Festival of St Antonio and 1000 BC

Last weekend, the town celebrated the Festival of St. Antonio.  He is the patron saint of animals.  The people from neighboring towns and homes throughout the valley all came to Casperia to have their animals blessed by the local parish priest.  Paola told us that now that the working animals have been replaced by tractors, the tractors come into town and get blessed by the parish priest.  Hey, can't be too careful these days.  Franco took two of his 7 dogs and one cat to be blessed.  The town follows a procession of elders carrying St. Antonio up thru the village to the church at the top of town.  Followed by a music procession and cadets from the school dressed in cheer outfits.  I think it was about 28 degrees.  Following behind you must be very careful where you step, as the animals are not cleaned up after. And there are no curbs in Casperia. 

Afterwards, they shoot off massive amounts of fireworks, scaring the hell out of the animals.  At least they had been blessed before they died from the shock from booming fireworks. Some of my pictures didn't save, sorry, no pics of the animals.

Wednesday, we left early as Paola was feeling ill.  Franco was kind enough to drive Julie to Riete so she could add hours to her TIM (pronounced TEEM) wireless card for internet access.  Very important to have internet access in Casperia.  Medievel papers in Italian only go so far.  Naturally, we got to the TIM store at 3:30 and, you guessed it, they were closed till 4.  When will we learn?  So we walked down the steet to a bridge that crosses one of the bigger rivers that goes to ROME.  There beneath the bridge we were standing on was another bridge, half submerged in the river.  Franco said it was 3000 years old.  That's 1000 years BC. I don't know about you, but it hard for me to get my head wrapped around internet access and 3000 year old bridges.

Keeping it in the cooking theme this blog was started for, we made Gnocchi and a Gorgonzola cream sauce with Walnut Pesto paste.  Also we made candied orange peels that we dipped in Bittersweet Chocolate. Sooo Goood! Finally, we made spaghetti and meat balls!