First stop (for the aforementioned directions) was in San Casciano dei Bagni, a town centered on the healing mineral baths inside. Here's Julie and I on the main piazza, overlooking the surrounding farmland:

After finding what we were looking for but being disappointed in its closure, we dropped down the mountain from Monte Cetona to the town of Cetona, on a smaller hill below. There we found a small enoteca called Spirito Di...Vino (a play on words for "divine spirit" and "spirit of wine"), with a sign noting that they were open for lunch today. It turned out to be a great discovery, as the food was fantastic. What follows is a small selection of what we had for lunch.
Fiori di Zucca alla Parmigiana - squash blossoms stuffed with cheese, fried, and baked with tomato sauce:

Prosciutto e Melone - prosciutto and melon:

Ribollita - Tuscan vegetable soup, with zucchine, greens, cabbage, beans, potatoes, etc., served on thin toasted bread:

Creme Caramel - egg custard with orange zest:

Tiramisu - self-explanatory:

Torta di Mele - apple torte:

After all that, a great Cetonan red wine, and some coffee, we wandered back up the hill to the car, snapped a picture of Julie, and headed home to finangle our way to the correct train tickets. Tomorrow, hopefully, a safe and efficient flight.

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]]>Julie and I, however, have had better luck. Mrs. Toll, our former high school Latin teacher, retired to Moiano, just outside Chiusi, in Umbria, where we're spending the weekend and tomorrow in advance of our Tuesday flight home. Last night after our arrival by train here, we ate some dinner here then went for a drive to Montepulciano, a very pretty hill town across the border into Tuscany, where we walked around, admired the views, and had coffee and pastries in a cafe that looked hundreds of feet down to the countryside below. On the way back down, Julie snapped this view of the Bell-Ringer:

Today, aided by Mrs. Toll's expert advice, we toured the battlefield around nearby Lake Trasimeno, where Hannibal ensnared the Roman army in 217 BC and slaughtered 15,000 of them. From up above, it's easy to see how the Romans were trapped by the hills surrounding the lake with no escape.
At lunch we drove up to Cortona in Tuscany, where Julie posed on the steps of the piazza:

We ate lunch at an enoteca in town, where we ordered a mixed plate of salumi and cheese, consisting of prosciutto, cinghiale (wild boar) prosciutto, finochiona (fennel-seed salami), cinghiale salami, deer salami, young pecorino, old pecorino, artichoke hearts, fresh tomatoes, and toasted bread drizzled with white truffle olive oil, all washed down with a beautiful red Tuscan table wine. The establishment's proprietor gave us (between drags from her cigarette, under her 'no smoking' sign) her disdainful take on the ritzier trattorias up the street (9 euro salads! shameful) and the southern Italian olive oil (nice beaches, but they don't know oil) they allegedly pass off as Tuscan.
On the way home, a detour through some of the prettier countryside outside the Toll estate:

Tonight, Italy-France. Tomorrow, (hopefully) Gubbio and the long trip home.
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On our return to Sorrento, we spent some more time taking in the city while waiting for dinner time, then grabbed a prime table at Trattoria da Emilia on the Marina Grande, favorite haunt of Sophia Loren while filming Pane, Amore, e... Allison ordered what was no doubt her favorite dish, Pesce del Golfo, a selection of the freshest fish right out of the bay, fried up and served angry.

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Less famous but no less beautiful are the tomb paintings from the area, including this one of The Diver, symbolizing the plunge from this world into the next:

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]]>Here Debra and Allison eat some phenomenal Campanian apricots, with Vesuvius in the background:

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]]>Herculaneum is, like Pompeii, a first-century AD city buried by the eruption of Vesuvius. Unlike Pompeii, much of the decorations to the houses and buildings have been left intact, due to its more recent discovery. Typical of what's there is this fresco from the building that housed the Augustali, cult devoted to the divinity of the Roman emperors:

On from Herculaneum, we continued to Naples, chaotic but beautiful city in Vesuvius' shadow. The main attraction was the National Archaeological Museum, which houses the treasures recovered from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other local sites. Here's Allison with a statue of a pig from Pompeii:

After all that history, we went for something slightly more modern -- pizzas from Da Michele, serving up pizzas in Naples since 1873, and self-proclaimed 'original pizzeria.'
It was a long walk there from the museum...

...but it was worth it:

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]]>Featured, then, is Debra, stuck going the wrong way to the top of the theater:

And here are the fantastic frescoes from the Villa dei Misteri, just outside the ancient city walls:

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A Look Back remains copyright of the author elefantstn, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>Have a happy and safe Fourth.
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]]>Ciao

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]]>Below, the Duomo, notable for its black and white stripes and colorful façade:

The most interesting facet of the city is its three-thousand year old Etruscan heritage. The civic museum contains climate-controlled tomb paintings, discovered at the tombs just below the city. Here I am, standing in front of an Etruscan inscription at the entrance to one of these tombs:

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Ostia Antica is the former port city of Rome, at the mouth of the Tiber 10 miles downstream. Due to the changing course of the river and the moving shoreline, Ostia died out centuries ago, leaving the city fairly intact when it was excavated. Above, you can see us at a taberna, an ancient bar/restaurant.
Below, the Millers at the ancient mill -- this is the stone used to grind grain for flour.

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]]>From Antica Caciara we grabbed not only a Tuscan fennel salami and Pugliese smoked mozzarella for lunch tomorrow, but penne, pecorino romano, eggs, and guanciale for dinner tonight:

Thirty frustrating minutes in a small kitchen later, the Roman classic, penne alla carbonara:

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]]>Allison at the Fontana di Trevi!

Dave and Deb at the Pantheon!

The non-Josh five climbed the dome of the Vatican in a scene reminiscent of Mastroiani and Ekberg, the result being:

Here we test Julie's truth-telling capacity:

Finally, a typical family moment, at the Baths of Caracalla:

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]]>Today's litany of sites visited:
If you match these (in order) against a map, you can get an idea of the walking involved, though we took the Metro from the Piazza di Spagna to St. John Lateran.
After stopping home to shower (temps over 90) and rest, we headed to Trattoria degli Amici nearby, again out of the Gambero Rosso guide. Fantastic stuff, from the Tonarelli alle Vongole (square spaghetti with tiny sweet clams) to the Zuppa di Ceci (Julie's order of chickpea soup) to the Linguine alla Bolognese Allie and Dave had. Besides being delicious, the restaurant is also a project to help employ mentally disable people in the area, so all the courses we had brought out were for a good cause.
I put some pictures on the iPod to upload, but the computer here can't read it. So much for that. Tomorrow I will try to get that figured out and get some up here. Until then.
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]]>Current gelato count stands at five cones - I personally have only had one, a very decent pistachio.
We caught the end of the Italy-Australia World Cup Round of 16 match back at the apartment today, with 10-man Italy (this keeps happening) winning on a Totti penalty kick in stoppage time. The city is in a correspondingly happy mood, with lots of flags and horn honking on evidence.
More to come tomorrow, including some pictures.
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