We have breakfast this morning on the same patio where we ate dinner last night. Simple, whole foods are available on the continental style food bar. The server brings us cappuccino and we watch the birds and bees in the garden next to us.
We set out to explore more of this little village only to discover that we had covered almost the whole area last evening! In addition, throughout our walk, we come across two or three other couples in total. It’s as if the whole town is asleep, and it’s Thursday, mid-morning. Still, we take in the views and take pictures of pretty doors, succulents and stairways.
We find some stairs that take us down a very steep little street which turns into a dirt trail. We come upon a very slow flowing river and a little, rugged park. We try to read the signs and guess that they say this little park and the trail are maintained by the village but may not be suitable for visitors. The trees and bushes become thick and tall near the river. We hear rustling in the leaves and aren’t sure what to make of it, so we turn to go back. We are in a foreign country and I notice myself making more conservative decisions.
When we get back up into the village, we are hungry. There are several little restaurants to choose from and it’s now 2:30 p.m. They have all closed until dinner. We go back to our hotel, hoping to get some lunch there. It’s now 2:37. Upon arrival, the manager tells us lunch is being served by the pool until 2:45. We make our way to the pool area as quickly as possible and though the server tells us the kitchen is closed, we push just a bit and tell him the manager told us they were open until 2:45. We are prepared to make a quick decision and we order right away. We know the restaurants here don’t reopen until 8 p.m. We laugh to ourselves that we didn’t realize we had chosen such a sleepy little town.
We spend some down time in our room during the heat of the afternoon and we are able to cancel the rest of the week at this hotel and rebook in Assisi, which is a short drive from here.
At 8:30 p.m., we go back out to eat dinner. Just now, we notice all the town people coming back out, setting up their booths for another night of the street fair, which we now believe is in celebration of Feast of Assumptions, honoring the virgin Mary. We choose a hillside restaurant that seems to be a favorite of the locals. It’s much larger than other restaurants we’ve been to throughout our trip, and it’s very full and bustling with laughter and conversation. A man and his wife appear to be the owners, and the servers are all engaged.
We are welcomed by the woman who exclaims, “Prego” to us and speaks enough English to let us know she will prepare a table for us. A short while later, we are sitting at a table in one of the many rooms we can see. Imagine an old, multistory house and each of the rooms seats several groups of people. The décor is a mix of old and new and is very colorful. We are seated next to a husband, wife and their adult daughter and their little verbal dog, who barks out with a high pitch loudly and frequently.
Once we are seated, it takes awhile before someone comes to take our order. We’ve studied the menu carefully, and although there is a rough English translation next to every dish, there are things we look up online to make sure we know what we are eating. We guess that they are drawing straws to see who will come take our order as they speak very little English and we speak even less Italian.
Finally, a young lady arrives and she actually speaks more English than we are expecting. We quickly give her our order. When our food comes, even with our savvy preparation, it’s not what we expected. As I’ve mentioned before, we try to practice grace and flexibility whenever possible. We have come to a land where we don’t speak the language so we are thankful for what is served to us. As it turns out, we both enjoyed our meal and a fun experience, also, is that when Shawn checked into this restaurant on Facebook, someone at the restaurant responded to our post before we even left!
The last fun part is that when our server comes to take our order for dessert, we ask, “Do you have grappa?” She laughs, telling us she doesn’t expect us to order that. I ask her if she likes it and she says no, very definitively!
So we change our order. Shawn has cognac and I have sambuca, which, when she delivers it, educates me that in the future, I should order it “sambuca con la mosca” which means, with the fly. The flies would be three coffee beans dropped into the drink representing health, wealth and happiness. I assure her that I will!
Torgiano has been an unexpected, but welcome experience in small village living. Shawn and I laugh and talk on our walk back to our hotel about yappy dogs in restaurants, short windows of time to eat and shop and the vulnerability of being foreigners in a land where we don’t understand the language. I feel close to him and am so thankful to be traveling with him. Goodnight, Torgiano. Thank you for having us.