Day 74: Under a blood-red sky

Today's destination was the tiny village of Limano in northern Tuscany. We got away okay in the morning, but just past Florence, I was trying to do some maths with Zoe and didn't notice that Sally's touchscreen had bumped against me and we missed a vital turn-off. It was about 15 kilometres until the next exit, but just as we were nearing it, we bumped up against a traffic jam. We sat for ages, watching with bemusement as the crazy Italian drivers pulled out onto the hard shoulder, drove a bit further on then tried, unsuccessfully, to push back into the queue, thus making it impossible for the emergency vehicles to reach the incident ahead that was causing the jam.

We eventually started moving again, rolling past a pretty nasty accident – a three-lorry pile-up - one of them with a rather mangled cab. It had obviously happened not too long before we got there, as we were only a few hundred metres from it. Once we had rolled past, we pulled off the motorway, paid the toll, went around a roundabout and got back onto the motorway, heading back the way we had come, past kilometres and kilometres of stopped lorries – the tailback from the accident (lorries have to drive in the outside lane, so they were forced to endure the wait while things returned to normal).

By around lunchtime, we were approaching the town of Pistoia, so we decided to pop in for lunch. However, the lack of parking, horrendous traffic and general feel of the place combined to convince us to loop back out of town and stop at the local McDonald's (where parking was also in very short supply). As we left, we spotted a big supermarket, so stopped there for some supplies. Driving into and out of the town, we were struck by the number of plant nurseries that are spread out on the land around – row after row of trees and shrubs, many of them planted directly into the ground rather than in pots.

As we left Pistoia, which is on a broad, flat plain, the road began to rise and the scenery got more interesting. Eventually, we found ourselves driving alongside a small river with steep hills rising up on either side of us. The sign to Limano pointed us up one of these hills, and we drove back and forth across the hillside, successive switchbacks taking us higher and higher until we reached the village.

After parking outside the village (yep, yet another long walk for yours truly while ferrying stuff from the car to the house), we walked to the house next door to the one we had rented – both houses are owned by Brits Nick and Jackie, who showed us around and introduced us to Zorro, their very friendly black Labrador.

Then, ferrying finished, I ran back down to the car with my camera beneath a sky stained blood-red by the setting sun.

Day 73: Perusing Perugia

The youth hostel is located on the outskirts of Perugia in a lovely old building in a park, and the good news is that there's a Mini Metro station within walking distance. The Mini Metro is a very cute and clever transport system – two sets of raised tracks along which ride small driverless carriages – that runs into the heart of Perugia. 

There was a frigid wind blowing as we left the hostel, so we broke out the hats, scarves and gloves for the first time and then headed for the Mini Metro station. Not long after, we're walking around a little Christmas market in the old town. The old town itself is actually pretty small, but it does have some lovely buildings, including a large cathedral. Nativity scenes are a big thing in Italy (you should see the ready-made versions they sell here – you can easily pay several hundred euros for one, and many have moving parts, including rotund woman bakers swinging loaves to and from the oven and fountains with actual water) and Perugia's cathedral had the most impressive we've seen, taking up a whole chapel at one end. It was cleverly constructed out of cardboard boxes and brown paper, and represented a large part of Bethlehem – not just the stable. The girls were entranced and had to be dragged away.

 

An ice skating rink has been set up in one of the piazzas but it's obviously not very popular as there are only two teenage girls on it. As they leave, we let ours on – Sarah moderately confident and Zoe gripping tightly to the wall as her skates skitter here and there. I left Kate with the girls to explore a little on my own, expecting to return to tears and bruises – so I'm very pleasantly surprised when Zoe skates from one side of the rink to the other to greet me when I get back. 

After lunch in the basement dining room of a pizza chain, we headed back to the hostel, catching a long escalator down to a different Mini Metro station. With the wi fi still out at the hostel, we searched around for somewhere to log on, ending up in one of the little restaurants across the road. Then it was back for another lovely buffet dinner. 

