Day 11: San Quirico d'Orcia

The weather has regressed this morning……very overcast and threatening. We spend a slow morning around the apartment and I take a walk around town which is pretty busy with day trippers in spite of the dreary weather.

Diana is feeling a bit better so we get in the car and head west to Civitella Marittima for our lunch with Gloria and Marcel. She is from Civitella Marittima and he is from Ottawa Canada. They spend the week in Pisa—she is a teacher and he is a web designer–and weekends in Civitella Marittima. They also have a rental business….they have a property in Civitella–La Casina di Rosa–and an apartment in Pisa. We have "known" each other through the Slow Travel web site for years but have never been able to connect before.

You can see some pictures of the town on her web site.

http://www.casinadirosa.it/en/civitella.html

They take us to their favorite local restaurant–the Locanda del Cassero–(we sat at the large table in front of the window)

and we have a very pleasant, leisurely meal with long discussions partly about the Italian educational system (Gloria is a bit frustrated with her university teaching situation) and the bleak outlook for the travel business.

The restaurant has a lot of very local dishes…..I have a local version of Tuscan vegetable soup called acqua cotta….not unlike a ribollita (but different.) The other three have a delicious local specialty….a unsmoked bacon and cheese filled fried pancake called "il rivolto." Diana has a unique version of lasagne where the pasta is crisped on top and I have a plate of "agnello fritto"–fried lamb served with fried artichokes which is pretty good. We drink a very nice local wine from Montecucco. After lunch, we walk down to the parking lot and say goodbye.

We drive back to San Quirico d'Orcia and Diana immediately goes back to bed and skips dinner…..she is not yet over her illness. I do some work, walk around town, pick up a few things for my supper (tomatoes, bread).

Tomorrow we will be hosting another Slow Travel friend–Marian Rothenburg–who is traveling in Rome with her granddaughter and is taking a day trip to San Quirico. We are hoping for more clement weather and for Diana to feel better.