Well we finally made it to our (Blog’s) destination, but not
before we had uncovered a few interesting facts.
We departed Pitigliano after a surprisingly quiet night,
which resulted in a rare lie in, after which we headed south west into the
Lazio province, or to be more precise Alto Lazio. We had our coffee break at
Capodimonte, by the shores of Lago di Bolsena. Capodimonte, as you may know, is
famous for porcelain, but we didn’t go into the town to explore. The lake which
it overlooks is a crater lake formed 370,000 years ago and its two islands, of
which one is in the photograph, were formed by underwater eruptions. We
pondered an overnight there but after seeing the aire we decided to continue towards
Umbria . We hadn’t reached the
border before we stumbled across the small town of Valentano ,
and to our surprise we saw it is twinned with Haltwhistle! This made us wonder
if we were in the centre of Italy
en route to an aire at Narni, so when we Googled ‘the geographical centre of Italy ’
what should come up but Narni (in Latin, Narnia)! To save you the bother we
Googled C.S.Lewis & all connections with Narnia and you may be interested
to read this link:
After a few tricky manoeuvres, and ignoring all satnav
directions, we finally made it to the rather cleverly concealed aire on the
side of the rock which Narni stands. For the first time ever we put the
Silverscreens over the front windows in an effort to reflect some of the heat
which was now being thrust upon us. With no shade at the aire we were in the
full glare of the sun, which yet again made the temperature around the 30c, but
today we were more sensible and didn’t brave the heat until post afternoon
cuppa.
Yes, another amazing old town, apparently dating back as far
as 600BC, but the Romans named it Narnia in 299BC. We certainly found it
different from the other picturesque towns we have visited, the architecture
definitely sets it apart from the medieval towns we saw in Tuscany
and Liguria .
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| Approaching Narni/Narnia, somewhere up there we can park this wardrobe! |
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| The only drive through church we've ever seen, complete with traffic lights! |
Back to the subject of the centre of Italy :
Further investigations revealed that there is a rock on the
outskirts of the town signifying the exact centre, so it was a trip back to the
tourist office to find out where this was. The lady in there said it was about
a kilometre out of the town, I later thought ‘she has obviously never been
there’! So, armed with a map I set off about 6pm
on my quest for this mysterious rock. Things started well, on the outskirts of
the town I found a tourist sign showing the direction to ‘Centro Geografico
d’Italia’, even an idiot could work that one out, so I had no
problem! After about a mile and reaching the outskirts of Narni’s satellite
village I found a confirmation sign pointing up a steep hill. Fortunately it
was only about 20c by now but enough for me to ‘glow’ somewhat. After about ½
mile I came to the tourist parking area at the entrance to a wood, ‘can’t be
far now ‘ I’m thinking. It’s now turning into a lovely evening walk in the
woods, the path is very good and each time I start to wane in my quest for the
hidden rock I get a reassuring sign confirming that I am in fact on the
right path. In the solitude there is a sense that maybe I have entered another
world but I definitely didn’t come through any wardrobe. The evening sun is
flickering through the trees and it is now a very enjoyable evening stroll and
then……….there it is, my precious! The small rock with a chrome spire
protruding, some inscription on it and a rather corny sign above, but I’d made
it!
And St Meen le Grand is in Yann's département!!
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