Sansepolcro

This is the church in Sansepolcro, which is celebrating 1000 years since the beginning of its construction. It really does feel like something right out of Pillars of the Earth. It is so hard for us, as North Americans, to fathom. the continual existence of anything for 1000 years. This picture was taken from the town square, which used to be called the Clock Square until the clock tower was destroyed in WWII. All over Italy we have seen ruins left by the ravages of time, weather, geographic events and wars both ancient and recent. There is a beauty and dignity to these remains that stand tall despite their incompleteness.

Many of these small medieval towns develop an attraction of some sort to encourage the outside world to visit. The village of Sansepolcro every 2 years hosts a magnificent competition of lace from around the world. Below is one of the pieces that drew me in. I've included a close up of the fine work of the tree from the middle left side.

The technique used is called bobbin lace which involves crossing and moving many small spools of fine threads over and under each other to follow the predetermined pattern, with a background of sewn lace making the lattice work behind the tree. None of us on the tour has ever made lace but there is no question that our knowledge of handwork made us more appreciative of the skills involved.

Being a smaller than average tour group we've had the privilege of squeezing into local restaurants where large tours of 30 to 50 people would have to eat in shifts if they could be accommodated at all. In Sansepolcro, we ate in a cafe that held about 20 people, of which we were 14. The owner served us, and it was our impression that his wife was in the back doing all the cooking. The food was authentic and wholesome. This was the ensalata mista that I ordered. The tomatoes were as sweet as fruit and the tuna and cheese made it a dream.
This relatively healthy choice however did not hold a candle to the stinco (pronounced just like stinko - our guide and bus driver could not figure out why we were laughing at the name.) Stinco is the braised/roasted calf and shin of pork. Tender, juicy, no spices, very little seasoning, just good honest meat. One of the group pronounced it to be "almost orgasmic". I'm not sure if I would agree to that extent but the panacotta for dessert would come close to falling into that category.

It appears that we took our tour leader to villages that do not cater so much to tourists, yet each had an exquisite assortment of shops offering beautiful style and quality. In this fashionable clothing store there was a shrug that might become the inspiration for the next pattern that we design for the KnitTraders Pattern site and store. I just love it. We'll see.