24 th September

Following my rather tiresome walk through the northern suburbs of VITERBO yesterday, I decided to take a taxi for the 5 km or so out of town to the village of SAN MARTINO AL CIMINO, at the northern edge of the natural park of Lake Vico.
That proved to be a wise decision.
The unwise decision was to purchase a paperback about Walking in Lazio for Lira 22?000, Euro 11,36 before setting off: when it came to decide which way to take, after a steep climb out of San Martino to some sort of sanctuary to a virgin (San Martino ???, I thought that was somebody masculine?..) I had three sources of information, which were my Euro 11,36 book fore walkers, a map provided by the hotel (the tourist office was closed), that looked like it had been drawn by a ten year old and the board put up by, I don?t know which organisation, on the spot. I?m not joking: they were all different.
(The conspiration theory here must be that everything possible is done in Italy to keep people OUT of walking through natural parks. That?s nice for the ducks, the deer and other sort of locals.
The non-conspiration theory is that this country is incapable of producing any maps and completely interested in people who use their own to legs for walking:
REF: I am working on a piece about rubbish on the sides of Italian Secondary Roads (ISR?s), that will try to clarify some of the mechanisms and interactions between the Italian and locomotion)).
There was another panel after about 10 minutes, with a choice to go off the road, up a steep hill. This panel gave all sorts of useful indications like railways, ancient and now non-existent roads, alternatives that were history. I apologise for being a bit heavy here, but none of the paths set out were actually pedestrian paths and I did not really understand what the symbols for railways were ther for, given that, to my knowledge, the nearest station was about 10 km away.
I stuck to the road, which was a pleasant stroll through some very wet woods, down the hill towards RONCIGLIONE, before I actually set sight upon the lake of Vico, at it?s south end, which is another one of volcanic origin to the north of Rome.
It must be a pretty busy place in summer, because there was one bar/trattoria/pedalo after the other. All shut up after the season.
Trudge, trudge, trudge that took me to the Trattoria LA STELLA in RONCIGLIONE.
There are is a particular reason I have to mention this place, but |I would also like to just quickly divert into a general matter that strikes me on this walk: there have been quite a few moments, when putting my legs to work in the morning, I would say to myself that this was going to be 25 or 30 or 15 or whatever km of walking – and nothing else, a duty, something boring to get to my final destination.
It?s not true.
Everyday something happens, even if you spend some hours nearly every day wondering why on earth you ever HAD the idea to do it.
And that?s the beauty of walking ?
Back to??????????.. the Trattoria LA STELLA in RONCIGLIONE.
Not only did this place produce a delicious primo of Fettuccine al Tartuffo nero, followed by a very nice Pollo all a Romana, but at the end of the meal, turning my head to the right, I noticed a small plaque above the adjacent room mentioning SALON ALBATROS, Gallileo Gallilei.
To cut a long story short, here I was, 50 kms from Rome, my destination (I do not really know why – or DID not really know why till today) after setting off in Venice, at the Arsenale, where the Dialogs about two new Sciences by Gallileo (his last work) take place and the owner of the Tratoria explains to me that they were a group of chaps interested in the experiments of Gallileo rolling balls along inclined slopes.
I would seriously like to know how many Trattorie have rooms reserved to the first of all scientists because he was rolling balls down inclined planes ?.it can?t be that many?.this MUST be an HASARD SANS NOM.
And for me concludes my trip.
Hence forward is walking through the outskirts of Rome, which I really wished to do?

Walk from here to SUTRI, which has very nice old town and in it?s midst, a very reasonably priced hotel, with the noticeable absence of any sort of tourits (apart form me).

I?ve been spared from rain so far – really – but it really pelted it down as soon as I reached SUTRI, so I had a beer with the Hotel owner before going out for a tour in the old bit of this place and could not resist entering a local restaurant promising CUCCINA CASARECCIA. It is called IL BUCCO – the hole – and it was pretty much that. The cooking was really alright ?.. mind you, I might have to talk about this tomorrow – but I was the only person in there apart from a local wino and I got served with a grunt ?.several grunts actually??..cheap??.that?s true, but seriously, Serge at the SOCRATE in Geneva grunts as well, but speaks to you and is about the same price for better quality. The only thing he hasn?t got, are the two plastic ventilators, rotating at different speed at from different angles of the ceiling that don?t produce any sort of ventilation but a very interesting stroboscopic visual effect that tunes very well into the rhythmic throbbing of the VINICOOL thing where the landlord keeps the demijohns that are destined to fill up the bottles of the locals entering regularly to get their refill.

And so to be, I think