Foligno, Italy

Friday, March 22, 2024

Our day began in Spoleto, Italy at Villino Bellavista B&B. Breakfast was included in our stay, so Andi, Tory, Aden, and I walked to the dining room around 9:00am to have something to eat before we checked out of our hotel room.

Italian breakfasts are short on size and sweet in taste. Typical breakfast offerings are croissants, cakes, and pies, yogurt, fruit, and Corn Flakes. Today’s breakfast spread offered toast, deli meat, and sliced cheese as well.

Breakfast beverages in Italy are unique as well. The typical fruit juice is called ACE which is a blend of orange, carrot, and lemon. Most Italians drink cappuccino in the mornings. If you ask for an americano instead, they’ll bring you a shot of espresso and a small carafe of hot water for you to mix in yourself. There’s also a choice of still or sparkling water to drink with every meal.

After breakfast, we packed up our bags and left Villino Bellavista B&B. Prices are much cheaper in the Umbria Region compared to the southern Naples/Sorrento/Capri area. One night in the family suite with breakfast included, and dinner at the restaurant last night totaled €200 — about half the cost of what we were paying in southern Italy.

From Spoleto, we drove 25 minutes north to the town of Spello, Italy. When you think of a countryside Italian town, Spello is what comes to mind. The small village of about 9,000 people is dripping with charm. We entered the city through an arched wall, and spent an hour or so wandering through its maze of narrow streets and alleyways. There’s an annual flower festival in June, and I can imagine the cobblestone streets and wrought-iron balconies are spectacular to see adorned in color.

Even without the decoration of colorful flowers, the cobblestone streets and stone buildings were gorgeous to wander through this morning. Spello seemed a little more touristy to us than the town of Spoleto with a few more art galleries and souvenir shops, but not kitschy by any means. I find myself asking how many photos of charming, narrow alleyways I really need, and then I keep on photographing them. It really is so beautiful here.

Andi challenged Tory and Aden to a photo contest this morning. The assignment was to capture two photos that best reflected their personal view of Spello. Andi said he and I would be the judges, and the winner would get €5.

Here are the photos Tory submitted for the contest:

And, here are the photos Aden submitted for the contest:

Each of their photos were really good! The photo contest gave the kids something to focus on while they walked around town this morning. The problem is, Tory is very competitive and if she didn’t win, I knew she’d be mad for the rest of the day. If Aden didn’t win, he’d say that we always pick Tory and that he never had a chance of winning.

I told Andi we should wait to award a winner until later, or award them both money for capturing different photo attributes, but that upset Tory because she wanted to win. “Mom always caters to Aden,” she said.

Tory stomped off ahead of the rest of us, eventually leading the way to an open-air piazza. Andi suggested we sit in the square, and have a coffee & a treat to get the kids’ minds off the photo competition.

Ordering was one of those confusing travel moments with a language barrier. I knew we needed to order at the counter, but I didn’t realize the woman behind the counter would then bring our beverages outside to our table. She seemed annoyed to have to explain this to me when she was busy helping other customers.

Nevertheless, Andi found us a small table outside for the four of us to sit. He ordered an espresso and a biscotti, Tory ordered a meringue pastry, and Aden got a moon-shaped cookie. I only wanted a bottle of Coke Zero. None of the desserts were very good Andi and the kids said; they tasted quite bland.

I wish we’d have been able to sit outside the cafe all morning to enjoy the warm sunshine filling the piazza, and listen to the voices of school children singing in the courtyard next door, but unfortunately we were overwhelmed by cigarette smoke. Sitting outside a cafe to smoke a cigarette with your face pointed toward the sun seems to be a common pastime for most people in Europe. The stinky stench of cigarette smoke completely ruins the patio experience for me.

This cafe even had a community cigarette lighter hanging beside the door, just in case you forgot yours I guess.

Treats did the trick to change Tory’s mood around. After the cafe, the four of us made our way back to our rental car parking outside the historic center of Spello. There’s really something magical about wandering the streets of these quintessential Italian towns.

Tonight, Andi booked us one night’s stay at Borgo del Fattore B&B in the town of Foligno. This is where the Luigi Tega olive oil factory is located, the brand of Italian olive oil we purchase at home from Andi’s friend Dave. (Dave is a distant relative of Luigi Tega.) When Andi and I discussed traveling through the heart of Italy, we thought it’d be interesting to see the olive oil fatory if our travels allowed.

We arrived to Borgo del Fattore B&B around 1:00pm, and our rooms were ready to check into right away. For tonight, we have two rooms across the hall from one another since there isn’t a family room option.

