Our Time in Italy (4): Up in the Mountains

 

A day or two after we arrived in Italy we decided to drive up into the mountains.  In Winter there's a ski resort in the area and in the Summer it's a place to enjoy picnics by cool streams and walk in the woods.  For the adventurous there are pony trekking facilities, mountain ridge climbing and a great expanse of grassland on a plateau called Prato di Campoli which is a favourite picnic spot.  I have happy memories of August holidays with our children and grandchildren camping there.  

We visited Trisulti Monastery - which I've shared before.  It's surrounded by woods and we had to drive around the mountains to get to it.  The above photos are taken from across a deep gorge.

We stopped for a mozzarella sandwich lunch at a restaurant not far from the monastery that we wanted to visit and then took a walk by the streams flowing along under the bridges.

Trisulti Monastery Entrance Door

the old pharmacy

There are fountains everywhere inside and outside the monastery. The water is continually flowing because it comes from natural springs in the mountains.  We had brought large glass jars and filled them with the pure mineral water for drinking just as the locals do.  Of course, we had already bought bottles of mineral water from the local village supermarket as well.  

the monastery refectory

the cloister garden

interior of the church

carving of a dolphin on one of the monk's seats

a mural in the old pharmacy reception waiting room

Time to head back home after a good day out.

Up in the mountains

Today I'm continuing the walk in the woods near the Charterhouse of Trisulti on the trail that leads up to St. Dominic's hermitage.  It was obvious that some of the rustic railings had been damaged by falling trees so I didn't walk too far up the trail knowing that there would be twists and turns and the path would get steeper.  I took photos of wild flowers and then returned to where my husband was waiting in the car which was in a parking space on the track below. 

wood anemone and cyclamen

Another charity shop find, I used this useful little book to identify some of the wild flowers I saw.

euphorbia (sun spurge) with small grape hyacinth, yellow trefoil, blue sheep's bit scabious, white and pink flower ? (of the nettle family?), white helleborine cephalanthera longifolia (orchid family)

blue cornflower, white campion, pink candy tuft,  yellow rock rose, pink campion

When we pass this old oak tree growing on the edge of the mountain I like to stop and take a look at it. The trunk appears to be dead, but the upper branches are growing and producing new foliage.

Just off the side of the main track is a path that leads to the ruins of the old monastery built long before the Charterhouse was constructed.  This small construction, I'm not sure how old it is, might have been a gatekeeper's hut or a mountain look-out point.

the old monastery ruins

The gardens of the ancient pharmacy in the Charterhouse which we visited earlier in the day.