Hi from Mondavio – well actually about 10 km out of Mondavio, in a quiet cottage amongst quiet small towns and farms. It is quite beautiful and very peaceful. The house has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen/lounge/dining room – it’s not large but very comfortable. The temperature has been lower than in previous places, yesterday only 14 deg, but the thick stone walls, double glazed windows and central heating have kept the indoor temperature warm and constant. The worst feature of the cottage is that we have no wifi and now that we are addicted to wifi we have to go to a bar or restaurant and have wine, coffee or a meal whenever we want access to the Internet. It is a tough life.

With Eddie and Tineke, our friends from The Netherlands, we have explored the many small villages and larger towns within a couple of hours all around us. They range from tiny hilltop villages such as the one closest to us, to quite large coastal cities. Most have origins in Roman times and have had major renovations in Mediaeval times, e.g. Mondavio has a fort and other buildings erected in the 12th to 15th centuries on foundations that were Roman buildings and roads. It is quite amazing to see that now they are being restored and renovated in original style but with modern plumbing, electrical work and sewerage works.

Walking through these towns, or in the case of the large towns and cities through the old city centre, is very interesting. We usually spend more time in the small towns where we can be amongst locals as they go about their normal lives. Here the peak tourist season is over and the region is quiet, with the beachside areas almost completely closed for the winter. The weather has been a bit bleak, especially yesterday when it rained lightly for most of the day, but that is to be expected at this time of year. We saw a news flash (in Italian) which showed “cyclone” damage in Sardenia, on the western coast of Italy, so we on the east coast are lucky the weather has not been worse.

For those who would like a little more detail, probably the best, most interesting, oldest, or least touristic towns that we have seen in this region are Mondavio, Corinaldo and Urbino. These are very well preserved old towns, with churches, theatres, bars, pizzerias, ristorantes, and pastry and fruit and vegetable shops. Urbino is larger than the others and is a large university town but it maintains its historical atmosphere.

Being close to the Adriatic coast the local cuisine is largely fish-based but there is a the full variety of other foods as well. From deep fried seafood to squid ink pasta with clams, we have enjoyed it all. We try to be adventurous and the staff are very helpful in trying to explain the menu but sometimes the meal that arrives is quite different to what we thought we had ordered.

We have had fun with language. Because most of our time has been away from the major tourist centres such as Florence and Pisa we have found that not many people speak English. We (Ted) has enjoyed experimenting with the Italian language and people have been very patient with us. As an example we asked in a chemist shop for a product that they didn’t have but 2 women told us in Italian where we might be able to get it a few kms away at an alimentari macrobiotico (which of course means health food shop). We eventually found the shop and, even though they didn’t have the product, we enjoyed the search and were quite proud of ourselves.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we will leave the east coast and return to the centre of the Italian peninsula, to the village of Ficulle for our second week in time share accommodation. We are looking forward to seeing places like Orvietto, Assisi and Siena which you might have heard of or even visited.

Bye for now. Please keep sending newsy emails; we do enjoy hearing from home and other places. We are both well and we hope everyone else is also.

Love from Ted and Jo

ps. Still having trouble transferring photos