So much happens in a week of travel!

---

September 29, 30



We left Vinchio by 9:00 on Sunday morning. Mario prepared our breakfast as Marisa had flown to Cyprus the day before to meet her daughter for a week of vacation. We packed up and said our good-byes. After a few minutes sitting in the car wondering which way to turn when we backed out of the driveway, Mario came out and helped us with directions. Then he stood in the narrow street to make sure that no cars or tractors were coming so that we could back out safely. Finally we were off. It was pleasant driving on a Sunday morning because there really was no one on the roads. Before long we were on the autostrada. It was raining and throughout the morning we saw impressive lightening strikes in the sky in front of us.



We arrived in Reggio Emilia by noon and went straight to Alessandra's house. Alessandra is the cousin of our friend Carlo who lives in Salem, and her son Francesco lived with Sam and Susan during the summers of 2000 and 2001. We visited the family in Reggio in 2006 and in 2011 we had lunch with Francesco and his girlfriend while we were in Rome. It was wonderful to see everyone again. Giulia is Francesco's 15 year old sister and Ferdinando is his 23 year old brother. They are all great kids - very confident and mature and they each speak English very well. Giulia is even studying Greek.



Alessandra and the kids welcomed us in as if we were family. A huge meal was prepared and after antipasti of olives and a flat bread with spinach, and glasses of Prosecco, we sat down to Sunday dinner. The first course was lasagna (yes, I am going to talk about food again!) We were really satisfied after the lasagna. Next we had pork with plum sauce and then thin slices of beef with another type of sauce. The salad course followed; a nice mix of greens and nuts and pear. The cheese course came after the salad and we had local parmesan cheese with local, aged, balsamic vinegar drizzled on top and then slices of pecorino cheese with honey. A platter of three types of grapes was set on the table and we all picked at those for a bit. Finally the gelato was served and we chose between 12 different flavors. After espresso and then a homemade fennel liquor we collapsed onto the couch while the two younger kids cleaned up the kitchen. Alessandra was very interested in Kristen's wedding pictures (Kristen stayed with them the summer that she was 13 and Tom also stayed with them for a month one summer), so we shared some of the photos with her.



After awhile Alessandra and Giulia took Sam and me for a passiagiata. We walked around Reggio and saw the important piazzas, saw where the Italian flag was first designed and then strolled down the main shopping area along a street that has been used since Roman times. It is a lovely city and everywhere people are walking or riding bikes. There are bike paths along all of the streets and since the town is built on a plain, many people use bikes rather than cars.



We checked into our hotel which was nearby and then went back for tea before saying our final good-byes. It was a perfect day and really felt like a visit with family and it was great fun to be included in their Sunday meal.



Monday morning we woke to rain and started early on another day of driving. The traffic was heavy and with the rain it was a bit intense at times, but people drive so well here. The trucks stay in the right hand lane except to pass and everyone else passes only on the left and they do it quickly and then get back into the right lane. It works so well and it is easy to depend on drivers as no one ever passes on the right and rarely do they just stay in a lane holding up traffic.



We decided to stop in San Marino for lunch. San Marino is the oldest republic in the world. It is a sovereign State with origins in 301 A.D. and it has retained its autonomy and independence over the centuries. There are only 30,000 inhabitants, they use the Euro and they speak Italian, but they are completely separate. San Marino is known for not having any tax, and for the old town and palace that sit on the tippy top of a high hill. The only (sensible) way to the old town is by a tram. I had seen photos and knew this was a beautiful location and that from the top we would have excellent views. Well, not today. We couldn't see much as we approached San Marino because of the rain and low clouds and as we drove up the winding roads we entered thick fog. Visibility was reduced to about 15 feet and we nearly gave up, but we couldn't see far enough ahead to safely turn around. It was hard to see cars parked on the side of the road and the hope of a view was completely lost. But we kept going up until we reached what appeared to be the place where everyone was parking. We decided to park and look for some lunch.



