Walking...for a loooong time.
Today we walked quite far. At times I was worried that it would be an unproductive day but, as always, everything was fine.
Mum wanted to visit L'Aquila, another town in the region of Abruzzo. I'd read a bit about it in a museum we'd visited the other day but really didn't know much about it, how to get there, or what to do when we got there. However after missing a coach in that direction by 15 minutes we discovered that by changing in Sulmona we could get there by train in 2 and a half hours. This does sound like a long time but it is the same to Rome and as the route is via mountains it didn't matter.
Arriving at L'Aquila, on the outskirts as train stations normally are. We headed left. Hmmm... Now this is the first thing we did wrong. L'Aquila was hit badly by an earthquake in April 2009 so many of the buildings show a lot of damage and war wounds, which is a shame. But the road in and out of the old town (it turned out) is pretty much one way, and the way we decided to walk was not accessible to pedestrians. We discovered this after walking for an hour and a half up...yes up...a road. Typical. So after much deliberating around the start of the "cars only" road we headed down a side street that promised a tourist attraction of "La Fontana delle 99 cannelle". For the Isle of Wighters among you, this side street was worse than Zig Zag Road! But sure enough, at the bottom was a fountain.
The fountain was incredible. Around three walls of a small piazza it consists of 99 (although I only counted 93 many times) heads that pour water into a channel around the edge of the piazza. There is a photograph of women washing in the fountain and also a plaque explaining how it was restored after the earthquake of 2009. This fountain is where we ended up eating our lunch, courtesy of Lidl, as we had given up trying to get to the old town. An hour of walking was enough for us.
Argh...I'm tired so going to cut this story short...
On the way back we sat on the wrong train at the station and had to be told by the cleaners where we needed to be. And then we ended up waiting for our connecting train in Sulmona for an hour and a half. This wasn't so bad but we did walk for 30 minutes to the centre of the town which was actually worth the walk (for once). The streets were narrow and the town itself was quite old. We managed to top up our water bottles from a fountain at the top of the town before turning a corner to see a massive piazza with beautiful scenic mountains behind, stunning.
Anyway, I am going to post the photograph of today up tomorrow because right now, all the walking. I am going to bed!
Mum wanted to visit L'Aquila, another town in the region of Abruzzo. I'd read a bit about it in a museum we'd visited the other day but really didn't know much about it, how to get there, or what to do when we got there. However after missing a coach in that direction by 15 minutes we discovered that by changing in Sulmona we could get there by train in 2 and a half hours. This does sound like a long time but it is the same to Rome and as the route is via mountains it didn't matter.
Arriving at L'Aquila, on the outskirts as train stations normally are. We headed left. Hmmm... Now this is the first thing we did wrong. L'Aquila was hit badly by an earthquake in April 2009 so many of the buildings show a lot of damage and war wounds, which is a shame. But the road in and out of the old town (it turned out) is pretty much one way, and the way we decided to walk was not accessible to pedestrians. We discovered this after walking for an hour and a half up...yes up...a road. Typical. So after much deliberating around the start of the "cars only" road we headed down a side street that promised a tourist attraction of "La Fontana delle 99 cannelle". For the Isle of Wighters among you, this side street was worse than Zig Zag Road! But sure enough, at the bottom was a fountain.
The fountain was incredible. Around three walls of a small piazza it consists of 99 (although I only counted 93 many times) heads that pour water into a channel around the edge of the piazza. There is a photograph of women washing in the fountain and also a plaque explaining how it was restored after the earthquake of 2009. This fountain is where we ended up eating our lunch, courtesy of Lidl, as we had given up trying to get to the old town. An hour of walking was enough for us.
Argh...I'm tired so going to cut this story short...
On the way back we sat on the wrong train at the station and had to be told by the cleaners where we needed to be. And then we ended up waiting for our connecting train in Sulmona for an hour and a half. This wasn't so bad but we did walk for 30 minutes to the centre of the town which was actually worth the walk (for once). The streets were narrow and the town itself was quite old. We managed to top up our water bottles from a fountain at the top of the town before turning a corner to see a massive piazza with beautiful scenic mountains behind, stunning.
Anyway, I am going to post the photograph of today up tomorrow because right now, all the walking. I am going to bed!
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