Caprese is a cute little town that changed its name to Caprese Michelangelo in 1913 to pay homage to the birthplace of the great Renaissance artist.

Home where Michelangelo was born.

Church where he was baptized.

Copies of some of his work.

We had a very long hike today, and most of it was along an asphalt road, so we decided to take a taxi to a point where we could begin our hike and not have to do the whole 25 km. Turns out no taxis or busses were available! Fortunately the owner of Buca di Michelangelo (our alberge for the night) was willing to give us a ride.

We decided to have a nice leisurely breakfast before we started.

The view from our balcony at night.

View in the morning.

Our ride dropped us at a trailhead near this reservoir.

Most of our walk was on a country path/road in the Tiber Valley.

We saw quite a few hunters along the way with their dogs and heard plenty of shots. Pat was asking the hunters if they were hunting birds, such as ducks or pheasants.

Many walnut trees.

For a while we could not figure out the abundant growth of this huge leafy plant!

Turns out it is tobacco and one of the main crops around. Also, we came across this herb; is it rosemary?

When we entered our destination of Sansepolcro, it almost felt like a big city with heavy traffic.

Soon we were headed to the quiet and historic old city. But before that, we ran into this beautiful but modern-style church.

We are now settled in a former convent of Santa Maria connected to the cathedral.

We have abandoned following our book’s directions, mostly. Today we decided to take a different path, a path that St. Francis took on his last journey from Santuario Della Verna. It was a few km more and much higher, but we join our original path tomorrow. This path was also interesting as we will be in the birthplace of Michelangelo.

We began early and descended down to the town of La Verna.

From the town we began our long climb up the mountain. It was nice and cool but the going was slow.

After climbing for few hours we were high enough again to be able to see the Monastery behind us.

The climb continued.

Eventually we reached a meadow at the top. This is the place where St. Francis looked back and said his good byes.

We decided to have our lunch here.

We began our long descent toward Caprese Michelangelo.

This area is famous for their chestnuts, also.

Now we intend to go check out Michelangelo’s home and look for some groceries as tomorrow is Sunday and we need food for the road!

Here is the view from our room.

We have enjoyed our day of rest in this Sanctuario della Verna. Situated on top of the Rock above the enchanted forest, this is truly a lovely place. No wonder it is considered one of the holiest places in Italy. St. Francis walked and prayed here.

Rather than try and talk about the views, feelings, and vibrations that cannot be conveyed by words, I will share some of the pictures.

Some of the relics of St. Francis, including his Habit.

Places where he worshipped when he visited La Verna.

Some of the frescoes depicting scenes of his life.

This is truly a powerful, holy place. We have had the good fortune of visiting many holy places. This, in our opinion, is also one.

We enjoyed the hospitality of Graziano and Silvia.

They gave us a tour of their garden in the back. Cucumber, tomato, sage, zucchini were a few of the things growing abundantly.

There were two other couples staying at the B&B. One from Germany and one from Austria. We enjoyed the meal together with wonderful conversations.

The ravioli was one of the best I have had. Tomatoes from the garden were the best tomatoes I have ever had. We were truly fortunate to have a memorable meal.

Our destination today was the Santuario della Verna, one of the holiest places in Italy. The Monastery in La Verna was a gift to St. Francis and one of his favorite places. He has reported to have meditated in caves in the surrounding hill caves.

Our day today was simple. Just climb about 2,000 feet to the Monastery. No downhill and not many switchbacks.

This morning the view from our room as we were getting ready to leave.

We enjoyed blackberries from the trail as we began our hike.

Finding the right angle and focus!

After couple of hours of walking it was time for our usual picnic in the nature.

We walked along the ridge for a while.

Finally we entered this mystical and magical forest. It was quite, peaceful, and spiritual. We lingered our way slowly to soak in the beauty around us.

This little video might convey the sound of silence better than a picture.

Finally we saw the glimpse of the monastery over the rock. We are planning to stay in the Monastery for tonight and tomorrow night. I can’t think of a better place to enjoy a rest day.

