Bagnoregio and Civita: Angry Italian Men and Donkey Races

Our next stop (Saturday, September 10th, for those of you who are confused by how behind I am on the blog) was in Bagnoregio,  about an hour north of Rome. Bagnoregio is a little Italian town that is next to Civita, which is an old hill town that can only be approached by a pedestrian bridge. Once we found parking, we walked around Bagnoregio and out to see the Civita so that we knew what we'd be getting ourselves into when we went to it the next day. 

Civita!

After getting groceries for dinner, we met up with our host, who showed us our lovely apartment, and relaxed for a little bit while we decided what to do with our next few days in the area. We wanted to get wine to go with dinner, so we headed back out before the wine store closed. Except when we got to the bottom of the staircase we could not, for the life of us, figure out how to get the stupid door open. We were looking for buttons to push, we were trying a combination of keys and buttons, we were flicking light switches, since a previous apartment had used a light switch to open the door. I left Jay sitting on the steps staring at the door and went to message our host to ask what the trick was. Then we traded places and I sat staring at the door, trying a few more combinations of key and button with not luck. Finally, in frustration I thumped hard on the door, something popped, and it sprung open! No, we were not trying to pull on a push door or something embarrassing like that, the door had a spring catch where you needed to push the door to undo the spring before you could then pull the door open. Relieved, I hollered up to Jay and we went to get our wine. There was a wine store around the corner and across the street from us, and, fortunately, they were still open. We stared at the wines for a little bit before finally settling on something, fairly randomly, that was from nearby. Jay went to pay, and then almost forgot to bring the bottle with us. So you can tell, we were a bit frazzled at this point. We got back to the apartment and Jay started cooking when we heard a buzz at the door. We looked at each other confused. I was concerned that maybe our hostess hadn't seen my message that we'd managed to get the door open, so I went down to see who it was. This was only my second time with the door, so it still took me a minute. Once I got it open, a stream of loud angry Italian came pouring in at me, emitted by a red-faced old man, who hollered for a minute at my shocked face, reaching in and flicking the light switches. Finally I managed to get a word in edge wise and said in a timid but moderately panicked voice "English?" At which point he softened a little bit. By then, Jay had appeared at the top of the stairs wondering what the hell was going on and who was yelling at his wife. The old man saw Jay, said something to him, and Jay had the sense to just say "Si." So then the old man explained things to us a little more in incomprehensible but slow Italian, and a few more clicks of each light switch. My interpretation was that one light switch was ours, one was his, and he had been annoyed by us flicking the switches earlier when we were trying to get out the stupid door. Jay thought maybe he was mad at us for leaving the light on. Finally he left, and I, shell shocked, climbed the stairs back to the apartment.

We didn't touch EITHER of the light switches for the rest of our time in Bagnoregio.

After that I was feeling like I'd earned a &@!# glass of wine, so I popped that baby open and sat down to sip, breath, and recover. It was an absolutely DELICIOUS wine. We were amazed at how good it was, and it was only 8 euro. By the time Jay finished cooking dinner, I was on my second glass and mostly recovered from my encounter with the angry Italian. Bed was soon to follow.

The next morning Jay and I went to Orvieto, one of the better known Umbrian hill towns. After the usual scramble to find parking (at the base), we took the funicular up the mountain. We enjoyed wandering through the town, among sun drenched hilly streets and past interesting shops. One particularly entertaining artist's gallery was owned by a cranky old man who had very lofty and specific opinions about art, and had written a series of hilariously crotchety manifesto's criticizing what usually passes for art these days, or art critics, or the like, and mounted them outside his shop for all to read. I really don't know how much he meant for them to be humorous, but I was cracking up.

The big site in Orvieto is the Duomo. We came around it from the side and saw a very large building with strangely brown and white striped walls. At this point I'm thinking "Sure, it's big, and impressive, but I wouldn't consider it that big a deal compared to some of the other stuff we've seen."

The side of the Duomo

And then we got around to the front.

The FRONT of the Duomo

We gaped for a minute and then I started grabbing for my tripod, because I wanted to spend some TIME with this building.

Just one of MANY detailed pictures we took of the Duomo. 

We didn't go inside, because there was a service going on. After that we headed to an AIC (celiac friendly) restaurant and had an absolutely awesome lunch. Jay had wild boar, I had pork shank. It was fantastic. After that we had to hurry back to Bagnoregio, because in our research the day before, Jay had discovered something very important: on THAT VERY Sunday, Civita would be holding an event that they only do twice a year: The Donkey Races. There's some sort of religious festival that precedes it. That's all we know.

