in Vallo di Nera

        For our last day in Umbria Maurice had agreed to a brief walk on the Spoleto-Norcia rail trail, a hiking path I read about online.  He had even looked it up himself and picked a starting point, Sant’Anatolia di Narco, just on the other side of a 4000-meter highway galleria.  The weather was perfect as we parked near the old train station, tightened our hiking poles, checked out the map on the signboard and headed up the road in the direction of Borgo Cerreto at 10:45.

As we neared the village of Castel San Felice, perched picturesquely on a hilltop, we turned right at a sign for the 12th century church of San Felice, a short way off the road between the hill of the town and the river.  Keep reading

On Thursday morning Maurice and I headed to la Bruna to do some errands.  As we passed La Bruna’s fortress-church I noticed its door was open so we stopped in for a look.  A half-dozen people were at work dusting, vacuuming, polishing, taking a drill to the hem of Mary’s gown, chatting.  “Buongiorno!” said a smiling young man.  “Buongiorno!” I replied.  I looked like such a tourist with my orchid rain jacket and camera in hand.  Another man waved toward the balcony and said something.  I looked.  He waved again and smiled.  I should go up to the balcony?  Si, si.  I climbed the curving wrought iron staircase, barely wide enough for me and so spare of frame that I felt like I was hanging in midair.  An ancient organ took up most of the small balcony and there was music sitting on the wall so I suppose it is still used (it occurred to me later that I should have asked to play it).  I went back downstairs, looked around and sat in a pew.  The balcony man came over and handed me a card with a picture of Mary and Jesus (the one painted at the front of their church) and a prayer on the back.  Soon Maurice wandered in.  Naturally he wanted to talk to the workers, meaning he wanted me to talk to the workers.  I don’t make small talk in English, much less Italian.  “Pulito,” I said, looking at the Mary statue, tall and shining.  “Per una festa?”  Between all of us and the young guy they brought over who knew about three words of English, we understood they were preparing for the upcoming celebration of their Madonna della Bruna on Monday night, with the service at 9 pm (!) and a short procession through town with the statue at 9:45 pm.  There would be food to buy outside and we were invited.  Sounded like fun.  Maurice put it right in his phone to remind us.  Keep reading

Ponte delle Torri, Spoleto

Christina at the bridge

Christina and I planned to hike what, from my research, seemed to be a popular trail to one of St. Francis’ hermitages, yet specifics were pretty vague.  Maurice took us into Spoleto and we managed to find the tourist office.  The woman there gave us a tourist map, which a writer of one of the articles I had found said was perfectly adequate for the walk.  (And yet, with the HQ of the CAI in Spoleto, you’d think we could have managed to get a real topo map….)  We set off about 10:15 from the tourist office toward the bridge.  The bridge!  The Ponte delle Torri (elevation 396 m) is a soaring medieval aqueduct, perhaps on Roman foundations, crossing the deep gorge of the Tessino River.  As breathtaking as it looks on approach, only one side of the pedestrian walkway is open, with a high enough wall on the other side that it wasn’t scary to traverse. Keep reading

Terry and Maurice

Jerry had made reservations for the group for dinner at a place they had stumbled onto years ago, Gaspare Restaurant e Rifugio, a nondescript building high in the mountains above Giano dell’Umbria. We sat at an L-shaped table arranged along two of the stone walls and were immediately served pitchers of wine.  Opposite the door was a fireplace, maybe ten feet wide, on a hearth about two feet above the floor.  There was a roaring fire but it was obscured by two round discs propped against a metal frame in the front.  Pizza stones?  After a while a cook at the counter in front of the fireplace caught my attention when he lifted a circle of dough.  He wielded tongs to grab the heated discs (large stones) and laid them flat on the hearth then eased circles of dough onto them.  Two more flat stones were placed on top of the dough circles.  Then, with a long-handled shovel, the cook lifted burning coals from the fire and arranged them on top of the stones.  After a while he lifted the top rock for a progress check, shoveled more hot coals on top, and soon the flat bread was done.  The cook lifted the top rock, grabbed the bread with one hand and tossed it onto the counter, where a waitress quickly sliced it into little squares, dumped them into a basket and served it to us immediately with thin slices of salami, prosciutto crudo and pecorino cheese.  We split the bread and made everything into tasty little sandwiches.  Jerry warned us not to overdo it because there was more to come. Keep reading

Perugia

We were packed into our tiny bus by nine, and by ten we were chugging up a mountain road outside of Perugia lined with vines and cisto and ginestra, our driver blowing his horn at every curve. Shortly we were at the farm where our energetic and talkative hostess Raffaella lives with her saxophonist husband, children and mother-in-law Alberta. We did not meet Alberta but she seems as energetic and hardworking as Raffaella; Alberta planted 780 of the farm’s 850 olive trees and she still produces the farm’s supplies of olive oil, wine, vegetables and jam. Raffaella runs the cooking school, operates the B&B, takes care of the chickens and who knows what other perpetual motion activities. Her mission for the day was to guide eighteen of us in cooking a four-course Umbrian special occasion meal using traditional recipes, methods, ingredients and plenty of garlic and olive oil. In the main room of her farmhouse we donned red aprons and, since she said she’d never had such a big group before, posed for a picture for her Facebook page (check it out and let me know, Facebook people, as I am not one of the in crowd).  Keep reading

While Maurice set up near the top of Spello’s old town to paint, I went down the hill to visit Pintoricchio in Santa Maria Maggiore. Two small paintings of Mary and Jesus, and a faded angel, were hidden in a back chapel, but the main attraction was the Baglioni chapel off the nave. Richly-colored scenes of great beauty and captivating detail displayed gospel personages and stories: the annunciation by a Renaissance angel to Mary in her Renaissance bedroom, the nativity with everyone arrayed on the green grass under a floating platform of brightly-robed angels singing from the same songsheet, and more, all with backdrops of dreamy Italian hill towns. No pictures allowed, and the bureaucrat collecting money was keeping a keen eye on all of us suspicious characters who wandered in. Keep reading