Il Vecchio Cantinone is a relaxing place, at least for the guests. We imagine it can be pretty busy at times for Ian and Jane, but we wanted to be as little burden to them as possible, so would be looking after ourselves as much as we could.
All the same, after several days’ driving and an intense time in Venice, we both
felt a little ragged, and slept in for longer than we had so far. We breakfasted simply in Ian’s and Jane’s kitchen (coffee, toast, and cereal), then joined our hosts in lazing by the pool—and splashing around in it—until the storm that had been threatening finally rolled over from the surrounding hills in our direction, whereupon we went and lazed inside for a while instead.
While the weather was fine, we made the acquaintance of some of the local wildlife. A few days earlier, a fledgling wagtail had tipped itself out of its nest and taken up residence around the patio table and chairs, where its mother would fly down from time to time to feed it. We “discovered” it by one of us almost sitting on it as it rested on a chair. There were als
o the lizards, sunning themselves on the lavender-shadowed wall that went down beside the pizza oven. Don tried several times to photograph them, but they kept running away—though he succeeded in the end.
And then there were the cats. A lovely young tabby, not much more than a year old—little more than a kitten herself, small, slim and delicate-looking—had given birth to two kittens somewhere round the estate, and brought them down daily for food in the enclosed courtyard. Jane refused to name them, or allow them into the house, for fear of becoming attached …
Late in the afternoon, with the skies partially cleared again, Ian and Jane took us in
their car for a bit of a tour, structured round a rather remarkable photographic exhibition, or rather, festival—Il Festival di Fotogiornalismo, allegedly the first of its kind in Italy (or possibly in Ancona Province). The organisers had decide to shun the cities, and spread the festival across six of the small towns of the province, starting (in alphabetical order) with Cupramontana: Jane’s and Ian’s local town, with a populace of around 4,500, sitting atop its own little flat-topped mountain (about 450 metres above sea level), and a little way down the road from their B&B. It was first settled around 600 BC, and named after a local fertility goddess …
First, though, Ian and Jane took us for a “tourist trip” in their car: up and down va
rious hills, round hairpin bends on steep hillsides, and by or through little hilltop towns with names like Poggio Cupro, Maiolati Spontini, and Monte Roberto, in one of which we stopped for a look. It wasn’t quite our first experience of a Le Marche hilltop town (having visited San Leo), but it was really the first time we’d walked through the streets of one. But far more exciting were the views from, and of, the town walls. Those crazy mediaeval Italian builders again! (If only we could remember which town it was!)
Eventually we came to the first photo exhibition site, about 4 or 5 miles north-east of Il Vecchio Cantinone, at a lovely Napoleonic-era villa just outside the town of Pianello Vallesina, the Villa Salvati. The exhibition was Tomas van Houtryve’s “The Fall of a God-King” (recording the Maoist revolution in Nepal, and culminating in the 2008 elections). But although the ph
otography was passionate and engrossing, our interest focussed rather on its setting, the somewhat decayed beauties of the Villa itself: plaster-moulded pillars and ceilings, ceiling paintings, frescoes, and sweeping staircases.
The second exhibition site we visited was Staffolo, where we saw a most disturbing black-and-while exhibition of street-crime photos (“See Naples and Die”) by Francesco Cito
, before driving back to Cupramontana under more heavy, threatening clouds—a regular feature of Central Italian afternoons in June. This was our final stop in the photojournalism tour. The photos were displayed in the studios of Raul Bartoli, a Cupramontana native who died in 1994; they were by Sergio Ramazzotti (see other work of his here), and were themed on death: Islamic death rites, African animism, the Mexican “dia de los Muertos”, the Cairo necropolis, and so on.
After we came out from the exhibition, Margaret got a call from her office. They’d tried to get hold of her several times that day, but cellphone reception is chancy in Le Marche. The message was alarming: the company she works for, Pilat, were laying people off. Would she be affected directly, or indirectly via layoffs among her team? It cast a bit of a shadow over the evening, but there was nothing Margaret could do with her cellphone from Cupramontana at that time of day, so she arranged to ring her boss the following morning.
By now, dinnertime was not far off. Jane and Ian had arranged for us all to have dinner with English friends of theirs who ran a B&B not all that far away from their own. Before driving there, though, we paused in a trattoria for an aperitif of Campari, grapefruit-juice, and Prosecco (a cocktail apparently called “The Rainwater”, we learn from the Internet), served in champagne flutes. It was delicious.
