Church bells in a little Italian town are very nice but on Sunday in Orvinio they start at 5.30am!

I’d mentioned to Maurizio, who runs the B&B with his wife Simonetta, that I usually eat muesli at home for breakfast, and there it was on the table this morning. This was by far the best breakfast I’ve had on the walk and perhaps ever in Italy over the last 42 years

The wonderful breakfast at ‘Sorriso dei Monti’.

The path today started climbing straight from the town. Looking back, I could see layers of mountains off into the distance.

You don’t see many of these old windmills in Italy but we have lots in Australia and it reminded me of home.

It was hard going today, with the temperature climbing to 37 degrees. The first 5km with a climb of around 400m took me almost 2 hours.

Being a Sunday, I didn’t have the trail to my self, but luckily these guys make a lot of noise so I had time to get out of the way.

Once again, I saw probably thousands of butterflies. One bush I passed seemed particularly attractive to them and other insects.

I’d tried to buy a panino in Orvinio before I left,but the gruff man who makes them said ‘not until after midday’. Once again it was one of my dwindling stock of muesli bars and more of my packet of seeds and nuts for lunch. Today though I also had a peice of tart from breakfast !

I had lunch next to this little babbling brook. It was a picnic area and people were swimming in a rock pool nearby.

As I hadn’t passed any fountains, I’d been rationing my water. It was getting so hot that I could have made a cup of tea with it. But I didn’t have a cup or teabag.

At Licenza, there was a fountain with the usual clear, sparking. cold water. It was of a bubbler style. The water was dancing around making it a bit hard to fill the bottle!

The fountain at Licenza. I used the iPhone camera which gave this odd effect.
Yes that’s another town right at the top of the mountain!

Noooo! Another hill to climb!!!

Today I started to see little olive groves here and there.
A spider’s web.

As I got close to my destination as usual I was sweating a lot but the water I was carrying had become too hot to drink.

Tonight I’m staying in an old monastery that’s now an accommodation and convention centre. Unfortunately sometime over the last thousand years someone built a freeway right past the door.

A view of the freeway a few kilometres before where I stayed . It passes about 100m from my window.

My monastic cell is quite hot, so it looks like I’ll have to leave the window open and wear ear plugs tonight.

Ego solus in cena iterum.

The monastery was built in 1727 on the site of a much older structure. In the 5th century, Saint Benedict was the abbot here. The story goes that although they had chosen him, the other monks rebelled against his strict approach and tried to poison him. Miraculously, the glass with wine mixed with poison shattered.

The monastery church, San Cosimato, is built over caves inhabited by monks 1,500 years ago.

Tomorrow another very hot day is predicted. Whilst my walk to Subiaco is 30 kilometres, thankfully there aren’t any steep climbs.