Month: November 2023

Liv breezed in for a bit, and everything moved faster

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We’re almost up to where we left off. In our daily life, that is. Hurricane Olivia was our terrific excuse. We may have abandoned (mostly) our birth country for now, but certain things, like checking accounts, language between us at home, and, oh, our adult kids and a grandkid keep us tethered. Naturally, we’d prefer that our favorite humans somehow are able to make the same leap. But stuff like regular employment and deep friendships get in the way. I wasn’t ready to turn my life upside down when I was 30, either.

So it’s great when a kid or two comes by for a visit. This time it was Liv a/k/a Olivia, our younger daughter, and her partner Al. We got their room ready and stocked some of the foods we knew they’d like or need. So, big bunch of small hot peppers? Check. Oat milk, ditto. Restock coffee supply? Done. We took mercy on them and picked them up at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport instead of making them take the train. It’s a haul from “Alta Umbria,” but for a Monday morning just after rush hour, we just breezed in.

A lot of any visitor’s stay naturally involves food. I don’t really have to say it, but it’s pretty incredible ’round these parts. A visit to a regular supermarket is like going to an Eataly in the U.S., except that everything is half price, if that much. Back in ‘Merica, our offspring have developed some food intollerances, or so they thought. In Liv’s case, U.S. market pasta and wheat products give her a stomach ache, so she thought she’s got that fashionable gluten problem. But no. She can eat pasta and bread and pizza here, no problem. And she’s not alone—an anecdotal survey of people who live here but go to the U.S. regularly brought out a lot of the same reactions. Anyone have an idea why?

Liv and Al took two weeks of their valuable time off, so instead of sitting at home admiring the view we had to put on our tour guide hats and see stuff around this splendid little region. Not that it’s their first time around this block. Al said to me “Being here is, like, what I do now. It’s my alternate reality life.” First they had to return to Perugia, Liv’s first love and where Al has developed certain rituals. I dropped them off so they could wander around without us old people slowing them down. Despite the nasty weather, they dropped into their favorite places, Al at the porchetta stand on Piazza Matteotti, and the two of them for artisanal gelato (with flavors like gorgonzola and honey) at Lick (closed for vacation until 7 December).

ONCE THEY GOT PERUGIA OUT OF THEIR SYSTEMS, we tried to get away from the too familiar. Last year we spent a rain-drenched day in Foligno. Until then that small city was just a railroad station where we had to change for the Perugia branch line. But we discovered it’s a lively place and unlike most towns in Umbria, flat and really walkable. The window shopping is terrific, and there are tons of cafés and restaurants, many of the latter looking as though they dropped in from Williamsburg.

Knowing that we were going to be in Foligno long enough to have lunch, I started to surf the Web for suggestions, and ran into the service The Fork. It’s like Open Table and Resy in the U.S., but it points to places off the main tourist squares and, if you reserve a table through the site, you often get a discount. I looked through the service and got us a table at Fish Easy (that’s really its name). You can leave a note for the restaurant when you reserve, and I asked if it was okay to bring our dog. Most restaurants here are dog-friendly, but it never hurts to ask. I got a quick reply—sure, we’ll be happy to have him around. (Below, lunch at Fish Easy, with Niko hoping something falls off the table.)

The proprietor made good on his promise. Niko was our calling card, and as soon as he saw Niko leading the way, he knew it was our party of four. The place, like a lot of Foligno eateries, didn’t trade on the Olde Worlde thing, the decor and the menu was sleek and up to date.

Another day, we took advantage of the fine weather and drove across the region to the city of Orvieto, famed for its delicious white wine and its incredible Italian Gothic cathedral. I used The Fork again to find a place to eat, and it led us to Caffè Ristorante Capitano del Popolo, on, logically enough, the piazza of that name. After a funicular ride up from the train station (with plenty of free parking), we admired the Duomo, including the stunning frescoes by Luca Signorelli, before walking a few minutes away from the tourist crowds to the piazza. The market there was shutting down as we walked between stalls to the restaurant. I’d warned them, too, that we had a dog and they not only let Niko in, but gave him a plush chair, pillow, and water bowl. (Below, the Signorelli panels and a modern capolavoro.)

Like more and more restaurants here, the menu was creative but rooted in Umbrian tradition. So some familiar dishes has interesting twists, like the addition of ginger. I usually don’t eat meat, but I was pasta-ed out and went with a vegetable-forward version of chicken alla cacciatore, while my stronger-willed wife and kid had trucioli (a short pasta) with artichoke cream and mint.

Niko got his own place at the table.

THE SPARTAN WOMAN AND I have this compulsion to show off “the real Umbria” to our guests. That usually means one of the sagras around the region. They’re usually held in the summer, when warm weather means long sultry nights, local food specialties, and kitschy line dancing to live music. Liv and Al were too late for those. But they weren’t too late for Montone’s fall festival. Plus, going there gave us an excuse to check out a different part of our area—after a few months of living here, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut of shopping, home maintenance and occasional hanging out with friends.

