In Spoleto
Sorry for the long delay. Now that I'm surrounded by other people, and we have a full itinerary each day, there's not much time left over for fighting with the wireless, or captioning photos.
A couple of us had a brief dinner at the local pizzeria instead of the usual 3-hour Italian dinner, so I've got some time to get caught up with y'all. As usual, you can head over to the galleries for details, and I'll just put highlights and general impressions here.
I've had a great time exploring Spoleto, and getting to know the singers of Umbrian Serenades. The music is coming together nicely, and I'm flitting about like a social butterfly, trying to get to know everybody. Luckily, there are a lot of great people here. This is the third year of Umbrian Serenades, and many of the charter members came back for this year, so it's like joining a family. Everyone is very friendly, and there are quite a few of them who tend toward the silly, so we get along fabulously.
Spoleto is a beautiful and old mountain town, and the climbing experience I got in Positano was good practice. There are three main piazzas in town, each one further up the hill. Our hotel is below the lowest one, and the castle is up at the top. The walk all the way up is a bit of a puffer, but otherwise it's not too bad. Paulo and a few others in the group have been coming to Spoleto for many years for their annual festival (which we're *not* here for -- it was earlier in the summer), so in many restaurants we're treated like family. I can definitely see why they keep coming back.
One of the highlights of the trip, which I was lucky enough to catch a recording of on my camera, was a great well in the Castle at the top of town. We gathered around it for a group photo, and when we all said "vino", I heard the faint echo, so tried singing a note into the well. I liked the result, so we gathered around again.
Here's an mp3 of the echo. (Let me know in the comments if that hosting service is too much of a pain, and I'll upload it somewhere else.)
OK, gotta get up in seven hours for rehearsal, so I'll say goodbye for now. Here's all the photos since I've last updated:
Tour of Spoleto
Rehearsal
Tour of the Castle
Wine and Dinner
Farm and Woods
A couple of us had a brief dinner at the local pizzeria instead of the usual 3-hour Italian dinner, so I've got some time to get caught up with y'all. As usual, you can head over to the galleries for details, and I'll just put highlights and general impressions here.
I've had a great time exploring Spoleto, and getting to know the singers of Umbrian Serenades. The music is coming together nicely, and I'm flitting about like a social butterfly, trying to get to know everybody. Luckily, there are a lot of great people here. This is the third year of Umbrian Serenades, and many of the charter members came back for this year, so it's like joining a family. Everyone is very friendly, and there are quite a few of them who tend toward the silly, so we get along fabulously.
Spoleto is a beautiful and old mountain town, and the climbing experience I got in Positano was good practice. There are three main piazzas in town, each one further up the hill. Our hotel is below the lowest one, and the castle is up at the top. The walk all the way up is a bit of a puffer, but otherwise it's not too bad. Paulo and a few others in the group have been coming to Spoleto for many years for their annual festival (which we're *not* here for -- it was earlier in the summer), so in many restaurants we're treated like family. I can definitely see why they keep coming back.
One of the highlights of the trip, which I was lucky enough to catch a recording of on my camera, was a great well in the Castle at the top of town. We gathered around it for a group photo, and when we all said "vino", I heard the faint echo, so tried singing a note into the well. I liked the result, so we gathered around again.
Here's an mp3 of the echo. (Let me know in the comments if that hosting service is too much of a pain, and I'll upload it somewhere else.)
OK, gotta get up in seven hours for rehearsal, so I'll say goodbye for now. Here's all the photos since I've last updated:
Tour of Spoleto
Rehearsal
Tour of the Castle
Wine and Dinner
Farm and Woods