Magrilless

We had an absolute rich couple of weeks in the Umbrian hills of Assisi. It was a feast–fantastically so–for all the senses.

We began our time there with the spring festival of Calendimaggio. It’s a Renaissance party combined with a healthy competition between the two halves of the city (Sotto below and Sopra above). Scotty and Dolores (our hosts extraordinare) live in the lower half, so we donned our red scarves to root for Sotto in the crossbow, tug of war, skit, singing, drumming, sack jumping, and sledge-pulling contests. There was so much cheering, ooohing, costume gawking, winning and losing, translating, cigarette dodging, applauding, and general awe. It was both exhausting and exhilarating!

After those 4 days of extreme celebrating, we could get down to the serious business of exploring Assisi herself. It is an ancient walled city of a fantasy- or history-lover’s dream. Built on a hill many many centuries ago of local rosey limestone, it is easy to imagine today exactly what it would have been like then.

Everywhere are little cobbled alleys and bricked archways and roses and steep shady stairways and olive groves and frescoed churches and a pervasive hint of peace (pax e bene, as is written all over).

We wandered. We sketched. We hiked up (up up up straight up) to St. Francis’s cave-y hermitage.

We ate. And we drank wine. We ate some more. And we drank some more. And the gelataria ladies knew us by sight.

We ended our stay as guests at a party. Scotty and Dolores’s friends generously invited us along to their anniversary celebration and fed us antipasti galore (assorted bruschetta, omelettes stuffed with red onions, truffles and eggs, salamis and bacon), cheeses made on and from their farm, a primi course of rigatoni in a truffle cream sauce and linguine in a rich meaty tomato sauce, a secondi course of wild boar meatballs, pork cutlets in an apple sauce, and crispy German-style potatoes, and THEN a dolce ending of a fruit-laden tart and grappa all around. Which was nothing compared to the assembled company’s friendliness and openness and willingness to gather us into the fold. As close as we will ever get to living in an Italian famiglia!

We are continuing on our journey now, sadly leaving our beloved personal guides behind. But excited as always to see something new. Thank you for spoiling us so wonderfully rotten, Scotty and Dolores!

Back by popular demand! Or, at least, back for a moment while we are traveling overseas again. It seems momentous, anyway, that we have graduated to a new stage of our family: we now have a high schooler in our midst, as well no one in the elementary grades anymore. (Maggie started kindergarten at our neighborhood school in 2014. So it’s officially been a decade of going to that building nearly every day. Quite a chapter in our lives!)

Maybe we overreacted, because we are definitely not at Needham Elementary anymore! We are starting our summer adventures in London. Pip pip!

We left Durango after school and flew to Denver, then overnight to Heathrow. Arriving at lunchtime (apparently — our bodies were so confused!), we simply navigated to the apartment we’d rented, moved in, and fell into deep slumber.

Somehow we managed to sleep until noon. Excuse me?! Yes, noon. But yet, somehow we managed to sightsee at, through, and in the Tower Bridge.

Plus stroll along the Thames, including through Borough Market. Aaaand spend an hour or more at the Tate Modern.

After making it past the dreaded sleepless second night, we Tubed into town to the Grant Museum of Zoology. Here is a collection of fascinating things, like a formaldehyded tub of assorted snakes, a full skeleton of the extinct quagga, and a collection of bisected heads. In the late 19th century, biologists studied all these specimens with great interest. Now we could buy a refrigerator magnet depicting their famous jar of moles.

And to make sure we stayed awake, we had something special planned: a silent disco tour! We met our guide in Trafalgar Square where he handed out a pair of headphones to each of us (and our 20ish dancing partners). He then proceeded to lead us through the streets, giving us some choreographed moves, telling us when to belt it out loud, and somehow making it all seem perfectly fun and not embarrassing at all. We got a lot of smiles, some waves, and more than a few phone cameras pointed our direction. It was definitely an energizing hour, and it warmed us up too! (We might have packed mostly for 5 weeks in sunny Italy, not 4 days in rainy London.)

(I kind of wish I’d gotten my own video of us strutting through China Town, stepping in time to the Backstreet Boys. But not really, because I would have had to take a break from all the silly dancing. And there was no way I could do that!)

We rounded out the evening just wandering over to Big Ben and Parliament. Because, why not?

Whew! Day 3 was very relaxing. We just walked around, hopping from spot to spot on the map. Wherever looked interesting. We popped up to a rooftop garden, went across London Bridge back to Borough Market for lunch, through neighborhoods to Kensington Gardens, took a break at Buckingham Palace, then all along Hyde Park, before riding an incredibly packed Tube train home.

Now off we go to Italy! First stop, Assisi!

We returned! Closed the loop! Ran through our travel itinerary! Made our way back to Lisbon for our final week before flying home! (And reminded ourselves to make the most of it; it’s easy to look forward to being back home, with comforts and friends and ease. But first — a last hurrah!)

