Guest post!

Maggie, Greg and Dottie checking in (sister, her spouse and his mother)...

We had another wonderful, memorable visit to Viterbo. Amy and Warren's new apartment is spacious and well-appointed. Our first day was a little cloudy:

But it cleared the next day and was generally lovely:

We took a ride with Amy to some small towns on and near Lake Bolsena. We stumbled onto a small seafood restaurant on the lake shore. Terrific food and service. Here's their view:

One stop on the way was Pitigliano:

Later we took a two night trip to Spoleto. Here's the view from Menotti's home office:

There was some civic or political event going on that drew media attention:

During that trip we made a side trip to the verey small hill town of Castelluccio, which overlooks a broad, high plain in the Sibillini Mountains:

On our way out of Spoleto we ran into some old friends:

The Turners gave us the use of their car for a day and we stopped in at Bagnaia, Vitorchiano, and Montefiascone. Dottie especially enjoyed the gardens of Villa Lante in Bagnaia. The Pegasus Fountain:

That's ust a brief taste of the many sights and experiences we found. Great food, friends and hospitality at every turn. Our most effusive thanks go to our generous hosts, Amy and Warren Turner. Ciao!

Agriturismo

One of the things we had been planning to do for some time was to delve into the agriturismo movement in Italy.  Agriturismo was codified into law beginning in the mid 1980’s as a way to help small family farmers make a go of it in the face of rising costs and pressures from larger agricultural enterprises. The basic idea is that you head out to a farm in the countryside. What you do there varies. The experience can range from staying overnight in the farmhouse and helping out with the work to just showing up for dinner. Since we are already employed and have a place in Italy to rest our heads most nights, we opted for the latter.

Argiturismo and the slow food movement are two peas in a pod. To qualify for the official agriturismo designation a large portion of the food served must be produced on site and the rest is inevitably local. We headed for the hills overlooking Viterbo with our friends Keith and Carolyn to celebrate a recent birthday. Destination: I Giardini di Ararat. Back in May I purchased a Groupon for dinner for 4 and a birthday seemed as good an excuse as any to use it. The restaurant offered lovely views of the lights of Viterbo which would have been even more spectacular had we not arrived well after dark. We were seated next to a fire in a large dining room whose principle decoration was tastefully done plates/china grouped primarily by color on the walls. The three hour dinner was spent talking, laughing and enjoying la Dolce Vita.

Those of you who are not foodaholics can stop now. For the rest, we started with a very drinkable glass of prosecco, far better than the stuff we normally buy for use in mixed aperativi. Dinner was served with a nice, regional merlot. The waitress asked us if we wanted to see the menu and we declined, opting instead to eat whatever was brought. The food began with antipasto mista: olives, salami, grilled vegetables, focaccia-like bread and cheese. The primo piatto was a delicious fettuccini, which was definitely not forgettable, but the waitress rattled off the description in such rapid Italian that we don’t know what it was except to say, it was delicious. We were surprised by the arrival of a second primo, a rustic pasta with field fennel flowers, potato and pistachio in a white sauce topped with a delicate pachino cheese. The secondo piatto was a cheek of beef, slow cooked and served with a strawberry and butter topping. The meat fell apart when touched with a fork and basically melted in your mouth. Dolce was vanilla custard with a deep fried apple slice with cinnamon, powdered sugar and honey – delicioso. We were offered coffee to end the meal, but seeing as it was already 11 pm and we wanted to be able to sleep upon our return, we declined and called it a night.

Some of the best, most authentic food you can get is from a Nonna’s kitchen. If that experience interests you, then a stay or meal at an agriturismo might just be for you.

Miagawerita

I have mentioned on a number of occasions that Italians aren’t adventurous when it comes to food and drink. They tend to be very parochial, sticking to what they know well. And they don’t really need to apologize for that. After all, how many people visit Italy to eat at a fill-in-your-favorite non-Italian-ethnic-or-regional-food restaurant? Still, it goes deeper than that. They are such creatures of habit that some won’t even eat pasta for a meal other than lunch. Ask them why and they don’t know. It is just the way they were brought up.

Some cuisines also use ingredients which do not appeal to the Italian palate. One example is Mexican food. The climate of both countries is similar; the same kinds of crops grow in both places. They share a Latin sensibility of time and urgency. And yet REALLY hot spices are hard to find in Italian food and cilantro is basically taboo. To many Italians cilantro has an unpleasant taste I have been told is not unlike eating soap. Limes are also almost impossible to find which is interesting given the amount of citrus grown and eaten in Italy. Thus, it is nearly impossible to find the ingredients for Mexican food in all but large cities. Here in Viterbo there is a single ethnic market selling not only ingredients for Mexican food, but all of the Asian and Indian cuisines as well. And it is a tiny two room shop that barely survives.

In late September a unique opportunity arises when the miagawi hit the fruit and vegetable stores. The miagawa is a cross between a grapefruit and a clementine. It has a green to yellow skin when ripe and is orange-pink inside.

The combination of grapefruit tartness and clementine sweetness makes it a nearly perfect substitute for limes in a margarita.

We recently tried it out and thus was born the Miagawerita, available for a limited time only while the fruit lasts! Yes, that is a 2 liter bottle which is over 3/4 full. All in a day's work.

