Weekends are precious for us to explore Umbria, described as the Cuore Verde D'Italia (green heart of Italia). It is a sacred landlocked state, lush and hilly, blessed with Estrucan finds, Roman ruins and ancient medievale towns. During the first weekend, we took the treno to Lago Trasimeno just 20mins away for an excurison to the 4th largest lake in Italy where in 217 BC Hannibal defeated the Romans (for the 3rd time). We needed to see some sparkling acqua and the vast lago was blinding past noon.
In an hour or so, we toured the lakeside town Passignano so we got on the traghetto to Isola Maggiore. There was a post-humus confermazione of gold medal to a native for his efforts during the war and we followed the procession led by some the heavily-studded generals and VIPs. Dopo una granita, we climbed to the top for a view of the lago and then spotted more cats including Nerina, a black gatto with 2 old folks. There was even a mafia cat who was not afraid of us even though he was blind from cataracts, poverino.
Perugia's walls are plastered with posters advertising 'sagre' (festivals) of all kinds - sagra di nutella, di peperoncino (chilli), di cinghiale (wild boar), di lumaca (snails) ecc. Curiosi, we decided to check out this interessante sagra del 'Pane, Proscuitto & Fantasia 2008' at Preci in the montagna sud di Umbria on domenica but it turned out there was no bus from Norcia that day. Che cazzo. Italians! We had taken the hour-long train ride to Spoleto and then waited an hour for the bus to Norcia 40mins away.
It is a fortified town at the foot of Monte Sibillini and is renowned for its local delicacies such as cured pork meats, sausages, truffles and Castelluccio lentils. Infatti Norcia is home to Italy's oldest surgery school thus they believe the locals have benefited from this intrinsic understanding of the human anatomia and have applied it to processing pork. A 'norcino' has thus been associated to a pork butcher. The first thing that caught our eye was the number of salumerie displaying stuffed cinghiale (wild boars), sacks of beans, whole legs of ham, heaps of strangozzi pasta, and strings of salumi. There was even coglioni di mulo (donkey's testicles, ee-hor).
The sun came down hard and we strayed in and out of the shops in an hour. Not about to give up so quickly, I drew a sign 'PRECI' and we tried to hitch a ride to the sagra some 17km away but to no avail after 45mins. Merda. Maybe L should ve hidden in the bushes while I lift my skirt to distract the cars. Bo. Nonetheless Norcia was a fun experience as we comforted ourselves with a buono pranzo at 'Il Cenacolo' comprising a mixed platter of proscuitto, salami & cheeses, followed by spaghetti al tartufo nero and Norcia salsiccia con contorno di pepperoni, tainted with plenty of bello fresco vino bianco.
We lugged back some pasta and fresh ricotta for our many culinary experiments of east-meets-west. Just ieri, L begged me to cook his favourite chicken curry which he savoured over 2 days. Per me, I couldn't get enough of the produce here and have stocked up with all my preferito stuff e.g proscuitto, formaggio, olives, anchovies, capers, pickled artichokes, pesca di tè, vino, pasta, nutella and seasonal veggies and frutta. Ogni giorno andiamo al supermercato COOP per guardare il cibo fresco specialmente la grande anguria e numerosi salumi. My mouth would start to water everytime they carve the velvety ham, 2 etti per favore!
Weekends are precious for us to explore Umbria, described as the Cuore Verde D'Italia (green heart of Italia). It is a sacred landlocked state, lush and hilly, blessed with Estrucan finds, Roman ruins and ancient medievale towns. During the first weekend, we took the treno to Lago Trasimeno just 20mins away for an excurison to the 4th largest lake in Italy where in 217 BC Hannibal defeated the Romans (for the 3rd time). We needed to see some sparkling acqua and the vast lago was blinding past noon. 
In an hour or so, we toured the lakeside town Passignano so we got on the traghetto to Isola Maggiore. There was a post-humus confermazione of gold medal to a native for his efforts during the war and we followed the procession led by some the heavily-studded generals and VIPs. Dopo una granita, we climbed to the top for a view of the lago and then spotted more cats including Nerina, a black gatto with 2 old folks. There was even a mafia cat who was not afraid of us even though he was blind from cataracts, poverino. 
Perugia's walls are plastered with posters advertising 'sagre' (festivals) of all kinds - sagra di nutella, di peperoncino (chilli), di cinghiale (wild boar), di lumaca (snails) ecc. Curiosi, we decided to check out this interessante sagra del 'Pane, Proscuitto & Fantasia 2008' at Preci in the montagna sud di Umbria on domenica but it turned out there was no bus from Norcia that day. Che cazzo. Italians! We had taken the hour-long train ride to Spoleto and then waited an hour for the bus to Norcia 40mins away. 
It is a fortified town at the foot of Monte Sibillini and is renowned for its local delicacies such as cured pork meats, sausages, truffles and Castelluccio lentils. Infatti Norcia is home to Italy's oldest surgery school thus they believe the locals have benefited from this intrinsic understanding of the human anatomia and have applied it to processing pork. A 'norcino' has thus been associated to a pork butcher. The first thing that caught our eye was the number of salumerie displaying stuffed cinghiale (wild boars), sacks of beans, whole legs of ham, heaps of strangozzi pasta, and strings of salumi. There was even coglioni di mulo (donkey's testicles, ee-hor).
The sun came down hard and we strayed in and out of the shops in an hour. Not about to give up so quickly, I drew a sign 'PRECI' and we tried to hitch a ride to the sagra some 17km away but to no avail after 45mins. Merda. Maybe L should ve hidden in the bushes while I lift my skirt to distract the cars. Bo. Nonetheless Norcia was a fun experience as we comforted ourselves with a buono pranzo at 'Il Cenacolo' comprising a mixed platter of proscuitto, salami & cheeses, followed by spaghetti al tartufo nero and Norcia salsiccia con contorno di pepperoni, tainted with plenty of bello fresco vino bianco.
We lugged back some pasta and fresh ricotta for our many culinary experiments of east-meets-west. Just ieri, L begged me to cook his favourite chicken curry which he savoured over 2 days. Per me, I couldn't get enough of the produce here and have stocked up with all my preferito stuff e.g proscuitto, formaggio, olives, anchovies, capers, pickled artichokes, pesca di tè, vino, pasta, nutella and seasonal veggies and frutta. Ogni giorno andiamo al supermercato COOP per guardare il cibo fresco specialmente la grande anguria e numerosi salumi. My mouth would start to water everytime they carve the velvety ham, 2 etti per favore!
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