Day 11 - Sanctuary of San Luca

# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 1

Today I had to deal with the drawbacks of having my own apartment rather than staying in a hotel.  That is, I had to do some housework.  Nobody else is going to put clean sheets on the bed, or hang out new towels, let alone sweep the floor.  I drew the line at doing any vacuuming though.  The biggest issue was actually putting out the garbage.  They are big on recycling here.  Everything has to be sorted into 4 different categories: paper & glass; plastic; organic waste; and everything else.  The plastic waste gets put in a bag and left outside the front door once a week.  All the other categories have to be taken to central waste centres with separate bins for each type of waste.  Luckily there is one in the piazza down the block from here.  You have to use a special card to open the bin for the waste destined for landfill.  I'm not sure but I think each property's usage gets tracked in some way.   I wonder how often tourist put the wrong stuff in the wrong bin.  I suspect it is often.

After my exciting morning, I headed out for lunch.  As it is both a Monday and a public holiday, the choices were limited.  I tried two different pizzerias that were recommended by my school but both were shut.  I'd spent about 30 minutes walking around to find this out, so in the end I decided to just stop at the first place I found that was open.  This was the Trattoria Giampi e Ciccio.  They didn't have any free tables inside (they were all taken up by large family parties) so I had to settle for a table outside.  While it was warmer today than yesterday, it was still rather cool in the shade.  I ate quickly, which pleased the grumpy proprietor who wanted to my table to be used by more than a mere solo diner.  Fortunately, the waitresses were friendly and agreeable and the food was good.  I had melanzane alla parmigiana and then tagliatelli al ragu.  It was the best ragu I've had here so far.  I just finished up with a coffee, but they brought me 4 little chocolate eggs to help me celebrate Easter, which I appreciated.

After lunch I decided to walk up to the Sanctuary of San Luca as it was a sunny day and I need the hiking practice.  The website says it is just under 4km out of the city but that must be measured from the city centre.  My Garmin watch put the walk from the start of the porticos at the city walls to the sanctuary at just over 3km.  However, the starting point was on the other side of the city, so what with getting there and back and the searching for somewhere to have lunch I've ended up walking the best part of 19km today.  I should sleep well tonight.

 

Several hundred other people had the same bright idea as me, so the walk/hike wasn't as peaceful and contemplative as it could have been.  There were positive traffic jams at points where the path narrowed and the church grounds were postively heaving with people.   In addition to walkers, many people had taken a bus or driven up.

The path itself wove its way up the hill with a narrow road on one side and a wall on the other.  There were various plaques and religious effigies along the way, as expected.  What wasn't expected was the occasional door set into the wall, complete with a set of doorbells.  These would be at spots where there was nowhere to park a car and a good hike from the nearest cross road.  I can only assume these were back doors and there was street access to the properties from the other side.  I can't imagine they get many visitors hiking one or two km to ring their doorbell.

You find doorbells in the oddest places here.  So many of the buildings in the historic centre are large palazzos that have been subdivided into many small apartments.  My school is in one such building.  The school itself is in one of several apartments on the 1st floor.  The picture below is from the landing on the staircase.  I love that they haven't even bother to put in a proper door, they've just used a saw to cut an opening in the wall.  I so want to look inside that apartment.

On my way back down I stopped at the Sorbetteria Saragozza.  Their gelati was excellent but not good enough to tempt me to tramp all the way across town to have it again.  I had planned on stopping for a C&S in the piazza near my apartment but it was getting distinctly cool by the time I got back so I didn't.  Perhaps tomorrow.  It is supposed to be over 20C - which is the sort of temperature it is supposed to be at this time of year!

Argh!  Just heard from my landlord he has decided to sell the apartment.  He wants to bring prospective buyers through next week and the week after.  Well, I'll hide my laundry but I'm not going to bother tidying up otherwise.