I went to the rally yesterday! So much fun to see all those cute little cars hanging out. Let me start more at the beginning: early!
Sparing you the blow-by-blow of tooth-brushing, etc., Bob and I were ready to set out at about 8 or maybe a little thereafter. Michael had given me his kiss goodbye and gone down to catch his ride to the race. And then disaster struck: Florence came to me with tears in her eyes to tell me that her friend Elena might not be able to drive her to the swim meet in Perugia. Oh, no!
And what it meant was that I had to roust poor Leo out of bed early on a Sunday and tell him something along the lines of, "Florence is supposed to go to a swim meet in Perugia, but I have no idea where it was supposed to be exactly, nor at what time. The parents of a friend were planning to pick her up at 10 this morning, and I'm about to leave in the car for my rally. I can't talk on the phone in the car because it's too hard to drive and talk, AND you can't hear anything. She belongs to the team meeting at the gym in Pantalla. Can you please be our savior yet again and help her figure out where she's supposed to be and get her there somehow? Pretty please?"
Poor man, he sighed and indubitably muttered imprecations to himself about those crazy Hooks.
Off Bob and I sailed, content in the knowledge that Florence was well looked after. We made sure we enjoyed our drive to the utmost by getting lost about six times on the way! Have you heard about how Google maps is foolish enough to give you highway names (rather than "direction of x town"), ensuring that you can't possibly find your way (highway name signs are non-existent here)? Well, this time I outsmarted the system by having my own lovely large-scale map of Umbria with us. It turns out that this is an Italian map: the highway names or numbers are not labeled! So on the rare occasion that we actually SAW a number, it did us absolutely no good whatsoever! Confounding the issue was the fact that any town names on signs were non-existent on our map and vice-versa.
We went in the correct general direction and then asked. And asked. And asked. We were like a homing missile, overshooting here and correcting, overshooting there and correcting, and so on. I was so excited when I saw my first 500 heading towards the rally!
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| They didn't all have to be Fiat 500s. |
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| Don't you love the station wagon? |
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| The VW bug looked like a complete monster! |
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| The steering wheel on this one was unusually small -- about 10" diameter |
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| At Umbertide |
We made it & registered in plenty of time, and were there for the start of the drive to Umbertide. There we were, all in a cute little line. An impatient motorcyclist zoomed on by, much to my bemusement...and then I realized that he was our escort!
About an hour later, we made it to Umbertide. We parked next to the Rocca, and explored this fortress that dates to the 1200s or so. After a little while, it was time to drive back!
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| La Rocca di Umbertide |
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| Bob joining me at the fortress |
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| View from the turret |
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| The spout -- 1700s? The faucet -- 1950s styling. The plaque -- 1990! |
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In one of the turrets
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View of the parking lot from the fortress
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| Aren't they adorable? |
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Grinding stone of some sort
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Handy grate for boiling oil & the like
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I thought this was a neat door with a face hole.
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| Toilet? |
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Back of door, showing face hole lock, etc.
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Back in Mantignana, it was time for lunch. And not just any lunch. You have to understand that the Italians take their food very seriously. Appetizer of devil-type egg (half hard-boiled egg with anchovy coiled around a circle of mayonnaise), prosciutto, salami, etc., with local beans dish (think pork 'n' beans). Pasta (scrumptious). Main course of veggie, three different meats (sausage, pork, and something else that was yummy). Dessert of colomba (the Easter answer to panettone) and biscotti served with vin santo. And, yes, wine was flowing more quickly than water.
Sadly, it was time to go home. Bob and I managed to be equally circuitous on our way back. A funny episode involved Solomeo. I knew quite firmly that we did
not want to go via Solomeo. So with every sign we encountered, I avoided that direction. Where did we end up? You got it...Solomeo. At that point, the "best" way back was to go to Agello. Following the signs for Agello...did
not get us to Agello. However, we fortunately found ourselves somewhere I recognized, so we could navigate quite happily from there -- quite probably not our the most advantageous route. For your amusement, I attempted to capture some of our driving...bear in mind that some of the circles may have been covered more than once
Love,
Alexandra
I went to the rally yesterday! So much fun to see all those cute little cars hanging out. Let me start more at the beginning: early!
Sparing you the blow-by-blow of tooth-brushing, etc., Bob and I were ready to set out at about 8 or maybe a little thereafter. Michael had given me his kiss goodbye and gone down to catch his ride to the race. And then disaster struck: Florence came to me with tears in her eyes to tell me that her friend Elena might not be able to drive her to the swim meet in Perugia. Oh, no! 
And what it meant was that I had to roust poor Leo out of bed early on a Sunday and tell him something along the lines of, "Florence is supposed to go to a swim meet in Perugia, but I have no idea where it was supposed to be exactly, nor at what time. The parents of a friend were planning to pick her up at 10 this morning, and I'm about to leave in the car for my rally. I can't talk on the phone in the car because it's too hard to drive and talk, AND you can't hear anything. She belongs to the team meeting at the gym in Pantalla. Can you please be our savior yet again and help her figure out where she's supposed to be and get her there somehow? Pretty please?"
Poor man, he sighed and indubitably muttered imprecations to himself about those crazy Hooks.
Off Bob and I sailed, content in the knowledge that Florence was well looked after. We made sure we enjoyed our drive to the utmost by getting lost about six times on the way! Have you heard about how Google maps is foolish enough to give you highway names (rather than "direction of x town"), ensuring that you can't possibly find your way (highway name signs are non-existent here)? Well, this time I outsmarted the system by having my own lovely large-scale map of Umbria with us. It turns out that this is an Italian map: the highway names or numbers are not labeled! So on the rare occasion that we actually SAW a number, it did us absolutely no good whatsoever! Confounding the issue was the fact that any town names on signs were non-existent on our map and vice-versa.
We made it & registered in plenty of time, and were there for the start of the drive to Umbertide. There we were, all in a cute little line. An impatient motorcyclist zoomed on by, much to my bemusement...and then I realized that he was our escort!
Sadly, it was time to go home. Bob and I managed to be equally circuitous on our way back. A funny episode involved Solomeo. I knew quite firmly that we did not want to go via Solomeo. So with every sign we encountered, I avoided that direction. Where did we end up? You got it...Solomeo. At that point, the "best" way back was to go to Agello. Following the signs for Agello...did not get us to Agello. However, we fortunately found ourselves somewhere I recognized, so we could navigate quite happily from there -- quite probably not our the most advantageous route. For your amusement, I attempted to capture some of our driving...bear in mind that some of the circles may have been covered more than once
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