Indeed I agree I do thoroughly enjoy life here in Umbria!

A few nights ago I went to eat a pizza at La Molenda, just outside Citta di Castello, along the old road between Citta di Castello and Trestina. A nicely furnished and cozy restaurant/pizzeria. Excellent service and real nice pizza. They even have a artisanal beer list with many beers from Northern Europe made by small breweries. I did not know any of the beers, but then again, I am not an avid beer drinker.

In summer you can sit outside, but do avoid Sunday evenings. I was there one Sunday evening and it was extremely busy.

La Molenda – tel +39075 8555508
Voc. Monini, 10 S.Paterniano – Città di Castello – 06012 (take the old road from Citta di castello to Trestina and you will find it on the left with a big sign, so it will be easy to find).

You sit at long tables, the benches are not exactly comfortable, but this place is certainly not meant to linger. The food is good, service very fast and the prices are low.

The heart of La Stalla is a big fire place where the meat is roasted and the typically Umbrian torta al testo is prepared. No need to say the lively fire gives a wonderful atmosphere, a bit like going back in the ages (at least what one would imagine this to be like).

Walking to Assisi takes about 15 minutes, so it is an ideal place to combine with a visit to Assisi (and who visits Umbria without seeing Assisi?).

You get here by driving to Assisi and keep following for Gualdo. At a certain point there is a sharp curve to the left and on the right you see signs for many things, amongst which a campsite. Take this road to the right and follow up hill. Just before a small arch you will find the signs for La Stalla to the right.

I was told that in summer La Stalla does not have service at the tables. It works more like a permanent ‘sagra’ (village feast) where you take a number, order what you would like to eat and when it is your turn you collect it. Have never been, but maybe this summer I will try and report back!

This foto was made in the Ponte Pattoli post office.

The note says that the clock is about 10 minutes early … extremely funny that clearly nobody knows how to adjust the time.

I did find out that it is strictly forbidden to make pictures in the post office … !

The Guide in Umbria have now started a new promising initiative in Italian. Every third Saturday of the month they will be organising a tour of a lesser known part of Umbria. Yesterday we visited 3 churches in Spoleto (San Salvatore, San Ponziano en San Gregorio). San Salvatore has recently been added to the Unesco sites.

The tour was very well done, 2 hours full of interesting information and beautiful sights in the churches and crypts. The tour guide (Alessia) was very well prepared and knew how to capture our attention with many interesting anecdotes.

I do look forward to the next tour!

Sometimes waking up and getting out of bed early is rewarding!

talians are known for gestures, hand gestures that is. For people who are wise enough to visit Italy whenever the opportunity arises some of these may be familiare.
(some are on the edge, don’t blame us we didn’t draw it).

During Christmas we had a real storm here. Wind traveling at the speed of … ? Anyway, it was too much! In the afternoon I had already seen a tree fall over like a twig, not very promising.

So pour a glass of wine, put some more wood on the fire and hope it will be over soon without any real damage done.

By the way, powercuts are a great way to find out one is out of candles.

Next morning we walked around and luckily did not see any damage, apart from our poly tunnel containing our winter salads … but in the afternoon we meneged to get the plastic back up, so all in all it was not bad!

We passed by a few of the not so delicious facts about chickens like their housing and that most only live for 30 to 35 days (ever eaten anything that young from your garden?) and that basically they are bred not to move since moving costs energy which means they need more food which means the chicken will become more expensive. So the modern chicken does not move even when it has the space to do so. Apart from that, people want chicken breast (and lots of it) so you want chickens with huge breast. Therefore the chickens are very out of balance and can hardly walk.

Speaking of balance … research shows that the nutritional value of these modern fast growing chickens with big breasts is not excellent. They don’t eat anything tasty, they get loaded up on corn (and antibiotics). Apparently the meat contains far less healthy things for us than slow growing chicken.

To cut a long story short … basically the list of problems with modern chickens is endless, very depressing.

The food at Stella however was very good, savory chicken soup, great stewed chicken and my favorite roasted chicken (above wood fire). Now I only must get some (slow growing) chickens someday, if only for the delicious eggs!

Always good to make smalltalk. Besides it being a lovely way to pass some time, one might learn something or, occasionally more interesting, hear the latest gossip. Did you know that the wife of … well you fill in the rest.

While chatting away, a beautiful butterfly gracefully floated by. Nice but unfortunately that one is heading straight for my cabbages I remarked. Why is that bad my interlocutor asked? Caterpillars of course I said! He looked at me as if I he had just seen me come down from the moon. Caterpillars are bad he said, butterflies are good! I was puzzled. But caterpillars are baby butterflies I uttered. No, no he said they are different they have nothing in common!

Fortunately a lady had overheard the conversation and explained that indeed caterpillars are basically baby butterflies.

This short story demonstrates how difficult it is to gauge the local level of knowledge on basically anything. There still is a generation who hardly have had any education and what they know comes from experience, friends, the family and naturalmente the TV.

This man does learn fast though, for weeks I have been hearing how next summer all butterflies will be shot right out of the air to protect the cabbages in his vegetable garden!