Counting on it

A few weeks into the meat of the quarter I had an interesting experience. I was counting the students in the class and got to dodici and wondered where tredici was. At which point I stepped back and realized with a start that I had just counted out the class in Italian. It wasn’t intentional. In fact, I have never counted attendance in Italian, even for practice, so it isn’t like this was just synapses firing in a pattern I had established. It hasn’t happened again since and I would be the first to claim I am far from fluent. In fact, I can barely respond appropriately when somebody asks me my name and where I am from. Nonetheless, it was still kind of cool!

Gatti

Our stay at the campground in Terracina was made more pleasant by the presence of a pair of cats, a mother and her young kitten.

It was clear that they were comfortable there; the mother walked into our room with us as we opened the door. The kitten was more circumspect. It took a bit of coaxing with string and baiting with chicken scraps to convince it that humans were OK. By the time we left he/she was quite willing to just wander up for a good petting.

Even as I bonded with the little one, I felt a deep sadness. It would have been nice to take it home with us and the timing would have been perfect; I estimate the kitten was roughly 7-8 weeks old and it was already mostly weaned. But, even though the coloring was different and it would have grown to have a unique temperament, it is just too soon after Jet for me to take in another cat. It is too bad, since the campground was closing for the season and both cats will now be alone for the winter with little to no human contact at just the time when being acclimated to humans would imprint and help the kitten from becoming fully feral.

Abbazia di Fossanova

We returned to Viterbo from our Orientation trip one week ago. On the way we stopped at the Abbazia di Fossanova. The church was constructed in the  late 12^th to early 13^th century. It is the finest example of the Cistercian Gothic style remaining in Italy. The Cistercians were an offshoot of the Benedictines who sought to return to the more austere teachings of Benedict which they felt were more authentic. Many orders have become known for particular work, for example, the Sisters of Mercy for nursing or the Jesuits for teaching. The Cistercians were noted for their manual labor as they worked the fields and brewed beverages. Modern Cistercians are also known as the Trappists, famed for their jams, jellies and beers.

The Abbey of Fossanova is located around 60 miles southeast of Rome.

The simple, yet elegant lines fostered a sense of peace and solitude appropriate for the modest, hard-working nuns.

The interior is spacious, yet towering, drawing the eyes upwards. Below is a picture of Amy, caught in a rare moment without the swirl of students.

Attached to the church is a cloister. The walkways overlook a beautiful garden, perfect for silent contemplation as you make your way past the paired columns which ring the courtyard.

You can also look into many of the rooms attached to the cloister, including the dining hall.

Unlike the Cistercians who spent the entire time in silence, we happened to visit just before a wedding was scheduled to take place. The bride and groom were taking pictures and the church was being decorated with flowers for the ceremony. A trio of musicians was warming up and practicing in one of the areas adjacent to the cloister providing a beautiful serenade of classical music for us as we strolled the walkways and took in the sights.

Grotte di Pastena

On the second day of our orientation trip we began with a series of activities within our advisee groups. I make it a point not to comment on the workings of the school so that is enough said about that. Druing the afternoon we traveled to the province of Frosinone for a visit to the Grotte di Pastena. The three kilometer network of caves was discovered by Carlo Franchetti in 1926 outside the town of Pastena. Approximately 1 kilometer of the caves have been improved with paths, railings and lighting which allow people to explore underground.

The main entrance is clearly a riverbed. There is a gate house and several barriers to keep you out of the caves unless you are accompanied by a guide.

Unfortunately, pictures of the stalactites, bat guano, etc. are not allowed so I stopped after taking this initial shot looking back whence we came.

On the way back to the campground we stopped off for a brief walk through the shopping district. Up on the hillside they have lit up the platform to the Temple of Jupiter. We visited that last year after a half hour of hiking in the brutal sun. You can relive the moment if you look back at earlier posts. Fortunately, we opted out of that activity this year.

Giardini di Ninfa

Our second stop on the way to our campground was a few miles outside of Sermoneta in the Giardini di Ninfa. Ninfa is an ancient town which was originally quite well off. In the 12^th century Pope Alexander III was crowned there and his enemy Emperor Barbarossa had the place leveled in retribution. The Caetani family who were also important benefactors of Sermoneta had the town rebuilt, but it was subsequently abandoned following a malaria outbreak. In the early 1900s, the descendants of the same Caetani family, who still owned the town, had the ruins converted into a garden.

We arrived to a beautiful, clear sky with a dozen-plus para-gliders circling overhead in the thermals from the nearby mountains. You can just make some of them out in the sky in the picture below.

The park has several hundred acres of ruins and plantings. The original city was surrounded by a protective wall with sentry towers. Some sections of that wall and structures are still visible. 

There were 7 churches for the 1500 inhabitants. Portions of the apse of one of the churches are visible below.

The malarial outbreak which caused the city to be abandoned was due to nearby marshy areas. The water drains from those areas by a river which runs through the middle of the town. Here you can see the river exit through the city walls.

Water is everywhere in the gardens. There were a series of little waterfalls on one path.

Waterways had been intentionally created throughout including this pair which crossed without intersecting by means of a bridge.

The abundant water, fertile soil and temperate climate make it possible to grow plants from all over the world. The Caetani’s imported plants from all over Asia and the Americas for their garden.

Here are some pomegranates.

The last of the Caetani family died in the 1970s and the garden has been given over to the local authorities and made into a wonderful attraction. It was quite soothing to stroll among the buildings through the plants with the sound of the streams playing in the background.