Last night things were certainly hopping in the Arsiero piazza and our hotel is right on the piazza and seemed to be the focal point of the festivities - well into the wee hours!! Not happy Jan
Early start to Frank's cousin's place for ride up the mountain - 600 metres above sea level - to his cason (casoni are little stone huts up the mountain that in days of yore provided short term shelter when the townfolk worked the land on the hillside - pretty basic, one room with attic for hay) They have been abandoned for the last 50 odd years but now some are restoring for little mountain retreats. Mauro's is about 4 metres by 6 metres and in the past was in use by 3 families. He is repointing the stonework himself to save 65 euros per square metre. He has already reroofed, new upstairs floor, bathroom and it looks very cute. Lots of paperwork and Italian bureaucracy for him to do anything to the cason, even dig a hole. He then has 2 years to complete the work and if he doesn't finish, he has to go through the whole rigmarole again!
Frank and I walked down the track to once again locate his father's cason which was in a poor condition - not one of the lucky one to get the once-over.
Hillside was covered with little pink cyclamen which are naturalised as wild flowers, quite green about that.
We walked back down the mountain track to the car which was parked at the cemetery carpark, great pain in left knee, old age is the pits!
Aunty Isetta's for lunch - I feel a bit guilty a 90 year old cooking us lunch but she had insisted. Any way she and Frank had a good old chinwag about family things. I remember on one visit years ago she was complaining about English words creeping into use in the Italian language. She said when she sees an English word she just ignored it, she wasn't having any of that! Later in the car Frank was driving and we came to STOP sign (which are STOP in English as an EU standard I think) Frank asked (approaching the stop at a steady speed) "What do I do here?" " FERMATA, FERMATA" she cried!
So even after a meal at Isetta's at lunch, we fronted up for our meal at Albergo Italia Risorta - hard to resist - the food is good local cuisine designed to help you deal with the cold, ha ha!
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| Frank and Mauro in front of Mauro's little cason up the mountain |
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| Frank's Dad's poor little cason, abandoned for 65 years, once he left for Australia |
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| Naturalised little pink cyclamen, up the mountain |
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