The restaurant was called Crevalcuore del Lago, described on its
sign as “ristorante tipico”. According to our dictionary, that means “a typical restaurant”, but we suspect we’re missing an idiom. (We were. Try "traditional restauranr".) It was under new management, and Ian’s and Jane’s friends (Tony and Leslie) were keen for it to succeed since it served good food, and was easy walking-distance from their place.
When we arrived, Jane providing an astonishing (to us) mastery of Italian, and got us shown to a table for eight. Waiting for the others, she and Ian ordered “The Rainwater”, but without knowing its name (particularly not in Italian), had to describe its ingredients instead. The pretty waitress, with amazing white spectacles, did her best, but with huge quantities of Campari and nowhere near enough Prosecco and no grapefruit juice at all, the result was a startlingly bitter concoction. At least, though, she left The Makings, so we were able to do better for ourselves later on.
Tony and Leslie soon arrived, bringing with them Clive and Anna, friends from England w
ho were visiting them somewhat as we were visiting Jane and Ian. We ordered entrees and wine, and set in to get to know one another.
The dinner was going very well indeed at a social level; but several of us had ordered the grillo misto, mixed grill, for the main course; and right there it got a bit bad and sad. The entrees had been very promising, so the burnt state of the meats was extremely disappointing. Most of us who’d had grillo misto sent the main course back uneaten, and moved on to quite acceptable deserts. The restaurant was pretty nice about it (following Jane’s vigorous Italian) and rescinded the prices of the meals, but the damage was done. The Italian residents agreed to give them another chance sometime (because of the convenient location), but the signs—including the lack of other diners, apart from one table—weren’t good. Unable to enjoy the main course, we were forced to enjoy one anothers' company, which was no hardship at all!
We finished up with liqueurs (which brought Margaret to the discovery of limoncello), then made our way to Tony’s and Leslie’s place for more of the same. Jane took the women in the car, while the men walked the path past a patch of woodland, where fireflies flashed on off on short,
mysterious paths through the vegetation.
Don had got into the wine somewhat, and (most uncharacteristically) can’t remember much more of the night. But Margaret says we had a very good time with our old and new friends, drinking whiskies (Don) and yet more Limoncello (Margaret). Don looks at the photos and believes her. At some time, presumably, Ian and Jane drove us back to Il Vecchio Cantinone and we went to bed …
All the same, after several days’ driving and an intense time in Venice, we both
felt a little ragged, and slept in for longer than we had so far. We breakfasted simply in Ian’s and Jane’s kitchen (coffee, toast, and cereal), then joined our hosts in lazing by the pool—and splashing around in it—until the storm that had been threatening finally rolled over from the surrounding hills in our direction, whereupon we went and lazed inside for a while instead.While the weather was fine, we made the acquaintance of some of the local wildlife. A few days earlier, a fledgling wagtail had tipped itself out of its nest and taken up residence around the patio table and chairs, where its mother would fly down from time to time to feed it. We “discovered” it by one of us almost sitting on it as it rested on a chair. There were als
o the lizards, sunning themselves on the lavender-shadowed wall that went down beside the pizza oven. Don tried several times to photograph them, but they kept running away—though he succeeded in the end.And then there were the cats. A lovely young tabby, not much more than a year old—little more than a kitten herself, small, slim and delicate-looking—had given birth to two kittens somewhere round the estate, and brought them down daily for food in the enclosed courtyard. Jane refused to name them, or allow them into the house, for fear of becoming attached …
Late in the afternoon, with the skies partially cleared again, Ian and Jane took us in
their car for a bit of a tour, structured round a rather remarkable photographic exhibition, or rather, festival—Il Festival di Fotogiornalismo, allegedly the first of its kind in Italy (or possibly in Ancona Province). The organisers had decide to shun the cities, and spread the festival across six of the small towns of the province, starting (in alphabetical order) with Cupramontana: Jane’s and Ian’s local town, with a populace of around 4,500, sitting atop its own little flat-topped mountain (about 450 metres above sea level), and a little way down the road from their B&B. It was first settled around 600 BC, and named after a local fertility goddess …First, though, Ian and Jane took us for a “tourist trip” in their car: up and down va
