Umbria Getaway to Passignano sul Trasimeno, Perugia, and Todi

Last Christmas Daniele's brother gave him this little MoveBox, which is an Italian company that sells hotel packages. There are different ones, with different themes. Ours was places with “Charm”. The little box that the gift certificate came in included a book of countless places, mostly agriturismo (converted farms). Many of them had pools, so we had been waiting for a chance to use it in the summer.

We first thought we would stay in Tuscany, but since it is August, many places were full or had minimum stay policies. We ended up choosing a beautiful place, Agriturismo Podere Borgobello in Colle Umberto near Perugia, Umbria instead. I was excited to see Perugia. This was also near Lake Trasimeno, which Daniele wanted to see.

Our “weekends” work around Daniele's work schedule, typically the day after his night-shift and his day-off the following day. When he came home, around 7:30am, we finished packing up and hit the road for Umbria.

The first stop was Lake Trasimeno. We visited the city, Passignano sul Trasimeno, which was a cute old town right on the lake that also went up into the surrounding hills. There were trails that went up into the hills, which we did a little of, but it was a hot August day, so I was not very interested in doing more of that. We did get some nice views of the lake below, though. The city also features a “Rocca” or castel-like fortess structure right at the center, which I always love.

Rocca of Passignano sul Trasimeno

Me in Passignano sul Trasimeno

Passignano sul Trasimeno port

The area around the lake was nicely set up for tourists or day-trippers. They had public bathrooms (not easy to find in Italy), a shaded picnic area (that we took advantage of with sandwiches we made that morning), and a spring water dispenser. Many Italian cities/towns have these water dispensers. Locals can typically get a key to get free still or naturally sparkling spring water; everyone else pays 5 cents a liter, which is almost free.

After lunch we went off to the little town of Colle Umberto to find this Podere Borgobello where we were staying and hopefully use their pool! And that's just what we did the rest of the afternoon. We had passed signs on the way for a pizzeria, Il Cucuzzaro. Daniele hates going places he has not already eaten, but when we showed up here, they could hardly fit us in they were full with reservations. Now, we're really in the middle of nowhere, so that's really impressive. The food was great, and nice size portions, and cheap. I got the Ortalana Pizza, that's with zucchini and peppers on it. It was really good, they roasted the veggies before putting them one the pizza, rather than just letting them cook on the pizza. And there were a mix of different peppers all were fresh and delicious. Daniele got some type of pasta with goose meat. It came with hand made pasta and was apparently very good.

Agriturismo Podere Borgobello in Colle Umberto (PG)

Saturday morning, after a delicious buffet breakfast, we went to Perugia. We were given some parking advice, to go to the lot at Piazza dei Partigiani, since it was still pretty early. From there we easily took the escalators to the top if the ancient town.

Like most Italian cities, Perugia is famous for a particular export, Perugina Chocolate – the company that make those little Baci among many other delicious things. I was hoping there would be a general Chocolate culture, like Modica, Sicily, but it seemed to really just be Perugina. They had a store right in the middle of the historical center where I bought a bar of Fondente Luisa. This is apparently the original dark chocolate recipe the founder started the company with. It's pretty good!

The escalators of Perugia bring you right into the old 'Rocca' or fortress that once upon a time was all that Perugia was. It's remarkably well preserved and pretty much open to be wondered around. From here you take a second, shorter escalator out to the “modern” historical center. We came up in Largo della Liberta where there happened to be an antiques market happening. There also is the Palazzo della Provincia, the equivalent of a County Capital Building right there and the main, store-lined, street that leads to the main square. The main square is dominated by two large buildings, one on each side. There is the Palazzo dei Priori and the Cathedral of Perugia.

Daniele in Rocca Paolina of Perugia

Me in antiques market in Perugia

As implied by all the escalators, Perugia's historical center is high up. After we hit the big sites we wondered around a bit and found some beautiful views of the surrounding cities and countryside. There are also some park areas, some small side streets, and just generally lots of charm. I really liked Perugia!

