Dipping a Toe into Roman Waters

Day 5

We hiked along the Roman aqueduct.  

That, alone, requires some contemplative/comprehending pause.  We are talking about the Romans — single digits of the Common Era.  4th century, perhaps.  And it is an engineering marvel, this enclosed trench that brought fresh water from the head waters of the mountain stream down to the village below.  It is a transport that involves multiple miles, maintaining a constant velocity across varying elevations, requiring arches in places, bridges in others, and general attention to mountain gradients.  

All at a time long before John Deere, Caterpillar, and modern surveying instruments.  And it functioned up until a hundred years ago.   I think, by comparison, how many times in the past six years I’ve replaced the gasket in the end of my hose.  And the hose itself, for that matter.

And so we walked this way, up and around the mountain, tracking the aqueduct which was sometimes the wall beside us and sometimes the path beneath us; through the olive groves, higher and higher, pausing to absorb the panoramas and views and, I’ll admit it, to sip from our water bottles and to catch our breath.  Along the path, stone plaques had been affixed to the aqueduct wall engraved with quotes in Italian by various thinkers.  “Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever,” encouraged one from Gandhi.  We smiled in agreement and assent.

The trail leveled and then climbed, around the hillside and over a gorge and ultimately rose on the rocky equivalent of ball-bearings over which we picked our way until we reached the end of the trail and the village beyond — Collepino, “little pine.”  We explored the immaculate town, then settled around the outdoor table of the bar that provided our lunch:  cheese, cured meats, bruschetta of 3 varieties, chased by an apricot pastry made that morning by the wife of the bar keeper.  

Sighing with one more glorious look around, we started our descent.  And all the way back to Spello — easier, at times, downhill; at other times harder — we picked wild asparagus, fennel and arugula for dinner, and marveled at the wild mountain fragrance perfumed by wild rosemary, oregano, onion, and mint.    

Here, amidst the joyful abundance, we walked and talked and paused to absorb the view; 

...believing it almost sacrilegious to allow ourselves to be short of breath.