The train trip to Terontola where Dave and Karen met us was fast and easy. In the lovely rural area where perfect roses bloom everywhere and olive trees march across the hillside, we began to relax and feel our blood pressure drop. The house we are renting is an old stone barn beautifully modernized. It's part of the property of Caroline and Pino Nobile and their children and dogs. Their house is the taller one below, ours the one-story building, beautifully restored from a barn. There are no other houses nearby, just gardens and patios and fields and a pool area where I plan to loaf in the sun tomorrow, our resting day.
After unpacking Karen and Dave took us to the nearby town of Cortona, perched like so many on the upper side of a mountain. After driving up a steep, narrow, curving road to a parking lot halfway up, we climbed a series of steps, ramps, and even escalators to reach the charming town at the top. It reminded me faintly of a ski village, except the village is at the summit, and the buildings are all medieval. But they are full of beautiful modern products: leather goods whose perfume lures you inside, artworks you want for your walls at home, local wines and cheeses, etc. Since it was only our first day I didn't buy anything, but I'll be back! Instead we had a two-hour lunch, strolled some more, and returned home for a relaxing evening catching up with the Coales.
After five days of perfect weather, yesterday, Sunday, promised rain but we headed for Lake Trasimeno anyway and booked a ferry for Isola Maggiore (Major Island? Big Island?) where we had a quick look at a display of local lace and found our restaurant just as the rain began. Another long, laugh-filled meal practicing Italian on the patient wait staff and trying to figure out Italian bathroom ettiquette (men and women often share the same sink area, and if it's very small, as it was here, there is much bowing and gesturing and back-and-forthing when one person is at the sink and another emerges from the stall. Why am I writing about this?!) We took our soggy selves home for naps and tomato-bread soup. (I had found the recipe earlier on the website here--ask me for it later!) We watched "The Name of the Rose" in Italian, with English subtitles of course, and found it as gripping and gruesome as it was 20 years ago.
Assisi
Today (Monday) we drove to Assisi where we again enjoyed magnificent views from the mountainside basilica as well as amazing Giotto frescoes and woodwork inside. Even I can find room in my jaded heart to feel awe that I am standing in front of chairs where popes and cardinals sat and made decisions hundreds of years ago. I can also appreciate the irony of having something so grand built to honor St Francis, who eschewed wealth and goods to live among the poor and the animals.
Then on to the larger town of Perugia, a memorable lunch (look for the Caffe di Perugia if you get there), and two hours of viewing several centuries of medieval frescoes and altarpieces. I had thought that my years of being immersed in all things Catholic, including art, might dampen my interest in static images of Madonna e Bambino e the usual suspects (Jesus on the Cross, John the Baptists, et al), but seeing these images up close and in amazingly (often restored) brilliant color blew me away. Watching the progression of skill by dozens of local artists over several centuries portraying the same subjects with varying faces, emotions, and finally, scenery and action, provided a crash course in the development of Renaissance art. How amazing that all this has lasted so long and still enriches us today. As Ray asked, what part of our disposable society will be in museums 500 years from now?
And then, after marveling at our luck in getting a close-up parking space, we returned to the car to find a ticket. But who cares?
Images of Perugia, including the graffiti that scars buildings everywhere in Italy:
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