Bill Thayer's diary • October 8, 1994

[image ALT: Much of my site will be useless to you if you've got the images turned off!]

Sat. 8 October

Fairly simple day: basically breakfast, a walk, and dinner. James has a sore throat and cough but is otherwise OK and in fact didn't complain about the walk and didn't look tired other than as normal with these hills for someone who lives in a flat city.

We walked to Montemolino — the choice being Pontecuti or around to Pontecuti like I did the other day around the hill — James wanted the least traffic possible, so we went to Montemolino, since although a portion of the route, between Ponterio and Pian di Porto, is on an unpleasant long rectilinear stretch of road abutting on the interstate, the rest is almost totally free of traffic on strade bianche in the countryside.

[image ALT: A medieval stone village on a hill in the middle distance, and in the far distance, a town on a much higher hill. It is a view of Montemolino and Montecastello di Vibio, in Umbria (central Italy).]

Monte Molino in the foreground; in the distance, much higher,
Monte Castello Vibio.

The weather started out quite cool: James wore a long-sleeve shirt and his blazer and I had my sweatshirt over a sports-shirt; but it was the clearest bluest sky since I've been in Italy, and quickly warmed up enough for me to take off first my sweatshirt then my shirt altho' occasionally that was a bit cool, but I finally was pleasantly warm and got a bit more tan too.

The walk was pretty much an exact repeat of my previous walk on my own except this time I didn't get lost of course. We stopped and got some cookies for me and some fizzy water for James although apparently (this was in a small supermarket at the turnoff to Montemolino, James went in by himself) the checkout girl switched his water with the next customer's limonade so James drank limonade during the walk.

We spent slightly over an hour, from 12:30 to about 1:401 at Montemolino, mostly sitting at a concrete picnic table (small, round, with 2 concrete seats also round) at the boccie lanes. Did my Léon number to that poor peacock again: neither one of us had got any brighter, although this time I had my camera.

Uneventful walk back; I'd warned James about the trek up the hill from Ponte Rio giving him the option of walking around either via Pian di S. Martino and Pontecuti (6 extra km + traffic) or the Romana (2 extra km); we did the hill, very slowly like I did it last time, and it was painless, although James puffed a bit and stopped a coupla times anyway.

[image ALT: A very oblique view of the façade of a large church. It is the cathedral of Todi, Umbria (central Italy).]

The Duomo of Todi.

Arrived up in town, James wanted to go into the Duomo, which last year was full of scaffolding; I hadn't been in it this time yet. It's clean and white; there is a truly horrible Last Judgment very derivative of Michelangelo's, on the west wall (the back of the façade) even quite unfortunately incorporating the beveled frame of the rose window — by a Ferrau di Faënza I think, 1590 — bad modelling, bad composition, confusing iconography, bad color technique —

Sat at the caffé on the Piazza, had cappuccinoº and grappa, and I had a piadina al prosciutto, then it got too cool for that. Back to the apartment, a pot of tea, then some time after, dinner: fresh tortellini alla rugola (I had 3, James ate a good full plate), salad; Ricotta al Chermes — a bit of Grecchetto — James whom I'd told of the passeggiata existing here wanted to go out for it; we did, there were in fact some people wandering around, but it was coolish and it broke up quickly. We came back, James read the Blue Guide on Perugia and I caught up on this diary.

I have a faint trace myself of sore throat [. . .] I weigh 81 kg, maybe 80¾ (-178) — Only tried to skip rope once today, tripped at 8. . . Situps on the other hand, 92 — proving that a few days without exercise, once in a while, is not harmful to my general level. [. . .]