Foligno

We are writing this post on the Eurostar train from Foligno to Salerno trying to catch up as we are unsure when we’ll get wi-fi again. (Have arrived at our Hotel in Positano and they have free wi-fi so we will be posting over the next few days)

We changed our plans a little and decided to push through in one day from Corniglia to Foligno on a Sunday. This trip involved four train changes. Corniglia to La Spezia, La Spezia to Pisa, Pisa to Firenze, Firenze to Foligno. As it turned out doing a difficult days travel on a Sunday is better than normal days as the trains were half full. Most of the stations had lifts or escalators so that the changes were not that difficult. Most of the connections were reasonable with the only long one being a two hour stop in Firenze which enabled us to look around a little and have lunch.

We both decided to try lunch at McDonald’s so that we could catch up with our blog spots. We were conned. No Wi-fi at Macca’s and Claire’s still complaining. At least the loos were clean.

Italian couple that Claire mentions in the later post gave us directions to our accommodation “Hotel Poledrino”. It was close to the station, very reasonable price, plus cheap wi-fi access but only down stairs not in our room. So we have managed to catch up a little on the posts.

Foligno was packed with people every where. As it turned out we had arrived on the last day of the Foligno Quantana festival.

This festival has been going on since the 13th-14th centuries and involves 10 teams based on areas of the town with three tournaments conducted over three days. Our arrival coincided with the last event and the parade of all the teams to follow.

Crowd waiting for the parade to start.

Each team was accompanied by drummers pounding out incredible beats with the teams dressed spectacularly in period costume. Because of the crowd numbers it was difficult to get good photos.

We thought it was a good idea to eat before the festivities finished. We stumbled on a great place that taught us a lesson. We started sharing an appetizer, then sharing a prima platte and then a secondo platte each. We were stuffed well and truly and forced to leave half of our last dishes. We’d love to see Adam eat all 3 courses! The added bonus is that Foligno is not a prime tourist location and the meal was very reasonably priced.

I suspect that if you stay away from the heavy tourist locations the price of almost everything drops by a third. As an example I paid 1.1 Euro for a capuccino this morning and elsewhere in Europe paid 3 euro or more. Our hotel was 86 euro per night with free buffet breakfast thrown in. Great value.

View from our room looking over the stadium.