Monte Gennaro - "Rome's mountain" and a favorite hike

The view (away from Rome) from Monte Gennaro's decorated peak
(that's the base of the mountain-top cross at left).

Maybe not so much the season, as dreams of the season - one of our favorite hikes - and this is a real one, not a cushy one. Up "Rome's mountain" (though bearing the name of Naples's patron saint), the tallest mountain one can see from the city, Monte Gennaro, in the Lucretili range to the northeast of Rome. Yes, you can see it from the Gianicolo, and many other high spots in Rome.

There are marked trails up to the peak from many different directions, and we've tried them all. One of our favorites is one filled with "tornanti" or switchbacks (a switchback is also called "lo zigzag"), 25 in fact - they are even numbered. 

The starting point for parking - roads beyond
this are impassible with our vehicle. The
twin hilltop towns of Palombara Sabina 
(it would be quite a hike if one started from the town)
and Montecelio (far left) are in the background. The scooter
is our latest--a 2019 Honda Forza 300. 

The trail starts under a defunct funicular. Trail guides say its start is the town of Palombara Sabina (don't try to find a place to stay overnight there; we did, with no luck), but the trail's real start is up a rural road (yeah, we ran into farm dogs biting at our scooter heels on these roads) a few miles from the town itself. 

The defunct funicular (and its path up the first shoulder of the mountain.

Left, a close-up of the funicular "basket." 

Can you imagine stepping into 

one of these (they don't stop) 

and riding up that way? 

We have been on one like it,

in Gubbio, Umbria.

Shortly after the beginning of the trail one encounters a diorama set-up in the woods (photo below). We had seen it before, though it changes from time to time, and we took a closer look this day. 

Below the sign that includes "shame on you," is a turquoise globe,
wrapped like a baby (or patient), hooked up to a heart monitor.

We're not sure what the large underwear on Ken and Barbie mean, but the larger diorama is a critique of inaction over climate change. The lettered signs in the diorama read:

"It was the most beautiful planet of the universe; shame on you" and "Suicide" and, on the far left, with figurines of a creche, "Hope."

From a saddle (yes, the Italians use the word too, "sella"), one can see the path to a tower (right) - we've never bothered to go there, because it's private and the 'path' is a road. The trail marker has estimated hours to the destination, not the distance.

There are some "ruins"  where the funicular ended and a hotel was located. There are also way too many cell towers:

One can take a small loop starting at this point (and get lost, but not very lost, except if it's foggy at the top - believe me, we've done it all). 

Here's AllTrails view of the mostly up-and-back trail, with its great switchbacks:

We often run into a few people at the top. This day it was 2 trail runners (!!). They asked to have their photo taken with us, shocked at finding Americans on the peak, and then ran their merry way down the rocky summit.

The smaller peak with the tower is visible in the distance.
The two trail runners had an intense discussion below us about
their favorite power bars.

And the gorgeous woods the switchbacks wind through, as we finish the journey:

Dianne

Hiking: Tivoli to San Polo, 10 miles, 2300 feet, great views

One view from the long ridge between Tivoli and San Polo de' Cavalieri.  The hill town at center is Castel Madama.
We've hired near it too in the past, encountering one of our more brutal brier patches.

As the body ages, long rides on the scooter become less enticing.  And so we've taken to doing some of our hiking from train depots.  On a hot Sunday in early June, we scootered in the a.m. to Piazza Independenza in central Rome, walked 10 minutes to Termini, and caught the train for Tivoli (takes about an hour, less on the return).  Our plan (we've done it twice before) was to hike from the Tivoli train station to San Polo de' Cavalieri, a small hill town roughly 5 miles distant.  10 miles total.  Varied terrain, delightful views.

Monte Cattillo, seen from the Tivoli bar,
with requisite beer, after the hike. 

The hike goes up over the shoulder of Monte Catillo (seen here from a bar after the hike).  The trailhead is about half a mile from the train station: exit the station right, downhill to the roundabout, take the road right, up to the arch, and turn right up the road, where you'll find the marked path around Monte Catillo).  Then uphill through scrub to a lone oak (this much we described in an itinerary in our first book), through a lovely grove of oak trees and onto a long ridge, finally pitching down off the ridge, then up on a road and some other tracks to San Polo, where we ate the tramezzini we had purchased in a Tivoli bar in the morning.

