AURONZO.

Back home.

We pick up a car for a month and head home, arriving on Easter Monday so no shops are open unlike in Australia. We drop off our bags, open all the shutters and survey our mountain.  Snow still hides deep in its crevices but there’s no snow in the village. Then we head down to a La Fenice restaurant for mountain food. We read that it opens at 7 but that’s only for drinks, food is served after 7.30 so of course, we drink. I have potatoes and a cheese that they fry here in slabs and finally sliced cabbage with caraway seeds. 

Next day I head to a bigger supermarket out of town and return with a large box of strawberries for $6.00 and that afternoon it snows! We watch it through the windows, full of youthful excitement even though there’s not much.  

Next day we’re off to get a Magic Bullet, even farther afield and return and eat at an old hostaria - Serenissima, dating back to 1360 where there specialty is radicchio di montagna, a root vegetable that comes up just after the snows begin to melt but when we ask the waitress she tells us it’s a type of potato so we don’t try it. Next time we will.  I have local cheeses and apple and a plum jam, the daughter has the lightest gnocchi in a cream sauce with pancetta that was amazing. Where we go to buy electrical goods (about an hour away), there’s an even bigger supermarket and we return home laden with huge pumpkin flowers ready for stuffing and a huge bunch of agretti, a marsh green that we love.  

I cook up a huge plate of stuff pumpkin flowers and it snows again! Time for a huge negroni at our favourite bar that doesn’t seem to use any measuring implements and I get the giggles, all for $10 compared to 18-20 in Oz.  And you can take your dogs into cafes and restaurants!

Day after day, we find new wildflowers.  The crocuses are out by the lake, primroses are popping up, tiny violets hide low to the ground, blue forget-me-knots cluster, purple and indigo vetch (pea family) flutter in the breeze, weird alpine flowers emerge into the light.

We walk up to where they found the remains of a pagan temple of Venetic origins and on the way I see a tiny cross on the ground and show the daughter.  I walk on and she stops me, saying: Have you looked at this? I squint and it’s older than I thought, with a woman on one side with a crown of stars around her head and angels on either side. The other side has Jesus on the cross with a crown like a Pope. We try to find something similar but it’s rare to have a two sided cross. I think it’s Bronze and either Byzantine or Medieval. We’ve found something special.  Unfortunately the site itself is covered with plastic and a Christian cross stands by it now. They did find treasures there that are now in the local Museum, we will be visiting. On the way back I find wild daphne, the flowers here!

That morning the daughter goes down to the fish shop to buy mussels that come from Spain and also some lovely thick stems of asparagus. Dinner sorted. The fish store only opens for three days and mostly in the morning. I stay at home to repaint the daughter’s room as last year she requested a lovely green colour but for some reason it didn’t work, the light brought out the yellow in it and it was difficult to live with, it is now a lovely soft latte colour. It's hard work painting with lime wash so a reward is needed, we're off for - you guessed it - a Negroni.

That night the moon is just about to pop up over the mountain and the scene is like a watercolour painting with the church lights on - must be singing practice in the church.