On our 2018 trip to Italy, we spent our last week in Rome.  While meandering around the city, we  came across Ristorante Giulia at happy hour time.  The restaurant is Giulia, and my name is Julia, so of course we went in for a cocktail and some snacks one night.  Wow.  The cocktails were wonderful and the complimentary snacks were showcase gastronomy.  Chad went back for dinner on our last night in Rome, but I couldn’t eat any more food so I stayed home.

On this year’s trip, we made it a point to go back to the restaurant for dinner.  In the last five years, most of the staff has changed, including the chef.  But we recognized the bartender and the restaurant manager and chatted with them, and the food and drinks were still wonderful.

We each got the tasting menu with the wine pairing.  What I didn’t realize is that it would be an eight-course menu.  We sat down for dinner at 7:30 pm and left at 10:30 pm, meandering home and arriving back at our apartment close to midnight.

Enjoy the photos.

like all other restaurants in Italy, you have your choice between still (naturale) and sparkling (frizzante) water

the first amuse-bouche was a beef dumpling with mushroom cream accompanied by housemade bread and olive oil, and a glass of prosecco from Veneto

amuse-bouche #2 – poached egg on the bottom, then sauteed asparagus, and potato mousse on top, and chardonnay from the region

crispy octopus, mashed carrots with lemon, cream mousse and herb sauce, Vermentino white wine

If you’ve ever done a tasting menu – you know that point where you think, “This is too much.”  For me it started here.

pasta carbonara with a kind of egg cream sauce and Italian bacon, regional white wine

potato dumplings filled with shredded chicken served in a white wine reduction, a local white wine

“boiled” beef with parsley salsa and cooked endive, local red wine

And then with the desserts, I was getting light-headed and seeing stars.  I never eat this many calories in one sitting.

a sugared donut filled with vanilla cream, local dessert wine

After seeing stars, I ordered a grappa as a digestivo to cut through all of this food and bring me back to earth – as I was served dessert #2.

biscotti, meringue, grappa

Then Chad and I took a slow stroll back to our apartment.  We stopped to look over the bridge at the Tiber River below which is beautiful at night, and we enjoyed the lights and relative lack of tourists in our Trastevere neighborhood at night.  (More on the Trastevere neighborhood in a future post.)

Okay, okay, okay.  I was done with blog posts for today, but then I was able to peak inside the main church of Guardialfiera, and now I’m inspired.

view of the basilica up on the hill

close-up view of the basilica

The church was originally built in the 11th century.  Due to various events including an earthquake in 1456, the church has been reconstructed and renovated various times over the centuries.  Various parts of the church range from the original construction through the 18th century.

main door to the sanctuary

You can see this reconstruction around the exterior of the church with older building blocks being used for the current construction.  In particular, you can see carved stones that have been repurposed for the current structure.

view of the side of the church

building blocks

more building blocks

more building blocks

more building blocks

more building blocks

At some point, the Papacy consecrated this church as a basilica, but I can’t find the actual date in my notes.

In any case, the doors into the church are typically closed since this is a small village and the priest is not in residence; he comes in from another town.  Usually, the doors are only open for mass or a funeral, and it is not appropriate for me to walk in and look at the architecture.

However, today, the doors were still open after Sunday mass, so I walked in to enjoy the architecture.  The more austere exterior hides the more elaborate but still simple interior.

the main nave – no side naves

a view to the side

a view to the side where you can see the windows up above

It’s a beautiful church, and I’m glad I was finally able to go inside.

and just for fun, the Jesus which is hanging on door of our bedroom balcony – since I grew up Protestant, this is a new thing for me

Today is our last full day in Guardialfiera.  I can’t believe we’ve been here for two months already.  There were days when the time dragged with all of the rain.  Apparently this has been the rainiest spring in 100 years.  Last night, on a Saturday, we went to the bar for an after-dinner drink, and we were the only ones there at 9 pm.  The owner closed early when we left.

Luckily, our last day has included pleasant weather.  In fact, everyone is out and about, enjoying the first rain-free day in over a month.  Our bar is usually closed on Sunday mornings, but the owner opened up this morning to take advantage of everyone being outside.  He did a brisk business before stopping for lunch.

