World According to Pete

Wacky random ramblings about wacky random trips


Second Full Day in Todi

(notes from March 2025)

The new day began well!!! Man it’s been a couple of decades since I’ve last used one of these coffee makers, but desperate muscle-memory kicked in and I somehow remembered the technique… does a very credible job!

By the time we were awake enough to leave the flat, it was time for lunch–remember we’re trying to keep our timezone closer to the US than to Italy, to make Sam’s meetings easier. If we can sleep in to 11:00AM or so, it makes Zoom calls after midnight a lot easier to deal with.

So we set out and immediately passed this friendly (albeit dead) religious dude
Our first hint of what March would be like here: cold, breezy, a bit dark & dreary as we wandered weak & weary…
This is the street we wanted!
We are seated in the restaurant: Apparently she’s the goddess of coffee?
Appetizer was unexpected but amazing… deep-fried apple slices, zucchini blossoms, mozzarella, sage leaves, and rice balls (a specialty of Sicily). I have honestly never liked zucchini blossoms–these were the first in my whole life I’ve enjoyed. The apples were a weird item but totally delicious. This appetizer platter became a go-to during our month here!
Sam ordered risotto and it was great, and also a manageable portion size for once
I risked lamb again and it was absolutely boss
Dessert was some caramel & cream concoction 
View of Todi from the backside
Maybe some day we’ll see it not overcast and forty-six degrees?

It is a little brisk here, high of the day was 50 and the thing about high hilltop towns is that they have high-up hilltop breezes! But we packed for this (or so we thought at first), and with our many thermal layers we stayed quite comfortable today, particularly after finding out that back home in Cincinnati the low temperature today was 18 😀

Some smaller rival hilltop town next hill over, I’m hoping a war breaks out while we’re here, I think we’d crush them!
That’s either a big olive grove or a small vineyard in the center, not sure which
Walking up a street….
… and walking down another
View off the edge of a wall
And off the edge of another
In our entire month here, we never did make it down there to explore that cathedral
While most of the trees are still leafless and there’s quite a chill in the air, spring is nevertheless slowly arriving, we’ve seen both irises and daffodils a few times
You can make out snow-capped mountains on the horizon if you squint
And now back to the apt for a post-lunch nap lol

Sam finally crashed this afternoon from the combination of jet lag, work stress, and travel stress, and had a beautiful afternoon-long nap… I think we’re finally over the nasty side-effects of travel and we’re gonna be ready for the work week!

Took my first shower here, and I was reminded of Hemingway describing bankruptcy: at first it happens very slowly, and then all of a sudden. This was my experience with the hot water running out.

My shower next time will be a lot quicker!

If you remember, we are trying not to get too much into the local time zone since Sam has to work US hours, so we headed out to dinner a little past 8:00PM

Our view pretty much every evening as we walk into town from our flat, I swear I will never tire of seeing “our” local church every day
Sam getting sniffed by a very old lion
Todi is utterly deserted tonight, I couldn’t get run over here if I tried!
This is soup for one, split between us lol
Pizzas were great, about eight euros each?!?
An actual dessert, was so good!!
By now it’s bedtime and I am finally reading Hamlet for the first time in my entire life and I am really enjoying it, but the catchy Gilligan’s Island musical keeps intruding every other page 😂 “Hamlet-a-go-go!!”



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