Via Baglioni in Perugia

Panorama of Perugia from above

We started our day early to beat the heat and felt we had seen what we came to see by early afternoon. So we went to another city not to far and generally in the direction of driving back to Rome, Todi. Daniele wanted to go to Todi last weekend and Spoleto won out, which I think was a good call since Spoleto is a bit bigger with a bit more to see. Something I just learned, Todi is a city in Umbria, Toti is the very famous captain on the Roma soccer team, and Todis is a large supermarket brand. In case there is any confusion.

When we got to Todi we had no change for the parking machine, but by some miracle there was some the return change slot, so we used that to pay for two-hours of parking. In that time we climbed up to the top via the main street, stopping for random photos along the way, went around the very top a bit, and came back down. Then we stole some figs from a tree before Daniele pointed out to me they were actually privatly owned (it seemed like a public area). It was my first time eating a fig right off a tree and it was delicious! I saved a few that I made into pizza the next day. Maybe someday I'll make a food blog. Overall Todi was charming. We were tired, so I don't know if we missed things, but it felt like we saw it all in two-hours.

Via Giacomo Matteotti in Todi

Then it was back home to Rome. Such a lovely weekend!

Photos from this trip are online here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111221349198606775660/20120824UmbriaGetaway

Websites in Italian

I can't really say how frustrating it is to use my browser when I'm in Italy sometimes. My browser, the application that runs the most on my computer. My computer, my dear friend. It's a betrayal and an example of what you can versus what you should do in terms of applying technology.

The technology I'm talking about is determining a browser user's location. In my two-years as an expat I feel like more and more website I go to open up in Italian on me. Often with no way of turning it off or switching back to English.

Just now I went to Macy's website. Granted, I googled it first, though I could have guessed the URL. So I deserved to be sent to the .IT version of the site, with blown up "WE SHIP TO ITALY NOW" covering the whole site. I quickly changed the URL to the standard www.macys.com and saw the normal american-aimed site that I wanted. From there, found a link to the info I sought. Only to be hit again the moment I clicked it "WE SHIP TO ITALY NOW". Give it up, Macys, I'm so not interested.

Even earlier today, I went to my AdWords account to see why the ads are gone from my blog (robbing my of those potential pennies in case anyone were to click them!). I log in and it's in Italian. I'm logged in! Google knows me. Google probably knows me better than my mother. So I google (ha) how to change your language preference in AdWords Dashboard and navigate through the Italian to find the setting, but it is already English. It mush be a setting for the language of the Ads, but looking at the "Inglese" sure felt ironic. Yes, I get by in Italian, but these are setting panels, it brings me to the level of a 70-year old blind women.

Speaking of Google. I have tried everything to get my browser search bar to default to google.com, rather than google.it. If I put google.com in the navigation bar while in Italy, it forwards to google.it. The only way to get to google.com is to use iGoogle-- somehow that knows I'm me, American, and not to give me all Italian language search results. Just the normal wikipedia first then everything else, that I expect. But iGoogle is being phased out by Google and will be turned off November 2013. So I guess I'll have to get better at reading Italian and wean off wikipedia.

Now I'm not saying all websites should always be in English, I'm saying that if you are going to offer multiple language versions of your website, which is great, you should do that, let the user choose to change it after you maybe pick the default based on location. Don't assume every person in any location prefers one language. Like half the people in Italy at any given time are tourists (I think I read that in a Rick Steves once, I can't back up those numbers), so it's not that safe a bet as you might think that a person here wants to speak Italian. Plus we already can't get to Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Spotify, NBC.com, or even the pirate bay. Also the fastest internet you can get is DSL but most people use "internet keys" which is cell phone tethering. And no, there is no 4G, lots of places have Edge or even no data coverage. So, don't kick dirt in the wound by making inaccessible websites. It's just mean.

Whoops

I haven't posted about any of my travels in over 6-months! Whoops!

So here's what happened. I went to Istanbul last April and literally took over 1,000 pictures. Now I shoot with a Nikon D90 in camera Raw and like to post process my pictures, choose the best, add captions, put them in an album online. At the same time, write about my adventures in a blog post (90% for my own prosperity, but 10% in case anyone else enjoys it) and add a few of the photos relevant to the travel story.

