We have shopping to do so we head on down to the alimentari. I pause along the way to take photos of

Richard was up making an espresso miami south beach monthly vacation rentals in the kitchen with our favourite Illy coffee. I pulled myself away from the window and headed into the kitchen to make some toast for some morning crostini. Last year, during one of our early forays to the alimentari for supplies, Letizia, miami south beach monthly vacation rentals one of the women who works at the deli counter, told us how to eat the local red prosciutto over hot toast.
The heat from the toasted bread melts the rich white fat from the prosciutto into the toast releasing a heady aroma. Who needs butter? Anyway, miami south beach monthly vacation rentals since that day we usually have toast with prosciutto crudo once a day, either with coffee for breakfast or as an antipasto for lunch while we are here.
After breakfast we went out for a first walk around town. Last Christmas we decided to buy ourselves a new digital camera. I hadn't had much of a chance to practice with it before we left so I brought it with me, thinking I would take a lot of stock photos of Casperia to use later on for the blog. The light was perfect for a good morning shot of our front door so I took a couple of photos.
Anyone who has ever visited any of the Italian hill towns usually comes home with a collection miami south beach monthly vacation rentals of door photos. No two are the same. Some are rectangular, and some are curved at the top. Some are two panelled while others are a single door.
Some are painted, miami south beach monthly vacation rentals some are just the weathered wood, and many are all possible stages of what you can have in between and make for a great photo. Someone could do a whole coffee table book on the subject... or at least a set of interesting looking miami south beach monthly vacation rentals post cards.
Via Mazzini, the street where Il Sogno, the house we rent is located, is named after Genoese-born visonary Giuseppe Mazzini , one of the key figures of the 19th century struggle to unify Italy,and an early advocate for a United States of Europe.
Further down Via Mazzini we pass La Torretta Bed Breakfast . One ofthe palazzi beside it is undergoing restoration and renovation. It is a beautiful three story stone structure. We greet the workers as we pass and try to peak inside but the interior seems completely gutted. I wonder who has bought it and what it will look like when everything is finished.
Further past La Torretta is one of my favourite intersections in Casperia. Here you can see Via Mazzini with the white stones, merging on to Via Garibaldi paved in black basalt. It is my favourite intersection for a number of reasons. miami south beach monthly vacation rentals First, the process of moving from one street to another brings to mind the process of changing gears on a ten-speed bike; changing the chain from one sprocket to another... It is sort of hard to explain... You have to remember that walking around town in Casperia you are always climbing or descending... always changing gears...
It is a combination of the two sloped miami south beach monthly vacation rentals streets meeting, one white, one black, both descending toward each other. The physical sensation of changing from a descent to an ascent as you change coloured roads... and then there is this amazing view of Via Garibaldi snaking below as you pass.
Via Garibaldi, like every Via Garibaldi in every city, town and village across miami south beach monthly vacation rentals Italy is named for the hero of Il Risorgimento, the fight for Italian unity and nationhood, Nice-born general miami south beach monthly vacation rentals and politician Giuseppe Garibaldi .
Garibaldi and his heroic efforts caught the imagination of people all over the world. Our Italian friends might be surprised to know that since 1860 there has been a volcanic peak here in British Columbia named Mount Garibaldi . Nearby Mount Garibaldi is a lake named Garibaldi Lake , and since 1927, the 1,946.5 square kilometre area around the mountain and lake has been known as Garibaldi Provincial Park .
From Via Garibaldi, we turn off onto Via Cola di Rienzo. This street is not named after any Italian soft drink, but after another interesting miami south beach monthly vacation rentals figure from Italian miami south beach monthly vacation rentals history, this time medieval history, the 14th century Roman-born visionary, popular leader and Tribune of Rome, Nicola di Rienzo .
Cola di Rienzo succeeded ruling Rome for a while, but met a tragic end at the hands of an angry Roman mob on October 8, 1354. If you visit the Campidoglio Museum or the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome you can see a statue miami south beach monthly vacation rentals of Cola di Rienzo between the steps leading up to the museum and the church. This statue, raised in 1877, stands close to the place where he was killed.
As we walk through the streets and alleyways of Casperia, our attention is drawn to a number of interesting details which we had not noticed or paid that much attention to during our previous visits.
During our earlier visits to Casperia we tended to focus our attention on the buildings that surrounded us... Our gaze was usually drawn up to the amazing defensive tower houses that dominate the borgo.
A while back, one of Giorgio miami south beach monthly vacation rentals Clementi's black and white photos of a storm drain cover in Casperia caught my attention. Here it is, with the ancient named of the comune, Aspra and a date, 1885. I believe that this cast iron sewer grate is somewhere on Via Rivellini.
