A day in Benevento. We're in the mountains now, far from the chaos and cobblestones of Napoli, and it seems prudent to enjoy it - so we take our gracious host up on his offer and decide to stay an extra day. No sleeping in, though; Massimo works for the local transit agency as a publicist, and he prefers to start early...so we leap out of bed at the sprightly (though by now hardly unusual) hour of 0630, don the only clean clothes we have, and head into town, grabbing breakfast at a local bar near the terminus that even at this hour is crammed full of students on their way to the secondary school across the street. Yes, school has started again - another reminder that our journey is separate from the schedules of real life, from work and school and all manner of daily obligations; and yet we have our own schedule, one which pushes us to rise early, eat constantly, and bike ever harder. November 23. A fixed date, marking the end of our trip in still-faraway Istanbul. A date that is fast approaching...
...but, for now, there is time enough to poke around Benevento a little. Massimo speaks to one of the bus drivers, who allows us to ride into town free of charge. Once there, we complete our breakfast (though tasty, caffé e cornetto is not nearly enough!) with pomodoro and provolone sandwiches, a variation on the bocadillos tomate that we enjoyed so well during our travels through Spain. We eat in the shadow of the Arco Traiano, a Roman triumphal arch - Benevento was originally one of the larger Roman towns in the area, a sort of waypoint along the Via Appia. Aside from the arch, we also visit an ancient district only recently unearthed (in 2004 - before that, it was covered with plant growth), a Roman theatre, and a couple of old cathedrals in the centre of town.
Later on, after taking care of mundane tasks such as laundry and blogkeeping and such, we head out to the offices of the cycling club that Massimo heads, Sannio in Bici (Sannio being the mountainous area around Benevento, in size somewhere between the province of Benevento and the region of Campania) which is fittingly located right next to an old rail line that has since been converted into a bike path. The offices are part of this smallish recreation and sport complex; it has its own bar, café, and football pitch, and therefore is furnished with all the necessities of Italian life...
...and we walk along the backroads near the bike path. These wind up into the surrounding hills, offering magnificent views of the mountains whose tips glow with yellow and red and orange in the setting sun - beautiful, a sort of beauty that is appreciated even more at walking speed. We walk out to where the roads join the bike path again, some 5 km out from the office, and take the path back through the valley - it is getting dark as we walk back, and we fear that we are late, so we make haste while discussing our crazy plans to take part in National Novel Writing Month during the final stretch of our trip. Perhaps we can write a story based off one of the local legends we have heard, or off some part of our travels that particularly struck us...there is enough material here for an entire series, and not nearly enough time to write it in...
...to our surprise, we get back at 2005 - not too late, and certainly earlier than we imagine it to be. Spring has become summer, which will soon give way to fall; the solstice has long passed, the equinox is in sight. At the beginning of our trip, it was not uncommon to have light until 2230 or even later. Now, the sun sets before 2000. The day is noticeably shorter, so that we must finish biking much sooner. Nevertheless, we are fortunately not biking now; instead, we are drinking beer and eating delicious pastries at the bar in the sport complex. There is some sort of birthday party taking place, and leftover food is already available in abundance.
In town, we make a stop by this libreria (book store, essentially) owned by one of Massimo's friends, who offers the space inside for groups and organizations in the community to give presentations. Tonight, some people from the Slow Food Association in these parts have come by to present Terra Madre, a documentary about the global Slow Food gathering in 2006 and the deleterious effects of industrial agriculture on our planet. While there, we have one important task to take care of: unfortunately, we lost our regional map of Campania and Basilicata today while walking about town, so we purchase another. Since we keep track of our daily routes on the map, we must redraw these later when we get the chance...
...but the Slow Food presentation is entirely in Italian - so to spare us from the ensuing linguistic confusion, made no better by the fact that Italian is typically spoken at the frenetic speed of a hardened espresso addict, Massimo takes us down to the old centre of town where a music and art festival is taking place. There is a concert in the old Roman district, part of which has been converted into a stage for precisely this purpose - but they only admit a certain number of people, so we must wait until other members of the audience leave. With nowhere else to go, we wait patiently and listen through the bars - and are soon inside once a large family leaves, absorbed in music as the near-full moon rises overhead...
...and we head back to the bookshop at the end of the night to partake in some of the food offered by the Slow Food Association. There is local wine and local prosciutto and pizza made from local ingredients - all delicious and, happily for our light pockets, free. The owner even leaves us with a copy of this guide to the history and culture of the province of Benevento; it is in Italian, but we can decipher most of it by calling upon our experience with French and Spanish...
A long and reasonably eventful day, and another reminder that the best places are often found outside the main cities. Of note, this is also our second successful foray into the world of WarmShowers, adding further to the karmic debt that we will have to repay upon establishing more permanent residence in San Francisco. So: if you are travelling through that part of California after we arrive in December, drop us a line and perhaps we will be able to find space for you!