Bologna -- the end of this adventure

From Poppi we rode the trains north through grapes and olives along the Arno river, through Florence and the mountains up to Bologna. We spent our last few days in Europe getting delightfully lost in the twisting medieval streets of this vibrant city. Street art, art in churches, museums and galleries. Food art in cafes and street vendors. Performers -- music around the next corner, the night cinema in Piazza Maggiore. And life art: families riding bikes to school and work, street cafes full of joy, small shops that spill onto the streets. We love this city. A perfect end to our Spain and Italy adventure.

After 88 days half-way around the world, it is time to go home.

Tuscany: Poppi castle and the Casentino valley

We settled in to a room with view of the medieval hill village of Poppi. Thank you Linda for introducing us to the magic of the Casentino, and showing us your favorite places!
The Casentino valley is the headwaters of the Arno river -- gentle hills rolling down from the mountains Dave was hiking in. And Poppi was its medieval center, with small villages ranged in the hills around.
It's hot now in Tuscany, so we enjoyed breakfast outside, then walked in the morning and did cooler activities in the afternoon: touring Poppi castle (full of amazing art and history), wandering through the market, slipping through the stone streets and passageways, and cool peaceful medieval churches. Or hiking up to the campground pool in the hills to chill with the local families.

A walk in the woods: the Appenine mountains in Tuscany

I started my week hiking up the spine of the Appenine mountains at the Santuaria della Verna on Mount Penna, established by Saint Francis in 1213. It was a good place to start:  the forest that Francis loved there has been protected for 800 years. I walked through a cathedral of giant boulders among the columns of ancient beech trees, full of birdsong and soft green light. Magic. 
In the succeeding centuries the rest of the Appenine forests didn't fare as well. Timbering and especially charcoal production to fuel the Industrial Age stripped the slopes, resulting in massive erosion and flooding in the valleys below. So when the Casentino Forest Reserve was first established, there wasn't much forest left -- mostly the sacred forests preserved around the other hermitages. But since then, a miracle worthy of St. Francis, and the pride of the Italian Forest Service. Day after day I climbed through vibrant young forests of oak, beech and fir -- none of the trees older than I am, but already rebuilding the soil and streams. I sat quietly and watched a wild boar snuffle through the leaves, and later that day found a large wolf scat full of boar's hair. Owls called in the night, and birds sang all day -- these mountains are alive again!
Each day, distant noon church bells would draw me down a side ridge to a little village, to have a wonderful lunch in the only cafe and practice my rough Italian. Local folks were unfailingly helpful when I was lost, or just looking for coffee. 
Toward the end of my week, I found myself walking in a thunderstorm through a dripping beech forest, with the birds singing between thunderclaps, and I felt perhaps a little of the joy and wonder that Francis found in these mountains, and the sacred forests that he loved so well.   

Old times in the Alps: Bolzano and the Ice Man

While Jen was seeing Michelangelo's David in Florence, Dave got to meet another famous old fellow. I walked down out of the mountains to the cute alpine village of Fie on their market day, and hiked up to St. Peterbuhl, a 5th century church surrounded by ruins of 2,500 year old celtic walls, with archaeological evidence of much earlier human habitation on that hilltop. I caught a bus down to Bolzano and went to the museum to see a fellow who probably stopped by that hill town on his way into the Alps 5,300 years ago, Otzi the Ice Man. He died on a pass near where I was hiking, and was buried in a glacier for five thousand years. I got to see (through thick glass) his frozen mummy, and they'd made this cool reconstruction of what he looked like. He had really sophisticated mountaineering clothing, stone and copper tools, a pouch of healing herbs, and tattoos! The Ice Man was cool!