Umbria's Hilltop towns

Would you like some truffles with that?

(There's photos amongst the text, so keep on scrollin')

We'd stopped for espresso and a gluten fuelled breakfast somewhere on a corner where the tables lean and wobble unsteadily on the cobbles and the young man with the apron who looks squeezed like the night bus on Harry Potter speaks English like we speak Italian. The toast is more like a cake, the fruit ad yogurt perfect and the panini a figment of Bens imagination. So later when we are navigating the spaghetti junctions and the crazy Italian drivers, who drive passionately but without a care for other road users Ben can't function any more and we head for McDonalds, where I get my second gluten free burger. Back in the hot car we clear the crinkly wrappers that litter the cupholders as wed been sampling all the Italian lollies as we swerved lanes to avoid the impossibly slow drivers on the right and the incredibly fast ones on our left.

We arrive 15 minutes before check in at Castello Izzalini, the hotel have said checkin is strictly 3pm till 8pm and anything after 'you're on your own'. We park the Panda in the shade and sit in the shade of the bell tower. We are waiting, waiting, I'm so patient... there's a small gap between the buildings, we can't resist, we take the three stone steps and poke our noses through and find doorways to peoples rooms, we head down the narrow path on the other side and pop out on the little village road and head back to the bench. Finally Mary arrives (I'll call her Mary, simply because she looks like a Mary) completes the checkin and leads us across the courtyard around the desiccated garden, through a double door, up 4 flights of stairs to our room which despite being an oven is a great home for two nights. It overlooks the countryside from the bedroom and the courtyard from the kitchen/dining/pullout couch. The smell of horse dung and countryside fills the room and within 2 minutes Ben is flat out on the bed very much asleep.

We stopped along the way at a supermarket filled elderly locals plodding about through the aisles where April and I zoomed around to pick up the makings of a platter which is what I put together for our dinner. We devour the delicious array of meat, cheese, olives and bread.Then its back in the Panda to the nearest hilltop village for some mosquito spray as us girls are being eaten alive.

In the morning we head to Todi, the roads here are overused and under-repaired so can be treacherous especially if your driver is sipping his espresso which luckily stays in the tiny cup as we hit another huge bump. We take the Todi turnoff and head straight up a steep road that would give Baldwin Street a run for its money, it's much longer though, Ben's dropping gears so we can get to the top. We're always up and out before the crowd so we find a park and use our decoding skills on the parking sign to conclude our Panda is safe here. Heading up into the small town we are expecting to find the Sauturday Market but all is quiet except a small dog who can't decide if he wants to hang out in his shop or chase the ball so he's desperately trying to do both. We love the vacant streets and labyrinth of small alleyways, April and I lose Ben and Alila but we all find the Panda, though she's not alone, she has a 30euro parking fine. To get out of Todi we head through the Centro and down the one way streets just wide enough for our car.

We arrive in Spello at 11am and we're all feeling pangs of hunger exacerbated by the smelly cheese shops advertising all things truffle and truffle flavoured, we can't help but want lunch. However nothing opens till 12 or even 1 for anything with decent food. We're all getting a touch Hangry so finally settle on booking lunch at 1pm and heading to the cool garden terrace to wait it out with a drink and a snack. The peaceful garden is soon a deafening cacophony of bells tolling the midday hour and we all relax as the bells quiet and our meat and cheese tray arrives. 

As we head into the cave like Cantina restaurant we notice a dark cloud looming nearer Spello, we order a truffle gnocchi because we are in truffle country, an amazing potato flan smothered in fondue with truffle sprinkles, the best potatoes and a deer dish I'm sure the waitress called Bambi.  It is all very delicious and we emerge back out into daylight to find large warm plops of rain dotting the cobbles. We head down towards the car but the thunderstorm beats us to it and has us running for the gelato store where the kids enjoy a gelato while we watch only the bravest tourists cross the square in the torrential downpour and booms of thunder.

Playing with the Slingshot toys in the courtyard 

The sun sets over the Umbrian hills

The Bells tolling at the Hotel Izzalini Castle

A castle nearby

Clearly a rebuild of some kind

Todi - contemplating the world

Todi streets

One way street out of Todi - beep beep coming through

We spend two nights in the castle, we've enjoyed relaxing in the courtyard with the elderly locals, the kids whirling and flinging their light up slingshot toys the vendors where hawking in the Piazza in Rome with Ben and I sipping our overfilled glasses of Limoncello.

A slow espresso at the little roadside restaurant, load the panda and head to Siena, which comes highly recommended by Karl and Cass. G-maps says head down the little road beside our castle, so we do, it says follow the gravel road, we do, it says take the left onto what looks like someones driveway, I'd swear we're lost and Bens hoping we don't hit a dead end but soon we are following the directions to take a hard left and here we are on a winding road popular with motorcycles passing a lake very much reminding us of Spain where we stopped to visit Rodrigo.

Goodness gracious google maps!!

Lake Cobrara

Spello - a great place

The rain starts to fall in Spello

Looking out from Orvieto

We stop on our way to Siena at Orvieto and ride the funicular to the hilltop town, where we wander but don't stay long, the highlight for the kids was one of those little machines you put your coin in, turn the handle and out pops your ball with the toy inside.  Later following giggle maps once more to Siena we find the road blocked by barriers and the space beyond set up with tressle tables and folding chairs. We perform a tight u turn then Ben asks directions from a man on his scooter who points us in the right direction. As Ben returns scooter man pulls up and gestures  "follow me", so down the one way in the wrong direction we go following friendly scooter man: left through the arch, up to the lights, stall, left at the lights and with a wave and a thumbs up we arrive and scooter zooms away.

We leave Panda to mind our bags while we head up to town for some lunch. We seem to be the last diners for the lunch rush and find a quiet table in a clean, cool restaurant. Soon we hear chanting and a small group of boys in costume lead a group down the narrow road, funny to think we thought that was cool, we had no idea what was coming later.

Hmmm, seems like there's a party going on.

A little procession

The quiet side of Siena