Sunday, May 25

We spent much of Sunday with laundry, trying to get on the internet to upload a blog entry interrupted the previous day. Finally, I got my entry and pictures uploaded but was in the middle of an IM sessionwith Cynthia when it went out again. No more internet for the rest of the day/night and none this morning on Monday as well.

We were talking with our hosts and accidentally (and fortunately for us) found out there was a celebration of some kind (religious) in the little town down the road…Montegabbione. They outlined all the major central streets with chalk and filled in the spaces with flower petals to “paint” symbols of Christianity. We got there early before a procession of some kind would wipe them out and took pictures and generally just took in the sights and preparations. Very beautiful, indeed. And so interesting to find the continuance of celebrations such as this that have come down probably from the ages to the present day.We left before the procession to head to Citta Della Pieve (one of the favorite towns for us around here) for another “celebration/procession” there. We found an ideal observance point in a small bar with outside tables right across from the main staging area. There was supposed to be jousting somewhere but we must have misunderstood the timing since we never found/saw it. We were there to record on two short two minute videos the procession through the streets. Men wearing robes……..all religious, etc, children (some so small to have their mamas escorting them, and the men having to bear the weight of numerous crosses and symbolic heavy decorations of all kinds. Forgive me for not knowing what much would mean as I’m not grounded in Catholicism at all….nor in art history. The videos are almost 200 mg each for two minutes each. I have no knowledge of compressing them so they can be up/downloaded so will have to figure that out at some point. The little Canon camera is great for these little short recordings. As an aside, we met some nice people from Cheshire UK there for a choir performance…but it started too late for us to hang around and still get back early enough to have something some dinner on the way back to the apartment.

We went back through Monteleone d’ Orvieto to stop at a place known to our hosts for barbecue and pizza, La Tana del Gufo (OWL) Wonderful thin crust Capricciosa pizza for both of us and a small bottle of the house Bianco. I think we may go back there again before leaving Umbria as this is on of the little towns we can see from our back terrace.

The rest of today (if no internet returns) will be spent trying to figure out what will fit in the small rolling laptop bag (sans laptop) for the trip by train to Florence early tomorrow morning. Or maybe also to just wander around as we are prone to do. The sun is shining …or comes and goes and we can hear the tractor and our host hard at work on the place.

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