Flashback: Day 4 Italy Trip - Horseback Riding!

That's right, we went to Italy to ride horses at the OK Corral! What a hoot.
Look at the hubbster sitting that horse! You never would have guessed it was his first time on a horse. Well, OK. I think he sat on a horse once and someone led it around an outdoor arena. He go SO frustrated with our host (who was also our riding instructor) because the first horse DH got on did not want to listen to him - or anyone. And, poor guy, the person there with the least experience was forced to jump up on the horse first and get a lesson. He was none to pleased with me for saying, "Yeah, get up there" when he tried to get someone else to go first. He did great even if he got a bit frustrated. Our host really wasn't the best at explaining to a beginner how to ride and horse and what to do exactly to make the horse go where you wanted it to go. In the end DH ended up with a great horse. A huge horse, but a gentle giant. He kept saying they had an agreement - DH wouldn't tell the horse what to do and the horse wouldn't try and throw DH off! A good agreement and since his horse (whose name I've forgotten) just wanted to follow along with the crowd there were no problems.
Here's a short video of Antonello, our host, showing us how to get on a horse.
Naturally, I admitted that I had quite a bit of experience riding (though not recently) and was put on the "crazy" horse. Just my luck! In fairness my horse wasn't so bad, but I did have to concentrate on showing him who was boss. Plus, on top of that, a couple of the other horses didn't like my horse - one tried to kick him in the face while we were on a narrow trail - but it was still fun.Here's a photo of us at the ruins of an old church. It was really cool. Since it was in ruins we could ride the horse right inside it. For me the best part was riding through the river. I thought is was just unbelievably cool, I don't think everyone was as enthusiastic as I was! Our legs got soaked. The water came up to about our knees! Yeah, it was that deep. We weren't supposed to take any photos while we were riding, but I asked Antonello if I could just snap a couple of quick shots and he agreed. I got one good one of everyone fording the stream. All in all I enjoyed the day and surprisingly my old riding lessons came back to me quite quickly. At first I was a little bit nervous around all the horses, like kids they can sense fear, so you just show them whose boss and move on. It was a beautiful day for a trail ride and it's just awesome to say, "Yeah, we went horse back riding in the Abruzzi National Forest in Italy. How many people can say that?














After our morning of riding we relaxed around the farm...probably took a nap. That evening we went into town and had an excellent dinner with another couple staying at the Farm. They were newlyweds on their honeymoon. We had a great time hanging out with them and jokingly told them we were stalking them since we had, at the last minute, decided to leave the farmstay a couple days early and head to the Amalfi Coast. Their next stop was the Amalfi Coast and we were now going to be leaving on the same day as them. It turned out we all took the same bus back to Naples then split up as their hotel was picking them up and we had to grab a train...but that's a story for another day.
Our meal in town was fantastic. A small little restaurant on a back street that served one thing. A seven-course meal of the chef's choosing. Everyone got exactly the same thing and it was divine. I still have the printed menu they gave us I can't translate it, but maybe it will end up in a scrapbook if I ever get around to putting one together of our travels through Europe!

Our plan for the evening was to take a taxi home.
We were told by our host that a local pizzeria had an under the table taxi service that would take us back to the farmstay. Sadly, this friendly taxi driver had picked up and moved to Scotland to open a fish and chips shop! go figure. So when we finished our meal at about 11:00 pm on a Saturday night we wandered all over town trying to find a taxi. We asked some police officers and they just laughed at us. Taxis!?!? In Sora!?? No way, it's too small of a town. Our only choice was to hike the 45 minutes back to the farm through the dark. It wasn't exactly easy going following the path through the woods and we almost missed a turn and would have ended up in at the farm with the volunteers if it wasn't for an observant Scotsman. At least we had good company, silly conversation, enough wine in us to keep us happy, and a beautiful fireworks display from the village on the top of the next hill. Funny enough, it was the rumor that there was a festival in Sora that Saturday which drew us there in the first place. Only to find out there wasn't any sort of festival in Sora, but a different town which was WAY too far to go no foot.


All in all it was a lovely day and a perfectly delicious evening with good conversation and excellent food. Salute!