Saturday Photohunt: Clean

This week's photohunt theme is CLEAN...but I have missed the past month, so will do a catch up post to get back on track! :)

Magical

There is something very magical about fire...I am enthralled and enchanted by it. My daughter jokes that I am a pyromaniac! But I don't love destructive fires, I just love watching the flames in our firepit at the camper. It provides hours of entertainment...doesn't take much to amuse me!

 

Creative

 One of my favourite bands is The Message, who create the most gorgeous contemporary Christian music. Here they are sharing one of their songs during worship time at the United Church of Canada Maritime Conference's annual general meeting last weekend. Love, love them!!

Taste

When in Cetona (Southern Tuscany)...do stop by Cantina La Frasca for a taste of the many delicious products from their farm. Wine, cheese, cured meats, bread, honey, other condiments. Sample to your heart's content and then buy whatever suits your fancy! The shop is just up the hill from Piazza Garibaldi.

Clean

Does anything beat the fresh clean scent of the air just after it rains? This was our view every day when we spent two weeks in Cetona. And every day was a wonderful new surprise. We didn't get much rain, but this one day it rained briefly and I loved the smell of the air, and the look of the wet stone and the misty landscape beyond...sheer bliss!!

As a bonus photo for this week's theme...the streets of Cetona were so clean!! I loved it there! I want to be there right now! Did I mention I loved it there?!? lol







Check out Sandi's Saturday Photohunt page for more good CLEAN fun!!

Saturday photohunt: Fluffy

The Saturday Photohunt this week is FLUFFY.  Now I could post pics of my uber-fluffy big boy cat Winston...or I could post pics of some fluffy reading material (for which I am kind of thirsting, I must admit, since all I have read in months are textbooks!)

But instead I have decided to post some fluffy flora photos...

Azaleas in Halifax's Public Gardens

Fluffy trees and field near Cetona (sigh...Tuscany...)

Blossoms on a tree in the south end (aka home of the rich and famous, relatively speaking) of Halifax

Look! Fluffy trees! This is a spot in Umbria, somewhere between Montegabbione and Montegiove, that felt like an enchanted forest to Mom and I.

My mom's spectacular rhododendron bush

More plants in the Public Gardens. I really love the texture and shades of this plant...if anyone knows what it is, please share your knowledge by leaving a comment - thanks!

Pop on over to the Saturday Photohunt page

and see what other fluffy photos you can uncover!

Photohunt: Bliss

Time for another Saturday photohunt!

The theme this time around is Bliss. I have several photos in my collection that reflect moments of bliss, but this one really captures my heart. It is my mother enjoying her morning beverages on the terrace of "our" house in Cetona (the house we rented for our home base in Tuscany last August. We hope to return to this wonderful house and town, and highly recommend it to others. Details in the owner's Homelidays listing # 302226 .)

Mom loved her mornings on the terrace, soaking in the morning sun, gazing over the stunning view of Monte Cetona and across the valley to Citta delle Pieve in Umbria, and the wonderful landscape in between. She would exchange greetings with our neighbours as they went about their morning routines. I snapped this photo from the little balcony off my upstairs room.

We are both so glad that I discovered the SlowTravel website and philosophy a few years ago. Instead of moving all over the place trying to see everything on one trip, the slow travel philosophy is to experience one area deeply. To linger in one place and let the wonder and beauty of the land shimmer before your eyes...to let the people, the culture, the history flow into your soul...is an experience that changes you. It is profoundly rejuvenating to let yourself follow the local rhythm, get to know your neighbours, find amazing hidden corners you would otherwise miss.

Click on over to the Saturday photohunt website and check out more blissful photos!

Photohunt: Circular

This week's photohunt theme is circular.

When mom and I stayed in Cetona (in southern Tuscany) last August, we came across this content little (or rather not so little!) kitty curled up in a basket that was tucked inside a doorway off Piazza Garibaldi. There were lots of cats in Cetona, many were wild...sort of. Francesco (one of the owners of the house we rented) would wander down to a particular spot each day by the old town wall and set out food. One of the cats even wandered into our house from time to time! I'll post a few more Cetona cat pics later :)

Cena in Piazza (dinner in the square)

Associazione Corsa della Brocche Cetona hosted a big supper in Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi last Saturday night. with the following menu (with apologies for my spelling!):

Antipasto del Viandante

Zuppa del Priore

Umbrichelli di Braccio da Montone

Filleto di Porco con Verdure

Dolci

25 euro pp

Not to mention unlimited red table wine and water (sparkling or still)!  For those (like me) whose Italian is near non-existent, the meal consisted of:

Appetizer plate of crostini (little toasted bread slices) - one with a kind of liverwurst, one with cooked cabbage, one with just olive oil, salt and garlic (that was my fave - YUM!!), plus a scoop of cold chick pea salad.

Soup, a really thick soup named for the Bishop (Priore) of Toscana, and made of faro, beans, dried porcini mushrooms, seasonings.

Pasta with a white meat sauce...I found out that montone translates as ram, so not sure if that means the meat was ram, or if this is just a special dish originating in Montone!  Either way it was very delicious and intensely flavoured!

Pork slices with cooked greens on the side. The pork was very tender and had a divine sauce poured over it.

Dessert was a plate of grapes with toffee drizzled over them and a sweet roll same shape as our doughnuts, but more of a bread consistency.

