Crimson Kathryn and her crew

The weather has been absolutely perfect for the three weeks we’ve been in Italy. But this upcoming week’s weather prediction is leaning towards a wet week, starting with some pretty decent thunderstorms on Monday. Because of this prediction, we decided to move our trip to Pisa from Monday to Tuesday and we ended up heading out around noon on Sunday to do some grocery shopping to hold us over for Monday. Seeing that we were out already, we decided to do a little Sunday drive in the mountains north of us – wow it was well worth the scary roads!!

We started out on our local highway – SS12 (which continues as far north as Verona!) and drove along the river valley up to an artist community called Vico Pancellorum. The route along the river was spectacular – tall, rocky mountains on both sides and the fairly deep river gorge on one side. As we climbed up into the mountain, the road narrowed to an even smaller width than our road up to Benabbio. It was very thrilling (code word for somewhat terrifying 😁)! The first indication that we had reached the artist community was this interesting fenced field with all kinds of sculptures made from metal and other materials. We stopped at the Pieve Romanica di St. Paolo – an old gothic looking church that had the most amazing view.

At the top of another uncomfortably narrow road, we reached the village of Vico Pancellorum. We wandered along the cobblestone streets (well let’s call them tiny laneways) and were treated to all kinds of artwork mounted on the walls of the buildings. It was a very cool little village way up in the mountains. Made me wonder how and why all these artists ended up there.

Our drive back down the mountain was quick with only one nail biting close call where a car coming up met us at a terribly narrow spot. Got to love roads with steep edges and no guardrails!! We arrived back at our place around 4 pm and enjoyed the late afternoon sun on the terrace.

One of the best reasons to visit Tuscany is definitely the wine!! We’ve been enjoying Italian wine from the grocery store (some even from Tuscany) but today (Sept. 20) we decided to try some truly local wine from the Tuscany wine region of Montecarlo. Montecarlo is known for having the best Tuscan white wines because they use semillon, sauvignon blanc and Pinot bianco grapes while most of the other Tuscan areas use trebbiano and malvasia grapes. Our wine tasting palettes are not that sensitive to tell the difference but we were certainly up for the challenge!

Our drive to Montecarlo took us back down the windy, steep road that brought us to Benabbio and for a Saturday, it was quite busy. It didn’t take us long before we were in the heart of the vineyards. We decided to go directly to the old town of Montecarlo to get a detailed map of the region. The tourist info agent was very helpful and he pointed out 5 good places to visit on a Saturday (not all vineyards are open of the weekend). Back at the car we came up with a good plan to visit all 5, ending with a vineyard that had a good restaurant.

First up on our wine tour was a little wine shop very close to our parking spot called Chicco D’uva. This shop wasn’t at a vineyard but it did offer wine and olive oil tastings from a vineyard called Agricola Stefanini Tronchetti. We tasted a white chardonnay and a rosé. Both were delicious so we bought one bottle of each! Off we went to vineyard recommendation # 2 which was called Fattoria La Torre (about 3 minutes from our first stop!!). Unfortunately no one answered the cellar door so that stop was a bust!

Our third vineyard was again just down the street from La Torre. This cellar door was very interesting – the actual door had shattered glass and a big piece of plywood covering the broken door. We rang the bell and were shown into a lovely tasting area! This vineyard, called Tenuta del Buonamico, had way more wines to taste but we stuck with whites and rosé. Margie tasted a sparkling moscato and liked it very much. The rest of us tasted a sparkling wine and a very yummy chardonnay blended with a crazy number of grapes! We bought 2 bottle of that wine and Margie bought a moscato.

The last vineyard stop, Fattoria del Teso, was the most picturesque of them all – it totally matched my imagined Tuscany vineyard!! Fattoria del Teso sits on about 70 hectares of beautiful Tuscan countryside, surrounded by pines and cypresses and the farm dates back to the mid 1200. The grape wines stretched out in all directions as we drove up the lovely driveway to the main tasting area. This vineyard usually requires guests to book in advance for a proper tasting but we didn’t know that so they accommodated us with a brief tasting (they were busy with a group of tasters!). We only tried 2 wines here (a white and an orange wine – not a rosé) and ended up buying one bottle of the white.

