UMBRIA AND TUSCANY

After our look around Florence, we picked up the rental car (a low-end Mercedes; they hand them out left and right in Italy) and headed for Umbria, where we’d rented a place in the hills near the town of Umbertide.

We had signed on for this cottage for three weeks, because I had a notion that I would photograph every charming hill town in Umbria and Tuscany.

The cottage (next to the main farmhouse) is called Essiccatoio, which means drying house—in this case, a former drying house for tobacco.

By arrangement, the caretaker, Sestilio, met us at the foot of the way up to the cottage—a narrow, twisting dirt track with steep drops to the side. It was a fifteen-minute shlep, hair-raising, and as we picked our way up to the cottage, I muttered and cursed: how we would do this at the end of every day for the next three weeks?

At Essiccatoio, set back from the large, two-apartment farmhouse, the view was all farmland, olive groves, and misty mountaintops.

But the cottage was chilly, reminding me of another stone cottage (a former chicken coop) we rented in England’s Cotswolds in 1984. In both, the bedrooms were downstairs, and the living room-kitchen areas on the upper level—I suppose because they were less damp and chilly, less earthy.

Sestilio showed us how things work (waxing rhapsodic, as he walked us through our paces, about the place being one that Restoreth the Soul). He pointed out the wood stove, warning us to put a pan of water on top because the double-paned windows make the place tight and the wood stove “pulls the oxygen out of the air.” He ended our tour by saying we were going to go on a “Treasure Hunt,” which meant showing us what to do in case of a power outage. (Seems the place is on the outer fringes of the grid.) The Treasure Hunt amounted to trudging some distance down the dirt track to a power box, or junction, or whatever the thing was, and throwing some switches. Didn’t sound like a lot of fun, and I wondered about coming across wild boars in the pitch-black of the Umbrian night. I left the menfolk to deal with that stuff. Then Sestilio rumbled down the hill, and we were alone in this aerie in the Umbrian mists.

We settled in, and for the next three weeks, we stormed from hill town to hill town, exploring what each had to offer.

The first town we hit was Gubbio—ancient, spooky. It was rainy; but at least we were pointed to a great little restaurant, Fernando di Montefeltro, where we scored a decent bottle of house plonk for two dollars, and a wonderful fowl dish (“like chicken” said the waiter. Meaning what? pheasant? partridge?) in a creamy mushroom sauce.

We stocked up on food at the Umbertide Coop—noisy, chaotic, confusing, mobbed with locals, not all that clean, making me yearn for our shiny bright supermarket back home. After the girl flipped our food over the checkout belt, she tossed us three bags. We dutifully bagged our stuff.

It was dark when we headed up the track to the hut. I fretted that we would break down, and have to spend the night in the car. Or would we knock on the door of one of the several restored chi-chi farmhouses along the way? But they’d probably set the dogs on us.

A wild boar, caught in the headlights, skittered across the track and up the bank on our left, looking very wild and scruffy.

Next day, on to Cortona via winding roads full of impatient, aggressive drivers. On the way, we stop at Terontola, to get train tickets for Venice. The ticket agent knew not a word of English; getting the tickets was a struggle.

Cortona was pretty, clean, with lots to see. After parking the car, we met a young couple—trekkers—who showed us a New Yorker magazine with photos of the terrorist attack. We climbed up and up, through ancient cobbled streets, narrow alleys, running at angles to one another every which way. These alleys were never meant for cars, though residents poke theirs around all manner of impossible corners. How do they manage in winter? We ambled our way to the top of the town, spending time in a walled in churchyard where kids were playing soccer and old women were chatting on a sunny bench.

Another hair-raising ride home in the dark; fortunately, not much traffic. At the hut, I yearned for a TV.

Sandwiched between explorations of other hill towns, we did laundry, checked out market day in Umbertide, tracked down some Sudafed, found the place Sestilio said had the best gelato around (he was right), laid in more supplies, eating locally-famous pork sandwiches (greasy) at a filthy stall at the marketplace.

The next day, on to Preggio. Nice views from the town, but not a lot cooking there. Too quiet.

Then we tromped into tobacco fields to talk with the harvesters, who gave us permission to shoot them. One of the guys told us it was “lavaro brutto” (ugly, nasty bad) work, and of course it was. We stayed for a while to watch the pickers do their work—the women pulling off each leaf by hand, and the men packing the leaves into the truck that crept alongside the row of woman stripping the plants. We watched, I photographed, we had some yuks with the workers, who obliged us with lots of laughing and good-natured jostling. From one of the guys, yet another expression of sympathy for the loss of American lives in the terrorist attacks, and at this kindness, I almost wept.

