We woke up this to discover that our neighborhood had been invaded. Villetta Barrea calls itself the “borgo di cervi” or “town of deer.” These animals have free reign of the town and each morning they come down to check things out and perhaps have a bit of somebody’s flowers to eat.
They showed no fear whatsoever of John. In fact, I think this one was posing for a picture.
And this doe was insistent that she wanted the cookies in John’s pocket.
We had been told the previous day that our fellow hikers were two women from The Netherlands. They were staying in our hotel, and we met them at breakfast. Their names were Diana and Sybil. We learned that they were both born and raised in East Germany when it was still under Soviet domination. After university they both had moved to Holland and married Dutch men. After the usual Italian breakfast, we all went to the park office, paid our tour fee, and set off with Emmanuel, our guide, and Laura, his friend.
Diana is just to my left and Laura, just to my right. Sybil is the one in the pink shirt and Emmanuel, not surprisingly, is wearing his uniform. Our goal was to hike to the top of Mount Amaro. This is not the tallest peak in the Apennines, but it is perhaps the most accessible to hikers, and at 2793 meters - a little over 9000 feet - it is a relatively high peak for Italy.
It started out quite easy. But it quickly became and relatively steep ascent, and before long we were scrambling over rocks when we passed the tree line. About this point, I was tempted to say, “I think I’ll meet you all on your way downhill.” But I kept going, and so did John.
We saw some interesting things along the way. The park is a refuge for two critically endangered species, the Marsican Bear and the Abruzzo Chamois. We did not see any of the bear, but we did have a chance, from a distance, to observe the chamois.
We also saw some tiny but stunningly beautiful alpine flowers
and butterflies.
We finally made it to the top - 9,163 feet!
As we ate our lunch, we admired the panoramic vista
and the view of Villetta Barrea and Barrea.
Going downhill was actually harder for most of us. The Apennine Mountains are basically limestone, and most of the path of the mountain was marked by broken limestone. This made going down quite tough because you were never sure if you had a good foothold or not on the gravel.
We made it down hill and back to the park office by about four o’clock. John and I would have loved to rest, but we knew we had about three hours of driving ahead of us to make it up the the town of Ascoli Picena in The Marches. So, we just put our stuff in the car and took off. We found our bed and breakfast without too much difficulty.
Unfortunately, there was nobody there. We did have our phones, and I called the number. A man promised he would be there in about ten minutes. While we waited, we looked around. The building looked like it was old, but have been completely renovated in the past few months. It was at the end of a street in a tiny village about five kilometers outside of Ascoli Picena. One one side of the house was a newly planted grove of some kind of fruit tree; on the other side was the town cemetery.
At least you know the neighbors will not be keeping you up at night!
Bruno arrived and showed us our room. As far as we can figure out, we are the only guests here. There is a pool in the back, and our smallish room opens up to the pool. Bruno told us that the only restaurant that would be open tonight in the area was in the medieval section of the village across the street. We unpacked, and as the sun began to set we went over to the old town. It was quite small, but beautifully restored.
The restaurant had a weird kitschy feel. It was in a fourteenth century building, but it still seemed sort of fake at the same time. But the service was friendly and the food was decent enough. They actually had salad and we devoured the leafy greens along with our pizza.
We came back, exhausted from our travels, but happy.