We had the option of going through two mountain passes all in one shot (3,500 feet gain and 1,500 feet descent) or breaking the journey into two days making each day manageable.

We choose to climb 1,500 and stop at a cute little town, Biforco, along the way.

This morning we started descending to the bottom of last night’s village, Badia Prataglia, before beginning our 2 1/2 hour ascent.

At the bottom we found our first pilgrim fountain of the trip.

The climb was easier as the forest was moist and cool in the morning. The mind and body work in harmony, blocking out everything else in the world, as one finds one’s rhythm through the climb. It is very peaceful and meditative.

As we were nearing the top we met three German men. We had a very nice conversation and rest stop with them.

Today the trek down the mountain seemed long and arduous.

We finally stopped by a church to enjoy our lunch of pizza that we had purchased the night before.

By now the sun was in full force and the downhill going was slow.

Fortunately we found some black berries to nourish us as we headed for our home stretch.

We are settled in a cute B&B place in this town, Biforco, of few houses. They have one bar which is managed as a co-op. The host is cooking us a homemade ravioli dinner. He happens to be a cook in a restaurant in the next town (there are no restaurants in this town.)

It’s amazing what a night’s rest is for the body. After a 10 hour hike yesterday we woke up a bit creaky but fully refreshed. A little stretch and Yoga and the knowledge that today was half the climb (1,500 feet) and half the downhill and distance was enough to head us down for breakfast.

Calmandoli is a tiny village catering to outdoorsman in Italy. Nestled between national parks, it is like an oasis for the city dwellers.

There is also a monastery in this quiet nature preserve.

We began our climb into the forest immediately. There were no breathtaking panoramic views, just the glory of nature and the sound of silence.

Occasional chirping of the birds would blend in beautifully with the silence of the forest

Not feeling rushed we even sar down among the trees to count our blessings.

The forest turned into a lush marsh-like jungle.

Eventually we began heading down and witnessed the view of the valley below.

Badia Prataglia is another mountain town welcoming nature enthusiasts.

Of course who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too!

Today was the hardest day so far, as we were supposed to climb 3,000 feet and also go downhill 1,500 feet. It is interesting to see the perspective from the maps 3D perspective (I bought this app so we could use the tracks I received from the German girls). Blue line on the map is the actual path we traveled.

We knew it would be a long day of climbing, so we started early as usual, forgoing the free breakfast at the hotel. The town was practically closed Sunday evening, last night, so we bought an extra pizza during dinner for today’s lunch.

We began climbing immediately with beautiful views. You will notice a castle in the distance. Two Italians out walking early wished us a safe journey.

Once we were high enough we started to traverse around the mountain on a narrow edge. The eco system changed completely as this side of the mountain did not receive much sun.

This is an example of misleading, confusing signs. Most of trails are marked red and white. They occasionally have numbers, where different numbers take you on different trails. We had been traveling on trail 72 all morning toward Camaldoni, but in this instance we were to take 76. Fortunately the track direction pointed us toward the right direction.

Now we were traveling on the sunny side of the mountain and the eco system was dry rocks and no moisture.

Scenery was still breathtaking.

Further up the terrain changed again as we began our descent.

These bicyclists had passed us early in the day. We were all surprised to cross paths again as they were heading back.

We are ready for a big dinner after this long day of hiking.

Tomorrow fortunately is a shorter day, so we will sleep in a bit and start after breakfast.

Consuma’s population is only 150 people. The town has many vacation villas and vacation homes.

Irene is the proprietor of the main bar, restaurant, bakery, and pizzeria in this tiny town. She was also our host for the night. When we reached the bakery we asked for her and she drove us to her home where she has adjacent property with rooms to rent for pilgrims.

She also goes looking for lost pilgrims. Directions for the Trek are not the greatest in this early part of the trek, as quite a few people start from La Verne (we will be there in couple of days).

We had a nice room by this orchard full of plums, pears, peaches.