By the time we got to dessert, I was basically bursting at the seams.  Mom and I walked back to our house, and I popped on facebook for a few minutes to say goodnight to Dave and the girls and tell them that I ate myself into a coma and had to go sleep it off!

What a fabulous evening!!  We also enjoyed a pageant of people in medieval costume, who sat at the head table, and also made the rounds at the tables, stopping to talk with the diners throughout the evening.  And the festivities were topped off by fire breathing entertainers, also dressed in medieval costume.  Seated around us at our section of the table, were folks from Cetona, a couple from France who had recently bought a new build house just outside the town walls (her father had lived about 5km from Cetona, and had turned the family home into an agriturismo, so she has been visiting the area for years and decided it was time to have a place of her own), and a family from Holland who also own a house close by and come here as often as possible, this was their 4th time of attending the Cena in Piazza.

I took what photos I could, but only had my cell phone and it doesn't do well in the absence of light...but I think these will give a sense of the evening...

Tuscany before it was "Tuscany"

Aside from simply wandering around, exploring the nooks and crannies of Cetona streets...we also visited the Civic Museum, conveniently located a few minutes from our house.  Here we toured exhibits of neolithicm, bronze age, and Etruscan artifacts.  We didn't learn a huge amount because the commentaries were all Italian only!  But we gleaned what we could, and enjoyed looking at everything.  Lots of artifacts from periods prior to the Etruscan period...I wonder what, if anything, the land was called before it was named after the Etruscans!

This is venere di Savignano...appeared to be an ancient fertility statue

Bowls from the neolithic period, 4000ish years ago.  What really struck me was the decoration...I just hadn't thought of prehistoric people as being that refined.  Cavedwellers...not just hairy men with clubs after all! lol

This is a pot called a bollitoio per h. latte which was used to boil milk to kill harmful bacteria when making cheese. The triangular piece is full of holes, and goes on top.  The milk is poured into the jug, the jug is heated, and the boiling milk flows through the porous part.  Again, I am entirely surprised that prehistoric people were so advanced!

After our visit to the museum, we had lunch and then drove over to the Belverde archaeological site.  We had a guided tour, along with a few other people.  The tour was in Italian (the guide also spoke French, but no English!)  But they gave us a leaflet with all the basic information in English, so we were able to follow along nicely.  This is the stone age hut.  These people used looms to weave cloth, and forges for metallurgy, etc.  Clearly I did not pay enough attention in history class, as this level of advancement just kept on astonishing me the whole day!

Down into the grotto we went.  This was a cave, thought to have been an actual dwelling place.  The settlement was recreated, complete with the firepit at the entrance to keep out animals, to the place for the dead to be laid to rest at the back of the cave.  I took a photo down inside, but it came out too blurry to post, so I'll just post this one of the stairs down into the grotto.

The walk through the park to the specific points of interest was just lovely!  This was a great place to be on a hot summer day - the temp was around 30c today, although truly didn't feel that hot in Cetona, presumably because of the elevation plus all the tall stone buildings provide lots of shade.  I also had lots of fun driving up and down the mountains!  Have I mentioned that I want me one o' these excellent little Fiat 500s??  Really takes those hairpin corners well!

A morning of wandering around Cetona...

Mom wanted to explore Cetona today, which suited me just fine!  We walked around the town, climbing up and circling round the castle at the top of the hill, although unable to go inside as it is now privately owned.  This is the castle seen from the street below:

The chimneys are really interesting here, especially this twisty one:

The next two pics are of a super cute kitty with a full belly (or so we gathered from the nearby pile of feathers), just rolling around and playing in the sun:

This is a view from the Belverde*, which runs just below the Rocca (the name of the castle):

(*not to be confused with Belverde archaeological site, a couple miles from Cetona, which we also visited today.

Here I am gazing out over the gorgeous rooftops, admiring the view:

A shrine up in the walls of the castle:

I got Mom to snap a pic of me standing in a doorway in the castle wall:

Love these rooftops!  The open space on the left is one end of Piazza Garibaldi:

One of the side streets we walked up, for no particular reason other than it appealed to us:

Mom on one of the streets up around the castle:

These cute little lizards are all over the place here, including some that live in the vines on the wall of our terrace:

This is Cantina La Frasca, where we get our wine and cheese and spiced meats.  Thanks to Alessandra and Francesco introducing us to the owner, we are able to enjoy the local option of returning our empty flask as often as we like to be refilled with farm wine (for 2.50 euro), rather than having to buy bottled wine.  (No doubt I have already mentioned this, but I just can't get over paying a mere 2.50 euro for a really drinkable table wine!)

Osteria Vecchio, where we stopped for lunch today.  I had tagliatelle nonna (translated on the menu as "handcut noodles by grandma"), mom had ravioli with ricotta and spinach, and we shared a piece of chocolate torte and a piece of warm pear and apple pie.  All very tasty, bill was 42 euro, including a small bottle of house wine, a bottle of sparkling water, and an espresso each.

The little yellow sign down to the left of the tower is the entrance to Il Merlo, where I had such tasty steak strips the other night (can't recall if posted a pic here, or just on facebook?)

The lantern outside our tower, above our door.  The flag is that of our contrade - Porte Lateri - which won the recent Cetona palio, held the day we arrived, although all we saw of it was a few people walking around in period costume.

Vicolo del Sole...the street below us, which I have yet to wander down...one of these days!