Alto Tortoreto

I awake this morning to espresso and Mirella's morning lemon cake which is fabuloso. The kids smother theirs with Nutello and blast off. We have another espresso with the neighbors. Costantinos is adding four bedrooms to his house ("Normally I start with the house then the swimming pool. But I wanted to use the pool before I was 70."). Since he is learning as he goes, we practices with a dog-house for the four dogs ("la familia"; Madeleine smitten). Yes, I am invited to help which, a bit slow from montepulciano+30 degrees by 9AM, not my first idea for the morning but it turns into joy: we rip off a roof, pull and hammer nails, re-roof and cover with insulation... shirts off, yelling at the women or the bambinis .. all the while giving each other grief (him: "la professora"; me: "the apprentice."). We quit by noon for more pasta and wine and fruit; Constantinos sings opera and I join him (montepulciano) and even the Shakespeares overcome their bashfulness. They will remember this.

From lunch, we drive to the 13th century Fortress of Civitella del Tronto, one of the most impressive works of military engineering in Italy: a hill-city below a stone fortification over 500 meters long and 25,000 square feet. The structure an insurmountable bulwark for the enemies of the northern borders of the many Neapolitan realms (unfortunately my camera battery dies so I have no photographs). Madeleine and I walk the perimeter looking at the surrounding valleys, mountains and steep inclines to the fortress' base and wonder: would it be better to die from boiling oil or arrow through the heart? She wants to know if the boiling-oil can be hurled "by a slingshot" and I tell her I would rather go quickly, but oil might do better against an all-out effort to scale the walls. She ponders this as I describe boiling skin and sizzling eyeballs; guts spilled on the bloody ground and gore everywhere. I think she would enjoy the Midievil period - I seem to.