Pirates, Parties & Pasta

^{Today, Owen had to go to a ten-minute meeting about a paper for his class. And I went out to take Erin & Frank’s family Christmas card photo, so we regrouped at about noon.} 

This might not be the card choice, but here they are!

^{The boys and I then drove to Marta (a lake town where a great deal of Italy's fishing industry is) and lunched at Il Pirata, a great seafood place on the lake that has a "pirate-like" owner.} 

^{Again, it was 97, so hanging around Viterbo was just not a very attractive option. The boys had shrimp sauce over gnocchi, a favorite, and shared a coregone (lake fish). I had the coregone and salad.} 

^{The pirate was there : ) I must translate the menu/story about him that I took a photo of… it must be interesting. Not only does the owner have an eye patch like a pirate, but a big dent in his forehead!} 

^{After lunch, the boys swam again at Capodimonte. We came back around 5, showered and went to the school for the final show. Great show by the artists, great readings by the writers.} 

Awesome piece by Annalisa Sheldahl.

The group.

Then dinner at L’Archetto, an outdoor place that is always very good to us. A great night all around.

L'Archetto

Caroline & Fred

Carlotta & Caroline

Carlotta got us a cake!

 Adam carried a fan the whole time because
Kelly left the next day and gave it to us :)

Everything Old Is New Again

^{It’s always fun to have visitors to our second home here in Viterbo because it makes us see things new again, through their eyes. Our latest guest is Adam, Owen’s friend from home. He is of Italian descent and is apparently very good in their Italian class.}

^{Owen and I left around 1:00 for the 1 1/2- to 2-hour drive to Fiumicino (where the airport is). We had an hour to kill once we got to the airport, but we wanted to be safe. We would have had more time to kill had we driven the way we meant to drive. Instead, we crawled up the coast, town by town. It was stress free, though, because we knew we’d be there in time.}

Waiting is always better with cappuccino, even though coffee
with milk after noon is a dead giveaway tourist move.

^{He came out of the doors and we were united. It’s funny that a world-class tourist destination city can have an airport that you can stand at and look at every single face that comes out of the gates. Leonardo da Vinci airport is somehow small. No frills. The antithesis of slick.}

^{On the way home, we took an exit at Civitavecchia, the port town where all the cruise ships come in, grabbed a parking spot and were on a beach in about 90 seconds. Now Adam can say he’s been in the Mediterranean.}  

Funny how these last two seem to be panoramas. Life is an adventure when you're
over 50 living in a new world of technology! You never know what you're gonna get!

Back on the highway in ten minutes, we were home by 7. The boys had a snack and chilled on the balcony, while I joined Fred at the school buffet and artist talk. The boys then went to Piazza Gesu for pizza, came home and fell asleep for 12 hours.

Sweet neighbor dog. His owner is a Fred Mertz stunt double.

Sad bizarre guy who wears a million coats and sits on a stoop nearby
and smiles all day. At least he smiles. That's a leopard fur coat. :(

^{Adam’s First Full Day in Italy}

^{The next day, Owen had a short class in Bagnaia, two towns over, in their sculptured gardens, called Villa Lante. I took him over and did some work in the café there, drove him home, and soon took off with the boys for Lake Bolsena in Capodimonte. We stopped at the terme on the way—a terme being a hot, smelly, sulphur spring where people go for the curative powers of the water. At Capodimonte, the boys rented a paddle boat with a slide (the five-seater!) and spent an hour and a half peddling/paddling and diving or sliding off the top. After they turned that in, they swam another hour and a half. I kept scanning the water for their heads—one pale, one darker—while I worked from a café on the beach. Cafés line the beach. Tons of German tourists. One guy with a Wharton school t-shirt. Maybe American, but I couldn’t hear.}

^{The sky began to darken and the wind picked up. Before you knew it, we were getting to the car as fast as we could. Pieces of bark and huge leaves from these weird trees were whipping at our faces—flying debris really putting our eyelashes to the test. Aren’t they supposed to keep stuff out of your eyes?}  

This is one of the trees. I said to Owen, Doesn't it look like camouflage?
And he said, Yeah, I didn't even see it!  Hahaha....

