilometres to Spoleto for dinner. A bit of a treat: tired of cooking. When I arrived, I found that I'd almost missed a bric-a-brac market, but there was still enough going on to take a wander past. I went to the same restaurant at the Arco di Druso where I'd gone on a previous Sunday. It's not that I'm unadventurous. I just liked the atmosphere of the place, and the food was good too. This time, I didn't leave with bread in my pocket.
I walked out of the restaurant to return to the car, and that feeling hit me. I think it might be called "happiness", although I'm not all that familiar with it. I walked down the ancient, winding streets of Spoleto in the lamp light, and I couldn't help grinning. Everything is just so right: the crooked streets, the smells in the air, the old buildings of stone and wood and iron. It's the same feeling I get when I look out at the landscape from the farmhouse -- just unbelievably perfect.
On the way home, just before the road reaches the long tunnel under the mountains, and quite a major road, still near the outskirts of the city, I almost mowed down a family of wild boar: parents and a lot of stripey young ones, at least ten. When I slammed the brakes on hard and put the headlights on full-beam, they saw the error of their ways and ran back to the kerb.
Sergio called to say hello and bring me clean sheets. Not really his job -- the latter, I mean -- but he likes to run a tight ship. If it was a ship. He was actually up with people from ENEL, the electricity company, and someone from a solar power company. He hopes to put in a 6kW photovoltaic system soon, which should supply the majority of the needs for the apartments. There's also an incentive scheme where ENEL is compelled to buy back solar electricity at over 40c per unit, far higher than the price it charges to consumers.
I was on my way out to do the shopping, making sure I got to the Co-op before the long midday break. Midday was actually approaching, which encouraged me to think of lunch, and I bought ciabatta bread, tomatoes and mozarella for some delicious, simple sandwiches. This was the first time I'd been to the Co-op in Norcia and not gone into the lovely old walled town itself. I'm not getting blasé: just not for today, thanks.
The electricity possé was gone when I got back, as were my only current neighbours, the Curaço-ers. After sandwiches, I got a picture-text on my phone from my sister (out for the day in Newcastle, County Down). Or rather, I didn't, because I'd never set up the phone with O2's MMS server. I had to resort to using Gooogle on the phone to search for the correct magical incantations to get it to work, and on the way, discovered that O2 have implemented a fairly usable phone interface to Myspace.
I hadn't been able to access Myspace for weeks (and missed everyone very much, quite obviously) and I was now able to check in from a mountain top in Umbria. Kind of neat, but maybe not the kind of thing to get obsessed by, especially given the cumbersome nature of entering text on a phone keypad. And the fact that you get charged by the byte.
A quiet afternoon, and the usual, pasta-based dinner (limited kitchen facilities). You know, I think I'm putting on weight.
The day started quite excitingly, when I opened my door and went out to find a large snake sunning itself just outside. It wasn't the same one I'd seen in the grass previously. That one was plain green, and a bit larger. This one had a conspicuous pattern, which I assume means that it has a venomous bite. I rushed back inside to get my camera, and managed a couple of hasty shots before the snake flowed to the edge of the terrace, and then dropped, with an audible slap, onto the steps, from where it slid into the herbiage. I lost sight of it then. I continued on my way out.
I hadn't been to the capital city, Perugia, since returning to Umbria. At about a hundred kilometres away, it's too far for frequent visits, but definitely worth a trip. I decided to take a picnic lunch and time my arrival to have lunch in the park first and then start exploration.
On previous visits to Perugia, I'd had "variable" success in finding the underground car park at Piazzale Europa, outside the historic town centre, but well within the modern city, with all the usual navigation problems and traffic. On one occasion, even with the GPS I drove round for a long time without success, and accidentally came upon free parking under the walls at San Domenico instead.
This time, however, it was all perfectly smooth, and I left the car and took to the escalators toward the old city. I wasn't paying attention and missed the second set of escalators which run up through the dungeons of the old Papal fortress, the Rocca Paolina, which meant I had to resort to doing it on foot. Incidentally, when Perugia was freed from Papal control during the Unification in the Nineteenth Century, the citizens immediately demolished the castle which symbolised their oppression. The Umbria Regional government offices occupy the site now.
