The "10 minute" walk to Castello

Today we leave Piedimonte bound for Bari and then (we hope) a ferry to croatia. We don't have a reservation and you can't book online less than 72 hours in advance, so we've got our fingers crossed.

Yesterday we hiked the footpath from Il Centro Storico in Piedimonte Matese up the mountain to Castello (that's the entrance to the footpath in the picture above). Anotonella, and the lady whose back yard the entrance is in both told us that the walk to Castello would take about 10 minutes. The people in italy must walk as fast as they eat, becuase it was more like 45 minutes at a constant 30 degree uphill angle.

The path provided some breathtaking views of the mountains and of Piedimonte matese below. We arrived in castello and snapped a few pictures (sorry no digital), but there really isn't much to the town. We stopped in a little hole in the wall bar and played a game of chess will sipping on a couple Peronis and some tomato and basil potato chips. We also bought a 2 litre bottle of water to rehydrate us after the walk up.

On the way back down we crossed paths with a Roman hiker who spoke english. He was near the bottom of the trail and already pretty winded. He asked us: "it's ten minutes to the top right?".

We arrived back at the hotel around 5:30 PM and relaxed for a while then called Antonella to make arrangements for dinner. She and Giacamo along with her sister (Federica's mother) Nuccia picked us up out in front of the hotel at 9:00 pm and we headed to a Pizzeria in the neighboring town of Avilgnano where we met Nuccia's husband Gianni. The pizza was excellent. 10 times better than any pizza we've had up to that point in the trip. After dinner we tried to pick up the tab to thank them for all they'd done, but failed miserably (try getting into an argument with a southern italian woman and let me know how YOU do). We finally agreed that if they came to America we could pay for them.

After dinner we went back into Piedimonte Matese where there was a street festival (complete with brazilian belly dancers) put on by the newly elected mayor of the town. We had a cofee in Green Garden, the most popular Gelateria in town, and walked around for a bit. Then we went with Gianni and Nuccia to pick up Federica at a party (Nuccia wanted to hear Federica speak to us in English). The car ride was pretty funny. Gianni only speaks about 5 words in english (all of them unprintable) but he is hilarious... definitely somebody we would like to have hung out with a little more. Apparently he is a big fan of disco, and during the car ride he had the Beegees (followed by Rappers Delight) blaring and was dancing while driving. After we picked up Federica we met up again with Anotella and Giacamo and talked for about 15 minutes before Gianni, Nuccia, and Federica said there goodbyes and left. Anotella and Giacamo drove us back to our hotel we said our goodbye, thanked them for all of their hospitality and they drove away.

A few pictures from our walk up the mountain (don't worry mom it's more dangerous than it looks). The two pictures of just the mountains show the road that Giacamo and Anotella took to La Mira Lago Matese.