May 3: Greccio to Casperia

Previous day: May 2: Labro to Greccio

Today we leave Greccio to walk to Casperia, which On Foot Holidays classes as a "hard" hike: 6.5 hours to cover 20 km, with a cumulative uphill distance of 600 m (plus a like amount downhill). Tonight, we stay at La Torretta.

After holding a referendum with our miscellaneous joints, we decided not to do the walk to Casperia today. In addition to aching knees that we don’t want to risk damaging, as that would curtail future hikes during this trip, absentee ballots were cast by the weather, which was planning to thunderstorm today. Walking on steep slopes that are sometimes slippery even when dry is not a great idea, and if they become wet... Plus, if the weather forecase was right, there was the risk of lightning while we passed through the mountains. Plus plus, it’s a minimum 6-hour hike according to On Foot, which is a long day given how tired we are even if the itinerary didn’t include a nasty climb to start the day. Bottom line: the absentee ballots won the day. Instead of walking, we arranged to hitch a ride with Paolo, our host, who was bringing the baggage to our next hotel anyway, and had no objection to bringing us too.

Breakfast was good but fairly standard: salami, ham, cheese, bread, dolcis (I enjoyed the apricot/raspberry cobbler and pound cake) and decent cappuchino. The young woman who was serving raised an eyebrow when I returned for a third cup. I told her “terzo e ultimo” (third and last) and “Canadese sono mazzo per la kaffè” (Canadians are mad for coffee), and got a smile with my coffee. After breakfast, we had about half an hour to wander around before Paolo would come to collect us, and as it had stopped raining, we took a quick tour of the piazza and surrounding area in front of our B&B. Pleasant, but nothing special to report.

Our B&B in Greccio

Our B&B in Greccio and the main piazza

Greccio fields

Fields and hills below Greccio.

Paolo was more than half an hour late, which was no problem because we were in no hurry. By the time we got to the car, it had begun raining, and the rain became heavier as the drive progressed. We chatted a bit when it felt safe to distract him from the road, and learned that he’s been running his hotel for about 12 years. He started renovation in 2006 and finished right before the U.S. financial crisis, which effectively sabotaged his first year in business. He survived, and though business has only been so-so, he seems to be enjoying it and surviving. On the way to Casperia, he drove faster than I would have, but never dangerously. Lots of twisting curves, hairpins, and steep descents. I commented to him that it was no wonder there were so many famous Italian race drivers if everyone grew up learning to drive under these conditions.

We weren’t sure what to “tip” him for taking the extra trouble to drive us, but since we’d paid Luk 15 euros for a drive he hadn’t planned, and Paolo was going on a planned drive to Casperia anyway, I figured 10 euros would be appropriate. I told Paolo I didn’t know how much was appropriate, but the smile on his face made it clear he hadn’t expected anything. So we made him happy.

No thunder all day, but steady and moderately heavy rain, so not a good day for hiking. We don’t regret our decision to take a day off. And it belatedly occurred to us that in future trips with On Foot, we could decide to spend a day recovering in each town that we reached after a day’s hike. We haven’t done this yet because our usual approach has been to plan for one week on our own, mostly in big or famous urban areas, followed by one week hiking. But in future, we could easily do a full two-week hiking holiday, but with a day off to explore towns between hikes.

As Casperia is another authentic medieval city, no cars are allowed, so we dropped our bags at the bottom of the outcrop of rock that Casperia occupies, in a small garage burrowed into the rock. High-tech security here: the key was hidden in plain sight, under a ceramic tile, held down with a rock. But it’s not high tourist season, and the locals seem to know what they doing, so we didn’t worry about it. We hiked up into the town, along steep, twisty cobbled streets as the rain intensified, until we found our B*B, La Touretta. Nobody was there when we arrived, which wasn’t surprising; they were scheduled to pick up our bags after 1 PM, and it was still before noon. So we went in search of a table to rent for a couple hours.