The manager of the B&B suggested we go to Fichetto Restaurant for lunch. This is the type of place you’d never stumble into on your own — the entrance was unassuming and looked more like a bar than a sit-down restaurant. Inside, the bartender led us through two separate rooms before seating us in the dining area at the back of the restaurant. He was very kind, offering to translate the menu into English for us if we couldn’t understand Italian. Luckily, using the Google Translate app helps a lot.

Right away, he brought a plate of bruschetta and garlic focaccia bread to the table. Andi ordered the pork and baked potato for his entree. Tory wanted gnocchi, of course, and Aden and I ordered tagliatelle al ragu. I almost never order pasta at home, but in Italy it feels like the food to order. It’s what they do best! Most restaurants serve fresh noodles with homemade sauce.

Most waiters, including this one, are shocked when we don’t want wine with our lunch. It’s customary in Italy to order wine in 1/4, 1/2, and 1 liter carafes. They’re also surprised when Tory orders Cola-Cola to drink, and almost always give it to me when the drinks are brought to the table. Apparently, it must be unheard of for children to drink caffeine here.

Tory and Aden wanted ice cream for dessert, but the restaurant only sold pre-packaged frozen ice creams like you’d buy at a gas station. That suited the kids fine, and they each picked out a cone. Our meal concluded with shots of limoncello and grappa “on the house” before we left the restaurant. We sat outside the restaurant on a bus stop bench and let the kids eat their treats before walking back to our B&B.

Andi and I promised Tory and Aden that if they could make it through an afternoon olive oil tasting at Luigi Tega, they could have the rest of the evening to hang out in their hotel room. We scheduled an olive oil tasting at 3:00pm with the factory located on site of our B&B.

Dave, an old co-worker of Andi’s from Minneapolis, is relatives with Luigi Tega, and works to distribute the olive oil products in the United States. We’ve been buying olive oil from Dave for close to 10 years now, and jumped at the chance to tour the facility where the olive oil is produced.

We were greeted by Nikita, 4th generation of the business, and current export manager. Nikita shared information about the company’s olive oils and allowed us to taste the classic oil as well as the flavored varieties. He also took us through the steps of production, though olive oil harvest happened this past November/December so no oils are currently being produced at the moment. Still, it was interesting to see a behind-the-scene look at the factory and learn more about olive oil. It felt good to see for our own eyes that the olive oil we use at home is a high quality product.

Andi and I really enjoyed tasting all the flavored oils. We buy the lemon olive oil currently, but there were so many others to choose from here in the factory. I particularly liked the aglio rosso (garlic) oil which was potent, but didn’t leave a lasting garlic flavor in my mouth. The cipolla e peperone oil (onion and red pepper) was also outstanding. I can see this one being a delicious compliment to roasted veggies.

After the olive oil tasting, we set Tory and Aden loose to their hotel room. Understandably, the kids wanted some downtime to rest & recharge. I could have used some down time myself, but I also wanted to see the water fall that the host of the B&B was telling us about.

We could either walk 45 minutes to the Menotre Falls from the B&B property she said, or take our rental car to a parking lot close to the falls. We opted for the latter, feeling tired already from our busy day. Andi and I started our walk through a grove of olive trees which lead up a steep, paved road. Was this right? It didn’t feel like this was the way to the waterfalls.

Eventually, we turned around and decided to drive our car to the nearby town of Pale … except, the road Google Maps led us down ended up being a dead-end. After an hour of trying to find the waterfalls by foot and by car, Andi and I decided to scrap the idea of hiking and go for a drive instead. The manager of the B&B made it sound so easy to find the Menotre waterfalls, but we thought otherwise.

Andi drove us to check out the town of Foligno, and find something to bring back to the kids for dinner. This town was much bigger than the others we’d visited in the area, and traffic was congested during rush hour. We wanted an easy dinner — something that didn’t require us to sit in a restaurant for two hours, or have to communicate with someone who couldn’t understand us. I absolutely love traveling and experiencing new places, but sometimes we get tired out and just need easy. I suggested we stop at McDonald’s for the kids since I wasn’t even hungry for dinner. Andi said he wasn’t either so this worked for him.

At McD’s in Foligno, we placed a food order to-go, and then brought the burgers and nuggets back to the kids at the B&B. So funny that at home in the USA we never eat at McDonalds’s and on this Europe trip if feels like we’ve eaten there a lot. Tory and Aden were all smiles about getting fast-food for dinner. “Thanks! Where did you even find this?” they wondered.

Tory and Andi went for a walk around the neighborhood of Borgo del Frattore B&B after dinner, and Aden and I stayed back in our hotel rooms to blog and watch TV. Tomorrow, our exploration of central Italy continues with plans to cross the regional border from Umbria into Tuscany.