Spring Break Part 1: In the Mountains of Lazio

My laptop broke in March and regular blogging on a public desktop wasn't exactly how I wanted to spend my semester abroad. So here is a little summation of how the rest of my time in Italy went.


Spring break. Our program offered everybody a five-day tour of southern Italy. Naples, Pompeii, the Amalfi coast...right at their most beautiful times and for only $500. Too bad for me that I was bum broke and living off of my friends' potluck dinners. I stayed behind in Viterbo.

My friends were sweet enough to take me with them in spirit. Aaron drew a pretty decent caricature of me, and the gang took pictures all over southern Italy with my likeness. When they returned, I felt good that I had been missed. Not to say that I kept in my room the whole time.

My gang got together every night for a communal dinner. We would try to switch up the dishes and try new things as much as possible, but one of the only constants (aside from bread, olive oil and a little balsamic) was a couple bottles of Est! Est!! Est!!!. A semi-dry from the next town over, Montefiascone, and only 3.75 euro a bottle. So with all this free time I decided to go north out of Viterbo and be the first of my friends to visit Montefiascone.

It was a relatively small town built on a steep hill. One hell of a workout climbing those streets. I had two goals: one, to reach the summit; and two, to visit the Est! Est!! Est!!! factory. Took me all day, but I accomplished both. Beautiful day. All for me.

On the last day of my friends' southern Italy tour they were scheduled to climb Mt. Vesuvius, the volcano that buried Pompeii in 79 CE. Determined not to be completely outdone by my peers, I woke up that morning and glanced out my window at some not-too-far-off mountain for the hundredth time, and decided right away that I was going to find that mountain and climb it to the top.

I packed a few sandwiches and bottles of water, and forgot to tell anybody where I was heading. Navigating the urban landscape was tough. After a couple hours I came to a tall dirt wall. I figured it could take me another hour to go around it...so I climbed it. I fell into a field of grass and trees...and then I noticed the radio towers and barbed wire fences surrounding the field. I had inadvertently crawled into an Italian military base. I played it cool. Hid behind trees as I sprinted one by one until I was near the road. When I saw no one coming I sprang one foot onto the wire and launched myself over.

I was out of the city! The mountain couldn't be more than a few kilometers up the highway. I found the mountain and the trail, but the trail didn't seem to ever ascend. So me in my dumb mind decided to forget the path and just go UP. I spent at least three hours climbing and crawling through brush and thorns until I hit a dead end. There just didn't seem to be an actual way to get to the summit. I ate a sandwich, carved my name in a rock and started down. Then the trail appeared! I followed it all the way up and basked in the glory of having climbed and conquered a mountain. Monte Pizzo! All mine. Check. Did it.

There was the path leading back down the way I came, but it also led over the other side of the mountain. Why not? So I followed the path down about a third of the way when it suddenly disappeared. I had to climb back up a bit just to find my last trail marker, but I couldn't locate the next one. Maybe two hours left till sunset. I could go up and over back the way I came, or I could plow my way straight down. I chose to continue. What a dumbass.

It wasn't long before the brush got thick. Way thicker than anything I dealt with on the way up. I had to get on all fours and crawl my way through the thickest thorn bushes I could have imagined. The sun was setting at the same speed, but I had slowed down to a literal crawl. I got stuck a few times and started freaking out that I would get stuck for the night. After a little bit of nearly sobbing in frustration, I kept at it, grinding foot by foot until I finally cleared a solid 300 meters of dense brush. I found the road another half hour later and magically (seriously) found a guy walking his dogs who pointed me in the direction of Viterbo.

I arrived home all bloody from the thorns, and showered just in time to welcome my friends home from their trip. Their hike up Vesuvius was cancelled due to fog.