We carefully plot a route to Loreto via a Decathlon store to replace some out clothes and take a wrong turning at the second junction of the day. We are pretty sure we've gone wrong. The ride should have been downhill all the way and we are climbing a steep little road beside a small football stadium. See, the stadium should be on our left. It is on our right. Typically we don't turn around. We hate going back. The hillsides are criss-crossed with country lanes and over there is the large valley coming south out of Ancona which we will eventually come to one way or another.
At Decathlon a young couple chat to Gayle while I trawl the aisles inside. Where are we going? Do we need any help? Here's our phone number if you have any questions. How kind and thoughtful. Our route follows the main valley and it's difficult to avoid the busy roads. At one point we decide to turn off at the next opportunity but when a junction appears we see a road climbing steeply and our resolve to get off the busy road diminishes rapidly. Suddenly the shoulder doesn't seem that narrow after all and listen to those hissing airbrakes? See, the truck drivers are very careful before they overtake us.
Lunch in a children's playground whose main appeal is the sign at the entrance: "No introducire i cani". Thunderous clouds drift closer overhead. We are still on the coast which is fairly built up and we want to climb westwards into the mountains. But not today. After climbing the road into Loreto we stop outside a hostal with vaulted ceilings in reception. It's cheap enough and cheerful enough. The man shows Gayle some of the rooms. Berlin, Paris, and this one is just for you...London! An armchair furnished with the union jack, Big Ben and red phone box photos. Home from home really. A narrow balcony which we can cook on. We unload everything and go for a walk in the dying light.
There's a pleasant and quiet old town surrounded by walls, keeps and other fortifications. At it's heart stands the impressively huge gothic Chiesa de la Santa Casa - the Church of the Holy House. Not one for nibbling the pastry around the edges, we go straight for the cherry on the top. Inside, the church is impressive in it's size and decoration. Laid out in the familiar shape of the cross, at its centre stands a small structure decorated on the outer walls with finely carved marble reliefs of expressive people. A ramp leads you to a side doorway and we are transported to a dingy red brick room with an altarpiece on which stands an ebony Virgin Mary. This room is the Holy House and legend has it that when the crusaders were ejected from Jerusalem some of them brought with them the house of Mary, Jesus' mother. Of course, they didn't have fridge magnets back then.
A few faithful come in to say a prayer to the statue. There are some ornate chapels radiating off from the house. Back outside we can see the huge stone buttresses and the distinctive and unusual wavy stone design. Below the church is a wooded park with a Polish war cemetery for the servicemen who'd fought here with the Allies. The soldiers were drawn mostly from prisoners held in Russian gulags in what is now Uzbekistan and when released had to walk to Iraq to meet the British Army. It's a sad and beautiful place to be, amongst the pines and olive trees.
The rain threatens but stays away until the next day. We decide to sit and wait it out. We can't see the mountains obscured in the black clouds and we have no appetite for cycling into thunderstorms. The next day is the same. We amuse ourselves by wandering the small town when it isn't raining. Groups of schoolkids and pensioners are hered through the old town. The gift shop beside the church is heaving. Next to the fountain in the plaza a chalk artist touches up his copies of the artworks inside. They are fabulous. They remain there each night and seem to withstand the rain. And each morning the artist crouches down, cigarette hanging off his bottom lip, and makes as if he has just completed the drawing anew.
At Decathlon a young couple chat to Gayle while I trawl the aisles inside. Where are we going? Do we need any help? Here's our phone number if you have any questions. How kind and thoughtful. Our route follows the main valley and it's difficult to avoid the busy roads. At one point we decide to turn off at the next opportunity but when a junction appears we see a road climbing steeply and our resolve to get off the busy road diminishes rapidly. Suddenly the shoulder doesn't seem that narrow after all and listen to those hissing airbrakes? See, the truck drivers are very careful before they overtake us.
Lunch in a children's playground whose main appeal is the sign at the entrance: "No introducire i cani". Thunderous clouds drift closer overhead. We are still on the coast which is fairly built up and we want to climb westwards into the mountains. But not today. After climbing the road into Loreto we stop outside a hostal with vaulted ceilings in reception. It's cheap enough and cheerful enough. The man shows Gayle some of the rooms. Berlin, Paris, and this one is just for you...London! An armchair furnished with the union jack, Big Ben and red phone box photos. Home from home really. A narrow balcony which we can cook on. We unload everything and go for a walk in the dying light.
There's a pleasant and quiet old town surrounded by walls, keeps and other fortifications. At it's heart stands the impressively huge gothic Chiesa de la Santa Casa - the Church of the Holy House. Not one for nibbling the pastry around the edges, we go straight for the cherry on the top. Inside, the church is impressive in it's size and decoration. Laid out in the familiar shape of the cross, at its centre stands a small structure decorated on the outer walls with finely carved marble reliefs of expressive people. A ramp leads you to a side doorway and we are transported to a dingy red brick room with an altarpiece on which stands an ebony Virgin Mary. This room is the Holy House and legend has it that when the crusaders were ejected from Jerusalem some of them brought with them the house of Mary, Jesus' mother. Of course, they didn't have fridge magnets back then.
 |
| one of the reliefs telling the story of its removal? |
The rain threatens but stays away until the next day. We decide to sit and wait it out. We can't see the mountains obscured in the black clouds and we have no appetite for cycling into thunderstorms. The next day is the same. We amuse ourselves by wandering the small town when it isn't raining. Groups of schoolkids and pensioners are hered through the old town. The gift shop beside the church is heaving. Next to the fountain in the plaza a chalk artist touches up his copies of the artworks inside. They are fabulous. They remain there each night and seem to withstand the rain. And each morning the artist crouches down, cigarette hanging off his bottom lip, and makes as if he has just completed the drawing anew.
