Spoleto, Italy

We have arrived safe and sound. Travel went very smoothly, except for the journey through the Rome airport to find the rental car agency. The trip up to the region of Umbria was lovely. I have never seen such green grass, it looked like it had been spray painted lime green. There were sheep grazing all along the highway. Spoleto is a very small city in the southern part of Umbria and we arrived about noon. We decided to sleep until 3pm and then go exploring. When we awoke the sun was shining but not for long. The central and ancient part of the city is way at the top of a very tall hill and we were at the bottom. Oh, well I said I needed to walk while on this trip. Finding our way around should not have been difficult but we would head up the hill only to find that the next road we took lead us back down so we made the climb several times. The streets were not very crowded, just a few people coming and going. We first looked for an ancient Roman amphitheater only to find a dead end and a home for Italian cats. We continued on up looking for the il Douomo and the Castle of the Rock. While studying our map on a street corner, a nice lady came up and asked us if we were American and where we were from. Her name was Franscesca Owens and she had moved to Spoleto from Colorado. She was very friendly and told us that she had come to Spoleto with her daughter after she had a very debiltating stroke. She had been a stock broker in New York and held public office in Colorado and life in Italy was much more peaceful for her. She said life was good now but she had come along way , only a few years ago she was seriously considering ending her life. She is now an artist and told us to go to her website franscescaowens.com to see her art.

She gave us some directions and suggestions for good restaurants and asked us to pray for her. She is in the final stages of getting disability from the state of Colorado and needs a larger apartment. Interesting who God puts in your path along the way.

Well it started to rain and we continued to get lost but we did find il Duomo and it was beautful on the outside, but had closed so we did not get to go in. About this time we are pretty wet and hungry but it is only 6:00pm and restaurants don't open until 7:30pm. We found a bar with some snacks and tried to dry off. We did finally get to the resturant, La Lanterna, and had some delicious spaghetti carbonara. It did not take us long to come down the mountain, much quicker than going up and straight to bed!