Saturday 30 April 2011

Our last weeks in Lazio - and some more about Casa Caponetti

Imagine a horse barn with a walkway in the middle and stables on either side… that pretty much sums up the wwoofer living quarters at Casa Caponetti: horses living in the stables on one side, us living in two converted stables on the other side. Wwoofers can open the bathroom window and stick their heads out and there will be a horse in his stable opposite looking at them. Trust us, it’s as good as it sounds! We are astounded by how much noise seven horses make in the course of the night. And as you’ve probably guessed we are getting very little sleep in this barn, which is heartbreaking as there is a nice row of luxury cabins about 100 meters away where the paying guests stay. At about midnight or two am every night one of our ne-iii-gh-ghbours goes into a sneezing fit. Another of them falls asleep up against the side of its stable and wakes up in a frenzy, apparently having forgotten that it is inside a small enclosed space.  While they spend their nights neighing, kicking their stable doors, and throwing themselves down on the ground, we spend ours wishing we could get some rest.

We would be very hesitant to recommend Casa Caponetti farm to anyone interested in wwoofing here. The work is very hard, the days are long and hot, and the owner’s sarcasm seems boundless.  By the way, for any prospective wwoofers, the cooking school here has absolutely nothing to do with wwoofer work or life – it’s actually just something the mother does in another house.  We never get to eat any of her food, another heartbreaking fact of life here. The hosts themselves can cook fine, but neither of them much enjoy cooking, which came as a sad shock to us when we arrived, seeing as they have their own line of organic foods. We had imagined long hours at the table with wine and cheese and Italian conviviality but these things are not a feature here. Our hosts don’t even drink wine. Wwoofers have the choice to either eat with the little host family or prepare their own food in the stable-cabin.  Mostly we have chosen to prepare our own food as meal times with our hosts are often awkward, what with them conversing so much in Italian and asking us no questions about ourselves.

On a more positive side of things, we have learned a lot about pruning and mulching olive trees, building trails in a forest with medieval technology, using a scythe, and optimally stacking grass cuttings and sticks on the back of tractor. We have also become adept at interpreting complex instructions in Italian, because although the hosts themselves speak fluent English, the workers speak none of it. Another plus is that the host is an archaeology buff who is publishing a paper about an Etruscan labyrinth under a neighbour’s property. He has even asked us to help prepare a diagram of the labyrinth to go into a British archaeology journal.

The day after we arrived at Casa Caponetti we celebrated one of our birthdays. We visited the village in the sky, Bagnaregis, where we sampled some wine and bruchetta and some local gelato. Bagnaregis is a beautiful little village and being there wasn’t like anywhere we had ever experienced before. Our host had been invited to a private party in the village to celebrate the opening of a B&B so we also went along to that for a little while and enjoyed some mozzerralla and rice croquets and a Porchetta panini (de-boned piglet, stuffed and rolled), which was delicious.

Our first official day off at Casa Caponetti we took a bus to Viterbo. The Popes used to flee there whenever Rome got sacked or looked like getting sacked by barbarians. They liked to flee there because of the very thick walls, or so we’ve heard. We had a great time exploring the old city, wandering the romantic lanes around San Pelegrino (where Romeo and Juliet was filmed), and eating a massive pizza and calzone at a place called Il Labarinto. Probably the highlight of our time occurred near the start when we wandered into the Piazza sans Trinitate (or something like that) and went to see if we could get in the doors of the big church. We were surprised by a kind and very little old priest who was just then coming outside. We thought he muttered something about pilgrims and we thought he was telling us to go away because the church was closed to the public. But when we tried to leave, he waved us back and invited us through the doors into his amazing church. The place was silent and, aside from the three of us, was empty. He spoke about three words of English but still endeavoured to give us an extensive tour of the church. He spent a long time explaining some of the many frescoes lining a courtyard to one side of the church, mentioning things (we think) about the life of Saint Augustine, Macchu Pichu though we didn’t see the connection, about Sardinia, and about a monkey in one of the scenes.


Well, as you can probably infer from our comments above, Casa Caponetti was not for us. We had intended to be there for four weeks but ended up leaving in the early hours of the morning, after only two weeks. We’ve found another host, a farm called Flavia Constans. It is a small family farm where the son cares for the animals, the father cures the meat and makes the cheese and the mother cooks most of the food. We’ll tell you more about this place in our next entry, but for now we’ll just say it is worlds better than our last place...


Bagnaregis
the village in the sky
medieval architecture outside the Piazza San Pelegrino
giant pizza and calzone at Il Labarinto
the ceiling of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, Viterbo


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