gubbio, perugia round 1, montone and umbertide

Tuesday was a packed day.  Everybody woke up early to hit the road for Gubbio's morning market.  Along the drive, we realized the other half of why we got such a good deal on the rental car.  A light in the dashboard kept flashing, "Stop," and we couldn't figure out why (or why stop?).  It had flashed a few times in the two days prior, but only once or twice while we slowly drove down the muddy gravel road from the villa to the highway; upon reaching the highway, the light stopped flashing.  Until the drive to Gubbio, that is.  Then the light flashed pretty much the whole drive.  Everything else seemed normal and we were unable to discern anything from the manual (maybe because it was in Italian?), so we called the rental company en route.  They told us not to operate the car and that they'd exchange it for us in Gubbio.

So we parked the car in Gubbio and headed off to the market.  We wandered the stalls of clementines, artichokes, sardines and Umbrian smoked porchetta, then warmed up with espressos and cappuccinos.  Joey got a call from the rental car company, so we all walked back to where we'd parked the car.

A tow truck arrived, but the replacement vehicle had not.  After many minutes of arguing with the rental company over the phone, Joey was told we'd have to take a cab to the nearest rental car location in Perugia, where we could pick up the new car.  We decided that since we'd have to take a cab anyway, we'd explore the rest of Gubbio before making our way to Perugia.

Gubbio is situated upon a steep hill, and to get from one level of the town to the next, the Italians built elevators within the rock - how convenient!  Their signage could use a little work though, so it took me a few minutes to convince everyone that walking down the long, deserted, flourescent hallway would save us from climbing a million stairs.  But sure enough, after we rode the elevator up and walked down another creepy hallway, we emerged in the town square.  After a photo shoot of the square and City Hall we found a separate elevator, which we used to visit the Cathedral up even higher - and what fabulous views!  We took the elevator back to the second level and walked the rest of the way down from there.

I love this picture.  It's like the skies opened up and God shined down.

While waiting for a cab to Perugia we drank round two of espresso.  Sufficiently buzzed, we then stuffed ourselves into the tiny car that arrived (I sat in a pop-up seat in the trunk) and headed to the rental car station in Perugia.  Of course by the time we arrived all the people working were enjoying their afternoon nap, so we waited in a crappy little restaurant by the train station and watched the Italian version of Jerry Springer on the tv in one corner and the very tan, older man wearing eyeliner and a black wig in the other.  Once the people at the rental car station returned from their naps, Joey went in to haggle and Mallory, Mom, Dad and I waited some more.  Finally, at least an hour later, we got our replacement vehicle, and the five of us drove back to Casa San Gabriel in a giant, royal blue toaster.

We decided we'd have a snack and take a nap before driving to a different town, Montone, for dinner.  The toaster twisted and turned up the mountain road to Montone, and we parked it outside the city walls.  As we walked from one side of the dark maze of stone houses to the other, we realized Montone was closed.  Although it was barely 8:30, with the exception of a bar in the town square, absolutely nothing - nothing - was open.  It felt like we'd stumbled onto an empty movie set.  So back to the toaster we went, and to Umbertide we drove.

Montone's town square

By then it was almost ten and the historic center of Umbertide is even smaller than Montone; after trying the locked doors of three different restaurants it looked like we were out of luck.  We tried one more door down a dark, narrow street and walked into a candle-lit dining room with large photos from all over the world adding a pop of color and character to the white walls and white tablecloths.  Jazz played in the background of the empty restaurant; a young woman greeted us and warmly invited us to sit down despite the late hour.  She spoiled us with fresh ricotta; chocolate, hazelnut, and wine flavored bread before we even ordered our meal.  The menu sounded too good to resit ordering only a primi or secondi, so we splurged and ordered both.  And of course, many bottles of wine and dessert too.

It was after midnight when we finally left one of the best restaurants in which we'd eat the whole trip, but the near-perfect meal made up for a far-from-perfect day.  Here's the rest of my pictures from our Tuesday adventure.

montepulciano

Our intended destination Monday was Montepulciano.  We ended up in The Twilight Zone.

What a contrast to the packed streets of Rome and the Amalfi Coast this summer: Montepulciano was literally empty.  The first half hour we wandered the city and didn't encounter a single soul.  It was surreal.  Here is this incredible, ancient, walled city and we had it all to ourselves.

