Caserta Vecchia

Welcome to my new blog. I'm getting excited about my trip back to Italy next year and have been going through my old pictures to decide which places are "must-see" on this trip. It's too easy to ruin a vacation by trying to cram in too much.

The above picture is Caserta Vecchia, a little old town up on the hill above Caserta. I only made it out there once, and really enjoyed it. As I remember, it was really hard to get to, and there wasn't much to do once you got there, but it was sure pretty to look at.

I'll try to keep this site updated with pictures and stories, and any other thoughts I have about Italy or Italians in general. Let me know if you have any questions or requests.

Umbria...

This was the last town I lived in on my mission. It's called Spoleto and there's not a whole lot more to it than you see above. The town was built on a little hill right next to a mountain. There's a castle at the top of the hill and the town cascades down the one side, and is completely surrounded by an old wall and a little moat (that doesn't have much water left in it).

In this next picture you can see the "moat"on the left side (the white surrounded by bright yellow) and the wall to the left of it. Everything on the left side of the wall is the original city (I'm not sure how old it is, but pretty old), and everything on the right is pretty modern. We lived straight out about 2 miles or so (much cheaper out there).

Spoleto is situated at the south end of a big valley--at the north end of the valley is Assisi, which you may have heard of (think St. Francis of Assisi, the author of "All Creatures of our God and King"). I'll try to dig up some more pictures of the city--it really is pretty.

The downside of Spoleto, at least for missionaries, is that it's tiny and nobody will let you teach them. So we spent a lot of time throwing rocks off of the bridge: