Day 44 - Viterbo to Caprarola- Tuesday July 28, 2015

Hotel Mini Palace did not do dinner, so they made reservations for us to have supper at Etruscan Restorant Pizzeria. I asked the girl that was on reception when we got here if we got a voucher for supper, and before we left we asked the fellow on reception if we got a voucher, and he said no, he had made a reservation.

The girl said the restaurant started to serve supper at 8pm, but we left around 6pm to do some sightseeing before supper in Viterbo.

Viterbo is an ancient city in the Latium region, surrounded by Mont Cimini and Volsini, of volcanic origins. The historic center of the city is surrounded by medieval walls, still intact, built during the 11^th and 12^th centuries. Entrance to the walled center of the city is through ancient gates. 

Viterbo’s precise origins are unknown, it is probably Etruscan (768-264 BC). The first firm report of the city dates to the 8^th century. It was fortified in 773 by the Lombardy King Desiderius, who tried to conquer Rome.

Later, Viterbo became part of the Papal States, but that status was highly contested by the Emperors in the following centuries, until in 1095 it became a free commune. In a period in which the Popes had difficulties asserting their authority over Rome, Viterbo became their favored residence, beginning with Pope Eugene III (1145-1146).

Viterbo’s historic center is one of the best preserved medieval towns of Central Italy. Many of the older buildings (particularly churches) are built on top of ancient ruins, recognizable by their large stones. The main attraction is the Papal Palace, and then the San Lorenzo Cathedral. The cathedral was erected in Romanesque style by Lombardy architects over a temple of Hercules. It was variously rebuilt from the 16^th century on, but was heavily damaged in 1944 by Allied bombs.

After walking back into the walled city through the Porta Romana gate (1765), we first located our restaurant, and then wandered about through the multitude of piazza’s in Viterbo. We were going to tour the San Lorenzo Cathedral 

and the Papal Palace, which the lady at the hotel told us were open until 8pm, but they had closed at 7pm. When we went to the restaurant for dinner at 8pm we found out it had opened at 7:30pm. Oh well.

The guy brought us the full menu (available in Italian only), which we questioned and told him we were on half board. He spoke very little English, so he brought over another waitress to translate. We asked her if we really should have the full menu since our dinner was included with the room, she said yes. We asked what we were allowed to order off it, and she said we could order whatever we wanted, but suggested a primo and a secondo, and one side. The man then made a suggestion that we order an all in one dish, where it included fettucine with mushrooms as a primo, we could pick whatever secondo we wanted, and it included mixed vegetables, spinach, and roast potatoes. We both ordered that, Russell got meatballs in gorgonzola cheese sauce and I got a veal chop. It was very good. The vegetables were a real treat.

When we left, we were going to pay for the wine and water, but he charged us for the entire meal. We told him to call the hotel, which he did. He spoke to the fellow that had told us he had made the reservation, and he told the restaurant guy that we were to pay for the meal. So I talked to the hotel guy, and told him to look at our hotel voucher, which he did, but he didn’t seem to understand what ‘dinner’ meant, so I told him to call Beppe. He let out this big groan (Beppe is obviously well known in Italy, plus he could tell he was fighting a losing battle), and told me to let him talk to the restaurant guy again. The restaurant fellow handed us the bill and said to work it out with the hotel.

I knew there was going to be a problem. No restaurant voucher, no special menu. What was the hotel guy thinking? If we had to pay for the meal, why on earth we would we go where he told us to go?

Anyway, when we got back to the hotel, the fellow looked at the bill, rolled his eyes, and seemed prepared to cover the whole thing. We told him that we usually paid for the water, wine, coffee, and dessert. He seemed a bit happier and looking at the bill he said, ‘oh, you pay for the water and the wine’.

The air conditioner in the hotel was not working well (I had expected better of a 4 star hotel), so we turned it off, opened the drapes and the door as wide as they would open and turned on the fan (extra points to the hotel for having a fan too). We had a pretty good snooze. I never even thought about ants.

We got up at 6:15am, got all ready for our walk, packed everything and decided not to come back up to the room, because that wastes about 15 minutes, and set off for breakfast at 6:50am (which we were very pleased started at 7am). We were almost out of the door when Russell said, ‘where is my hat’? I said, ‘I hope you didn’t leave it at the restaurant last night’.

Russell, being somewhat follically challenged, would get his head burned to a crisp without his hat. A great deal of excitement erupted which was about to launch into a big debate and I said, ‘let’s go have breakfast’.

