22. Italy: Abruzzo & Umbria - Mountains & Lakes

The rugged Abruzzo region lies east of Rome and includes the Apennine mountains and a long stretch of Adriatic coastline. National parks and nature reserves cover much of its interior and it has many hilltop towns, dating to the medieval and Renaissance periods. The regional capital L’Aquila is a walled city which was badly damaged in the severe 2009 earthquake, killing 308 people, injuring a further 1,500+ and leaving 65,000+ homeless.  That earthquake cost the region $16 billion US.

We travelled north through Abruzzo to visit Castel di Sangro, a town of 7,000 people about 100 km from L'Aquila. It is in a valley in the Apennine Mountains at 805 metres (2,641 ft). That is a pretty high valley for us flat-footed Aussies.

The weather was hot (but not as hot as Greece) and humid and the afternoons included a quick, heavy thunderstorm as the black rain clouds bumped into the mountain top.
Castel di Sangro was known to the Romans and is the ancestral home of the third and last line of the House of Caesar (Catulus Caesar).

It is also home to Casadonna Reale, the restaurant of Cristiana and Niko Romito, which is why we visited. After 42 consecutive days of Greek salads it was wonderful to eat something more complex.

The dining areas are extremely stark.

But the outdoor areas are elegant and warm.

We stayed in a small hotel which had subsumed the original mediaeval communal laundry.

The hotel's reception area included the two original troughs.

Nearly 300 kn north of Castel di Sangro is Lake Trasimeno, in Umbria, near to Perugia at a height of about 300 metres above sea level.

Trasimeno is a  large lake with a surface area of 128 km2 making it the fourth for surface area in Italy - slightly smaller than Lake Como. Only two minor streams flow directly into the lake and none flows out. The water level of the lake fluctuates significantly according to rainfall levels and the seasonal demands from the towns, villages and farms near the shore.

Trasimeno is shallow, muddy and rich in fish. During the last 10 years it has been 5 meters deep, on average. It is an impounded lake that receives water but has no outlet. Other such bodies of water include the Caspian Sea, Aral Sea, Utah's Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea. Evaporation can lead to a buildup of minerals in the water, resulting in saline conditions, making these lakes sensitive to pressures from pollution.

The shallow waters mean there are many mosquitoes and other insects. However, the lake's water quality is still very good. This is believed to be largely due to the small population and a lack of large farms in the area.

We stayed at San Feliciano on the east side of the lake. On our drive around the perimeter of the lake, we discovered lovely Monte del Lago (the mount of the lake) .....

... with its ancient olive oil mill converted to accommodation.

And revisited Castiglione del Lago (the castle of the lake), the shore area here being the most hospitable swimming location.

Only 35 km from Lake Trasimeno, but on top of another mountain overlooking Lake Trasimeno, at an altitude of 508 metres and at the end of 8km of steep unmade road, is Country House Montali.

It consists of a vegetarian restaurant, a swimming pool, eight accommodations, a view and a few hundred olive trees.

It too was subject to the short afternoon thunderstorm. It is unusual for Paul and I to maroon ourselves like this - we spent one day by the pool but then got bored and drove down that narrow, 8km gravel road to discover ....

... an enormous glass recycling facility making and distributing millions of recycled glass bottles.

We also discovered a lovely, and very accessible hill town called Panicale.

It too had views back over Lake Trasimeno.

As well as the agricultural hinterland.

In the church, to have light, one must make a donation.  But beware - if you are too meagre in your donation "The machine stops!"

21. Greece: Chios - The Mastic Villages of Chios

As we drove south from the lovely sand beach of Lithi on the west coast of the island of Chios we happened upon a tiny port that had a substantial jetty large enough to dock a ferry and obviously equally large transport ships.

Because sitting on the dock were six new wind turbines awaiting transport to their new home.

The components were manufactured by WTS - Wind Turbines Scotland.

Not so unusual you might say - but even though the island has six or so main roads that connect the main population centres, the feeder roads over which these very large pieces of equipment will need to travel are narrow, hair-pinned and rutted.  Even so, many have successfully gone before them as Chios and Lesvos both have more wind and solar generation than we had anticipated.