We’re spending our last day taking walks around the village and saying goodbye to friends.  We’re packing and cleaning the house and trying to eat up the rest of the groceries in the house.  We’ve gifted our balcony plants to our bar owner, and his wife quizzed us on how to use marjoram because it’s not common in Italian cooking.

We had a big pasta lunch at home, and now we’re just relaxing.  Later this afternoon, we’ll go back to the bar to hang out, have a glass of wine, and say “ciao” to everyone.

Tomorrow we’ll drive to Rome where we have an apartment for four nights.  We’ll return the car, do some sightseeing, and of course, eat.  We fly back to Atlanta on Friday morning, and I’ll probably complete the rest of the blog posts after we get home.

For now I’m just sitting in our bedroom, taking in the view.  Here are views over the valley from the past two months.

a view of the valley from our bedroom

sunrise

dusk

dawn

Storm clouds passing through

another beautiful dawn

moonrise

fluffy clouds

fog over the river

rain clouds over the valley

rainy, foggy day

Finally a pause in the rain and a sunny view from the apartment

nighttime view

It’s been an eventful yet uneventful week here in Italy.  The rain has put a literal and figurative damper on a some of our plans.  It also casts a mental pall over things.  To pass the time, I think I have watched all of Netflix and taken enough naps to last a lifetime.

BUT, we did have some memorable moments this week.  Chad went to a nearby town to visit an olive oil farm while I declined to get in the car again.  (We’ve been doing so much driving.)  He came back with a tray of cookies.  So… cookies for breakfast!

fresh cookies in clockwise direction – delicious, delicious, delicious, delicious, delicious

We also hit up some potato chips, trying a new, limited-edition mustard flavor and going back to an old flavor of roasted pork and rosemary.

mustard-flavored chips

pork-flavored chips

This is what you do when it’s constantly raining – you eat cookies and chips.  And we are going on an all-vegetable diet when we get home.

I noticed a couple of new architectural details in the village.

I like the pattern of the stucco peeling off of the wall (and that black thing is an umbrella stand at our little bar)

and here’s an arched passage next to our house – I like the way the sun comes in to illuminate the entry at the other end – so inviting

The flowers in springtime Italy are still ridiculous ranging from cultivated flowers at houses to wildflowers out in the country.

beautiful roses in our neighbor’s yard

I loved these little blue flowers

plants at our neighbors’ place

And the wildflowers:

flowers obscuring the road sign because flowers are prettier

poppies along the road

a field of flowers

another field – snooze

OMG more flowers – ugh

the world’s most boring view

The photos of the wildflowers are from our drive up into the hills when we absolutely had to get out of the house before we lost our minds.  Here are some views of the trip.  It started as a relatively normal country drive.

doot-doo-doo, just driving

oh there’s a curve – that’s enticing

okay, some flowers – pretty

there’s grass growing in cracks in the road because the road isn’t used that much

hmm, interesting

well, slightly more interesting – I didn’t know that our little French car could off-road

uhhh…drive fast, drive fast!  with all of the rain, Italy is having problems with landslides

but Chad did get to lean out of the car window and pick some wild rapini greens on the way down the mountain

We past a noisy waterfall which was overflowing with all of the recent rain.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wLSGiX5pjy0

And Chad took a video of the drive back down the hill and into the village with a delivery van which was right on our tail.

We’ve been in Guardialfiera for two months, and there have been at least a dozen funerals (that we know about) with eight just in the last three weeks.  While this seems surprising, it’s not really that surprising.

towns in Italy have community boards with announcements about deaths and funeral services

we pass by the funeral home on some of our daily walks which is really just a garage building for the hearse and an adjacent building for the mortician’s office – funeral services are held at one of the churches

Guardialfiera is like a lot of other villages and small towns in Italy.  The older, retired people live here, and most have lived here all of their lives.  And I was quite shocked to learn that some have never left the village.

Of the younger generation, many have moved to bigger cities and just return to spend holidays with parents and other relatives.  There are some younger folks who still live here with their kids – there is an elementary school here, and we see several kids in the streets in the afternoons and evenings.  But the younger folks have to commute to other towns for work.  From here, it is 30 minutes to Termoli and 40 minutes to Campobasso for work.

