Subiaco

Monday we took the bus across town and the subway all the way to the edge of the city, only to miss a bus to Subiaco by about 2 minutes. But that gave us time to figure out where to buy a ticket (at the coffee bar) and for Ellen to have another serving of what she considers to be far-too-strong coffee. She has a little bottle of French vanilla flavoring that she carries around to "fix" the coffee. She does, however, like the cappuccino.

We arrived in the hill town of Subiaco with our lives intact, but not exactly looking forward to the return journey around tight mountain turns at near breakneck speeds. I kept assuring Mom that that's just how Italians drive, they're used to it, they know what they're doing, it's safe. That did little to appease her queasy stomach, but at last she was able to nab a seat up front with a view through the windshield.

The town of Subiaco is built into the hillsides and has some very steep streets and pedestrian steps that cut straight up through the town. Our reason for endangering our lives to get there was that Steph wanted to visit a monastery founded by St. Benedict, which is about 3 km out the other side of town. There is no longer a taxi available, so she set off on foot after managing to buy a couple of slices of cheese from a shop where basically no English was spoken by the staff and just barely enough little Italian words by Steph, plus a lot of sign language.

I hiked up the mountain road's several switchbacks. It's a good thing cars had to go relatively slow around them because there was absolutely no shoulder, which is common around here. I made it to St. Scholastica Monastery during the midday siesta time so couldn't see much.  I filled my water and popped into a library where they have on display (under a skylight, much to my consternation) a few dozen of the monastery's oldest oldest hand-written and illuminated manuscripts. It's always a little amazing to me to see the square chant notations essentially the same as we still use today in choir.

I headed up the mountain another "500 meters," though I really question whether that's as the crow flies or the distance on the road. About half way between the two monasteries I finally realized that a nature trail I'd seen not too long after the sidewalk petered out at the edge of town was in fact a short cut instead of walking all the switchbacks on the road. This meant it was a very steep climb, but proved to be both a time saver and a way to really see the terrain of the mountain on which an adolescent Benedict set out to live as a hermit.

The siesta time ended soon after I arrived so I did get to visit the chapels built around the area where Benedict is said to have lived in a cave for 3 years before he was convinced to lead a community of other spiritual seekers. And I mean literally built around it--onto the side of the mountain. In places the chapel walls are the exposed side of the mountain rock.

After paying appropriate homage, I very nearly ran down the mountain via my newly-discovered off-road shortcut.  I'd left Mom waiting in town, and knew there was no way I'd get back by the promised time but hoped I wouldn't make us miss too many buses headed back to Rome. She was very patient; she enjoyed a visit to a church (basilica?) and a stroll through some of the town.

We were indeed later getting back to Rome than my hopeful estimate in the morning so finished the day with dinner at a place where Steph was at last able to have gluten-free pasta instead of risotto. And gelato on our way home, of course.