Food, Assisi and Spello

About the food. This is a country where they have coffee and pastries for breakfast...my kind of place. Or, for the more savoury minded, there is bread and cheese. Also, special note to my daughters, hands are often used as cutlery, so I'm in my element.

Pannetteria's (cake shops) are on (almost) every corner, with mouth watering varieties of cakes and tarts, often combined with Gelatterias/Yoghurterias - gooey mountains of whipped icecream decorated with a slash of sauce and a sprinkle of fresh fruit. Frozen, but not too frozen...maybe a step or two up from snow-freeze consistency. Icecream of such flavoursome intensity - dark chocolate, tiramisu, marscapone, strawberry, raspberry...MELON - that even a none icecream eater such as myself has developed a wee bit of an interest.

If you buy a cake to take away from a panneteria it's quite a production. They circle it in a strip of cardboard, wrap it in waxed paper printed with their name, and then wrap a ribbon around it!
It's all very reasonably priced too, and if you have your coffee standing up at the counter, Italian style, it's only about 80c to E1.

Trains

The trains in Umbria are fantastic. It's really easy to get around, tho' signs are all in Italian so important to know the words for ticket and platform - and also to check the timetables! Between us, me with my phrase books clutched in one hand and my glasses in the other, and Stephen with his interminable maps, we have had no (well, very few) problems. We even managed to book a bus to Sienna for tomorrow AND find out where it left from. You have no idea how much of a thrill this is! It feels like such an achievement.

Assisi

Assisi was 20 mins by train from Perugia, where we are staying. Beautiful, but very touristy I thought. Lots of fantastic churches with beautifuly painted interiors and bronze cast 'stations of the cross'. We got a few nice nik naks and a couple of bottles of local wine, before heading off to.......

Spello

......just another 8 mins on the train, Spello is a much smaller and very pretty town. Unlike the other hill top towns, it's not a huge trek or a bus ride from the train station to the historic centre, only about 500 metres. Tiny streets with flowers everywhere. It also seemed a lot less touristy, but it was raining so maybe that made a difference. However, just the layout and the feel of the place was quite different and when I come back, I'd like to stay there.

Lake Tressimino

After our day of hill top towns yesterday we decided to try something different today and headed off to Lake Tressimino - about 30 mins on these wonderful Umbrian trains.

We got off at Pergianno.
A short walk from the station is the lake front, very lovely, with trees, tables, cafes, gelatterias etc - tho I suspect it may get quite busy later in the season and also suffer from mossies, as I spotted a couple even tho' it wasn't a particularly warm day.

A couple of streets back is the old town, with quite an array of little ristorante and pizzerias. There is camping around the lake too, but of course we hadn't brought the tent! (thank god says karen)

We tried to hire bikes but they had all been rented out already. Instead we decided to get the ferry out to Isolta Maggiore, an island in the middle of the lake. This was stunningly beautiful and completely lacking in shops. I definitely plan to have a few days there next time if poss.

Quite hilarious today - we got asked for directions by two different lots of Italians - once at the ferry and once at the train station! We obviously look like we have a clue, even if in reality we are lurching blindly from one experience to the next.

Off to Sienna on the bus tomorrow - can't wait!!!