(Actual) Visit to Larino

It was a very quiet, laid back kind of weekend here.  I took advantage of two days of sunshine to do several loads of laundry (so our clothes could dry hanging out on the balcony).  Last Friday we took a little drive to Larino, again.  This time, we managed not to get ourselves stuck on a dead-end street.  I did, however, go back to the streets where we had our little nightmare experience, just to take photos of the area:  

The street where we got stuck because someone thought he could make the right turn further up…

The infamous dead end…technically not a dead end…

…since you could theoretically turn right

We discovered that Larino looks more interesting online than it is in reality.  We wanted to visit the Ducal Palace (which is both a museum and the town's municipal hall), and the duomo.  According to the info I saw online, both were open; in reality, neither was.  We did get inside the Palace, only to discover that there was no one at the entrance, and we could not find a way to access the museum which according to posted signs should have been on the 3rd floor.  We ended up just walking around the outside of the building a couple of times.

The cathedral (incidentally located very near where we got stuck on our last visit) was also closed up, unfortunately.  

To the left of the cathedral was an open doorway, which we walked through; we came down a short passageway into a little courtyard:

Interesting, but we really did want to see inside.  Perhaps we will go again sometime.  

We did get to visit another nearby small church - the Church of San Francesco, which dates from the 14th century.  It was very dark inside, so the photos I took didn't turn out very well.  But these will give you an idea of what it was like:

Honestly, the town wasn't really very interesting aside from these two things; it looks better driving into it than actually being there.  I half-heartedly snapped a few other pictures on our way back to the car:

Their tower is not as cool as the tower in our town!

Last night I made homemade tomato sauce; I remembered watching Stanley Tucci make a sauce with his mother on Searching for Italy that had a base of onions, carrots, and celery, so I tried to replicate that, more or less.  I chopped up some of the above, plus garlic, and sautéed that in butter and olive oil before adding fresh tomatoes that I'd peeled and cut up, as well as a can of diced tomatoes.  I let it all simmer for about 45 minutes, then served it over capellini.  I don't know why I always thought making homemade sauce would be hard; it's really not.

We don't really have any firm plans for this week; the weather is looking to be a bit iffy every day, unfortunately.  Still toying with the idea of going to Rome for a few days, just for fun.  We'll see!