Travel Journal: Italy – Self-Guided Walk Day 3

In September, I traveled to Italy for two weeks with some of my family, which included an 85-mile, 6 day self-guided walking tour through the Italian countryside. We also spent time in Rome, Venice, Florence, Pompeii and Naples. 

Catch up on my other posts about this trip here:

Walking Rieti to Rome – Summary
Doors of Italy
Exploring Rieti
Self-Guided Walk Day 1
Self-Guided Walk Day 2
Self-Guided Walk Day 3
Castello Orsini Hotel
Self-Guided Walk Days 4 and 5
Self-Guided Walk Day 6
The Colosseum and Exploring Rome
St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum
Pompeii and Naples
Venice
Florence

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The third day of our self-guided walk started in Poggio Moiano and took us to Nerola. It was “supposed” to cover about 11 miles (more on that in a minute) and took us down from the mountains onto the Tiber Valley plain passing through more farmland and orchards.

Looking back, this was somewhat of a roller coaster day. Overall, I think it was the prettiest day we had as far as views go. But we also had what might have been the two steepest sections of the entire walk. And of course, going up steep inclines usually meant that the way back down was just as steep which most of the time was just as hard. And I say this with very little exaggeration, my right foot, (the healthy, not-sprained one), basically felt like it was on fire the whole day. I thought the day before had gone well considering my sprained ankle, but I completely underestimated what that would do to my other foot, which was covered in more blisters than I had ever experienced at one time while playing sports and dancing growing up.

Oh and… we got lost.

Or more specifically, we missed where we were supposed to veer off for our hotel (the guide book directions didn’t always take us all the way to the front door) and continued on another 3-4 miles and the NEXT day’s route. We had also gotten too spread out as a group, so when we finally all got back in one spot, we were in the next town over and then had to figure out how to catch a bus that would take us back to where we originally supposed to be. It all adds to the adventure I suppose but at the time I was never more happy to see a bed.

This was the view outside of my grandparents room. My Grammy took the picture above earlier in the morning when the fog was still settled and I took the ones below a while later. I felt like this should be part of a Lord of the Rings movie set!

The first stretch leaving Poggio Moiano was so pretty!

There are sheep and Great Pyrenees (guard dogs) in there off to the left, but what I wanted to point out was the bathtubs! We saw this a few different times and assumed that they must use them for water troughs.

Even in another country, my Mom had to pull me away from studying the livestock. This guy and his gals were pretty different from what I am used to.

This field looked plowed and ready to go, but all of the white/light color that you see? Those are rocks!!! We saw this quite a bit in most of the olive tree orchards and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Me and Mom

My cousins Ginger and Daryl

Aunt Diane, Grampy and Grammy

We stopped in Poggio Corese for some Coke Zero’s and a late lunch. They were actually closing for the afternoon (which a lot of the little towns we passed through did), but stayed open for us, which was VERY appreciated. We seasoned this pasta with a spice called “peperoncino.” It was delicious and I hoping I can find it again here, possibly at the Italian grocery store that is a few blocks from my apartment.

It was a long, but beautiful day. That night we stayed in a 12th century castle and I’ve decided to give that its own blog post because it was just so cool and definitely one of the main highlights of our trip.

I’ll be back in a few days with that post!

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And just for fun here are some of my other past Travel Journal posts:

Nashville, Tennessee – Girls Weekend
London, England
Estes Park, Colorado
Thailand and the Philippines
Tumon Bay, Guam
New York City – Girls Weekend
Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Antigua, Guatemala