22 Aprile- Norcia

Last Friday (which happened to be Good Friday), Leslie (a eWWOOFer who showed up the day befor Molly left) and I decided to use our day off to head to Norcia. While Norcia is somewhat off the beaten path, I had heard that it was quite lovely. Upon exiting the bus, we were immediately met with this scene:

No... Those aren't real pigs in the foreground...but I think there is one hanging above the door.

Alright, this might not entirely be true.... first we were met with an overpowering smell of cured pork products. But you get the point: Norcia loves a nice pig. In fact, the term Norcineria is used universally for a shop selling cured meat products throughout Italy, and Norcia is damn pround of their meat curing prowess. I never got an exact count, but I would guess that there were at least fifteen of those meat shops in the tiny town center that we walked through (we're talking about a 4 blocks, at one point I counted 7 shops while standing in one place). While I decided to forgo the town specialty, Leslie was happy to partake of a "panini a piacere." Sadly, this phrase translates to "sandwiches to taste" rather than "pleasure sandwiches", as we had initially thought. I don't know what would have gone into a pleasure sandwich, I'm guessing unicorn would have been a prominent ingredient. Fortunately, when she ordered, Leslie didn't ask for a "sandwich to taste", which would probably slightly confused the shopkeeper and make us look like idiot Americans. Her sandwich was apparently pretty good... Norcia made good on their promise of fine meat products.... Still, I think I prefer when my protein looks like this:

On a side note: apparently they don't salt their bread in parts of Umbria, Norcia being one of those places. Supposedly it was their way of protesting against a papal salt tax by reducing their salt consumption. But, as Darcy pointed out, they obviously still salt their meats (which I assume uses up way more salt than baking), so it seems like a pointless reason to curse all of your future generations with crap bread. But I digress...

In addition to copious amounts of Norcineria, Norcia had no fewer than three outdoor stores (something that I have seen nowhere else in my albeit limited travels in Italy). It also had some other nice things to look at and occasionally take pictures of.

Me taking in the scenery

A crazy looking tree

A loveley street

A different lovely street

Yet another church

I also found a couple more signs to add to my collection.

Since when do bees have hairdos?

After surviving the big bad wolf, the three little pigs apparently met a tragic end in Norcia

A tractor!! How exciting!!