Benches line the right side of the street in San Polo.  

We sat on one of the benches on the town's main street.

Bar Centrale.  Quiet, but open, on a Sunday afternoon. 

Or you could buy lunch at Bar Centrale.











Or, from San Polo, you could go on to Monte Gennaro - another 6 hours or so!  We've climbed Gennaro half a dozen times, from several directions, but never from this one.  Tivoli and San Polo are in the Lucreteli, and Monte Gennaro is the highest mountain outside Rome.  The Tivoli to San Polo hike gives you the flavor of the Lucretili and some small town and farm ambience as well.

The ritorno (return) is a reversal of the andato (no good translation, sort of "going" or "the way there"): down from San Polo, steep climb up a hot road to the ridge, more or less flat journey along the mostly open ridge (great views on both sides, especially left), descent through the oaks, the scrub, and along the shoulder of Monte Catillo and down into Tivoli.

There used to be a lot of cows in these pastures, and bathtubs were used as rural fontane (fountains) to provide the animals with water.

Dianne at the oak grove, on the descent.  Several years ago, during a drought,
we feared the oaks might die.  Today, they appear healthy.  Red and white trail
marker on the tree.  A clear path.

Descent into Tivoli.  The white triangle just below the horizon and about 2/3 of the way toward the
right side of the frame, is Santiago Calatrava's famous, but unfinished and unused, swimming pool.  

A short section of road at the beginning and end of the hike. 

The numbers are hours and minutes estimated to reach the
destination, not distance.

Grateful for the shade. 

The trail is well marked (above, a typical sign) in a way it wasn't some years ago, when we first did the hike.  There are just a couple of places where one can go wrong: on the way to San Polo, having passed the lone pine, bear to the right and slightly upward at the fork (the intersection is marked).



Then, about halfway to San Polo, be careful to avoid pitching downward to the left (that's another trail, and a shorter hike) and stay more or less on the ridge.  There are some lovely and cool shaded stretches.







The total dislivello (elevation gain) is about 2300 feet (total for both directions, which involve ups and downs both ways).  That means this one's for hikers, not walkers.  Lots of rocky paths, so hiking boots are highly recommended.  There's water at the Tivoli train station (look for the eagle fountain at one end) and at the fountain in San Polo's main square--but none on the trail, with one exception that's quite close to San Polo.

Water is available at the eagle fountain on the north end of the Tivoli train station.  
You'll be headed for Monte Catillo, whose top is marked by the cross in the center
of this photo.  You can go to the top or across the shoulder on the way to San Polo..

We described another hike from the Tivoli station to the higher Monte Sterparo in 2016. That blog post includes some photos of our "cow map" that has part of this hike on it as well.

We've been partial to Tivoli for a long time, not only for hiking, but also for just the feel of this small, very old town (dating from the ancient Romans), the magnificent 19th-century Villa Gregoriana (#6 on the RST Top 40) and the more famous 16th century Villa d'Este with its fountains (the wild and the ordered, respectively, were compared in Rome the Second Time).

Bill

Grace when you need it: Italy's small shrines

Italy is a Catholic country, and we're reminded of it at every turn. There are over 300 churches in Rome, and hundreds more shrines on, it sometimes seems, every corner. It's easy to become inured to the ubiquitous symbols. Yet, there are shrines that make us stop and pause, and here are a few of them.




Almost every mountain top in Italy (and sometimes even just the top of a hill) has a cross. It's often the only way we know we actually got to the top, since usually there are no other markers. The one below, which we've posted previously, is particularly poignant. I thought an out-of-sorts teen had bent some of the metal around this cross, but the metal turns out to be a part of a small military plane that crashed into Monte Pellechia on Christmas Day, 1960.





The Virgin Maryshrine at the top of this blog would appear to be like hundreds of others. But this one made me stop because it is lit by a modern, eco-friendly fluorescent bulb. In the small hill town of Segni.


Shrines where people have died are increasingly common in the U.S., as well as in Italy. This one is beautifully arranged and maintained--complete with cigarette lighter, and it touched my heart. In the seaside town of Fregene.






