Nera Valley and Visso and Castelluchio and Umbria

We rented a car for three days while in Spoleto (Abbiamo noleggiato una macchina per tre giorni a Spoleto--well, I think I will stop the real-time translation now...). This and the next few essays will review the trips we took. I hope that you, who will no doubt want to take a car trip through Umbria some day, will file away some of these trip tips for your own benefit.

Day Trips in Umbria

We stayed in Spoleto, the capital of the ancient Lombard duchy and decided to take day trips and then return for concerts and other performances at the Spoleto Music Festival (Festival dei Due Mondi) in the evenings. The first day saw us take a circle to a National Park to the East of Spoleto, through Visso, Castelluchio and finally to Norcia. During the second day we headed for central Umbria through some back roads, repeatedly getting lost, until we came to Montefalco and the Antonelli winery near Montefalco before doubling back towards Spoleto to visit the ancient monastery/church of San Pietro and then the magnificent and stunning Marmore (waterfall) about five miles from Terni. Finally, the third day we headed way up north to take in Assisi and then the most preserved medieval town in Umbria, Gubbio. Here are a few thoughts, with pictures and commentaries on a few of these trips.

Day 1: North to Visso and Over to Castelluchio

The 1980-style map we had didn't show a tunnel built in the 1990s that sliced through the mountains East of Spoleto and delivered us to the beautiful Nera Valley. The day was hot, about 90 degrees, and I knew we eventually would be doing considerable climbing, to reach a road altitude of about 5,000 feet, but first we wended our way through the parklike forests to Visso, a small town in NE Umbria. It was here that we finally learned how "Reverse" worked in our Fiat. I was ready to trade the car in, or at least push it backwards while Virginia, ever the more practical, just played with the stick until she realized she had to so some lifting and sliding before the stick would shift to reverse. That, I am afraid to say, was the most exciting part of our 30 minute stay in Visso. But then we headed over through the National Park, the Sybillini Mountains and to the small mountain hamlet of Castelluccio. On the way, however, we reached a high spot in the road, and so we stopped. As is so often the case in Italy, there were signs of religious (Catholic) faith even in these remote locales, and we found this charming little shrine/chapel at the highest spot in the road.

There was a small outer room, filled with rakes and hoes and other items which made us think that this was a sort of storage shed chapel, but here is the simple altar with pictures of the Virgin Mary. Someone had left some flowers and said some prayers; who can find fault with that?

Also at the crest of a hill was the following sandstone (I think) monument of sorts, celebrating the simple life of the shepherd, tying it also to expressions of religious faith.

Depicted on the sandtone is a man traveling with his flocks. The inscription reads: "When I see you (God) with my flock, I continue traveling hand in hand (with you)." Celebrated here is the simple faith of the isolated shepherd; isolated, but not lonely, he watches his flock, going hand in hand with his Creator.

Drinking in the Vistas

As we left this high point in the road (we could have gone yet higher, to a a resort of sorts), we headed toward Castelluccio, advertised as the highest town in Italy (about 4900 feet above sea level) outside of the Italian Alps. The town was perched on an outcropping of rock and looked out to the towering (8000 feet or more) heights of the Mt. Vettore across the valley. Here is one view of the mountains.

To the right is the tiny village of Castelluccio, but straight ahead (East) are the Sybillini Mountains. You can even see the narrow veins of snow that still were unmelted even in the relatively hot late June sun, though by the time we got to Castelluccio it was not more than 75 degrees, I would imagine. Virginia found a man who made cowbells and bought a new bell for her front door. I though we would find a monastery atop the hill but we did not.

Conclusion

Several hiking trails led from Castelluccio either to the Sybillini in the East, to some hills across the way to the West, or to the valleys surrounding us. We didn't have time to take them, but filed them away for another time though, with Robert Frost, we doubted if we would ever come back. So, we walked through the winding streets of Castelluccio, looked in their tiny church, took pictures of the valley below, walked down narrow passageways and then returned to our car to continue our journey. The next essay tells more.

1959