Then on to Monterchi where we shelled out $5 to look at the Madonna del Parto (the Pregnant Madonna/Madonna in Labor), by Piero della Francesca. Seems gangs of tourists, including us, beat a path to see this much-ballyhooed fresco. We wandered around the pretty town, ducking into a church in time for Vespers. Only a handful of us in attendance.

The next day, Montone, a sleepy hill town, big on restoring itself. A little more cooking here than in Preggio. Nice sweeping panoramic views. Had a wretched lunch—oil and salt, oil and salt; is that what they call “peasant cooking”?—in the only joint we could find open. Only the cappucino was decent.

Assisi was mobbed with tourists, and pilgrims paying homage to St. Francis of Assisi. In the upper basilica, an officious black-suited guy kept barking into a mike “Silenzio!” We cruised the Giotto frescos depicting the Life and Times of Frankie, looking up till our necks about busted. Then we streamed with the hordes into the lower basilica where the faithful were groveling before the saint’s coffin.

Next, Spello. Checked out St. Andrew’s church, then mixed it up with some old grannies and old men, and a tourist couple from Milan; promised photos to all. John ordered an espresso in a bar so I could use the toilet, the high kind my legs had to touch—ugh! The Lonely Planet Guide to Jamaica warns about the unsavory toilets in that country, but I’ve found Italian ones to be more filthy.

Then, back to the hut on mostly straight roads with the loonies tearing down the fast lane at 140 km/h (90 mph), weaving in and out, claiming their scrap of road. It’s a wonder there isn’t human road kill littering the edges of all the roads in Italy. At around 7:30, with the last rays of light, an animal was squabbling, eerily, in the woods. John guessed it was a nightjar.

The next morning, poking up the woods road behind the hut, I came across a family of porcini hunters chattering away. One, down a slope to the side of the path, let out a triumphant whoop, exciting the others. He caught up with them, brandishing the mushroom.

The next day, at Sestilio’s suggestion, we lit out for Montemigione, a tiny town with most summer-house owners gone. Angelo, Sestilio’s friend, let us into the church. He and we were the only ones there.

On to another place recommended by Sestilio, the Abbazia di Montecorona, where Sestilio said he wanted all his kids to be married.

The ancient (11th C) lower church was chilly, silent, but oddly glowing. The crypt has a mess of columns scrounged from other places; all the capitals are different from one another. The upstairs church is just as interesting; dead quiet; I got some nice shadowy photos there.

From there, we drove up to the Hermitage of Montecorona. It was an endless-seeming, harrowing drive, but worth it. Took lots of shots inside the 1700 church, no longer in use. Spooky, chilly, with wall frescoes crumbling and bits of rubbly plaster underfoot.

White-robed monks were shuffling around. Snapped one praying in a chapel, passed a few in the grounds (all of us nodding and smiling), obeying the “Silence” request where we went.

As the day was waning, we stumbled onto tiny Santa Giuliana, off the usual tourist-beaten path. We found the gate into the walled town, and began exploring. The place was dead quiet. There were only a few houses there, with a ancient well in the middle of tiny courtyard, and a couple of cats lazing in the sun.

A woman came out of somewhere, blond, impeccably coifed, dressed in black. At first, she didn’t seem too friendly, informing us that the gate to the place would be closed at dusk. She opened up a bit, telling us that not so long ago, the town was pretty much in ruins, till a small group of people bought it up and fixed up the houses. She, and the whole place, gave off an air of wealth, tasteful and quiet. At some point, she started talking about Hollywood and how she knew what all that was about. She said she had had her fill of that place and the sort of people who frequent it. For all we know, she was some aging actress we didn’t recognize. At last she left us, and we wandered around, soaking up the silence and the preciousness of the place. I could have happily lingered there.

When we left, the woman who had her fill of Hollywood was sitting on the ramparts, looking down at us (there is a photo of her, not showing her face), at one point scolding us for polluting the air (“Don’t leave that engine running!”), after John fired up the engine and left it running while we got out of the car to fetch a couple of things in the trunk.

October 3: we were up early and off to Siena for an overnight. Morning fog. On the shlep to Siena, we got to see more of the Tuscan countryside, though as usual, it was hard for me to relax with all the nutso Italian drivers bent on slaughtering us.

Checked into our hotel, The Garden, after thrashing around in the harrowing Siena traffic looking for the place, which was nice—good towels, great sheets (though flat-as-fritter pillows), and a passable view from one window.