It turned out we were in the parking lot for the tram to the top. We wanted to at least check out what it would cost to go up and it turned out that today was free! We boarded the tram car and were soon dangling above...well, we don't know what we were dangling above because there was less than 5 feet of visibility at this point. We exited the tram and walked along paths without any idea what we were not seeing. In many spots there were viewing scopes with labels identifying the many points in the distance, but all we could see was fog. We stopped for lunch at the first restaurant we came to and it was clear that this is a huge tourist area. The food was ok, but not great. We went into the Basilica which was beautiful. The interior is mostly white and lacked the extensive decorations and frescoes that are part of most churches here. We wandered through the old fortress. And then we checked out some of the shops. They really advertise the lack of tax and show how much of a "discount" this gives. Sam bought a beautiful scarf and a great leather purse for me. I am on the hunt for a pair of boots and found one pair that I liked and when I touched them I swear that the leather melted onto my hand. But I knew that I would not have any place to wear them back in Salem and I want to get something I will use.



By 2:00 we were back in the car. Now it was raining hard and the fog was not as heavy. Back on the autostrada we made good time and before long we were going through lots of tunnels and over very high bridges. The road construction here really is amazing. Towards the end of our autostrada drive we again entered into thick fog and the traffic slowed to 50 km per hour; about 30 miles per hour. The signs declare that this is what you should do but I was surprised by how obedient everyone was. It is easy to see what a disaster it would be if the speed did not slow since usually the cars go at 120-130 km per hour and in the fog this would surely cause pile-ups. We saw some flashing lights ahead and wondered what it was and at the last second saw that we were entering another tunnel - Sam saw a sign that said the tunnel was over 10 km long. If you don't do metric, that is over 6 miles of tunnel! It was kind of creepy. This is earthquake country and I started to wonder how long it would take for someone to find us if the tunnel collapsed in an earthquake! Finally we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and we were both relieved!



Tonight we are staying in Santo Stefano di Sessanio. This is a small village in the Gran Sasso National Park in Abruzzo. If you saw the George Clooney film, "The American," then you saw scenes from Santo Stefano and nearby Castle del Monte. It is a medieval village that was all but abandoned after WWII. In 2009 it suffered from the large earthquake that nearly destroyed L'Aquila, but many of the old buildings have been restored and it has a popular Albergo Diffuso which is a hotel that has rooms in ancient buildings all over town. The albergo rooms have all been restored to authentic specs and are decorated and furnished with traditional and local items.



We have rented a little house in the old part of the village and will be here for 4 nights. Our place is nicely restored and except for the modern appliances and heat and running water, it looks like it has probably looked for hundreds of years. There is no sound outside - no cars can come into the village and I don't think there are many people in town this time of year. It should give us restful nights. Although it rained hard today, the forecast is for good weather for a few days and we plan to do some hiking as well as plenty of relaxing. After a series of B&Bs it is nice to have our own space again. We moved in, and made a dinner of panini and wine that I picked up at the Autogrill when we got gas. The "rest areas" in Italy are great - espresso bars and fresh made panini and lots of chocolate and even wine. After dinner we walked 5 meters to a tiny gelato shop and had dessert.



October 1



We didn't set an alarm since we we're not in a B&B and didn't need to worry about anyone making breakfast for us. We slept until 8:30 and then enjoyed espresso and muesli in our little house. The shower was freezing - well, it is hot long enough to start to get wet and then it goes freezing. Not sure what to do about the situation, but we did our best to get clean.



Today we hiked to Rocca Calascio, which, at 4585 feet, is the highest fortress in Italy. It dates back 1000 years and was badly damaged in an earthquake in 1703 but is a remaining symbol of the times of barons. If you have seen the movie "Lady Hawk," Rocca Calascio is shown at the beginning.



I have a book on my Kindle about walking in Abruzzo, and this hike was described in the book. The instructions are challenging to follow and it took nearly an hour to find the path. We encountered a Scottish couple who had the same book and who were equally puzzled, but between the four of us we finally found where to begin the hike. The Scots decided not to hike but we enjoyed visiting with them.



The hike was steep and took us about two hours, but the views were stunning and every step was worth it. It was a cloudy day and as we came around the corner and first saw the ruined fortress, fog was blowing across so that the the towers came and went from view. It was very mystical. Just below the ruin is a tiny hamlet that is being restored. In 2011 we drove up to this hamlet and saw one wall of the ruined fortress, but we turned around without knowing that there was so much more to see. Soon after returning home from that trip I learned about Rocca Calascio and wondered if I would ever have the chance to visit again to see the entire ruin and the beautiful, isolated church of Madonna della Pieta - a round church that sits just below the fortress. Today I kept saying, "I can't believe we are here."



