Now, I hope to catchyou up a bit in our escapade. Waking up very early on Sunday morning was so wonderful. It was about 5 am and the sun was just starting to brighten the sky. I laid in bed and listened to crowing roosters and many tweeting birds, and noisy pigeons. Suddenly I sat up in bed, what was that? was I dreaming? No, I wasn't...It happened again... it was definitly coo-coo, coo-coo! Just like I had heard so many times on an animal sounds tape whih we played in the toddler room. I actually heard a real coo-coo bird. Oh Joy! Another wonderful benefit of travel. So we begain to list things that we heard and saw in beautiful Umbria. Besides the Coo-coo, we went to sleep to the quiet baaing of sheep and gentle ringing of their bells, we heard an angry donkey yelling about some insult to her life. We saw several red, black andgreen lizards scurrying about thecoutyard, we discovered a preying mantiss eating something inthe grass, it had different coloring than its American cousins And it had fuzzy antenae. Every morninga huge bumble bee checke thed out the vines growing around the door and later in the afternoon we would see orange bees in the lavendar. Later in the week a hugehumming bird moth joined in the search for nectar. This is not to overlook the various ...
SUnday found us in the car driving back to spend more time in Todi. This tiime, however, we parked the car at the bottome of the walls and took th vunicular up into town. That was fun anda lot less exhausting. We visited the Church on the plaza and then went back to the car and drove to a huge church down below called, Church of Santa Marie the Consolazione. (my spelling seems to need help...sorry.
Back at the ranch, we had dinner and then went for a long walk, down the little road that went past our place. WE wanted to see the sun setting over the mountains . It was a great walk.
Then home again and time for a snack and bed.
hi all! We are very comfortable in our new villa in Tuscany. Today we had a great tour and tasting in a beautiful winery and are planning to go to Florance tomorrow. Herb and I made dinner for Dotty and Ken tonight as it is their 35 anniverary..........yeah! Last night we had an amazing dinner at a local resturant.........the owner was very proud of his wine and his vin santo ......and rightly so....it was delicious. The resturant awas in a 300 year old barn with a room in the basement that had a river running through it. Some more uses for that cheap scarf......a mosquito net over an open bedroom window, a covering when going into a duomo, and aguard aganst a chill when eating al fresco at 10pm, Melissa good to hear you made it home ok. We miss you and look forward to seeing you and reminensing. Miss you Cally and Sarah and all our friends back home. Luv, Mary and Herb
hi all! We are very comfortable in our new villa in Tuscany. Today we had a great tour and tasting in a beautiful winery and are planning to go to Florance tomorrow. Herb and I made dinner for Dotty and Ken tonight as it is their 35 anniverary..........yeah! Last night we had an amazing dinner at a local resturant.........the owner was very proud of his wine and his vin santo ......and rightly so....it was delicious. The resturant awas in a 300 year old barn with a room in the basement that had a river running through it. Some more uses for that cheap scarf......a mosquito net over an open bedroom window, a covering when going into a duomo, and aguard aganst a chill when eating al fresco at 10pm, Melissa good to hear you made it home ok. We miss you and look forward to seeing you and reminensing. Miss you Cally and Sarah and all our friends back home. Luv, Mary and Herb
Today is Saturday, June 23,2012. We owe you all a big apology. We had no access to the internet and by the time we would get to a city that might have an internet store, we would be too excited about what we were seeing (or shopping ), we would not have time to work on it. So here is the scoop. MaryCae and Melissa left for Venice yesterday (Friday). Melissa was to fly home on Saturday and Lenny Williams flew in to join MC. They will be staying in Bologna for a few days. Meanwhile, the Marzolfs and the Weabers drove to another home in Tuscany. It is so big here, if any of you want to quickly fly over, you can stay with us until Friday. At any rate,Mary and I now have internet access at our current abode and will update you all on our adventures. We will be able to incorporate a few photos taken with this computer but alas, my son's wonderful explanation on how to download photos from our cameras has left my brain. When we get home, we will add our favorite photos. So, here we go again..... Dotty Saturday, June 16 Today we took both cars and drove and drove and drove until we arrived at the wonderful villa in Umbria. At first we could not find the key but MaryCae did a second sweep and tada! , she found the key. What a lovely home! Melissa ran through through house, openning shutters and greeting our new abode. Now came the time when we said good bye to Herb and Ken. We all had new adventures to attend to and so they begain. The four fearless women led by the brave and knowlegable MaryCae, drove off to Todi, the nearest large, mountain top city. Our first stop was a grocery store. What fun we had, checking out how the pricing worked and how the products were packaged and deciding what to buy. As we were about to drive back to our house, we decided to walk up the hill into the walled city of Todi. WELL, we walked forever. Up and up and up we climbed. This introduction to the intricacies of walled cities was perfect. We noticed variations of brickwork in the buildings as well as the roads. There were many shrines recessed into walls. Around each bend of the road another beautiful view of the buildings or of the valley below would greet us. We often stopped to study gardens and tried to name the various plants and trees, etc. Finally we arrived in the Plaza. We sat in an outdoor area and ordered a bit of food and drink. We decided to start our trek back to the car, but chose a different route...mostly stairs...many, many steps. Down, down, down we went..first to the right and then to the left. We were trying to guess where we would exit the walls in relation to the car. And then, we were through a gate and less than a block from the car. Whew, we were more clever than we had hoped. Back into the car and away MaryCae sped..Down the roads and then up into the twisting roads of the beautiful hills and finally back to our house. Mary cooked a wonderful pasta meal, we had wine and were so happy to be in such a great place with our good friends.
Hello Friends and Family, we have had to restart our blog. Tomorrow MaryCae, Mary, Melissa and Dotty (and Herb and Ken). are leaving Philadelphia for Venice, Italy. We will be arriving at our villa in Umbria on Saturday and thus our long awaited adventure begins.
We have a little tablet which has challenged us but we think we will be able to send photos and report on our activities as long as we find an internet cafe.
So, stay tuned and we will attempt to keep you all informed. This should be fun. What a great trip we will have.