Statues, usually to Mary, but not always, often show up on the beginning portion of a hike, and usually bless the mountains, the mountain town and, we hope, the hikers. On this hike, we went from the town of Sonnino to the top of the Lepini mountains' Monte della Fate (Mountain of the Fairies), part of a brigands hide-out area in the 18th and 19th centuries. The vista overlooks the Tyrrhenian Sea and Circeo. Here we were protected by not one but two Marys--one at the beginning of the hike (with an apparent attempt to shield her from vandals) and one at the top.














We welcome additions to touching and unusual shrines and shrine locations. Dianne

Trekking Italian style

On Saturday (after a good rest at B&B dei Mori) we had a spectacular 4.5 hour hike with 360 degree views as far as one could see - into the Abruzzi, the Gran Sasso, Southern Tuscany, mountains all around and the Roman plain stretching to the sea (photo in prior post).

The hike, one we had avoided in the past because it's a bit tough for us to get to the trailhead and back via scooter in one day, is a loop ("anello" or ring, to Italians). It is classic for central Italy - almost no other hikers, farm animals even to the top of the mountain (horses, cows - the latter love to park themselves on the trails--the only flat spots around; the former tend to run away), cool, interesting oak woods and treeless ridges.

Unlike the previous day's excursion, the trail was well marked and we never got lost--tho' some forks were tricky. see the typical signage in photos - cow on trail in the background. The photo below is of a "uomini" or "men" - what we call "cairns" - marking the trail. Photo below right shows typical signage - vandals routineless tear down all maps, leaving blank boards).

There was a touching monument to a plane that went down on Christmas Day 1960 + we saw part of the plane many feet down the mountain (photos below).

This mountain, Pellecchia and its sister peak, Pizzo di Pellechia are known as home to eagles. We saw hundreds of birds enjoying the updrafts, but none were eagles.

We hike using a couple decent Italian guidebooks and maps, cursing them regularly as we walk for their inadequacies (they don't match the Adirondack guidebooks for detail). Pellechia is about 4,500' above sea level (qualifying as a 46R in the Adirondacks), the highest in the Lucreteli range (the closest major range to Rome), and the hike has about 2,000' net elevation. If anyone wants the description of this hike translated, drop us an email.

If it weren't for the predicted rain (which, it turns out, really didn't materialize), we would have spent another day in the Sabina mountains, an area we enjoy, with its hill towns, rolling hills planted with olive trees (Sabine olive oil is prized), and great Lucretili mountains. As it was, we had our ritual post-hike beer in Moricone on Saturday afternoon (photo right) and headed back to Rome on the busy via Salaria (over the route of a Roman counsel road - 2,000 years old - the "salt" road)--the trip that took us almost 2 hours going out with all the Romans took only 40 minutes coming back to a (nearly) empty Rome.
Dianne

Lessons learned: how not to find a place to sleep in the small towns of Italy

At Rome the Second Time we think of ourselves as reasonably knowledgeable about Italy. We rarely make a hotel reservation and come into smallish towns simply asking or looking for signs.

We had never failed to find an acceptable place to rest our heads. We've told friends to do the same - just go into a town and look around. But we learned a hard lesson this past weekend, when, after scootering out of Rome 25 miles and hiking for a couple hours, we almost ended up sleeping in the fields. [A second post describes the major hike we took and has some suggestions on trekking in the mountain range that is Italy - photo right from top of the mountain - why we do all this!]




On Friday afternoon after a hazardous almost 2 hours on the road (we made the mistake of leaving Rome along with all the Romans for the long weekend), we scootered into a small town nestled at the base of the Lucretili mountain range. We picked the town of Moricone so we could do a short (since we didn't get out of Rome until 2:30 p.m.) hike starting just outside the town. Our elaborate planning led us to assume we would stay overnight in Moricone, because it also would be the jumping off point for Saturday's longer hike.


We had seen two B&B signs as we came into Moricone, and when we came off the trail Friday about 6 p.m., we located the first of them, where a young woman of about twenty telephoned her father, then returned to tell us that no room was available (why, we're not sure - didn't want to bother? did we look scuzzy, coming off the hike, showing up with helmets? clearly they weren't full). The other B&B was temporarily closed (a friendly townie led us to the proprietor who was in obvious mid-reconstruction).

