si puo bere l'acqua?

We can see the rain coming.  We've sat down on the side of the empty road and eaten our picnic lunch whilst marvelling at the views.  The landscape is a rolling countryside of green ridges and valleys full of hedgerows and fields and woodland.  We've enjoyed the morning ride up onto this ridge but now we're wondering whether to call it an early day.  Behind us is a copse of trees dropping down the other side of the ridge.  We have a look around and find a spot to pitch the tent.  There are signs of deer passing through.  The rain is starting.  We get the tent up quickly and jump in.

The morning began with us getting off the main road as soon as we could.  We join a side road that climbs up along a ridge through a couple of villages.  In the first we find a cafe selling tempting pastries for a snip.  We carry on through the trees and pass the church in the next village just as the morning service is about to begin.  It's Palm Sunday. The local congregation are carrying olive branches in to the church in a procession led by the priest.  We've spotted a few road cyclists up to this point, but then they turn around.  We soon find out why when we start yo-yoing up and down along the ridge.  The gradients remind us of cycling around Hebden Bridge.
 

On a cloudy morning the next day we ride into San Ginesio.  It's another classic Italian hilltop village with portals and steep cobbled streets.  But this one is badly damaged.  Some buildings are strapped together in steel straitjackets or propped up with scaffolding and buttressing.  Earthquake damage.  The streets are very quiet.  There's a feeling that people might have moved out.

San Ginesio

After descending back to the main road we are keen to turn off again and finally begin the climb into the mountains we've been looking at for over a week.  The road follows high up on one side of a narrow gorge, way above the river tumbling down below.  We edge up higher to a village where we hope to find water.  From here there's a track to a ski resort.  But in April there is only the sound of some building work going on somewhere.  Not a soul to be found.  I cycle up to look for water and notice a chapel tucked below the road.  And then a hand-written card with an arrow saying "fonte".  I can hear it before I see it - an ornate stone surround for an old-fashioned free-running spring with mountain-fresh water.  This is priceless.  Literally.  We camp nearby in an unused grazing field with magnificent views over the deep valley before us.  Before the sun has set we have seen the full moon rising in the sky.

morning sunshine