We finished our wine tasting adventure with lunch at Fattoria IL Poggio. This vineyard had a large restaurant that catered to bus tour groups. It was very busy so we had our lunch (which was very good) and then headed back to our home away from home. It was a great day of wine tasting and we were happy to head home with our haul of yummy wines!

After a slow start today (Sept. 19), we decided to do a little exploring around the area. We drove down to the closest town to us called Bagni di Lucca. We visited this town when we arrived to get groceries so we knew our way to the street parking. We walked through the little park and made our way to the tourist information where we picked up some maps and info on vineyards near us (this will be another adventure!). The town was very sleepy at 10 am so we decided to drive to the next town (basically west of us) called Fornoli. Fornoli wasn’t much of a town but it did have an old suspension bridge that was quite interesting. The bridge (called Ponte delle Catene) was built in 1840 to replace a stone bridge built in the 1300s.

Our next stop was a town called Barga. We were expecting an old town but instead it looked fairly modern with lots of shops along the main street. We walked along this street but didn’t find much of interest although there were more people walking around here than all the other towns put together!! We left Barga and headed for another bridge called the Devil’s Bridge – its proper name is Ponte Della Maddalena. The ancient stone pedestrian bridge spanned the Serchio River and was built in 1100. We walked across the stone bridge and had a great view of the river valley.

Our last stop was back in Bagni di Lucca. We had lunch at a cute little cafe and then did a bit more grocery shopping before heading back to our place on the hill!! Tonight we’re planning to have dinner at one of the two restaurants in town!!

In order to give Mark a break from the somewhat stressful Tuscany mountain driving, we’ve decided to only head down and up our crazy windy road every 2nd day (a day off in between!!) On Wednesday, Sept 17 we did a road trip to Lucca about a 45 minute drive from Benabbio. Our drive on smaller roads was pretty good – traffic was light but there were several places with construction so that slowed us down a bit.

Lucca is called the City of Art and it is well known for its circular centre square called the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro and its very well preserved renaissance era city walls. These walls are so wide that there is a wide walkway on the top that enables you to walk all the way around the old city.

Our first challenge when we arrived was finding a parking space!! It was very busy so we had some fun finding a spot but were eventually successful. We had a short walk to get inside the walled city and from there we explored the narrow streets. There were many shops and restaurants and we had a good morning buying souvenirs and exploring the lovely streets. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant specializing in fresh pasta. It was delicious!!

After lunch we found an English book shop – that was a good find! We also visited the Palazzo Pfanner. It was constructed in 1660 by the Moriconi family (wealthy merchants of Lucca) but very quickly this family had to sell the building. By the middle of the 1800s, the Pfanner family bought the large house and added to it. The family still owns the building and its gardens.

We ended our visit to Lucca with a walk along the top of the wall. It was really nice to walk around the top because it was not very busy (all the tourists were inside the walled city). Trees lined the wide walkway so it was cool and shady for our walk. Lots of people were biking along, walking their dogs or just strolling like us.

The drive home was way more interesting than the drive to Lucca. We took the same route but there must have been a major accident or closure on the highway because the opposite direction traffic was nuts! Big trucks were forced to drive along the narrow streets that wind through towns. At one point a truck with a double trailer passed us and got struck at a corner where it was barely wide enough for 2 cars. I’m not sure what happened but we saw a second double trailered truck stopped in the traffic!! It was quite the mess and we were very thankful to be going in the opposite direction!! We made a stop at a grocery store and then got back to our Airbnb around 5pm! It was a really good visit and we all enjoyed Lucca!

Our drive north from Assisi was really good and fairly easy. We got away from our Airbnb early – before 8:30am and travelled mostly on major highways. We did have to jump off the first highway for a bit to avoid traffic but the rest of the way we were able to move along nicely. There were many tunnels as we drove through the north west side of Umbria into Tuscany. The last hour or so of our journey to Benabbio was exciting with hairpin turns, narrow roads and some crazy little villages. We passed through the town that claims to be the birth place of Pinocchio – well the author lived there at least. The town was called Collodi and they really embraced Pinocchio with all kinds of scary stores full of dolls, puppets and way too many Pinocchio souvenirs.

The final drive up into the western foothills of the Apennine Mountains was really crazy with many tight turns and extremely narrow roads. The town of Benabbio came into view when we were about 20 minutes away and we had very little trouble finding our Airbnb which was located right across the street from the church and main square. We will be staying here for the next 2 weeks!!

