October 26, 2014

There is a huge gap in my postings here, and I know there is no way I will be able to fill it in before I arrive back at home.  So, I will jump to today, where I am in the small (60,000) city of Viterbo, north of Rome. How did I get here, and why?  I returned the rental car to Naples airport a couple of days early, and I needed to decide where to hang out for a about a week before my flight to NYC. I've seen enough of Rome and Naples to satisfy for the time being; Tuscany just seemed to far away; Sorrento/Amalfi too crowded. Hmm... I had read a little about Cittavecchia, Tarquinia, and Viterbo somewhere, so I decided to stay one night in Naples and do some research, after which I decided on Viterbo.  Next I needed to confirm the logistics about getting there by rail from Naples. Fortunately the railway station is a few hundred metres from my hotel, and so it was easy to hop over there to get the information necessary to force my decision.  All systems were go, and so I left next morning for Viterbo, requiring train to Rome, metro to Ostiense, train to Viterbo. It's only about 70 or 80 kms from Rome, but the milk-run train takes 2 hours.

I booked my accommodation online and di solito, as usual, the directions on how to get to the B&B were confusing, incomplete and wrong. What should have been about a 10 minute walk from the station (but which stazione - Viterbo Porto Romano or Viterbo Porto Fiorintina???), took almost an hour, with the kind assistance of helpful citizens to point the way (thank goodness I understand poco poco italiano).

Viterbo Centro Storico, is a walled medieval city.  My accommodation is inside the walls, and it is truly a marvellous place to get lost in.  I had some idea as to the nature of its history - but not this!!! It is extremely well preserved, and it's citizens are obviously very proud of their beautiful town.  Of course, it is a very tiny rabbit warren of streets and piazzas, all of which have absolutely charming and amazing buildings that go back to the 11th century.  People live in them!  And do business! I'm staying in one - more on that later.

Of  course there are many many important churches and palazzos in the mix.  Because they are much older, the churches are very different from what you would find in nearby Rome or Florence.  Pre-dating the Renaissance by several hundred years, they are smaller, and austere both inside and out.

Today is Sunday, and the streets were almost abandoned for most of the day.  A few places were open for business in the medieval quarter, but not many, so I was happy to come across a locals' restaurant at about 1:00 (2:00 by my watch, which I had not realized I should have moved back by an hour the night before for daylight Euro saving time).  So the thing is, we all talk about how the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest diet on the planet, right? So, what's with all the bread and sweets? Dinner consists of appertivo, primo, secondo, contorni, and dolci. And vino, aqua, and coperto (cover - that is: cover-up for an non-exempt 2 euro charge for a basket of bread. As if I need more bread. Take it or leave it, you still pay).And don't get me started on "breakfast". It's actually not always easy to have a healthy diet here, especially with regard to getting in your fruits and veggies.  That's not to say they aren't available - there's lots at the markets.  But the restaurants don't necessarily have salad on the menu. Anyway, getting back to my restaurant this afternoon, I was really quite hungry, having only eaten a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast, and then stopping for a caffe latte and cornetto an hour or so later (more bread!).  I knew that I would be going through the same routine at 7:00p.m. - trying to find a restaurant that was open (many don't open before 8:00 pm for dinner service), before I dropped dead from hunger.  So, I decided to do the full meal deal for lunch, and skip supper altogether.  It was a good choice, actually.  For 15 euros (about C$21) I had a basket of bread, a nice small appertivo plate including bruschetta (bread), a not too large serving of tagliatelli with artichokes, a very good insalata mista, some sort of salsiccia, sausage, (with toasted bread...), a 1/4 lt of vino rosso, and an espresso.  All in all it was very tasty, and even with not eating the bread it was enough food to keep me going until my next italian breakfast. And the donna who was working the tables all alone, was of great good cheer to boot!

My wanderings after "lunch" took me past an olive oil frantoio (crusher).  It just happens to be very nearby where I'm staying, and when I discovered what it was, I prevailed upon the staff to let me have a look,  which they did willingly. It's a very small production plant, and the method for extracting oil is the same as it ever was, just slightly modernized from human and donkey power to electric motors.  This is not state-of-the-art technology, but needn't be for the local purposes.  The proprietress did not speak any English, but one of her employees (a Bangladeshi who speaks 5 languages) does and so he showed me through the operation. And gave me a wee sample to taste - pure, fresh, fragrant, delicious!

                                              Cleaned olives with (most of) the leaves removed.

 The crusher stones are those big rollers up top. They grind the olives into a paste which is the spread on the                                                          discs in front of the worker.

The stacked dics are squeezed under pressure to extract the oil and water.

The water is separated out, and here is the 100% Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Meraviglioso!

There is another reason I came to Viterbo that I haven't mentioned.  Termi.  Hot springs.  I will go tomorrow to "take the healing waters" and hope for the miracle cure for my back... Stay tuned!