To little boys, Foligno is the train capital of Umbria.

To little girls, it is the bargain basement of fashion.

To the intrepid reporter, the dividing line is best drawn by you, my Gentle Reader:

Despite the name, this is not a game. Coming back each year, there are places we hold dear.

Those that are still open run “olly olly in free.” Those that are chiuso (closed), alas, sadden Rebecca and me.

Week One’s treks of rediscovery are such agony. (We think we have a stagnant economy.)

Best news by far, already expected: the dear couple at Osteria Del Trivio, our local haunt for Sunday dinner, are back and strong after suddenly closing last year.

A close second, always uncertain: the arts supply store is still at the top of Via Porto Fuga. (It was here, according to legend, that Hannibal was routed when the besieged Spoletini showered his troops from a tower with oil.)

I mention this, in part to explain the straining after yet another (entitled) pun. But I should mention as well, perhaps, that Hannibal and all his elephants couldn’t keep my wife from traipsing up that climb to her ‘art’s content.

My own photographic supplies, so far, are pretty thin. Wi-Fi and me are not so friendly! (With luck, perhaps I will soon be able to come out from hiding without going insane.)

Your inattentive Spoletini have just misplaced the public trash receptacles, after three years of convenient nightly deposits at the end of our cross-street.

A wonder how much sorry waste there is in the course of our daily goings-on. And then there’s all the paper, and plastic, and bottles, and refuse to boot.

Or, “My Kingdom for a Horse”

Signs of recognition say that we are Spoletini (if only of a distant sort).

Air kisses, naturally, are the best; smiles of heartfelt welcome, a close second.

But even sideway glances and puzzled stares intimate that we’ve been here.

Pictures, with stories, to ground the tale in native soil when technology cooperates.

Morning errands. Afternoon thunderstorms. Evening stroll. (“La Passeggiata.”)

Just about the way I remember it, especially with the Wi-Fi gone haywire.

Pictures and stories to follow, as technology and temperature|ment allow.

Apparently, someone at the Rome Hilton has mistaken us for significant donors to the Clinton Foundation with a direct line to Huma Abedin. At least, that is the way I fear it will be reported in the AP story on the scandalous suite they have given us.

From the corner of our playground, past the bathrobe on the king-size bed, to my dear wife standing in the “parlor” (beside the workspace), the distance is a multiple of meters that escapes all comprehension even when converted to pixels.

Beside me, Rebecca is sleeping through the flight.  Some things never change.

Ahead, the ground has been shattered by a quake.  Who knows what remains?

Familiarity, the point of always returning to one favored spot, will be there still. And yet.

It is never simply the same.  Even though, as always, beside me Rebecca is sleeping through the night.

A long time getting posted:

Exploring the new Percorso della Mobilita Alternativa
has opened up all sorts of unknown alleys & avenues.

To begin, the apparent dead end beside Reb’s art store
turns out (as all the signs promise) to go somewhere:

Directly to the backside of what we’d seen the day before
from the wall’s other side. And the cross atop the steeple

Must be connected as well, even if we never tracked it
to ground—discovering, instead, a former monastery

Which I had passed, in my haste to find some pizza,
the other day without looking over at it for a second.

Just goes to show: you only think you can’t get there
from here, when in fact the whole town is connected.

Who knows? Maybe one of these days that old Anfiteatro,
long a mystery on every map, will show up reconstructed.

(There are signs, here and there, that such an undertaking
is now in either the archaeological or tourist/logistical works.)