The Airbnb is a typical Italian structure with lots of tile and wood. It’s much larger than our last 2 places – 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and it has an awesome terrace on the top level (3 floors up!!). We explored the town upon our arrival (around noon) and found an awesome restaurant higher up on the hillside. Today, Sept. 16, we decided to have a quiet day and explored Benabbio a bit. Mostly we relaxed on the terrace, read, crocheted and then had a tasty Aperol spritz back at the same restaurant!! Matthew cooked a wonderful pasta dinner and we ended our first full day in Benabbio with a lively game of Yahtzee.

Sunday, Sept 14 was our last day in our Assisi Airbnb. We had a leisurely start, enjoying our coffee and watching the local hot air balloon (we’ve seen it many times this past week). Matthew found another interesting town to visit called Todi – a village known for having a view of the Tiber River and its well-preserved medieval and renaissance structures and streets.  We headed out a little after 10am.

Our drive was beautiful through valleys and over smaller hills than the more mountainous east side of Umbria. We passed by many fields of grapes – Umbria makes their own wine and it’s quite good. The valleys were a patch work of fields – vines, olive trees, hay, vegetables and sunflowers. We had a little detour around a road closure which took us through several very small villages. We had a good opportunity to see the farms up close!!

Todi was super easy to spot with its high walled town. The cathedral stood proudly at the very top of the town. Our climb up into this town was quite steep and we walked up several big staircases. This hillside town was much like the others except we were visiting it on a Sunday morning and everything was closed. As we came upon the central square, we discovered they were having a Ferrari car show. The square was full of cars and people!! I picked my car – a nice red Ferrari 😁.

We made our way back down the steep streets to the car a little after noon. We decided to look for a less touristy spot for lunch but quickly discovered most restaurants were closed (Sunday after all). We finally found an open restaurant in Deruta (where we bought our ceramic items). We drove back through Assisi, picked up some groceries and made it back to our apartment a little after 4pm. It was another great day. Next stop – Tuscany!

We started our day on Saturday, Sept. 13 with the idea of taking it easy and only doing one visit to the town of Foligno. We left a little later than usual – 10am and drove the roughly 15 minutes to the town. Parking was super easy (a nice change!) and we walked into the centre of the old town to the Palazzo Trinci – a renaissance residence turned into a museum. Calling it a “residence” doesn’t really do justice to this building. It was very impressive, not only for the museum pieces inside but for the architecture of the building itself. We spent some time exploring the many different levels of the palazzo and learned a few things about the area – including that the palazzo had 2 styles of architecture, romanesque and gothic, and it was the home to the Trinci family from 1305 – 1439.

By the time we were finished our tour of the palazzo, it was lunchtime. We decided to head back to our Airbnb instead of eating out. We went back out around 3pm to explore a town called Nocera Umbria known for its healing waters! This town was way up in the mountains around us so we had quite the crazy drive to get there!! The road started out with good pavement but changed to a gravel surface with many ruts as we made our way deeper into the hills!! It was an exciting drive as we went around hairpin turns and super close to the edge! When we finally arrived at Nocera Umbria we were happy we made the drive. Much like all the other hillside towns we have visited, this one had an amazing view. But the best part of this town was that there were very few visitors around. It was a quiet Saturday afternoon and we could look around the place without the crowds!! We’ve discovered that most shops and some restaurants close between noon and 4 pm so there were few locals out and about at that time.

We arrived back at our Airbnb after a grocery stop and Matthew made a lovely spaghetti dinner for us!! We had a busier day than originally planned but it was another good one! We have one more day in Umbria so we’ll see what journey Sunday brings!!

Today (Sept. 12) we decided to take a drive to Civita di Bagnoregio – an ancient isolated town that is over 2500 years old. It took us about 1.5 hours to drive to this amazing location and it was worth every minute. You can only reached this town by walking up the pedestrian bridge that climbs to the 70-80m height of the main entrance. It was a steep climb, especially near the end but we made it up and through the gates.

The walled village was small with narrow cobbled lane ways that led around the old buildings. The main square was dominated by a church that was being refurbished. There were many souvenir shops and restaurants. There were also several small hotels so you can have a very relaxed stay in the village. We arrived early – around 9:30am so the foot traffic was fairly light. It was also cooler which made our visit even more pleasant.

