Quiet Night in Civita (Far off the beaten path)

Last night in Florence, we thouroughly enjoyed our dinner at Leonardo's Self Service Cafeteria. Reccommended by Rick Steves, it was right near the Duomo, was cheap, and had delicious food. Seriously, it was probably our favorite restaurant in Italy thus far. At most restaurants here, the menus often have no English, and even what we can translate, it is hard for us to picture what the food will look like. Seafood salad in the US is very different than seafood salad here. Think large chunks of octopus with a few mussels, a piece of celery, and olive oil. At the restaurants here, we always feel a little out of place....at one place they brought us bread and champagne before our meal. It's not that it is too expednsive necessarily, but it is higher class than we are comfortable with. Everyone orders an antipasti and then a primi course and then a secondi coure. WA Y too much food !!! And when we only order 1 course each (still a big and fattening meal)we feel guilty.Anyways, Leonardo's was amazing. He cared about his food, there was lots of it, we could see it all, it was delicious, there was free tap water with ice (unheard of here in Europe) and we got to sit in a big booth.....that looked like McDonalds. There was no guilt and we went back for seconds. We are in love with Italian self service cafeterias.
This morning we ate breakfast in our room (cereal and milk!!!!), went to our first Florentine museum (the History of Science museum), got packed up, and then got some amazing delicious gelatto from Grom....our favorite gelaterria here. We discovered it last night, and their extra dark chocolate is to die for. It tastes like a chilled, melted dark chocolate bar with ice cream consistency. This morning, we were waiting in line at 10:30 when they opened (and we were not the first in line!).
We got our tickets for the train, after a long and stressful line and made it breathlessly onto the train about 30 seconds before it departed. Whew. We stopped in Orvieto and paid to store our bags so we wouldnt have to drag them (they are getting heavier and heavier, we did a lot of shopping in Florence). Sue plotted successfully to not take the funicular up the hill, so we walked. It was steeper and longer than it looked, and the day was hotter than it seemed, BUT, the view was really really awesome. It looks just like the pictures in the olive garden- we are in Tuscany. We walked through the medieval quarter, checked out the Basilica (which was amazing!).
Caught our bus to Bagnoreglio, but couldn't figure out how to buy tickets and our bus driver spoke no English and was in a hurry so we rode free. It was a hilly winding ride up further into the Italian countryside. Gorgeous grape vines and olive trees and other farming. It's very green and lush....We had very good timing and were dropped off in Bagnoreglio right before the shuttle across town showed up. The shuttle drops you off at the foot of the pedestrian foot bridge to Civita. In Civita, there are no cars, only a few scooters. It is an enchanting, fairy tale city, even more so than it looks in the picture. The city is extremely old, and at one time held 4000 people. Since the middle ages, the population has declined. The architecture of the buildings has not been updated. There are lots (well maybe 20 or 30 that we saw) of visitors here during the day, but not many people here at night. There are only 10 or 12 full time residents.
The B and B we are staying in is adorable. We walked around town for a little while. This old lady named Maria who obviously speaks no English sits on her fence and motions for people to come see her gardens all day long. So, of course we went, and they are very nice and the view over the surrounding countryside is outstanding. AND, she had a cat with three adorable kittens (bambini gatti) in her yard. 2 little black kittens and 1 white and tiger striped. Very much worth the euro she asks for in donation. We also went into this Etruscan cave houses below the city. Pretty awesome. Apparently they are all over here. There is also a tunnel that goes under the whole city. Scary, but cool.
Then, things really got interesting. When we checked into our B and B, there was a young girl who spoke some English. She said when we arrived, “Sit. You want water?” We were a little confused and she made herself more clear. We were to sit at the table and drink water. So we did. When she was ready, she showed us to our room- cute, overlooking the main 'square' in town. She asked if we were going to eat dinner, and we said ok. She said 8:00. AHHH! So, after our walk around town and our cat, cave, and garden oogling, we waited. And waited. The giant clock tower outside our room would ring every 15 minutes to let us know of the passing time.
The restaurant is fairly fancy and we were dirty and sweaty so we showered and dressed our nicest (after feeling underdressed in other restaurants) for dinner. At 8:15, we went down to eat and we were the only ones. The woman very clearly showed us our table and turned on a cd with instrumental music (think Kenny G). The same girl who checked us in was our waitress....and our cook...and our dishwasher.....and she is going to meet us at 8:00 for breakfast and clean our room in the morning. She is very straightforward....at one point, Janna tried to order an insalada verde (green salad) and she said, “No!”.....And pointed to something on the menu that Janna could have instead. So she did.
Our meal: was oily. Very oily. Ok, but oily. First we had some bruschetta. We poured the oil off the top and took it out of its oil bath before we ate it. Then, Sue had gnocchi with tomato sauce and Janna had 4 cheese pasta. Both good. Then, we were going to share a “secondi”. After careful deliberation and menu deciphering with our translation book, we decided on scallopine- scallops. Or so we thought. When the scallopine arrived, it was two large, thin, pinkish gray pieces of meat. Not scallops. Since our waitress was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher, we were able to stealthily slip the substance into a plastic bag for the town kitties. And, we fed some to Barilla (maybe that's his name??), the only dog in Civita who spent his evening sleeping near our table in the restaurant. Remember the green salad Janna wanted? Well, she got eggplant and summer squash thinly sliced,6 pieces, floating in olive oil. Oh, and scallopine is actually “thinly sliced veal.” Next time we will spend a little more time on our menu.
Did we mention that we were the only ones in the restaurant all night? And we were there long enough that the CD started looping and we heard “Yesterday” twice.
We went out for a walk and came back to our B and B. The door was shut and locked. Uh oh. Busy thinhking of solutions, we figured there are about 20 people in this town tonight. Luckily, the only phone in Civita is near us....but we haven't located it and can't call out of Italy anyways. So......we got out our keys and lo and behold, found a key to the outside door. Thank goodness. We let ourselves in. Our hostess is already locked into her room with the dog outside her door. Sue tried to entice him into our room, but he wasn't interested.
The town kitties (3 grown ups and 3 kittens as far as we can tell) really loved the veal.
We laughed more here than we have in a long time because we had to make our own entertainment. And honestly, how many people in the world have spent an evening like this in Civita?

But, we went 36 hours without Gelato.
Today we arrived in Rome. Not much to say because we spent the day in the Vatican Museum and saw the Sistine Chapel. It was ok, but we still are yet to see St. Peters Basilica because we were too tired and didn't think we would appreciate it fully today. Tomorrow we will see Rome. For now, it is time for a break.