We have had a grand day. We visited the Hemp Museum near Spello. The mission of the Museum is to revive interest in and skills associated with the originally thriving hemp production in Umbria. More about that later.

The outstanding event of our day was lunch. We originally stopped at a restaurant in an old monestery to have lunch but the restaurateur had no food and no chef because of the holiday yesterday. He suggested we go to another place not far from where we were.

The Restaurant As We Were Leaving

It took a bit of hunting to find La Laconda di Valacasana – located on this pond filled with trout. The house specialties: trout and truffles (this being the truffle region of Umbria).

The Setting

The meal began with appetizers provided by the house: first two plates of various prosciuttos and pecorino cheese with truffle, trout, and creamed truffle bruschetta, then two more plates each with three different truffle samplers. Next a bowl of some kind of thick bean soup, then a liver dish with some kind of vegetable, and one more that I can’t now recall!

Then the waiter asks what we want to eat. We ordered: trout with truffle (x2), tortellini with creamed truffle sauce, polenta with truffle (and other ingredients), spaghetti with a truffle sauce, mixed salad and spinach with parmesan and garlic which we shared around.

As We Are Finishing

We ate until we were all stuffed, then slowly pushed away from the table to head on to Assisi to view the Duomo.

The entire meal for six, with many bottles of water and carafes of wine – €100!

Back to the hemp museum.

Setting Up A Weft For Weaving

The museum houses a collection of old linen, cotton, and hemp garment and other artifacts beautifully preserved and housed in drawers with details of age and donors displayed. Beautiful hand work. There are small looms for people to try their hand at weaving, a large loom on display. A lovely young woman, a fashion student, walked us through the collection with explanations in English.

Our last stop for the day was a visit to the Assisi Cathedral

Assisi Cathedral From A Distance

Because lunch had done me in (we didn’t finish till 3:30), I abstained from the steep climb to the church and instead accompanied Linda to do some grocery shopping. The small supermarket wasn’t busy so the staff were happy to provide an informal language lesson – it’s a surprise how vocabulary and phrases are coming back after 50 years.

We’re now sitting on one of the patios with wine and more food (if you can believe it), enjoying the end of the day.

Looking forward to whatever is on the agenda for tomorrow.