We arrived, suitably exhausted, yesterday morning, in L’Aquila, Abruzzo. The drive from FCO took us about an hour and a half. The finding of the hotel, another 15 min–some things are a constant. Finally we were rescued by a sweet man who walked me to a parking place while Ken drove. He told us to leave the car there and walked us to the hotel–down some stairs, where we could not, it turns out, have driven. The hotel people took the car keys and got the car for us–very nice indeed. We are staying at Hotel Sole, right in the heart of the centro of town.
Determined to stay awake until an appropriate bed time, we went for a long walk around the town and then to lunch at Le Fiaccole. It was wonderful! I had a fave bean soup–a lovely cousin to split pea. The antipasto misti was huge but we managed to taste everything including some seasoned raw meat on a crostini. Ken had pennette with 5 flavors–porcini, proscuitto, saffron, pecorino and one more I can’t remember. I had delicate homemade spinach ravioli with a beautiful saffron sauce. This area is the main source of saffron for Italy. All of the food was very rich but luckily we had ordered a bottle of Rosso to cut through the richness.
After lunch, we had to take a short nap!
We had gelato for dinner because we were still stuffed from the late lunch.
This morning we slept IN! and had the very nice breakfast in the hotel’s roof garden.
And then we went to the Castello which houses the National Museo of Abruzzo.

We had pizza in a little place full of students and business men, strolled some more and had gelato in the Piazza del Duomo. Gelato, twice in 2 days–pretty good. Today I remembered that I don’t have to finish it every time.
Ken is sound asleep in our hotel now. I am about to join him.