It was an excellent hike. We had hoped to eat lunch in the hamlet but the one restaurant must be closed for the season so we ate our almonds and fig bar and hazelnut butter packets and began our walk back to Santo Stefano. The day could not have been better -as we looked behind us we could see that fog had completely settled where we had just been, but the sun shined on us as we walked. We really felt blessed to have this day.



Once back in Santo Stefano we decided that we needed groceries. There is no mercato here so we drove about 20 km to find one. I started in the produce section and carefully donned the required plastic glove, then put my selections into plastic bags and then onto the scale where I entered the codes and got stickers for each bag. If you show up at the check-out without the sticker on the bag, they will put it aside and you will not go home with what you need. I needed a bulb of garlic but it did not have a BIN number. I turned to a sweet older woman and did my best to explain my concern -she responded with many words but somehow I understood that garlic is charged by the bulb and did not need to be weighed and labeled. When we got to the cheese counter the same woman was there and when the cheese lady turned to help us, the older woman proudly explained that we were English (and clueless?) Anyhow we had a successful trip to the store.



Tonight I prepared pasta for dinner. It was fun to cook in our little kitchen here in our ancient house. Was it the fresh pasta, or the local produce, or the wine? I don't know, but dinner was excellent!



October 2



We got a slow start this morning partly because of sleeping in and partly because of managing cold showers. We heated water on the stove and I used that to help Sam rinse off. It is not unlike camping.



The windows in our place are tiny and up high, so it is really difficult to get a read on the weather until going outside. We knew it wasn't raining, and we knew it wasn't sunny. When we stepped outside we discovered that Santo Stefano was fogged in. We dropped our packs back in the house and wandered around the village a bit. There is so much restoration going on, which is really cool - I hope to someday see the finished product. We took lots of photos of doorways and nooks and realized for the first time that our entire bedroom sits above an archway. I have often admired those seemingly small rooms that sit above arches with tiny windows and now we are staying in one.



The fog looked like it would lift so we gathered our stuff and went to the car. I was determined to drive across Campo Imperatore which is a high plain that covers 80 square kilometers. We had driven several kilometers of it in 2011 and loved the geology of the high, flat plain, and the views of the surrounding mountain tops, but since then I learned that it is much larger than we had realized and I wanted to see it all. This plain is used as open range for sheep and cows and horses, and has been for centuries. Soon after leaving Santo Stefano we were in the clouds without any view at all, but I kept on assuring Sam that we would drop out of the clouds and have great views. That never really happened. When we leveled out onto Campo Imperatore we were at nearly 6000 feet elevation. We could see a bit across the plain, but there was no indication of mountains. We hoped to see Corno Grande, the highest peak in the Apennines which shelters the quickly disappearing Calderone glacier, the most southerly glacier in Europe, but it just wasn't going to happen today.



We drove on and came to a hut that had picnic tables outside and several grills set up. There were several cars and some people eating at outside tables. It was cold at this point, perhaps in the low 40s. I had heard about these huts where you can stop and get grilled lamb for lunch so we pulled over. We looked inside and there was a case of meat - sausages, ribs and skewers of lamb, and another case of cheeses, but we had no idea of what to do. Does someone grill it for you, or do they give it to you raw and you go outside and grill it? We decided not to try it out. Maybe tomorrow if we wake to a sunny day we will venture up there again and give it a try.



We followed the winding road down to Castel del Monte. A small town that clings to the side of the mountain. This is another town that was in the film "The American." We decided to have lunch in Castle del Monte but nearly gave up after wandering around without finding anything open. We stopped in one bar and asked if they served lunch but he said "no," and then used many words and gestures to send us elsewhere. We thanked him and went off in the direction indicated. Finally we found a bar that had panini so we stopped for a light lunch. It seemed like the local hangout with many magazines, gifts, and a foosball table as well as the bar.



We purchased a beautiful book about the Abruzzo region that is in Italian and English. The author discovered a book written by a woman from London in 1929 that told of her trip to Abruzzo in 1913. She was an artist and had completed sketches as she traveled. This author, a photographer, looked through her book and realized that many of her sketches were nearly identical to his photos of the area; little had changed in 100 years. The book uses portions of the narrative from the 1929 book and shows her illustrations and the modern day photos. It is lovely as well as interesting.



