A quiet day today. Slept in until 9:30, enjoying the sound of nearby church bells. Somehow I managed to sleep thru the bells when they ran at 7 am (I *was* tired!). Breakfasted with the group, did the blogging thing, had a very necessary shower, unpacked, recharged various devices, and then had a bit of lunch (yeah, it's a hard life). Right after lunch, Lara and I were the intrepid ones who felt like venturing out, so we went for a walk to the nearby village of Murlo.
Murlo is perched on a bit of a hill and is a walled town, having a single gated entrance off the road. The walls of the town are basically residential townhomes, surrounding an old castle that has been made into a museum showcasing local Etruscan artifacts. After looking around the museum and enjoying views from the upper floors, we took a stroll thru the tiny village (maybe ~50 residences all told) and stopped into a fun little restaurant, Il Libridinoso for a bottle of much needed water (it was hot!).
The restaurant had a beautiful view off the back terrace, so we sat down and relaxed a bit. One thing that was really fun about the restaurant were the whimsical drawings that were displayed everywhere, menus and walls, based on a puppet-like character. We got to talking with the local proprietress of the restaurant who explained that all the drawings were the work of an old character from the community, that the restaurant was named for the cartoon character, and that basically the name referred to the mix of intellectual and base thoughts always competing in the mind. Sure enough, with a bit more scrutiny, we realized that word balloons coming out of the mouth of Il Libridinoso were sayings (translated into Italian) from Confucius, Brecht, Oscar Wilde, and of course that important philosopher, Groucho Marx, while lines linked to images of what the character was thinking about (food, drink, olive oil, naked women, etc.) Fun!
The proprietress was a bit of a character herself: very friendly, short-cropped black hair that on inspection had stripes of purple mixed in. It turns out she used to run a bar not far from our villa in Vescado di Murlo, but the chef was a bad one who wound up giving a large number of people food poisoning, so she wound up having to close.
On the (hot) walk back, we stopped to pick wildflowers. which were growing in abundance along the road. Beautiful red day lilies of some sort, Queen Anne's lace, daisies, a purple/blue/red flower reminded me a bit of salvia in the shape of the flower. Lara had quite a nice bouquet by the time we finished. (All the while sneezing due to her allergy to olive trees, from which there was no escape).
The rest of the afternoon we hung out by the pool with the rest of our group, then munched on some homemade pizza, a bit of vino, apricot and blackberry tarts for dessert, and a game Lara brought called "Right Left Center" that basically involves rolling dice and hoping that your dice don't have you passing tokens to the left, right or into the discard. Last person with a token left wins, and that person was ......... me!
Moment of grace for the day: toss-up -- thoroughly enjoyed that chat with the woman in the restaurant, but also enjoyed the wildflowers and the walk.
Boneheaded moment of the day: competitive me getting excited when I won tokens off an ..... Eight. Year. Old. Girl. Fortunately for me, her dad Mike has a "bit" (lot) of the Newberry competitiveness in him, so Alyssa wasn't too traumatized. It wound up being her and me in the end, so it could have been either of our win. As she said, "First is worst, second is best!". Well said, Alyssa, well said.
Murlo is perched on a bit of a hill and is a walled town, having a single gated entrance off the road. The walls of the town are basically residential townhomes, surrounding an old castle that has been made into a museum showcasing local Etruscan artifacts. After looking around the museum and enjoying views from the upper floors, we took a stroll thru the tiny village (maybe ~50 residences all told) and stopped into a fun little restaurant, Il Libridinoso for a bottle of much needed water (it was hot!).
The restaurant had a beautiful view off the back terrace, so we sat down and relaxed a bit. One thing that was really fun about the restaurant were the whimsical drawings that were displayed everywhere, menus and walls, based on a puppet-like character. We got to talking with the local proprietress of the restaurant who explained that all the drawings were the work of an old character from the community, that the restaurant was named for the cartoon character, and that basically the name referred to the mix of intellectual and base thoughts always competing in the mind. Sure enough, with a bit more scrutiny, we realized that word balloons coming out of the mouth of Il Libridinoso were sayings (translated into Italian) from Confucius, Brecht, Oscar Wilde, and of course that important philosopher, Groucho Marx, while lines linked to images of what the character was thinking about (food, drink, olive oil, naked women, etc.) Fun!
The proprietress was a bit of a character herself: very friendly, short-cropped black hair that on inspection had stripes of purple mixed in. It turns out she used to run a bar not far from our villa in Vescado di Murlo, but the chef was a bad one who wound up giving a large number of people food poisoning, so she wound up having to close.
On the (hot) walk back, we stopped to pick wildflowers. which were growing in abundance along the road. Beautiful red day lilies of some sort, Queen Anne's lace, daisies, a purple/blue/red flower reminded me a bit of salvia in the shape of the flower. Lara had quite a nice bouquet by the time we finished. (All the while sneezing due to her allergy to olive trees, from which there was no escape).
The rest of the afternoon we hung out by the pool with the rest of our group, then munched on some homemade pizza, a bit of vino, apricot and blackberry tarts for dessert, and a game Lara brought called "Right Left Center" that basically involves rolling dice and hoping that your dice don't have you passing tokens to the left, right or into the discard. Last person with a token left wins, and that person was ......... me!
Moment of grace for the day: toss-up -- thoroughly enjoyed that chat with the woman in the restaurant, but also enjoyed the wildflowers and the walk.
Boneheaded moment of the day: competitive me getting excited when I won tokens off an ..... Eight. Year. Old. Girl. Fortunately for me, her dad Mike has a "bit" (lot) of the Newberry competitiveness in him, so Alyssa wasn't too traumatized. It wound up being her and me in the end, so it could have been either of our win. As she said, "First is worst, second is best!". Well said, Alyssa, well said.
1 comment:
:). I am in Silver Spring probably quite close to Lara's home. Tell her I'm watching it for her. Have fun. !! Chow
Post a Comment