Anyway, back in Vancouver I began to pay attention to the sewer grates we have in our own city and began to take pictures of them. Prior to seeing Giorgio's photo of this grate in Casperia, I never used to think of anything as mundane as a storm drain cover as art or something beautiful. Today as we walk through the vie and vicoli of Casperia I pay attention to not only what towers above me, but also to what lays at my feet, so I take pictures of all the storm drains and sewer grates we come across...
On one side of the wall is a magnificent memorial to Casperia's war dead. Over the gateway into the town office is the Stemma Comunale, or coat of arms of Casperia, with its castle crowned asp and star.
This street honours the memory of Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi who is famous for his pioneering work on long distance radio transmission. Marconi is celebrated as the inventor of the radio. Like Garibaldi, Marconi no doubt has a street or piazza named after him in every Italian community.
Via Tomassoli seems to be named for a much loved teacher and benefactor named Virgilio Tomassoli. Apparantly he left a substantial inheritance when he died with the wish that the funds would go toward a scholarship to support Asprese boys who wanted to study in Rome. Each year, Aspra's city council gave the name of a young man worthy to receive this kind of scholarship that would allow him to study in Rome . There is a 19th century portrait in the Casperia town council chambers showing him with a sign that says that he was worthy off his students. Apparantly Via tomassoli is a name that dates back only to around the year 1900. Prior to that, it was named Via Comunale.
Tito Tazio , or Titus Tatius as he is known in English, was the Sabine king of Cures during the time of the famous rape (more properly translated as abduction) of the Sabine women . Titus Tatius miami south beach monthly vacation rentals marched on Rome at the head of a Sabine army and succeded in capturing the Capitoline through the help of the treachery of the vestal virgin Tarpeia .
At some part in the battle, the captured Sabine miami south beach monthly vacation rentals women intervened and a reconciliation ensued after which Tatius ruled alongside Romulus as King of Rome for five years until his assassination in Lavinium.
It wouldn't be a proper walk in a Sabine hilltown without an encounter or two with the feline residents of the area. Here is a picture of one of the many gatti asprese we came across enjoying the springtime sun. Che c'e'? he seems to say.
According to what I have been told by local history expert Lorenzo Capanna, Via Nardi-Bruschi is dedicated to two patrician Aspresi : Luigi Nardi and Giacomo miami south beach monthly vacation rentals Bruschi, both who were generous benefactors of and donors miami south beach monthly vacation rentals to Aspra's h ospital . Until 1900 the street had three names : The portion near Piazza Umberto I was called Via dell'Ospedale , the middle section was called Via del Giglio (Lily Street), and the part that connected to Via Garibaldi was known as Via Scarsella.
Further along the street we found another old inscription. I am not sure whether miami south beach monthly vacation rentals this reads 1367 or 1567. Probably the latter. Wikipedia has great pages that talk about what happened in workd history on any given year. Here's a link to the one for 1567 .
We have shopping to do so we head on down to the alimentari. I pause along the way to take photos of some more modern signs. It seems there is a fight brewing miami south beach monthly vacation rentals about some sort of cell phone tower being proposed for the town.
This is a public notice about a town hall meeting planned for the evening of Tuesday, March 5th at the town auditorium to discuss the tower. The comune promises that technicians and experts will attend the meeting, as well as representatives from the "No Antenna" Committee.
It seems that people are not just concerned about the damage it will do to the beauty of the surroundings, but that there are also some serious health concerns about the strength miami south beach monthly vacation rentals of the radio signals from the tower.
As we pass out the Porta Romana and head toward the alimentari, we pass a sign commemorating the awarding to Casperia the much coveted Orange Flag from the Italian Touring Club and think about the previous public notice and the obvious contradictions.
We stock up on staples: cheese, prosciutto, baby zucchine, tomatoes, arugula, cannelini miami south beach monthly vacation rentals beans, canned tuna, bottled water, miami south beach monthly vacation rentals and Oh! wine! I ask Massimo to sell us a couple miami south beach monthly vacation rentals of litres of his family's stock of Sabina D.O.P. olive oil. He promises miami south beach monthly vacation rentals to bring it the next day.
Loaded with groceries, we head back past the pastry shop and post office toward the Porta Romana. We climb up the stairs and find Stefano and Nicoleta enjoying a late breakfast (espresso and a pastry) outside Friends. We sit down and join them. Stefano is all bundled up seeming more ready for winter miami south beach monthly vacation rentals than a Spring day, but then again, he's Italian and we are Canadians.
A little gray cat ambles across the piazza heading past the vespasiano (public urinal) toward the steps up the hill. I go over and investigate. I believe I have talked about vespas