Along the Adriatic

The northeastern part of Italy is totally different to where we’ve been the last few days. There is a distinct lack of a medieval vibe along the Adriatic coast. Most of the towns we’ve been through are relatively modern, that is apart from Loreto. Its Black Madonna (who is the patron saint of pilots due to the fact that the Virgin Mary’s house was flown there from Nazareth by angels) is pretty impressive and I’m loving her ruby encrusted dress.

The weather is fabulous and I was tempted to pop in for a swim at the beach in Fano where we stayed last night but the stony beach was a bit too much for my feet to handle. We had to put up with staring out at the bright blue sea instead.

We were toying with the idea of heading down to Greece but the roads in Italy are horrendous and the weather has been pretty bad down south so we’ve stuck to the sunshine and will go to Greece next year via any route that doesn’t include Italy. Don’t get me wrong, Italy is a beautiful place with lovely people and great food and wine but the tunnels, mountains and bumpy road surfaces are too much to handle. Dickie is coping well.

Tonight we’re staying in Comachio, which is known as little Venice. The canals here are lovely but I think the town itself has seen better days. It’s famous for its eels and we were amused to see plastics eels in every shop window, even one poking out of the neck of a little girl’s dress in a children’s clothing shop. Terrifying.

Tomorrow we’ll make our way back across to France and hope to stop in at Triora, a witchy village near the french border. We hear there is a small witchcraft museum there. It’s at the top of a hill so more twiddly roads - sigh.

Gubbio

On our way to see the Black Madonna in Loreto we have stopped in Gubbio and were delighted to see it has its own Black Madonna in the cathedral.

Famous Footsteps

We’ve decided we now know why Italian towns are built on hills - it’s so you can walk off the 500 courses of lunch you eat on a daily basis.

Bagno Vignoni

Gubbio in Umbria is a stunning medieval town in Umbria and we turned up here today after a day in Cortona. First stop was lunch - menu of the day included bruschetta, pasta with truffle sauce, pork steak with fries and desert for 15 euros. Having just come for Tuscany where the course were pretty small (relatively speaking) we didn’t think twice about ordering the menu. Big mistake! Each course was a full meal in itself and it was with a  Monty Python-esque ‘just one more wafer’ that we squeezed the pan Acosta desert into our wilting mouths.

To walk off the calories we forced ourselves to climb the steep hills to tread the paths once walked by medieval princes and by one of my favourite authors, Herman Hesse. Yesterday we bathed in the thermal baths of Bagno Vignoni that my confirmation saint (Catherine of Siena) dunked her holy body in on her way to Rome. What joy!

A Tuscan Pootle

The coastline along Tuscany was almost bad enough for us to turn around and head back to France. The roads are dreadful, it’s very busy and it was just unpleasant. Luckily we headed inland and all improved massively. We stumbled on a small hilltop village called Murlo; home to a particularly gorge restaurant called Il Libridinosa that serves local organic food. Two meals and two bottles of wine later we slept in the car park and I visited the Etruscan museum there the next morning.

We were excited to hear of a nearby site that boasted a sword in a stone but, sadly, it had nothing to do with King Arthur. At the Abbey of San Galgano the 12th century saint himself had thrust his weapon into the rock as a sign of peace and redemption. The abbey is now a deconsecrated ruin but still stunning. The small hermitage, home of the aforementioned sword, is still used as a chapel and we got a rapturous telling off by the ancient woman gatekeeper for taking Hugo inside. He had been allowed at the ruin but not the chapel - the fact that it was swarming with cats didn’t seem to count.

From there to Montalcino. Unfortunately Graham was still recovering from too much wine the night before to sample any of the local wines but I rallied and tried a hint of the grape. I must say we’re getting a bit of a taste for Italian wine - we’ve not been great fans before but I think we just hadn’t had the right ones - and at £3 a bottle who could say no?

We’ve decided to hang around this area and visit small hilltop villages, eating pasta and drinking wine (well, me at least). Mr Fluffy always said he didn’t like Italian food but he seems to be having a great time shovelling copious quantities of pasta and gelato into his personage.

Luni Mare

Luni Mare was not so bad. We read a few poor reviews from visitors but as we are interested in archaeology we decided to go anyway. It’s a Roman ruin in Liguria not far from La Spezia and has a free car park so we decide to stay the night there. While it was a little, shall we say ‘unloved’, it was still pretty interesting. The museum holds some lovely marble statues and other roman artefacts but the actual Temple of Luna is rather a disappointment. The amphitheatre is a short walk from the main site and was pretty impressive.

Snap snap - amphitheatre action

It was good to see a group of archaeology students digging trenches and shovelling dirt in good old Time Team fashion. Below are some pics of the site.

You’d think it would be difficult to take a bad picture of a temple of the moon - but no.

Out On a Limb

At last, we’ve now reached a part of Italy which does not have twiddly roads - for now anyway. We spent a night in Sabbioneta, a World Heritage site, which is famous for its renaissance architecture (and persistent mosquitos), drove on into the mountains to Carpintere, and today to LuniMare, an open air Roman ruin and museum. Below are some pics of Sabbioneta - they had kindly put on an antique market for our visit.

The road today was exceptionally circuitous but we had a bit of amusement along the way. At one of the many roadworks we encountered we were stopped by a lovely chap in a high viz jacket. As dozens of cars backed up behind us and clock ticked over, everyone was wondering what was going on. There was the slight hint of a chain saw in the background and, after a stationary 25 minutes, we heard a giant crack as a very large tree fell across the road. All hands grabbed chainsaws and started sawing off limbs, a mini digger appeared and lifted them onto a truck. There was not a hard hat in sight. We later saw an ambulance heading in their direction and wondered if anyone had lost a limb or got a whack in the head.

After a few minutes casually blowing the debris from the road, the smiling worker waved us on with his lovely green paddle. 

Rocks and Romans

Who knew northern Italy had the most fabulous examples of prehistoric rock art? Not us anyway. I stumbled across some information about Vallecamuna online and, as it was relatively close we drove across to the area. As well as roman amphitheatres and the most beautiful statue of Minerva we have seen (in Cividate Cammuna) their are several locations full of rock art. The main one we visited was Naquane in Capo di Ponte. There is a museum in town which has some carved stelae from the Cemmo site and others. We stayed At a 10 euro a night site with its very own labyrinth to amuse children and foreigners like us. Below are some photos from both the roman and rock carving sites.