From: Torre Santa Sabina
To : Fasano
Miles: 22
Total: 329
Today was one of those typical days you get when you’re backpacking like Dave and I. Basically you never know what the day will bring so you just go with it.
First, the day started with the most amazing breakfast. As is typical in these foreign hotels, breakfast is included. But that can be very wide ranging from just some bread, cereal and coffee or juice to a full spread that you could not possibly do justice to. This morning, Dave and I were the only guests in the dining room and the hotel owner just kept bringing out all this food. We ate all we could hold but there was just too much for two people.
Next, you’ll remember in yesterday’s post that the hotel owner’s “mama” was going to do our laundry last night and we could get it at breakfast this morning. While we were eating, I noticed our clothes sitting in two bags on a nearby table. After we had filled up on breakfast, we decided to sort through the laundry so we could go pack our backpacks before checking out. While doing this sorting, I noticed I had one sock missing. To most of you that wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But I only have four pair of socks. And like you, if you lose one sock, you may as well lose two socks. So I was about to be down 25% of my socks. I informed the hotel owner and he showed great concern. He was obviously as concerned about my missing sock as I was. After all, his mama’s reputation was at stake here. So he promised to find my sock. So we went on up to pack and would check on the missing sock a few minutes later when we checked out. When I came back down to the lobby all packed up and ready to go, still no sock. He asked me to give him five more minutes. Sure enough, five minutes later up drives a man who came into the lobby grinning and holding up my sock. I was happy, the owner was happy, and mama was happy. Somehow the missing sock caper had been solved.
We spent the first hour of this cool, windy day walking along the service road of Italy’s version of an Interstate Highway. Then we turned onto a more rural road that immediately headed into olive groves. The road was lined with low rock walls on both sides. After walking several miles along this winding, one lane road through many olive groves, we happened upon a sign that gave a description of the road. Known as The Trojan Way, it was part of a road system built during ancient Roman times around 244 B.C.. It is also part of a series of bicycle trails used for races in Italy similar to the Tour de France. Unfortunately, it appeared the ancient Romans weren’t so concerned about their roads draining off after rains because we spent part of our day going around very large pools of water that went from wall-to-wall across the road. Sometimes we could hug the edge of the wall and get by, but other times we had to scale the wall and find our way through the olive grove to get around “city lake.”
Finally we found our way off The Trojan Way and back onto a two lane main highway for the last seven miles of our day. Now we’re at a most amazing Bed & Breakfast in the town of Fasano. When we got to the B&B, it was locked. However, we were able to get someone’s attention on the intercom and despite the fact that the owner doesn’t speak a word of English, his teenage son was able to accommodate us by using his cell phone and a language translation program on the internet to get us taken care of.
So after a long, cool, and windy 22 mile day, all is good with the world in Fasano, Italy. We can’t wait to see what kind of excitement we can get into tomorrow.
