Day 3 - Thursday August 12th

I woke up around 7:00 today and decided to sit out on the balcony and journal. It is a beautiful morning, the mornings are a little chilly in the shade but keep you warm with the sun. Looking out from her balcony, you can see one of the two entrances into Pieve. It's a little street lined with Apartment style living all the way through the tiny mountain town.

I ate breakfast with Fabrizio and Patricia – Tat’s parents – we had coffee, little mini toasts with cream cheese, butter, and Jam (which Fabi’s brother makes fresh). We sat and talked about the history of Pieve and such. Their house was built in 1949, it’s cute and little, the kitchen is tiny with a sink about at the height of my knees.

Each town, or area, in Italy, has medieval reenactments and such every year where they have banquet tables, roast pigs, royalty dressed up etc. They set up in the piatzas of the town. Patty was talking to me about the book Under the Tuscan Sun, they drove through Tuscany – specifically Cortona the town where the woman buys her old farm house. She said the town is so grateful for this women and the exposure she’s brought the little town. Ever year she holds a festival, the Sun Festival, and has people performing and such. Sting and his wife have a house there and frequent the town when they are visiting; Sting and his wife both were performing at the festival this year.

After breakfast, Tat, me, Patty, and Fabrizio and his brother Umberto, went up the mountains to Roccopegio – which is a little town with a castle from the 1400’s. It was a very wealthy area with much agriculture. It was highly valued so people kept trying to conquer it by force, eventually, since it was never successful, the castle and surrounding houses (originally for the court and subjects under the rule of the Duke Obelsite) was bought and subsequently deserted in the 1500’s. They buried the castle under dirt and in the 17^th century built a castle over the remains. Today archeologists are trying to slowly uncover the buried castle and configure the rest of the structure. When we got back from Roccopelegio Tat and I sat out on the balcony until Lunch.

It’s Fabi’s birthday and he cooked us pasta with sausage red sauce. We had some peaches, grapes, salad and tomatoes.

Tat and I walked down to the Fume, which is the River and sat next to the river, which runs through Pieve. There were young boys throwing stones and fishing, and the weather was beautiful, spouts of sun but mostly perfectly cloudy. On the way home we stopped on had Gelato – my first on my European tour – I had straccitella and chiocolato, Tat had noiccela and soya (Hazelnut and Soy). It was delish.

Me, Tat, Patty and Fabi all walked down to the restaurant for his surprise BDay party. Matteo and Fabi’s brother met us outside. We walked in and got an aperitif – it was orange something and white wine, it was awful. Fabi was really surprised. There were around 50 people there. We all sat down and had more crestines again, then the next course was pasta fritte, which is fried pasta dough – it balloons up and ends up becoming a little pocket you can stuff things like more pancetta or salami into. We also had crisp bread and then the finale was pizza – or pizze with anchovies. It was good although I hate anchovies.

Greta arrived – Fabi’s brother’s daughter’s child – who is 6 and adorable. I’m not sure if she’s so cute because she’s 6 and speaks Italian, I wonder if she would be as cute if he were speaking English, probably not. We ended the meal with birthday cake, a yellow sponge cake layered with creamlike frosting and fresh fruit on top. It was very rich.

We hopped into Matteo’s car and drove through the mountains to a neighboring town and went to a bar to meet his friends. We met his sister and Matteo’s friend Diego. After I drank a shot of grappa – blech – I wouldn't recommend grappa straight and in a shot, we left and headed to aquapelago or another neighboring town like a 30 plus drive away. We were driving forever, through the hills in the dark. You couldn’t see anything; it’s impressive how they know where they are going and how to get there. After sometime, we finally pull up to this beacon of light in the midst of all the dark foliage. We parked and got out, Tat didn’t come with, she just slept in the car. So Tanya, Matteo and I went in, and met up with his friends Diego, Matte and Margharita others. We danced for a bit but after about 45 minutes we decided to leave.

Let me tell you, if I had been drunk in any sense of the word and had to sit in the back seat through this drive back to Pieve I would have died. Yikes.