From: Isola Farnese
To: Bracciano
Miles: 14
Total: 681
Today’s walk got us out of the Rome suburbs and back into rural Italy. Gone are the sidewalks and wall-to-wall people. Now it’s rolling pasture land and what we would call Farm to Market roads back home.
The day got started with a good breakfast at the hotel and we were out the door at 9:00. The temperature was in the low 40’s, sunny skies, no wind, and zero chance of rain. In fact, we haven’t seen rain in about three weeks and there’s none in the forecast for the next two weeks. Immediately after leaving the hotel we were out of town and onto rural roads. The traffic was fairly heavy all day but we managed just fine.
We knew there would be minimal choices for lunch today, so at about 11:00 we came upon a gas station with a cafe attached. They had all we needed; a coke, slice of pizza, and a Snickers bar. So after our 45 minute break, we were all juiced up and ready to finish off the day.
Bracciano is a fairly small place, although it does have a castle on a hill overlooking the town. There were three options of a place to stay here. We decided to just check them out based on their order on our route through town. The first, a B&B, was just on the edge of town. It didn’t look that great from the outside, the gate was locked, and there wasn’t an easy way to contact the owners, so we checked that one off the list. The next option was a hotel in the middle of town. We went in, checked out the rooms we’d be getting, and decided to stay here at the Alberto Della Posta. It’s a bit dated, but how picky can you get when your only other option is to keep walking down the road with only one more place to pick from?
So overall, today was a good day. Tomorrow it’s another light day of about 13 miles. We’re sneaking up on Florence; we’ll be there in about 10 days.
