One Day in Calcata, Italy

Last week I had the opportunity to pose Eight Questions for author David Farley just as his first book, An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town, made its debut.  I asked Farley about how he would spend just one day in Calcata, Italy, the town where his book takes place.  This was his response...

AKN: If you only had one day to spend in Calcata, what would you do and clearly, where would you eat?

It would be a Saturday or Sunday because that’s the most lively day in Calcata. I would start off with a walk down in the valley below which is etched with footpaths and littered with tombs from the Faliscans, a pre-Christian people who inhabited the area but were wiped out by the Romans. Then I would have lunch at my friend Pancho’s restaurant, La Grotta dei Germogli, an eatery fashioned out of a cave and one of my favorite spots in the village. I’d hope my friend Paul Steffen—an 87-year-old American who at one time was very famous in Italy for being a dancer and choreographer—would be dining with me (we had lunch there every Saturday and Sunday). Afterward, I’d sit on the square for a while, perhaps do some reading. For dinner I’d eat at Tugurio, a phenomenal place in Calcata. I’d go for a primo (hopefully the carbonara would be on the menu) and a secondo (the rosemary-encrusted pork chop is buonissimo). Then I’d head back to the Grotta for a limoncello and chat with Pancho some more. A perfect day in Calcata.

If you want to have a perfect day in Calcata, I've placed all of the spots Farley recommends on this map...


View David Farley's One Day in Calcata in a larger map

David Farley also wrote about a day trip to Calcata for the New York Times.  Click the link to read his article: Calcata, Italy: Where Newcomers Give an Old Town a Second Life.