Sansepolcro to Citerna

                                                          Current Day                                           Trip to Date

Miles Walked                                          13.3                                                    159.3

Feet Climbed                                            990                                                  19,870

Song of the Day:  Down the Road by Steve Earle

Though the miles lay long behind you

You have still got miles to go

I was thinking about this Steve Earle song today as I was contemplating that while we have walked almost 160 miles, we are not even a third of the way through this trip.  On every long walking trip, we  reach this moment of truth realization somewhere around 150 miles.

First, the weather report.  When we left our hotel this morning, it started to sprinkle.  There is always this hesitation about whether to put rain ponchos on or not, because the process of putting them on and taking them off is not easy.  We hesitated and decided not to put them on.  Turned out to be a good decision as we did not have any more rain after that.  Just a cool, overcast day, not bad for hiking. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warmer.  However, the current forecast has rain returning on Tue and We'd.  We will keep our fingers crossed for good luck on this one.

We met a very nice German couple- Norbert and Urike last night at our hotel.  They live in southern Germany in the Alps and are avid bikers.  We joined them for breakfast this morning and then saw them off on their 50 mile ride for the day:

Sansepolcro, where we stayed last night, is the corporate headquarters for Buitoni Pasta.  We often buy this at the grocery store in San Francisco.  We walked past their headquarters today, and I was fortune enough to snap a photo of Miss Buitoni, May 2015:

Today we walked to Citerna, a beautiful little hilltop village.  About half way through our walk, we crossed from Tuscany to Umbria.  Here is a photo of Cistern from afar and also a photo of Linda in the village:

I have commented in the past on the poster boards at the entrance to every village.  These boards usually contain death notices and other public information.  I liked this one from Cisterna that let us know that Marisa Torelli had died, a few other public notices, and also that the Fagioli festival is coming up next weekend.  Fagioli of course is Italian beans.  But what I find particularly interesting is the cartoon of two Cowboys sitting around a campfire, with a signpost showing different ways of cooking Fagioli.  Clearly, this is not in Italy, as you can see a cactus in the picture.  Made me wonder if this was a take off from the famous campfire scene from the Mel Brooks Movie Blazing Saddles?

Also, it is election time in several of the villages in Italy.  Here is an election poster for a guy running on a marijuana legalization platform!  By the way, doesn't this guy look suspiciously like the American actor Robert Blake?

We had a fantastic lunch at a restaurant in Cisterna today.  Probably the best meal we have had here yet.  Like many of the restaurants in Italy, this restaurant promotes the use of local and regional foods.  By the way, the slow food movement was actually started in Italy in 1986.  I had not realized how long that movement had been going on.  Our friend Curt Nelson is very involved in helping to finance the slow food movement in Austin, Texas. 

Tomorrow will be a somewhat longer day, probably about 16-17 miles walking.