Day 72: Bring on the buffet

Once again, we had to pack up and leave in the rain – not ideal as I have to unpack the car a bit before I can pack it, so everything got a bit moist. Eventually, we got away and headed north through more of Abruzzo – passing some quite dramatic scenery, and plenty of little hill-top villages (indeed, it seemed as though half of the hills had villages on them).

We stopped for lunch in Rieti, an ancient city on the Velino River (there's the remains of a Roman bridge that dates back to the third century). It was a public holiday, so we struggled a little to find somewhere to eat, but that worked in our favour because it meant that we got to see more of the city, which had a lot of charm – and some impressive buildings. A lot of the areas we've been in so far have been on the poor side, and Rieti was probably the first time that we saw the sort of architecture that we typically associate with Italy – big, grand buildings, towers, vaulted ceilings and so forth. 

After a pretty basic lunch at a time-warped bar, and a really nice coffee in a nicer bar by the river we stopped off in a park near the car park for the girls to chew up a bit of energy. We then drove to the fortified hill-top town of Todi in Umbria, which dates back to around the seventh century BC. We parked outside the walls and walked up to the town's main square. I bought a bottle of wine and we all checked out the cathedral. Back outside, we visited one of the now-ubiquitous truffle shops, where I made good use of the taste-testers – and eventually bought a small jar of white-truffle salsa – and we all patted the stuffed wild boar out front.

 It was dark by the time we reached our destination – the youth hostel in Perugia, Umbria's capital. After checking in (and discovering that their wi fi wasn't working), we walked across the road, where there was a bar/bakery/gelateria and a few other small restaurant/cafe/bars. The former was absolutely heaving with people – all of whom had little orange plastic plates that they were filling at a big buffet. We eventually figured out that for six euros you could get a drink (wine, cocktail, soft drink) and as much food as you wanted. Youth hostel heaven! As the crowd thinned a little, we found a spot at a table and started gorging ourselves. There was pasta, polenta with mushrooms and truffle oil, a lovely cannellini bean and pork casserole, amazing olives, incredible roasted almonds, various vege dishes that had Kate in raptures and some of the best pizza I've ever eaten.

After we had been eating for a while, Kate came back from another foraging run with a triumphant look on her face – on her plate was something we hadn't eaten since we were both backpacking in Italy in 1992, something we call focaccini: deep-fried bread dough, sprinkled with sea salt. I quickly rushed over to grab as much as I could, which wasn't all that much as it was obviously as popular with everyone else. I also grabbed a couple more glasses of wine for Kate and I – for four euros each, which meant that we were effectively eating for two euros per person. Nice! The whole vibe in the place was great – a mix of ages, socio-economic groups – and the staff were friendly and helpful. Towards the end of the meal, one of the waiters took the girls away and gave them a little bowl of Smarties each.

The doors

Regular readers may have noticed that I have a bit of a thing for old doors. There's something about a well-weathered, aesthetically aged door that really gets my photographic juices flowing. And in Roccacasale I found my Nirvana. Everywhere I turned as I wandered around the village's narrow walkways at dusk there was a portal just crying out to be recorded for posterity. Herewith a small selection for your viewing pleasure. 

Day 71: Can you dig it?

It was another beautiful day today, so we headed out for another hike in the hills. The woodlands that cloak the slopes are a mixture of conifers and deciduous trees, the latter dominated by oaks. As I mentioned earlier, there's lots of evidence of wild boar, and in one oak woodland, we found even more. Large expanses of the ground had been completely dug up – to quite a depth. The most likely explanation is that they were searching for truffles, and judging by the amount of earth they had turned over, they must have had quite a feast.

In the afternoon, I went off on my own to take a little photographic tour of the village. Everywhere I looked were houses with 'Vendesi' ('For sale') signs on them - and given half a chance, I would have bought most of them. As the light faded, I walked back to our place dreaming of moving to Roccacasale to restore one of these neglected dwellings to live in and open a restaurant in another.