Italy, Continued

Hello again from Spoleto! Here's my latest installment in my travelogue:

We end most nights at the Caffe Garibaldi, at the bottom of our street, where they give me perfectly warmed and frothy milk and always, always, an extra cookie. My parents drink cups of hot chocolate that remind them of Madrid, and I talk to everyone going by, which is one of the great things about Spoleto - everyone wants to talk to me and tell me how good-looking I am. I love this place. Anyway, the other night, while we waited for our treats, Mommy brought out the paper and crayons Nonna got me and I exercised my inner artiste:

Every time they bring out the plate of cookies, I gasp with pleasure. I especially like the ones dipped in chocolate!
Yesterday, we were very good tourists and saw a bunch of the sights. Here, I burned off all the energy I had built up in the stroller by running around like a madman in the piazza in front of the Duomo, a big, famous church:

I climbed ALL THESE STEPS up from the Duomo, with no assistance but holding Mommy's hand.

Here's the whole front of the Duomo, from those steps:

After the duomo, we walked on up to the Rocca, the big stone fortress that used to protect the town in, I don't know, days of yore or whatever. We walked all the way around it and found the Ponte di Torre bridge, which took our breath away.
Here's the bridge:

Daddy walked out on the bridge and found this spectacular view:

Mommy and I stayed on land and cheered Daddy on:
We went to lunch then at Osteria del Matto (Matto means MADMAN - how great is that!), and the owner was so nice to me: he showed me all of his Pinocchio puppets and gave me a ballpoint pen with which to mark up my brown paper placemat (and my hands, and my face, and my shirt), plus he had the best bread. My parents dined on pasta e fagoli soup and four kinds of bruschetta (garlic, arugula and radicchio, mushroom, and celery pesto), fried mozzarella, fried cauliflower, and potatoes cooked in olive oil and cider vinegar, but I only had eyes for the bread. For the record, I have been eating broccoli and cauliflower and cheese pizza and other things at our apartment, but when we go out, I can't keep my hands off the bread! I love that bread!

I have essentially ignored the time difference between Italy and the US. I wake up around 11:30 am or so, take a nap at about 3:00 pm, am put to bed in my pajamas at about 8:00 pm - but treat it as my afternoon nap, which means I get up about 10:00 pm and am ready to play until midnight or 1:00. The other night, when I woke up at night, I discovered my parents eating olive oil/tomato/basil potato chips, and I made clear the necessity of them sharing with me. In fact, I probably ate half the bag. Afterwards, I was a little chip-drunk. This is what a 1:00 am chip hangover looks like:

Today, shortly after we got up (very, very late), the power in our apartment went out, so we got dressed, buzzed our host extraordinaire Laurie and let him know about our problem, then headed out in search of lunch.

It was drizzling, so not to many people were out, and we strolled up and down the hilly streets until we landed at Trattoria del Festival, where I had a fantastic lunch of potatoes (cut like a potato chip but cooked like a French fry) and big brown beans in a tangy sweet glaze. My parents had soup - zuppa di farro, a lentil and bulghur soup that made my Daddy happy on a rainy day, and zuppa di whatever those brown beans were, which was sort of sweet like baked beans and from which my Mommy fished out all the beans I could eat, which was a large number. Then they ate an omelette with local black truffles and a pasta I can't name but which was 2" wide and 4" long (more or less) and flat, tossed with tomatoes and garlic and other things and a crazy amount of olive oil. Those dishes weren't my thing, but they loved them, so I guess that's what matters.

After lunch, we strolled and window-shopped a little more, and I got to watch this fountain in the Piazza di Mercato, but the rain was starting to pick up, so we headed home...

...to find that our electricity problem was solved! Ciao until next time!