There are also two small park areas, and I had my lunch on a shady park bench. It was mid-afternoon when I walked up Corso Vanucci toward Piazza IV Novembre, the main hanging-out spot in the city centre. Perugia has a large student population, including many foreigners, and young people seem to be in the majority. For a while, I joined a crowd of them on the arc of stone steps facing the fountain.
I then checked out my favourite monument, the Etruscan Arch, and began a fairly random tour. I've liked Perugia very much on previous visits, and now having more idea of the layout of the city, I was able to explore more and see interesting little nooks and crannies that were new to me. I wandered up into the Northern side, through narrow streets which have retained their old buildings and escaped scrubbed-clean "restoration". An almost Dickensian feel to the area. Except Italian.
At the Northern point of the old city walls, I happened upon the circular church of San Michele, and was very happy to have done so. It has been "restored" in recent years, but in this case I approve, because what they did was to strip away Baroque and later additions, to reveal the medieval building. Some of the other churches I've seen have disappointed me exactly because their interiors are bland and vulgar Eighteenth Century work, with big ugly oil paintings, and no hint of the ancient building underneath.
San Michele is so distinctly medieval that it's a real joy to just imbibe the atmosphere. It's the look that the set designers try to achieve for Harry Potter, or Angels and Demons. There wasn't the usual information panel, so I don't know anything about the church -- I must look it up when I get an Internet. I wonder if there's a Templar connection, with the circular plan and the dedication to sword-wielding St. Michael. One of the tomb stones in the floor was a memorial to someone with the title "Magister", which was what Templar Masters used. However, the date was 1493, long after the suppression of the order. Time for a Holy Blood and Holy Grail theory.
On the lawns outside, young people were enjoying the sunshine, including girls in bikinis. At a church! I strolled back towards the city centre, but went a little astray and got lost on the Western suburbs, causing myself a strenous climb in the heat back up to the old town again. In fact, I found myself popping out of a steep alley like a prarie dog from a burrow, and was back on Corso Vanucci again. I bought an ice cream and sat down on the stone steps for a while.
Since it was now late afternoon, and within shopping hours (four until eight is usual), I went to the music shop I'd located earlier. If I'd been there earlier in my stay in Italy, I'd probably have bought the ultra-cheap, shoddy, gut-stringed guitar at only €48, including bag, but with several guitar-free weeks, my withdrawal symptoms had subsided and I wasn't really tempted. There was nothing else tempting either, with prices generally far in excess of the quality of the instruments on offer. I should open a music shop and sell the Italians cheap, decent-quality guitars, like Stagg, Vantage and Squier.
I went to a large bookshop and bought a couple of books in English: none of your Susanna Gregory rubbish, Salman Rushdie and Jared Diamond. The Rushdie is The Enchantress of Florence, which seemed vaguely relevant. I don't intend visiting Florence though. Well, OK, next time I'm hanging about a railway station, I might investigate train routes. I guess it would probably require going the "wrong" way at first, South to Orte to pick up the Roma-Firenze line. Or maybe there's a route via Perugia and Arezzo.
In the late afternoon, I dropped my camera back back at the car and picked up my jacket, getting all the escalators right this time. Back in the centre, I looked around for an inviting restaurant for dinner. There are tourist places with outdoor tables all along Corso Vanucci. That would have been fine -- I have no snobbish desire to find the most authentic and decrepit taverna off the beaten track, where Nonna boils lentils in a cauldron over an open fire -- but when I passed Joyce's Irish Pub and noticed that they served a full menu (until 2 a.m.!) on a whim I decided to eat there. And I had a pint of Guinness before leaving too.
Driving home, I took a wrong direction on some badly-signed roadworks and found myself on the road to Ancona. A visit to the seaside would be fine, but not at ten in the evening. I drove over a set of little flappy reflector things to get onto the opposite carriageway and got back on the right track.
Making it a rule to stay strictly at home after a long trip away, I did not go more than a few metres from my front door. No snakes this time. (Although that evening there was an item on the news with footage of a family of bears in the neighbouring mountains in Abruzzo.)
I had the place to myself all day, apart from when I heard voices speaking Dutch and found, not my fellow residents as I expected, but an older Dutch couple who are staying in an apartment in Preci, but had decided to investigate other properties in the area for an other visit, or perhaps for extending this one. For some reason, I found myself almost doing a marketing job for Casale Carocci, telling them how pleasant it was and advising on telephoning Sergio.
