So! As Dom has already mentioned just below – things got off to a tricky start. Rome didn’t want us to leave and she certainly made it difficult for us. Its a crazy driving system. (Even crazier, it works! Much better than in England…) the cars pull out and weave all over the road, its all really fluid, but it doesnt make an attractive prospect for cyclists.
The hills as Dom mentioned were, well, hilly.. it left us feeling slightly demoralised at the end of the day. We had expected a great start but instead were forced to bite the bit and plough on sluggishly. At long last we pulled in to Rieti where we maanged to find the location of a community of Fransicans. One local pointed us in a vague direction behind him and told us it was 800 metres away. Fantastic, we thought. On rounding the corner and seeing what we had to climb it became apparent, however, he had meant 800 metres UPWARDS – not in metres cycled. Hmmm! We dug deep and hit the road. About a kilometre later we dismounted, our sweaty resolve utterly depleted and we treked on foot up the “hill” arriving about 40 mins later at the Fransicans. We were unfortunately too late to stay the night with them, but we noted that they said Mass first thing in the morning and pitched our tent in their car park. It felt pretty good! The car park was like a small plateau on this mountain and we were surrounded by pine trees and various forest foliage. The most beautiful thing were (bizarrely) these little insects Dom found - there were hundreds of them all over the place and they emitted little bright lights from their tail – floating in the air – flying here and there.
The next morning, after a beautifully sung Mass we were invited to have breakfast inside. We were seated with two other lads – a couple of years younger than usm – doing a sponsored walk. I really wish I could remember where to and from… However – they were both from Spain of all places, the younger of them, 18 I think, was applying for the priesthood.
We were then lucky enough to get a guided tour of the monastery with a young novice. His name I think was Fabio – not much older than us. Dom has the photos of the tour which he will hopefully be able to upload after this post, we both felt really privileged to encounter the place where St Francis had written his rule all those many years ago to ‘rebuild’ the Church. It felt inspiring.
The plan was then to head from Rieti to L’Aquila (either one ‘L’ or two…) We set out as soon as we could (They even gave us a bag of biscuits to munch on whilst we travelled!) After our gruelling ride the day before we were given mild relief in the form of some down hill glides. We also discovered that we couldnt glide too fast…our trailers would otherwise wobble horrifically. First Dom and then I had a nasty moment when we both thought our trailers would send us careering off of the road at 30mph. We lived and learnt! Whilst taking a short nap under a tree by the side of the road – we met another well seasoned cyclist with just as much baggage on his panniers as we had on our trailers. His name was Giuseppe Orlando – he provided us with much fun for the next few hours. We were able to offer him some of our biscuits from the Franciscans and we agreed to cycle together for a while. We lost him downhill (he was able to travel far faster) and assumed we’d never see him again. On arriving at L’Aquila we stopped at a cafe for ice cream where lo and behold we met him again! Of all the places and out of all the cafes… We parted with the promise of seeing each other again in Francaville on the easternmost coast of Italy, just below Pescara, where he recommended to us a very good campsite. Just hours later we decided to stop for the night and pitch our tent (for free) outside a very hospitable motel style building. You’ll never guess who was already there? Giuseppe! A lovely surprise for us and him. We shared some fresh cherries and then parted ways the next morning. Alas, despite making it to Francaville we didnt meet Giuseppe again - we did however meet his ex-pupil, one of the ladies running the campsite we stayed in…! Bizarre coincidence!
On that note I gotta go – times a wasting and Doms about to post another – hopefully with pics etc. Tonight we hope to board a ferry to Croatia, fingers crossed. Please keep Giuseppe and the Franciscan community in your prayers,
God Bless,
Phol 