We walked down to the cemetery one day.  It’s like many other cemeteries we hav visited in Italy with all of the graves in buildings above ground. 

the entrance to the cemetery

some people are buried in family mausoleums

others are buried in above-ground structures

here are a husband and wife buried adjacent to each other – note that the graves always include a photo of the person

the oldest part of the cemetery has low-slung mausoleums

one of the oldest graves has been spruced up with a new plaque and flowers

The cemeteries here are quite beautiful, always located on the outskirts of town.

the view of the cemetery from our apartment

And then today there was a nice surprise with a wedding in the village.  The streets and bars were packed with out-of-town visitors celebrating the wedding. 

photos of the happy couple were taped up around the town

After the ceremony, the cars of the wedding party, family, and friends drove through the town, bedecked in white ribbons, and honking their horns in celebration of the wedding.  

one of the cars of the wedding party decorated in ribbons

our little bar had bunches of rosebuds on all of the tables in celebration of the wedding – this bunch was in a Campari spritz bottle, other bunches were in beer glasses – pretty cute

and the tradition of throwing rice is honored in Italy, with rice trailing down the hill from the main church and up the street to the bars

The wedding was a nice counter-event to the recent funerals in the village.

We took a walk on the hiking trail at Punta Aderci today, a seaside preserve between Termoli and Ortona.  I’ll leave you with some photos.

Chad walking on the trail

another section of the trail

people ride horses on this trail (this photo is for Michele)

a sign showing the way to the beach

we found a trobocco, a traditional fishing pier

a view of the coast

the wildflowers in Italy are crazy in the springtime

and more wildflowers

flowers

wild flowers

wild flowers and native grasses with a view of the sea beyond

me with tall wild flowers behind me

walking back to the car

and a snail because, why not?

We drove a little over an hour to Isernia today.  Here’s why Isernia is on the map.

In 1978, the federal government was cutting up the landscape to build one of many highways through southern Italy.  These highways would make it easier and faster to transport goods and move around the country.  So the government cut through a small hill next to Isernia to create this highway.  An amateur archeological enthusiast was passing through and thought, “Is that a bone protruding through an earthen wall along the highway?”

Flash forward to today.  This is now a major archeological site which has been in development for over 40 years to discover its history.  The craziest thing is that this site indicates human habitation 600,000 to 700,000 years ago, and it is the first known location of human use of fire in Europe.  (This thing about the fire might be a rumor because the official literature did not mention this.)  In any case, it was a very interesting visit.

The main museum contains wonderful exhibits about human physical evolution, social evolution, and transitioning from nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled social units who call a place home.

Specifically for the Iserrnia site, it was interesting to learn that archeological discovery ranged from animal bones to flint and limestone tools.  The animal bones suggest that the humans hunted a variety of large animals and only brought home the body parts that had the most meat.  The bones also suggest that the humans made tools to crack open the bones to eat the marrow which would have been an important part of the nutrition in their genetic development.

In any case, this museum was fascinating with great information on regional history and archeology and discoveries.

a view of the main exhibition hall showing the discoveries of the dig site – the archeology site has found bones from deer, bison, elephant, rhinoceros, boars, bears, lions, leopards, hyenas, and also small creatures such as beavers, ducks, fish, and amphibians

the museum also included a room with a reconstruction of one of the dig sites with original artifacts – scientists think that humans had their own version of a trash dump where they buried the leftover animal bones to deter carnivores from coming around – this is why the number of bones excavated is so dense

The museum also had a pavilion where archeologists are still working, and Chad said, “I can’t believe you can still hear the cars going by.  And all because I guy said – what is that thing sticking out of the dirt?  Is that a bone?”  It was indeed the bone of an animal.

view of the current excavation – the archeologists use these wooden ramps to walk around so they don’t disturb the site

you can see all of the bones that haven’t been excavated yet

and the view of the archeologists’ workstations

After this museum and looking at all of these animal bones, we were, well, hungry.  We found a great restaurant in town for a relaxing meal.