On the corners of my two main windows, there are structures made from the pinkish-tan plaster from the building. When I first arrived, I noticed them, but had no idea what they were. The one on the living-room window is a series of seven corrugated launching tubes, or stone vaults, each only a half-centimetre wide. On the bedroom window sill, there was a strange stone dome, about the size of half a tomato. As the days went on, holes appeared in the dome of the bedroom one, and after that seemed to have stopped, I took my penknife and excavated the segment with the obvious missing hole. A dead bee was inside, like a body in a sarcophagous.
In just the couple of weeks after that, I noticed black bees coming back to the structures to lay the eggs for the new year. These aren't the big, consipicuous black Carpenter bees, but ones about the size of a honey bee. I've seen the egg-laying, but not yet the masonry work where they must wall up their offspring for the coming year, presumably by depositing grains of plaster taken off the walls. Glued with bee-spit, I expect. Isn't nature wonderful?
With dinner, I had an amusing little wine, from Asti in Piemonte, which I had whimsically selected in the Co-op. It was a red wine, but the label said 'Frizzante', which seemed intriguing. After some indecision, I'd put in in the fridge. It's actually common practice everywhere in Southern Europe to serve red wine chilled, but it was unusual for me. When served, it did fizz quite a bit, but that soon subsided and left only a faint tingle, not much more than ordinary Chianti, for example. (Which is given a minor secondary fermentation to lend it a little buzz.) I really prefer my red wines to be heavy and dark, but I didn't mind this experiment.
I'd spent much of the day reading my high-quality books, but in the evening, I turned on the low-quality television. Among the trashiest is The Wheel of Fortune, La Ruota della Fortuna, a programme with some similarities to the British Countdown, or maybe Catchphrase. Taking the Carol Voderman role is a tall blonde called "Victoria" whom I think I remember from Eurotrash. That should give you a clue. The camera follows her legs and cleavage as she... well, actually performs no useful function whatsoever, since the letters are all electronic and all she can do is point.
The actual wheel is set below the contestants, and they have to lean over a ledge to spin it. For the female contestants, this means another camera shot down the cleavage. Naturally, having seen the show, they dress to suit. Actually, the usual contestants are so slow that I sometimes get the Italian phrase before they do. I know that suggests that I watch the show, but no, honestly I only see it in passing while looking for something better. I admit that I became smitten with a contestant called Alessia the other night. She was just so pretty.
I can't really think of any other Italian television ladies that I find irresistable. The one on Colorado has great legs, startling shoes, and a cheerful attitude to taking part in the silly sketches in the programme. The girl on Squadra Antimafia with the eccentric fringe. There's a skinny, older blonde, who has an afternoon show. Actually, when I think of it, there's a distinct difference between Italian and British television. While there are many young women on Italian television whose only role is to be decorative, there are also many women of all ages who present serious programmes: I'd guess a far greater percentage than British television, where it seems as though age is a barrier for women, but not for men.
Of course, most of the women on television in the forty-plus age group all take care to be superbly glamorous.
When I'd browsed the Pagine Gialle looking for musical instrument shops that I might visit in Perugia, I saw that one of them was in Via Allende, named for the South American socialist leader. To judge from election posters, Umbria has followers of all shades of political opinion, but I have a suspicion that there has been a historical inclination towards the left.
Spoleto has Via Lenin and Via Marx; and Via Martiri della Resistenza for the martyrs of the anti-fascist resistance. Foligno has a park named after Chico Mendez, the murdered campaigner for Indian rights. If I had easy Internet access, I could investigate the political spectrum of the city councils and provincial and regional governments, but I can guess the result.
Of course, Italy as a whole is split very evenly, with the right-wing parties taking government by a small margin at the last general election, and the left having an equally precarious win at the one before. There are even "centrist" parties now, although I dispute the concept. You're either in favour of freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law; or you're not. You can't be in favour of Fascism on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and call yourself a "centrist".
Sorry. This was supposed to be a diary. On this day, I embraced capitalism. Or, at least, I found the temples of capitalism and observed the rites. It was the Yellow Pages again. There seemed to be an absence of the out-of-town shopping malls and groups of superstores that I knew from back home, but I was sure they had to exist. A little sadly, of course, since community-based shopping is morally superior. But I hadn't been able to find a powered USB hub for weeks, and needed the Italian equivalent of PC World.