After looking around the place (which didn’t take long!), we went into some of the shops and we stopped to have a coffee. It was super nice to sit and have a coffee, right up until I got bit by some kind of bug! That got us moving!! We decided to head back to the car and make our way over to another ancient town called Perugia. Our plan was to have lunch in Perugia but when we finally arrived there, it was very busy with Friday afternoon traffic. We decided to just head back to our apartment with a stop for some groceries! It was a very good day!!

We started our day on Sept. 10 with a road trip to the valley town of Deruta. This town is known for its ceramic manufacturing and we were looking for a specific store called Ceramiche Artistiche Gialletti Giulio. We were on the hunt for some “made in Italy” souvenirs! We had a nice drive and found our destination with little trouble. We ended up shopping at the store beside the place we had googled (but I think they were connected somehow) and both Margie and I bought something from the shop!

After our excursion to Deruta, we headed to Spello which is about 10km south of our Airbnb. We had no trouble following google maps to Spello and we found another amazing walled town built on a hill. Unlike Assisi, Spello focused more on artists. Many of the shops were selling local artists’ work as well as local soaps, clothes and food. There was also more flowers and plants adorning the walls and walkways of the ancient walled town. Spello felt less touristy than Assisi but had the same cobble stone walkways. We had a very nice lunch near the top of the walled town and as we were enjoying the end of our lunch, the first rain of our visit exploded down on us! We scooted inside the tiny restaurant until the rain let up enough for us to hurry back to our car and return to our Airbnb.

Today (Sept. 11) our plan was to explore the highest peak in Assisi. We had a slow start but eventually made our way back to Assisi and around to a path that led up to the Rocca Maggiore. This very old castle looked down upon the town of Assisi. The view from up there was amazing!! We spent a bit of time exploring the grounds and then made our way back to our car (after a lunch stop and a bit of shopping!)

After a brief stop back at our Airbnb, we headed up into the hills around our area. Assisi is part of an Umbria state park (Umbria is the district we are currently in) and we decided to explore up into the hills around us. The trip was incredible!! Mark drove us around tight corners and along narrow roads that sandwiched us between cliffs and crazy drop offs!! We winded our way up to Collepino – a small walled village in the hills. It was very interesting to walk around in a non-tourist place that looked a lot like Spello and Assisi. We walked around the town and then made our way down the windy roads to Valtopina (a small town near Spello). We headed back to our apartment after a little grocery shopping stop in Spello. We had a great day of exploring the local area!

We picked up our rental car at 9 am on Monday, Sept. 8th and were on our way around noon. It was a lovely day – bright and sunny and the traffic was good once we left Rome behind. Mark was our driver and he made the fast highway driving look easy! I was the navigator using my favourite map – Google maps!! Our final destination was a cute Airbnb just outside of Assisi but we decided to make a stop along the way.

Margie found a very interesting little town called Sant’Angelo di Roccalvecce. With only 100 inhabitants (mostly elderly), the town was becoming a ghost town. In order to bring tourists in, female street artists were invited to paint huge murals on the old buildings of the town. It was an amazing transformation that brought life back to this community. We explored the small roads and took lots of photos! We even managed to find a little corner store that made sandwiches for us.

As we drove closer to Assisi, we started climbing into the mountainous region of Umbria. Our google maps route took us along some impressive winding roads. We could see many villages and towns way up on hilltops – spectacular views! It was very easy to spot Assisi because of the incredible structures way up on the hillside. We had a minor challenge finding our Airbnb but with a bit of searching, we found it nestled between a few farm houses.

On Tuesday, Sept. 9th we made our first trip into Assisi. We had a fun curvy drive up to a parking lot and then made our way down through the narrow, cobble stone streets. There were many little shops and restaurants all mixed around churches and museums. At the bottom of the little streets was the Papal Basilica and Sacred Convent of Saint Francis. What an impressive structure with its amazing stained glass windows. A mass was underway when we arrived so we silently explored the many side alters and little chapels. We also went down to the tomb of St. Francis. It was very busy inside the church so we didn’t spend a lot of time in there. We were very impressed with Assisi and will go back later in the week.