Day 8 - Todi

Day 8 -- October 12 -- Todi Today

We got our typical early start (sometime after 10). I sure love the solid wooden shutters on Italian windows. Whenever we wake up, it’s so dark we just roll over and go back to sleep. The plan was to visit Deruta (home of the majolica ceramics industry) and Todi, the quintessential hill town, both across the valley to the west. But not until after a leisurely breakfast and a greeting to the handyman who was washing our windows and refinishing some window frames.

We’ve got the route through Rivotorto to the highway down pat and the rest would be easy. I know, those are famous last words, but in fact, it was. Deruta is just one small factory after another, most producing the classic old designs, the lemons, the sunflowers, and a few with more modern designs. We visited one factory and watched the women painting the bisque ware. We checked out many, many other showrooms, and found they must have colluded on the pricing, since there were no bargains to be found. However that didn’t stop us from buying! I found a candle stick I liked, but they had only one and I needed two for Shabbat. Again there was an offer to give them three days and they’d copy the one. So we’ll go back to Deruta too. All this before going up the hill to the old town. It had begun to rain by the time we spent our wad, so we moved on to Todi without walking the city centro. Maybe on our pick-up trip.

Parking outside the wall, wewalked straight up to the main piazza. I can’t imagine having done this before my pacemaker. Todi is easy to visit. Few tourists, (at least no busloads of them), no “must see” buildings or art works. It has an ancient history -- back to the Iron Age, through the Umbri and Etruscans, but since little remains to be seen of that, we were relieved of any obligations to edify ourselves. The city is strictly Middle Ages, with consistent Gothic and Romanesque architecture, not the hodge-podge seen in other towns.

We had an absolutely fabulous lunch -- hands down the best meal of this trip. If any of you are ever out this way, remember the Umbria, right off of the Piazza Populo! Some days (like this one) we eat our big meal midday and then just have bread and cheese and fruit for dinner at home. Other days we have a pizza or Panini for lunch and then a bigger dinner. While wandering about the city, looking for a wi-fi spot, it began to storm. Of course our jackets and umbrellas were back in the olive grove. The wind was so fierce that potted trees were knocked over and city trash cans were rolling in the streets. (A particular shame, since this was such a clean town.) By the time we ducked into a café we were pretty well soaked but we had lots of company with the same idea. We waited it out and when it slacked off we ran down (thank g-d down) the hill to the car. A rather abrupt end to our day. See, if they had a museum of note we’d have stayed longer. That’s the usual rainy day plan.

Stopped at the produce market and here we are, all cozy on the farm.

10,469 steps ( before being called on account of rain)