The people in this picture are my parents.  The only people in the town square.

This became a problem when it came time for lunch.

We eventually found a fantastic osteria and Joey's mood improved considerably.  Once she drank her wine, Mallory's did too.  

After lunch we set off in search of wine tastings.  We followed the signs to a huge door off the main square.  We rang the doorbell and were greeted by a surly middle-aged woman in a tracksuit.  She allowed us to tour the winery and then poured several different vintages of Montepulciano for us to taste.  When we asked her how old the winery was, she nonchalantly replied, "1,000 years."  Oh, is that all?

We found another open shop where the very friendly shopkeeper filled many, many glasses of wine.  Good thing we'd all had pasta for lunch!  

After another breathtaking sunset we got back in the car and headed toward our villa.  We stopped at one more winery along the way, where we bought some incredible Vin Santo.

That night Joey treated us to another yummy home-cooked meal.  We all turned in early, happy tummies full of food and wine.

Click here for all my pictures from Montepulciano.

assisi

The view from Mom, Dad and Mallory's cottage window on Sunday morning.
Our cottage is in the bottom right of the photo.

The next morning was Sunday, so we decided there'd be no better place to attend Mass than the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi.  One of the best things about the cottages we rented was its proximity to so many cool small towns in the Umbrian and Tuscan countryside, and we reached Assisi in less than an hour.

After Mass we ate lunch at a little trattoria, then spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the maze of Assisi.  We drove down from the beautiful town on the hill to its outskirts in a futile search for gelato, then headed back to our villa for the evening.

Looking up on the Basilica from the outskirts of Assisi

All the cool air and walking wore Mom and Dad out, so Mallory, Joey and I played cards and drank wine.  A little later Joey whipped up the first of many fabulous meals. 

Click here for all of my pictures from our first two days in Italy

reunited and it feels so good

I've been so blessed to share many amazing travel experiences over the last year with my best friend, and in late January I was lucky enough to share a trip to Italy with my family too.  My mom, dad, and sister, Mallory, met Joey and me at the airport in Rome and I'm pretty sure they were almost as excited to see us as they were to return to Italy.  Sadly, my other sister, Elizabeth, wasn't able to join us, although we kept her with us in spirit as we spent the next ten days touring the Italian countryside.

We'd arranged to meet my family at the Advantage rental car desk.  Unfortunately, we didn't realize that half of the reason we got such a good deal on the rental car was because Advantage is located off-site, so the first hour of our trip to Italy was spent running in circles, searching for the rental car desk and each other.  Joey and I decided to get the car - maybe my family had somehow managed to find the shuttle to the rental car station even though we couldn't figure that out without calling the phone number on the confirmation sheet - if they weren't there, we'd drive back to the airport and try to find them.

So we got the car and with no sign of my family headed back to the airport.  We parked the car in short-term parking and started walking toward the terminal in which my family had landed and I heard a familiar whistle - about fifty yards away Mallory and Dad stood waving.  Poor Mom had been placed in a different location to try to find Joey and me, so the four of us went back to the car and drove as close as we could to where she was waiting.  We decided to send Dad to get her, and they returned together about fifteen minutes later.  We exchanged more big hugs and set off for our home for the next eleven days: Umbertide (pronounced Oom-bear-tee-day).

How did people manage without cell phones?

We spent the next three hours in the car catching up, laughing and excitedly discussing our plans for the trip (which was more like Joey'd recruited three other people to make fun of my Excel vacation itineraries and European death marches).  We exited the main highway and as we twisted and turned according to the lovely voice of our friend, Garmin, we all wondered how people managed without GPS (it's interesting how we travel to Italy for the splendor of Roman history only to appreciate the convenience of today's technology).  But with the help of the Garmin and the directions from the caretakers, we managed to find Casa San Gabriel.

We pulled up to the villa in the valley where we'd rented two cottages as the sun set, casting a brilliant red and orange hue over the mountains, cypress trees and ancient stone hamlets that surrounded us.  After dropping off our suitcases, we all piled back in the car and headed back into town to stock up on groceries and eat dinner.

