Katie & Justin

I didn’t quite know what to expect at the farm. It is, after all, a farm. When I woke up there the first morning, I peaked outside the door to find a donkey and goats chillin’ in our front yard with the Abruzzo mountains in the backdrop. “Kaaatie…” Justin called out as several chickens poked around the corner and walked across our porch. “Where are we?!” we laughed.

ABRUZZO

I can never remember the name of the town we were in, but it was located about an hour west of Pescara in the Abruzzo region, near the national park. The farm itself had multiple buildings, each with one or two apartments inside. The property was pretty sizable with a volleyball court, outdoor ping pong table, a small pool and lots of open areas for lounging. Only one other unit was occupied when we were there so it felt like we had the place to ourselves.

The first night we went to a restaurant that was recommended to us by the farm’s owner and two other visitors. The place had a spread of all-you-can-eat appetizers so you could sample anything you’d like. Even though we loaded up on appetizers, we still wanted to order a main course. Looking at the menu, I noticed a couple of words I didn’t recognize listed under “meats.” How could that be? I thought. What else is there besides chicken, pork and beef? So I used my handy smartphone to translate all of the unknowns.

“Ohhhh my God!” I said to Justin. “You will NOT believe what is on this menu!”

“What….” he asked nervously.

Pigeon! Dirty, ugly, gross, red-eyed pigeon.

“Could you imagine if we accidentally ordered that?!!” I said. “Thank goodness I looked it up!”

Needless to say, we both went with the pasta.

Justin, though, was awfully quiet during dinner. When I asked what was going on, he insisted everything was fine. We carried on, and the restaurant ended up giving us our wine for free. I’m not exactly sure why but the owner did seem to be upset by the fact that I did not finish my plate of food. (“What is wrong?!”) Really, I was just full, I tried to tell him.

When we got back to the farm, Justin said he couldn’t hold it in any more: “I think I ate pigeon.”

AHHHH! WHAAAAAT??!

Apparently he grabbed it from the appetizer spread. It looked like a bird, but it was smaller than chicken. And tasted bland, so he said. I was dying. (“Did it taste like garbage?”) We couldn’t stop laughing the rest of the night. (Or the rest of the trip!)

The next day Justin made breakfast using fresh eggs from the chickens. We played some ping pong, and the farm owner showed us how to get walnuts and figs directly from the trees. Then we went for a hike in the national park.

We got directions from the owner on how to get to a waterfall with a little swimming area beneath it. All you have to do is walk along the river, and then look up, he said.

“Is the trail marked?” I asked.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Are there signs along the path?” I tried again.

“Ohhhh!” he said. “No. But it’s very easy.”

It was anything but easy… Turns out you actually have to cross the river — multiple times. We did it, even though we weren’t sure if we were going the right way. When we came to a sign with an arrow pointing left, we went right — which, as it turns out, was the right way. Then we nearly passed it but noticed a makeshift ladder made out of tree branches leaning up against a big rock. We climbed up it — and, bam, there it was: the waterfall with the pool underneath. We made it! And one of us went for a swim in the cold mountain water. (That would be me.)

Back at the farm, we played poker and hung out with Geranimo, the cat who wouldn’t leave our side. We nicknamed him that after finding him hiding from a dog in the rafters on our porch, where he would shimmy up and down the pole. (I changed his name later to “Ladro,” which means thief in Italian, after he jumped up and quickly stole an entire piece of cake I had put on a plate on the table outside.) Our poker game lead to several interesting bets: Justin had to do the “Darcy’s Donkey” dance around the donkey, I had to do a chicken walk in front of the chickens and Justin had to sing a love song to the goats.

We attempted to go out for dinner that night but ended up in a small village with no open restaurants. We went back to our apartment and made some pizza instead using bread, veggies and fresh mozzarella that we bought from the store earlier. We also tried to get a bunch of eggs for the next morning, but that day the chickens only produced two, haha.

NEXT STOP:  Amalfi Coast 

To be continued…

Click here for Honeymoon Part 4: Treia

Click here for Honeymoon Part 3: Venice

Click here for Honeymoon Part 2: Verona

Click here for Honeymoon Part 1: Lake Como

To see all of our pictures from Italy, click here for our photo albums and then click on “honeymoon.” The location will show up when you click on each picture.