Italy from 6 feet up at 3 MPH.

I’ve spent two weeks walking in Italy. We have yet to meet an American, and most of the tourists seem to be Italian. So what did we find at 3 mph and six feet up?We found magnificent churches with tall slender bell towers. We can see these a long way off, and the trail invariably takes you to each, We found surprising art, like this old painting of Saint Margarita. She was born in 1247 and is (among other things) the patron saint of single mothers. The church caretaker told me her name, but Wikipedia told me the rest. We found mile after mile of trail and road atop dikes by rivers and canals, where we looked down on wheat and corn and vineyards and houses and back yards.We found the place where Ernest Hemingway was wounded in 1918 as a Red Cross worker in WW I. We found fruit and cheese and bread for trailside lunches at street markets. Sometimes we eat lunch in restaurants but only at the end of a day’s hike. We found that bicycles are everyday transportation. We found Cabernet Franc, which seems to be their favorite vino rosso (and is usually €7.50 a bottle). We found a winery with massive stainless steel fermenting tanks. It is was surprising; I’m used to the small hill country wineries.

We found the Adriatic Sea and an 11 mile long beach of yellow sand with tens of thousands of umbrellas. We found regular people.

We found mile after mile of flat reclaimed swamp land in agricultural production. As scenery goes, it’s boring. Next we explore Venice.