Taking Joey into a grocery store in Italy is like taking a kid to a candy store; I imagine trying to pry a child away from the shiny and colorful sweets is like trying to pry my husband away from the meat and cheese counters.  But one hour and massive cart-full of groceries later, we finally escaped.  We drove back toward our villa, spotting a sign for Pane e Vino, and figured it'd be worth a try.  The restaurant was located in what appeared to be a deserted industrial park, but it looked like it had character and so we went inside.  We found a huge roaring pizza oven, bookshelves full of wine and white tablecloths.  Perfect!  We immediately ordered wine and pizza and pasta too, and spent the rest of the evening eating, drinking, and enjoying each other's company.

What should have been an uneventful drive back to Casa San Gabriel became far more interesting when Joey unknowingly turned the wrong way on a one-way road.  Although we didn't encounter any cars along the way, we did have a hell of a time getting up the hill.  Apparently the route to the villa from the highway is one-way because the incline is so steep; with the sharp drop-off looming precariously only a few feet away from where our wheels were spinning, I was truly afraid enough that I got out of the car.  Mallory and Mom soon followed, then Dad took the wheel and Joey got behind and pushed.  I was fairly certain I was watching my father kill my husband, but Dad got the car up the hill and around the corner, albeit not without a few jokes about the size of our asses or the capability of my husband.

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zanzibar

Saturday morning we all piled in the Landcruiser with Ibrahim one last time.  In the middle of nowhere, he abrubtly stopped the car and said, “I have to go see a friend.”  He got out of the car and we all looked at each other and around the car – there wasn’t a soul in sight.  Who in the world could he need to see?  Then as Ibrahim walked behind a bush it became apparent that he just needed to relieve himself.  We laughed even harder when he came back to the car and told us, “He wasn’t there.”

Ibrahim dropped us off at the small Arusha airport, where Steve, Angela and I munched on French fries and Joey devoured a cheeseburger.   We all had a few beers and some Dramamine in anticipation of our flight.  Soon the gate agent collected us from the bar and took us through the small security area and out to the tarmac.  We walked to our itty-bitty, 12-passenger, propeller plane and I said a Hail Mary.

Walking to our plane. Oh God.

The pilot turned around and asked all the passengers to please not take pictures during take-off and landing because he had been hit in the head with a camera too many times.  Then he turned on his Garmin.  I said another.

The air in the cabin was stuffy and hot and once the wheels were up it felt as flimsy as a paper airplane.  Luckily the beer and the Dramamine knocked me out before a full-blown anxiety attack kicked in, and I woke up over the electric blue of the Indian Ocean.  It got even hotter in the plane before we landed in Zanzibar, but we landed so I didn't care that I'd almost soaked my shirt and my thighs were chaffing like crazy. 

Bargaining.  It's his new favorite sport.

A different representative from the safari company picked us up from the Zanzibar airport and drove us to Stone Town.  At first glance Stone Town is dirty, dilapidated, and oppressively hot and humid, but the warmth of the people and the eclectic Arab, Persian and Indian architecture quickly charms its visitors.  We spent the next two days wandering the little alleyways, visiting the markets and the famous Forodhani Gardens for fresh-caught seafood, admiring the impressively carved doors, eating some truly delectable meals and delighting in marvelous sunsets (both for the colors and the reprieve from the staggering heat).   Angela and I bonded over pedicures, we shopped and Joey entertained himself by bargaining for everything we bought.  One shopkeeper got so frustrated with my husband he threw his calculator across the alley.  Another asked him, “How long have you been in Stone Town?”  When Joey replied that he lived in Nigeria, the shopkeeper replied with an understanding, “Ooooooh.”  

Here's the link for all of my Stone Town pictures.

Monday morning we met our tour guide again for our transfer to the beach and stopped for a tour of a spice plantation along the way.  The young boy who climbed a fifty-foot coconut tree with his feet tied together and a knife in his mouth yet somehow managed to sing all the way was definitely the highlight.  Our guide told us all Zanzibarians learn how to climb the coconut trees, but once they turn 26 they may not climb anymore.  He also told us that Zanzibarian men may not eat nutmeg because they believe it makes them more prone to father daughters than sons.  And then he told us that he had always really wanted to marry a white woman, so he found his wife on the internet.  But not until he'd "dated" 180 white women from the internet first.  Many women flew to Zanzibar to meet him, but he sent them all away, especially the one with the club foot.  He saw her from afar and told his driver to tell her he was out of the country.  #youcan'tmakethisshitup.  

