Adventures in Sora

Thursday, 23 July

The 20 minute walk down from the “apartment” was much better this morning than last night. Last night it was dark and we were tired from a day of travel and a delicious home cooked meal on the farm. This morning, it was bright and the view of Sora between the purple wildflowers and tall grapevines was captivating. The air was still cool at 8 am and we walked hand-in-hand down the narrow street bordered by farms and villas. Ah.

After breakfast (fresh baked bread, plum jam made on the farm, and pecorino cheese from a local shepherd), we took the lazy walk down in to town with our new friend Mandy (45 minutes). Every Thursday there is a local market that we were anxious to discover. The market was HUGE for such a small town, and we realized that at least part of the market must have been booths that travel from town to town throughout the week. Most of these booths were selling shoes (really uncomfortable looking ones) or hats or t-shirts or junk. Finally we arrived at the meat and produce part of the market and Jeff was immediately giddy. The fruit and vegetables were in large wooden crates and glowed with color. Friendly Italians offered slices of proscuitto for tasting. Fish, cheese, sausage, candy…. Everything spilling out of the surrounding booths which were manned by shouting Italians. Every time we tried to buy something, we’d say, “just one peach… uno, uno” and hold up one finger to communicate that we only wanted one, the seller would look at us and wave us away shouting the Italian equivalent to “Take it!” We had peaches, blackberries, rock melon… mmmmm. We opted NOT to buy one of the baby ducks, and were quite surprised to see them put into plastic bags to carry away….

After the market, we set off for “Castello Sora” or the castle of Sora. We were told it was up a hill, about a 20 minute walk, past the church, so up we went. And up… and up…. And up…. My thongs held up surprisingly well on the rocky hour-plus hike, but the heat was exhausting. We finally arrived at the ruined medieval castle, which was actually quite a treasure. What made it more appealing was that we had the place almost completely to ourselves and were able to enjoy the magic of such a forgotten relic.

In the afternoon… gelatto again. J

And then the walk home…. After attempting a bus or a taxi (to no avail) we were doomed to make the 50 minute walk back up the hill to the farm. Both of us exhausted, I figured the only alternative was to stick our thumbs out. We ended up walking a little less than half way when we were picked up by an old man and possibly his granddaughter. They spoke no English, but kindly dropped us off outside the farm. They were probably wondering why they picked up those smelly tourists….