Pesaro, Le Marche, Italia

We have been spending our days either shopping or walking around or eating here and there in restaurants on the seashore. Got myself a nice pair of purple moccasins, sort of easy wear shoe. We also went back to our little beach café H2N0, same chef in the cuisine and same good seafood, had some ravioli, spinach ricotta with a creamy white fish sauce and some thyme, very nice, Andrea the owner, a young fellow, as kind and smiling as ever.
Peaches are in season now; they are very good, sweet and juicy. Sleeping a lot too, I think I was more tired than I thought after the drive from Rome but also after a day out in the sun. Bad storm yesterday in Treviso near Venice, strong gale winds, heavy rain causing flooding. Today after lunch, the sky got dark; the storm has come down the coast to us from what I can see on the satellite photo. The locals tell me that today and tomorrow Saturday we should have rain, Sunday will probably be sunny.
Recent purchase, new moccassins.

Opera last night, Sigismondo King of Poland was not very good, the design and production by Damiano Michieletto was not well received at all. It made for a lot of confusion; the storyline was already convoluted, so it left the public in an ugly mood. Rossini composed this opera before he composed Barber of Seville, you recognize in the score very similar music, Rossini basically lifted part of the score made a few changes and voilà. The singers were excellent, Daniella Barcellona, Olga Peretyatko, Antonino Siragusa, Maestro Michele Mariotti conducted. At intermission and after the show and at breakfast this morning, we spoke with other people about it and everyone was confused, some had left at intermission, a big disappointment and I wonder to what extend an Opera house can charge for a questionable presentation by a stage director who had obviously lost his way. We apparently live in the age of the Stage director.



We also found on Via Mazzolari a 12th Century old chapel, which has the Christian IHS inscribed in stone on the facade of what is now a lovely wine bar. The delightful Vaccaj sisters run it, their parents, until their retirement recently had the business for 30 yrs. In the cellar below, which you come upon by descending a stone staircase is where all the wine is kept, it use to be a place to hide for the clergy during raids by the Turks on the Adriatic coast in the middle-ages. The old Synagogue of Pesaro is located just 2 blocks away in an ancient stone building, there are no Jews in Pesaro, there were only 12 in total in 1931, the community had been moving for years south to Ancona mostly for reasons of shifting business opportunities. The building is maintained as a museum by the Jewish community of Ancona and by FAI the historical society of Italy who looks after important heritage sites. You can visit the Temple on Thursday’s from 4 to 7 pm.
It has a communal bath, an oven to bake unleaven bread, a fountain for ritual washing of hands, wonderful baroque decorations.

Pesaro is a city full of Art, artists, art nouveau architecture, music, good wines of the Marche region, excellent food. Rossini was born here 1792, closer to us the great soprano Renata Tebaldi, also a Pesarese. A quiet and pleasant vacation destination.
One of the many lovely houses in Pesaro, c.1900