Up at 6:30am. Our typical breakfast of hard boiled eggs, bread and tea. As John Muir would say, Hearty fare for brave mountaineers.” Don’t know about the brave or the mountaineers, but the breakfast fills the bill.
We have been in this apartment for three nights which might lead to clothing and gear sprawl, but we have been conscientious about keeping our stuff consolidated. It was a quick few minutes to get everything stuffed in my pack and ready to go. We cleaned up the place and left our landlords €12 for the city’s €2/person/day tax.
I had in my pack today’s lunch and dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast. It is Sunday and our past experiences in Europe taught us that most, if not all places, are closed on Sundays. We didn’t want to be caught unprepared and therefore hungry.
We were out the door about 7:45, stopping to take a photo of us before our apartment door. It is sad to be leaving Assisi, but not really. We got to see everything we wanted and are looking forward to the walk and the towns ahead.
We stopped at the wall enclosing the city for a final photo, then through the arch and on our way.
The weather could not be better, 45° and sunny with no wind and an expected high of 62°. We started out in long sleeves and fleece pullovers while enjoying the cool air on our faces and filling our lungs. We are heading SE so the sun is on our faces, and in our eyes. A small price to pay for such glorious weather.
We started out walking through Assisi’s suburbs, traversing Mt. Subasio on residential roads carved into the hill. Huge oak trees provided shade. Eventually we left the suburban area and entered the olive groves, walking paved or gravel one lane access roads. A car passed us on average maybe every 20 minutes? The view off to the right was down into the valley below while Mt. Subasio flanked our left high above.
At about 3 miles we met another walker heading the other direction. We discovered that you can say “buongiorno” to people you pass, but if you do they might mistake you to be Italian and answer back in the same manner, thereby hiding what nationality they really are. If you say “hello” people recognize you as being from someplace else and will more likely respond in English or their own language.
So it was with Lucas, who we met and said hello to and he responded in kind and turned out to be from Vienna. We talked for about 15 minutes. We were the only other walkers he had met in 7 days.
We stopped for lunch of bread and cheese along with an apple to share about 10:45am.
About two hours later we met a group of four women, mid 40’s. They were just vacating a park bench that we were desiring. Sally asked where they were from. They responded, with big smiles, that they were “women of the world”. We laughed and chatted with them for 15 minutes and then sat down as they moved on.
Another hour of walking and we entered our destination town, Spello. Our room was at the opposite end of this ridge top town. We walked down the narrow main street of this medieval town original built by the Roman’s in the 1st century.
We stopped in the main piazza, Sally seeking a coke. A cute, bubbly women at an outdoor cafe invited us to sit at one of her tables and got us cokes. We ordered a pizza. While waiting for it to cook we noticed a crowd on this Sunday afternoon inside and out of a grocery store. A little exploring and we found why. Not only was it the only place open, but they made and sold sandwiches for €2.50. As we waited for our food we realized the bubbly woman grabbed people off the plaza and stuck drinks and food in front of them before they had a chance to discover the bargain 20’ away across the street.
Our pizza came and it was good and only €12, but expensive compared to the deli/store across the street.
We wandered down another 100 yards to Maddalena Street where we turned right and continued down about 30 yards and two bends to find our place for the night. The door was open and the cleaner was hard at work so we returned to the main drag to wait the 10 minutes until she was done. Sally walked back up to the grocery/deli to get a Coke for the morning and then we entered our place for the night.
We kicked back for the first couple hours, just resting. Then we went out to explore the town just as night was settling in, 5:30pm. We tried to get our credentials stamped someplace in town, but all the businesses that were open did not have stamps and gave us blank stares. We tried the church. No one of authority was visible. We wandered to the lowest part of town and found vendors selling nearly everything imaginable from their amazing transformer vans.
Back at our room we started to cook dinner of fried vegetables, tomato sauce and noodles. We had two burners on the induction stove on, two space heaters to warm the place and a few lights. I plugged in the hot water pot to boil some water for tea and POP! the power went off. Luckily they had an emergency light for this eventuality. I had seen the fuse box earlier in the day. I tried resetting all the circuit breakers, but to no avail. I called the manager. She called the owner who instructed me to use the second key on the apartment key ring to open an electrical box outside the apartment and reset a breaker out there. That fixed the problem. Now that we knew the limitations of the electrical system we carefully monitored what appliances we employed.
With dinner done, we retired upstairs to make reservations for a few days ahead and then write and do more research.
Tomorrow is a long day and we want to have some time in the large city of Foligno to see the piazza where Francis sold his father’s cloth to finance the building of San Damiano. We decided to take the train from Spello to Foligno first thing in the morning to cut three miles off our day tomorrow.
Lights out about 10:00pm. I didn’t find sleep until about 1:00, but I think I might have dozed a few times.
Every road intersection has a sign like this to point out the way
Wow what a great first day and the scenery looks stunning! Look forward to following along. Good way love Nicki
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