So we got back to Bagnoregio and began the trek to the Civita, which first involves a long walk through Bagnoregio, followed by a downward hike to the base of the valley between Bagnoregio and Civita, and then up, up, up the footbridge to Civita. We got up it, gulped some of our water down, and sat and breathed for a little bit, and then we saw the brass band. It was a group of Italian men (and one little boy) playing a number of very loud, very Italian songs. It was about half trumpets, supplemented by a few of the larger horns, and it was loud. Most of the songs were John Phillip Sousa-esque, with an Italian bent, and involved some singing. There was also some choreography that involved a lot of running. All the songs sounded pretty much the same to me an Jay, but we could see from the reactions of the people around us that these were old familiar tunes and they recognized (and frequently sang along) with each of them. It was clear that this was a festival for the locals, and the fact that we had the chance to see it, as outsiders, was really special. 

The brass band

We abandoned our spot near the band to explore Civita a little bit before the races were due to start, eventually finding our way to a little shop that sold something we'd been told to try by our acquaintances in Rome. 

In the streets of Civita

In the area they serve what was described to us as a ricotta ice cream. In reality, it's a scoop of chilled ricotta with some sort of flavoring on top. I didn't love it but I also didn't hate it. Jay hated it, so I ended up finishing his. Then we headed back toward the square. We found a spot on a ledge where we could stand and be out of the way. I found a small glass of Vin Santo (an Italian dessert wine that is like a sweet sherry), and we chilled out and people watched. There was a large and long religious procession, during which the bells of the church ran the entire time, and a Husky mix nearby us sang along plaintively. Eventually, it was time for the donkey races to start!!!

Guess what!

Donkey's don't like being ridden!

 

Best picture I managed. If you want to see more, ask Jay to show you the video he took.

Each race was held between two donkeys and their riders, who were young men who I'd seen earlier in the bar where I got my Vin Santo, perhaps imbibing some liquid courage. They were riding bareback.

I couldn't help but wonder if they had some kind of, eh hem, protective gear.

About 75% of the time spent on each race was spent just trying to get the donkeys facing the same direction and relatively lined up. The second they appeared to be lined up, one of the buglers from the band earlier would sound the starting call and the donkeys would be off. They were spurred on by a serious of clicks, whoops, and bbbbrrrrrrrrrr sounds emitted by the riders. Some of them took to it well. Others did not. As I said. Donkey's aren't fans of being ridden. I'm pretty sure the fastest ones were just the ones smart enough to have figured out that the faster they went, the sooner this would be over and they'd get this man off their back. We stayed for about 5 donkey races before the novelty began to wear off. We knew the grocery store was already closed, so we stopped at the same place that we'd gotten our ricotta and purchased some ham. Jay saw the prices, which were something like 22 euro a kilo, and forgot about the metric system, and thought that we were going to by a fortune in ham. It came to a total about a little more that 2 euro. So yeah. Nearly broke the bank. Then we began the trek back down the hill to our apartment. By the time we made it to the apartment, I was not looking forward to climbing the very steep stairs up to our door. But I managed, and when all was said in done, I'd climbed a total of 57 stories that day (according to my fitbit).

After the work of climbing to Civita, we were prepared to be pretty lazy that Monday, so after a leisurely wake up, we headed out to lake Bolsena to look around.

Bolsena

It was calm and quiet, a very pretty lake, and an absolutely gorgeous drive. When lunch time rolled around we headed to an AIC (celiac friendly) restaurant in the town of Bolsena. They were kind enough to indicate which item on the menu were prepared from fresh local fish, so we decided to follow their lead. We got a sort of sample of local fish to start with and then Jay had a lake fish pasta that he still gets a smile about when I mention it (two weeks later) and I had grilled eel which was truly some of the best fish I've ever had. After that I had a panna cotta for dessert (have I mentioned that I love Italy). After that we headed back to Bagnoregio (taking the long way so that we could enjoy the scenery) and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon before having pasta with a spicy salami that we tossed together and thoroughly enjoyed. Around sunset we walked back to the place that overlooks Civita so that I could fiddle with my camera and tripod for a bit.

The last picture of the evening, and something like a 30 second exposure. 

I'd call it a success.