Flashback: Day 5 Italy trip - Hiking and Cold, cold water

Our last day at the Italy Farmstay we went on a three hour hike (1 1/2 hours there and 1 1/2 hours back) in the Abruzzi National Forest. It was a really beautiful day, we walked down in a nice shady gorge along the river to a waterfall.
Not all the pictures are the best because the sun was so bright it's hard to photograph the vividness of colors and the definition in the rock face and all. I'm sure someone who knew a bit about photography could have taken some amazing shots, but I'm not that person.







I think the photos pretty much speak for themselves.

When we got to the waterfall DH and I, being crazy Americans, decided we should definitely take a swim in it. It was posted on their website that there was a hike that finished with a swim in a waterfall - we wanted the full experience. Antonello, our ever present host, warned us that it was very cold and no Italian would ever dream of going in. Well, OK he'd done it before, but not today he wouldn't. Despite that we flung our clothes into a pile and plunged into the icy waters.
Whoa doggy was it cold!
You'd think after a good hike in warm weather it would feel refreshing - you'd be wrong. It felt as though you were getting hypothermia just by sticking your big toe in the water. I think the pictures a bit too small but if you could zoom in on my face you'd see my reaction to the cold. It didn't help that we were barefoot and slipping and sliding over stones trying to avoid having our feet stabbed by the jagged ones lying in wait beneath that frigid pool.

this was the point where I decided I just couldn't take it. I was either going to just have to submerge myself in the ice bath or get out. I opted to get out. I never made it to the waterfall. I chickened out. My daring hubby was hot on my tail out of there.

I have to give credit where credit is due. After taking a small breather and staring at the waterfall, my brave hubby plunged back in determined to stick his head under the falls. And he did it. What a trooper! or maniac, however you might view such an act. He said the waterfall was painful, not only because it was cold but at how fast and hard it pelted down upon you.

We did learn one useful phrase that day. "Viramente, preferisco piu fredda" (Really I prefer it colder) I'm not sure if all my Italian is spelled correctly, I did my best to double check, but one can never be one hundred percent sure with another language.

After our bodies recovered from the shock of being put into freezing cold water we made our back. On our way home we stopped to pillage a Mulberry tree on the side of the road. I don't know if we were all just really hungry or what, but the general consensus was that Mulberries are the best fruit on earth! And just about the messiest as well. After we were done picking the Mulberries from the tree and stuffing them into our greedy little mouths we all looked like extras from a slasher film! The fruits red juice ran down our hands and arms, and covered our faces. mm mm...they were so good though.

On our drive back to the farm we stopped to take some pictures of a breathtaking view of the valley below us and to take another dip in some refreshing water. It was the second coldest water I'd been in that day. We were chattering and giggling after our dip in the freezing waters of the Italian mountains.







We made one more stop before heading for the farm and that was to do a mission impossible style raid on a corn field. We parked the car, ran through someones corn field ripping off ears of corn and hauling them back to the car. dumped them in the trunk and sped away. Once these ears were roasted up for dinner we took a big bite ready to savor the sweetness of our thieving. Only to discover that they were terrible. Antonello liked them but everyone else thought they were horrible. I'm convinced that it was cow corn - corn grown as feed for cattle. The cobs were red! I'm pretty sure sweet corn doesn't have a red cob. Antonello was disappointed that no one liked the corn, but I still had a good time picking! So, that was our final evening in Sora, Italy. The next morning we were up before the sun and taken to the bus station to catch a bus back to Naples then on to Atrani on the Amalfi coast. Stay tuned for the next flashback to hear about our adventures in the Amalfi coast!