rious hills, round hairpin bends on steep hillsides, and by or through little hilltop towns with names like Poggio Cupro, Maiolati Spontini, and Monte Roberto, in one of which we stopped for a look. It wasn’t quite our first experience of a Le Marche hilltop town (having visited San Leo), but it was really the first time we’d walked through the streets of one. But far more exciting were the views from, and of, the town walls. Those crazy mediaeval Italian builders again! (If only we could remember which town it was!)Eventually we came to the first photo exhibition site, about 4 or 5 miles north-east of Il Vecchio Cantinone, at a lovely Napoleonic-era villa just outside the town of Pianello Vallesina, the Villa Salvati. The exhibition was Tomas van Houtryve’s “The Fall of a God-King” (recording the Maoist revolution in Nepal, and culminating in the 2008 elections). But although the ph
otography was passionate and engrossing, our interest focussed rather on its setting, the somewhat decayed beauties of the Villa itself: plaster-moulded pillars and ceilings, ceiling paintings, frescoes, and sweeping staircases.The second exhibition site we visited was Staffolo, where we saw a most disturbing black-and-while exhibition of street-crime photos (“See Naples and Die”) by Francesco Cito
, before driving back to Cupramontana under more heavy, threatening clouds—a regular feature of Central Italian afternoons in June. This was our final stop in the photojournalism tour. The photos were displayed in the studios of Raul Bartoli, a Cupramontana native who died in 1994; they were by Sergio Ramazzotti (see other work of his here), and were themed on death: Islamic death rites, African animism, the Mexican “dia de los Muertos”, the Cairo necropolis, and so on.After we came out from the exhibition, Margaret got a call from her office. They’d tried to get hold of her several times that day, but cellphone reception is chancy in Le Marche. The message was alarming: the company she works for, Pilat, were laying people off. Would she be affected directly, or indirectly via layoffs among her team? It cast a bit of a shadow over the evening, but there was nothing Margaret could do with her cellphone from Cupramontana at that time of day, so she arranged to ring her boss the following morning.
By now, dinnertime was not far off. Jane and Ian had arranged for us all to have dinner with English friends of theirs who ran a B&B not all that far away from their own. Before driving there, though, we paused in a trattoria for an aperitif of Campari, grapefruit-juice, and Prosecco (a cocktail apparently called “The Rainwater”, we learn from the Internet), served in champagne flutes. It was delicious.
The restaurant was called Crevalcuore del Lago, described on its
sign as “ristorante tipico”. According to our dictionary, that means “a typical restaurant”, but we suspect we’re missing an idiom. (We were. Try "traditional restauranr".) It was under new management, and Ian’s and Jane’s friends (Tony and Leslie) were keen for it to succeed since it served good food, and was easy walking-distance from their place.When we arrived, Jane providing an astonishing (to us) mastery of Italian, and got us shown to a table for eight. Waiting for the others, she and Ian ordered “The Rainwater”, but without knowing its name (particularly not in Italian), had to describe its ingredients instead. The pretty waitress, with amazing white spectacles, did her best, but with huge quantities of Campari and nowhere near enough Prosecco and no grapefruit juice at all, the result was a startlingly bitter concoction. At least, though, she left The Makings, so we were able to do better for ourselves later on.
Tony and Leslie soon arrived, bringing with them Clive and Anna, friends from England w
ho were visiting them somewhat as we were visiting Jane and Ian. We ordered entrees and wine, and set in to get to know one another.The dinner was going very well indeed at a social level; but several of us had ordered the grillo misto, mixed grill, for the main course; and right there it got a bit bad and sad. The entrees had been very promising, so the burnt state of the meats was extremely disappointing. Most of us who’d had grillo misto sent the main course back uneaten, and moved on to quite acceptable deserts. The restaurant was pretty nice about it (following Jane’s vigorous Italian) and rescinded the prices of the meals, but the damage was done. The Italian residents agreed to give them another chance sometime (because of the convenient location), but the signs—including the lack of other diners, apart from one table—weren’t good. Unable to enjoy the main course, we were forced to enjoy one anothers' company, which was no hardship at all!
We finished up with liqueurs (which brought Margaret to the discovery of limoncello), then made our way to Tony’s and Leslie’s place for more of the same. Jane took the women in the car, while the men walked the path past a patch of woodland, where fireflies flashed on off on short,
mysterious paths through the vegetation.Don had got into the wine somewhat, and (most uncharacteristically) can’t remember much more of the night. But Margaret says we had a very good time with our old and new friends, drinking whiskies (Don) and yet more Limoncello (Margaret). Don looks at the photos and believes her. At some time, presumably, Ian and Jane drove us back to Il Vecchio Cantinone and we went to bed …
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