The Vale of Spoleto

The guidebook says cycling in Eastern Umbria is difficult – that the scenery is wild.  That is just a bit of an understatement. Two young American cyclists we met who were cycling from Greece to Spain told us that it was the first time in their lives, they had ever walked the bicycle. It certainly wasn’t my first time. 

Here, in Umbria, they seem to specialize in small roads that go straight up at 12 percent plus and then take you straight down before repeating the process all over again. 
Minas can cycle anything but even he has pushed the bike up these 15 percenters. I have to admit that the scenery is quite spectacular even if the gradient and the road surface leave a lot to be desired.

One area of Umbria that enchanted me was the Vale of Spoleto: a vast plain ringed by high hills. The towns of the area all sit atop these hills. We stayed in Perugia, Assisi and Spoleto: all different and interesting in their own ways.

Fonte Maggiore in the piazza - Perugia

I was grateful that Minas found us the back way in to Perugia from the mountains. Although it was a climb, there were few cars and it took us into the very center of the town. Perugia had a reputation in the Middle Ages as being a very violent place. If they weren’t waging war on their neighbours then they played a particularly nasty game where two teams would stone each other until everyone on one side was either dead or dying.  Very sporting, I must say. We had dinner in a wonderful little place on a hilly street called Via dei Priori which, they say, ran with rivers of blood after these games. I didn’t care for Perugia much. It felt cold and austere although maybe that was just my imagination going back to medieval times. 

The trip out was very scary as Minas chose really small roads down to the valley floor. I much prefer to labour up a hill than to sit on my brakes as I negotiate even the smallest distance at 15 per cent. 

town of Assisi from the castle

The valley is dotted with small modern towns, vineyards, olive groves and market gardens. Before we knew it we were on the other side facing the surprisingly gentle climb up to Assisi. The town is packed with tourists during the day, but is surprisingly quiet in the evening. 

Basilica of San Francesco - Assisi

I was completely taken with the peaceful atmosphere of Assisi despite the street of souvenir shops. You can get away from it all during the day by walking up to the castle or down to the monastery of San Damiano. 

the monastery of the Poor Clares at San Damiano

And everywhere it is about Francesco, Francis of Assisi, and about Santa Chiara, the originator of the Poor Clares. 

Santa Chiara church from the castle - Assisi

I don’t know enough about the story of Francis but I now have many questions. There is much more to him than a man who befriended the animals. And what about Chiara? Francis took her out of town and established her at San Damiano where she lived in seclusion all of her days.

When he was ill and nearly blind, he returned to Chiara at San Damiano and she nursed him back to health. In that 74 day period, he wrote the Chronicles of the Sun. 

Francis sick

Francis restored to health

She asked to see him one more time and so they brought his body to her when he died. 


She lived for 27 more years. It sounds like a great romance to me and I will be investigating the film, Father Sun and Sister Moon when I get home. 

It seemed to me that I could feel the love and the peace in Assisi unto this day.

The long way down from Assisi to the other end of the valley was pure pleasure. We had to go through the town of Foligno and we made a wrong turn at the beginning. We asked a gentleman cycling with his teen-age daughter, if we were on the right road to Spoleto. No, we were not. He offered to guide us through the old town core and set us on the right road. This he did, at quite a high speed. Everyone was on bikes in the narrow streets and then we were told that the “Giro d’Italia” had arrived in town the day before and were leaving from the central piazza at noon. It was 10:30 in the morning and yet the buzz was incredible. Bands played, loudspeakers blasted a running commentary, and merchants everywhere were selling the pink paraphernalia of “Giro” 2014. I really wanted to stop and buy a T-shirt and revel in the festivities. But I had to keep pedaling avoiding the pedestrians, the baby strollers and all the other cyclists while keeping my eye on Minas and our friendly guide, and trying to capture a bit of the “Giro” fever. 

We were finally on the right road and said our thanks. For the rest of the day, we were clearly cycling along the valley road that the “Giro” had finished with the previous day for there were pink balloons and ribbons and pink signs of encouragement everywhere along our route.  I felt I had really missed something especially when some guy stuck his head out of a window and yelled, “Ieri, ieri – the party was yesterday”.

