Visiting Some Less Ancient Churches

Catching up a bit, I’m currently in San Marino. Allow me to explain.

Yesterday, I caught a flight just after midnight from Addis to Rome. I landed in Rome around 6:00am, and got through immigration really quickly – turns out the Entry and Exit System (EES) isn’t awake that early in the morning. I grabbed a coffee and a croissant to kill time while waiting for the rental car counter to open at 7.

The goal for the day was to have dinner in Ascoli Piceno, about three hours east of Rome. A while back, our friends Jessie and Bulent sent an invite saying “Hey, let’s have dinner and watch jousting in Ascoli Piceno on July 11th”. Jessie and Bulent collect the kinds of friends who would say “sure, sounds cool” in response to that kind of invite. I’m one of those friends, and Italy is somewhat on the way home from Ethiopia.

My goal was to get to Ascoli Piceno around mid-afternoon, which meant I needed to drag out my drive a bit. I asked ChatGPT for a couple ideas and it suggested a stop in Subiaco, a town about an hour outside Rome with a monastery and other sites clinging to a river valley. After grabbing a coffee, I stumbled upon the weekly market and got some focaccia, cheese, meat and a few peaches (free – the guy said it wasn’t worth trying to ring up two peaches).

With snacks in hand, I drove up to the Abbey of St. Scholastica. I arrived right as a tour was starting so I joined in – the tour was only in Italian, but I got the gist. From the Abbey, I drove further up to the valley to the Sanctuary of the Sacro Speco, which has some ancient paintings and dramatic spaces. I decided not to wait in line to get into the bulk of the spaces – I’ll save that for a future visit.

Back on the road, I drove for a couple hours to reach the Salinello Gorges. This was mostly a destination to stop and eat my picnic – I did a quick hike to explore the gorge, but it was time to get to Ascoli.

After dropping my bags at my hotel, I met up with “the group” – about a dozen folks made the trek from all over the US and Europe. We got some gelato, wandered town a little bit, then grabbed some spaces for the start of the Quintana.

The Quintana is a mid-20th century reimagining of a medieval ceremony. Like the Palio and many other local events in Italy, neighborhoods compete for glory and there’s plenty of pageantry. Roving mobs of slightly drunken neighborhood youth spend the day making mischief. At 7, a parade kicks off with a procession of the neighborhood groups in medieval outfits, complete with archers and armor. It’s all very charming.

After the parade, we broke away for dinner, before rejoining the crowds to watch the jousting competition. This involves a rider navigating a figure-eight track as quickly as possible, hitting bullseyes with a lance along the way. All through town, screens simulcast the event, because the stadium itself can’t hold everyone. People get really into the competition, cheering on their favorites. It’s a great social event – lots of young people out preening, good natured banter, etc.

This morning, I woke up feeling terrible due to some combination of dehydration and the sudden influx of fats and dairy overwhelming my body. Whatever the cause, I was not loving the idea of a lot of driving on twisty mountain roads. But, I figured I’d feel better once I got under way. I did not, and it was a “pull over to puke” kind of drive for three hours through the mountains. But, by the time I made it to Grotte di Frasassi, I was feeling almost human.

Grotte di Frasassi is a huge cave system discovered in the 1970s. It’s massive – the largest of the seven caverns could fit the Milan Basilica twice. The reason I was powering through my drive is that I had a timed ticket for an English tour. The infrastructure around the caves is really well developed, with nice walkways and dramatic lighting. My photos don’t do much to capture the scale of the place, but suffice to say it’s impressive. I’m sure Kat would have been able to read a lot more into the layered limestone and big fault lines.

Leaving the caves, I drove for another two hours to San Marino, a microstate near Rimini. It is by all accounts a bit of a tourist trap (and crawling with Russians) – a hilltop village with medieval towers, steep streets, and plenty of shops selling tacky souvenirs. But it was halfway between Ascoli Piceno and Venice (where I fly out of) and it lets me put another country on my list. And hey, everywhere is worth visiting, right?

Driving into town, I passed an Alfa Romeo club having a gathering, which was a good sign. I got my car parked, checked into my hotel, and did a wander of the city. At midafternoon, it was overrun with tourists disgorged by tour busses, and it ticks all the tourist trap boxes – torture museum, museum of illusions, a European version of Ripley’s Believe or Not, pirate themed candy store. But, it’s also gorgeous and dramatic and by the evening it was peaceful. I did a VoiceMap walking tour (which, like most of them, suffered from a lack of play-testing), then grabbed dinner did a last lap of town. Whew, big couple days!