Birthday weekend in Ariccia

My great friend Johanna invited Eric and I to her parents home outside of Rome in the Castelli Romani this past weekend. The home is in Ariccia, but we walked to another town called Nemi for lunch on Sunday. Ariccia is famous for its porcceta (pork) and Nemi for its fragolini (mini strawberries). Needless to say, we ate our way through the hills. That is, when we weren't playing cards and drinking phenomenal wine! Quite a birthday! We did try to catch the Italy v USA World Cup game on Saturday night but couldn't get the television to work--and we definitely weren't interested in going to a bar to cheer for the good ole' US. Some may call us chickens, I call us smart!

By the way, the massive bouquet of dahlias that I am holding only cost 2 euro--can you believe it?