Gioiella, Umbria - Sightseeing

Our host Jan returned from her visit to the UK late Sunday to find her transformed living quarters. She seemed to very much like Deborah's rebuilt drapes, the newly painted furniture pieces, the reorganized kitchen and desk area, the kitchen cabinet repair, the new furniture placement, and all the other redecorated/reorganized bits of domestic improvement we managed to accomplish. Or if not, she faked it well. But we think she was genuinely pleased and grateful for all our hard work.

To show her appreciation she took us sightseeing both Monday and Tuesday, both of which proved to be sunny if cold days. Monday we visited Corciano, a beautiful and tidy medieval town famous for its Presepe, or nativity scene, which includes dozens of life-size mannequins spread across several streets. Everyone from the wise men to the blacksmith to the candle maker to the sheep were represented. Then it was off to Assisi where St. Francis made a name for himself before apparently selling licensing rights to hundreds of tacky souvenir shops.

Tuesday we visited Cortona, the town made famous by Francis Mayes in “Under the Tuscan Sun”, although it irritates Jan that the movie version strayed so far from the book. She pointed out where the movie makers added a fake fountain since Cortona doesn't actually have one. We also visited the Tuscan hill towns of Montepulciano and Pienza before stopping at some ancient geothermal baths (just for a look, not a dip). Jan also seemed to know all the best places for breakfast, lunch, and coffee to keep us energized.

Some of Deborah's handiwork: painted hutch, display



Drapes by Deborah, new seating area by the fire


New furniture layout for living area


Life-Size Presepe in Corciana


Jan and Deborah with one of the bit players


Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi


Assisi


This is St. Francis' original chapel which now stands in the middle of a much larger church which was built around it.


You want cream with your coffee? This is how you get it in Italy, at least when gay guys own the establishment.


Brama Sole from "Under the Tuscan Sun"


Cortona


Cortona


Deborah and Jan make their way to Jan's favorite restaurant in Pienza



Deborah apologizes if you are tired of seeing her in this hat, but it's COLD!

Gioiella, Umbria - Buon Natale

Christmas is a special time. A time to install curtain rods, clean up chicken poop, hang pictures, chase tripped circuit breakers, walk the dogs, and clean out clogged kitchen drains. At least that's what I like to do. Deborah prefers to reconstruct drapes, rearrange furniture, and perform her impressive dance of domestic multitasking. Actually we did do some more traditional holiday merrymaking as well. No turkey today, but Deborah cooked up a delicious Tuscan salmon left for us by Jan. The fish came from Alaska, oddly enough. Yesterday for Christmas Eve dinner Deborah made salads using lobster from Canada.

Jan also very thoughtfully left presents for us under the tree, including a bottle of wine, a Casa Julian B&B calendar, and a couple boxes of sweets. The animals all got various toys and treats also – well, not the chickens. Jan has two dogs: Champ, the elderly, very mellow lab, and Luna, the younger, more energetic collie/lab mix. Jan also has four cats. Ginger is the boss cat, who rules the house despite having only three legs. Tigre is smokey gray male and has an independent streak, tending to spend more time than the others outdoors. Cleo is a bit shy and skittish, but never wants you stop petting her once you start. Lea (as in Princess) is the mischievous kitten who is also very affectionate. The cats make excellent lap warmers on cold nights.

Luna has developed some sore on her left hindquarters which, after consultation with Jan via telephone, we are cleaning regularly and treating with a spray. Last night we also started to give her antibiotics. She wasn't too keen on swallowing the pill, even when mixed with food, so we crushed the pill up and mixed it with yogurt, then smeared it on her snout, essentially forcing her to ingest the medicine when she licked her face clean.

And then there are the chickens – five of them. Every morning I let them out of their coop, collect any eggs, toss some feed onto the ground, shovel out their excrement from the coop, and add new straw if necessary. We have been averaging just one egg every two days. There are a couple of roosters in the group, but that is still rather pitiful egg production from my point of view. At dusk the chickens all make their way back to the shelter of the coop and I tramp back through the mud to close the coop door. This experience has led me to the unremarkable conclusion that I do not want to be a farmer.

Buon Natale (Merry Christmas)

Champ likes the look of his Christmas present


An under-the-weather Luna is somewhat less excited


Ginger and Lea cuddling


Lea (aka Baby Kitty)


Tigre


Cleo


Three-legged Ginger shows she only needs two to beg


The chickens: they produce more poop than eggs


"Do you know what I'm going to do when you finish cleaning that?"

Gioiella, Umbria - Work, Work, Work

While planning for this year's trip we discovered that house sitting assignments are hard to come by in Europe. The opportunities are out there but when you respond to an advertisement the homeowners reply that they have been inundated with responses from prospective sitters. Everyone wants to go to Europe. So in the face of this fierce competition it can be hard to land a choice assignment. At one point we had a five-week house sit in the Costa del Sol in Spain lined up, but the homeowners had some undisclosed personal situation come up that forced them to cancel on us. We are still trying to fill that hole in our schedule. Hopefully something will turn up by February.

