San Marino and One Last Marcia

Yesterday we drove to the other side of the mountains, from Tuscany to Emiglia Romagna. There was a mostra scambio Dom read about that promised lots of car stuff. It proved to be a bit of a dud and more of a giant swap meet with only a small car section. We still enjoyed wandering around and looking at interesting things. I keep telling Dom I could fill up a container full of old Italian furniture, garden art and other objects and sell it all at a profit in Seattle. One of these days...

After we finished at the swap meet we drove up to the Republic of San Marino. Like Vatican City, it is an independent country entirely surrounded by Italy. It is a winding drive that takes one most of the way up a spiky mountain.

 The view of the countryside from the top is pretty spectacular. 

 It is a craggy area with lots of escarpments and upthrust hills.

 The town is fortified but it is all so clean and neat it reminded me of Disneyland.

 We did not see a lot of the town. When we arrived at this piazza we decided to eat lunch at the restaurant under the awnings on the right.

 While we were eating, Dom commented that the temperature seemed to be dropping. Soon it started to rain. 

We thought it would roll through pretty quickly but it didn't. Not only did we not have umbrellas, I did not even have a jacket. We waited for about fifteen minutes until it lightened up and then started to make our way back towards the car (so much for seeing San Marino) keeping under the shop awnings as much as possible.

I stopped in a shop and by the time I was done it was worse--heavy rain, thunder and lightening. We continued on under the awnings until they ended. Luckily, there was a gelateria there. It seemed like a good time to indulge (although hot chocolate might have been more appropriate). We sat inside and watched it rain. All of a sudden it got louder! Hail the size of large peas was pelting down.

 Hail

 I started to get worried about needing boots.

 Gelato and hail do not seem to go together but we managed.

 The hail stopped and the sun came out but it was still raining!

Finally, the rain was light enough that we felt safe heading for the car. We made it without getting too damp thanks to a lot of awnings along the way.  We headed home and we were not too far away before the sun came back out and it was a dry journey back to Capannori.

This morning we got up and headed off for our last marcia podistica of the spring. It was at San Cassiano a Vico, one of our favorite walks not just because it is totally flat.

 The walk route takes us along one of the many artificial stocked lakes in the area. The fisherman were out early.

 The lake looked lovely in the early morning light. I did not notice the reflection until I downloaded this picture.

 Along the way I saw this OLD bicycle leaning up against a large rosemary bush. It looked like someone had created the scene but perhaps the bike was just left there long ago.

This sweet faced donkey was happily munching the weeds along the side of his enclosure. 

Nearby the donkey a setter spaniel was having a wonderful time racing along the inside of the fence and barking at the passing walkers. He moved too fast to get a good picture.

This brings us to the end of our spring 2013 stay in Italy. Tomorrow we clean house and pack up. On Tuesday we head for Nice, France where we turn in our car and spend the night. Our flight to Amsterdam is on Wednesday at 6:25 am. From Amsterdam we head straight to Seattle.

This trip has been immensely fun but it seems to have flown by. We hope to be back in the fall.

A presto!