Grotte di Frasassi

Sunday was quite busy-- we started off the morning by heading to the local antiques market to see what we could find. Among all of the old farm equipment, pocket watches, Rococo furniture, spinning wheels, and stuffed foxes, we found all kinds of World War I and II memorabilia. It was so much fun to wander around the stalls, picking up things that could have been in a museum and wondering when and where they were from!

After Mass, I headed out to Bastia Umbra with my parents and Florence for her regional swim meet, while Matthew stayed behind to entertain Jeremy with CAD software.

Look at that warmup!

I was quickly fading so my dad brought me a take-out coffee.

The sunset on our way out was beautiful!

Monday we took a field trip out to the Grotte di Frasassi, a huge cave system discovered by a group of teenagers in 1971. At first, I was alarmed and disappointed to find "no photos on pain of death" signs all over the place, but in true Italian fashion our guide informed us that as long as we didn't hold up the tour it would be fine.

The tallest stalagmite was as tall as a five-story building!

This right here is pure calcium carbonate.

When the original team started exploring the cave system, they got lost and didn't realize they were walking in circles... until eventually they recognized this polar bear.

The view outside wasn't too bad either:

We followed up the excursion with a delicious lunch (including lots and lots of truffles) and set off home! Once we got back to Todi, we were amused to see the main street closed in one lane where the crosswalk had recently been (halfway) repainted. After a few such roadblocks and a couple of comments on how recently it seemed to have been done, we caught them in the act!

You never know what you'll see around here.