14. Hanging water

Acquapendente to Bolsena

A friend of mine pointed out today that Acquapendente means hanging water, and that is indeed how it got its name. We are in volcanic country and Acquapendente was built on a ridge of volcanic rock called tuff. It is criss-crossed with underground streams which bubble through the rock and form waterfalls as well as supplying the Paglia river. We have noticed far fewer tourists since we left Tuscany and places like Acquapendente have realised the value of the pilgrims on the via Francigena as they are not on the normal tourist routes. There is far more of a presence of the pilgrim icon than before and every non Italian we encountered was either a walker or cyclist.

The photo above was taken from our hotel window this morning. Mist - the other hanging water. We had a good meal there last night but the breakfast was very disappointing, particularly as today was a big one.

Both Grant and I think this was one of our favourite days so far. It scored high on beauty and variety and the destination is beautiful. Also no big hills! It was long - almost 25km, but each third was very different. We started the day walking through wide fields of barley (cue Eva Cassidy) and potatoes. The volcanic soil is red and deep and the fields beautifully manicured. We chatted as we walked to a lovely German woman in her 70’s who was doing the walk solo. The second third of the day started with our first view of Lake Bolsena as we came over a rise in the little town of San Lorenzo Nuovo. It is enormous, beautiful and reminds me a bit of Lake Taupo. It was formed from a collapse of part of the volcanic ridge that runs along this part of Italy. Just as we saw the lake, huge storm clouds moved in, with thunder as well. Australians have a bit of a ‘you call that a storm?’ attitude to storms away from their country but this one was big enough to cause us some excitement as well as gratitude for our rain gear. From San Lorenzo Nuovo we moved into a new environment of dense forest with filtered green light and narrow, soft brown pathways. Perfect place to be in a storm and quite lovely. Every now and then the beauty was marred by patches of logging, but it was still very peaceful. Phase three started with the Lake coming back into view. We walked with it to our right while we navigated up and down through farm roads and tracks, with carpets of astonishing wildflowers mixed into fields of barley. We arrived at the castle above Bolsena, the town and then worked our way through the charming medieval town down an incredibly steep cobbled path to the lake. Our hotel (the Hotel Royal) is down by the water and it reminds me of the old colonial hotels of Africa. It’s the oldest hotel here and I’d guess it was built in the early 1900’s if not earlier. Charming and a good place to be as we have a rest day tomorrow.

While I was walking today I was pondering on some new quirks of Italy. Firstly, why are there no dessert spoons? We even eat cereal with a teaspoon. Secondly, why does every hotel and bnb have two flimsy plastic cups each wrapped in their own sealed plastic bag in every room? It makes no difference if there are real cups on offer, the plastic cups are there. EU? The other thing that took us a while to work out is the string with a red toggle that hangs inside every shower. At first we thought it was something you pulled to turn on the extraction fan. It is actually an alarm…though no one has come running any of the times we pulled it in our ignorant days.

The other thing on my mind today was the new ear worm song - On The Road Again, the Willie Nelson country classic. We are nothing if not high brow in our ear worms. It arrived via Grants humming but he only knew the first line so it started driving me nuts. I taught him the tune but we then realised we didn’t know the lyrics so looked them up. They are so good! These lines appealed to me particularly:

On the road again

Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway.

We‘re the best of friends

Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way is

On the road again…

About sums it up. Thank you for all the messages you’ve been sending. This is a bit of a clunky interface for me as it’s not designed for the iPad I’m using, but yesterday I got hold of an app on my phone that will allow me to answer messages on the blog, so please feel free to comment. If you’re enjoying the posts you might like to subscribe as then the blog will just come to you each day without having to hunt it down.

I’m going to take my tired body for a nap. I will leave you with our first view of Lake Bolsena, and tell you more about it tomorrow. Note the pilgrim sign on the restaurant.

Love Marie