Escape from Tuscany and Umbria

August 22nd

So in many people's eyes this may seem like a strange thing to say, but we were champing at the bit to get the hell out of Tuscany, and Umbria for that matter. We'd had enough of hill towns, nicely paved streets and damned tourists. It was time for a change. So we planned our escape as follows:

  1. Walk from hotel to Montepulciano Piazza Duomo
  2. Catch local bus through winding-deathride streets to bus terminal
  3. Catch another bus to Chiusi
  4. Catch train to Orte leaving Tuscany to get connecting train leaving Lazio to Terni
  5. If possible stash bags and get bus to local falls and back
  6. Catch "train" (actually a bus) leaving Umbria to L'Aquila in Abruzzo
  7. Get transport of some kind to accommodation, booked on the way once we made sure we could get out of Terni

Simple really. The bus to the bus station wasn't as much of a deathride as the one going into town, although we almost missed it due to me picking the slowest place in Italy to serve coffee. After a coffee and a game of fusball (Hal won 9-4), we got the bus to Chuisi easily, passing through a huge town devoted to mineral springs; Chianciamo Terme. We probably could use some of their liver tonic water at this point -- it is so hard to have a night off the booze in Italian restaurants -- but didn't pause because we were important and had things to do. Or we couldn't get off the bus. We squeaked in making the first train to Orte by the skin of our teeth, and easily managed to catch the next, more crowded, train to Terni. Hal then weaved magic to talk a hotel into looking after our luggage, and then things turned to crap.

We had a bit of time for some crap to happen, but that doesn't make it that much better. And to be honest, it wasn't really that bad, simply frustrating. Let me start by saying Lonely Planet lies. We walked to the centre of town believing that was where we had to go to get the bus to the falls. We then walked back, noting as we went that Terni really wasn't a place to visit but is probably a decent place to live. It used to be called the Manchester of Italy, for it's startling, 19th century tourist-trap factories. Now I'm not sure what they do. We got back to the train station to be told the bus we wanted left from "over there". "Over there" wasn't actually the end of the bus platform as we thought, but around the corner out of sight. We thus missed, probably, several more buses: the quick Number 21. Once we worked out what was happening, by asking a fourth bus driver after sitting on the slower Number 7 and then being herded off, we found out we had missed the 21 and our best bet was the 7 we had been sitting on. Reboarding, we were finally on our way to the falls.

These falls are not your typical falls. It was the one last place in Umbria that I had wanted to see but had failed to get to. The Cascata delle Mamore were constructed by the Romans by building a channel to divert water from a swamp in order to reclaim the land. The work was revisited in the 15th to 18th centuries, mainly due to limestone deposits on the original canal. The Falls can be switched on and off, and are regarded as one of the highest falls in Europe. Not a bad effort. We finally got to the Falls at 3:30pm, about half an hour before they got "turned on". The area is in and of itself quite attractive, but it was quite stunning to see a slow trickle turn into an enormous gush and roar of water. An amazing piece of civil engineering and environmental terrorism.

Having calmed ourselves by the waters, we boarded the late but fast 21 into central Terni. I dashed for the luggage while Hal dashed for the bus to make sure we caught it: the next one was 2 hours later. We caught this one by the narrowest of margins, and thus we sat, sweating, as we were driven for two hours, out of Umbria for the last time, through more mountains, past crystal clear streams and into the totally same Abruzzo.

Finally arriving in L'Aquila at 7pm, the final trek had to be made on foot, up hill, as there were no buses or taxis to be seen. We had arrived at the train station, which, as far as we can determine, no trains actually visit. Half an hour later, having reaquainted ourselves with how much you can sweat in the humid Italian summer, we found our accommdation. This the Lonely Planet did not lie about. However, the current religious nature, large school-like corridors, stark interior, and the half dozen guys watching us as we came in was a little unsettling. Nevertheless we had escaped from Tuscany.