Roman aquaduct with castle behind -  Spoleto

Spoleto is a grey stone town: very somber, running steeply up the mountain. Luckily we were staying at the bottom. What made it enjoyable on our day off was that we spent most of it outdoors at the top of the town which is bright and sun-filled.  
We toured the castle and crossed the Roman aqueduct and had a nice walk in the forest behind the town. We also joined the hordes of locals who were enjoying Sunday family time on the extensive promenade all around the castle.

The entire time in the Vale of Spoleto in these three towns, we ate very well enjoying the local soups of farro and beans, the pastas with artichokes and favas and the dishes with rabbit and wild boar. 

But, most of all, we enjoyed the red wines of Montefalco, one of the cute hill towns we didn’t visit. The exceptional segrentino grape varietals were our favourites. So if you see any of these wines from this tiny town, buy them. You won’t regret it.

the top of the castle in Assisi

 

Ciao for now! We are heading into Tuscany.

Minas in the Mountains

mountains are his happy place

Hurray! Minas is so glad that he is back in the mountains. It is one of his happy places.

Although you have heard me say that I am not doing mountains ever again, I am actually enjoying it. That could have something to do with the fact that I got my marching orders in Canada that there were to be no complaints this trip. That must have permeated my subconscious somehow. 

In Italy, there are many mountains and many roads and there are just as many tunnels that go through the mountains. I hate tunnels, called gallerias here; but on most of these roads, bicycles are not allowed. Sometimes to get from one side of the mountain to the other, there is a two kilometer long galleria which we don’t take. Instead we do the 8 kilometre trip up over the mountain and back down the other side, rejoining the main road just where the cars emerge from the tunnel. Five minutes for them but over an hour for us. The bonus is that the mountain road has few cars so it is more enjoyable.

On the day that we were heading up into the mountains of the Abruzzo National Park, a friendly chap who cycled a lot became interested in our story as we were getting the bikes ready outside the hotel. When we told him where we were headed, he cryptically noted that it was quite a climb. Minas showed him our proposed route on the map and he advised us that, while it was a very lovely road, it was also closed because of a landslide. Great! 

But then this angel of a man spent the time to tell us of a route that would work to get us to Alfadena, and to show it to us on the map. When Minas noted that there was a galleria on the part of the trip that was on a very busy road, he confidently said that there was a diverzione around it. That encounter was worth its weight in gold. The busy national road was horrible and the men at the gas station just before the tunnel said there was no way around it. I was as nervous as could be but when we got to the galleria, I noticed a road to a farmhouse just below us and Minas went down and asked the homeowner. 

Yes, you could cycle on the old road, which was closed to traffic but would get us back on to the main road without having to do the tunnel. Thank you, kind gentleman and dear lady and the real angels looking after us.

 

So that is how we arrived in the Abbruzzo National Park where the roads were very reasonable in their grade up but they were very long – like 16 kilometres of up without a break. The scenery made up for it. 

There are several villages in the park, some of which are ski resorts and some of which have lovely lakes. I am sure that the place is overrun with holiday-makers in the summer months. At this time of the year it is fairly quiet. We did the Park over two days, one to Alfadena at 823 metres and the other to Scanno.

I was a little worried when I knew we had to cycle to Scanno which is at an elevation of 1015 metres. Little did I know, and less was I told, that to reach the village I actually had to go to 1630 metres before I cycled down into the village of Scanno. 

yes there was snow at 1630 metres

yes my crazy husband had on shorts and a t shirt

It was a good day of riding though, and our two day stay in Scanno was memorable. Maria Luisa of the B&B, Le Rocce di Scanno, was even more charming than her comfortable and architecturally interesting house. The medieval village made for delightful wandering around and we saw what we came for; and that is the traditional costumes of the women of Scanno. 

