Day 5: Benevento

The sun is out and it is quite warm as we set out for the center of Benevento in the car.

We are going first to the Museo di Sannio, which is housed in a building in back of the Church of Santa Sofia at the top of the Corso Garibaldi. I have a strategy in mind to get us closer to our destination by parking on the street as close to the museum as we can get. The big obstacle to my plan is the small number of breaks in the city walls that allow access into the center. So although we park quite close to the museum, it is still a bit of a walk to the nearest “porta”.

In any case, we do make it to the museum….and we are very glad that we did. The museum is a treasure trove of Greek and Roman artifacts from Benevento’s golden age and the holdings are enhanced by the splendid displays throughout the museum. One room in particular has a big glass roof and an exposed industrial skeleton that appears to be three stories high….the various statues and carvings are beautifully mounted and lit by the sunlight pouring into the room.

In addition to sculptures of gods and people, there are wonderful birds and animals

some very expressive busts

and many other wonderful pieces including a massive sculpture of the Emperor Trajan and some great bas reliefs.

On the second floor of the museum, they have a nice collection of more “modern” art……we particularly like the works by Renaissance painter Donato Piperno, some distinctive 18th century furniture nicely displayed and several paintings by a 20th century Benevento artist named Nicola Ciletti.

Our enjoyment of our time in the museum is enhanced by the lack of other visitors, allowing us to take our time and not have to maneuver for views of the holdings. The Museo di Sannio is one the best small provincial museums we have visited in Italy….Diana says that the only thing it lacks is a gift shop.

Before leaving the museum, we spend some time in the lovely cloister of the church where additional pieces are displayed. The columns of the cloister are especially attractive with graceful lines and fantastic carvings of animals.

Our next stop is the Duomo which is located at the bottom of the Corso Garibaldi in the busy commercial section of the historic center. We are now pretty experienced with the traffic patterns in Benevento and by patiently following the tortuous one way street arrangement, we end up right in front of the Duomo. There is a parking lot right next door and, with the help of the “unofficial custodian”, we pull right into a space and give him 2 euros to “watch the car”.

However, when we walk around the Duomo looking for the entrance, we realize that the building is closed for extensive renovations–”in restauro”. Now we have two churches to visit when we next come back to Benevento. We take a short stroll through through the old quarter of town–called the “Triggio” but, as it is getting close to lunchtime, we decide to head south towards the city of Avellino and find a place to eat enroute. According to the Slow Food Guide, there is a recommended restaurant just 12 kilometers south of town so we input “Ceppaloni” into the GPS and start out. As we approach Ceppaloni, the GPS and Diana have a disagreement about the directions…..I follow the GPS and we end up heading in the opposite direction. After about ten minutes of climbing a narrow, curvy road, it becomes obvious that the GPS was wrong and Diana using an old fashioned map was right, so we reverse direction and finally the GPS finds the right road.

The restaurant–La Rete–is actually located in a “suburb” of Ceppaloni and we keep climbing higher and higher above the town. Finally, when we are about to give up hope, Diana sees the sign and after one more wrong turn, we pull into the parking lot.

La Rete turns out to be a casually elegant Italian country restaurant…a place that is a destination for weekend meals in the countryside. There are a number of family groups eating there and children have a playground outside to run around in while the adults continue to eat and drink. It has a pan-Italian menu (no particularly local dishes) and the waiters are dressed in white shirts, black ties and black aprons….but the host is wearing jeans and a sweater and needs a shave.

We have a wonderful meal and a good time….we drink a local red (Aglianico) from Ceppaloni which is dark red but surprisingly mellow. They start us off with a glass of prosecco and some tastes of delicious grilled sausage. We both have the house antipasto…hearty prosciutto, fried vegetables, a heavenly, very light ricotta cheese. Diana’s ravioli with gorgonzola was pretty good and my very creamy polenta topped with a meaty ragu was excellent. For dessert, Diana has an excellent ricotta tart with walnuts and I have the panna cotta, which tastes fine but the texture is a bit off. But the shortcomings in the meal are more than made up by the ambience.

After lunch, we continue on to Avellino…the drive is very pleasant and the scenery quite nice. We make a couple of circuits around the center of Avellino but the town doesn’t really grab us so we decide to head back to Benevento. We are still feeling the effects of lunch so we go back to the room and rest. We decide that dinner is not in the cards tonight so I go out for a stroll in the neighborhood, which I find quiet lively on this Saturday evening. We end up just eating some fruit and try to watch a movie on the computer before giving in and going to bed.

Tomorrow we leave Benevento for Puglia…..