I caught a cab back to the place that I left off yesterday and it sure felt weird to be racing along in a vehicle. From Ponte de Rigo, I had a choice of a longer route or a shorter route. You know, the old lady or the tiger choice. The shorter route was all on a busy highway and the longer route was through the countryside. I started on the shorter route for about a half mile and I realized trucks were speeding by me at an alarming rate so I turned around and decided to take the longer route. What the heck...I was here to walk. Well, it was about 9 miles longer making the total for the day 15.4 miles.
I have never seen silos like these. The looked like giant birdhouses.
This is the two-lane road. As you can see, there is not much room if two vehicles meet beside the hiker (me)!
I love Italian signs! If you look closely there is a cloud with rain coming out of it and the blue section underneath is the symbol for ice. Pretty clear that the roads get slippery.
What a noisy, chattering bunch and the odd colored one was making the most noise!
Another day of beautiful weather and magnificent views!
This is the only town that I walked through at about the 10-mile mark. It was built on the steep side of a mountain. It was pretty big for a mountain-top village but not a bar to be found. I was dying for a coca-cola zero.
The last time I had a grass trail I ended up in a pop-up brothel on the Camino Primitivo or maybe it was the Northern route, both in Spain. So I saw this sort of a shack with one of those round concrete tables and three bike pilgrims were sitting there. They each had a beer. I thought it was a bar so when this very heavy, scantily clothed woman came out, I asked for a coca-cola light. She led me into the nastiest shack and as we were walking down the hall, she was kicking the door shut of each room we passed. In each room was a nude or partially nude woman. Oops. No diet coke and I practically raced out of there and away from the shack. As my friend Terri said, "Only you could end up in a brothel on a religious walk."
This was a fountain with a picnic table nearby. I sat down to eat the sandwich that I had purchased at a bar when I started today. As I watched, the cotinuous flowing fountain was full of bees. Glad I didn't decide to restock my water bladder. Each bee would do a gentle landing, walk down to the water pooling in the fountain (presumably for a drink) and fly off. Since they weren't swarming my way, I found them fascinating to watch.
I caught up with Dave by the "welcome to" sign in Acquapendente. There was a step, very narrow set of stairs before we could climb back up to the village.
The church of Saint Augustine. Look at the dome at the top. There are bushes growing out of it.
The most beautiful part of the inside was the hand-painted dome over the main altar.
The altar of St. Augustine.
This is for Mary Popham who loves door-ways. There is a mural and behind it is the spires of a different church. This town is known for its hospitals. Not modern day ones but several centuries ago, pilgrims knew if they could make it to here, they would find medical help for injuries and illnesses. In those days they would probably apply leeches or bleed them. WE've come a long way!
Caio for today!
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