Her place is almost a kilometer from town, so she picked us up for dinner and then also took us back to her restaurant for breakfast.

Breakfast was at 7:30 and there would be no food along the way so we had to have breakfast there, then start at 8.

We immediately entered a forest and within a km were lost! After another km or so we saw a husband and wife collecting blackberries. They assured us we were not too far off route and would eventually connect back to the trail. Half an hour later they saw us walking toward the next town to pick up the trail. The couple offered us a ride to that town. Our Angeles names happen to be Gabrielle and Sondra. They live in Florence and own a summer home in Consuma.

We were happy to be back on trail without losing too much time or adding too many extra km to our hike. Directions in our book were again very suspect, but the local white-and-red trail signs guided us. It was a beautiful walk through the climbing forest (we did climb about 1,500 feet) but we also had quite a bit of downhill too.

We found a nice spot to have our lunch at the crest of the mountain.

Of course after lunch some fruits were in order!

We met two German girls a few times during the day as we passed each other. Inga and Kristina have the “tracks” for the hike up to Assisi, which they gave me, so if I am able to load them on my iPhone. I hope we won’t have to worry about getting lost again!

The rest of the hike continued to be pleasant except that we are still getting used to the heat and humidity.

We met up with Inga and Kristina again toward the end of our day along with the German couple Diter and Brigitte while we were admiring the head waters of the Arno river.

We are now settled in the river town of Stia for the night.

The festival turned out to be fairly typical of other festivals except seems that in Europe the real party begins after 9. We, on the other hand, like to get to bed by 9 on nights before we are hiking (although we were up until 1 during our visit to Fez to enjoy the Sacred Music of the World in June).

Here are some samplings of the pictures from the food festival.

This morning the weather was perfect. We started promptly at 6:30 just before the sunrise. It was cool but not for long as we began our climb immediately.

We found our first fruits of the hike. Nice figs and grapes.

We reached our first and only town along the way at around 10. We continued on up through the beautiful mountains surrounded by valleys.

We are now settled in a mountain town of Consuma. We have another climb to begin our hike in the morning but then we get to enjoy some downhill also!

The owner of our hotel is also the Chef of the restaurant. We had a wonderful meal here last night.

We woke up at 5:30 this morning to get ready for our walk. It was raining with lightning. Our hike today was a 3000 ft climb over a mountain pass, so we decided to go back and rest rather than be out in lightening. We woke up leisurely and stated to explore our options. The first order of business was, of course, bakery.

We discovered that we could take a bus or taxi to our next stage. We decided to enjoy the food festival!

Turns out the festival does not start until 5 pm.

We enjoyed exploring Pontassieve, our quaint town which is part of metropolitan of Florence.

We were able to check back into the same hotel, so we can enjoy the festival this evening. It’s nice to have extra days in our plan to enjoy this simple deviation from the plan. Our chef recommended a local restaurant for the best pasta in town for lunch. Using our English/Italian dictionary we ended up choosing a simple but delicious dish of Pasta Bolognese. In the process Pat made a new acquaintance with our server.

More on the festival tomorrow! Meanwhile it’s time for another pastry to get us ready for a hard climb tomorrow. We will not take the bus to our next town tomorrow but will go ahead and do the 3000 ft climb over the pass after all!

I would like to end today’s blog with a tribute to a beautiful soul and mother of many foreign students.

Pat Ehle passed away on September 2nd in Indiana. She was an amazing woman full of love and tenderness. Mushtaque (my brother) and I met her in 1974 when we came to America. We always called her Mom along with 150 other foreign students. (She had eight children of her own, but she loved and cared for us all.)

When my brother Mushtaque was sick with cancer, she wrote to him everyday. I remember how Mushtaque’s face would light up as we read the letters from Mom to him at the hospital. He, I, and countless foreign students found comfort in her care and love.

May her soul Rest In Peace. She was a true persona of motherhood and love. I honor all mothers and their motherly love that make this planet heaven.