Family Vacation- Castiglion del Lago (Lake Trasimeno Lago) (6)

Today, we visited Lago (lake) Trasimeno, an hour away from where we stayed, located at the northern part of Umbria, not far from Tuscany. It is the 4th largest lake in Italy. It is an historic, important place where Hannibal defeated the Romans in 217 BC (The battle of Lake Trasimeno). Since then, the surrounding hill towns had many castles, towers or fortified villages built. We stopped at Castiglione del Lago, where the beach and Ferry landing is located. My grandchildren had fun on a paddle boat and swimming. (8/21/2018)

Castiglion front view

Town square

lake view from town street

lake view restaurant

lunch at Cafe Latino

part of lake view

Fortified village building

Son and daughters with us

Family Vacation - Assisi (5)

Today we visited Assisi, a very famous mountain city associated with St. Francis or called San Francesco. He was born here(1181-1226). After we parked the car at mid hill level, we had to take an escalator to street level, then passed through several arched gates into the city. The narrow street is paved with the cut stone, and 7-8 hundred years old, 2-3 floor stone buildings, which now are stores and restaurants lined on both sides. We had to walk about 2 miles from east to west, up and down streets to the Basilica of San Francesco, which was founded in 13th century. ( 8/19/2018).

Basilica of San Francesco

Lower level of S.F.

 

Family Vacation - Cascata delle Marmore Falls (4)

After we finished the winery and olive grove tour, we headed to another place Marmore Falls. Known as the "water park," this natural park is a famous and much loved sight in Italy. This water fall bears an important ancient Roman history. Up on the higher mountain area, there is a small lake, the water flows down through a valley from a river called Velino river, because this river flooded often causing many diseases (was thought possible Malaria later ) around 300 BC, so, the Romans decided to drain this Velino river from upland down to lower land river, Nera river, through digging a tunnel, which feeds today's waterfall, cascades down in 3 stages over total height of 165 m. In 1920, a dam and hydroelectric plant was built proximal to waterfall. It became a waterfall of controllable water volume; the dam opens during the sightseeing season.
The gigantic volume of water will gush down, form a big waterfall, and the mist will cover the surrounding mountains, creating a beautiful view, this is the Cascata delle Marmore.
The water for the waterfall is switched on only a period of time, which varies from month to month. We were luck that we all witnessed the fall's spectacle! (8/20/2018)

 

On the way to water fall, sight of hill town

Family Vacation - Winery and Olive Tour (3)

From our house to Montefalco took less than one hour by car to a very famous private winery and olive oil maker Romanelli, Umbria. The owner took us on a tour around the vineyard and olive grove and explained how they made different kinds of wine, and only extra virgin olive oil. After that we had a light lunch and 5 different kinds of wine to taste, everyone agreed the #4 wine was the best. It is called Sagrantino, from the very best grape and is an expensive wine, it costs 25 to 30 euro a bottle in Italy. We bought a dozen different bottles of wine to ship home to share.
Olive oil tasting is difficult to appreciate the different quality, but pure extra virgin olive oil always is the best.
My son in law said that we should have wine for every meal, since we are in wine country. It makes sense indeed. (8/20/2018)

Organic grape trees line up

Organic olive trees

Wine testing and lunch

youngest family member

Whole family of 12 

Family Vacation in Italy- Todi, Umbria (2)

The city of Todi is on a hilltop halfway between Perugia and Terni. The guide book said that Todi today would not have looked very different during the Middle Ages. The castle like small city is situated on the top of the hill or small mountain. We had to park the car in mid-hill parking lot and took the cable car up to street level. The cable car runs for 24 hours, that means many people spent long evenings there. One evening we had dinner in Todi Street restaurant. Surprisingly, we saw a large group of people, all dress in white, white shoes, white wine too. It was called a "White party", on the square in front of cathedral. It was a festival for this area, not appearing to have any religious meaning.
In Todi, a medieval city/town, the streets are narrow paved with hand cut stone. Main floor is on street level, after entering, you need to go up up or down down to another different rooms, depends upon which side of the stores or restaurant located.
When you were in town, there were a lot of walking and hills. I felt not young anymore!(8/19/2018)

My two grandsons, they are cousins

7 years old grandson  was playing with a dove.

My granddaughter is a 13 years old young lady 

Grandchildren 

White party at night - Todi

Family Vacation in Italy (1)

We had been planning this Italy family vacation for quite a few months. It was part of our extended celebration of our golden anniversary and family reunion trip. Our family of three generations, total 12 people, gathered in the JFK airport in NYC to take a British Airways flight to Roma, Italy. Then we rented three small cars, drove nearly two hours to our destination, Todi, Umbria, Italy. It's a 150 years old, renovated, six bedroom villa, called "Casa La Rosa" with a swimming pool, situated at a hill on the outskirts of Todi city. This would be our vacation home base from 8/17 to 8/25/2018.
We knew we would be too tired after almost a day's journey. So we arranged to have our house keeper cook a typical Italian dinner for us the very first night. (8/18/2018)

Here was our family's rented vacation house:

My youngest daughter(first baby on the way) and her husband