10/9, 10/10

Lazy start. We enjoyed getting up on our own schedule and having a leisurely breakfast. Did another load of laundry and put the first out to dry. Got out late to go to the BIG grocery store to pick up some things that the first grocery didn't have or we forgot (yes, occasionally we may have small memory lapses.) This grocery was in a gigantic shopping center with the type of traffic you see at Costco Christmas week. We sprinted through the store because we were now worried that we would miss our 1PM lunch reservation. Made it! Groceries stashed at home and a very short drive to a local restaurant called La Parolaccia (The Bad Word), so named for the original owner and father of the current owner who had a reputation as a funny, sarcastic guy with a way with jokes and "bad words." We had an excellent meal of local foods...pasta with cinghiale (wild boar) sauce for Dick and roasted rabbit for me...in a truly local atmosphere where NO ONE spoke English. This area seems to have fewer English speakers than the more touristy areas of Tuscany.

Dining Room of La Parolaccia

After lunch, we noticed a sign for some local Etruscan ruins close by and went to check it out. It was quite a large site on the top of a hill so Dick had another forced march up a long hill (after his nice lunch he needed the exercise.)

View from top of hill

He's having a wonderful time......REALLY

Forum area of Etruscan ruins

By now it was late afternoon and we came home to enjoy more leisure time and put the second load of laundry out to dry.

Mon. dawned bright and sunny. We decided to go to Orbetello, an island about an hour south of us. Beautiful ocean views and a couple of ports, one of which, Porto Santo Stefano, is quite large and a big tourist mecca during the summer. Even now it was fairly crowded so we decided to drive to the other port, Porto Ercole and have lunch. Not only was it smaller but it was virtually deserted and we had a hard time finding a restaurant that was open. We finally found a small bar that had a few dishes and had some perfectly fine pasta with pesto and a glass of wine.

After lunch we drove to the town of Capalbio where we went to the sculpture garden of Niki de Saint Phalle. We had seen an exhibit of hers in Piedmont Park in Atlanta several years ago and really enjoyed her somewhat wacky, colorful art. The exhibit in Capalbio is called The Tarot Garden but it's difficult to put together the figures with the tarot deck (for me at least.) The project was begun in 1976 and ended at the artist's death in 2002. She designed all the sculptures but had a large crew implementing her plans. My photos can't do justice to this garden. Many of the sculptures are large enough that there are stairs to go into or onto them. Great fun wandering through the garden and into/onto the sculptures. Interestingly, there were a lot of children there and they LOVED it! (As did we.)

Close up of the pieces of mirrored glass, tile and random objects that cover the sculptures

By now it was late in the day and we came home and stopped at the "alimentari" (a small market with basic food items and usually a few cheeses, meats, etc.) a couple minutes from the apartment to pick up whatever was interesting to make for dinner. That turned out to be some local sausage that we combined with peppers and some pureed tomatoes to make a pasta sauce, added some rosemary from the garden and threw in some arugula for good measure. We made some garlic bread and had a good meal along with some local red wine. A good day!