To offset the dearth of house sitting assignments and still keep this trip affordable we are trying something new this year called “help exchange” that our friends Mark and Sandy told us about. Help Exchange (HelpX) differs from house sitting in that instead of having the homeowners leave while you look after their home and pets, the homeowners instead stay and you work with them (remodeling, painting walls, gardening, whatever) for 4 or 5 hours a day five days a week in exchange for room and board. The rest of your time you are free to do as you wish. The downside relative to house sitting is that the duties may be considerably more extensive than feeding the cat and walking the dog, but the upside is that you get fed by your hosts so your grocery bills go way down. It also gives you the chance to really meet and learn from others living in distant lands.

Given that the web site we use to find these opportunities (www.helpx.net) is an English language site, most of the HelpX hosts are American, UK or other typically multilingual Northern Europeans who are living abroad. Spain and France have the most HelpX hosts in Europe, but most countries have at least a few opportunities.

Our current situation with Jan is actually a hybrid house sitting/helpx, which offers either the best of both worlds or (more likely) the worst. She advertised on the HelpX web site, but mentioned that she was also looking for house sitters over the Christmas period when she planned to visit her daughter in the UK. We agreed to cover the house sit period of about a week and also stay an extra week or so to help out with various tasks around the house in exchange for room and board. We were originally going to rent a car for the week that Jan is gone to allow us to sightsee more effectively, but changed our mind since the weather wasn't looking too promising, we didn't really want to spend the money, and we felt we could use a low-key break anyway. Of course, since we are stuck at the house without a car while Jan is away, we ended up working on what should have just been house-sitting days. And in Deborah's case that has meant long hours. Deborah has it in her head to finish certain projects she discussed with Jan no matter what. She is lengthening and lining some drapes by piecing together existing fragments, painting furniture, reorganizing Jan's kitchen, rearranging the furniture, and of course still managing to fulfill her usual exemplary cleaning/cooking/pet-care domestic goddess function. My work hours and tasks have been more modest, including hanging curtain rods, fixing some kitchen cabinets, hanging a few things on the wall, walking the dogs, feeding the chickens (!), hauling wood and bags of pellets, building fires, etc.

Jan has promised to take us sightseeing on her return and I'm sure we'll be ready for it by then, weather permitting. I am happy to report though that the temperatures here have soared into the 50s F so it's feeling quite balmy now, and we are down to just two or three layers of clothing in the house. And I don't have so many fires to keep going. Luxury!

View across Jan's olive grove (note the little chicken house)



Another view toward the lake




Lea (aka Baby Kitty) helps with the blog

Gioiella, Umbria - Baby It's Cold Outside (And Inside)

I'm sure the idyllic vision most of us have of Italy – one of sun-splashed vinyards, rolling green hills, and cicadas humming in the heat – exists in the warmer months. But not in December. It's freakin' cold here. Although the temperatures have moderated somewhat the last couple of days, it's been below freezing a good part of our time here. And after having skipped the last couple of winters by skipping off to Australia and Fiji, this is a particular shock to our systems.

The worst part, however, is that it's not much warmer in the house. Jan, our first host for whom we are housesitting while she visits her daughter in the UK, has gas-fired central heating in Casa Julian, her B&B here in Umbria near the border with Tuscany. But she hardly uses it because of the great expense. (Blame for the cost of gas, depending on who you ask, lies with either price fixing on the part of the Italian distributors, or with the French, who overcharge their resource-deprived neighbors). So we spend a good part of our time here feeding a pellet stove, a wood stove, and a wood-burning fireplace; often all three at once. This is a real test of my fire-making skills which, frankly, are lacking. Sometimes even with all the fires burning it's still cold enough in the house to require long johns and several layers of clothing. You know it's bad when you can see your breath inside the house. And the cold air is making my nose run constantly. Our saving grace in the battle with the cold has been an electric mattress warmer lent to us by a friend and neighbor of Jan's. Jumping into the preheated bed from the frozen floor tiles never fails to illicit grateful sighs of pleasure.

When not bitching about the weather I try to appreciate that this really is a beautiful house in a beautiful area. The house is basically three storeys, with the main floor and its three bedrooms and one bath above (plus a second half bath up a short stairway), the two 2-bedroom apartments at mid-level, and a garage (and possible future third apartment) below. There are lots of nice details including the stone exterior, wood windows, arched doorways, marble tile floors, and a number of different terraces. There's also a nice swimming pool, which is unlikely to receive much use this month given that earlier in the week it was iced over.

This is a rural area with open fields, orchards, and vineyards covering the rolling countryside. Picturesque stone houses dot the landscape. There isn't much traffic on the road running in front of the house. The road leads to small villages located about 1 or 2 km in either direction. The nearest large town is about 8 km (5 mi) away, as is Lake Trasimeno. We're about 1-1/4 hours west of Assisi, about the same east of Sienna, and about 2 hours north of Rome.

Although she is now in the UK visiting her daughter, Jan was here with us our first few days and, given that we are without a car, was kind enough to pick us up at the train station, drive us to the grocery store, and even take us to a concert by an impressive gospel group comprised of Americans living in Italy. (Nothing like traveling all the way to Italy to hear black spirituals from the deep south.) Jan also cooked some fabulous meals while she was here and enlightened us about the ins and outs running a B&B and the expat life in general. So now we are on our own looking after house and pets (more on them later) and of course, trying to stay warm.

