Thursday, November 6, 2008

Follies Sacro Bosco dei Mostri 1552

I went to Italy once, and I wanted to see some villa gardens.  I was staying in Rome and took a train to the small town of Bormarzo.  Actually, I took the train to the town closest to Bomarzo which is Attigliano (7 kilometers away) .  
The trip took more than a 2.5 hours and included a transfer. When I arrived at the station, no one was on the platform.  I walked inside to an espresso bar and asked directions.  
I had brought a book with me about Villa Gardens from the public library in Calif.  
In bad Spantalian, I asked about the monster garden, while I pointed at a picture of it in the book.  The Espresso man behind the espresso bar laughed at me.  
He told me that the garden was 8 km away.  I asked, "Taxi?"  He replied, "No Taxi!" I asked "Autobus?"  He replied, "No Autobus!"  I asked, "bicicleta?"  He replied, "No Bicicleta... a pie 8km!" while he walked his fingers across the counter.  
Apparently, I had misread a website that said the park was 500m from the train station.  Having traveled so far, I decided to continue... a pie (on foot)!  
So, I walked the 8km along the narrow shoulder of a highway.  At about 5km, the road began to climb uphill in a series of switchbacks.  
I decided to try my hand at hitch-hiking.  I found a piece of cardboard and I wrote Bomarzo on it.   Sweaty and with broken character, I sat on a guardrail at the hairpin turn of a switchback with my sign.  
Cars flew by me.  No one stopped to pick me up.  Not even the tractor driving uphill at 3mph.  Must have been mistaken for a gypsy!  So I walked the entire 8km to the garden.  As I approached the entrance to the garden, I looked up at the sky and it looked like rain.  The Gods were obviously smiling upon me.  How was I going to get back to Rome?  A pie...on foot!  

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