Ciao!
I just wanted to let everyone know that we successfully got the car from Termini and navigated our way out of Rome. The traffic – especially in the historic center, where we just happened to be – was intense, but we were slowly able to work our way towards the outskirts and finally, on to the open road. Great jobs done by Emmy (our GPS) and Robert!
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| Dining Room |
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| Living Room |
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| Kitchen |
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| Master bedroom |
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| Small part of the balcony! |
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| Church next door! |
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| Patio on top of the building! |
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| The folks like their roses! |
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| Main Street through town |
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| Our excellent restaurant |
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| Our cheese and cold cut platter |
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| R's pasta with boar sauce |
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| My ravioli stuffed with borage with black truffles |
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| Sometimes ya just need some gelato... |
We were supposed to meet Sylvia at the apartment in Viterbo at 1 pm, but were about 10 minutes late. I thought that was actually doing pretty well considering the traffic in Rome and that there are some very odd traffic rules in Viterbo about when one can and when one can’t drive into the “historic center” – where, once again, we happen to be!
Arrived in Viterbo after 1 pm (which means that one is ABLE to drive in) and parked the car in front of the apartment to unload the luggage. The elevator is actually larger than expected, and we were able to get up to the 5th(top) floor and in the door. Interesting apartment; some quite beautiful furniture, and it’s nice to have a little space once again. The best thing about the flat is that it’s on the top floor, and has two seriously HUGE patios that are all ours! The second patio actually is up a waiting stair to the roof, and seems to go on forever!
Once we unloaded, and nominally went through a few things, Sylvia then got in our car and guided us to the official underground parking garage for the car. Found this interesting, as the first turn we needed to make – one block in – the street had been taken up (it’s those cobbles again) literally, and was totally closed! So, we had to go the “long” way around, and by the time we got to the parking garage, I didn’t know where we were. Thankfully, Rhad Emmy and was able to mark our location – otherwise, I think we would never see our little Fiat Punto again!
Silvia kept saying that all the information we needed to know “was in the apartment.” Well, that was fine … until she left, and guess what?! Surprise! Nothing in the apartment at all that had to do with things, like how to run the washing machine … or where the nearest grocery store is. And of course I needed to do laundry first thing. So … R found a U-tube demonstration on starting the machine, and we ran a load through. I was not happy, though, as – and I am NOT making this up, truly! – the machine would make one revolution and stop – for two minutes (I had the machine clock timing down for me!) and then make one more revolution – and stop for two minutes. When I got the clothes out, turns out that basically there hadn’t been enough activity to even melt the detergent pellet, and it was sticky on the clothes! So, ran them again another cycle, without detergent – and selected another cycle, which worked much better. So, as of now, have run two loads a total of three times, and now our clothes are drying around the apartment on the drying rack!
Robert had some work to do, and then we went for a short walk in the neighborhood to see what we could find. There is a Tiger grocery store just down the street, which provided us things like bread and cheese for breakfast this week. It doesn’t have a lot of things, but for the moment we’re fine. I’m figuring we can get to a Conad supermarket tomorrow (there is one on the outskirts of town) and pick up a few other things like paper towels and Kleenex. Where is Costco when one needs it?
Went out to the Osteria del Vecchio Orologio (will have to check that with R, who is sound asleep on the couch at the moment!) for dinner, and had a wonderful time. It is, first of all, a Slow Foods restaurant and specializes in locally sourced foods. We split their cold cuts and cheese board for starters, and had a really delicious assortment of things to try. Then, R had their pasta with wild boar sauce, and I had a delicious ravioli filled with borage with shaved black truffles on top!!!! Wonderful! I did manage to find a gelato shop on the way back to the apartment, and now all our wet clothes are safely inside for the night, and I am hoping that they dry by morning!
As I say, this is going to be SHORT. Hopefully more time tomorrow when we will start our explorations on the Etruscans! So more later!
Lots of love,
m
xxx
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