We took all our stuff down to the lobby, had breakfast, and then I told Russell to go ask the fellow at the reception (who was the same one as last night, surprisingly), when the Etruscan restaurant opened. The fellow said the restaurant opened at 1pm.

We had 17.6km to walk today, which doesn’t sound too bad, except it was at least 850 meters uphill in the first 10 km to climb Mount Cimina  (as much as the route notes had said to climb the alps- and we all know the route notes tend to underestimate these things). We really needed to get an early start to do that. The forecast was 34 degrees today, and it is so humid here, it is considered to be sub-tropical.

We went back to the receptionist after breakfast, and I started off by saying ‘we are your customers from hell’. He just shook his head in agreement. I thought he would laugh. I asked him about buses to Caprarola, and he took about 15 minutes printing out the bus schedule for Caprarola to Viterbo. That was really useful! What? He thought we were going to walk to Caprarola and come back for Russell’s hat?

We asked him about getting a ride to Caprarola with the baggage transfer taxi. He said the hotel took the bags, and yes, we could do that, but they took the bags at noon. I said we should be able to get the hat by then even if the restaurant didn’t open until 1pm, because someone was bound to be there earlier getting ready. He checked with the fellow that takes the bags, and he said he would wait until Russell got his hat and give us a ride, if it was later than noon.

Time was really slipping by. I said to Russell he had two choices: we leave without his hat and walk now; or, he gets his hat from the restaurant and we get a ride with the baggage transfer. Leaving any later than it was already,was not an acceptable option to me, with such a physically demanding walk in front of us in this heat.

He said, ‘you decide’, and I said, ‘no, you decide, it’s your hat’. He said, ‘well, I need my hat’.

So we took all our luggage back up to the room, we had a shower and got all the sun screen and Vaseline off, I put on make-up and my sightseeing clothes, and at 8:30am we went back into the walled city of Viterbo to save Russell’s hat.

We found out a part of the restaurant opened at 10am (it consisted of a gelateria, a pizzeria, and a restaurant), we then went sightseeing. First, we visited the city botanical park, very nice pond with ducks and geese,

and some really nice statues; and, then we followed the via Francigena from the Porta Fiorentina Gate we had entered the city through yesterday - through the walled city. The VF took us past all the churches, which were all open and we went in to see. This included the Saint Faustino and Giovita 16^th century church, which had a lot of empty beer bottles and beer bottle caps outside on the steps leading up to the church, presumably from last night. Probably because the steps outside these churches provide a nice place to sit. Russell and I have sat on church steps to eat our lunch numerous times on the VF (but we always dispose of the garbage when we are done). The church dome had a crack running through it from one end of the church to another. It housed some very beautiful and famous paintings.

We also went into the beautiful Church of the Trinita (built around 1256 but a larger one was built in 1727), which seems to be well used and the main functioning Church of Viterbo. It was in a much better state of repair and had a lot of lovely marble.

The VF then took us way down a steep decline into the old city where we had a terrific view of the palace/Rocca of Viterbo. There was a lot of work going on down there constructing a new park, which had a really interesting and very large statue/monument of what we think was a partially buried Hercules. 

We lost the VF at that point, possibly because the way markers were missing due to the construction.

We are going to mention, when we do our inevitable survey about our trip with Macs, that the route notes for Montefiascone to Viterbo should have taken us along the VF coming through Viterbo and getting to our accommodation. As mentioned, they were very clear yesterday, but they didn’t follow the VF. If we hadn’t gone back today and followed it, we would have missed a lot of things pilgrims want to see while walking the VF.

By this time it after 10am and we made a bee-line to the restaurant, where Russell and the restaurant staff were very happy he was reunited with his hat. We noted that there were a lot of workers buzzing around all three sections of the restaurant, and he probably could have gotten his hat well before 10am.

We stopped for a coffee before leaving the walled city, then went back to our hotel to check out as required by 11am.

We sat outside at the hotel café working on the blog until the driver was ready to take our bags (and us) to Caprarola.

It was a terrific climb, even in the car, up the mountain. Viterbo was at 300 meters, and the top of the mountain was marked as 860 meters. The walk, and the car ride, went through the natural reserve of Vico Lake. It is said that Hercules, when once challenged to prove his forces, threw to the ground a big trunk, which opened a cleft, from where began to gush out the water which filled up the valley forming Lake Vico. In reality, it is a crater formed by the collapse of the Vicano volcano, which over the centuries has filled up with water from underground springs. The steep slopes were covered by an impenetrable and insidious wood called cimina. Roman consul Fabius dared to penetrate it and built a road that later became the ancient via Cassia.

