Boog's Blog

Monday 27 October

Day started with a needed long recuperative sleep and an excellent breakfast. Northern European tourist style, not Italian.

3200 year old obelisk of Ramses pictured. In the same square: Santa Maria Del Popolo

Giolotti, the oldest and maybe the most famous gelato and bar. Outstanding service and quality. Both Bobby and Dr. Bill recommended or possibly insisted. They are correct!

Chiesa di sant'ivo Alla sapienza, turns out to be open only Sunday and Wednesday.

Panthenon, one of the greatest buildings of all time. A joy to see up close and inside. My favorite place of this trip.

Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Essentially a cathedral, worth looking up. Very Gothic. Only Florentine Gothic circa 1280.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_sopra_Minerva

Fine family style cooking dinner at Su & Giu cucina romana.

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Sunday 26 October same cool morning and warn afternoon.

Final walk, ends at the Vatican of course.

Day starts with an oops. End of daylight savings time. We were too early for breakfast. Would not have mastered at breakfast time was late at the dump. Happy to leave walked a few km to La Sorta and found a lovely pasticceria.

Every since leaving the week maintained viterbo the street, pays, roads, national parks have gotten increasingly filthy. Clearly no civic pride. Paths through risk parks used as dumping areas. Rome itself seems cleaner than the approaches.

Nice view from Mount Mario will a long cobbled descent to the city base. If feet were not sure already this would surly do the trick.

CaminoWays tour company messed up again. Sent luggage to the wrong hotel. Useless tour company.

Excellent room, actually several rooms, at the NH.

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Saturday 25 October. Same weather.

Learned of the Finance police who stop you when leaving shops. No receipt, you pay a fine. Even for a lollipop. This explains why shops have insisted I take a receipt even when buying just an apple.

Animals grazing, mostly horses and cattle in the very large Parco Veio. Ancient city of that name nearby.

Some long step hills on this very pretty section. Good views. Overall a fine walk today.

Picnic lunch as pictured. An enjoyable repast in a spectacular location.

Joined, intermittently five other walkers. Easy conversation as English the common language.

Not very clean,very sparse hotel. No heat! When I ask about it they tell me to use a blanket. It is Italy, eh!!!

Decent Wi-Fi but few towels and bar closed as it is late in the season. The other five walkers went to the next town, about 2km to stay as it has services. Here there are none; no place to eat. Poor planning by the travel company.

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Friday 23 October

The farm: number one product is prosciutto, followed by pasta, and fruits. Learned this as we had some of the best prosciutto ever for dinner.

To reduce a 35km stage the owner took us several kms up the road where we used the fine internet navigational tools to rejoin the path.

Leaving the Sutri area with its much used tufa building material. Expect to see this in abundance in Rome. Tufa from Sutri was a popular building material in the early Roman empire.

Much of the path today was downright ugly and boring. Poor walking surfaces and much rubbish in the national parks. A few decent paths through agricultural areas.

Lunch in a very charming underground restaurant. Good pasta, more porcini for qb, and a salad. They served fried pizza dough along with bread. Maybe it went with the salad.

Hotel another zero star dump except for an outstanding shower. Six Jacuzzi heads. At least ten settings. Train head, mirror. Qb wanted a light to improve it.

No Wi-Fi but T-Mobile unlimited 2G works. Has been a good surprise as it has worked almost everywhere, even in remote fields.

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Thursday 23 October good walking weather. Chilly start.

Hotel is a farmhouse, agrotuismo montefusco. More on this below.

Breakfast starts, at Benedicta, by there being none at the hotel. Owners did not bother to get up. Luckily there are cafe in town. Showed up for a very meager offering just as we were departing.

Walked with Philip and Francois. Long distance walkers. Very nice and interesting. Qb got to speak French. Spent about seven hours walking with them; they are finishing up after two months on the road.

Hazelnut farm, good grapes, and outstanding apples which we picked off a tree. The walnuts, found on the ground, were fresh and delicious. The apples were the best we have had in a long long time.

Wooded and forest walking, lovely. Even the rough patches around a stream were more than fine.

Bit longer day at over 29 km.

Roman amphitheater in Sutri. Augustus built.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutri

Agriculture tourism place, overly rustic, many kms from the path, hard to find, no hot water initially, lovely physical setting.

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Wednesday 22 October

Hotel Tuscia turned out to be an average European hotel, well situated in the center of the town,with an outstanding staff. Friendly, helpful and professional. Made the three night stay a pleasant one.

Adventure starts with a departure photo.

Early start on a cool morning. Warmed up.

The stage was an easy one, mostly good roads and paths, no big rocks to scramble over. Agricultural with mostly olive groves. Black and green olives on the same tree.

Also an area for porcini. Qb had them for dinner, served over house made pasta, as did I with some very stringy baked cheese.

Is this well known and only I am surprised?

Another extremely friendly hotel. Served us coffee and water on arrival. Explained the continuing saga of coffee terms.

At dinner met a walker on day 70, from Canterbury! A crazy Britt from Wales. Fully hyper.

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Monday 20 October sunny

First a quandary. When I try and charge an iPhone with a USB connection directly to a wall plug it charges fine. However the iPad, which requires 2.1 amps does not charge. Surely an Italian wall plug can draw 10 watts. Additional I have a portable battery which I use to to up my phone, it too will not charge with a standard mini USB. Works fine at home.

A rest day with some napping

A week preserved medieval city with a five km wall and several gates. Cobblestoned of course.

Coffee shops, none according to the local tourist office; one about 100 meters from their office.

Traffic, heaviest on the small medieval streets. To the point of danger.

Aqua cotta a local vegetable bread egg soup.

Four cheeses with honey.

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Sunday 19 October, evening

Long days ride. London,Rome and then train to viterbo. uneventful except for the poorly organized Heathrow with its endless entry and security lines.

Uneventful but not uncomplicated. The train from the airport to Rome is easy. In the main station we expected to find a train to viterbo. Have a rail pass -so just hop on. Nope. No trains from there. Scant information. Took the metro to another station that had a local to Viterbo. There was an easier way but what the train board showed was that the other way was not. Too unclear so e took the Metro.

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Tuesday 21 October sunny

Final test and tourist day here.

Power solved. To draw 2.1 amps, what an iPad requires, one must use a grounded adaptor. Three pronged small pins in Italy, or at least this part of Italy. However this overheats the USB adaptor. Until we can find a better adaptor qb cannot charge the iPad.

Tasteful cloths all. As one expects all are attired well. Cloths in the shops are highly tailored, very not California.

Views are of the papal palace, really a fortress. Popes were rarely safe from armies, many wanted the papal estates.

Dinner at a tavala fredda.

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