The world is an amazing place. People are amazing and good. Sally and I know this deep down in our hearts and up on our surface. We see amazing acts of kindness daily. Smiles. Warm greetings. Helping hands. Small gifts. Gratitude. Patient explanations. Kind words. As we walk across Italy we are constantly showered in these actions. And if we step back and look at all aspects of our lives, it still rings true.
Did you ever hear the segment “This I Believe” on NPR? People, both famous and unknown, read their essay about a belief they held. I guess the above paragraph would be the topic sentence of mine. And the events I am going to relay below would make up the contents of my essay.
Today was a travel as well as a walking day. We had to catch a 6:08am train from Marmore to Rieti. You might ask, “I thought you were walking across Italy?” And I would answer, “Yes, we are, but a few of the stages are too long and with no place to stay if we did them because we are here in the off season, the very off season and many places are closed.
The weather is also playing into our route and decision making. We are trying to stay put on rainy days, although yesterday was supposed to be a hide from the rain day, yet it never really rained. But, we also needed a do nothing day to rest, so it wasn’t a total loss of a day.
We were up at 4:45am, had hard boiled eggs from the night before and yogurt for breakfast, packed up and cleaned the place. Preparations done, we left for the walk to the train station, about 200 yards away, at 5:45am. Halfway there I remembered we had not left eight euro on the table to pay the tourist tax. We walked back, unlocked the door , put the money on the table, locked up again and walked to the train station.
Our train rolled in on time, track 2, and we stepped across track one to get to it. It was more like a bus on the tracks. A single train car, self propelled. We were the only ones boarding it and there was no one on board.
The thirty minute ride carried us to Rieti. Now we had a bus to catch. We were not sure where to catch it. We surmised it was here at the station, but weren’t sure where. It was raining lightly outside. Sally asked a well dressed woman of about 50 where we might catch the bus to Poggio Moiano. She pointed outside to an area, then thought better and in broken English/Spanish/Italian beckoned us to follow her. She deployed her umbrella and walked us out into the wet, dark streets about 50 yards to the main street where busses have designated spaces to line up. Each spot has a sign with a destination. She lead us down the row, looking at each sign. In the 6th spot was a bus, so she knocked on the door and started quizzing the driver about the bus we wanted. She was able to translate his thoughts into English so we got an idea of what was going on. What a sweetheart.
She returned to the station to catch her train. Sally and I read all the signs, checked our map apps to see which one appeared to come closest to our destination as none listed our exact town. We were walking back to the train station to get out of the rain as we had 45 minutes until our bus went. As we did, we walked by a bus waiting to leave. The bus driver’s window was open so we asked if he knew what bus to take to get to Poggio Moiano. He tried to help, but we couldn’t understand. He invited us into his bus to talk using the translating app. After a minute he said, “Take my bus. I will take you to Osterio Nuovo and you can get another bus there to Poggio Moiano.” With that he closed the bus door behind us and motioned for us to take a seat. Didn’t ask for a fare. Where is Osterio Nuovo? Just on the other side of this city where we can catch the bus we need? We didn’t know, but what the heck. It’s an adventure. I wonder where we will end up.
We drove through Rieti’s streets to the far side of town. By now I had my map apps out and was tracking our progress to see where we were in relation to Poggio Moiano and Rieti. A minute later we had left the city and were heading out of town on a highway. Where is this Osterio Nuovo? As the landscape turned to farms and woods I searched and found it way out of town, and only five miles from Poggio Moiano. hmmm . . . How is this going to work out?
For a fleeting second there I had this feeling of insecurity, as if somehow leaving Rieti was taking me away from my . . . home? Yet, I quickly reasoned, I had everything with me in my pack and Rieti was no more “home” than this bus was. Sally was here. We were giggling about this turn of events. I wonder where we will end up?
About half an hour later we pulled over to a bus stop in Osterio Nuovo and the driver indicated this is where we should get off. He gestured in the direction we should walk to catch the bus to Poggio Moiano. We thanked him profusely and exited the bus. What a sweetheart. He didn’t have to do this for us.
Now what? We used Rome 2 Rio to plot the route from here. It indicated what bus stop we should stand at, just a block away. We sprinted across the busy highway and up a side road and found a bus stop. Along the way we asked a man getting out of his car if we were heading toward a bus stop.
“Si. Si!
Up we went and began our 15 minute wait. We both had to pee. Sally went first. There wasn’t really any bushes to hide in so she hide behind a street sign and hoped no car would come up the hill where they would have a front row view. She timed it well and got away with it. My turn. I walked into the bushes just enough to partially obscure myself and did my business.
When the bus didn’t arrive at the predicted 8:10am we waited another 10 minutes, then decided our information was again for tourist season, not November.
Sally’s immediate response, We’ll hitchhike! She took a step forward and put her thumb out. I joined her. A skeptical lady drove past but the next car stopped in the middle of the road and rearranged the junk in his car to allow us to sit, me with my pack on my lap in the front, Sally in the back. We introduced ourselves. This was Antonio. At first he wanted to know why we were walking back to San Lorenzo, not really believing what he was hearing. As we drove slowly (by Italian standards) toward Poggio Moiano we talked and got to know him a bit. He was on disability, both kidneys having failed, doing dialysis. He had a friend (girl, but not a girl friend) from New York living nearby who he thought we should get a chance to talk to. When we got to the plaza in Poggio Moiano he called her a few times, but he had warned us she liked to sleep in. He had us take his number and told us to call if we needed anything, ANYTHING. He was soft spoken, kind, etc. All the traits I listed in my introduction, the same as the umbrella lady at the train station and the bus driver that gave us the ride for free. Sally proffered a €10 note from the back seat and told him to take his lady friend to lunch. He refused, repeating in English, “Free. Free”. People are amazing.