In the 16^th century the Farnese (more about them later) lowered the level of the lake through an underground tunnel, already bored by the Etruscans and leading to Vicano river in order to increase pasture ground and cultivatable land. This vast expanse can be admired from the ridges and is covered with hazelnut trees, Mount Venere, the last volcano to be active over 70,000 years ago rises in its midst. The mountain is covered with 35 meter high beeches, alternating with equally majestic Turkey oaks.

I was admiring Lake Vico from up on the mountain, and asked our driver (who couldn’t understand English) if people swam there, like in Lake Bolsena. Instead of turning into Caprarola (at a sign which said 4km to get there) at the top of the mountain, he turned in the opposite direction and drove 300 meters down to Lake Vico. He seemed to think I wanted to go swimming there. We certainly weren’t going to climb virtually 300 meters straight up the mountain with our suitcases, and I told him, no, we wanted to go to our B&B in Caprarola. He couldn’t turn around until the bottom, and then drove back up. When we got to the B&B his car’s brakes really smelled.

It was obvious comparing where the B&B was and how clear it was that it was a B&B,  to our route notes today, that we would have taken a good hour and a half to find our accommodation if we had walked today. The driver called the B&B lady, carried our bags up a long staircase, one after the other, like they were feather pillows, shook our hands and left. The lady arrived after about 5 minutes and took us up to the room and gave us the key. It was very small. The bathroom sink reminded us of the sink in our last trailer, you wondered when you brushed your teeth if you would get the rinse water in the sink or on the floor. It was so small that doing laundry was out of the question. It didn’t have a bidet. What the room did have however, was a fully functioning air conditioner, and for the first time in about three weeks, we got some well appreciated relief from the heat! Hallelujah.

Driving into Caprarola, the imposing Villa Farnese dominates the surroundings. 

It is a massive Renaissance and Mannerist construction. It is built on a five-sided plan in reddish gold stone and buttresses support the upper floors. As a centerpiece of the vast Farnese holdings, Caprarola has always been an expression of Farnese power, rather than a villa in more usual sense.

In 1504, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III (1534-1549) acquired the estate at Caprarola. He had designs made for a fortified castle, or Rocca by the architect Antonio de Sangalio the Younger. The pentagonal building started as a defensive fortress probably between 1515 and 1530. Later it was transformed into a country residence when the Farnese family retired from Rome under a hostile Pope.

After lunch, we walked up the steps to the Farnese Villa (now the property of the Italian Government) from the piazza our B&B was in, and paid 2.50 euro to tour the palace. This has to have been the most significant thing, from the point of view of our understanding of why so many people are rejecting organized religion, we have done on this pilgrimage.

The palace was built by a Cardinal. It is completely decadent. There is no indication that money was ever a consideration in its construction. The frescoes are incredible, done by Vignola, and display an expert knowledge of mythology, religion, and the cultural heritage of the Farnese family. This excess is disgusting. 

Farnese’s worth as a Cardinal was equivalent to a tenth of the Papal reserves, and his wealth was acquired in part by granting favors.  It is not too hard to understand the genesis of Martin Luther’s Reformation Proclamation in 1517. The tour ended with a walk through the castle’s secret gardens. They included a cave with a pond that was incredibly beautiful.

I thank the good Lord above that Russell forgot his hat at that restaurant yesterday. That would have been an absolutely brutal climb today. At least when we climbed the Alps it was only 3 degrees at the top! But even more importantly, if we had walked today, there is no way we would visited the Farnese Palace. That is an extremely significant lesson we would not have learned.

At 7:30pm we went to our B&B hosts house and she accompanied us to the restaurant we were to eat at. Dinner was included. It was another absolutely delicious meal. I had a tempura fish and chip secondo. It had an incredible coating, unlike anything you could imagine. This followed spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce that was so good I ate all of it and was really too full for the secondo. Russell had gnocchi with cucumber in a curry sauce as the primo, and veal with prosciutto and mozzarella cheese for a secondo. The owner’s cat Kiko was providing a lot of entertainment during the dinner. She was supposed to be outside, but when I finished eating she couldn’t resist coming to ask for the leftover fish, at which point the owner came running out shooing her outside. Never so forlorn a face have you ever seen, looking in from outside. She was a beautiful, well brushed cat with the greenest eyes you have ever seen.

Russell slept like a baby in our perfectly air conditioned room. I would have too, except I think I’m suffering from heat exhaustion, because my system is very unhappy. At least I don’t feel sick, so I’m sure it’s not the flu or something I ate.

All in all, it was a terrific day. Even though we didn't walk to Caprarola, we walked more than 10 km sightseeing.