Assisi and Chocolate - July 18

Jill: The sound of cicadas is everywhere here and I think the kids have noticed as well. Walking through Orvieto the other day, Davis asked, "does that bird have an off button?"

Here are a few pictures of our house and the car Todd has been navigating so well through the Italian country. It's the biggest place we've stayed and we're enjoying the chance to spread out.

















































Emmy is feeling inspired by the beautiful food and made us an appetizer one day, plum with cucumbers and carrots.

And as it turns out there is plenty of wildlife to enjoy at this villa. The beautiful lavender plants around the pool draw many different species of bees, hornets and something menacing we have yet to identify. We also have spotted two ticks, luckily one was dead (in the house) the other was crawling on Emmy but hadn't had a chance to get situated before we squashed him. There were also some unidentified crawly bugs around the house when we got home for dinner the first night. But everything else is just too lovely to be bothered by these critters (although there is plenty of shrieking when we swim!).

Today was our actual anniversary and we had a great and very full day. We began by driving just over an hour to see the town of Assisi. One of the great hill towns, Assisi is just gorgeous and the views are amazing. Our first stop was the Basillica of St. Francis of Assisi, built in 1228. There were two levels of this cathedral and in the lower level we were able to see the tomb of St. Francis, one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the world. The ceilings and walls were filled with frescos, that along with the intricate stained glass windows made the basilica absolutely breathtaking! It was very inspiring to be immersed in such history.



View of Assisi from the road




The winding roads of Assisi


The view from Assisi




Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi




Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi


The view of the town from the basilica

We stopped at a few other churches as we meandered through the beautiful town. One of the most memorable was the Assisi Cathedral of San Rufino, the third church church built on that site. The church, built in the 1100's was impressive enough but then we noticed some people going downstairs and decided to follow. We discovered the crypt museum where the remains of the earlier churches has been exposed. Here we touched columns that preceded Christ and crept through hallways with low arching ceilings (that gave both Emmy and I the creeps). It was actually very cool!



Streets of Assisi


The fountain in the Piazza del Commune




Street views



Chiesa Nuova


Assisi Cathedral of San Rufino



Basillica of St. Clare of Assisi

It was about 4:00 and we were feeling pretty tired on the drive home but couldn't help stopping at the Perugia chocolate factory, originally called Perugina (now owned by Nestle), since it was directly on our way and closed at 5:30. We were in luck, an English tour was just getting underway as we entered. The first stop (and the only part of tour where photos were allowed) was a chocolate making demonstration. We learned that they have to heat the chocolate to 45C because the different crystals melt at different temperatures. Once it reaches this temperature the chocolate must be shocked back down to between 31-39C so that the crystals would then stick together, thicken and have a shiny appearance. This is the tempering process. The chef poured the bowl of chocolate onto the countertop and stirred it around with a spatula to cool it. He could tell by touch when it reached the desired temperature. Then they poured it into a mold to show how they made the chocolate shells that they then added different fillings into. The greater the difference between the temperature of the chocolate and the mold, the thicker the shell would be. This whole time the kids were asking if we'd be able to taste one, and sure enough they had a batch that had been pre-made and we all got to sample one. (Little did we know what was ahead.)












We then went into another room for a brief history about the company and some of the exciting marketing promotions they've done over the years. After this the doors opened and we went into a room where 15 different kinds of chocolate and sweets where displayed on the counter and we were allowed to sample... as much as we wanted. I felt like I had arrived at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. They kids were thrilled, they couldn't believe it and a lot of chocolate went down. The tour guide also gave each family a bag of samples to take home. This alone was well worth the price of admission! We then toured the factory and the kids loved to see the various stages of the assembly lines. It was super interesting, lots of fun and we were so glad we stopped!

For an anniversary treat, Emmy made us a lovely dinner that we ate at the picnic table outside, with Prosecco and chocolate for dessert!




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Location:Citta Della Pieve