May 4: Casperia to Misciani

Previous day: May 3: Greccio to Casperia

Today we leave Casperia to walk to Misciani, which On Foot Holidays classes as a "medium" hike: 4.5 hours to cover 11 km, with a cumulative uphill distance of 510 m (plus a like amount downhill). Tonight, we stay at Il Fienile di Orazio.

Today’s destination was Misciani (aka Monte San Giovani in Sabina), where we’ll be staying at an agriturismo. Because the last part of the hike has a long, steep descent, and significant rain is predicted, with a high likelihood of thunder and lightning, we’ve asked Stefano (our local resource guy and the guy who planned our hikes) to pick us up about 4 hours into the hike, before the bad part.

Breakfast was very good, with nice dolci and good bread, plus scrambled eggs and bottomless coffee. They provided both drip coffee, which seemed a bit weak after nearly 2 weeks of espresso, and a pot of espresso. I mixed the two and got a nice intermediate blend. We’d arrived a little early, but the view from the upper floor was spectacular and I watched the local swallows swooping about like crazed things. It was like watching a Star Wars battle scene, without the explosions or body count; how the swallows avoid catastrophic mid-air collisions is beyond me. It’s clear there’s no way these birds can be sprinting around like they do based solely on a few mouthfuls of flying bugs. Clearly they have onboard nuclear generators.

We’d originally thought about getting a lift to Roccantica, a hilltop village about one quarter of the way along the hike, as this would save us an hour and a half of uphill climbing and, with luck, get us through most of the hike before the rain began. But the wather didn’t look that bad starting out, with dense but light clouds, so we decided to walk instead. This hike starts with an easy descent from La Touretta, and a relaxing initial stroll through the valley below it. But then you start a steep ascent to Roccantica, and it gets sweaty. It wasn’t horribly hot (only about 18°C), but there wasn’t any wind and it was very humid, so I was pretty much soaked by the time we got to a logical stopping point—a bar midway up the stairway into town that On Foot had recommended. Shoshanna fetched us a Menebrea Bionda beer, which we’d liked in the past, and we enjoyed it while watching a puppy so young it was still stumbling around its owners on wobbly legs. But even at that tender age, it had already learned to keep a close eye on its owners for possible snacks.

Roccantica from below'

Roccantica from below.

Before you ask: As we’ve already demonstrated conclusively in previous installments, beer has been scientifically proven to enhance athletic performance. So this mid-day refreshment was only science at work, not moral laxity. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.

From Roccantica, most of the hike was through lovely forest, with occasional meadows. Unlike the forest hike earlier in our trip, this forest was more open and thus, more full of light, so it was more pleasant. Also, the trail was much clearer and the footing generally much easier on the feet, with far fewer sheer dropoffs, so it was much more relaxing; we could pay more attention to the view than to not falling off a cliff or getting lost. Because it’s early spring, the deciduous trees are still leafing out, so there’s a nice mixture of light and dark greens. I kept an eye on the weather as we passed noon, since that’s when the hard rain was supposed to begin, but despite some ominous clouds, the rain held off. And we even had occasional patches of clear sky amidst the clouds.

Forest trails and other attractions

Forest trails and other attractions.

Stefano had asked us to call him about half an hour before we reached our pickup point, an abandoned osteria (Faducci?). This required a bit of time estimation. “On Foot” time is the time they estimate in the hiking guides, but it’s manifestly unrealistic. We don’t have the stamina to hike straight through at the speed they maintain, and we also like to stop and spend a few minutes here and there enjoying the view. So our travel times tend to be about 25% more than the estimated times. To be at the osteria when Stefano arrived, we’d need to call him when the hiking instructions said we were 15 to 20 minutes out, since it would take us half an hour to get that far. Great in theory, but in practice, as we followed the trail, we seemed to be going much father than the instructions suggested. If this last stretch was only 20 minutes by On Foot time, they clearly must have been running or riding a horse. So we turned on our GPS to confirm we were on the right track, which was both reassuring and disturbing: we were right on track, but the osteria was nowhere in sight. When we came to a point where the track diverged dramatically from what we expected, passing through a barbed wire fence that could be dismantled and then remantled, we knew something was wrong, and called Stefano. His phone was busy.

We were just about to call Stefano again to ask what we’d done wrong, when we heard a vehicle approaching from far off down the road, so we decided to wait in the hope they’d know where we’d gone wrong. And who should come cruising past in an ancient (1950s vintage?) Land Rover, but Stefano! A pure stroke of good fortune, because had he kept going, he’d have found himself waiting at the osteria with no hope we’d every arrive, while we tried to reach him by cell phone without being able to describe where we were*. We discovered the problem in discussion with him, and it turned out to be a combination of multiple errors: the description of a key turning point in the hiking guide was misleading, Shoshanna had followed the On Foot suggestion to “display all GPS tracks” simultaneously instead of only the current day’s track, and I’d forgotten that tomorrow’s plans required us to retrace the last part of today’s trails. Since we only turned on the GPS for confirmation after we had already gone too far, we didn’t notice that we’d missed the turn and strayed onto tomorrow’s track. Oops!

