Sunny September weekend!

22.9 We decided to investigate Castello Vigoleno, since it’s just a few miles from home, but first, lunch at Trattoria Trinita, as recommended by Roisin and others. Torta fritta! Yummy tiramisu! Pasta with truffle sauce! Delicious, close and not horribly expensive. Clearly the place to take out-of-towners for the nice meal. We had failed to charge all the camera batteries, so only Mamma’s Nikon still worked, but got some excellent pictures. The castles of this area mostly have merlini ghibellini, swallowtail merlons, which announce that castle supports the Ghibellines, or the Holy Roman Empire party. Guelfs are Papal. The tour was in Italian so it was hard to follow all of it (Mamma and Rose declined, but El and I went). The last stop was the castle Church of San Giorgio, a Romanesque building with barely discernible frescoes but a great story about the capitals of the columns in the nave: of the 8 columns, 7 have plain vegetal motifs in the capitals. The eighth (which is the 3^rd one along on the right side) has various carvings of men having sex with geese, other men, and godknowswhat. This is apparently to remind you as you sit in church that you are fallen and sinful and dependent on God’s grace. Who thinks these things up? Nifty architectural detail: the door has two sad little men in the corners of the doorway. They are sad because they’re holding the whole thing up! The front passageway into the castle turns sharply just after you get in past the first portcullis so that the defenders can have ballistae and arrows ready to fire at you as you come unsuspecting around the corner.

23.9 Mamma, Aurora and I went for walk up the hill toward the Besozzola Trattoria, where Angela, the owner, opens when she feels like it and not when she doesn’t. (Sometimes she has a dog obedience show to take her Australian shepherd, Kim, to. Priorities!) Emanuele Berzieri, whom I had met at his cousin Federica’s wedding, was on his way down the hill in his large black BMW, so we chatted for a while and learned that the weird fruits on the tree at the bridge are called nespoli. (I looked these up later. Turns out they are medlars. This was not an improvement. Medlars need to be bletted before you can eat them. Happy now?) We got most of the way to Berzieri before Mamma and Aurora decided they needed to rest, so we decided to go back to the bar and get some water. Emanuele was at the bar when we got there (which struck me as odd given he was going away from it when we ran into him, but he was with friends so maybe they all went back together). He invited us for gelato. Aurora took him up on it; Mamma and I just had water, but he opined that water was insufficient and introduced me to bargnolino, a locally-made liqueur (where do I get this? Here. People make it. Not commercially available), then introduced friends Francesco and Alessandro, and announced pizza party at the communal oven tonight. Seems that once upon a time someone built a pizza oven on a little veranda that doesn’t seem to belong to anyone. It fell to ruins over time. Recently Emanuele, Francesco and Alessandro decided to rebuild it. Tonight was the christening party. I didn’t know what to bring but did have shrooms and onions in the fridge, so I offered to bring those for topping. Stefania, Emanuele’s cousin, who had shown up by this time, was very enthusiastic about the possibility of onions and mushrooms, so that settled it.

However, when the time came, Mamma refused to go. “It’s a family party, we’re not really invited.” I told her that they had told me all the village was invited, as it was a village oven. She still wouldn’t go and was adamant that it would be rude for us to go. So I went alone and had a blast. (Note to self: Alice are anchovies and they are way too salty for humans to eat. Do not accept alice on pizza.) Emanuele and Alessandra wanted to know where Mamma and the girls were. I explained their objections and the boys said, effectively, “Excuse not valid. We will go get them.” So they dragged them all over and everyone ended up having a great time. I am now FB friends with 6 Italians: the three boys, Stefania and Federica Andreoni (Federica is the bride) and their sister-in-law Elisa. (Elise fits right in being called Elisa here – it’s a fairly common name.) Though Mamma thought it was rude to “crash” their party, when the village has a party and you live in the village, the rude thing to do is NOT go. She doesn’t really get this. I’m all for it, myself!