We had goals today! And we woke up to misty cold so we took it slow, but finally headed out. First stop was to check out the location of a hotel for our friend Jim. I took a bunch of photos for him and we walked on. We needed to go to the train station to get our refund from the cancelled train when we were coming here. The walk was almost all downhill and looked, for the most part, like this:

The city has so far to go to rebuild from the 2009 earthquake. They had an equally devastating one in 1703 and were able to recover so here they are again.

Near the train station is the famous Fontana delle 99 Cannelle. Dating from 1272, it is considered the most ancient monument in town, and was originally built as a public wash-house. There are pictures of women washing laundry there. The 99 spouts represent the founding villages surrounding L’Aquila and each spout has a different face.

From there we walked through the landmark from the 1600’s, Porta Rivera. I think it’s funny–this ancient door and the stop sign.

The train station was an adventure. I had a copy of the letter Trenitalia had sent me on my email, and finally found a screenshot of our tickets, but I had to do all of the conversation at the window in Italian and it was a layered and complicated discussion. Meanwhile, behind me, a portly police officer is asking Ken for his passport! I always keep ours in my purse so I gave them to the officer and kept on at the window. The officer actually scanned our passports into his phone to check us out and returned them, loudly saying “Good,” and giving us a thumbs up. It was all very friendly, but I was glad I had them. Meanwhile I had to fill out a few forms, in Italian, for Trenitalia. I think it’s 50/50 if we will ever get the money back, but we tried. If nothing else, it was excellent language practice for me.

We took a taxi back into town, walked around a bit and the sun began to sneak through the clouds. Hurray!

We ate lunch at Dei Gemelli recommended by our landlord and the taxi driver. The room was pretty, with brick ceilings. The food was very good. We shared a “polpette della nonna” appetizer which are mostly bread and egg meatballs in a really good tomato sauce. Ken had pasta All’Amatriciana and I had fettuccine with guanciale and little pioppini mushrooms in a very rich hazelnut sauce. With the half liter of house red wine it was a satisfying meal and the place felt quite local.

After a rest time, I heard music coming from the street so we went down to see. It was just a girl with a saxophone, a speaker and a phone. It was cute–all of her high school friends were around to cheer her on. We walked another block to Piazza Duomo and sat in the sun. Even though the temps were still in the 40’s the sun felt great!

I had known that being here for Easter could afford us something special. The Good Friday Procession, the 70th one through the historic center was just that! We had already seen the displays in the church but seeing them carried in a silent procession with huge cauldrons of incense and a choir singing was a thrill for me. We found a spot on a wall above the procession and had a decent view. I loved it!

The event really spoke to me about community, faith and art in a positive way. I actually had a few moments of not thinking about the mess our world is in. On a positive note, the local forecast says the sun’ll come out tomorrow. Music to our ears.