Sunday 15th May, Monday 16th May, Tuesday 17th May

Sunday 15th May
Blowing a gale when we awoke in our 17th Century converted Palace this morning and did not look the day for exploring new territory or venturing far into the "wilds" of Umbria to places with intriguing names like Narni, Todi, Orvietto and Viterbo. Although we understood from reading the guide books that these places held unseen delights, the likes of which may never come our way again, we held firm and stayed put.
Ann resolved to finish her book to get rid of one more item to carry on board and Bob paced up and down throughout the hotel looking for its so far unseen delights.
The hotel as it is now has oviously been converted and somewhat restored but one room remained untouched - the "meeting room" with its 17th Century frescoes on the wall. The original palace's owner and builder's family had a history which included the Crusades and he wanted to honour this. He commissioned the frescoes and they remain as painted and although some are a little bit tattered it is heart thumping to stand close to these paintings and view them unhindered as they were a few hundred years ago. Who stood where I did and gazed upon them, I wonder?

Wall frescoe depicting a scene from the Crusades

Monday 16th May

Monday was forecast to be a colder day from the mid 20's we had been enjoying to a mid teen type temperature.

But we couldn't shirk it today as it was our last and we were moving on to Tarquinia, a seaside town about 80 kms south west and some 85 Kms north of Rome to put us within easy striking distance of the airport on Tuesday morning to return the car and get over to the airport to catch our 1.45 pm flight.

But today was going to provide us with an additional shiver or two from that which the weather had in store. About 10 Kms after leaving San Gemini all hell broke loose in the car with bells and whistles going off left, right and center. Perhaps not this bad but enough to add another shiver to our bones. We pulled off the autostrada and had warnings saying engine failure, seek repairs, ESP system failure and anti rollback failure and auto park brake failure. The owner's manual was consulted and the engine sounded fine, oil level OK and all of those other technical things checked and we could live without the other things so we pushed on.

Acceleration was a  bit lacking but we got to Tarquinia and navigated to the hotel and the car was now sounding a bit "off" with a tendency to stalling and all in all not a well car. We rang Citroen Emergency in Paris who arranged a tow truck to get the car to a service center in Civitavecchia another 20 kms north. Bob went with the tow truck and of course nobody spoke English at the service center and it was difficult to explain the symptons. After a lot of mechanic type activity I got the message the car was not fixable that day and no idea when. They arranged a lift back to Tarquinia for me to work out how we get to the airport the next day and home. The Citroen Emergency Service people in Paris said get a taxi and they "will" reimburse the fare.
Without a car we were inhibited on what we could do in Tarquinia, eg explore, find a restaurant etc. We settled for the hotel restaurant. Only us and another couple in this large new restaurant and it was seafood. Being right on the west coast the seafood was wonderful. We ate till we dropped. I think we were the only guests in the hotel this night as there was only one place set for breakfast with our room number on it. The hotel was also brand new - opened in October last year to cater for the Roman weekenders.
The hotel organised a taxi for us, we returned the spare key and paperwork to the car dropoff center, got their shuttle to the airport and came home.

Stephen picked us up at the airport and we were back in Bundanoon about 9.30pm last night ( Wednesday 18th ) after a long, frustrating and eventful last day in Italy.

Car in Emergency Ward at 4pm Monday going nowhere

Thanks to all of our friends who stayed with our blog throughout the last six and a half weeks and we hope you enjoyed reading it. We enjoyed sharing some of our experiences and sights ( and sounds ) with you.

Grazie e Ciao,

Ann and Bob

Friday 13th and Saturday 14th May

Friday
Our last day in Bologna and Emilia Romagna did not produce any new finds or discoveries. We simply revisited some of the favourite places we had already seen to implant the memory a little more deeply. We did though meet some interesting people who gave us a "deeper" insight into some of Italian life. We would have liked to have spent more time with them.

Saturday
The 300km drive south to San Gemini, our next home for two days, in Umbria along the A14 autostrada ( the 130km/hr stretch ) and then the E45 was broken at Deruta to revisit the Majolica shops and for lunch. We ran into some people there who remembered us from our first visit nearly 6 weeks ago - that makes you feel good. We found a ristorante which produced "La cucina tipica Umbra", typical Umbrian food and it was great. Our lunch was beans and pork rind, lamb lights (innards) and roe deer and polenta and washed down with a glass of local vino rosso. We visited then a small curch and commune called Sanctuary of the Madonna dei Bagni in the Hamlet of Casalina which has this most incredible collection of more than 600 majolica tiles going back to 1657 and representing "grace received". They represent misfortunes, accidents or ilnesses that were overcome after the sufferers turned to the Virgin for help.
We could not but notice the change in the Umbrian countryside in the 4 weeks since we were here. It has greened right up, fields have been mown and hay baled, and in general spring has fully arrived.
San Gemini is a small hill town in Umbria along the ancient Via Flaminia.  It is located a few kilometers north of Terni and has a population of about four thousand. It was first settled as an agricultural suburb in the 1st Century along the Via Flaminia called Casventum.  During the Middle Ages,  Casventum developed into a small city.  In the early Middle Ages its name was changed to San Gemini.  It derives its name from a very ancient tradition  of twin deities or saints associated with curative waters - we are looking throughout the village to find the "fountain of youth".
The town is picture postcard perfect and does not get a mention in the travel books anywhere. As a young fellow we met told us "we are not very good at marketing ourselves"

Bob the "spiv"

One of 600+ tiles

A column of tiles

View of Umbrian Countryside from San Gemini

Street scene in San Gemini