Here are all my Spice Tour photos.

We parted with Angela and Steve since we had separate beach accommodations and settled into a lazy and relaxing routine of not doing a whole lot of anything for the next five days.  The drastically changing tides, brazen red monkeys and many a book kept us entertained.  The seaweed and coral that surrounded our beach made it a little difficult to wander, but at low tide we were able to find our own tiny island paradise at a sand bank in the dazzling aquamarine waters.  Our last morning we commissioned a local fisherman named Captain Roger to take us out on his tiny little sailboat.  What a wonderful week.  

Only a few hours after our morning sail in the Indian Ocean we had dinner in Addis Ababa.  We tried a different traditional restaurant and chowed on the vegetarian sampler platter with lamb tibs.  The next morning it was back to real life when we boarded our flight to Abuja.

And of course, for the last of our pictures from Zanzibar and Addis, just click on their names.   

our last day of safari

We began our last day of safari on Friday with a long, jostling drive full of hairpin turns to the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater.   The cold mist that surrounded us only contributed to the ethereal feeling inside the caldera.  It felt like we had driven into The Land Before Time.  We passed herds of buffalo and wildebeest and zebra and elephant.  We watched while hyenas and lions hunted and saw two rare black rhinos in the distance.  We even faced an elephant on the road!  He was very clearly not going to yield, so we did.  As our car slowly reversed through the bush, the elephant steadily stomped toward us, and it was so.  cool.

Staring down another vehicle

We drove back up to the rim of the crater for a walk along a muddy with an armed ranger who pointed out different flowers and plants and explained their uses.  I trudged through the buffalo-poop-covered trail and lamented to Joey that my nature quota had been filled about two days earlier and all I wanted to do was go shopping.  He reminded me with a smile that I was the one who planned the trip. 

We returned to our lovely room at the Ngorongoro Farm House for one more night, where we took advantage of the fireplace in our room and built a huge, roaring, romantic fire. 

For pictures from the last day of our safari, click here.

safari day 4

After the thunderstorms outside our tent lulled us to sleep, we woke to a gloomy morning.   Thursday, our fourth day of safari, we headed back from where we came, all the way back through the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation Areas.  Along our route we stopped at a boma, or miniature village, of one of the Masai tribes that live in the area.

We were greeted with the traditional song and dance of the Masai; the men stand apart from the women, but the harmony they create with their voices together is both beautiful and haunting.  Then a member of the tribe, the son of the chief (who can have up to 20 wives, so sorry dude, not really such a huge honor), took us into the village and one of the grassy, mud huts where they sleep.  He explained that their diet consists entirely of the cows and goats they raise, including the blood, which they drink with the milk.  Apparently the excess intake of iron is why their teeth look like this:

Sidenote: After much thought, I’ve decided to go ahead and post my pictures of these people.  Not only are they beautiful photos from a noteworthy experience, but we also paid a significant fee to tour the boma and were given explicit permission to take photographs.   I found it rather awkward to even take the photos at first, but when I showed my subjects their images they always responded with big, toothy smiles.  Therefore, I believe the privilege to take pictures for which we paid also extends to the privilege to post the same photos to my blog.  Additionally, there is no other personally identifiable information and if you think you’ll be able to find these semi-nomadic people in the middle of the Tanzanian bush based off a photo, good luck.

Anyway, after the tour, we were given the opportunity to ask questions and shop the jewelry made by the women of the tribe.  I found a bracelet for me and a necklace for O.  Joey bought an ebony club after learning that is what the Masai warriors use to kill the lions which attack their herds.

After a long day in the car and a minor accident (Ibrahim accidentally careened the vehicle into the embankment – it was rainy and he was going a little too fast, but we’re all fine.  Joey says he broke his toe but I’m pretty sure he’s fine), we checked into our last safari lodge.  Another beautiful property, the Ngorongoro Farm House is located on a working coffee plantation and has the best coffee I’ve ever tasted in my life.  The views were almost as good as the coffee.

Click here for all of my pictures from Day 4 of our safari