April 8 -- rest of the day

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As we drove up into the hills, it was foggier and foggier.  We finally realized that it wasn't fog -- we were in the clouds.  The roads were narrow, and the gravel trucks were plentiful.  We realized why there were so many gravel trucks when we came upon a work crew filling a wide crack in the road with gravel.....

Here is our destination for the night!

Unlike similar-looking stickers in the windows of restaurants in the USA, in Europe these stickers are given by people who really know about food.  If you see a lot of stickers, and there are recent ones, you know this is a notably better than average place to eat.

Isn't this room charming?  All of the art is original.

Live plants, in the basket on the dresser, and that's the heater, in the corner.

Looking out our bedroom window -- there's Ugo, waiting for us.

Bathroom, with window.  That's the shower, nearest the window.

Fancy embroidered linens everywhere.

In the dining room.  Isn't this cozy and wonderful?

Here is our hostess, making focaccia.  This is homemade bread dough. 

She's going to fill it with this fresh cheese (I have, alas, forgotten its name).  It was really good.

She has spooned out the cheese onto the first layer of bread dough, and now is smushing down another layer of dough over the cheese.

Now she's brushing it with a mixture of olive oil, water, and salt.  She will brush this on again during baking.

Back to the fireplace -- cat painted on a rock.

Supper!  Tortelloni in brodo.  This was absolutely delicious.  It was everything the version I had in the restaurant in Bologna wasn't.  The broth had depth, tasting of chicken, but also of aromatics and herbs.  The filling was full of flavor.  Mmmmmm.  The tortellini were homemade.  She showed us the little wooden goblet she uses to cut them.  I wish I had some of this right now..............

We were still in Emilia, the land of Parmigiano Reggiano.  Our hostess asked me why I hadn't put cheese in my soup, and told me it was very good for my health, especially my bones.  I obediently put cheese in my soup.  It was good with cheese, but I'm not sure it was better than without cheese.  YUM.

At right is the focaccia we saw in progress.  It was very good.  As were the other two -- zucchini and I can't remember what, at left, and cabbage and something, in the middle.  All three of these were outstanding.  Mmmm.

There were slices of chicken breast, too, with an interesting condiment, which was tasty, but not photogenic.



Here is dessert.  Pink fluffy fruity cold something, and chocolate something else.  I was so full at this point that it was difficult to give anything the attention it deserved!

We had decided that having caffeine after noon was probably not the best idea, if we wanted to sleep soundly during the night.  Instead of decaf coffee, we were offered spelt "coffee."  The spelt was roasted and ground and steeped.... They told us it was good for the digestion.  It was interesting and different.


We had a lengthy chat with our hosts after dinner.  The husband knew enough English to tell us all the important things -- like don't put *anything* on the heater, as it gets too hot.  His wife is taking English classes and had a bit of English.

I can't remember how we discovered that we all had high-school French.  On average, between the four of us, our French was better than our English, and certainly better than our Italian, as I have basically no Italian at all.  Somehow, between all three languages, we had a varied and interesting conversation.

One of the things we learned was that the cracks in the road are a result of too much rain.  Apparently the Apennines consist of gravel ("not rock, like the Alps"), and that when they get too wet, things slide....  We heard that, in at least one place, the empty space, where the ground washed away under the road, was two meters deep.  We had seen one place where a road was closed, but hadn't understood why.....

It was a very good evening.

We liked our hosts very much, and loved staying with them.


My bed.  What beautiful linens.........

Feather comforters, on top of the beds.

I had the best night's sleep I'd had in a while.  Ahhhhhhhhhh.



In order to facilitate chronological traversal of these posts, here is a link to the next post.

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