Appennini aria

The smoke wafted tantalizingly within osmic distance. I savoured it, savoured the memory of those deep draws of pure satisfaction from my days a social misfit (i.e. as a smoker). It may be a year and a month and counting since I last had a cigarette, but there’s not a day goes by when I don’t crave for one. Starting up again would be a breeze … and a catastrophe.

Which is why I grasp those occasional second-hand smoke opportunities when they drift my way. However, I must say I was surprised to encounter this one – on a trail winding through the woods on a steep hillside on the way to a religious cave in the Valle di Fiastrone forests. The smoker was the father of Ornella, deputy mayor, 4^th grade teacher in Colmurano, mother of Julius’ classmate Marguerita, and friend of Claudia’s. For 22 years her father (the smoker) was a protector of animals from illegal hunting and the like, working in the service of the forestry service. Today he’s retired from his official job, and has settled comfortably into his role as contadino. Amongst other things he distils his own firewater, a well-established and respected contadino activity, and a few of his particular concoctions have numbed my mouth on several occasions.

Aside from his smoking and distilling habits, he’s a character, but that’s not the only reason I didn’t complain about his smoking on the trail – after all, a toke is a toke … but on the trail? Only in Italy.

Just another example of how this country is nothing if not a smorgasbord for the senses. While the auricular is perhaps the sense most impacted by the Italian experience, the olfactory is not far behind. And right up there is the intense, impossible-to-dislike, unmistakable aroma of coffee. It’s everywhere – in the piazza, walking on the beachfront promenade, idling past ancient monuments … and taking a break on a mountain trail in the Apennines!!!

Yes indeed, there we were at the hand-built hermitage – church, really – of San Leonardo in the Gola dell’Infernaccio (Hell’s Gorge), when the whiff coming from the Ancona man’s coffee pot atop his portable gas stove turned every head of the 30+ hikers in the vicinity. It was the trigger for a bout of good-natured verbal sparring between his party of a dozen or so and ours of similar size. As part of the repartee, we were treated to coffee laced with Sambuca, no less – no need to scrimp and deprive yourself just because you’re in the mountains.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Italians are a social people. To extend the risk somewhat further, they’re also sensual, as in “I want some of whatever it is that’s generating sensory overload.” Perhaps we would have interacted with the Ancona group anyway, but it’s interesting that it was an aroma that provided the catalyst. Followed, of course, by a treat for the taste buds. And all the while surrounded by a veritable feast for the eyes, the gorge stretching up and around dramatically (apologies for the cliché, but it just fitted).

The Gola dell’Infernaccio is a dramatic, twisting passage through curved, jagged cliffs that turn back on each other as the Tenna River finds its way down from its source on the mountain slopes. The path through the gorge ends up in Rome, so I believe, at one time providing the only route between the capital and this area. Its spectacular aspect prompted Fra’ Pietro, a Capuchin monk, to build his church on the remains of an ancient Benedictine hermitage, with his own hands. He’s been living there for over 30 years. Every Sunday he dons his ornate vestments and conducts a service. The church is always full.