Perhaps it means we’re just getting old.  But this year, at Bevagna’s Mercato del Gaite, there were not chants of “Bee-lee.”

Yesterday was one of those “getaway days,” as they say in baseball.  A day to say our goodbyes to Ischia, sadly, and our hellos to Umbria, happily.  Our six days on Ischia, our second visit there this year (as well as our second overall) exceeded all expectations.  We were sad to leave but happy to be returning to our native (sort of) Umbria, to start a three week visit that will see us play host to a dozen or more friends and guests, several of them professional chefs back home in America.  It promises to be a ton of fun (literally), just as the past six days have been.

While our first two day trip to Ischia saw us spend most of our time around Ischia town, the main port town, this second trip was spent exclusively outside of it.  Instead, we encamped at the Mezzatorre hotel and resort, an incredibly classy and comfortable property with old world hospitality and charm, and with prices to match.  No matter, this is a place we would (and will) come back to in a minute.  Every staff person there was a gem and the property, from its setting to its rooms, bars, restaurants, the whole three meters, was exceptional.  This is the sort of place that costs you a fortune and you feel fortunate to have the opportunity to pay for the opportunity to stay there.  We’ll see you next summer, Mezzatorre.

We checked out of our room in the late morning and, characteristically, our cab was waiting with our bags on board and ferry tickets handed to us.  Twenty minutes later we were deposited quayside, standing in an unruly mass of people that Italians pretend is a queue, waiting to rush up the gangplank of the hydrofoil, looking for an empty seat and a place to store our luggage which, as was the case with nearly every other passenger, was not paid for.  A few minutes later, the hydrofoil was motoring toward Naples on its skis, gliding smoothly above the calm seas.  As we arrived in the Bay of Naples a huge regatta of classic sailboats, one being crewed by our charter captain Andrea from three days earlier, was vying for clear air.  A few minutes later we were disembarking in the shadow of Naples’ Castel Nuovo, headed to the city’s central train station and our train to Foligno, by way of Rome.

A short while later we boarded our train to Rome, one of the high speed Freccia trains that connect the major cities of Italy.  Our drive from Rome’s Fiumicino airport to Naples at the beginning of the week had taken two and a half hours.  The return trip to central Rome by Freccia took an hour and ten minutes, without any of the traffic delays and menacing drivers you sometimes encounter on the Italian autostradas.  Isn’t it about time we really invested in high speed rail in the U.S.?

So, just about five hours after leaving Ischia, we were driving up the drive to our Umbrian villa, la Fattoria del Gelso, with just a slight detour to Assisi to drop a young American college student from Arkansas who had missed her train to Assisi and ended up on our train to Foligno.  We had overheard her phone conversation with her mother seeing advice on how to get to her destination and offered her a ride.  Suzy later reminded me that I had previously given our daughter strict advice not to accept rides from stranger.  This was different, I replied.  She’s in a foreign country.

So, five hours in our rear view mirror, Ischia had already become a distant memory, so strong is the gravitational pull of Umbria, our Italian home.  On the fifteen minute drive from the Foligno train station, the familiar mountains, the fields of vines and the colors and shapes that have become such a part of us welcomed us back and dominated our attention.  It was good to be back in Umbria.

And although we had not originally planned to welcome any guests for several days we arrived at the Gelso with a friend from this past summer already in residence.  Homer, a young world traveller whom we had met through one of our sons the previous summer, was in the area on his honeymoon.  We had invited him and his bride to stay at the Gelso as long as they wanted and were happy to greet them upon our arrival.  A few hours and a bottle or two of wine later, we were climbing into Aldo’s taxi to head to Bevagana to celebrate the final night of the town’s annual Mercato del Gaite festival, a traditional medieval fair that last year saw me leading a parade of the town’s juvenile set through the streets around two o’clock in the morning to chants of “Bee-lee, Bee-lee.”

This year, despite nearly a week of relaxation on Ischia, the excitement of arriving back home in Umbria, dinner at our friend Simone’s restaurant and the closing night of the Mercato, we packed it in early (even before Sunday arrived) and headed back to the villa for a night of sleep.  Perhaps we are maturing and acting more responsibly.  Or perhaps we’re just getting old.  But if we’re getting old, I can think of no better place to do so than here in Umbria.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy