Tivoli

Saturday morning we left home at 9am for Tivoli with Feils, Knieses, and Balzottis. It is a lovely hillside town about 45 minutes away by car. We drove the Feils there, enjoying getting to know them better. When I asked for an address to put into our GPS, Sorelle Knies and Balzotti just said "go to centro and park in the big public parking lot there." My gut told me to ask for more details, but they insisted that was all I needed to know. Turns out they thought we had already been there before. In Italian, centro just means downtown, so we got lost. The GPS took us down narrow and steep streets, with several sharp turns. Before we knew it, we were on a road out of town, headed out to who knows where, with the GPS changing from saying 2 minutes away to over 20 minutes away. So I just turned around, even though it seemed impossible that these narrow streets allowed two-way traffic. But this is Italy, so of course it was two-way! We finally arrived after going through old downtown, probably getting a ticket for going through a limited traffic zone (ZTL); we will find out about that in a month or two. The Feils absolutely loved going through these narrow streets, but they didn't have to drive! 😉😀

Aside from that, it was wonderful. The gardens and fountains at the Villa d'Este were absolutely stunning. The place was built in the 1500s by a Cardinal who hoped to become Pope, but never made it. There was a lot of walking and climbing stairs. I love to use scenic  pictures for my computer lock screen. I can't believe this dark picture is the only one we took of all of us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had put some money into the parking meter for two hours, thinking that would be plenty. However, there is an organ concert every two hours, and we just missed the 10:30am show, so we stayed there long enough to see the 12:30pm concert. It was short and not all that impressive, but first I had to climb up about ten floors of stairs to put more money into the parking meter. My hero!

Organ concert (inside the center opening)

After the concert and climbing back up, we walked to the Balzottis' favorite place to eat. The diocese for his family records is in this town, so they have come here a lot, and even stayed in a little hotel here a few times. It was kind of like a cafeteria, with lots of awesome Italian dishes to choose from. I had a crepe filled with ricotta and spinach, and some mixed eggplant/carrots/zucchini. After that we all drove back, with the Knieses in our car this time, following Anziano Balzotti on the back roads, where we took a few wrong turns. Finally we arrived back home about 3pm, very delighted in the company and the sights we had seen. I was pretty tired and took a 30-minute nap, which is unusual for me. It was hot and humid. I nearly finished my big water bottle, which is unusual. I even got to knit a little in the car.

After that we both worked on our Sunday lessons. I also called my mom, sister Marilyn, and daughter Wendy. This was our first "normal" Saturday in a while, and it is nice to have time to try to enjoy some of the sights here. It was great to have a Saturday AND a Friday night to be social, but we love our regular life here, too. Hopefully we can do that more in the future. The day marked 11 months since we entered the MTC, so time is flying!

Sister Feil was missing American food and ordered pancake mix and maple syrup from Amazon.it. It cost her fifty dollars! So, I gave her a bottle of Mapleine to make her own, a great pancake recipe and also some sour cream she was craving for stroganoff. She has even made her own sour cream, which amazes me.

I have found some interesting books on amazon.it that aren't available on amazon.com. They're about the changes in Italian life around 1920. 

I'm teaching The Good Samaritan to the junior primary class, and had fun finding things to make it come alive for them. More on this tomorrow.

I bought a canvas bag in Tivoli, with pictures of flowers on it. Sorella Knies really likes it for her mother-in-law but won't seem to let me sell it to her. I can get another and they're close to the end of their mission.

Even with all the walking in Tivoli, my foot didn't swell. I didn't use compression stockings at all. And the orthotics are more and more comfortable.