We awoke to the awful news of the Manchester bombing. So many young lives ended and maimed in the name of an extreme religious view, no doubt, and hundreds of families irreparably affected.

This is a very different part of Italy for us this time, Le Marche (pronounced Mark-ay) to Como, central eastern Italy up to the lakes on the border with Switzerland. Le Marche is beautiful, inland, in the hills, the coast less to our taste due to the many miles of currently empty sun loungers and furled sun umbrellas waiting for the expected throngs of tourists to arrive any time now. Row upon row of regimented human baking stations set up on man-made shingle ‘beaches’. Not for us. But the upside is the beautiful Le Marche scenery, it’s ancient hill-top towns, wonderful tomatoey tomatoes, a wood-fired pizzeria seemingly on every corner, warm sunshine, lovely young ‘de cassa’ house wines and friendly, equally warm people. Few Italians here speak English but we get by with a few words that we seem to make up from French or Spanish or even English but which sound appropriately Italian. In any case we’ve successfully negotiated a number of agriturismo hotels and restaurants on our own so far so we feel we’re managing if not yet doing reasonable well. Yesterday’s dinner was at a restaurant which had no menu. The chef cooks what he bought this morning, “we talk and agree”, which suited us perfectly as it meant we could discuss the dish and maybe have it prepared as we like it, if we can communicate accurately enough. So chef had made ravioli containing ricotta and spinach which he served in a lovely creamy sauce which we both had for primi, then for secondi, Paula had tagliatta, simply sliced medium-rare steak drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled sea salt, and a green salad with a balsamic dressing. I had a plate of very finely-sliced tuna carpaccio, hard crust bread and shared the same salad as we did a bottle of the local Sangiovese wine, a bottle of natural mineral water, a special-order cafe americano with latte and we thought we were in heaven.

We stayed with Nicky and Tony at their lovely new house in Le Marche with a view-to-die-for overlooking their olive grove and small vineyard. Their plan is to move there almost full time next year when Tony retires and we can certainly see why. What’s not to like? Both are learning Italiano very well so far to the point where we don’t have to bother ourselves save the occasional ‘bonjourno’ and ‘gracia’, typical English lazy. We barbecued and ate in the garden, helped pick cherries from the half dozen cherry trees in the olive grove and ended-up with far too many to eat so the girls made a dozen pots of delicious cherry jam from the hand-stoned fruit the next day. Nicky’s mum, Monica, had come with us and after undertaking a few maintenance and painting jobs in preparation for the forthcoming summer rental season (I had brought my bradawl especially) we all sat in the garden sunning ourselves and on one of our spare days visited the lovely hilltop town of Urbino.

To begin our second week we drove to Maranello and called-in at the Ferrari factory. With more Ferraris than you could poke a stick at around the nearby museum and town we found the sales office closed as it was a Sunday. This was a shame as we had thought we would otherwise have chosen a Ferrari-red California with go-faster stripes but it was not to be. ‘Ferrari do not offer test drives’ was emblazoned on many notices outside the museum so another dispiriting challenge for us and other prospective buyers drooling outside. But we consoled ourselves thinking it’s too long a drive back to Bristol, even in a Ferrari, so we got back into our rented, two-tone brown and cream underpowered Renault Captur and thought ourselves lucky.

After a thunderstorm and a cool day just before we left Nicky & Tony’s we have been enjoying sunny, high 20s since. Tonight we’re staying at a lovely agritourismo hotel/winery with restaurant so we already know we’re sorted today especially as the proprietress speaks very good english too. We’re sitting under the trees with a bottle of their own frizzante La Camina “Inebria” as I write this and hoping it doesn’t.

The drive up-country has actually been remarkably tedious so far with more roundabouts than Milton Keynes and industrial estates than Germany. The countryside has been flat and boring so yesterday we got back on the autostrade just to get the miles done. But this is lovely now, as you can see below.

As ever, I’ve uploaded a few of my photos to Google to share a little of what we’re seeing, if you’re interested:  https://goo.gl/photos/1T3FiVmyhBKBCAQZ8

I’ll update the album with more photos as we continue our travels this week.
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