“Gunna” be a hot one today. Well, not by Bakersfield standards, Seattle maybe. I have heard that these early morning plumes of fog in Tuscany are called sfumato - Italian for smoke - which I call spumoni since who can pronounce a beginning “sf” sound? Sometimes it magically turns into dense fog for an hour or so around 10 am or disappears completely. Always it is gone by 11 am or so. I can see fog in the valleys in the distance but it is beautiful here, just spumoni.

Today we take our forces to conquer Umbria! At least a tiny portion of it. Umbria is the “state” south of Tuscany and characterized by a softer, gentler, more rural, less dramatic landscape than here. We will be off either south to Orvieto or east to Perugia. It just depends on which way the wind is blowing when we leave.

We attacked toward Perugia; specifically the town of Citta di Castello 50 km north of Perugia. Why? Because there is a Thursday market there and this is Thursday and I am married to Ann. Any questions?

SHE slept in this morning and by the time we had our showers and mandatory espressos it was after 10 am before we left. I had another issue with direction signs and ended up going south when we needed an east-type road. Got to the town after 12 noon and watched the market close at 1 pm. Even if you try to do something fast in Italy it will not happen. I am trying to get used to this. Slowly – but that too is Italian style, right?

Ann and I went to the internet café (I have now purchased a 10 hour card and am saving tremendous amounts of money each time I go). BUT I forgot the card today as I was to use it for the first time. The guy that runs the café knows me now and just shook his head. Probably thinks of me as a white haired doddering old man. He is not far off.

Ann, dear heart, motored all the way back up the mountain after visiting the internet place today without stopping. I am really impressed. I didn’t know her new knees were “mountain” knees. She is getting in amazing shape after two weeks in Europe. What a difference with knees that don’t hurt!

For dinner, don’t laugh, we had fajitas Italian style. Just think about it for a moment. It was like on the TV show Iron Chef when one of the judges says, “I like what you attempted here with the main ingredient but…”

Lesson for Day 17: Sometimes it is not wise to mix culinary cultures.