Listen to the sounds of Italy. And beer.

Oh dear Heavens, it is Oktoberfest time in Umbria. And you know what that means! Actually, considering, you know, WW2 and all, I guess I’m surprised Oktoberfest gets much of a celebration but, yes, Pellicano’s Restaurant has a month of fun planned for you here in Pineta.

CHIESA MADONNA DELLA SBARRA, PANICALE, Umbria—ok, work with me and know that I Am The Low Tech Guy – in a high tech world. But, I like to get right in over my head and get fun digi toys and I have a new one here in Italy with me now. It is a tiny, thumb sized recorder that records, plays MP3s and like a regular thumb drive it can transfer files up to 500 megs! What Ever a meg is. Anyway, after a dinner at the Burnt Goose in Paciano, Wiley and I arrived at a concert, late, slipped into a side pew just inside the door, waved furtively at Steve and Jules in the back row. They must have come in almost as late as we did. We snapped a couple photos, don’t worry, no flash and then started this test recording of the concert. It starts out a bit scratchy, but I tried to edit it for hours and said, you know, that will be another day. It gets fairly nice if you advance it just a bit.

The concert was in the baroque church at the end of our street and this bit of of the concert is a piece of the ever popular ”Le Sonate di J.S. Bach per cembalo e violino” I did not know the word cembalo but it sounds quite a lot like a harpsicord to me. See what you think.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PIZZA?

PINETA, UMBRIA—Oh dear Heavens, it is Oktoberfest time in Umbria. And you know what that means! Actually, considering, you know, WW2 and all, I guess I’m surprised Oktoberfest gets much of a celebration but, yes, Pellicano’s Restaurant has a month of fun planned for you here in Pineta, just outside Castiglione del Lago.

Pellicano’s is where we first fell to the gastronomic low of having French fries for a starter course ahead of the pizza course. We keep saying Oh we’re on vacation. Lets live a little. Ok. Declasse. But these are seriously good fries. So good we don’t ask how they make them but surely they can’t be this good tasting and still good for you. And they come to the table so fast its like mental telepathy. Think the thought, barely verbalize it, and in seconds you are eating your words, in what feels like one fell swoop.

I really can’t think what first got us in the door the first time here. Other than we do drive by it going back and forth to Castiglione del Lago. Its right on the edge of the road in full sight with throngs of people eating outdoors at covered picnic (peek-neek) tables in the summer, and a full rigged, actual ship in front of the door all year round. On the weekends the road itself becomes an extension of their parking lot as it is packed with young revelers in the upstairs music lounge. Not quite crazy enough, brave enough, young enough to aspire to going up to The Jackel on a Saturday night.

The first time we went in Pellicanos I am quite sure we were all the way inside the doors before we realized it was a Scottish pub. Surely, we wouldn’t have knowingly gone into a Scottish pub in the heart of our beloved Umbria? But, yes. Yes, we did and yes, there really is Tennent’s Lager on tap. Which, strangely is beer. Which is not the national drink here. I think it is usually considered that stuff made out of the grapes we drive by all day long. But the beer is here and it is flowing out of the spigots at a prodigious rate.

So the whole thing seems totally wrong and out of context but it is a fun and guilty pleasure to go there and pagans that we are, no trip to Italy is complete without a Pellicano’s fix for us. And the woodburning oven pizza is thin and crisp and consistently great and creative choices. And Choices! Pages upon pages of Choices. One time I ordered the extra spicy sausage pizza named The Serpent and imagine my surprise when it came shaped like a snake with cunning olive eyes.

Tonight’s special was interesting, maybe not up there with the Serpent, but still fun. This American tourist found himself telling the black t-shirted Italian waitress that he wanted the German braut and French fry Okoberfest pizza special. And the beer special to go with it please. The pale, pale German ale: Paulaner Oktoberfest Bier. What a head it had on it. What a Magic Moment, overall. Ah yes, we are living “la dolce vita” now. Just made me want to climb up an Umbrian hilltop with a few hundred friend, hold hands and start singing ”I’d like to buy the world a Coke, and teach it how to sing”

And come to think of it, that is how we ended the night. By the time we got our stuffed selves back to Panicale we felt the need for a forced march around the town walls, twice, and then we made a stop at Aldo’s for a Coke to help ”digestivo un po” all this World Cuisine. One more lap and then it was home – to think about what we’ve just done. And promise never to do it again. Until the next time.

High over the Alps headed to Umbria

Andrea pointed to a table for two. And says I put you right by the heater on this cold night. Really? The little gold “Reserved” sign is for moi? Kind of choked me up. I feel the love. I feel the love, praise the Lord, we have made it to the Promised Land once more!

Leaving on a jet plane. Yeah. All systems Go. Going. Gone. We slipped the gravitational pull of Logan International in Boston and a couple random movies and rubbery raviolis later I was rushing through DeGaulle in Paris. Shortly after Paris I was up in the air over the Alps and the next thing I knew I was getting into a taxi in Chiusi, Italy and saying “Panicale, per piacere”. I found Wiley! She looks great, the house looks great, even in the cloudy rainy weather. I managed to stay up till real Italian dinnertime to get on myself sort of on Italian time and then we treated ourselves to dinner at Masolino’s, next door to our house.

They had a table reserved – in case I wanted to come – because they knew I was landing that day! Can you believe? Andrea pointed to a table for two. And says I put you right by the heater on this cold night. Really? The little gold “Reserved” sign is for moi? Kind of choked me up. I feel the love. I feel the love, praise the Lord, we have made it to the Promised Land once more! We ate the food, we drank the wine. I came home, fell into bed and slept the sleep of the seriously jetlagged. Except for a few minutes in the dead middle of the night. Where the heck am I? Did I say it was raining? It took some doing waking me from the coma-like state that I was in. But this was a wild and wooly midnight gully washer. Very freaky Friday weather this fall. We were here all last September and it was shorts and tee shirts in the garden till sunset everyday. Into each life.