Antonio drove off and we both chuckled for the next hour at the turns our adventurous day had taken and the wonderful people we had met. But, it was 8:30am and time to get walking on this “short and easy day” as Sally described it, just 11 kilometers or about 6.6 miles.
It started to rain. We broke out the umbrellas and slipped on our rain pants, figuring this was the start of the all day rain that was predicted. It drizzled and lightly rained for about fifteen minutes and never rained again that day. What a blessing from Saint Medard, the patron saint of good weather.
The route was a short one today, but it was up one hill and down the next. At times, the footing was extremely poor, steep, loose, golf ball sized and shaped rocks on water eroded troughs on steep hills.
We passed by some Roman ruins near the ridge top town of Monteleone Sabino, on the old Roman Via Salariao or Salt Road. Salt was collected in the marshes near where Rome was established and carted across the peninsula to the Aegean Sea to be sold.
The route was totally rural. Farms, lots of woodland miles down ravines and up their other sides. Almost totally on steep, eroded roads only a 4WD could negotiate.
We were dragging by the time we climbed the last 300’ up to the ridge top town of Poggio San Lorenzo. It was about 1:30pm, meaning everything in town was closed, so we didn’t bother to walk up into the town. We would be back tomorrow and would walk through the town on our route. Also, we needed to walk down to the highway in the valley below to try to catch a bus back to Rieti. That was in the opposite direction of town.
Down we started, dropping 300’ over 3/4 of a mile to the main highway. Rome 2 Rio said a bus came by every 30 minutes or so, making the trip from Rome to the Rieti valley. We got down about 15 minutes before the next bus was scheduled to appear. The sign at the bus stop shelter said you should call their number to schedule a pick up. I did. After 8 minutes on hold I got an Italian only speaking person. I had my script prepared on my phone, requesting a bus to stop and pick us up, and read her the station number, in Italian. I wasn’t sure if we were finished, but she started saying “Autobus. pronto! Pronto!” Just then a 80 kilometer per hour bus rounded the corner headed our way. The driver stopped and opened the door. We stepped in, our two euro for the trip on hand. He waved away the money and motioned for us to take a seat. Sally sat on the front seat behind the driver, but it was wet and the guy behind her mentioned “Banyo”. Somebody peed on the seat? We moved to a seat further back in the bus. On the ride in I located the room we had rented but not been to yet on the map and then watched the progress of the bus on my maps app. The bus dropped us less than a five minute walk to our apartment.
Guided by our map app we ended up one alleyway off. It took a minute to figure out what the problem was, but soon we were up the three flights of stairs and into a spacious top floor apartment. Another excellent find by Sally. It even had a jacuzzi bathtub which we took full advantage of immediately.
After soaking until 5:00 when the town opens again, we headed to the grocery store for food, then returned to cook dinner, spinach tortellini and stir fry vegetables. We also bought fixings for tomorrow’s breakfast and lunches.
Dinner, a little planning for tomorrow and we were in bed by 7:30pm and happy to fall asleep, tired as we were and content that, in spite of our current administration in the US, the world is a wonderful place.
I want to amend my thoughts from a couple days ago on these old towns we are walking through. Yes, the buildings are hundreds if not thousands of years old and yes the populations are predominantly older people, but they have a vibrancy that Sally and I rarely get to see. We start walking by 7:30am and are immediately out of town and miss the morning interactions of the towns folk and also the chance to observe the population cross section. We reach our destination town about 1:30 or 2:30, exactly when everything is closed down for the afternoon. By the time the town opens again at five, we are in our room, nursing our sore feet, legs, backs (name any body part) and we again miss the vibrancy of the town. The few times we have ventured out in the evenings in the dark the streets and squares are alive with people interacting, eating, walking etc. predominantly older, yes, but not entirely. A few of the apartments we have rented are in very old buildings, quite crusty on the outside, but beautifully remodeled and modernized on the inside. Super comfortable, tastefully decorated and very modern.
I guess what I am saying is this: the center of the old sections of the towns look old on the outside, but they have so much potential and that potential is being realized by industrious, talented people. It takes time but it is slowly being realized.
While in Mormare on our day off we headed for the grocery at 5:05pm, just after it opened at 5:00pm. Two other people were headed the same direction. When we got to the store there were two people inside chatting with the owner, a lady of about 45, while picking out items. The two that entered just after us joined in the conversations. The only thing missing from this Norman Rockwell moment was a pot bellied stove and some chairs in this cramped little store. Community. That is what we were witnessing on our day off that our usual timing doesn’t allow us to see. The streets are deserted when we walk into town mid afternoon because that is when everything is closed and people are napping. The towns come alive after five. If we could adjust our schedule, we would be a part of it, but we can’t walk in the dark, so our timing will necessarily be off.
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