The sun came out this afternoon so we wandered around Santo Stefano a bit more. I bought some local products from a small store: lentils, honey, faro pasta and risotto. We stopped in another shop and bought local pecorino cheese and anise biscotti.



I took nearly 100 photos of doors of Santo Stefano for an album. There are so many fascinating doors, some modern but most very old.



For dinner we had cheese, prosciutto, bread, apple slices and wine. Perfect.



October 3



We woke early this morning because of light coming into our room. As I said before, it is impossible to tell the weather from looking out our windows, the "streets" between the houses in the village are narrow and from our high, small windows, we can only see the next wall, or courtyard. But in the bathroom there was nothing but blue showing above the sky light! Finally, a clear day to do some exploring. We ate breakfast and figured out how to have hot water for the showers...if the hot water in the sink remains on, then that gets the water heater going so that in the shower there is a warm trickle. I got water on my back for the first time in four days and it felt good.



By 10:00 we were in the car headed back towards Campo Imperatore. Unlike yesterday, the views existed and we stopped many times to take photos. We were surprised to see that there were many flocks of sheep and herds of cows and horses grazing right alongside the road, and we were grateful that we did not encounter any yesterday in the fog, although we did see "signs" on the pavement that livestock had been through the area. Several times we stopped for cows and horses that were wandering down the middle of the road. One especially curious horse came up to the front of the car and began to lick the hood. It showed no sign of leaving, so I reversed and then drove around it. We had no real plan of where to go today, but we knew we wanted to hike.



Finally we took a side road that wound further up into the hills and ended at a ski resort. The University of L'Aquila has a large observatory in this location and the view of Corno Grande was breathtaking. We looked over the east side of the mountain and could see the autostrata far below where it exits the 10 kilometer tunnel we had driven through on Monday. The tunnel goes right under the highest mountains in the Apennines! There was fog drifting in from the east and we could see a layer of thick fluffy clouds over the valley to the far northwest, but where we were, it was gorgeous. At the top of the near mountain we spotted a rifugio, a small hut that serves food and has dorm rooms for hikers. We decided to hike up to the rifugio. It was a steep climb zig-zagging up the rocky mountainside with constant views of Corno Grande and also back across Camp Imperatore. We kept an eye on the fog that continued to battle with the sun for this mountaintop and, just to be safe, we used our compass to get a reading of where our car was in case the fog won and we had to stumble blindly back down the mountainside. It took about 40 minutes to reach the rifugio where we stopped for espressos. We wandered around a bit on the top of this mountain enjoying the views until the approaching fog made us concerned and we went back down. It was cool on top and I was glad to have my down coat and windbreaker while we were up there exploring and not being active.



Back in the parking lot we visited a van that was selling various items and I bought a wool hat from Nepal and Sam got a t-shirt - we are not usually tempted by souvenirs, but today was perfect and we felt like getting something to remember it by when we are home. We went into a small stone chapel that sits in the parking lot and inside there were photos of Pope John Paul II blessing this chapel in 1993. That must have been quite an event as this parking lot is the end of a not-often traveled road. The nearby seasonal ski hotel was advertising a 4 course lunch for 20 Euro each so we decided to stop for our big meal of the day. We were surprised by how formal the dining room was with linen table cloths even though most of the (few) guests were in hiking clothes. Our meal was fabulous. We had polenta with some sort of ribs and tomato sauce, then meatballs and wild mushrooms in a delicious sauce, salad, bread, and fresh fruit for dessert -with a half liter of red wine and water. We were stuffed and felt that the price was reasonable - especially given the effort it took to get the food to this location.



After lunch Sam was ready to go back to Santo Stefano but I wanted to drive a bit further and he quickly agreed. This area of Italy is truly one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. It is like some of the best of the West from the USA, but without any people. There are rolling green hills and rugged mountain peaks, and it goes on and on and on. We decided that to visit Italy without spending time in Abruzzo, really is not a complete visit to Italy. This is a region that has ancient history and in many ways has not changed over the centuries. I am certain we will spend more time in Abruzzo.



Finally I turned the car around and headed back home. We had a long and perfect day. This is the three week mark in our trip and we have done so much. The first day in Granada seems like it was years ago. In another three weeks we will be back in Salem full of good memories. But for now....tomorrow we leave Santo Stefano and drive about an hour south near Sulmona, also in Abruzzo, where we will spend four nights renting a guest house from the author of the hiking book we have been using.

---