20:19
Location: Civita B&B dining room, Civita di Bagnoregio, Italy



Well, as you'll gather from the location, I made it. (See the first post for today for an explanation). And what a spot: I'm sitting along in the B&B--Franco the owner and his daughter Elisabetta have gone home for the night, presumably to Bagnoregio, the town next door, leaving me the keys and a half litre of wine. The dining room seats 38, has a 15 foot high ceiling of vaulted wood painted dark brown, and a small fireplace. The room still smells vaguely of smoke from the fire they had going earlier in the day.

And what a wonderful village. It's perched precariously on top of a steep hillside, with sharp and sudden drops on all sides, so there's no room for new construction even if it were desired. And who would desire it? Each building is ancient, feels ancient, and fits to perfection.

I was a bit worried about tourists here, after finding Cinque Terre packed with Rick Steves-toting Americans. He's the guy whose book put me on to this place, too, to be fair. But here, I needn't have worried: not only am I the only guest in the only B&B in town, but there was an entire film crew in the middle of the village today (their equipment is still scattered around) so my visit hardly warranted a second glance from the stunned locals, and I slipped unobtrusively through the village when I went for a wander.

I'll undoubtably have more to write about Civita tomorrow, so I'll skip back a bit and describe the journey here. From Florence to Orvieto was a smooth, event-free trip on an Intercity express. Orvieto was a very pleasant surprise. I had an hour to kill there before my bus to Bagnoregio, so I took the funicular up to the town and poked around. It is reasonably large, but very attractive, set (as is Civita) on top of a hill. I should pause to explain that the terrain around here is really interesting: a bit like the mesas of Arizona, only with lots of foliage (and fauna). The lower parts of the hills are normal, covered in forests or farms, but there are often upper parts that seem to be made of quite different stuff, plateaus surrounded by steep cliffs that extend up about 50 or 100 feet from the hillside. Hence the lucky strategic positions of the towns and villages, and their marvellous views.

Anyway, I poked around Orvieto for a little while, stopping in to see the church (big, old, incorporating the ruins of something even older) and picking up some food in a grocery store (bread, chocolate, apples, cheese). Then I stopped in the post office to get stamps for a couple of postcards, and when back to the funicular to go down to the station and catch my bus.

The bus' route went past a local technical college and through a half dozen hillside towns and villages before coming to Bagnoregio. There were a few other passengers, all young women who had the look of students on their way home from class. They all got off before me.

In the last few minutes of the trip, the bus went along a road that ran parallel to Bagnoregio and provided a glorious view of Civita, stuck on its own little rock at the far end. My camera was buried, so I wasn't able to get a picture in time, but I'll try and make it out there tomorrow.

The last part of the trip was a short hike through Bagnoregio. It ended with a downhill walk to a little parking lot serving Civita--cars can't enter the village--and a walk across the pedestrian footbridge from there to Civita itself, with a steep upwards climb at the end for good exercise!

A very satisfying day.
posted by Tom at 8:55 PM | link |