Day Five in the morning of my Excellent Italian Adventure

Oh my goodness, it is a good thing I have woken up early so I have time to sort through the 128 photos from yesterday. We went to the hilltop town of La Morra and explored the old part of town set within the fortress wall.

 The colors, fabric and texture of the town were almost delicious. La Morra is not a large town - I easily walked it taking photos in the morning - but it is somewhat dominated by three churches although clearly only one remains in use. The bell tower in the background is from the Saint Sebastian church which was built in 1700 - 1708.

 Here is the church in present day use, the baroque parish church of Saint Martin. The building was begun in 1684 but as you might imagine took many years to complete.

 As usual, the glory is on the inside and above we see the view of the choir located above the entrance doors.

 View towards the altar.

 This was what I deemed to be the prettiest building in the old town. I believe it to be the priests residence as it seems to be part of the church building. In the lower of the two photos above you can see that it is right on the edge of the city atop the fortified wall.

 A number of buildings in the old town had areas like this where it appears they want to show you what the earlier construction was like.

 The streets are very narrow and there is practically no place to park. This entrance door showed nameplates for doctors offices (in this case, Obstetrician and Gynecologist) and I really wondered how the patient gets to the doctor office.

 This fellow and I seemed to be following the same route - we progressed at the same rate despite the fact that he had a car. But he was the mailman (not in any apparent uniform) and he stopped at almost every house. Sometimes the mail went in the letterbox and sometimes it just seemed to be left on the windowsill. I thought it looked like it would have been much easier for him to walk this route!

Cats are very popular pets in this part of Italy. Clearly a cat lover lives here because not only was there this pair on the side gate posts but a larger pair preened on the front gate posts.

There will be more in a following post about the afternoon activities.

Day Four of my Excellent Italian Adventure

It becomes harder each day to try and narrow down the photograph selection and I have been wondering about making posts about specific topics.  But while I'm wondering let me see what I can find to tell you about day four.

 Here is the "streetside" view of the farmhouse where we are located.

 Breakfast starts the day. On this day there was a new pastry to try - it is on the right but we can't think of the name of it.

 We went back into Treiso for another day of painting. This time the sun was not so bright and I was able to photograph the Town Hall which also looks on to the town "square". This was a popular location for the artists to set up their easels.

 The people around here sure do love their flowers. Those blooms on the right are enormous and eyecatching as you drive by. And I'll remember the name of them soon surely!

 Even the roadsides are very pretty with wildflowers/weeds. These (in the foreground) look just like sweetpeas.

 The price of agricultural land is very high (around $1M I am told) so every piece must be planted in a crop that can be sold and around here that is grapevines. But they still take a little space to plant some flowers like this short row of gladiolus in front of the vines.

 More pretty weeds. I walked along this road for ninety minutes or so and was constantly exclaiming to myself about the flowering weeds - or shall we call them wildflowers?

The topography is not one I have seen before and there are many of these conical hills. On top of this one is a very highly regarded winery.

 Another spot that was popular with the artists was this Osteria. Wouldn't it be a pretty spot to sit and linger over a cool drink?

We had lunch at Profumo di Vino. The first course was an amazing fresh tuna and eggplant cake and we were all so entranced by the beautiful presentation of it that I forgot to photograph it but here is the tagliatelle with ragu sauce main course. Dessert was a very refreshing quartet of different flavored iced lollipops; our favorite was the first one which was sage and lemon. After lunch we were treated to a demonstration of how they make the pasta.

And as usual, the day finished with this glorious view back at the vineyard.

Day Three of my Excellent Italian Adventure

This day was spent in the picturesque hill town of Treiso.  The heart of the town is focused around the church, the school, the town hall and restaurants.

I'm not sure if they call it the Town Square but here it is. The barrels of red geraniums are in front of the church. The big main building you can see is the elementary school and to the right is a restaurant, Profumo di Vino, the destination for lunch on day four.

Behind the church is this two star Michelin restaurant, named La Ciau del Tornavento. It is located in a smartly renovated building that used to house the town daycare center run by the nuns from the church.

One of the artists set up her easel to capture the scene outside the Lodali Cantina (the winery right here in the town).

The focal point of the town is the Maria Vergine Assunte church, an early country chapel.

Inside there are amazing canvases and statues created in the later 1700's. Frescoes with scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary were created by the Toscano brothers in the late 1800's.

They say the cemetery is always located in the part of town with the best views. That's the cemetery on the right - but with the high walls and that row of trees right behind it you really can't see the view from inside.

Here is one place where the view of the church bell tower can be seen.

Had I been setting up an easel I would have chosen this smartly colored house with  the cornflower blue shutters. All these shutters you see are functional and are kept closed to keep the hot sun out.

I did a lot of walking and found this spot to take a panoramic view of Treiso and the surrounding vineyards.

Day Two of my Excellent Italian Adventure

I have so many photos taken already it is difficult to narrow it down to just a few to show you. But let's take a look at these ones.

