Mountain Hiking Dinner

We participated in an event that brought a whole new meaning to progressive dinners. We went with Fede’s parents (Fede was in Florida) up to this little church on top of a mountain to do this crazy hiking dinner. Jeff and I had no idea what we were doing, but said “sure!” as soon as they asked us if we wanted to go. We never know what we are going to end up doing here, but it’s always something cool.

So the way this worked was that you bought a packet of tickets for the meal. Each ticket had the name of the course on it (appetizer, first course, etc.) and every time we stopped to eat you had to turn in your ticket. It was all super informal though especially by the time we reached the dessert and everyone had been drinking wine at every stop.

We left the church on the hill and headed off into the forest as a group following some pied pipers who were playing various Italian folk tunes. Every once in a while we’d stop and they’d sing in dialect and people would join in and then some people would dance and then we’d continue on. We arrived at our first stop to find blankets spread out for us, plates of antipasti, and endless jugs of wine. We ate overlooking the valley below and then after a while the 2 musicians started playing again and off we went with the blankets slung over our shoulders.

It continued like that for all the courses including dessert and then we finished back at the church for cafè. It was super cool. We spent a lot of time at the “main course” site which was this huge meadow overlooking the surrounding hills. Everyone was wine-happy and we were all dancing and singing. It was straight out of a movie. Something along the lines of The Sound of Music meets Room with a View. It was definitely one of the cooler things we’ve ever done. Noah was in his heyday because not only were Nonna Manu and Nonno there, but all of their friends were also there and Noah loved playing with them.