I was so overwhelmed with the idea of processing those 1000 Istanbul photos that everything stopped. I still haven't started with those 1000 pictures from Turkey, but I'm going to move past this block. Starting now I'll write about and upload pictures from trips as I take them and try to back fill the last 6-months when I can.

In the next few days (weeks?) I'll fill in recent adventures like the weekend Daniele and I just spent in Umbria with his cousins there. Also Ferragusto just past, August 15 is a holiday that Italians all take off from work and picnic-- so fun! And we're going to Umbria again next weekend; probably to Perugia where I expect to eat lots of chocolate. Daniele and I also recently went through lots of paperwork and I finally mailed in my petition to sponsor his fiance visa, so we can get married in the US. That's a bit of a different kind of adventure, but I think I'll record our experiences with it here just the same.

Cheers!

Umbria with Daniele's Cousins

Daniele's mother is from Umbria, the region east of Lazio (were Rome is). Her sister never left and still lives in the house where they grew up. She has three sons a bit older than Daniele and his brother that are each married. The oldest two each have a daughter about 15 and a son about 7 years old. I met this whole side of the family last year and adored them! Unfortunately they are about two hours away from us in Rome.

We've been trying for a while to organize a day with Daniele's cousin Massimo, his wife Catia, and their children Sara and Diego. It is hard because everyone involved works shifts (Daniele is a nurse, Massimo a factory manager, and Catia a police officer) so it's not like we can just pick a weekend, or even the first weekend Daniele has off. This day worked out because they were on vacation. In the summer most Italians take vacation. They were spending theirs between Catia's family beach house, which coincidentally is right by Daniele's parent's beach house, and her family house were she grew up in Volperino. The latter is where we met up with them.

Cousins Daniele, Sara, and Diego

Their house in Volperino is a lovely large independent house on a large lot. Dare I say “villa”? The town is up in the mountains and a beautiful place to escape the heat of Rome. It is a such a nice place. Everyone in town knows each other. In fact the neighbors stopped by randomly throughout our two day stay there.

The town itself was damaged significantly by the 1997 earthquake. Italian houses are built differently than ours, from stone, and are expensive and time consuming to repair. It can take decades to build a house and obviously these people can not stay homeless that time. Most moved away, some have RVs on their property. 15 years later it is still a town under construction and the population is much lower, especially in the winter.

Only one wall is left from this house.

When we first got there, the kids were still sleeping because they had been out dancing till 2am the night before. Everyone in town goes to the bar (coffee shop) every night. We went later that night.

Catia made us lunch. After we lounged under almond trees to pass the afternoon heat. Daniele and I went to Nocera Umbra before dinner and when we came back his aunt and uncle were there, too. As well as some other people I was never introduced to (Italians do not automatically introduce everyone present). After dinner, we all walked to the town bar (coffee shop) where everyone in town was there hanging out all night long. The younger kids played hide and seek, the older ones foosball and ping pong, the elderly played cards, some adults played bocce ball, and everyone else just hung out.

Almond tree at Catia and Massimo's house

Monday Daniele and I had the best of intentions to take a morning hike with Massimo, but just didn't wake up early enough. So we took an easier walk with Sara and Diego that was more eating road-side blackberries than it was hiking. We hung out for the morning and early afternoon before setting off to Spoleto and home.

Sara knew all the best blackberries

Blackberry bush

Sunday we saw smoke in the distance that appeared to be a wild fire. It was just behind the rolling hills, so we could not see the flames to be sure. After a while there were helicopters and planes that dropped water, it was out the next morning. Catia said there have been a lot of them. Sure enough, Monday we saw another in the other direction. Daniele and I saw it closer up on the way home, but we also saw lots of other burnt patches of hillside. I hadn't known wildfires were such a problem. Apparently it is always an issue in dry forest areas in Italy, especially this year with the droughts.

Wild fire near Trevi, Umbria

While we were out in Umbria, Daniele and I made some trips to see some new places. Sunday we went to the little town of Nocera Umbra. Fun thing about Nocera Umbra is it sounds a lot like “No c'era ombra” or more correctly “Non c'era ombra” which means “There was no shade”. The translation has nothing to do with the name of the town, but it did confuse the heck out of me when I was first hearing it.

