25 th September


Coming down from the old town of Sutri, I noticed that the VERY old town of Sutri was literally just opposite the via CASSIA and found a gate (open and with nobody asking for any money). The path started near a very old church, carved right into the tufa, like the tombs in SOVANA. There was a lock on the entrance door with a notice to contact the guard at the anfiteatro for hourly visits.
Sure, I had absolute trust that there would be somebody to show me round ?.
Next year, then.
I followed the tufa round towards the anfitetro, where there was effectively a little hut, with nobody in sight ? apart from a parked car.
I was just about to enter through the main door into the anfitetro, when somebody shouted something in my back. Here we go, I thought, 10?000 lira entrance due now.
All wrong – the bloke was dragging out a sort of pedestal with avisitor?s book and asked me to sign on: Name and City, please. (I?m the first one on Sept 25th, I?m proud to say, as it was only about a quarter past nine.)
The place was really worth the visit and I spent about half an hour on my own in there , while the sun was coming out and the birds were starting to chirp.
I wondered how my ball would roll on the grass in the middle of the circle of the anfiteatro, when I realised that I had left it in the ashtray at the hotel.
This really must be a sign after the encounter with the Gallileo room at the Stella trattoria yesterday. My trip was finished and I took photographs and filmed circular motion instead. In the centre of the theatre.
Put this down as interpretation delirium, but I also finished this day, in what will probably be my last hotel room with the number 102, after starting in room no 1 in Venice. 1 and 0 for digitalisation, and step 1 to 2.
The walk along a secondary road up a hill towards the third lake north of Rome, Lago Bracciano |I was going to walk around, was very pleasant as the sun was now with me again.
Before leaving, Clemente (the hero of the Ferrara episode?.remember??) had mentioned that Septemvber would be a nice month to do my walk because of all the Sagra?s (local festivals for all sorts of edible stuff: Ducks, biscuits, sausages, porcherra etc). I?m pleased to say I missed all of them by being in the wrong place at the worng time, i.e. one or two days too early or too late. The one I really regret not having been able to attend is the election of Miss Este in ESTE. I know that?s not edible stuff, but would nevertheless have been a unique experience, I reckon. I?m sayin al this, because the one local event I didn?t seem to have missed today was what looked like the mating of the 300 mio local mosquitoes, (or was it flying ants, or what was it?). Loads of the, swirling around in clouds, above the hazelnut plantations, for kilometres.
On the way down towards the lake the got a bit more scarce, God thanks and the landscape changed into something a bit more maritime. Pine trees, with their dark cumulus tops of strongly smelling pins mounted on their slender sinuous trunks alternated with acacia trees with rather impressive trunks as well. The slopes wer once again planted with olive trees and vines.
The road was not too busy and followed the lake, which is really beautiful.
The only thing, if I was God, was to put a couple of Bars along that stretch, because I had to wait to get to Bracciano at about half past three p.m. to sink my well merited first beer.
When I set our this morning, I decided that the normal way into Rome via VIA CASSIA, being also the direction the VIA FRANCIGENA follows (***more on walking and treks in Italy in a separate editorial?..) didn?t look inviting at all. Too many cars and no space to walk by the way. Looking at the maps, and (also) having had a problem to book a hotel in Rome before leaving, I decided to make my way slightly towards the west of Rome To BRACCIANO where:
-The hotel would be much cheaper and easy to get
-There was a railway station to use for the next 3 days
-I could leave my goddamn rucksack!!!

You might say to me, that walking to a place you don?t know for 25 km, to go and check whether all of the above points were practicable, represents a bit of a stupid strategy. And you are right, but a) the other option was a 25 km road with cars speeding by as if they were practising for the 24 hour race at Le Mans and b) did I really have a lot of other options???

By the looks of it, sitting in the hotel room typing this, my move was the right one. There?s a train every hour into Rome, the price of the room plus a daily pass to all the Roman transports is probably about half the price of a hotel room in Rome (if you?re lucky), it?s a rather nice old town, the telephone in the room wants to speak to my computer: BINGO.

Just, please, explain to me why there is a tumble dryer on the balcony on the level right above mine in the next building and why it?s continually in use?