PART IX: WEEKEND AT COLDIGIOCO (8/12)

We have our first "weekend" starting today, because the weeks here are generally on a more six days of class, two days of weekend schedule. Today I stayed at Coldigioco and began planning for my fall break trip, which looks like it will consist of about four days in and around Galway, Ireland. I then took a nice long walk to the Roman watchtower in the town of Isola.

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 Here is Coldigioco from the hill directly to the south, named after the tiny village of Fornaci in the valley below Coldigioco.

 The Roman watchtower in Isola is in sight of another watchtower on a hill about two kilometers south, which I am guessing comprised a means of communicating between Rome and the distant province of Ancona.

 One of the many pigeons flies across the opening at the top of the tower. A tiny door in the south wall allowed my entrance but with no floors in the tower itself I was afforded no better view than the hill of Isola itself.

 A small butterfly on one of the many flowers I didn't recognize along the road on my return trip to Coldigioco. Collecting flowers along the roadside introduced me to about ten new species I did not recognize from either Wisconsin or upstate New York but Queen Anne's Lace was definitely a regular.

 The fields of sunflowers were remarkable from the instant I set foot in Le Marche, the region in which Coldigioco resides. These flowers are grown every other year, so I was lucky, and are used almost excluively for animal seed despite what a foreigner may perceive as their unique beauty.

The farther pile on the right of this photograph is of wood that is then covered by dirt, as in the left pile, after being lit aflame to make charcoal. The people who make charcoal are known as i carbonari and their history has been left on many a flattened hillside that we have passed throughout Le Marche.