Our Trip Blog

The Events of Sunday, March 13, 2011

                After several nights of odd sleep schedules, it was a great pleasure to sleep in all the way until 7:00. Pam and Abby showered before a breakfast of blood oranges, cereal, and crostoli, and Lindsey and Caitlin showered after. Then we packed up and hit the road just after 9:00. It was about a mile to the ferry port, and we had about half an hour to wait before the ferry arrived. While waiting, I took a short walk down to the pier and recalled our stressful arrival here in Venice, just a few days before. Soon the ferry arrived, so I returned to the van, showed our ticket to the transit agent, drove onto the ferry, got everyone out of the van, and walked up to the third floor to find a seat. Why did it seem so much easier? Was it because it was daytime? Or because we had already done it once? How strange: that two similar experiences could feel so different!

                The first several hours passed quickly. The scenery was repetitive and uninteresting: nondescript industrial complexes, empty fields, and barren orchards. Yet I enjoyed the pleasure of driving this beautiful vehicle: clean, quiet, and well-designed; good handling, good brakes, nimble yet smooth. We stopped for fuel at a service exit, where Ben calculated we got about 65 km per liter. (That’s over 30 mpg for us customary-unit users.) A bit later, we stopped at another service stop and pulled out our picnic lunch. Since it was raining, we ate in the car, doing our best not to smear peanut butter or drop cracker crumbs onto the upholstery.

                The drive got a bit more interesting when we entered the Apennine Mountains, which were shrouded in fog and dusted with snow. After three days in the brown air of Venice, we drank in this alpine vision of freshness. We left the highway and drove through the small, deserted streets of Valtopina, to our lodging for the next few nights. Actually, we arrived at a black iron gate, which magically opened as soon as I opened the door to get out and ring the buzzer. We drove up the 100-meter-long driveway to a beautiful duplex home. Our host and landlord, Giovanni Biconne, met us at the top of the drive. He introduced us to his wife Rosalba and then to our apartment. It is on the upper floor, while Giovanni and Rosalba live on the ground floor. Clean, new, and full of light, the flat includes several pieces of wood cabinetry that Giovanni fashioned himself (woodworking is his hobby, now that he is retired). The “laundry room” is a short closet area off the terrace that has a small front-loading washer and a drying rack. With Giovanni’s help, we started a fire in the fireplace and enjoyed a homemade dinner of our own invention. On Wednesday, Giovanni had offered to pick up some groceries for us, and so we sent him a list. He went above and beyond our request, and today he proudly showed us what he had collected: pasta, potatoes, fresh oranges, fresh bread, butter, chicken, a tray of sliced Italian-style meat, lettuce, fresh vegetables, bottled water, milk, and white wine. He also proudly showed us a jar of his Rosalba’s peach jam. I think we shall eat well here!

                After dinner, Giovanni came upstairs and gave us his personal orientation to Umbria, which is the name of this region. He began by highlighting two special destinations in Perugia (about an hour from here): a stained-glass shop and a showed us a DVD (in Italian) highlighting the towns of Umbria and their points of interest to tourists. Then we began an English DVD explaining the life of Francis through the Giotto frescoes of the Upper Basilica of St. Francis. After about twenty minutes, our eyes started to glaze over, so we turned it off and called it a day.