to the top!

Saturday we decided we weren't going to be lazy, we were going to take advantage of the nice day, the sun shining to hike up the mountain. We've been meaning to climb our way to the top of the Jura ever since we got here and we haven't done it. So Saturday morning we said, "today is the day." We packed a little backpack with some snacks, a canteen of water and some dog biscuits and we were off!We headed straight from our door up the hill to a path through the reserve national, to a barbed wire fence, which we climbed over in order to stay on the trail. Why is there a barbed wire fence (or even multiple barbed-wire fences) in the national reserve is beyond me. Also beyond my realm of understanding is why dogs are allowed in cafes, boulangeries, grocery stores and any number of other places the rest of the world might think it unnecessary to allow dogs, but you aren't supposed to take them hiking in the National Reserve?!?! What's that all about? Obviously we just ignored the sign and took Ally on our hike with us. What else are you going to do?
So, admittedly after we clambered over our first barbed-wire fence we lost the trail for a bit...but then we noticed that the trees were trying to do math - there were large red numbers, minus, plus, and multiply signs all over the place! We thought, "hey, maybe their trying to tell us something." So we followed the signs and low and behold they took us higher and higher into the mountains.

After scaling some rocks...OK, OK we just climbed up a few moss covered rocks...we came to a road. Hum...I didn't know there was a road in this part of the Jura's. Are you telling me we could have driven all this way! man. Just kidding, at this point I was enjoying the hike immensely. We all were. Ally was absolutely loving it. Although I'm sure she would have preferred it even more if we had let her off her leash. But she's been naughty lately and running off so we had to keep her close.
Walking on the road was a nice little break. We didn't have to walk on stones and wet slippery leaves and we weren't walking straight up hill for a bit. I felt sure we were getting ever closer to the top. An hour later and a straight climb up my legs were burning, my chest was aching and it didn't feel like we were any closer to reaching the summit. I had to take constant breaks to sip some water and rest my throbbing legs. Between Ally and I we drained the canteen of water. good thing DH is in good shape or we'd have been in trouble. Next time we'll definitely take more water. I kept telling myself, " just put one foot in front of the other. You're the one that wanted to do this."

Lucky for me there were some pretty cool views from up there. that way I got to enjoy the scenery as I sat huffing and puffing trying to make my heart stop racing from the latest short burst of uphill climbing.




Sadly we didn't quite make it to the top. We made it to where the trees stopped and we could see the summit beckoning us. But it was going to be at least another half an hours walk straight up hill and we'd already been at it for 2 hours and 40 minutes. I just couldn't do it. We decided that it was close enough for us and we packed it in and headed back down the hill. All three of us were exhausted by the time we made it home. Naturally, going down hill was much easier. Although, you still had to be careful and your thighs still burned from the exertion of trying not to fall face first down the mountain. The fact that all the trails here seem to be covered in rocks that like to slide loose under your feet and you have to be extra careful on the way down. I made DH take the dog the whole way down because my legs felt like jelly and I was sure I'd loose my balance the first time she tugged and I'd end up being dragged face first down the mountainside. That would have been a pretty picture!
All in all it was a good, yet exhausting day. And I hope we have the energy to do it again some time.

Flashback: Day 5 Italy trip - Hiking and Cold, cold water

Our last day at the Italy Farmstay we went on a three hour hike (1 1/2 hours there and 1 1/2 hours back) in the Abruzzi National Forest. It was a really beautiful day, we walked down in a nice shady gorge along the river to a waterfall.
Not all the pictures are the best because the sun was so bright it's hard to photograph the vividness of colors and the definition in the rock face and all. I'm sure someone who knew a bit about photography could have taken some amazing shots, but I'm not that person.







I think the photos pretty much speak for themselves.

When we got to the waterfall DH and I, being crazy Americans, decided we should definitely take a swim in it. It was posted on their website that there was a hike that finished with a swim in a waterfall - we wanted the full experience. Antonello, our ever present host, warned us that it was very cold and no Italian would ever dream of going in. Well, OK he'd done it before, but not today he wouldn't. Despite that we flung our clothes into a pile and plunged into the icy waters.
Whoa doggy was it cold!
You'd think after a good hike in warm weather it would feel refreshing - you'd be wrong. It felt as though you were getting hypothermia just by sticking your big toe in the water. I think the pictures a bit too small but if you could zoom in on my face you'd see my reaction to the cold. It didn't help that we were barefoot and slipping and sliding over stones trying to avoid having our feet stabbed by the jagged ones lying in wait beneath that frigid pool.

this was the point where I decided I just couldn't take it. I was either going to just have to submerge myself in the ice bath or get out. I opted to get out. I never made it to the waterfall. I chickened out. My daring hubby was hot on my tail out of there.