What to do? We scootered 8 miles or so to a larger and more well-known town, Palombara Sabina, a classic hill town with fortress, etc., where we fully expected to find a hotel. Palombara S was full of people, but had no hotel, no B&B (we talked to a knowledgeable young mother in the town square). Bill was understandably about ready to collapse from having started in Rome, and then driving these spaghetti mountain roads on the scooter.


My only solution (short of going all the way back to Rome - or lying in a field) was to head to a town another 12 miles out of our way (into the blinding, setting sun for poor Bill) and start calling a list of B&B phone #s I had pulled off the Internet when we thought we might head into the area (the Sabina mountains) for an art exhibit. [And this version leaves out a couple more towns we tried - one with thermal baths where we assumed there had to be a hotel. Insult to injury: just past the 6 miles of blinding sun was a billboard (!) that said there was a B&B 6 miles "indietro" (back) in a town that wasn't even on our map - we weren't about to risk that and fail.]


We finally got to Passo Corese, a town on my Internet list, a crossroads, but found NO signs for hotels or B&Bs. The solution? Stop at a bar, order a beer, and then start calling. The first place on the list was "B&B dei Mori," and a lively voice answered the cell phone. He seemed glad to help us, tho' he said he would call us back (did we trust that? should we wait or call down the list? would the phone battery hold up?), then he did and said (after asking were we at the train station or in a car... well, no, we answered, we're on a scooter) he would come and pick us up, he was 5 minutes away (Bill - but we just ordered a beer!).


In about 10 minutes (beer glasses emptied), a lively man jumped out of his car and spotted us Americani in an instant. We followed Marco on our scooter as he drove us up and through and out of the town (Bill, I asked from the back of the scooter - where are we going now??) to a rectangular housing block with bar, restaurant, etc. on the bottom floor ("suburban" Passo Corese?) (photo at left). We were led up to "Pensione dei Mori" also known as "B&B dei Mori," where Marco showed us the price on the door (Euro 60 (about $84) for a double room with private bath), told us no breakfast was included (I guess it's just a B), and asked us if we wanted to eat dinner in his little "sporting club" that was off the same hallway - "it's a family business," he said (his business card reads "Bed & Breakfast Pensione Club" - it's certainly all that).


For us, Marco, full of smiles and joy and practicing his few English words with obvious pleasure, was now something approaching a savior... an hour earlier we were exhausted, had no place to sleep and wondered what would become of us - would we simply have to drive back to Rome, not having found a bed or dinner--not even the mountain, as it turned out--and did Bill have the stamina left to do it? Now we had a bed (a bit spartan for Euro 60, but clean and serviceable) AND a meal in an authentic Italian "club" (photo left) where we were joined by 8 or so men who ate mostly at a common table. The tv blasted from the wall, and we were deliriously happy - good food, fresh and cooked for us - Marco clearly aims to please - plentiful wine, and even double Limoncello to end the evening. The charge for the meal (we shared most of the courses, having seen they were large), which we found out only the next day when we paid our bill, was Euro 30 ($42) --not a steal, but not bad.


The next morning, Marco was gone. We have a feeling he does a bit of everything. So we don't have a picture of him, but we give you here a couple of our pensione and eatery. Marco's email is famsgavicchia@hotmail.it and the cell phone # we used is 339.118.4255 - if you want real Italy.

Lessons learned: Italy's small towns, even if the most picturesque and ideal for tourism, aren't really ready for tourists. These areas, highly rural, but dotted with towns, lack the standard small motels/hotels of the U.S. - they don't leave the light on for you. Restaurants, yes, because the Romans like to go out on a Sunday to eat in the countryside. Bars, yes, because the locals won't go far without one. But hotels, no. You can see where there once were many, but now travel is so easy (for those with a car and highways, vs us with scooters or people on trains and buses) that there are no hotels in the more remote (not THAT remote!) areas. B&Bs and agritourism are filling some of the void, but they don't advertise everywhere. We don't like pinning ourselves down with reservations, unless we have to, but from now on we'll do some Internet searching ahead of time and come with a list of places and phone #s (and the phone charger) in a ring of small towns around our target.

Dianne