Ummm, Valentina took the pictures inside the caves. She's the criminal. I would have taken my own, but moments before boarding the bus to the caves, my camera developed (GET IT!?!?) a conscience and refused to work so I had to rely on her to illegally document this natural wonder.
The Frasassi Grotte are some of Italy's largest and most famous caves and are located in the municipality of Genga, which is located in the province of Ancona, which is located in the region of Marche and to drive there from here is about 66 kilometers and takes about an hour. I went there last Sunday, the 7th, with Valentina and Giordano where we met Simona (who we work with) and her ragazzo Simone. The sciencey stuff: discovered and explored by a group of Ancona speleologists between 1948 and 1971, the caves are rich in water and particularly well endowed with stalactites and stalagmites. Some of the stalactites, or is it stalagmites, the ones that go up not down, are over 20 meters in height and considering that they grow 2mm per year, in a good year, that's both impressive and a testament to patience and perseverance. For some other sciencey reason, perspective is distorted in the cave. The caverns are huge it would seem, in fact, the entire Duomo from Milan would fit in the largest, with room to spare. (Make impressed noises now, our tour group did.) One of the pointy things that was pointed out to us by our guide was apparently over 100 meters away and was over 2 meters tall even though when I put my hand in front of my eyes and held my fingers apart to measure it, it only looked to be about 2cm tall! We were all suitably impressed.
There isn't much else that can be said about the caves that the photos don't say better. Actually, there is a lot more that can be said because the guide that was included in the cost of our 15 Euro ticket (along with the bus transfer to the caves) didn't stop talking during the nearly 3 hours we were on the tour. Like everything here, why use a few words when lots and lots will do? His constant narration may have been informative, but the incredible natural beauty said everything far better than he ever could and many times I wished he would have just been quiet and let us take in the surroundings and listen to the drip of the water slowly forming and growing the stalactites and stalagmites. Fortunately for me, he spoke in Italian so I could occasionally tune him out and take it all in. Unfortunately for her, Simona speaks Italian (go figure, along with English and Japanese) and had to listen and nearly lost her mind.
Valentina also speaks Italian (along with French, English, Spanish, German, Turkish, Farsi, Hindi and Esperanto [I exaggerate somewhat]) and was in heaven. She didn't leave the guide's side and asked very insightful, and frequent, questions. They bonded. There is however, more that can be said about the afternoon, post spelunking.
After the 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour(!), we went to lunch. Finally! Giordano, who had been to the caves before and knew about this restaurant, had made reservations for us and had promised we were in for something special. The restaurant is called La Torre, is quite small, and is wildly popular in the summer with tourists but in winter was mostly empty except for our party of five and a few tables of residents from the town. Their specialty is cinghialle (wild boar) and tartufo. They were happy to welcome us and the meal was special.
Both ingredients feature prominently on their menu, except there was no actual menu, just a few dishes of the day recited by the waitress/bartender/attentive mother. Everything was served family style on platters and single portions were easily big enough to share with everyone. Our first course was three kinds of pasta - ravioli stuffed with truffles with a truffle and butter sauce, triangles (like ravioli, but with three sides and so the logical name) stuffed with boar with the same truffle sauce, and pappardelle al cinghialle which was the best thing I've eaten since I've been here. The pasta was handmade and the sugo was tender, rich and devastatingly unhealthy. Before bringing the second course, our new mother made sure we'd had enough and offered to bring more. I think our refusal for extra made her worried. For our second course we had roasted potatoes, roasted boar, and a platter of grilled meats with lamb chops, pork skewers, boar ribs and boar sausage. It was primal and delicious. Dessert was homemade tiramisu and the meal finished with coffee and digestifs which was locally made and bottled grappa flavored with holly or some other tree branch.
They left the bottle on the table so that we could feel free to drink however much we "needed" to ensure we would digest our meal properly. Apparently we "needed" a lot but we all digested well. Afterwards we took a walk through the town to clear our heads before driving back to Ancona.
Happy Birthday Sarah Roth-Rosevear!
Happy Birthday Jeffrey Scott Lewis!
Happy Velentine's Day all you lovers.
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