Casperia street

Casperia streets.

The one place we found that was open, La Vigna, was paired with a small coffee shop, and as we weren’t hungry enough for a meal, we settled for cappucinos. As we waited for them to be prepared, we noticed that the owners were kindred spirits: the blueprints for Star Trek’s starship Enterprise (Picard’s version) were displayed proudly around all the walls, and Star Wars lego and figurines graced the shelves and light fixtures. So we got to chatting with the barrista, who spoke no English but understood my Italian, and another man, who spoke fluently and is probably the expat British owner mentioned in On Foot’s description of local dining opportunities. La Vigna has received good reviews and does “slow food”, so we’re looking forward to dinner there tonight.

We spent about an hour chatting about favorite Star Trek characters and the characteristics of our hike the following day (the barrista is an enthusisastic hiker and knows the On Foot trails well.) The owner told us he’d enjoyed a visit with a group of Australian women who were doing a yoga tour of Italy. To his great amusement, they started with coffees, progressed to beer, and each left with a bottle of wine in hand. He asked them whether their local yoga teacher might not disapprove; they pointed at one of their number, who as the local yoga teacher, officially approved of this variant form of yoga. As the conversation wound down, I noticed a young man hauling our big bags past the window. So we made our excuses, promised to return for dinner, and hiked back up the hill to our B&B.

Roberto, the owner, had just arrived and was waiting for our bags, and he let us in. La Touretta is a gorgeously restored 400-year-old house with beautifully plastered walls, giant old wooden beams supporting the ceiling, a welcoming fire, and lots of nice decorations. The only flaw is that the wi-fi isn’t available in the evening—the horror!—so posting of this day’s blog will be a bit delayed. The home’s right on the edge of the rock, so we have a lovely view of the surrounding countryside. He gave us the tour, then left us to unpack and dress for an afternoon of exploration. The rain had mostly stopped by then, so we spent a couple hours walking the streets and enjoying the old architecture and sweeping views of the surrounding plains.

Back home by 5ish to relax, type up some thoughts on the day, and shower before dinner. Insert shower rant number 73 (possibly more; I stopped counting long ago): There was decent pressure and tons of hot water. Hooray! But why, oh why, would you put the showerhead over the sloping backrest of the tub, so you can’t get close to it without stepping on the slope and being flung out of the tub like a watermelon seed squirted between thumb and forefinger? And why would you put the soap dish/shampoo rest right at shoulder level, so that every time you turn around, you whack it with your upper arm? And if you’re going to use a glass wall instead of a shower curtain, why only extend it halfway around the tub, so water pours out onto the floor every time you turn around injudiciously and so that wide-bodied folk like me are constantly hitting it? Maybe because you’ve never actually taken a shower, and yet feel so confident in your mad design skills that you don’t actually need to research the subject. (Note that this is not a rant about Italian shower engineers. In my travels, this problem transcends national and cultural borders.)

In the updated version of Dante’s Hell, there’s a special circle for engineers who don’t test their products on the real audience before releasing them for sale. In this circle of Hell, the aforementioned engineers spend eternity forced to use each other’s untested products. Karma’s a bitch.

Dinner was at La Vigna. I had spicy and savory lentil soup, followed by rigatoni pasta, served arrabiata (hot spices) with Armand sausage in tomato sauce, and Shoshanna had (strigozzi?) pasta with spinach in a delicious buttery sauce, paired with a side (contorno) of verza (something cabbage-like, beautifully roasted). Very good bread, made better by the fact that the owner is a connaisseur of olive oils and had at least eight varieties on display, of which we tried four. All very good, in different ways; olive oils are like wine, with many regional variations. No dessert, as we went through two bread trays sampling the oils, but we did finish off with decaff espressos. The walk back to the B&B probably burned off about one piece of bread worth of calories; tomorrow we’ll have to work on the others.

Next day: May 4: Casperia to Misciani