So, Montone. It’s said to be one of the most beautiful towns in Italy by the kinds of groups that keep track of that stuff. I can vouch that it’s awfully pretty, though I gotta say that it’s got lots of competition. The festival was fun because it got us out of the house and, with its emphasis on local foods and the chattiness of the vendors, we got an education in local foods. Really, really local foods. The hyperlocal food culture means that local towns have wineries, honey producers, and other local producers just beyond the town walls. For us that day, the nasty November weather broke and we strolled around and talked to people about cheese, pasta, and medicinal herbs and tinctures (the maker of the latter grabbed us for a good long chat).

Montone looking good.

So much for all that. The Spartan Woman, Niko the pup, and I have returned to everyday life, evading the wild boar hunters, looking at the view, and trying to decide every day what to have for lunch. And one of these days we’ll hang more pictures on the walls and make this place look more lived in—in a good way.

A modern way to get around an old town (and walk like an Egyptian)

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Every now and then I think about innovation. It’s not an obsession, but as a recovering geek I look at my Mac and the various ways we do everyday tasks and remember how these devices and even cars were 20, 30, even more years ago. A life without streaming, iPhones, and ATMs might sound like paradise to some people, but not to me.

One of my problems with the concept of “innovation” is that Americans tend to think of computers as the only area where it takes place. And, maybe, biotech. I’m oversimplifying, but you get the drift. And a lot of them devalue how other societies come up with solutions to everyday challenges. One of the ways the rest of the world is innovating is how people move around. Not just the big voyages, like airports and railroads, but in their towns and cities.

We live in a mountainous area, and a lot, if not most, of our cities and towns are on hills. And that posits a couple of problems that lead to interesting solutions. Hilltowns tend to have narrow streets—some are just alleyways and staircases. And they are not car-friendly. They’ve tried to adapt, but for example our regional capital, Perugia, after letting cars go everywhere, severely curtailed their use in the historic center. And that’s led to problems with commerce and convenience, but it also means that you can walk past nicely scrubbed buildings without be afraid of being run over. It’s a paradox and hopefully planners and urban officials will come to a good balance.

All of this brings me to Spoleto, where we spent a recent Saturday wandering with one of our kids and her boyfriend. Outwardly, it’s a typical Umbrian hilltown or small city. It once was a powerful local force, and traces of that power still exist here and there, like in the splendid duomo (main cathedral) and fortress overlooking the city. You can usually tell how powerful a town was during the pre-Papal States era by the size of its piazzas, and Spoleto doesn’t disappoint. Its piazza del Duomo is majestic and Piazza del Market (Market Square) is a nice big comfortable urban living room.

Now this is station art.

These days, Spoleto exercises its power via culture. It’s the site of the Festival dei Due Mondi, more commonly called the Spoleto Festival. Classical music musicians, dancers, and their fans from the around the world gather every summer at venues throughout the city. Because of this preeminence, artists have decorated the city’s public spaces; for example, an Alexander Calder sculpture stands watch over the train station.

ONE THING YOU CAN’T SEE in Spoleto lies literally below the surface. Spoleto’s government has over the years built a system of tunnels that get you around the historic center and out to parking lots outside the old city walls. It’s pretty amazing. At first I thought the tunnel we used between the parking lot where we stashed our car and the edge of the center city was the only one, and pretty impressive by itself. But a few months ago we walked past what looked like an entrance to another one. With my obsession with urban transport and tunnels I just had to explore. It resembles a subway or metro without trains, but with kilometers of moving sidewalks that actually work (take that, JFK airport). The tunnel leading from the SpoletoSfera lot is decorated with large photos of festival participants and guests, so you know exactly what this former city-state stands for these days. (We can argue over whether festivals are a cure-all for urban woes another time.)

Some views of the tunnels. Click photo to enlarge.

For some reason, every time we go there—and we’ll just go to hang out, feel the vibe and check out the restaurants—something serendipitously terrific happens. This past weekend, we stumbled into a street food happening and we bought enough good stuff to have dinner that night. (BTW street food is all the rage here in Italy, perhaps a reaction to the old days of formal dining in the country’s eateries.)

But a winter Sunday a few years ago topped every trip there. We drove there with two friends from New York, Wendy and Vicky. We walked around the town and when we got to the Duomo, we saw that some kind of mass baptism ceremony was in progress. Outside the church were plaques with the names of the kids. We thought, ok, cool, but there was more. We took the nearby elevator up to the old fort, which has an incredible view over the town and surrounding countryside. All of a sudden, dozens of helium balloons took off from the piazza in front of the cathedral, a riot of pink and blue, one for each baby.

That wasn’t all. We had a really good Sunday lunch at one of our favorite places, Apollinare (right). As we left and turned up the street, we stumbled in the crowd watching an exuberant Carnevale parade. Every participant wore a whimsical costumes, and a lot of them cheerfuly sprayed us all with confetti, sparkles, and silly string. DJs kept the beat going as people dressed as ancient Egyptians shimmied their way down the street.

And one of paraders, in the photo below, posed gracefully as I took my shot.