Marcia, Marcia, Marcia delle Castagne!

Last notte, Tara went out and Annie Cate and I watched probably the best Disney movie ever, whose Italian titolo is La Carica dei 101 (but we watched it in English and it was called 101 Dalmatians).

Oggi, Tara and I participated in the Marcia delle Castagne, which is a 10k run/walk (marcia = march) in Castegnero (and a little bit of Lumignano).  We ran the two miles to Castegnero (which is named for castagni, meaning chestnuts).  A lot of people had already started, and Tara and I got tangled up in a dog leash just like it happened in La Carica dei 101.


When we got there we signed up and ran off.  The marcia was not timed, and I got a piece of paper to keep in my pocket instead of a race number.  I took my camera, which I wouldn't normally do, and I took pictures of the highly unusual fuel stations which were located every other kilometer.  An American fuel stop would have water, Gatorade, and maybe some pretzels or gummy bears.  The primo (first) stop today had lady fingers and cocoa.

The secondo stop had orange tea, raisin bread, and arancione (orange) and limone (lemon) slices:

The terzo stop had toast with formaggio (cheese) and acqua, vino, and te’:

The quarto stop had biscotti (cookies) and hot vino with frutta floating in it:

A lot of the run was on muddy paths.  The mud made us slip and sometimes it felt like it was sucking our shoes off our feet. 

We saw these cavalli:

We also saw this faccia:

When we finished, I got some miele di castagni (chestnut honey).

It glows!

Here are more foto of the race and the finish area:

After that we ran the two miles back to Lumignano, so in total we ran about ten miles.

Then Tara and I went on Post to the Commissary to get a load of food.  Tara showed me this canned bread that she says Patsy and Bob used to serve once a settimana (week):

Here is a selection of cereali that are available at the Commissary (note the presence of Cheerios):

More Commissary foto:

Then Tara bought some vino to cook with:

Tara and I then made kürbiscremesuppe (Austrian pumpkin cream soup).  Here is Tara chopping the zucche (pumpkins).  It took a long time.

Then the internet told us that we could have just boiled the skin off. 



This irritating woman from the internet knows everything there is to know about roasting pumpkin seeds.



I rinsed off the seeds and we roasted them.

Here are boiling pumpkin pieces:

Here is some mashed-up zucca:

Here is the finished zuppa (soup):

It was deliciosa!  Buon appetito from me, Bridget!