I have to give credit where credit is due. After taking a small breather and staring at the waterfall, my brave hubby plunged back in determined to stick his head under the falls. And he did it. What a trooper! or maniac, however you might view such an act. He said the waterfall was painful, not only because it was cold but at how fast and hard it pelted down upon you.

We did learn one useful phrase that day. "Viramente, preferisco piu fredda" (Really I prefer it colder) I'm not sure if all my Italian is spelled correctly, I did my best to double check, but one can never be one hundred percent sure with another language.

After our bodies recovered from the shock of being put into freezing cold water we made our back. On our way home we stopped to pillage a Mulberry tree on the side of the road. I don't know if we were all just really hungry or what, but the general consensus was that Mulberries are the best fruit on earth! And just about the messiest as well. After we were done picking the Mulberries from the tree and stuffing them into our greedy little mouths we all looked like extras from a slasher film! The fruits red juice ran down our hands and arms, and covered our faces. mm mm...they were so good though.

On our drive back to the farm we stopped to take some pictures of a breathtaking view of the valley below us and to take another dip in some refreshing water. It was the second coldest water I'd been in that day. We were chattering and giggling after our dip in the freezing waters of the Italian mountains.







We made one more stop before heading for the farm and that was to do a mission impossible style raid on a corn field. We parked the car, ran through someones corn field ripping off ears of corn and hauling them back to the car. dumped them in the trunk and sped away. Once these ears were roasted up for dinner we took a big bite ready to savor the sweetness of our thieving. Only to discover that they were terrible. Antonello liked them but everyone else thought they were horrible. I'm convinced that it was cow corn - corn grown as feed for cattle. The cobs were red! I'm pretty sure sweet corn doesn't have a red cob. Antonello was disappointed that no one liked the corn, but I still had a good time picking! So, that was our final evening in Sora, Italy. The next morning we were up before the sun and taken to the bus station to catch a bus back to Naples then on to Atrani on the Amalfi coast. Stay tuned for the next flashback to hear about our adventures in the Amalfi coast!

Flashback: Day 4 Italy Trip - Horseback Riding!

That's right, we went to Italy to ride horses at the OK Corral! What a hoot.
Look at the hubbster sitting that horse! You never would have guessed it was his first time on a horse. Well, OK. I think he sat on a horse once and someone led it around an outdoor arena. He go SO frustrated with our host (who was also our riding instructor) because the first horse DH got on did not want to listen to him - or anyone. And, poor guy, the person there with the least experience was forced to jump up on the horse first and get a lesson. He was none to pleased with me for saying, "Yeah, get up there" when he tried to get someone else to go first. He did great even if he got a bit frustrated. Our host really wasn't the best at explaining to a beginner how to ride and horse and what to do exactly to make the horse go where you wanted it to go. In the end DH ended up with a great horse. A huge horse, but a gentle giant. He kept saying they had an agreement - DH wouldn't tell the horse what to do and the horse wouldn't try and throw DH off! A good agreement and since his horse (whose name I've forgotten) just wanted to follow along with the crowd there were no problems.
Here's a short video of Antonello, our host, showing us how to get on a horse.
Naturally, I admitted that I had quite a bit of experience riding (though not recently) and was put on the "crazy" horse. Just my luck! In fairness my horse wasn't so bad, but I did have to concentrate on showing him who was boss. Plus, on top of that, a couple of the other horses didn't like my horse - one tried to kick him in the face while we were on a narrow trail - but it was still fun.Here's a photo of us at the ruins of an old church. It was really cool. Since it was in ruins we could ride the horse right inside it. For me the best part was riding through the river. I thought is was just unbelievably cool, I don't think everyone was as enthusiastic as I was! Our legs got soaked. The water came up to about our knees! Yeah, it was that deep. We weren't supposed to take any photos while we were riding, but I asked Antonello if I could just snap a couple of quick shots and he agreed. I got one good one of everyone fording the stream. All in all I enjoyed the day and surprisingly my old riding lessons came back to me quite quickly. At first I was a little bit nervous around all the horses, like kids they can sense fear, so you just show them whose boss and move on. It was a beautiful day for a trail ride and it's just awesome to say, "Yeah, we went horse back riding in the Abruzzi National Forest in Italy. How many people can say that?














After our morning of riding we relaxed around the farm...probably took a nap. That evening we went into town and had an excellent dinner with another couple staying at the Farm. They were newlyweds on their honeymoon. We had a great time hanging out with them and jokingly told them we were stalking them since we had, at the last minute, decided to leave the farmstay a couple days early and head to the Amalfi Coast. Their next stop was the Amalfi Coast and we were now going to be leaving on the same day as them. It turned out we all took the same bus back to Naples then split up as their hotel was picking them up and we had to grab a train...but that's a story for another day.
Our meal in town was fantastic. A small little restaurant on a back street that served one thing. A seven-course meal of the chef's choosing. Everyone got exactly the same thing and it was divine. I still have the printed menu they gave us I can't translate it, but maybe it will end up in a scrapbook if I ever get around to putting one together of our travels through Europe!

