After a trip I struggle to arrange all my photos and thoughts into a coherent whole or better still a series of snapshots with coherent captions. But there are always little snippets that don't fit. Rather than cluttering up my blog with odd posts which don't fit anywhere, I thought I'd just add one page of trivia. Today I was looking at my picture of a ladybird. I had three ladybirds in my bedroom at the Castello di Monterone (in English Castle of Monterone), which is only about two miles from Perugia but seems miles away and remote, on one of the roads out of Perugia on another hillside looking across to Perugia.
We went there in November and it felt like Italy I had imagined, warmer than England. Inside the hotel, we had cosy bedrooms. The scalding hot water in the towel racks dried clothes overnight. Comfort but in the countryside. And there was a ladybird on my suitcase near the wardrobe. We had clean white walls with antique furniture, dark wood. I carefully tipped the ladybird unharmed onto the windowsill.
Afterwards I momentarily wondered whether it, he, or she - sorry, I couldn't work out which, could cope with being so high. Would it fly off or work its way down the outside? It had got into the building. Surely it could get out again?
Undeterred by the grim fate of its removed mate or cousin, the next night along came another ladybird. For me, same procedure. White paper, or the hotel's white soap, carry it to the window.
The third night, another ladybird. This time on the bed. On the white bed linen! Near my pillow. I'd read somewhere that red ladybirds, or was it red mushrooms, are not friendly but poisonous.
I had read somewhere that you should always sleep with your mouth closed to beware of falling insects. I looked up at the ceiling.
Were insects falling down from the rafters? Those romantic-looking four-poster beds were designed to be high up above house dogs and fleas, I was told when I visited a historic house in England. On another occasion, the sort of person who tells you that sort of thing, told me that a four-poster had a canopy overhead to protect you from insects falling from the rafters and thatch roof, and even cats and dogs on rainy days when it 'rained cats and dogs', falling onto the bed.
I looked up ladybirds in Wikipedia. As far as I could tell, they are no more deadly or unclean than any other tiny insect. The good news - adult ladybirds and baby ladybirds don't eat your clothes like moths. They don't spread Weil's diseases like rats. One ladybird, in my case one a day, three, is cause for amusement rather than alarm.
Ladybirds Eat Smaller Insects
Ladybirds eat aphids, those green even smaller insects which are a nuisance on roses. You don't see insects hiding under the petals until you pick roses. Then 'greenfly' spoil your photo of roses. What can you do? Prevention or cure. Gardeners could spray roses but in England my former gardener who lived nearby shrugged and said he also had infestations of greenfly in his garden which he had tried and failed to get rid of so not to bother. If you pick roses it means you have to wash roses or you'll get greenfly dropping on the table.
Rose Gardens Versus Assisi
So ladybirds could be good if you are cultivating roses. The hotel has roses in the garden. We never got to see the gardens. We were too busy seeing frescoes and church paintings of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Yes, I should have seen the roses close-up, walked out into the gardens instead of merely overlooking from the window. You can't do everything. I can see roses at home. I was really happy to see pictures of St Francis on churches, although we didn't get to Assisi (which by the way is over-run with tourists at Easter, I gather from newspaper articles - with higher prices than Perugia and other nearby small towns and villages which are great finds and less than ten miles from Assisi)
Dreaming of Four-Poster Beds
(I was a guest of the tourist board and both I and another journalist were specialists in honeymoons. Neither of us had the bedroom suite with the four-poster bed. I only saw it in the brochure afterwards. I had no idea where we were going until the day we arrived. Afterwards I wondered whether it was occupied by a honeymoon couple. I never dared to ask. I would have liked to see a grander suite at the time.
If I'd been on my own, not in a group of six, I would have asked. On the last day in a hotel, just before leaving, I often peep into bedrooms which are being made up, in case I ever go back.
Seeing All The Hotel Bedrooms?
This hotel has only 18 bedrooms, with attached bathrooms or shower rooms, so the owner must know them all. The manager of a 400 bedroom hotel or a 1000 bed hotel like Opryland in Nashville does not know all the rooms unless he commissions a photographer. It would take him, anybody checking each bedroom, attached bathroom, and the multiform suites, at least a day to go round the whole place, including every restaurant, restaurant room, bar, corridor, swimming pools, annexes and saunas, gyms and activity rooms.
The next day we were off to watch truffle hunting with dogs. (See next post.)
Castello di Monterone
Strada Montevile 3
06126 Perugia
Italia
tel:+39 075 57 24 214
email:info@castellomonterone.it
Skype: castellodimonterone
See the castle hotel website:
www.castellomonterone.com
See the regional website:
www.umbriatourism.it
Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright 2016.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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