Rest for the ..tired?

 Saturday 12th August 2023

We decided to have a quiet day today as nothing planned until 9pm tonight when there is a concert/fashion parade on in the village very close to our hotel. Sara is displaying some of her clothes and Christina (Lalla Maria's daughter) is singing. 

Ben and Izzy have gone to visit caves with Carmine and Tizziana and also Allessandro, Lalla Maria's son. Paul and I declined as we have done grottos and too much for me.

There were some really old photos of Sefro and the waterfall in the restaurant/bar/hotel.

We watched the Matilda's play France live this morning at 9am our time in the bar of the restaurant. There is a table and TV which has been perfect for blog writing and watching Matildas. Great game. 

Part-way through, all the electricity in the village was cut off. This meant i could not return to our room at half-time as planned as the lift was not working. The electricity came back pretty quickly but we were told to avoid the lift just in case..... 

Anyway it was great to watch the Matildas play for 3 hours and then finally win. The hotel staff had been in and out during the game but they all came in for the penalty shoot out and cheered when the Matildas won. They made some not so nice comments about the French players. Italians don't like the French.

The staff have been great, particularly the owner, Maria Rita  who is Patrizia's sister and the main cook. She is so lovely. She did our washing and ironed it all.   And she told us that Ben and Izzy were in the honeymoon suite where she had her first wedding night, 48 years ago. Amazing and explains why their room is so big and luxurious compared to ours. We are in the disabled section which is serviced by a lift. Its only redeeming feature.

This morning I was out-disabled by an old guy with a cane coming out of the room next to us. His carer told him to get out of my way so I could get to the lift first. As I walked past, they said something about my limping, maybe, she'sone of us. But I was the fastest to the lift. So there!

Paul and I went  the deli for lunch  again they really looked after us.

Paul and his lunch

my lunch

Me and Ben from last night with our truffles

Lunch is followed by siesta/rest,  which is followed by an apertif

Paul had beer (?) and I had an aperol spritzer maybe.

There has been some confusion with spritzers at the hotel bar with some not arriving at all and others not quite what we asked for.     A bit box of chocolate-like.

Dinner was at the hotel again in preparation for the fashion parade. Gianfranco and Patrizia were going to be there as their daughter Sara was showing fashions from her kidswear shop. Her daughters Nicola and Matrica were models as were some of the other kids and Elisa, Sara's sister.

We headed down after dinner as it was very close by in a new part of Sefro that I had not seen before. It was a historic part of the village and they had build a memorial with a lovely staircase. We got there early for me to secure a seat (there are some advantages).

Italian time is very similar to Fiji time as Paul pointed out and i agree. So we were there for a 9pm start at about 830pm for the chairs.  The fashion parade started about 930ish and when it ended after 20 minutes, we realised there was more. Much, much more. In fact it was actually a model competition and the local final where the winners would go to a competition in Rome.  Big time stuff. Carmine, Tiziana and Gianfranco were judges. Why? Well Gianfranco is the president of some organisation and charities that were profiting from the competition, I think?

the runway?

Paul heading to the judges

Ben and Izzy appreciating the fashion

the runway with the restored tower behind at night.

The sign explaining what is was all about.

I didn't get any photos of the kids as i thought they were coming back not realising there was a whole model competition to follow.

Here is just one photo of the serious models towards the end. 22 models doing the runway for casual clothes, formal, swimwear and something else.  It went on forever and ever.

And there was entertainment. Christina, Lalla-Maria's daughter, sang as did her daughter who was 10 but had an amazing voice.  It was good but just went on and on.

 

 It finished about 11 and then we went for a drink back at the hotel waiting for Tiziana and Carmine to join us to explain the voting criteria as we did not agree with the winners.

They in fact invited us to go out for ice-cream in Castelraimondo. We declined. We found out the next day that Gianfranco had actually wanted pizza so they went to Castelraimondo and booked a table for pizza at 1am and were there till 2.30am.  Imagine that in Newcastle or even Sydney.

Anyway we were happy to have stayed home. Boring Novocastrians that we are....