Tuesday, April 09, 2013

April 9 -- early afternoon

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We stopped to pick up some comestibles.  This is the only time we had a car when we went to a grocery.   Luckily there was plenty of room in the parking lot, so getting Ugo situated was not a problem.  You can see we parked at the back of the lot, away from the store, where we could be close to the parking-spot lines without bothering anyone else.

The grocery is in the building at right center.



Turning 180 from the previous -- the river is on the other side of the wall.  It wasn't picturesque.  A wide expanse of gray gravel, with small widths of gray river.

In some places the gravel had been piled up.  Thinking about it now, I'm guessing that they take the gravel from the riverbed, load it into trucks, and haul it back to the top of the mountains, to replace gravel that has washed away during heavy rains.  A Sisyphean task!



A closer look at the hill on the other side of the river.



An even closer look.



We got yogurt, bread, an apple, and some squacquerone cheese in the grocery.  (Remember hearing about my daughter's squacquerone, and arugula piadina, our last night in Bologna?)

We are now ready to head on down the road.



Crossing the river.  You can see how wide this riverbed is!



Looking over the railing at the riverbed.  Thinking about how much rain they had this spring, and looking at how low the water level is, and imagining how much rain they'd have to have for this riverbed to be covered in water......



In the USA, I would assume anything this even, and this green, at this time of year, was winter wheat.  We were told there was winter wheat in Italy, too, so if I had to guess, that's how I'd identify this uniform, rural, spring green.



A new-looking country church.



Country roads are narrow, and usually lack shoulders.



Erosion, behind the green.



Serious erosion!  These hills are clearly "made of gravel, not rock, like the Alps!"



Grapevines, running up and down the hill.



Approaching a town.



Lines of sycamores.



Flowering trees.



Lines of non-sycamores.



Approaching another town.



The landscape is flatter, here.



Grapevines, and we believe the yellow is fennel.  Someone here in Ann Arbor told us that the way grapevines are planted shows whether they were planted for wine, or for vinegar.  He wasn't sure which was which.

See that the ones in the background are parallel to the slope of the hill, and most of the ones in front are perpendicular?  One way makes for dryer grapes, and the other, for damper ones, which affects the amount of sugar in the grapes.....

Thinking about this ... a household will drink gallons and gallons of wine, and will consume much (much) less vinegar.  Noticing that there are some vines in the very front (right) which are parallel........  Going strictly by the volume of planting I see in the front of this one pic, I would guess that the parallel vines are for wine, and the perpendicular ones are for vinegar.......



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

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