Took a cab (insane, hostile, murderous driver, driving practically up the backsides of people in alleys, lurching to a stop just shy of actually hitting them) to the Piazza del Campo, the huge, gorgeous, much-photographed plaza where throngs gather, sitting all over the pavement, eating gelati and other stuff, and shmoozing. Gangs of pigeons, pigeon feathers, and pigeon shit everywhere. Beats me why all those people want to sit there.

We went into the crowded Duomo. Wonderful marble pictures in the floors, many of them cartoon-like. Wandered the streets till suppertime, when we ended up in Trattoria Papei, recommended by the girl at the hotel desk. Stuffed ourselves. Decent chow; for me: a delicious minestrone and veal scallopine, and a taste of John’s pheasant.

We got shmoozing with a couple from Portugal. They had lived in Minnesota for six years while he, a urologist, trained at the Mayo Clinic. We all loosened up on wine, swapping yarns, pontificating about life, Italians, kids, and careers. They gave us a sample of their vino santo (nice stuff!) and a taste of their cookies. We exchanged email addresses, then caught a cab with a driver who got us back to the hotel (without terrifying us), where we got a fix of CNN.

Next morning, back to the city, first to the Duomo, where, on a second-story rampart, a pigeon shat on John’s head (Major Grosso). Good thing I had a clutch of tissues, a couple of wipes, and a plastic bag on me. That’ll teach the ole man to stand close to walls atop which the little bastards roost and hang out.

That afternoon, back to the hut for yet another regrouping.

On October 6, Sestilio blew in with a couple from Dallas who’d been here previously, and were returning to celebrate their wedding anniversary in the ground-floor apartment of the farmhouse.

Next day, up at six and off to Perugia, though all I wanted to do was sleep sleep sleep. Alimentary canal not cooperating; too much alien food down the hatch, probably full of salmonella and god knows what else.

Had a prick of a time finding our way into the Perugia parking garage. On the main plaza was a band oompahpah-ing away, and a mess of sleek, lean, serious bikers—their skin-tight outfits and other gear plastered with ads—getting ready for a race.

In the cathedral, I was told not to shoot. Then to the National Museum of Umbria. Hot in there; I was hungry and dragging tail big time.

Still more art with religious themes. A gorgeous multi-picture thing by Piero della Francesca. I could have spent longer staring at it; I understood why people hunt down his paintings; they are beautiful.

Dragged back to the hut, where I was glad to collapse in a chair on the porch, half dozing in the sun, while John lazed in the hammock. The couple from Dallas sallied forth for a walk, and still weren’t back when we packed up ourselves and our books to go inside. When they finally emerged from the wildwood, they were frazzled, saying they didn’t realize how far they had wandered.

On October 8, I arranged for our Seattle friends, who had blown in for a spell in Italy themselves, to lodge into the upper unit in the farmhouse when they got to Umbria the next day.

That night, starry, pleasantly warm, with mist hanging over the hills, we shuffled next door to spend some time with the couple from Texas, who had a some nice wine to share with us. We had a good time with them, up there in the mists, mellow on the wine, and listening to scratchy BBC reports on the portable radio they found in their apartment about bunker-busting bombs in Afghanistan, talking about how strange it was to be where we were while our country was waging war, yet how glad we all were, in a way, to be out of the country, far from the aftermath of 9/11.

Next day, we hung around waiting for our friends to arrive. A lovely October afternoon with warmth like that of an Indian Summer day back in New Hampshire. At one point, a trim little military-looking jet screeched by, not much higher than the rooftops. Was that plane part of the effort to smash al-Qa‘ida? In the distance, a tractor droned, and now and then, from various parts, drifted the chatter of mushroom hunters.

On October 10, with our friends, we went again to the Abbazia di Montecorona. Then on to Monterchi, where we had a yummy porcini-laden pasta whipped up by Bruno at his restaurant, La Cambusa. Our friends had been there before, and they and Bruno had a merry reunion.

Next, to Casa Vecchia, then on to Citerna (where I would have preferred to linger) then to Caprese Michelangelo (birthplace of the master), which we reached via a winding pass called La Strette (“strict” or “the narrows”). Hairpin curves galore, but great stuff to look at along the way.

The four of us dragged into Sansepulcro at dark, walked the streets, and followed our friends to another of their favorite restaurants, Orfeo, for yet another pigout.

October 11. Our last day with our friends. We took the ferry across Lake Trasimeno (not much of a lake by our standards). It was all pretty much of a snore. That night, back at the ranch, we fixed pasta and guzzled lots of wine, and the next morning, parted ways, with us lighting out for Florence, where we returned the car and caught the train to Venice.