The in-laws ARRIVE

Heather's parents, Patti and Bob, arrived yesterday afternoon despite the ash cloud from Iceland. The Italian leg of their flight (they got bumped to business class!) was from DC to Rome and by taking a route more to the south over Spain they were able to reach Rome with only an hour's delay. Rome's luggage handling is always slow (they get you on "Italian Time" right away) but even with computers down at the rental car counter they made it in time for pranzo. We tucked them away in a cozy B & B (really just a B, they'll do breakfast with us each morning and Lorenzo DOES make a pretty darn good cappuccino) after enjoying lunch at l'Archetto which is almost under our apartment. We got them up again around 7 pm (beating jet-lag is important!) to walk around Viterbo a bit, stopping for aperitivi in the medieval quarter of San Pellegrino. After catching up with some news from Santa Barbara we were off for pizza at our favorite spot, CAPRI. The photos of the island in this pizzeria are not just PR baloney, the pizza maker speaks in a thick Neopolitan dialect and makes a pie as good as any we've enjoyed near Naples. Their signature pizza, named Capri (big surprise, eh?) with tomato sauce, fresh cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and heaps of fresh mozzarella di bufala is a work of art and a delight to the palate. After excellent ILLY caffe we walked the tired travelers to their B and bid them buona notte. This morning it's F1 on TV while we feed them breakfast, then the Amstel Gold Race bike race in the afternoon, broken up by Sunday lunch at another of our favorite places, complete with our Viterbese family joining our Santa Barbara contingent. Could it get any better? Well, maybe if we could sneak in a couple of hours on the bike...but no complaints here!