Although the old ladies still wear their black dresses and their intricately arranged scarves to church, there was also a special exhibit to commemorate the May 1^st holiday. Several of the women had on the “dress” version of the traditional costume and were parading around the village posing for pictures with the tourists who had come up for a holiday lunch. Minas loved it!

the tourist gets into the act

We had a lovely long run down from the mountains to the little town of Popoli. I thought that was it for difficult rides, but I was shocked the next day to find ourselves faced with a mountain road to avoid the tunnels, that just couldn’t be biked. We pushed our bikes for six kilometres up the steep 12 to 17 per cent grades with no relief but the pretty mountain wildflowers growing at our feet. 

The last three kilometres were easier and we managed them with slightly less

 effort. 

There are even times when we can’t find our way over the mountains at all. Sometimes there are too many tunnels and sometimes they are too steep and sometimes they just don’t go where we want to go. From L’Aquila, in the shadow of the Gran Sasso Mountains, the highest in this part of Italy, we took a taxi which went through several tunnels, the longest of which was 10 kilometres until the driver left us on a road which could be biked to our next destination.

we are currently in Macerata

For the moment, we are in the hills rather than the mountains but I am sure that Minas has not seen the last of his beloved mountains on this trip.

 

Ciao!

Finding Easter While Dodging Raindrops

the journey so far

We have been in Italy for nearly two weeks now; but we haven’t moved very far by bike. Instead we have been chasing centuries-old Easter celebrations in small towns in the Pescara area of Abruzzo.  And find some, we did. However, none of them compared with the Easter experiences we had a few years ago in Trapani, Sicily.

too much rain

We were disappointed with our first stop at Atri where we expected to find “the Passione di Jesu” on Wednesday of Holy Week. They had held it on the Tuesday this year, so we missed it but still managed to enjoy our hosts at the B&B l’Albero di Antonia and to enjoy wandering the little town despite the rain.

 

a poster of the yearly processione in Chieti

We cycled to the town of Chieti, a fortress on the top of a bluff, a process which involved some walking as we got into the centro of the city.  Here they have been holding the Good Friday Easter Procession since 842 AD. On Friday morning, to prepare ourselves, we walked into the pedestrian only centre of town and enjoyed the lively atmosphere of the market. A visit to the cathedral gave us a glimpse of the statues that would be carried during the procession and advised us of a “canto” that would take place at noon. 

We spent the rest of the morning walking the town and looking for the museum. When we arrived at the enormous park, we could not find the entrance to the building, so we asked a kind looking couple. Of course this set up a conversation, in our very poor Italian, about their families: who had emigrated to Montreal and who was now living in Toronto. Besides the information we were seeking about the entrance to the museum, we were also advised strongly to visit the cathedral at noon to hear the canto. So thank you, kind Italians, and arrivederci.

the warrior of Capestrano

Chieti was originally a Roman town called Theate and has been well designed on the flat top of this cliff. The piece de resistance in this museum is the Warrior of Capestrano  (no swallows around though). Most of the artifacts were gleaned from necropoli in surrounding towns.

 

museum glassware and pottery just like Minas'

I had never seen stone burial beds on legs before so that was a new learning  for me; but some of the glassware and pottery I see every day as I am eating my meals at our dining room table. They are identical to the ones Minas brought out of Turkey when he was a young man. If you look closely, you might agree.

what we could see of the choir but we heard it well enough

Following our museum visit we made our way to the cathedral which was packed with people. We did manage to find a spot against a pillar near the front. The choir was all male and about a hundred strong. They were accompanied by an orchestra of young people playing mostly stringed instruments. When the conductor raised his baton and they opened their mouths, we were astounded by the depth and volume of the sound. What a treat to listen to the ensuing half hour of music. The piece was “The Miserare” by the Italian composer, Selecchi. It was unfamiliar to me but I imagine that it was as old as the processione, just a matter of a century or two more than a millennium.

We floated out of the church buoyed by the music and the feelings of Good Friday in a decidedly catholic environment. 

As we took some money out of the ATM machine, we met our kind Italian couple again only to be grilled about how we liked the museum and had we attended the canto. “Si, si, buonissimo,” we responded. Now began the exhortations to go and visit the Museo Civitello. We said we needed lunch first and for this they had advice too. In the style we had now become accustomed to, they pointed us in the direction of Da Ninno’s, not one of our Trip Advisor choices but an awesome local restaurant filled with families lunching out on this holiday Friday. We had a large lunch which required an afternoon of resting, so we never did get to the other museum.  So sorry, kind Italian friends.

the crowd awaits the processione

About seven o’clock we ventured into the streets to see the Venerdi Sancto Processione.  We waited for several hours on the steps of a church along the route of the procession before it all got underway. 

