Started our day with a cappuccino and a pastry, like anyone would do when in Italy.
To get to our destination we had to practically take planes, trains, and automobiles. We started on the Rome metro, changed trains and got off the metro in Piramide. Then we got on a train train (not Metro train) which took us to Bracciano. I’m grateful we were not pulling luggage on this trip with all the stairs and walking.
Lake Bracciano is beautiful from this viewpoint up the hill at the castle. 
At the castle with the lake behind us.
Castello Orsini-Odescalchi is a castle in Bracciano. This is an amazing place, definitely “tiara” worthy and all I brought was my visor – darn!
Doors going from room to room as far as the eye can see.
Who do you think is more handsome? Ricardo or the statute? My vote is still out.
What you can’t see is the wrought iron has spikes on it. If you didn’t get in or out of the bed correctly it could be deadly. Speaking of deadly, it is rumored that Isabella de’Medici who married into the Orsini family, had many “lovers” and the next morning the lover was escorted out a secret back door to a place in the castle where he was killed. Well, she was married and boastful lovers could cause problems.
And I have Ricardo right where I want him!
The original throne – where the maids would put the chamber pot inside this chair and the royalty would sit on it to do their “thing.”
My knight in shining armor, although upon a closer look, it’s not so shiny. Neither is Ricardo but he’s worth keeping (for now).
I found the kitchen in the castle!
Check out these ovens. Imagine the amount of wood needed to cook for the people in a castle this size.
The animal heads on the wall were dinner for someone in ancient times I’m sure!
Copper cookware even back then 1200’s I believe.
And here I am ready to cook! Behind me on the right is the kitchen sink which is huge and we think the two animal heads on the wall brought in water from the well just outside the kitchen area.
I swear there were stairs to get to any place in the castle. The climb to the turret with the narrow steep spiral staircase just about did me in. This stairclimbing out does any machine at the gym!
Entrance to the castle looking back. I was too busy climbing up the stairs when we arrived to get a good picture of the massive doors and entrance.
Lunch at Fraschetta!
We found a nook in this cute little Osteria. A strip of chalkboard encircled us and chalk was provided to add comments. You could guess what Antimo wrote.
Bring on the food!
This pork was delicious!
Look mom, we are eating our vegetables too!
More meat and cheeses. Hardly enough to eat….
We still had wine to drink and we were finished with the food (hard to believe, right?), so we borrowed Scopa cards from a shelf in the restaurant and played a few games. Antimo kept winning – Ricardo accused him of cheating but he swears he wasn’t making up the rules for his benefit. Uh huh.
A few more musings:
Italian driving – Why is it that Italians are slow to do most things like eating 2-4 hour meals, or show up a little late to a date, or, or, or… But when it comes to getting in a car and driving someplace they all think they are Mario Andretti! I just don’t understand it. Thank goodness most people have good brakes!
Olive oil – it’s not just for cooking. We have such a lovely apartment here in Rome but our bathroom door has a harsh squeak when opening or closing it. Richardo, being the ever resourceful person that he is, headed straight to the kitchen for olive oil and lubricated the hinges on the door which solved the squeaking problem.
Cafe correcto – Antimo made us a cafe this morning before we left on our adventure. Ricardo commented it needed something like coffee helper (which is a coffee liqueur we refer to as coffee helper at home). Antimo corrected us – since we are in Italy it is called Cafe correcto.
Dinner tonight alla Antimo. He whipped up a fresh green salad with caprese and a few taralli. Perfect light dinner to end our day.
We are being told that there is a planned transportation strike tomorrow affecting the trains, metro, and buses. Geez, we finally get really good weather and are stiffled by transportation challenges. We’ve run into this on other trips, so we’ll just have to see how it impacts our plans to visit Frascati tomorrow.
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