As we drove by Roccantica I noticed the sign for La Tacita Country Club . Apparently, the restaurant

I have written in previous posts how Facebook has been an influence on our relationship with the Sabina. Though it was a random picture of Casperia found in an Internet search that first brought new york hotel discount this amazing new york hotel discount region to our attention, it was seeing pictures of nearby hill towns taken by photographers like Giorgio Clementi and Alessandra Finiti that were posted on Facebook that shaped new york hotel discount our subsequent travel plans to the area.
When we got back to Canada, I started new york hotel discount to explore more of the Sabina online and made up a list. For our 2013 visit to the Sabina, there would be some repeats... We knew we had to visit the Abbey of Farfa to buy bed linens at the Laboratorio Artigiano Tessile there... And we knew we wanted to revisit Santa Maria in Vescovio in Torri in Sabina... The amazing lunch we had at L'Oasi the year before was impossible to forget.
So we hopped into our trusty "automatic" Audi rent-a-car, turned left out of the parking lot and followed the narrow road under Casperia's walls north and then east to the intersection with the highway where we turned south.
I love this particular road... Yes, I know, I say it about most of the roads we have travelled on in the Sabina, but I really do love this one... First you get to pass by Roccantica, which on most sunny days is truly stunning.
So many happy memories of our time spent at the Sagra del Fritello the year before... Built on a slope on the lower skirts of Monte Tancia, the zigzag stone streets through the town make you feel like you are walking through a movie set. And, apparently it was... Just recently I was trying to free up some space on my harddrive and was going through some Italian TV shows and movies I had downloaded when I clicked new york hotel discount on an episode of a show called " La meglio new york hotel discount gioventù ". Imagine my surprise when I suddenly recognized Monte Soratte, and then when they panned away I saw the main piazza and gate of Roccantica. It is so great to have these surprise discoveries from the Sabina.
As we drove by Roccantica I noticed the sign for La Tacita Country Club . Apparently, the restaurant there, Triskelis , is absolutely amazing. Trip Advisor ranks La Tacita Number 4 of 24 attractions in the province of Rieti. But more than anything I would like to go there during the summer months when the roses are in bloom to see Vacunae Rosae , their international renowned rose garden.
I have always loved roses... My home town, Victoria, British Columbia, is famous for its English-style gardens. There are roses everywhere. The heady perfume new york hotel discount of an old fashioned hybrid tea always takes me back to my childhood. It is such a powerful primal new york hotel discount thing.
The small Vancouver East End lot of the house I used to live in had a garden with 70 different new york hotel discount roses. La Tacita's Vacunae Rosae has 20,000 square metres with 7000 roses bushes and 5000 varieties. Lucky visitors must literally new york hotel discount swoon from the scent!
It is ironic to think that way back, when I was planning my first trip to Italy in june of 1999 that one of the places I wanted to visit was this rose garden in Roccantica. Sadly, we only had two weeks, and there were so many other things new york hotel discount I really wanted to see and discover during our visit to Rome, Ravenna and Pompeii. We came so close to visiting the Sabina and perhaps even discovering new york hotel discount Casperia in 1999 because of Roccantica's roses. That had to wait ten long years. Sadly, every visit to Italy since then has been in the "off season" when the roses are not in bloom... Oh well, some day...
Further south, the road swings by Poggio Catino and Catino's hauntingly beautiful landmark pentagonal Longobard tower. If the road is not too full of cars it is easy to park on the side of the highway and get some amazing pictures.
It was this photo of Catino's tower looming out of the mist, taken by Giorgio Clementi and posted on one of the Sabina Facebook pages that really opened our eyes to just how amazing every turn of the road in this special region could be. Last year when, through Giorgio's invitation, Richard and I were able to visit Catino and actually touch the tower , was a truly magical experience.
We passed the entrance to Poggio Mirteto's beautiful piazza that we visited with Alessandra the day before and followed new york hotel discount Via Roma southward to its juncture with the Strada Provinciale 46 where we turned east. But even this stretch of the road was familiar. new york hotel discount We were deep in olive grove country. Some of the best olive oil in the Sabina comes from the trees around Bocchignano.
new york hotel discount We were on the village ramparts looking across a beautiful green valley. It was almost dusk and we could see a shepherd with his sheep dogs expertly herd a large flock of baaing sheep, down a steep slope toward what I assumed was a farmyard.