For some of us (I’m raising my hand), the highlight of our return was a day trip to Sintra, the Enlightenment’s suburb for castles. There are lots of posh home tours to choose from here, but we opted for the highest and most colorful: the Pena Palace. We also chose the most luxurious and least populated approach: a hike through the grounds of Villa Sasseti. We climbed up brick-paved switchbacks (or found secret stone stairs) through a lush spring-fed garden, around water features and sculpted caves, to rock faces littered with harnessed climbers, higher and higher through an enchanted ferny forest, to the mustard-yellow–stuccoed gates of the palace.

The palace was very busy, but somehow we didn’t mind so much. They did a really great job making the interior tour engaging, with lots of original decorations and furniture and historical tidbits. From the king’s desk that looked exactly like a huge ornate advent calendar, to the life-sized bronze torch holders (literally guys holding lamps), to the colorfully upholstered divans with hidden zinc-lined arm rest drawers (for ashtrays), and the kitchen’s copper soup tureen big enough to be a bathtub, it did not disappoint!

We spent an entire afternoon there (it’s recommended you set aside an hour — what?!!), and still left a lot unseen (the Countess of Edla’s Chalet, Valley of the Lakes with its castellated duck houses, the Garden of Azaleas, the stables — so much!). Guess I’ll have to come back! Anyone want to come with me?

As we often do, we also spent a lovely (blissfully cloudy 80-degree) day at the zoo. We lucked out: all the animals were super engaged and active. And there is a fun (and free!) bucket ride, which takes you over many of the exhibits. Never seen a zoo from above before! And they have dolphins and an impressive (and free) dolphin show, which we saw twice, because why not?!

And we did that other thing we do: wander. Because Lisbon is a beautiful city. Lots of intricate tiles and swirly cobbles and bright limestone edifices.

We’ve been going at it, guys! It’s been solid, these last two (plus) months. No one can say we didn’t do stuff; in fact, right now we feel like we did aaaaaall the stuff! We are lucky; we are grateful; we are full and heading home!

In general, we appreciate staying in smaller communities rather than big cities, hence our tenure in Toledo. It’s only a quick 30 minute train ride into the capital, and we figured that would be good for a few day trips. But Madrid might have been an exception — next time, we’ll stay there! It’s quite a lovely big city. Clean, easy transportation options, safe, and chock full of things to do.

Our first visit, we explored their big city park. Big. City park. It entertained us all day. (Well, until the police closed the park because the heat was too extreme. It was 109, so we understood.)

I suppose folks who know New York and Central Park wouldn’t be surprised by this massive green space, but it was sure a treat for us!

There’s a pond where you can go paddling, and Tessa made a bark raft (which little ducklings actually used as an island). And a few repurposed buildings that are now free art exhibitions or libraries or the like. There are still a couple peacocks from the abandoned menagerie, and we saw evidence of bats, and turtles and cats and black swans. Plus a statue (at 666 m above sea level) of Lucifer.

Bill took the girls to the Prado museum for a massive art scavenger hunt another day. And it was such a success that we did the same thing touring the Royal Palace on our next trip.

Plus we availed ourselves of the variety of metropolitan restaurants, ice cream makers, and (air conditioned) shops. Thanks, Madrid, for the taste, and giving us something to look forward to next time!

What would you say if I told you we visited an entire city that’s a UNESCO world heritage site? We also visited the capital of the visigoth empire and the location of the Spanish royal court in the 16th century. And a town with ties to Cervantes (and his man of La Mancha, don Quixote), and the artist El Greco. And also a community with 3 distinct cultural influences (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish), plus Roman ruins, and a reputation for damascene blade production.

Yes, Toledo has it all!

Located just southwest of Madrid, this old hilltop city — nestled by the Tagus River within fortified walls — was our homebase for 2 weeks.

It is a labyrinth of teeny, narrow, cobbled carriage ways, broken up by little terraced treed plazas and sweepingly large churches and synagogues.

Most people visit for a day from Madrid, so we can say that over our half a month, we wrung it dry of all its attractions. From monasteries and cathedrals…

to little museums (including Manchego cheese and ancient dungeons)…

to tourist activities (like the Turkish bath and ziplining over the Tagus River)…

climbing around an old Roman Circus (and dipping into the municipal swimming pool next door)…

and steeping ourselves in military history…

and modern art…

and finding all the secret escalators that climb from the river up to town…

we found a lot to do!

Mostly, the main attraction is the city itself. The brick, stone, and tile canyons are nearly irresistible for aimless wandering. (Thank goodness, by the way, for dry heat. Although it was over 100 degrees every day of our stay, it was more bearable here than the sauna of Barcelona.)

By the time we left, we could mostly find our way a fair number of places (and there were some places we could get to by multiple routes!). Oh — and we played tag in a bull fighting arena and accidentally tried to trespass on a military training base (and almost a locked psychiatric hospital) and watched geese eat fish under a water wheel and ran through a 15-minute thunder storm and ate churros and chocolate under a wisteria canopy with locals and collected flower petals after they were thrown over a bride and groom.

Thank you, Toledo!