February 6th
We decided to go somewhere local for a weekend trip, so Friday night we drove up to Terni, just a little north and east of Rome, to be our base for our adventure to Marmore Falls aka Cascata delle Marmore.
We were able to bring Tantalum along on this adventure, which was nice.
She has to stay home for most of our travels.
The Falls are not natural. They were constructed by the Romans in 271 BC.
The water is diverted to the hydroelectric plant at the top of the falls, so most of the time they look like this; however, the get "turned on" during a set schedule to appease the tourists.
Look Byron, you have a piazzale!
An alarmB sounded to let us know the flood gates were opening.
But it wasn't like a WOOOOOSH! of water flow increase.
It simply slowly because a much more impressive waterfall.
The sun was also cresting over the mountain at this point which didn't help things from a photo point of view, but you can clearly see how the waterfall has filled in quite a lot from where it started.
There are some hiking trails around the Falls. We decided to explore them and found some kayakers.
Here's the WOOOOOSH!
The trail took some interesting turns.
This is the Tunnel of Lovers or Galleria degli Innamorati.
This is travertine rock.
It's where HGTV gets all its fancy travertine tile - just kidding, but it is travertine rock.
We chose not to go out to the Lover's Balcony because, well, neither of us wanted to be soaking wet for the rest of the day. I don't think you can blame us for that.
We got out of the wet Tunnel for Lovers and headed up towards the top of the Falls.
It's definitely picked up a bit since we first arrived.
Woo! Selfie at the Falls.
Also there was a pretty sweet rainbow and hints of a double rainbow.
This is the channel, the Curiano Trench, that gives us the lovely Marmore Falls.
Looking out through the trees, through the mountains, to the towns beyond.
At the top of the Falls is a sort of sculpture garden/park.
Instead of sculptures, there are pieces of equipment from the hydroelectric plant nearby.
Dan is pretending to be a snail. He may have gotten a bit stuck.
It's a giant acorn! Or that terrible pineapple plant of death from Ocarina of Time.
Or....maybe it's some sort of turbine.
Our path down was not as well maintained as the path going up.
It was also much steeper and a little tricky due to the loose stones all over it.
Tantalum must go first. Here she is dragging Dan behind her.
We made it back to the parking lot where we sat for a little bit. Sitting felt good. We then wandered away from the Falls to find lunch. Which we were successful in doing. I decided that we should take a scenic way back to the hotel to see what else was around us. Pretty views, but not much else.
A little town on lake Piediluco.
Snow on mountains.
Dan thinking he's clever by taking a photo of me taking a photo of the mountains.
A little mountain top village.
And finally the view of the valley from our meandering drive back home through the mountains.
This concludes our adventures for today.