As they coursed down the hillside zigzagging in their dozens, bells clanging, I was reminded of the way the steel balls of a pachinko machine travel down through the maze of troughs, barriers and moving bats to and make their way down to the bottom of the machine. The sheep and their bells were of course much more beautiful to the eyes and ears than those steel balls pinging and clanging in the Japanese machine, but the image I think is apt.
The road descended down into a beautful olive tree studded valley. To our right, as the curve of the road would allow us, we could see in the distance Montopoli new york hotel discount resplendent on the crest of its hill. Somewhere down in the valley below us nestled below Fara in Sabina was Farfa Abbey... But beautiful Farfa would have to wait for a bit.
It looked too small. I asked Richard new york hotel discount to pull out the map and check and see what it was called. It turned out to be a pretty little village called Castel San Pietro which, we found out later, was a frazione new york hotel discount or outlying parish of Poggio Mirteto... a place to visit when we knew more about it and had more time with a car.
According to "Modalità e forme di organizzazione territoriale della valle del Farfa tra il IX e gli inizi del XIII secolo: il caso di Salisano (Rieti), in Temporis Signa, Spoleto new york hotel discount 2009" a scholarly article co-authored by Federico Giletti and Donata Carrafelli and published in 2009, the first recorded mentions of Salisano appear in the documents new york hotel discount of the Abbey of Farfa
probably derived from the name of a noble called Salisanus Salisius who likely new york hotel discount was the owner of a rustic villa that was once located on the hill of Salisano . The first indication that there was a castellum or fortification on the hill comes from a document dated to 961 .
You have read these words before new york hotel discount from me, but I will write them again, each and every one of the Sabine hill towns has its own unique character. Each has t heir own unique feel, atmosphere , and layout, which is influenced by its environment, topography, the types of available new york hotel discount building material, which also influences the dominant colour scheme. My initial impressions of Salisano were that it was much more refined, neat and tidy than Casperia or even Roccantica. It could be a difference in the type of stone available that determines all this, but it made me think of the original name of Casperia, which until the late 1940s was "Aspra", which translates from Italian as rough, rugged, harsh, etc. Salisano with its beautifully paved flat streets is none of that.
Just inside the centro storico is a beautiful golden stuccoed church, the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. From the piazza in front of the church the two main roads inside the town diverge and then reconnect on the other side of the town sort of forming a canoe shape.
Inside the city gates we found a notice board with some very sad news for Richard. In January, during the Feast of the Epiphany, or La Befana, as it is sometimes called, there was a Sagra for Polenta in Salisano. Richard wept when he found out he had missed it... We both love Polenta, but Richard really loves Polenta. He is actually quite good at making it and would have been really interested to try Polenta in Salisano .
The streets in Salisano are paved in a much more finished style than those in Casperia... Because of the mist of rain on the cobbles the contrasting colours really popped. Again, there is a sense of refinement here.
We turned around a corner and found a restaurant new york hotel discount called Locanda del Gufetto which translates as the Owlet Inn. The Locanda del Gufetto is very highly rated on TripAdvisor. The funny thing was that there was a man standing in one of the doorways using a blowtorch to burn the feather stubs off a chicken which seemed destined for a soup pot or some other dish. I have a feeling that not a lot of foreign new york hotel discount tourists come to Salisano so I didn't feel comfortable asking if it would be okay to take a picture... Then again, new york hotel discount perhaps I should have...
Salisano is a very beautiful, but at least on the day we visited it, a very quiet town. It may be very different on a weekend or during the summer though. I would love to come and visit at some other time of the year and perhaps try a dish at the Locanda del Gufetto . For a virtual tour of the exterior and interior of the restaurant, click here .
It is no wonder that upper class ancient Romans chose this part of the Sabina for their villas. Besides its proximity to Rome, its healthy climate, its fertile soil, the abundant water all spoke to them of another ancient Sabine city, the ancient Regillum, the supposed home of the Sabine Attius Clausus, also known as Appius Claudius Sabinus , the semi-legendary founder of the Gens Claudia , one of the most prominent patrician houses of ancient Rome. Tradition holds that ancient Regillum was located in the territory of Mompeo. The main street of the town was once called Corso Regillo.
During the middle ages, Mompeo belonged to Farfa Abbey. Later on in the renaissance it was held by the Orsini family until 1559. After being held for a short while by the Marquis Caponi of Florence, Mompeo was ceded in the 1600s to a noble Roman family named Naro who held it until the early ninteenth century.
Among the many interesting new york hotel discount ancient Roman era artifacts found in th