We are in July and those last two months are to be noted because they are the months when the famous flowers are growing in Castelluccio di Norcia.
As usual, every year, we can’t miss the recurring meetup by @manulele81 to visit the beautiful surrounding of Norcia, visit the flowers and of course enjoy the good food and the (Local Guides) friends.
It seems special to be writing about a meetup in person and especially about this one as, also in the last two special Covid years, it has been unexceptional never postponed and even last year we could enjoy the joy of the flowers with a nice group of Local Guides and friends.
Appointment at Norcia as usual in the weekend, this year on Saturday when we reached the small town of Preci at close distance from Norcia. Here we met Emanuele after one year and we enjoyed a very friendly dinner together and of course in a local restaurant of the area but which we never tried before yet, so we could also full inspire a Local Guides experience tasting and evaluate the delicious local food.
The day after, Sunday, it was a free day because the meetup was planned to be on Monday. Note that Emanuele is always organizing the meetup on [Friday or Monday]’s to avoid high peak times in the weekends because of all the tourists coming to visit the beautiful and famous flowers, in fact this year there was a traffic block on all July weekends to control the tourists flow, so logistic would have been a bit more complicated.
However Emanuele, as a perfect Local Guides, brought us discovering some local surrounding, in the morning the beautiful Cascate de Lu Cugnutu close to the town of San Lazzaro, and in the afternoon the Ex Railway connecting the town of Spoleto with Norcia many years ago and of course before the earthquake which affected Norcia.
We ended the evening with a walk in the town center of Norcia where a beautiful concert was playing in the main square, a pinsa as dinner and an ice cream to complete… straight direct to bed as we were quite tired and we needed to rest for the day after meetup.
Appointment 7:30 am at Norcia to drive up to Castelluccio where, this year, we parked the cars on top of the hill and we went down the Pian Grande with a hiking path on the side of the Mergani, different from usual when we used to hike directly from down the valley.
The path was very special crossing a small bush and leading the valley while walking towards it reaching the Mergani, a natural depression in the ground due to the carsic components of the underneath ground, on this side some special big holes are visible as well which have been produced by the earthquake, in fact they are all in a straight line due to some empty caves existing underneath the ground and which collapsed for the earthquake. The shape is very precise but time by time they are smoothing more and more due to the natural erosion, wind and raining.
The walk proceed to the other side of the Pian Grande reaching the side where the shape of Italy is composed by trees where we could finally see the beautiful flowers in colors of white, yellow, blue and red. This year flowers unfortunately were less than usual (and last year) due to the low amount of water (raining) which touched the area, in fact the ground was very dry and machines were harvesting the hay.
The common group selfie with the Italy and the flowers in background and direction restaurant up to Castelluccio with the last very hard mile, 200mt of path climbing up to the hill. However from here a breathtaking view of the Pian Grande is very well deserved.
The meetup reached the end with a very delicious and cozy lunch in a local restaurant very well prepared and organized by Emanuele, we could know each other more, talk about the beautiful day spent together, talk about Local Guides and Local Guides Connect, isn’t it @Playsky2001 @user_not_found and leaving with this place in the hearth… to the next year!
, yes the place is indeed beautiful and lovely to adventure in there, it is now a yearly recurring appointment if nothing arise to move or cancel it 
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, anche campioni dall’altro capo del mondo 
e ti lascio il link 
Quindi i complimenti anche ai nostri tanti amici argentini di Connect e un abbraccio agli amici brasiliani ed inglesi, che hanno comunque giocato una bella partita!
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. E come detto da Ermes logisticamente perfetta, se questo autunno si riesce ad andare a 
. Si Flora e le bimbe sono venute di nuovo con piacere, come fai a non innamorarti di quei posti! Le bimbe hanno percorso di nuovo quasi 30 km in due giorni, sono state bravissime e si sono divertite.