Thursday 20 August - Viterbo

Up at the generous hour of 10:30. Breakfasted on our muesli, and out into the heat for an orientation tour. It's a lovely old town. Narrow streets, with plenty of traffic (almost always one way). Passed and looked in many squares, churches and so on. 

Piazza del Plebescito, the main square

Found our way down to the Piazza del Plebescito, the main square with the council offices (council palace more like). Plopped down at a café and ordered out first Italian coffees. What luxury. We spent a good hour just people-watching. A number of rather nicely dressed traffic wardens in short skirts, smart hats and pretty high heels wandering about looking far too smart for their own good. People going through constantly, also lots of cars. Many Smart cars and new Fiat 500s, virtually all cars are small, which makes huge sense on these narrow lanes. The locals are generally very well dressed, long trousers or shortish skirts, almost always with very nice shoes.

Finally decided we had been there long enough and headed back to our room. On our way back we bought a good load of fruit and some other essentials. Fruit and veges especially are very cheap. We got some delicious red peaches for 1€/kg, bastardo cheese for 7€ and panini (rolls) for next to nothing. One € is a shade over $NZ2. The fruit and veges as well as being cheap, are very flavoursome – don't look so well grown as ours, perhaps less fertiliser and slower growth. Wine just 1.49€ for rosso or blanco, the rosso accompanying our lunch most agreeably.

Pizza meal

We all fell asleep for several hours, not the fault of the wine, just too many hours travelling the previous day. The day had passed by then, so headed out to see what we could find for dinner. Ended up sitting down in a pizza restaurant and ordering 3 lovely large thin crust pizzas – potato, a meaty one, and a mixed one. All delicious, washed down with an Italian beer. Only got to bed after 11pm.