Our apartment in the south of the island was at Emporious, home to a famous black volcanic stone beach. The accommodation and restaurants however, were here at the port.

The Mastic Villages of Chios have been listed by UNESCO as of cultural significance and the area hosts a beautiful new museum dedicated to the cultivation and production of mastic gum.

The museum is located on a hill top and includes several hectares of trees that are still being farmed for their precious sap.

The trees look like small, dense olive trees and are grown in close groups of 8 to 20 (depending on the terrain) but with largish spacings between the groups to allow ventilation.  During harvest, the area under each tree is swept free of litter and covered with finely crushed white rock (like talcum powder or ground limestone). The trunks are pierced with a blade and the sap drips out. The resulting  'tears' must be collected before sunrise each day as the heat causes the mastic to set.

This is Mesta, the prettiest of the Mastic Villages of Chios.

Villages were more than houses, they included footpaths and outbuildings, farmlands and grazing grounds all supporting the cultivation of mastic.

Each mastic village organised itself a little differently according to its site and its natural resources.
But some things were common - the villages were built in flat, lowland areas with access to water. They were far from the sea, fearing attacks from pirates, usually in small valleys suitable for systemic cultivation and having grazing pasture on the surrounding hills.

The villages were enclosed by walls.  Gates opened early in the morning and closed at dusk after the return of the villagers from the fields.
At the centre of the village was the tower, built for defence as was the largest and tallest building and final refuge in case of a pirate raid. 

The streets linking the central square of the tower with the gates of the wall were few and narrow. From them branched out other streets, even narrower, leading to cul-de-sacs.

In every village, houses functioned as production units for the processing of the agricultural product, in this case mastic . As well they produced the subsistence needs of daily life. Public spaces and workshops were used to meet common needs, such as the communal oven, communal laundry, well, olive press, etc. In the photo above, the communal laundry is located in the wall next to one of the external gates.

Mesta has a substantial church built high against the original tower in the village centre.

Most Greek churches have varying amounts of blue paint often atop the dome.  This one was particularly elegant.

Although the inside seemed a bit over done.

In the centre of the island is the most significant of Chios' heritage buildings, the monastery of Nea Moni with its exquisite Byzantine mosaics.

A beautiful copy in the monk's dining room.

Currently the floor of the main church is being restored - by hand with tweezers.

These workers have been on-site for 14 months and have 6 months to go.

Our final stop was Chios town.  The harbour area had dozens of these beautiful windmills just left to crumble away.  Only these three have been restored and you can see how perilous is their situation with sea level rise and the wake of more shipping without any perimeter protection.

So beautiful.

We had a full day to have a look around Athens but it was 38 degrees so this was as close as we got to the Acropolis - no climbing up the hill in the scorching sun for me.

Instead, we went to the new National Library and National Opera building and looked out over its vast green roof and water feature with the Acropolis framed in the cross wires.

20. Greece: Chios - Volissos and Lithi

It takes about three and a half hours on the midday ferry from Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos to Chios, the capital of Chios.

We have 12 days in Chios over four locations - Volissos, Lithi, Emporeios and Kalvokoressi.

The historical town of Volissos is a hill town, so we stayed at Limnos, closer to the beach. If we turned right from our apartment we had the beach ....

If we turned left we had the pretty well deserted port.

We opted for the beach. It was pretty isolated by our standards- no shop, no petrol pumps but it redeemed itself by having umbrellas and sun beds and a taverna for drinks, toilets and dinner.

Our next stop was Lithi, on the west coast.  A beautiful (and rare) sandy beach and a hotel room right in front of the view.

At about 7pm the locals went home and only the four tourists remained.

Again, Lithi had no shop at which to purchase water or food and no petrol. While water is available from the restaurants and cafes we had to drive about 30km for fuel and some beer, fruit, cheese, biscuits etc.

Every single toilet we have visited in Greece, including on all of the ferries, has a "nothing at all in the toilet" policy. One must put one's used toilet paper in the bin provided. Needless to say, in the current heatwave, the bins that are not changed daily get a bit smelly. There have been some strange signs but this was the nicest.