L'Aquila

August 22nd to 24th

Having finally made it to L'Aquila and Abruzzo, we decided to have a wander away from our austere household. It was pretty obvious when we found the main drag: in the evening it was thronging with people doing the usual Italian thang, and during the day we found the main square of the Duomo as equally busy with a market, complete with vans of Porchetta (seasoned whole pork), charcoal-grilled chicken, deep fried bits of seafood, cheeses, salamis etc etc. So far the town was agreeing with us. The first night we decided to abstain from alcohol, and of course we found that the town is populated with dozens of Melbourne-worthy little bars. How the Devil tempts us...

L'Aquila also has a festival around this time of the year. It doesn't involve barrel rolling, jousting or horse racing, not even mud wrestling. What do you get? But of course, unconditional absolution! Sometime in the mmmth century a local hermit made good and was pronounced Pope. He had a small cathedral built for his "coronation", and during the coronation got so excited that absolved everyone who took communion of all their sins. Now you walk through a door on the left of the cathedral, that is locked the rest of the time, for absolution. This wonderous ceremony continues to this day, once a year, absolving locals and visitors from all over the world of their naughty deeds. The pope was not so lucky. Being a hermit he wasn't used to politics and was dethroned and imprisoned by his successor for the final few years of his life. All very Christian.

L'Aquila is also the capital of Abruzzo. Formed by supposedly 99 neighbouring villages, each of which had to build a piazza, a church and a fountain, most of which have been destroyed by earthquakes. The main clock tower in the city irritatingly chimes, we assume at nine o'clock, 99 times. There is also a fountain at the base of the town that is known as the Fountain of the 99 Spigots. Unfortunately there are only 93 "spigots", but who's counting? And I'm not sure on the chiming either. The first night there we came upon the Tower after it had already started chiming. The second night there were thousands of people around it watching all the fireworks they had strapped to the clock tower explode. We are not quite sure why this was necessary but it certainly made the locals happy.

Pescara

August 24th to 25th

The next day we bussed -- because no trains run in Abruzzo from what we can work out -- out of L'Aquila, two hours to Pescara, another Italian seaside town similar to Rimini. Unlike Rimini, this doesn't seem to have an international beach ultimate tournament to redeem it, although it does have plenty of the Italian seaside spread of pay-for umbrellas chopped nicely into blocks of "beaches". What can you say about a town like this? We went for a walk, had a swim -- it was veery niiice, walked more, drank some beer, walked home, walked to the beach, had dinner and walked back again. Actually Pescara was very spread out and, although different from other places with the possible exception of Rimini, highly forgettable. The old area of town, well the area we think is the old area given there were no Centro Storico signs, looked like it could have been a lot of fun, but it was miles from our hotel and we were walked out. We instead had dinner of sauted mixed seafood and a seafood risotto in a typical beach-side restaraunt. Having had our swim, the next day we moved on...

Sulmona

August 25th to 27th

Bus again. This time to Sulmona. We arrived midday in this town famous throughout all Italy for it's confetti. That is, of course, sugared almonds. I knew that. Hal through the magic that is Hal, found us some of our cheapest accommodation yet, in a respectable and old-style hotel. The town had a single main street which everyone was walking, and a town square which at the time we were there was hosting the Saturday market. Ah porchetta vans!! What goodness you hold... Spit roasted pork is only better in Perugia. And one other nice thing about this town: it had trees. For a place surrounded by balding mountains, it was pleasant in both Sulmona and L'Aquila to see so many trees.

Sulmona also holds a festival: instituted in 1995, they too have jousting, where the riders have to spear rings of ever decreasing size and the locals get dressed up in period costume, like some enornmous D&D pr0n fest. Hippies everywhere.

We had two nights in Sulmona and ended up at the same restaurant both nights. Fantastic food and wine which I would tell you about if Hal hadn't put an embargo on me doing so. Interestingly, the waiter -- a truly flamboyant gentleman with white-rimmed glasses -- reckoned the local wine is a variant of Sangiovese, as are Brunello, Montepulciano wines and Montefalco. He went so far as to say that Pinot Noir is the same variety, which I cannot discredit. Hadn't heard that one before: I figure he was just being anti-French, which is fair enough. I tended to trust him given that he could remember what we had for dinner the previous night better than we could.

Next, Rome. We of course get there by bus: nothing else runs in Abruzzo.

Summary

Rating time! So again here are my purely scientifically lucid and mathematically planar ratings of each town: