in Vallo di Nera

        For our last day in Umbria Maurice had agreed to a brief walk on the Spoleto-Norcia rail trail, a hiking path I read about online.  He had even looked it up himself and picked a starting point, Sant’Anatolia di Narco, just on the other side of a 4000-meter highway galleria.  The weather was perfect as we parked near the old train station, tightened our hiking poles, checked out the map on the signboard and headed up the road in the direction of Borgo Cerreto at 10:45.

As we neared the village of Castel San Felice, perched picturesquely on a hilltop, we turned right at a sign for the 12th century church of San Felice, a short way off the road between the hill of the town and the river. 

We remembered seeing this Romanesque church the last time we were in the area, and this time it was open.

The interior was a cool and lovely space with steep steps up to a raised chancel, a dark crypt below and some medieval frescoes in the nave, including an angel still faithfully keeping watch at his post.  “How about a picture in your shirt with the angel?” asked Maurice.  I thought of the potential caption:  “Chiropractic First patient travels all the way to heaven to pose in her shirt.”  Excellent idea.  Outside the church we met a lady from Passau who has walked many caminos many times, she said, and is currently biking the Via Francescana.  As we didn’t have a map (surprise, surprise) and the trail signs had disappeared (other surprise), the lady showed us her sturdy rainproof Kompass map before she left, and Maurice and I quickly appraised the area.  After some discussion we decided to take a potentially more interesting path away from the road and into the woods, where it seemed there was a town not far ahead.  We found a sign behind the church and across the sparkly river:  Vallo di Nera, 1 hr 30 min.  Well, these things are never exact.  Depending on the trail, we would either walk for an hour and turn around or continue to the town and have lunch before returning to the car.

At 11:45 we were off and…up (OK, no surprises anymore).  Maybe we didn’t really want to go too far after all.  The trees parted for occasional views back down to the floor of the green valley with its winding ribbon of asphalt road and scratch of a hiking trail.  I hadn’t packed a lunch because Maurice wanted to stop in a cafe somewhere to eat, but now, as is so typical of our adventures, it was lunchtime and there was no lunch in sight.  In my bag I had some of those appealing little pugliese dough rings, finocchio-flavored, so we munched on a few until the stony slope demanded our full attention.  At an unclearly-marked fork we selected the upward route; signs further on confirmed our choice.  An opening through the trees gave a view back to the little hill town now far below us, plopped in the sun amid dark velvet woods.  Eventually the trail leveled off to much more pleasant walking as we skirted the mountain.  The trail was sun-dappled and narrow, with lush growth spilling out from the woodland’s understory.  Was there really a town somewhere up here?  How far should we go?  A map would have been nice.  We came to a sign–50 minutes back to Castel San Felice and 40 minutes ahead to Vallo di Nera–which spurred us on; we couldn’t turn around now when we were more than halfway there.  The sign also pointed to an overgrown path (just a short path!) down the slope toward a ruined hermitage we had seen from a distance, but Maurice said absolutely not (which is the trouble with not hiking by myself).  We took a selfie instead.

Then we forged ahead, still energetic if hungry.  After a while Maurice realized he didn’t have his sunglasses; he had set them down to take the picture.  “They’re old and scratched anyway,” he said, but I knew he depended on them.  “I’ll go back and look,” I volunteered; it was just right around the bend.  Except it was more like a quarter mile back, but there were his sunglasses, lying in the path by the sign (and I did not slip down the side track to the eremo, though I did take a few steps through the tangle, just to see how bad the path looked….).

Vallo di Nera

Clouds were gathering overhead.  It had rained every afternoon, so of course we had brought our rain jackets, but it was just going to be a short walk so we had left them in the car.  Across a little valley we saw another picturesque hill town.  Was this Vallo di Nera?  To our delight the trail wound in that direction, and a sign confirmed our destination.  As we approached the town we stopped to look at a stone and plaster building on the trail with a large wood-screened opening and faded frescoes near the slanted wooden roof.  “Immagine delle Forche” said a sign.  Standing on tiptoe we could almost see through the wooden slats.  It was a chapel (once? still?) and sections of vibrant frescoes from centuries past adorned the walls.

A final quick ascent brought us into Vallo di Nera about 1:15.  We walked along curving, silent streets of golden stone and ancient buildings but no people.

Then voices.  Two men were arguing, or maybe just discussing the weather (it’s hard to tell with Italians). Finally Maurice spotted another passerby and inquired if there were someplace to eat here.  “Just over there,” was the response, and we walked through raindrops down a slope to a more modern building near a parking lot that perhaps marked the town’s main entrance.

We opened the door to find two young people chatting at a table in a small grocery/deli.  Smilingly the woman came to help us.  I stumbled over Italian words until she realized English might be a better choice.  She spoke carefully.  “I don’t speak good English,” she said, but it was smoother than my Italian.  “We have regional products here,” she said, showing me various packages.  “Salame, strongozzi, farro, pecorino…I can cook you anything you want.”  Really?  She made suggestions.  I was intrigued by the zuppa di farro, Maurice by the fat strongozzi (thick spaghetti) with zucchine, pecorino e guanciale.  “Come downstairs,” said Valentina, leading us out the door and around the building to the lower level.  “La Taverna del Bordone” read a sign over the door that led into an attractive little dining room with red runners on dark wood tables, empty except for two people closer to our age who rose when we entered.  The cooks?  It wasn’t exactly a booming business.  We parked our hiking poles in an umbrella stand and sat by a window with a view of mountains and darkening sky.  Valentina made more suggestions, finalized our order and went to confer with the man and woman who had disappeared into the kitchen.  She returned shortly with birra, acqua e vino to start our refreshment, then a few minutes later with our first course, a board with a carefully-arranged selection of local cured meats and cheese, a tiny pot of jam and a pile of the typical saltless sliced bread.

Starving, we dug in, but slowly, savoring every delectable morsel.  There was no hurry, because now it was pouring outside.  We didn’t even want to think about slogging six miles through rain and mud, sans protective gear, back to our car.  Maurice’s strongozzi arrived next, mouthwatering, eye-appealing and piled high.  My zupppa was a rich porridge mixed with pureed vegetables and served with toasted bread and abundant grated cheese; I’m guessing it’s an Umbrian comfort food.  We took our time.  No other customers came in.

By the time our salad arrived with delicious local olio to pour over it, the rain had stopped and a streak of blue showed through the gray clouds.  We declined a meat course but were persuaded to try some dessert–just a taste, we said.  The torta di ricotta was a fine cheesecake but it tasted too much like pecorino for me.  What Valentina called the “apple pie” was the winner:  rich layers of crust, cream, apple and Alchermes, the bright pink Italian liqueur used for special desserts that I used to buy when we lived in Italy but cannot get in the US, not even via special order from our liquor store.  (I think it has crushed worms in it; I don’t want to know for sure but that may have something to do with keeping it out of the country.)  We ate every last crumb.  Maurice finished with a caffe americano and Valentina gave us a little bag with slices of homemade cake “for when you’re hungry later.”  Our meal lasted close to two hours.  “OK,” I finally said to Valentina.  “I hope we can afford this feast.”  “It’s very reasonable,” she said.  “Do you think so?”  The cost was e53.50–less than Maurice expected, quite reasonable for an excellent meal like this in a big city but it seemed a bit high to me for such an out-of-the-way place.  We looked at the itemized bill.  The antipasto board was e20, more than we probably would have spent had we known, but, as Valentina pointed out, they were costly, artisanal, organic products from some of the best farms in the area.  Yes, understandable.  Delicious too.  Subtract that out and it was very reasonable indeed for an incredibly wonderful meal.  We recommend it highly and hope to return.

As we ate and Valentina served, we found out a bit more about the establishment.  The Bordone has been open for three years and gets most of its business on weekends; the little deli upstairs provides mostly for the townspeople.  The couple in the kitchen are the owners; he was a chef at a fancy restaurant in Rome until he was laid off.  Their son Stefano is Valentina’s boyfriend; he thought up the restaurant’s name (bordone means “walking stick”), carved the sign himself and does all kinds of things to support the business.  Valentina, interested in politics, is in law school in Rome but comes to help out on weekends.  “But it’s Tuesday,” I said.  Well, she had the week off.  She is involved with the Five Star Movement (which we had never heard of) and has already won a local election.
When we first sat down Valentina asked if we had seen the church.  No, we said, but we certainly hoped to after lunch.  “It is locked,” she said, “but after you eat I will get the keys and open it for you.”  It was after 3:30 when we finished eating, a bit stiff from the hike, full and sleepy from the fine meal and uncertain about the weather.  We were not looking forward to the hike back, especially plodding unprotected through rain, and thought it might be easier to walk down from Vallo di Nera to the road in the valley; we could follow that back, or maybe get a bus.  When Stefano returned with the church keys we asked about public transportation.  There might be a bus, he said, but first it was a twisting two-kilometer walk down to the road.  Hmm.  It sounded like a long walk ahead, rain or no rain, whatever we did.  “You are just going back to Anatolia di Narco?” said Valentina.  “Stefano can drive you when you’re ready.”  Stefano agreed to the generous offer.  And it was settled.

The church was only a short distance up the hill then down again on a small piazza.  We stepped into the darkness of the nave.  The small church was a plain basilica–no pillars or transept or side chapels–but what we saw was astonishing.  The walls were covered with magnificent paintings from, I would guess, the late Middle Ages, their colors still vibrant, their stories reaching through the centuries.  Stefano pointed out particular scenes:  a local tale; the angel Gabriel with folded arms; a painting over top of older paintings in honor of a more recent donation; a procession of people each dressed in a white robe with red cross, confirming a bit of history for which there is no other written evidence.  Near a doorway and on the wall on the other side, in a cloister, were names and word scratched into the plaster.  Stefano and Valentina told us the story:  During World War II, with German soldiers nearby, the villagers hid all their guns.  The Germans, angry about the death of a soldier at the hand of local Italians, came to the village and rounded up all the men.  They locked them in the church and planned to execute them.  One of the men who knew some German pleaded for their lives.  They couldn’t have killed the soldier, he said.  They were just poor farmers and didn’t have any weapons, and, indeed, the Germans couldn’t find any.  In the end the men were released, but during their imprisonment some had carved their names and final words into the church wall.

We didn’t want to keep our hosts too long so we slipped back outside where it was spitting rain.  What a gift we had been given.  Stefano appreciated the value of what his little town had, this village in the middle of nowhere, probably mentioned in no guidebooks, and had willingly shared it with us.

“Would you like to see the town too?” Valentina had asked us earlier.  Well, of course.  We’re fond of medieval villages like this, and we already loved Vallo di Nera because of our welcome and lunch and now the beautiful church.  So the young couple walked us up and down through narrow curving streets of the ancient town.  Here was where residents dumped things over the wall onto invaders; there was where weapons were stored.  A narrow entryway through a wall near a guard post was called the “kissing corner.”  At this gateway court was held.  Two more churches were nestled in the stone streets.  The hill just across from the gate was dotted with barns until an earthquake destroyed them several decades ago; houses now rest on the old foundations.  And sometimes in the summer Valentina and Stefano make the steep climb of the thickly-forested slopes just beyond Vallo di Nera’s stone walls.

Stefano got his car keys and they rearranged things in the car so we would both fit.  We hugged Valentina and piled in.  It was a quick drive down the mountain and along the valley road to our car.  At 5:00 the sun was shining brightly as we thanked Stefano again and waved goodbye.  What an amazing adventure:  beautiful medieval art and architecture, an invigorating hike with views, discovery of a delightful hill town, a gourmet lunch, kind and welcoming local people and delivery from the rain in spite of our carelessness.  In a trip blessed with wonderful days, this was probably the very best.