Casperia

Several weekends ago Jim and I headed out of Rome for a weekend in the Sabine Hills, north of Rome.  We'd heard about a small B&B in this tiny hill town from my brother Chris, who stayed here with his wife Carmel and friends a few years back.  At the time, looking at his blog photos, the town looked like a perfect retreat from Rome -NO cars or scooters, wonderful views over the hill country and an ample terrace to soak up the sun and enjoy a glass of Lazio wine.

From our local train station in Trastevere, its an easy hour to Poggio Mirteto, the closest station to Casperia.  We arranged with our hosts Maureen and Roberto to have a driver meet us (this turned out to be Roberto himself) and set off mid-afternoon. We were on the train and on our way before we hit a rolling sciopero - strike - at Tibertina.  After a hour's wait and a lot of mobile phoning from us and fellow passengers we were on on way again.

The Torretta B&B is an 15th century country house in the centre of the village, which winds around and up to peak at a tiny piazza with the local belltower and church.  The houses are all of honey coloured stone and the streets are paved with more of the local stone.  Its either a steep climb or descent as you walk around the town.

We had booked dinner at one of three restaurants within Casperia, but first we headed out for an olive oil tasting with slow-food expert Johnny Madge, who runs a little bar in the town.  Johnny is an englishman who has lived and worked in Lazio for 30 years, first as a sculptor, and now promoting the fantastic olive oils and wines of Lazio.  His enthusiasm for the local wine and oil is infectious - we tasted a great local white called Grechetto along with mild and pungent oils from the Sabine Hills.

We loved Johnny's bar so much we returned the next night too - there is a convivial mix of locals and ex-pats in the community and it was a great place to meet people and, for me, practice my italian!

Our dinner at Gusto al Borgo was a great experience. We ate in a big dining room of the owner's village house with some home-brewed wine and lots of good warming dishes, beginning with a crespelle with radiccio and sausage and finishing with an amaretti semifreddo.  The house cats joined us for limoncello (four of them) - they were enormous!  There are obviously plenty of leftovers at the restaurant.

Outside Johnny's Bar

Along with some country walks, another great dinner and more time at Johnny's bar, we had a couple of relaxing days out of the busyness of Rome. We enjoyed it so much we know we'll be back in the future, possibly for a longer olive oil and wine tour.

My italian progress

I apologise for a month (a month!) between posts.

Truly, it has been a busy time for me as a language student.  I've now progressed to the top of intermediate italian, which has been an incredible amount of study over the past nine weeks.  At the moment I'm tackling the passato remoto, which any italian speaker will tell you, is an oft-used tense.   I have one more exam to go on the 22nd of this month, and that's as far as I think my brain will manage at this juncture.

At some stage I'll stack up all my language texts from the school, additional bits of printed matter from the many history walks I've taken with Silvia, the museum guides in italian; and the extra bits of material my language exchange buddies have given me and I'm sure it'll be a surprising amount of paper.

Some words continue to stump me and some verbs are just too close in spelling not to mix up, but all in all I can understand most of what I hear, have a conversation with the locals, make a joke in italian and have the beginnings of an italian rrrrrrr in my pronunciation.  This last one is a killer for me.  Try as I might, my "r" sound is disappointingly anglo-saxon.  A bit of wine helps!

So, I'm sure I'll look back on my time here with a lot of love.  It's an amazing city, Rome, for all it's traffic and chaos.

 

Living here in Trastevere means we are in the centre of city, and we can choose to walk over the Ponte Sisto to the Campo dei Fiori, along the Tiber to the Vatican and on to our new favourite part of Rome, Prati (Jim's discovery, and an area he spends quite a bit of time in), or over the Ponte Garibaldi with a right-hand turn at the Largo Argentina to the Campidoglio and the Colosseum.

 

Today we had a bit of a shopping spree over at Prati - a very satisfying pasttime for people under the weather with colds - followed by a late lunch in the Campo dei Fiori, photographed by Jim prior to devouring.  Tonight I've taken a run over the bridge down to Tiber Island, and we're about to head out to our favourite wine bar in Trastevere for an aperitivo before dinner.

 

I have another post to put up on our weekend away at Casperia in a day or two.