I remembered seeing a large warehouse on the way to Foligno that called itself "Wonderful Outlet" and advertised sports and casual wear. It seemed to be in an industrial and commercial area, leading me to suspect that there might be other "outlets" near by. The address, the Sant'Eraclio suburb of Foligno, did correspond to some other hopeful names in Pagine Gialle, including a computer superstore, so that was enough to set me on my way.
I came off the motorway at Sant'Eraclio and passed Wonderful Outlet, but not much else that looked interesting. A few car dealers. I was looking for an opportunity to turn around, when I spied the logo of Compy, the computer shop that I found to be an exact equivalent of PC World. Their superstore was part of a small complex with a new DIY store that had opened that very day, much like B&Q, and a supermarket. I bought my computer goods, and went back down the road to Wonderful Outlet.
Being away from home for two months can't be dealt with by bringing all the possible clothes you might need. You have to select, and put them in a standard-sized suitcase. I'd made a slight error that no woman would have made. I hadn't thought about outfits. In particular, I had my elegantly distressed Calvin Klein jeans and my insouciant Virgin denim jacket, which can't be worn together because the denim is too similar, and you'd look either like a camp nerd wearing a matching denim suit, or a fashion-oblivious hoodlum ditto.
I needed some different jeans. I browsed Wonderful Outlet for a while and selected a discounted American product in grey denim, and a cheap pair of black cotton cargo trousers. I'd mentally converted my measurements to centimetres, but this proved unneccessary, with most trousers having an inches size on them, and a handy conversion chart on the rail for the others. When I went to the cash desk there was a brief pantomime where the girl tried to explain to me that if I bought three products, the cheapest was discounted to a euro. She'd got as far as dinging the PA system to page an English speaker when I understood the point and went to find something. (If you visit Wonderful Outlet and speak no Italian, rest assured that if Carlotta is somewhere in the store, she can speak English to you.)
Keen to chose something cheaper than my cheaper jeans, so that my bill would only increase by a euro and not more, I picked a lovely bright yellow polo shirt. I mean, yellow goes with everything, doesn't it?
When I drove back towards the motorway, I did then see the shopping mall as well. Plaza Umbria, with the usual shopping mall shops and a supermarket. I did need a few supermarket things, so dropped by. There are quite a few clothes and houseware warehouse shops nearby as well. In the mall, I discovered "Wonderful" itself, explaining the name of Wonderful Outlet, the warehouse where they sell off discounted stock.
A surprising change in the weather, overcast, and it even rained. Or maybe not so surprising if you subscribe to the belief that the universe is actively hostile: I had a visitor arriving for the weekend, so naturally the weather turned bad.
I hadn't been able to decide how to spend the day. With the Aer Lingus flight scheduled to arrive at an inconveniently late hour, I'd considered going down to spend the day in Rome itself, or maybe go to one of the seaside resorts, Lido di Ostia or Fiumicino, near the airport. Well, with the downturn in the weather, the seaside wasn't very appealing, and actually, I didn't really fancy the humid city either.
The lazy option was to potter around at home until late afternoon and drive down then. It's two hundred kilometres, and takes a minimum of two and a half hours to drive non-stop. From the tiny winding roads of Preci to the multi-lane, multi-exit Grande Raccordo Annulare, or Big Circular Connection, Roma's encircling motorway.
One segment, down the A1 Firenze-Roma motorway, is a toll road. It's €3.40 each way, which I always pay by credit card. When there are queues at the toll gates, the ones accepting cards are always far less busy than the ones for cash, or even than the Telepass lanes, where your car's transponder registers as you drive through, and you get a monthly bill. I have no idea if Italians just don't like using plastic; or if they pay card fees; or they're paranoid about leaving a data trail; or there's some other reason. If I lived permanently in Italy I'd get a Telepass account though. Particularly since the machines are a bit fussy about which cards they take, and of the four possible orientations for insertion, only one will work. I know, having had to try them all in succession, but I think I've got it now.
Two hundred kilometres may not sound that much, but multiply it by two and it's five to six hours on the road, which is a lot for one day. We arrived at the apartment, home, at almost exactly midnight, and it was straight to bed.