* In practice, what would eventually have happened was that we would have figured out how to send him our GPS coordinates, and he could have found us that way, since he has a professional-grade system. Lessons learned: always travel with a cell phone for emergencies, and if you’ve got GPS, use it with at least some cluefulness.)

Stefano was good humored about the mistake, particularly since he was also juggling the needs of other groups of On Foot hikers in need of rescue. (To be clear, not On Foot’s fault. As we’ve said before, their explanations are generally excellent.) We clambered into his Land Rover, which had only three seats in the front, flung our backpacks in the back, and set off on a spine-wrenching “shortcut” to our next B&B, which took us through miles of uneven, rutted, potholed, bouldered road that several times flung me hard against the door, despite hanging onto a hand grip for additional support. We got to see a lot of back country, some of which we would have seen tomorrow and some not.

Since some of the area we covered was part of tomorrow’s planned hike, and since he expected parts of the hike to be quite unpleasant given that we were having knee and foot problems, he proposed a change of plans: as our luggage would be delivered to his place tomorrow, from where he’d take us to our final B&B, closer to the railway station that would take us to the airport in Rome, he proposed that we hitch a ride to his place with the luggage. He was already planning a tour of his farm for some other guests, as well as a tour of a Roman-era villa he and his wife had discovered on their land and were restoring in their spare time. As this would involve only a couple hours of wandering through his land, accompanied by an interesting and knowledgeable host, rather than 5 hours of solitary back-country hiking, we gratefully accepted. (He promised he wouldn’t tell On Foot that we’d cheated by not completing our final hike.) Among other reasons, we’d very much wanted to end our trip with a stay at his farm, but there were no rooms left by the time we made our reservations with On Foot.

We had a pleasant trip despite the jolting, as Stefano has a pretty good sense of humor, and we did eventually end up at our B&B. (The “shortcut” took significantly longer than if we’d walked, but that was because the hike cut across much rough terrain that the roads had to circumnavigate.) Il Fienile di Orazio is a working organic farm that also hosts guests: an agriturismo. We were greeted by three very enthusiastic and friendly greeters, the farm’s dogs, who didn’t bark so much as a single bark; clearly, they’re used to guests. The guest rooms are in a separate house about 50 m (150 feet) from the main house. The room is pleasant enough, but a bit dark because there’s only one small window and they use high-efficiency but low wattage bulbs. But the shower is (hallelujah!) well-designed and there was an abundance of really hot water. Hot water is a glorious thing after 5 hours spent stewing in one’s own juices.

The long-promised rain did eventually arrive, but it wasn’t much and didn’t last long. Stefano told us he’d been pleasanlty surprised, as he’d expected the weather to be “shit”.

Had a brief nap while Shoshanna showered, then off to the dining and lounging annex, where I’m writing this. It lies between the guest rooms and the main house, high on a slope and providing great views of the surrounding woods and mountains. It’s a high-roofed space with a wood-timbered roof and old stone columns holding up the roof, with floor to ceiling windows that let in tons of light. It’s quiet and comfortable, and with the door open, you can hear all the birds. We’ve seen a small woodpecker, swallows, and mourning doves while we relaxed. Our hostess offered us drinks and snacks, which we gratefully accepted: miniature Ritz crackers, which we scorned; chips, which I devoured; salted peanuts, which we shared; and really good fresh mozzarella on cherry tomatoes, which we also shared. The agriturismo makes their own wines, so we asked for one glass of each. I preferred the white and Shoshanna preferred the red, so all was well. There will be more wine with dinner. It’s not beer, but one must sometimes make great sacrifices in the interests of international diplomacy.

Rest and relaxation nook

The Fienile rest and relaxation annex.

Dinner was a huge feast, and mostly delicious. Too huge, really. If we eat like this when we’re back home, and not walking uphill 4 hours per day, we won’t fit through the doorway! We had more of their homemade wine: the white, it turns out, was a Montepulciani; the red was a mixture, but neither the wife nor the daughter remembered the mix. We started with antipasti: a tray with four slices each of three types of homemade goat’s cheese, garnished with cherry tomatoes; a small dish of sweet zucchini pickkles; four types of salumi (dried meat); rice croquettes (“not arancini; those are from Sicily”); and toasted bread drizzled with olive oil and lightly salted. The primo was a thick, rectangular noodle (possibly tagliatelli) with zucchini sauteed in what must have been half a cup of olive oil, with tons of garlic and a buttery taste, possibly created by adding a soft cheese that blended with the olive oil. Secondi was a dish of spinach-like greens that may have been a local cabbage, similar to bok choy in the mix of crunchy white bits and soft green bits, and a bit of hot spice to it. It accompanied something I’ve never seen before: pork and chicken ground finely and pressed together hard to form circular patties, served with a dab of sauce, probably made from red wine or wine vinegar and pan drippings.

We were all set to say “no more!”, but then they brought out the dolci: apple pie with heavenly crust, which included pine nuts, and whipped cream so fresh it was probably still in the cow this afternoon. It was recognizably whip cream, but put all other whipped cream to shame.

Next day: May 5: Misciani to Mompeo