The lamps were lit on either side of the street and the parade of people in white hoods was eerily silent as they made their way through the town. The onlookers, who had been full of chat and laughter while waiting, quietened and were very respectful of those walking and carrying the various depictions of the events of that Good Friday so long ago. 

The white hoods, with just holes for the eyes, were a little unnerving at first as they bore such a resemblance to those of the Klu Klux Klan. I intend to dig a little further into that coincidence when I get home. At the end of the procession came the hundred strong male choir singing the Miserare from beginning to end so I got to enjoy it all over again.

We spent the Saturday and Sunday of Easter weekend at a lovely place called Castello Chiola in Loreto Aprutino where we managed some lovely riding in the green hills. 

It was good to get in a little exercise as Easter lunch is a substantial and lengthy affair. At first we had planned to ride for the better part of Easter Sunday but our trip without the luggage did not take us as much time as we had thought so we hurried back to the hotel and asked for a table for lunch. They were fully booked but very accommodating and set up a small table for two in a room packed with families seated at tables of eight or more. We had time for a quick shower and were seated in the main hall with our glass of Prosecco waiting to be called into the dining room.

It was close to 2 pm before things got underway. Six courses followed one after the other for the next three hours. First came an egg timbale with small pieces of lamb and asparagus accompanied by a little arugula salad. 


Then we had gnocchi with artichokes, followed by another pasta dish with fish. The main course was medallion of veal with spinach. This was topped off with a frozen bavarois and then an Easter cake with chocolate sauce. We ordered a bottle of our favourite montepulciano d’abbruzzo wine, Pan, to go with the food. We were grateful that we could just stagger up the stairs for a few hours of digestion.

And then we did it all again the very next day on Easter Monday. When we arrived at our B&B, La Vecchia Teatro in Ortona. It was 2:15 pm and we learned that the restaurant they ran across the street wasn’t open in the evening – only for pranza, lunch. Could we come for lunch then? OK! It was the fastest shower ever and my daughters would have been berating me for showing up at a restaurant with wet hair; but such is life. We wanted to eat. And that we did! This was a set menu of fish and they just kept bringing little plates of deliciousness to the table. More montepulciano d’abbruzzo wine, unfortunately not the Pan, but good anyway.  

The difference between the two meals back to back was the setting: castle versus cute tavern; the guests: well-dressed families versus a casually dressed mix of people; and the menu: a well thought out combination of delicacies in reasonable portions versus an all-out fish extravaganza.  And if you can believe it, the set price of the fish meal was higher – not that we were complaining.

The next day we wanted to visit the Moro River Canadian Cemetery, where 1375 Canadians, who died in Italy during the Second World War, are buried. Although it is only three kilometres south of Ortona, we got lost for an hour looking for the correct road. 

An affable chap, who was going back to Rome after the holiday week-end, said he would guide us there. That is very nice but have you ever tried riding a bike along-side a gentleman in a car, who is going slow enough  to accompany you? 

 The traffic was piling up behind him and then passing him at top speed. It was nerve-racking for me. 
At one traffic circle, he seemed indecisive. Just then another car drew up. A new gentleman jumped out and said that he had seen us three times in his errands that morning and we had been going in circles. Yep! That much I had figured out. 

The two Italians, one a local and one from Rome had a bit of an argument about which road to take, while we looked on in amusement. The local won and set us on the right road. We thought that would be the end of it. 

But no, when we got to the cemetery, there was Mr. Rome, waiting to give us the guided tour, opening the registry of graves and the visitors’ book. Thank goodness he did leave us then. 
 We were able to enjoy the peace of the place and to ponder of the terrible loss of life of so many young men from points right across our great country.


 

Canadian graves at Moro River Cemetery

 So we are enjoying ourselves, despite the constant threat of rain. Arrivederci till next time.