^{I was pretty nervous on the way home because of the intense wind, and the fact that Venice had a damaging tornedo two weeks ago, which prompted a Google search on my part, where I learned these are not at all uncommon in Italy. Lots of big lightning on the 30- to 40-minute drive home. We stopped at the mall for Adam to get a chip for his phone so he can be on line less expensively. (We’ll be back there today because, naturally, it didn’t work. Never does on the first try. It will take up to four men, several phone calls, several scans of some documents, moving from one computer to another, much head shaking and joking, to get it working.) Then we picked up dinner supplies at this same mall because it has a big supermarket. Got home before any rain, and it never really did rain after all!}

Owen & Adam at the supermarket inspecting the melons.
 I'm not sure they've ever had their picture taken at the supermarket before!
Everything's fun in a foreign country. Or at least an adventure.

^{Kelley came to dinner, which is always fun. We had drinks and cheese and crackers on the balcony, dinner in the kitchen, followed by ice cream cones back on the balcony (from Kelly).}

^{The first full day for Adam was a good one!}

^{Post script:  When we went back to the phone store the next day, the two guys working there saw me. One said to the other, “Yeah, she’s back because the chip we sold her yesterday doesn’t work because she has too many cell phones associated with her passport.”  Who knew this could be an issue? And why didn’t they use one of the many ways they have of reaching me to tell me? Long story short, I put this “chiavetta” wifi thing into my laptop, both of which I had WITH me for God knows what reason, emailed them a photocopy of Owen’s passport, and they used that to register Adam’s phone. It was working in under an hour.} 

"I'd rather live in a cave with a view of a palace than live in a palace with a view of a cave."

— Karl Pilkington / Writer / The Ricky Gervais Show


I hope, for the sake of the folks living in Caprarola, Lazio, Italy, they share this sentiment because nobody lives in the palace at the top of the hill in their town, and the rest of Caprarola—well, it's not a cave, but it's seen better days.

Last night, we made a reservation at Il Due Galozzi (which translates to The Two Galoots) in the nearby town of Caprarola. Kelly joined and we left early to explore a bit. The town consists mainly of one long steep street leading to the Palazzo Farnese, a huge palace with an amazing sculptured garden behind it, with a sort of running stream/waterfall structure. We have seen this before, and knew it would be closed, so no pictures of it this year.

We parked at the bottom of the hill and worked our way up to the palace, taking side streets as we went—partly for a break from the steep trek, and partly to see something off the beaten path. Lots of people were out in their chairs or on the stoops in front of their houses. We don't know why we don't see that in Viterbo. Maybe because Viterbo's more of a city.

As is typical, a lot of the folks—both the men and the women—had pretty grouchy faces, but if you said, "Sera!" They'd light up and all say it back. You just need to break the ice. It's very rewarding. Case in point, in my last post of the guy with the big dog—the last photo on that blog post was the first one I took, surreptitiously, before getting up the nerve to ask for the photos. He had a particularly imposing countenance, but it was well worth it. He did insult me, however, when he said, "Do you speak English? Speak English. It is easier."  

Fred & Owen at the Palazzo.

The view from the top.

Another.

Us at the top. Photo credit to Kelly.

The descent from the Palazzo to the town is a study in grey. 
Including Fred & Owen.

If you imagine all these next scenes without the flowers,
it's a very different picture.

These women were down an alley with a little open area and when they saw me photographing, they beckoned me down to see their pretty garden—all green. No flowers. As I made my way down, a pigeon flew and they suddenly starting pointing and shouting at the wall across from them: "Ouvo! Ouvo! Ouvo!"

The pigeon had just left her hole in the wall and there, precariously on the edge of the hole, was this egg. They were like kids. So excited about the egg. 

The classic grumpy cat.

Orange.

I know I have no discipline when it comes to editing my photos but I just had to keep the two pizza images. We are very concerned The Two Galoots presents competition for our beloved Viterbo institution Il Monastero, home of the two-plate pizza. Mine was mozzarella and zucchini. I made myself eat only half because Fred mistakenly ordered four SEPARATE orders of bruschetta for an appetizer. Four slices of bread covered with tomatoes for each of us. THEN, pizza!

The best Italian restaurant experiences seem to end with limoncello.
We think it's homemade; it usually is.