The rambling recipes & travels of a home baker

Day 9: Viterbo & Civita di Bagnoregio

Hello folks – I haven’t posted much in the last week while I was in Italy.  When staying with friends and family, the evenings get taken up with chatting and dinners so, I’m catching up now while I’m happily ensconced in my rental apartment in Paris.

So this is a week ago now, but here goes…

I stayed at the apartment above Ernie’s school (SYA – School Year Abroad Italy) on via Cavour.  He usually stays at his host mother’s apartment (chosen so that he can improve his Italian – which is quite excellent!) but while I was in town, we stayed at this apartment where his colleague, Yvonne, and her 10.5 yr old daughter, Jadzia are staying.  The apartment is huge, so there’s tons of room for everyone.

Ernie and Yvonne had to teach on Wednesday, but Jadzia was still out of school for one day, so I got her version of the Viterbo tour and we headed to Civita di Bagnoregio for a visit.  Viterbo, like many Italian cities is a walled city with meandering cobblestone streets, tight alleys and many piazzas.  The modern city sprawls around the walled city, but yet cars still manage to drive through the crowded streets inside the center.

Jadzia and I started the day by walked around Viterbo – she gave me her opinions on her favorite places – bread bakery – good pizza bianco, but the lady behind the counter is not so nice, L’Antica Latteria – best gelato in town, buy the intero yogurt but lemon is not good – you get the picture.  It’s nice to have a local!

Architectural word that I learned – profferlo.  A common Viterbo element with a half story of steps and then a straight run of steps hanging off the front of the building – providing a way to get up to the upper level and providing protection for the lower level.  I wonder how they didn’t need to have a railing on the far side, but maybe people just learned not to walk drunk up the steps.

If you’re not familiar with Civita, it’s a tiny hilltown only connected on this one side by this one bridge.  It’s a steep climb up, but the views are lovely.  There’s a small piazza, a few shops, a few residents and of course a church.  I tried to contact my co-worker, Jon and his partner, Lauren, who are in Civita on a fellowship, but our timing didn’t work out.  I felt kind of lame because really, it’s a TINY town and I couldn’t manage to say “Dove Americanos?” and find them?  But I digress.  It sounds like Jon and Lauren are doing great and finishing up this month.

Jadzia and I headed back to Viterbo and stopped by the ipercoop (one of the supermarket chains in Italy), and eventually hit the favored gelato place which is actually a dairy store that also sells fantastic cheeses, yogurts, panna cotta, in addition to their gelato.  Jadzia made her recommendations – pistachio, nocciola (hazelnut) and something flavored with cinnamon.  I went with the pistachio, cinnamon flavored one and got a croccanti al rhum – a rum flavored gelato with some crunchy bits of cookie.  All very delicious.  After a side trip to the playground so Jadzia could swing, we headed back to the apartment.

Dinner was over at Anna’s (Ern’s host mom) place.  Anna is a wonderfully warm and excellent cook.  We dined on homemade pasta (apparently when there is a dry wind from a certain direction, she makes pasta).  To tonight was a tagliatelle with a ragu with wild boar and rabbit (sorry vegetarians!) and also lamb with roasted potatoes.

The highlight of dinner was when Anna’s daughter and grand daughters joined us for dinner.  They speak so quickly and animatedly.  I was only able to follow with the assistance of Ernie’s translation, but their energy was infectious and charming.  The affection between Ernie and Anna is very clear and I love how she corrects his Italian and he’s very good about checking in with her.

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