But that was Friday. OK, that was yesterday too. But Today is another day. It is literally Sun Day in Sunny Italy. Sun on the rooftops, sun in the sparkling raindrops still hanging on the tip of every tree leaf. Sun in the Piazza. And, why there’s my daughter in the Piazza too. We had cappuccinos and watched the world go by and then had them all over again. And then, the bells began to ring and the village church at the top of the piazza poured a lava flow of wedding goers out and over the sun drenched piazza. We had to think All is Right with The World. I may even go home and garden for a while. I think I will.

Can not wait. Non vedo l’ora!

What to do, what to do? Dinner at Masolino’s first? Or coffee and hot gossip at Aldo’s? It is like the old Seinfeld program. A show about nothing. We never know what a trip to Umbria will have in store for us.

Finally. It is my turn to pack up the laptop and head off to the airport. Pilot, head this rig east to Italy! Can’t wait to see daughter, Wiley. She is the legendary Wiley Traveler. Anxious to see what adventures she has had. And together see all our old friends and new property listings! What to do, what to do? Dinner at Masolino’s first? Or coffee and hot gossip at Aldo’s? It is like the old Seinfeld program. A show about nothing. We never know what a trip to Umbria will have in store for us. I always try to stay open and flexible but things always flood in from all sides, time evaporates and I will be back on a plane headed west long, long before I will want to be. But, in the meantime, I fully expect to enjoy every moment to the max.

Oh, I have to share this. No, this is not a photo taken on a back road of Umbria. But just something designed to give me quantum nostalgia for the back roads of Umbria. A perfect little purple Ape, separated at birth from its homeland and somehow, someway transported to an apple orchard in northern Maine? I slowed down, shook my head and turned right around on a side street in Portland, Maine when I saw this beauty. Vintage 1969. And who knows why they call these Apes and their cousins, the motor scooters, Vespas? You in the back. That is correct. It is because of the sound they make. Like Bees and Wasps, those Apes and Vespas buzz up and down the streets of Italy. And at least one street in Portland.

Allora, if you will be in Panicale in October, we will wave madly, and say . . .

See you in Italy!

Stew

Umbrian Fantasy

We’ve discovered a secret garden. Great site about the Umbrian fantasy gardens called La Scarzuola. Amazing photos. Another Umbrian Must See. I remember having dinner with the owner Marco Solari one night in Panicale. I felt so ignorant that I had never even heard of his awesome place. What a pagan I turned out to be! Can not take me anywhere. Let alone to cool dinners with people who own famous architectural follies.

We’ve discovered a secret garden. Great site about the Umbrian fantasy gardens called La Scarzuola. Amazing photos. Another Umbrian Must See. I remember having dinner with the owner Marco Solari one night in Panicale. I felt so ignorant that I had never even heard of his awesome place. What a pagan I turned out to be! Can not take me anywhere. Let alone to cool dinners with people who own famous architectural follies. I was reminded of Scarzuola again when a friend brought us the London Sunday Telegram and it featured this magic place in its Gardening section. They called La Scarzuola, and the famous Ninfa gardens outside Rome, “Hidden Italian Iydlls”. I must get there in October too. So many places, so little time. All my friends who have seen it rave about it. You will find it a bit southwest of Perugia, near Montegabbione and Terni. I will have better, complete directions after I have been there myself but I wanted to share it now in case anyone can still see it this fall!

Marco said they are happy to show La Scarzuola at all times of the year, but only to groups with reservations. It is well off the beaten path so you mostly likely will not just be passing by. I know I have not! I understand from my friend Elida that it is bit of an intricate and maze-like process to get there. “Ma, va le la pena.” — well worth the trouble. I will put La Scarzuola’s phone/fax here, so you can check out this garden fantasy during your next Umbrian trip. 076 383 7463.

Foreign correspondent Midge checks in from Umbria!

Today we saw Jurgen who said we “had some work to do on our garden&rdquo . . . ! Wiley and I came back to look, but it looks great to us. Wonder what Stew would do?

PANICALE, UMBRIA — A world away that always feels just like home. How does it happen? Wiley and I arrived in Panicale just as the town prepared for Tuesday evening supper. We ate on the balcony at Masolino’s with friends from Hawaii who may soon be neighbors. They already had a favorite local wine, Boschetto, and enjoyed the mouth watering medallions of pork with the chickpeas that always please.

As daughter Wiley prepares to spend an extended period of time here — more than any of us ever have at one time, there is always something new to consider. Will the supplies we have work well, or will she find a million little things she needs? Well, the first thing we got for her is an Aldo Bar charge card! That way I know she will head to Aldo’s for her daily caffeine and meet all the neighbors! Today we saw Jurgen who said we “had some work to do on our garden&rdquo . . . ! Wiley and I came back to look, but it looks great to us. Wonder what Stew would do?

Allora, ci vediamo. We are off to make some phone calls, as there are several fun house hunters here in Italy now. And we also want to wish our friend Daniel in England a Happy Birthday. Soon, he will be enjoying Panicale in person too!

Ok, see you in Italy,

Midge

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Note from Stew: Midge is just now back. I kept waiting for photos from my own Thelma and Louise team, but as The Wiley Traveler said “We were having too much fun to take photos, babbo!&ldquo Oh, sure. That old excuse! So, this is a photo of Midge from summer vs September. Wiley says she is going to be right there so she is taking action in the garden. We’ll make Jurgen proud!