The sun was shining brightly as we made our way to the Mount Sibillini National Park (http://www.sibillini.net/IL_PARCO/index.html; sorry, the English version of the site is currently under maintenance, so you’ll have to deal with Italian). Our hostess, Sally, mentioned that we should visit the village of Fiasta and its namesake lake. Her recommendation certainly didn’t disappoint as the lovely little road wound around, through, and up from our familiar valley to the higher, rugged mountains. We kept looking for places to pull over and drink in the stunning view, especially when we had long vistas across two or more ridges. We passed through a concrete snow shed … or was it a tunnel? We couldn’t really tell, but it was fun driving. We stopped at the dam that created Lake Fiastra and marveled at the crystal clear water. We saw several schools of fish near the dam itself before heading on to the village of Fiastra. There, we paused for a picnic lunch before continuing on up and over the northernmost ridge in the Park. We linked up with Strada Statale 77 (the Italian version of a divided US highway), which took us back home. However, we did have a quick detour into Tolentino to find a supermarket and grab some needed supplies for dinner. We thoroughly enjoyed today’s outing and have definite plans to repeat it later during this holiday.