Chad at the restaurant – the wine bottles in the background are actually a wine shop that you walk through in order to enter the restaurant

lunch started with an amuse-bouche of a little fish sandwich – the bread was made with squid ink, and the filling was seared fish with bufalla cream and mint

an appetizer of squid

pasta filled with local cheese and topped with cherry tomatoes and crispy seared guanciale (pig’s cheeks)

the restaurant tables had maps of Italy listing the prominent wines of each region – after dinner, Chad and I played a little game where we tested our knowledge of the names of the regions themselves – this was kind of like trying to name all of the 50 states in the US, except that Italy has just 20

Isernia has been decimated by 8 major earthquakes over the centuries – the last being in 1984 – and the town is mostly rebuilt and relatively new.  We weren’t sure what would be left of the old town.  It was also raining so we decided to just head home rather than walk around and explore.

On the way home to Guardialfiera, we decided to eschew the federal highway that we took into the city and take the longer mountain road home.  To make a long story short, we went up and up on hairpin turns, on roads that were the width of about 1-1/2 cars so it was always an adventure to pass another car coming your way, and you never knew how the condition of the road would treat your car.

We got out of the car to check the depth of this puddle in the middle of the road before continuing with our drive

In the end, the mountain road was worth it because we came upon a field of commercial windmills, and they are unbelievably tall.  They look tall from down below, but when you are actually at the base of these guys, wow!  I’m guessing 10-12 stories tall.

major windmills

So this slow mountain drive up and over and finally down into Guardialfiera was worth the angst and curvy ride of the mountain drive back home.

view from the top of the mountain

And returning to Guardialfiera, we were greeted with warm, semi-sunny weather, which was such a blessing after a week and a half of non-stop clouds and rain. 

Finally a pause in the rain and a sunny view from the apartment

We took a nice long walk around the village.  Then we took some playing cards up to our little bar to have a pre-dinner drink and play our favorite Italian card game of Scopa. 

Then back to the house for a dinner of salad with tuna before retiring for the evening.

Goodnight, Guardialfiera

It’s been a quiet week here.  We made a trip to Termoli to do some paperwork for Chad’s citizenship.  We also went to Campobasso to run some errands and try to ship a package back to the States.  The shipping price was 320 euros, so we said “no thanks” and decided we would just take it on the plane with us as checked luggage.

The weather here has been generally rainy and cloudy and foggy.  That and the language barrier has been putting me in a grumpy mood.  However, here are some random photos from the last few days.

our neighbor’s garage door has a cow head

super fluffy clouds across the valley

Italy has poppies all over the place

sunrise the other morning

this kitty was perched on our neighbor’s chimney – I have no idea how she got up there

we had a mix of typical Puglia dessert cookies in Monte Sant’Agnelo

this was our “drinks with a view” in Vieste where the restaurant owners commandeered the town’s retaining wall and used it as a cocktail table

Chad with his dream car, an Ape – “ape” means “bee” which, if you hear one of this cars, you will understand why it is called a “bee”

a full moon over the sea at Vieste

me on the trail in the Umbra Forest

we saw lots of painting on the walls of houses in Rodi

the craziest fog rolled into the valley a couple of days ago

and the fog tonight is ridiculous

and some wildflowers

It’s been a quiet few days for us with cloudy and rainy weather.  So here are some photos of food.

seafood salad and ceviche

ravioli stuffed with fish and decorated with basil cream – it was so delicious!

a version of gnocchi with prawns

mille feuille for dessert

and a glass of grappa

Chad

this is the Italian version of take-out – green beans, arancini, seafood salad, and a roasted pepper stuffed with polenta and cheese

potato chips with the flavor of roasted pork and rosemary – surprisingly delicious

happy hour view a view in Vieste

lunch in Monte Sant’Angelo

lunch in Monte Sant’Angelo – Chad is having a local beer from Gargano

our lunch appetizer in the Umbra Forest – bread/cheese dumplings, olives, sundried tomatoes

and the second round of appetizers in the forest – meat, cheese, egg frittata, grilled zucchini

and the third round of appetizers in the forest – breaded bell pepper, breaded zucchini

our neighbor dropped by to give us some fresh ricotta from his farm

and our thyme plant is blooming