Casa Julian







The pool (photo from www.casa-julian.com)


view of surrounding landscape


The neighbors

Rome

Rome is only a 2-1/2 hour flight from Madrid but with airport transfers, early check-in, etc. it still took pretty much the whole day to get there. The final walk to our Rome hotel was made even longer when I took us on a confused detour after our last bus dropped us off at an unfamiliar side of the train station after dark. So our suitcases got rolled over a few extra blocks of narrow cobblestone sidewalks, but eventually I got my bearings and we found our way to our hotel. Our room was no bigger than a walk-in closet, but it was efficiently laid out and suited our needs just fine.

The following day was our only full one in Rome and we spent it just walking around. We had been to Rome before and seen most of the big sights, so this time we kept it to a low key stroll. And walking, provided you can avoid being run over by insane Italian drivers, is the best way to experience the city. There is always another baroque fountain, gothic church, or Roman ruin around the next corner. It was mostly sunny for our stroll, but cold. One doesn't normally associate Rome with hat and glove winter weather but that was definitely our experience here in December. The cold weather did not, however, stop Deborah from requiring gelato. Twice.

Another beautiful church


_
_
...and this one mixes modern art in with the old frescoes.


_
_


_
_
At the Spanish Steps.


_
_
Interesting reflected light pattern on an old ruin.


_
_
Piazza de Popolo


_
_
Fortunately, the Italians are not large people.


_
_
Piazza Navona

_

Madrid - The Arts

Madrid is home to some amazing art museums. We visited two. First was the Reina Sofia, which features modern art including Picaso's famous Guernica painting and some fine pieces by Salvadore Dali (both artists were Spanish, of course). Our second visit was to the Prado, which many consider the greatest museum of paintings in the world. Deborah was quite patient as I stood for long moments staring at 500 year old paintings, especially Hieronymus Bosh's “Garden of Earthly Delights,” possibly my favorite painting.

In the matter of less serious art, we've also seen some pretty inventive street performers in Madrid, beyond the usual lot who paint themselves from head to toe in silver or gold and stand perfectly still until someone drops a coin into their upturned hat. There was a version of the creature from the Alien films. There was The Invisible Man who used some sort of undetectable wire frame to support his hat and glasses and nothing else above his collar. There was the Falling Over Guy who had some sort of very strong support hidden under his clothes to allow him to maintain a constant state of nearly horizontal posture as if he were tumbling to the pavement. And there was the paunchy Spiderman, who had no particular talent apart from looking like a middle-aged version of the superhero who had long since stopped scaling the exterior of buildings in favor of taking the elevator.

We also took a walking tour of central Madrid. While it was somewhat informative it was also disappointing as much of what was pointed out to us was no longer there. The guide had a strange interest in identifying for us the locations where such-and-such building was burned down or so-and-so cathedral was destroyed. It was almost like a ghost tour for buildings.

Update on the missing baby Jesus in the nativity scenes: My sister Lisa cleverly asks if there is a sign nearby asking “Have you found Jesus?” Also, if the wee messiah is not to make his appearance until December 25^th, then Deborah asks why until that time the figure of Mary doesn't have a pregnant belly? It's a good point.

More elegant architecture





Potato chip vendor


Alien vs. Deborah


The bubble man


The Falling Down Guy


Spiderman has developed an addiction to Churros Con Chocolate

Arrival in Madrid

Madrid is Spain's capitol and largest city, with a population of over 3 million in the city proper and 6.5 million across the metropolitan area. It seems a good portion of those are always out walking in street as it is a very pedestrian-friendly city, with numerous plazas and pedestrian-only zones. After arriving by train and checking into our hotel we joined the masses for a Sunday stroll admiring the historical architecture and the big city vibe. We also checked out the Rastro, the largest flea market in Europe, which takes place every Sunday and covers many, many blocks. After dark we went walking again and, despite the chilly air, found just as many people out, plus all the Christmas decorations lit up. The Christmas lights were very artfully done and quite creative, not a tacky inflatable Santa in sight.

Nativity scenes must be as popular here as they were in Toledo though. We see booths set up in all the big plazas selling decorations, moss, tiny cottages, and little figurines of bearded men in robes. By the way, our friends Gordon and Antonio in Mexico, as well as Deborah's sister Suzie have informed us that it is tradition that the baby Jesus not be placed in the display until Christmas Day. His fashionably late appearance makes sense, I suppose, since he is not supposed to have been born yet. So call off the search party; I stand corrected.

Madrid's Atocha Train Station has a tropical garden smack dab in the middle of it. How cool is that?


Deborah with her easily identified luggage.




Christmas decorations for sale in the huge Plaza Mayor



The Rastro flea market. Check out the antique cash register.




Unique Christmas tree made of lights on a lattice shell.


Inside the tree.


Cathedral next to the Royal Palace.


Plaza Mayor at night.


Big department store down the street from our hotel.