 In the morning I was delighted to be able to ride along with Manu and Randy into Turino (Turin) where Manu had a business appointment at an old monastery. This property has been the home of the Brotherhood of the Sacred Family since the late 1600's. Named Villa Brea it was once the property of the wealthy Brea family, then the Jesuits who sold it to the current Brotherhood more than 300 years ago. The chapel can be seen above.

 The Brothers have a large property (11 acres) and still maintain a good sized garden including this very long grape arbor.

The rain spouts over the front entrance fascinated me.

 Back at the vineyard the artists were hard at work. I'm thinking they have just as much difficulty trying to choose what to paint as I do in choosing what to photograph, but Jill started a small piece including the sunflowers which had been purchased in the market on Saturday.

 As the dinner hour was approaching it was clear a storm was also. Just look at that sky in the west.

 And these fast developing clouds that captured our attention in the east. If you click on this photo to see it larger you might notice a treed area in among the grapevines. Those are hazelnut trees which is another product of this region. The spread Nutella began and is still headquartered here. Our cookie platter at dessert featured some divine hazelnut cookies sandwiched together with Nutella.

 We had plenty to divert our attention from the approaching storm. Aren't those sunflowers glorious? Look at that bloom on the lower left.

 As we ate our dinner the storm blew by with just a very small amount of rainfall right here at the vineyard. However it was like eating dinner accompanied by the 1812 Overture what with the thunder, lightening and the cannons going off. Cannons you ask?  Yes, the threat of hail is enough to make the agricultural cannons fire off - they change the atmosphere somewhat to take away the potential for hail which would do very bad damage to the grapevines. After the storm the sky looked pretty again and the lights coming on all over the area made for a special evening.

It was a very long and fun evening meal. We were treated to a salad/appetizers buffet followed by a delicious lasagne al forno con carne. Dessert was a local specialty, bunet, which is made from hazelnuts, amaretto and cocoa. The cookie platter was in there somewhere!

I see lots of speed walking in my future when I get home to overcome all these incredibly tasty meals.

My Excellent Italian Adventure - day one

I have whisked myself away to another location for a week and want to let you share in a view of my experiences.

The village of Treiso in the Piemonte area of NW Italy is my location and I am with a small group of artists who have come on a one week painting workshop. We are located on a small vineyard and the scenery is just glorious.

 Will I need to add words? This is the view I see out my bedroom window.

 For day one we had a painting demo by the leader of the workshop, my friend Jill Banks.

 We watched while she painted and talked. But as by this time I had been awake about 30 hours I did need to keep standing up and wandering about to stop myself from nodding off.

Oh, perhaps I should add at this point, I am not here to paint, no, I am going to relax, watch, listen, eat and take photos.

 The table was being set for our first dinner al fresco.

 The grapes are beginning to ripen. And that rosebush? I had always thought the color of the rosebush at the end of the row of vines was to show what type of grape. Yellow grapes for yellow wine? No, yellow is the favorite rose color of Mary Beth, co-owner of the vineyard and a rose bush is planted to alert the farmer to the presence of bugs that might harm the grapevine - they hit the rosebush first so the farmer notices and treats the problem before they start on the vines.

This morning I woke to the sound of tractors working in a neighboring vineyard and opened my window to this glorious sunrise.

Now, off to day two.

A Hometown July Fourth

Our small town has a July 4th parade which had just finished by the time we got to the village this morning.  However, there was still good opportunity for people watching and photo taking.

 This dog was glad of a rest in a shady spot.

No prizes for guessing what today's color scheme was.

 There was a team of line dancers in action. Looks like they might have also been having a best decorated hat competition on the side.

 Two little dogs well trained to stay in their wagon.

Before the main parade there is the children's parade which features a best decorated bicycle component. This Thomas the Tank engine version looks like fun.

 This bike owner confined their decoration to the front basket.

 Now here was a car that attracted a lot of attention from the passers by. And well parked near a vintage pickup truck with a great slogan.

Are you surprised to see that this is a BMW?

 Once we got home I tried a setup in my garden. Earlier in the season I had intended a front porch display for today featuring my red hibiscus but sadly, no red blooms open on either plant today so I had to improvise for this day when bells ring out for freedom.

And one last photo - nothing to do with July 4th but something I saw a day or two ago on the across the road neighbor's front lawn. First I caught sight of the two baby deer and had to quietly dash back inside and get my camera and hope they were still there. I took a photo or two and the fawns dashed off stage right. Oh no, I missed them. But then Mama deer enters from stage right and soon her babies followed (note second fawn head just emerging from behind the bush). She clearly knows I am watching because she is staring straight at me. All to soon the show is over and she has decided to take her babies and run away - thankfully onto someone else's backyard and not mine.  But I am under no illusion that they will not return to graze frequently in my garden.

It was a great weather day with a good breeze and temperatures in the high 70's. That is good because an hour or so ago I discovered the entire air conditioning unit and furnace  has shut down. Do these things have to happen on the first day of a three day weekend? Oh well.