Today was spent primarily driving, though we saw many neat things along the way. We went from Sorrento past Naples, then through the middle of the country, through industrial zones, then farmland nestled in between mountains. It is the mountains that strike Jill as strange--she had expected this part of the country to be rolling hills rather than mountains tipped with snow.

Before departing, we filled the gas tank for about 50,000L (around $35) and the tank was only half empty! Wow! All the gas stations seemed to be about the same price (1700 L/liter) so it wasn't an unusual price. However, to fill the tank for $70 would put gas at about $5/gallon which was about what Jill had heard gas cost in Europe. Good thing our little Fiat Punta gets good mileage.

The Supermercados are fun. We bought more cheese and olives. Glen was getting very good at asking for things in Italian and getting what he asked for. Jill was having much more trouble with Italian than she had with Spanish or French. We think she was trying to speak Italian with French pronunciations and an American accent! A good combo of English and a touch of Italian (and vice versa by the person we're talking to) seemed to work OK.

The sites that impressed both of us were the city fortresses built at the top of mountainous hills. It is easy to understand why storming one of these would take some doing--the sides of the mountain were steep, and then the castle walls appeared. It would be impossible to gain a foothold, much less fight. We tried several times to find a ruins site to explore based on the driving map, but everytime we tried to find a site, we got lost.

We lunched on the way, in our picnic style (bread, cheese, wine, pickles/olives). We tried to find some ruins on the map to eat by, but ended up in a nature reserve picnic area instead. It was a nice area, if one wanted to throw a huge outdoor party in warm weather. As it was, it was only us and it was sunny but breezy and chilly, so we ate in the car with a beautiful view of snow covered mountains in front of us. We saw the ruins (Mareno Vechio) up on a hill on the way back but we could not find a way up to them. While looking for a road, we came across an Italian cemetery which was rows of drawers (we think) in small open air buildings, each elaborately (gaudy sometimes to USA eyes) with Jesus, Mary, etc. It was up a remote road/hill, and seemed very odd--no, foreign.

Spoleto itself was a walled city and we hoped to stay there. As Glen drove the car into town, he took a turn and ended up driving through an alley with straight rock walls up either side and only a foot of clearance on both sides of the car. The rest of the city was just as you might imagine a medieval fortress town, except it seems so unreal until you walk through one yourself. As we searched for a hotel to stay the night, we walked through streets that one could imagine being a knight in, except for the occasional car that came barrelling out of nowhere that had to be dodged.

We spent a couple of hours in Spoleto, looking for a place to stay, to no avail. They were either too expensive or had no rooms. We ended up at a place about 15 km outside of Spoleto at, we think, the price of the first place we asked at Spoleto. Ah well, it was already dark and we could park here more easily... Glen anticipated having parking trouble in the larger cities, but didn't expect the same problems everywhere.

Dinner was interesting. We ate at our hotel, the Albergo Mirafonti, both for ease and because we think this is the way it is often done here. Our waiter arrived after about 10 minutes ready to take our order, but we had no menus. We asked, but basically, they had none. And he spoke no English. Wow! We asked for a few minutes and Jill went upstairs for our guidebooks and the note that the ATP man had written for us with the specialties of the area on it (we had stopped in Spoleto's ATP office to ask about places to stay and the man there had told us about the best regional food to get). We ended up ordering an excellent antipasto of bruschetta, which was three types of toppings on individual pieces of bread, one a funghi (truffles mixed in with the mushrooms), one just olive oil (but what olive oil!), and the other olive oil and tomato. The antipasta everywhere has been so good, that we plan to continue to order it. We followed it with a pasta (primo) course, this time a type of pasta called stringozzi, a type popular in this region. The sauce was a tomato/basil mix that was excellent. For our next course we had ordered the cheese of the house (parmeggiano reggiano), then came the meat (secondo) course. We are nominal vegetarians, who eat fish, but we told ourselves that on trips we didn't have to be as picky. Still, this dish was a chop--originally Jill thought lamb, but it was too large for lamb. We think we got a bistecca florentine. The taste was excellent, but the amount enormous, especially for people not used to meat and coming after all the other food that we had already consumed. And then there was the green salad (lettuce, tomato, peppers, with oil and dark vinegar) to end dinner with, plus wine and cappuccino. It was with this meal, we realized we were misordering.

Although every guidebook we have implies that Italians eat antipasti, primo and secondo courses, we have found that two of these alone is enough. We discovered after this meal, that we do not need to order the secondary portion of the menu (the meat portion). We had done the same thing the previous night--ordered all the courses--and the secondary (pizza) was too much food. So, from now on, we plan to stick to antipasto, primo (pasta course), ensalada, and vegetables. Then, maybe we'll have room for the dolce (dessert)!

Tonight's wine was the vino della casa called "Forrachehiara, Grechetto dell Umbria, Vino da tarola, 1995." It turned out to be a strong white with only a hint of sweetness, that went well with the food. The wine here has a very fresh taste, a much more open, crisp, simple taste then Washington wines, and goes down very easy with a meal. The food, of course, has been consistently good.

We saw a few birds today, but we did not get a good identification of any of them. Jill thinks she saw a hooded crow and a green finch, but cannot say for sure on either, because she was driving and could not analyze them. Glen is still learning how to use a bird book, understanding types of birds and their basic behavior, etc. Maybe after 10-30 of these trips he'll have it. Ha!