The town was cute and small. They were also still reconstructing from the damage of the 1997 earthquake. Most of the places we saw in the area were, with large cranes propped up to the mountain top towns. They had a museum of torture, which I was interested in, but not enough to pay the 5 euro (or 10 for Daniele and I) entrance fee. As we were leaving we saw part of a Ballet Recital going on in the square by the door to the city. It was adorable!

View from the top of Nocera Umbra

Monday we stopped at Spoleto on our way back to Rome. Spoleto is a much bigger city and features a castle / former prison on top and a 13th century bridge. Speleto is a perfect example of the medium sized town that I love in Italy. Not the big city like Rome or Florence, which are already big and constantly getting bigger as more people flock there for work. Not the tiny hill town that is almost abandoned as the houses crumble and young people flee to where they can get jobs or worse towns only being supported by tourism. This is a city with a large working class who mostly live just outside the city walls and a small tourism business to boot. Catia works in Spoleto and gave us great advice, to park by the escalators, take them all the way up (like 5 escalators), then walk down the city. The city offered a lot to see.

Rocca di Spoleto

Ponte delle Torri. The Bridge of Spoleto. Built in 13th century.

Photo album from these two days is online here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111221349198606775660/20120819UmbriaCousins

Sauce versus Gravy

There are some Italian-American's out there who have a thing for correcting people who say “sauce” and telling them it's called “gravy”. It's often accompanied by a (an even more grating) statement about how they say it that way because their family is Italian.

Before I get too ranty about this pet peeve of mine, I want to give a disclaimer. I understand how third (or so) generation Italian-Americans cling really heavily to their/our heritage. I myself have gone so far as to spend years re-learning the language forgotten in the generations in between and even re-emigrated back to the motherland. When our Italian ancestors first moved to America they were eager to become American and embraced the local culture, unfortunately not leaving much of the cool old stuff for the next generations.

Now, as for “Italians say gravy”. This is an absolutely preposterous statement. Italians speak Italian, not English. They say neither “sauce” nor “gravy” when referring to such things. If you are curious, the Italian word “sugo” translates closest. This word would be used for a tomato based sauce and anything of similar texture. Also for juice. There is also the word “salsa” which describes pestos and other thick sauces which you may want to add a little pasta water. Something like a pasta fagoli is actually considered a soup (zuppa) and the non-pasta elements are not distinguished with a different descriptor than the pasta, which should be a small shape (like a mini farfalla), by the way. Besides adding to the “soup” texture of the dish, the small pasta cooks faster which is important because it should be cooked in the rest of the soup. This process takes longer than cooking in boiling water. But I digress.

If you were to ask an actual Italian from Italy whether it is “sauce” or “gravy” they would be dumbfounded. Non-native speakers look to us native speakers for clarity on such acute differences. It would be like an Italian asking you which is the most American of two Italian words that mean almost the same thing.

So, is it “gravy” or is it “sauce”? I tend to agree with Merriam-Webster, Oxford's British and American Dictionaries. But I think Julia Child put it best, “A gravy without meat is just a sauce.” Which makes “Red Gravy” just “sauce” and is why I get annoyed when someone corrects my calling it “sauce” with, “we say gravy, we're Italian.” No, actually, it really is sauce.

If anyone guilty of this habit happens to be reading, I petition you to cease and desist. Besides having already established it is annoying, the claim of “Italian-ness” is unfounded, and the term is technically incorrect, I'll present another reason. Our Italian ancestors came to America without speaking English and had to learn quickly with likely little resources. It is understandable they did not learn the language perfectly, maybe not even the correct term for something as everyday for an Italian immigrant as 'sauce'. But it is a little more strange that their native-English speaking children would continue this mistake rather than learn the correct term. Then for these children or their children to take it further by insisting the wrong term is actually “how Italians say it”-- that takes some coglioni (the expression works better with fegato / liver, but I didn't think anyone would understand that). Therefore you should stop with this whole “Italians say gravy” thing because it pronounces your (and your ancestor's) ignorance more than your Italian-ness also someday you and I may be at a dinner party together and you don't want to unleash this rant in person.