Wanderings in Lazio - Labro to Rieti

​Today was going to be a shortish day chilometro wise so after a leisurely morning we ventured out of the castle’s keep.  We walked up the castle’s tower and to some other upper reaches of the edifice.  I asked the host how long her family had been here and she said over a thousand years!  

The day’s route started with a vigorous climb. Several groups of Italian road riders passed us and we had some conversations as they passed.  When we made it to the top of the climb a group of them were at the water fountain and one man came over to find out what we were all about.   

He was interested in where we were from, where we were going and what we thought about Italy.  He gave us a recommendation on how to change our route a bit which we took him up on.  We ran into many helpful people today. One woman saw us filling our bottles at a water fountain in a town we were passing through and she said fill up again in a couple of hundred meters as the next roadside fountain was very cold spring water.  Yes it was and yes we did.  While at that fountain a woman on an e bike was doing the same and peppered us with rapid fire Italian.  She was telling us the history of the fountain and that if you drank the water you would find a husband or something like that!  Anyway, so much fun trying to communicate!   We passed through some pretty towns and some stunning scenery once again on our way to Rieti. 

We stopped in a shady spot to regroup and there was some church to our left.  An elderly man walked down to us and asked if we were pilgrims or tourists.  I have neglected to mention that almost our entire route to now has been roughly following the Way of St Francis which is a pilgrimage that starts in Canterbury and ends in Rome.  He wanted us to come see the church which he seemed to be the caretaker for. We had some challenges communicating but he was a whiz with google translate!   Here he is standing in front of an inscribed stone that was over 2200 years old.  It was an ancient church as well with some interesting artifacts.  

So we are now settled into to two extraordinarily nice apartments that seem to be geared toward pilgrims on the St Francis Way. We even were given a garage to put our bikes in so we didn’t have to push up the stairs.  The host just texted me to say that there is an international pepper festival on the main square tonight so we now have our evening plans made for us!