Luckily the towns we were going through today had some very interesting ancient 'walled centers'. First up Montefiascone on the south end of Lake Bolsena, the largest volcanic cauldron lake in Europe apparently. Next in line was Viterbo with a quite amazing medieval area within the walls, and to finish, Caprancia, much smaller than Viterbo, but with it's own impressive medieval streets and buildings plastered onto steep hill-sides.
The riding in between all of these places, and along Lake Bolsena itself on any other day would have been very beautiful ... we think. However today was a mix of fog, low lying cloud, and on cue according to YR.NO , heavy rain at 3 pm for the last hour of our ride. As a result we saw squat, except for the cool walled towns. We still had the ups and downs on the hills, and from this we could approximate what the surrounding country side looked like .. but we'll have to buy a postcard to be sure! No pics of the narrow steep streets of Caprancia ... it's getting dark now at just after 5 pm, and by the rime we got checked in, dried out and cleaned up it was pitch black! Cool place though, and no tourists except us!
Tomorrow is Rome! An equal mix of excitement and dread. Today we rode inside the 100 km radius and noticed a significant jump in traffic and general business. Although there looks to be a nice bike path right to the Vatican City along the Tiber river we are a little nervous about what lies between us right now and that bike path. Rome is not exactly known as a really bike friendly place (our recollection of it from ~15 years ago is that it was horrendous for anything other than walking!). That's tomorrows' problem though.
Song of the Day, Water Fountain by Tune Yards. A bit of an oddball song but I like the line in the chorus line "No Water in the Water Fountain" ... but that is certainly not the case here as there are still roman fountains with potable water everywhere!
First up ... the castle at the town of Bolsena. The place is a bit of a resort town as it's right on the north shore of the lake. Still has the old ancient castle / fort to balance out the modern resorts along the lake
We continue to be surprised at how much infrastructure and recognition there is of the Via Francigena. I guess it rivals the El Camino in popularity. This sign is letting the Pilgrims know that they are getting close!
...and a lot more in Viterbo. The Medieval quarter was very decked out in jack-o-lanterns, ghosts and witches ... didn't think Halloween was that popular in Italy
most of the streets were like this... and quite a few had stairs ... which we found out through trial and error! It took a while to find our way out, even with GPS!
