One of the younger olive trees in Castello del Lago.
An early breakfast this morning before driving off to Castello del Lago on the shores of Lake Trasimeno for market day. Snaked up the winding roads to this hilltop town and of course found no parking at the top, so had to drive back down again to find space. As we walked back up to the town, we passed some fantastic ancient olive trees – all gnarled and misshapen – Dave reckoned some of them were several hundred years’ old.
At the top, I stopped for a pee, and emerged to find Dave waiting for me, but nobody else. The rest of the group seemed to have gone on into the depths of the very extensive market that stretched through the narrow streets and was quite busy. I have to confess to getting very tetchy that they hadn’t waited for me especially as my text messages were ignored. Finally caught up with everyone near the food stalls – they had apparently been looking at the view when I emerged from the loo and not seen me …So we wandered round the shops and stalls – loads of shops selling interesting olive wood products (we bought a spatula, spaghetti measurer and a corkscrew), Umbrian delicacies – cheeses, cold meats and boar, and fabulously expensive truffles.
Stopped for an ice-cream of course – another delicious combination: chocolate fondant and orange – at the Gelateria de la Corsa.
Returned home for lunch of tomato salad, bread, cheese and leftover risotto, before a few Fat Slapper tunes and a heavy session of reading by the pool.
I cooked dinner tonight – salmon in foil with parsley, wine, garlic and lemon with some fine beans and Anna’s special lentils. We had an enormous meringue and strawberry treat cooked by Sylvia as well. I then proceeded to fall asleep as everyone else watched the Italian Job.
