The Castle

May 15

After yesterday's exhausting activities, we slept in until after nine a.m., which is unheard of for me but not so much for Merry.  We chatted with George and Roxanne and started to get caught up on what has happened to each of us since we saw them last year.

Here's a little background on "The Castle."  George and Roxanne are good friends of ours. They purchased The Castle in 2022, and a small hotel next door, and decided to move from Miami with their puzzle collection, which is the largest puzzle collection in the world, at over 100,000 puzzles.

The castle would become the World Puzzle Center [museum] that had outgrown the two large houses they owned in Florida.  The castle forms a large portion of the city wall of Panicale, the most charming city you would ever visit.

We had visited the castle last year, soon after they had moved in.  Now, the castle is starting to look like it is lived in.  The furniture and personal items have arrived and started to be utilized.  However, the final living quarters for G & R are still undergoing extensive remodeling, and things are not fully settled.

We got a new tour of the castle before lunch.

After lunch, we got a tour of the hotel next door, which is undergoing a major remodel but is starting to take shape. It is so exciting.  The guest rooms will be filled with puzzles.

                    The Bedroom                                        and bathroom

The Kitchen -remodel in process.

The elevator shaft waiting for the elevator to be delivered and installed any day.

Finally, we looked at the annex, a three-bedroom house they only bought to get the two-car garage needed for the Tesla. 

It will require some upgrades to correct code violations and become a summer vacation rental property with great potential. 

May 16

Merry and Roxanne went shopping for furniture after many turns and switches through this picturesque countryside.  Words are hard to find on how lush and beautiful it all is!!  In the midst of all, we stumbled upon a market, and with my usual flare for such things, we stopped to wander through.  This was not the usual produce market, but rather a market with clothes stacked atop one another and a market for sale by using just a number for sale, 3,  4, or 5 euros.  After selecting a new frock each we carried on.

Again, going into and through the fabulous countryside, we traveled to Mainsianco, a pretty little town in the middle of nowhere, and found a used items store that had not only the things Roxanne wanted but also jewelry.  With the negotiations, the jewelry, an iced tea spoon, a cheese tray, and knives were tossed in...  plus the assortment of furniture that Roxanne had selected, and they were at a healthy discount!  We left quite pleased with ourselves!!

The other stores proved to be nice places to look, and some smaller, needed items were purchased for the castle. However, we did stop at a huge mall for a very good pizza and shopped around the entire mall for those mysterious 'windows' that everyone talks about.

Rod and George stayed home and worked on assembling puzzles.  George and Roxanne will attend a puzzle convention in a couple of weeks.  During the convention, there is a puzzle exchange.  Each person needs one hundred unique puzzles to exchange.  George had 3-D printed the fourteen pieces to form Roxanne's exchange, but the puzzles needed to be assembled.  George had already started the process but recruited me to help speed it up.  It took all day to get them together and put them in plastic boxes, ready to exchange.

We did stop for lunch.  We headed down to the piazza, and each had a beer and sandwich, Italian style.

May 17

Once again, Roxanne and I went to the shops nearer to town that were not open the day before.  The first shop had lovely things at lovely prices!  Enough said, we decided to carry on looking.

Rod and George played with the 3-D printers. George offered to print a cell phone stand for me as a demonstration. The first attempt printed great after five hours, but it was designed for a very small phone, so a better design was selected.  To keep his many printers busy, George found a clock to print, which took seven hours to print using two different printers.

The printing of the clock did not turn out well.  It was a free download off the internet and George said it was a poor design.

We all played Tile Rummy [Rummy Cube] 

May 18

Merry and Roxanne went shopping again. This time, they went to a market for coffee beans and other assorted goodies. Rod  and George worked on finishing up the puzzle presentation.

We went to a concert in the chapel across the street in the evening.  We could hear the pianist practicing from the castle each afternoon, so this was a chance to listen to the real thing.  The performer, Dalia Lazar, is a well-known [in Italy] concert pianist and lives just a few doors away from the castle.  She played Schubert's Quartro Improvvisi and Beethovens Santa "Appassionata" Nr 23.  With a long,  standing ovation by the packed hour, she played an encore by Chopin. 

After the concert, we ate a late dinner at Osteria Il Gallo nel Pozzo in the piazza.

May 19

Sunday morning, Roxanne and George had friends Camellia and Ben visit and went out for the day, so we had the keys to the castle. 

Merry went to the Duomo [Cathedral] for the church service.  Although she did not understand the minister, she was in tune with the general message.

After church, we drove around the lake, stopping in all the little towns along the way.

On the way home, Rod turned into a road that was NOT a road: a smaller and smaller tract appeared before us, and I thought for sure Rod would turn over or roll down the drop embankment that, by that time, was on either side of us, but alas, through it all, Rod kept his wits, and we did manage to get ourselves onto appropriate road surface just outside of Pinacale.  Having asked for help along the way, I managed a THANK YOU!!! (not to Rod).  It was a harrowing 10 minutes!

In the evening, the six of us went to a lovely Michelin-star restaurant inside the city walls.

May 20

We had a lazy day in the castle and walked around the town inside the walls.  Roxanne cooked up a storm for dinner that equaled any Michelin restaurant.

May 21

Once again, Roxanne and Merry headed off somewhere, leaving George and Rod to work on George's badly neglected website, which needed to be working in time for the Puzzle Convention.  We did the packing in the evening as today is our last day at the castle, and we are heading off to our next adventure tomorrow.  

Save this page and revisit and refresh the page often to see our next exciting adventure.