Day 7

This morning we slept in just a bit and Guy barely made it down in time to grab some breakfast. We took our time getting ready since we were up late last night and about 11:30 we set out for the town of Assisi. Weather forecast is for some rain today, but when we left around 11:30 the weather was perfect. We were already familiar with part of the drive, but we hopped off the side roads and onto the highway, which was new territory. The signs were pretty good, but we had the Garmin on for fun. We have the imitation of her voice and how she pronounces the roads down pretty good. Hope she doesn't know we are making fun of her. The drive was about an hour, but the scenery was new and fun to look at, so it seemed to go by pretty fast.

When we got to the hilltop town, this one had a few more switchbacks than yesterday, but we took it all the way to the top and found a nice parking lot. Guy pulled his side mirror in since we were parked pretty close to car next to us. When he rolled up his window it caught part of the mirror and a piece of the car flew off. When he handed it to me, he said "we're gonna need that later". So I put it in a safe spot and we'll superglue it later if we have to. This car is not our best rental. When we took off from Rome (which we didn't realize until we were about a mile away, that the gas wasn't full and the mileage was off. Guy wrote it all down and emailed Eurocar. They actually emailed back and said they were sorry for the trouble and if we wanted to trade the car in for another one where the GPS would work, we could. Hmmm...not sure they know we are in "the boonies" where I'm sure there are not many car rental places. He emailed them and said we'd love to and gave them our location...we'll see what they say.

So as we entered Assisi, it had the usual tiny streets lined with shops, gelato stands and restaurants. We had almost made it to the other side of town when the rain started, so we dropped 5 Euros for an umbrella and kept going. We got to the other end and entered the church of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals amongst other important things. It was ornate inside, but no photos were allowed, so we walked around a bit inside and headed back out into the drizzle. We are now on a serious search for a restaurant. We peeked our heads in a few places and headed back the way we came in because Guy saw a possible restaurant with an overlooking view. When we got there it was closed, so we moved on and as I meandered by the shops more slowly than Guy, he walked ahead and found a nice restaurant where we could eat outside called Ristorante Mangiar DiVino. They were going to set us in a nice corner spot, but there were some skeeters or gnats flying around, so we chose another table closer to the wall and was completely uncovered. We felt confident the rain was done for a bit. So I ordered assorted bruschetta and risotto with wine and pears. Guy ordered a pizza with just cheese, but had an appetizer of prosciutto and melon. It looked really pretty on the plate and of course I got a shot of it first. My "assorted" bruschetta had 4 pieces of bread, one was traditional with tomatoes, but the other three were spreads of some kind. One I thought was black olive was actually black truffle (I had to ask) while the lighter one was a lighter colored truffle. The final one is still a mystery. I still ate it because it was tasty and I suppose it doesn't really matter. So when our entrees came, mine was purple from the wine in the broth and had pears on top. It was really hot (temperature) and tasted good because it was a bit cool outside. I would order it again even tho, like some of the other things I've had, was not overly flavorful.

I was shopping for a few particular items, but the town was of course touristy and a bit pricey, so after my daily gelato, I decided to wait until the next town for my items and we headed for a walk up to the castle. We hiked up part of the way and while panting, we asked some Germans if it was worth the walk up. They said yes, so we kept going. At the top, it cost 8 euros to get into the castle and I only wanted in to take photos from the top, but the nice man at the counter said there were better shots of the town from outside, so we went back out and took a few shots with all the cameras ;). After a few claps of thunder we headed for the car. We took a few side streets back to the parking lot that were off the beaten path and were obviously residential. They have such beautiful balconies and flowers everywhere, it was fun to walk thru smelling food cooking and hearing their TVs on, music playing, or just the voices of their Italian conversations.

Back to the car we headed down, and despite what Ms. Garmin told us, Guy navigated me back to the main road we came in on. Buzzing along the highway we had about 20 minutes to go before we came to the lake town of Passignano where we were going to pull off and walk around. When we got there, it was drizzling a bit and we drove by the lakefront looking for some shops or somewhere to pull over. As we got to the other side of the town, since it was drizzling, we decided the drive-by had been good enough and we headed for home. Back at the hotel we went to the room and checked our clothes we had hanging. Still kinda damp, so I thought I'd blog again from the laundry (yes very glamorous I know) and put our clothes back into the dryer. Guy sat with me for a bit, but we have dinner reservations at 8pm here at the hotel and he went in to start getting ready. After the clothes switch over, I came up to the room to get ready and Guy went back to the laundry. He figured out the issue with the dryer, so we don't have to babysit it anymore.

Dinner was at the hotel's restaurant called il Melone. The menu is limited, but the place was beautiful and the server was great. We ordered starters. Mine was a pea flan and Guy had ravioli with beans. Both were great but I think mine was better. Then for our main entree Guy had sirloin steak and I had pasta with Wild Boar. It was a very different wild boar than what was on Guy's pasta yesterday. This was a light clear broth on the noodles, but the meat was like tiny pieces of pot roast. VERY good!. For dessert I ordered chocolate mousse with pineapple infused wih peppers. I was hesitant about the peppers, but the waiter assured me the flavors went together beautifully. The chef made it from scratch I think I waited about 30 minutes. In fact, our waiter brought me some cookies to hold me until my main dessert came out (like I needed more food). The cookies that he brought out were twice cooked and were very hard, but you dipped them in a liquor and then ate them. I sat the liquor away from the candle on our table because I was afraid it would set the table on fire (kinda strong). Ok, now comes the sad part. My nose starts to get kinda stuffy - I have been fighting the sinus thing all week. So when my 30 minute dessert (the chef made from scratch and even delivered to my table himself) came out, my taste buds were shot. I would blow my nose and quickly eat a bite (again very glamorous). So Guy had to confirm the pepper in the pineapple, which he said worked nicely with the mousse. After the meal we did a pick up at the laundry and I'm now finishing up the blog. Going to try to get up early tomorrow to knock out a new town and swing by Montepulciano for lunch and my necklace. So I'm going to sign off since it is knocking on midnight and start uploading pictures. You won't see them all until tomorrow probably, so check them again later. P.S. It has been a great day. ;)