Our plan for the evening was to take a taxi home.
We were told by our host that a local pizzeria had an under the table taxi service that would take us back to the farmstay. Sadly, this friendly taxi driver had picked up and moved to Scotland to open a fish and chips shop! go figure. So when we finished our meal at about 11:00 pm on a Saturday night we wandered all over town trying to find a taxi. We asked some police officers and they just laughed at us. Taxis!?!? In Sora!?? No way, it's too small of a town. Our only choice was to hike the 45 minutes back to the farm through the dark. It wasn't exactly easy going following the path through the woods and we almost missed a turn and would have ended up in at the farm with the volunteers if it wasn't for an observant Scotsman. At least we had good company, silly conversation, enough wine in us to keep us happy, and a beautiful fireworks display from the village on the top of the next hill. Funny enough, it was the rumor that there was a festival in Sora that Saturday which drew us there in the first place. Only to find out there wasn't any sort of festival in Sora, but a different town which was WAY too far to go no foot.


All in all it was a lovely day and a perfectly delicious evening with good conversation and excellent food. Salute!

Wine Tasting Party

First off, I just have to give props where they are due. I am married to most giving man ever. I can't believe how willingly he goes along with my craziness. Just one example. Last Tuesday night as we sat around eating dinner and talking about my upcoming birthday I suddenly decided I wanted to have a party. Not just any party, a wine tasting party. My head was teaming with ideas, all of which would cause tons of work for me (and the hubbster) during the week. Instead of telling me I was crazy for planning an elaborate last minute birthday celebration he went along with it and helped me make it work. Now, this might not be all that impressive to you, but on top of being supportive of my last minute birthday wishes, which meant extra work for him, he also had a killer week at work. He leaves tomorrow for Florence where he will be giving a talk at a conference so he has been working like a madman to get himself prepared. And I unkindly dump my plans to have a party straight into his lap. What a good guy!

So, anyways the party was a great success. Naturally, I forgot to take any pictures at all. I'll have to photograph the massive amount of empty wine bottles and an example of how the blind tasting went. I made little bags for the wine bottles labeled A, B, & C so we had multiple rounds of tasting. Each person brought a bottle of wine - actually, many people even brought 2 so there was plenty of wine to be had. I had made up slips of paper so you could mark down your impressions of each wine. We did the Sight, Sniff, Swig tasting method. You looked at the color of the wine ( I usually wrote something very insightful like, It's red or It's white) then we swirled it around stuck our schnoz down in the glass and took a big sniff. I could never describe the aroma. Mostly it just smelled like wine to me. Then we took a swig and this is where the descriptions got interesting. One wine was described as tasting like cow pee. How one might know what that tastes like is better left unasked. The funniest part was the person who wrote that it tasted of cow pee was the person who brought that very wine! ha, ha, the joke was on him!

Not only were my guests expected to faithfully fill out their wine cards, I also forced them to play games. During different rounds of tasting you had to figure out what region the wine came from, or the varietal. It was good fun. Being experts at tasting wine (snort, giggle) we all took wild guesses. I did make it easier by saying, "OK, there are 3 wines here. One is a local French wine, one is a Californian wine, and one is a Bulgarian wine. Guess which is which." It was fun. If you guessed the most correctly you won a prize. I had a grab bag full of wrapped prizes. I had a laugh picking out the cheapest, cheesiest things I could. There was a plastic soccer whistle, alien shaped erasers, a giggle stick, a cow in a can (when you turned it over it mooed like a cow - one of my favorites), 6 tiny, pink, Cinderella yoyos...tons of junk like that. You can imagine how excited people were when they won!

I also made everyone take a wine quiz and write their own wine notes - which were then read aloud. some of them were hysterical. I'll have to look around and see if I have any left. one said, this wine pairs perfectly with stale Christmas candy and post-Christmas orgasms. What more could one ask for in a wine?

By the end of the evening I had drank a wee too much wine and fell asleep on the couch. Thankfully everyone except our upstairs neighbor was gone so they didn't witness this embarrassing display of my lack of restraint when it comes to drinking wine. I think a wine tasting party is definitely something we should do again...only next time I won't be the server, which resulted in me pouring myself a glass of wine approximately every 5-10 minutes. Yeah, that might have been the problem.

anyhoo, I think everyone had a good time, I know I did and I'm the birthday girl so in the end that's all that matters -right?