With every one now on the mend our intrepid little troupe headed east through the small city of Foligno to our ultimate goal for the day being the hilltop village of Trevi the self proclaimed “Olive Oil Capital of the World” but little did we know that we were in store for more.
If I were ever to move to Italy, I think Foligno would be the type of town I would like to live in. Very clean with trimmed shrubs and mowed lawns. Little, if any graffiti of the type you see in Naples, Rome, or the south, but, still very much having the laid back vibe of “La dolce vita” (the sweet life) that one craves, at least I do, about Italia. As we worked our way out of town I dropped by a couple of supermarkets (what can I say, I am a student of the industry LOL).
This operation tends more towards a farmers market type operation but I did not take any photos in store. The other unit I visited was LIDL (which I thought I had a picture of but apparently not). With LIDL think ALDI plus a bakery. One thing I have noticed about supermarkets in Europe in general is that “store cleanliness” which is considered vital in US supermarket operations, is not so important in Europe. Not that the stores are nasty dirty (refrigerated cases are clean and floors are basically clean) it’s just that the stores always look hammered, like they have had a big day of shopping and no one has had a chance to straighten anything out. OKay, enough Busman’s holiday, back to the hike.
As we left town we started to understand why the Umbria region is called the green heart of Italy.
As we wound through the Olive groves Melanie, go a nice picture of the three Scuderes
Shortly after that Will discovered an interesting tractor in a shed.
Our guess was it was slow through the curves but ran like hell on the straight aways LOL!
We saw the Italian Equestrian center where athletes train for the Olympics.
The area was truly quite peaceful and beautiful and many folks were out in the Olive groves beginning to harvest this year’s olive crop.
As we reached the end of the day’s hike only one thing remained. A 400′ climb into the “storico” or historic center of Trevi. However, I was done and it was supposed to start raining shortly so I suggested we hail a cab and called Giancarlo. As it so happened, Giancarlo was actually only about 5 minutes away, with our luggage carrying it to our next stay in Trevi. Fortunately he has a large mini van and was able to pile our packs on the luggage and carry us to Trevi. However, he made one stop that he said we shouldn’t miss and he was correct, a scenic overlook of which there is a panoramic picture below.
As we got into town, we came to the realization that the “Black Celery” festival was beginning that day, or it was supposed to until about 2″ of rain fell in two hours. The boys visited a museum while I napped and more will be discussed about the festival next post. For now, Ciao!
Lou Hikes? 