Day 1…A walk in the clouds for some while the jet lag bug bites for others.

For those of you who have never traveled internationally, jet lag is real and when it bites it sucks. My first time to Spain for the Camino I couldn’t sleep on the plane, for the most part due to the fact that I was excited about my trip. I tired, tossed and turned put my eye mask on but what sleep I got was in fits and starts. By the time I got to my hotel room in Madrid at 12:30 pm I felt like crap with symptoms resembling the flu. I immediately went to bed and slept for six hours straight and moved on.

But, sometimes jet lag can be a delayed effect, which was what happened to my son Stephen in Assisi, disrupted sleep patterns and rich food (truffles on cacio e pepe are delicious but very, very, rich…and just for the record, Stephen, unlike his father :-), does not imbibe) combined to create a bad day at black rock for him the night prior to the kick off of our hike…which I found out about with a knock on the door at about 5am. So, while typical procedure in such cases is to send the ailing hiker along to the next town with the luggage to wait for the rest of the group to catch up, I just could not, in good conscience let him ride to the next town without accompanying him so that we could visit the pharmacist and see what remedies we could come up with.

I say all of that to say this. There are going to be a lot of pictures from William, Mike and Melanie in this post plus a lovely music accompanied montage put together by Mike Salvino but commentary will be much more abbreviated and anecdotal.

Eremo Delle Carceri, or monastery of the prison is a hermitage used by St. Francis and his followers, which was at one time a prison, located at an elevation of roughly 2,600 feet on Monte Subasio and roughly 2,000′ above where we started in Assisi. As I was not of a mind to start a hike with a 2000′ climb, I had made prior arrangements with our luggage carrier/Taxi driver Giancarlo (a great guy of whom you will hear of more) to carry the five of us up to the monastery from which we would visit the property and then commence our hike. Well three of us made that portion of the trip while Stephen and I took the low road with the luggage.

So, there is a story about the fence/gate. As I was planning the hike, I noticed that there were two ways to get to the path shown beyond the fence/gate which was the path we were to use to come down from the mountain. One was to go through the gate, which was locked, the other was to leave the monastery and walk a mile and a half around the periphery of the monastery to the same spot. I had contacted the monastery to see if we could go through the gate to which I received the response “yes there is a gate, it is locked, but you are welcome to walk around the perimeter of the property”. Two things, based on this, and the Basilica in Assisi 1. I have begun to come to the conclusion that the Franciscan Order in Italy may not be the most accommodating religious order that has come down the pike and 2. Italians, similar to the Japanese, do not like to come out and directly say no to someone they do not know. It’s kind of cute actually.

What I had hoped was that there was a combination lock on the gate and the monastery would share the code (this occurred in Calabria as we passed through a reservoir area) but alas this would not be the case. Our subgroup (Mike, Melanie and Will) were undaunted and determined that they could go over the stone wall and bypass the gate. Will later told me that he was concerned that the “Pope Police” would come and disrupt their impromptu trail blazing LOL.

Once clear of the gate they were on the side of and going over Monte Subasio with some truly beautiful pics:

While the intrepid trio was hanging on the side of Monte Subasio, Stephen and I were heading to the town of Foligno a very pleasant town about 12 miles from Assisi.

For those unfamiliar with Italy, many towns have a “Centro” or central business district which is typically vehicle restricted and pedestrian friendly. We were fortunate enough to find a hotel that was right on the hiking path and just two short blocks from Centro. Thus Stephen and I were able to stroll to la farmacia and discuss with the pharmacist (who fortunately spoke very good english…my Italian is sufficient to make sure that you are fed, watered and have a room to sleep in but but describing medical issues is still a bit above my pay grade LOL) Stephen’s ailments and get some products to give him some comfort and let him sleep. Refreshed, we had a lovely dinner at a local restaurant in the Centro where the chef also doubles as the maitre d ‘ truly we did not have a bad meal in Umbria, well other than tomorrow but more on that later as there were extenuating circumstances.

And now what I mentioned earlier a music backed montage from Mike Salvino. Bravo mi amico!

Tomorrow we are all back on the path hiking to the Olive Oil Capital of the world and the Black Celery Festival, Trevi. Salute!

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