Safe Return Doubtful

One of the reasons I stopped at Piediluco was that it is on the La Via di Francesco, or the St Francis’ Way. There’s actually a Cicerone guide book dedicated to it, a 550 kilometre long distance pilgrimage trail that runs from Florence to Assisi.

This morning Roja and I took on a ten kilometre section of it, that climbed up to a viewpoint at Rocca di Piediluco, a medieval castle ruin that overlooks the village and the lake. We were joined for the first half by a woman whose house I passed. She had asked if I was going to the castle, in English, and we got chatting, and she said she would join me. She was an Italian American who had chosen to leave Boston when Trump was elected, as she said she couldn’t stay in the US during those four years. After that term, she said she suspected he would serve a second term from 2024, so put off her return until 2028.. She was interested by my route, and we had reading in common also, so plenty to chat about.

The village and lake’s name, Piediluco, derives from a sacred forest that the ancient Roman author Pliny the Elder described in his “Naturalis Historia”, dedicated to the Sabine goddess Vacuna and later, during the time of ancient Rome, to the goddesses Diana and Velinia. Its heyday was in the Middle Ages, but it has served various purposes, usually involving sieges and struggles, until it was abandoned in the eighteenth century. Half of it was renovated as a habitation twenty years ago, though the entrepreneur’s money ran out, and after five years and he had to move out, leaving it once again, abandoned.

It rained lightly pretty much all day, though almost so little that you would not notice.

It was enough however, to turn the afternoon into and indoor and lazy one, watching Bath and Gloucester, and listening to a podcast I want to recommend..

I have previously mentioned fellow-Cumbrian Tony Walker’s excellent podcast Classic Ghost Stories. Tony has just launched a new venture, Classic Detective Stories.

On his Ghost Stories podcast he narrates, and is very good at it. On the Detective Stories podcast, if it is an American story, he uses a different reader. Today’s story was Who Killed Bob Teal by Dashiel Hammett. The episodes generally last between 50 and 90 minutes, and are followed by a criticism, or review, by Tony.

They’re ideal to listen to when out for a wander.