Post-lockdown travel

As I come to grips with our post-pandemic life and beginning my travel blog once again, I’ve written in recent weeks about pre-lockdown travel and exploring Rome under the lockdown.

This leads to the moment in June that (finally!) travel restrictions ended, and we could travel once again – first in our region, and then to neighboring regions.

Just like the pre-pandemic travel took on a special significance in my mind during enforced lockdown, the ability to embark on journeys once again was greatly welcomed. My family threw itself into domestic summer travel with abandon.

Stessa spiaggia,stesso mare in Sperlonga

What can I say? For the first trip out of Rome after a long lockdown, it was absolutely perfect.

We always love this whitewashed medieval town perched on a hill, and surrounded by the sparkling blue Mediterranean.

We even managed to take out first swim of the season – a little later than we generally do, but in this insane 2020, certainly better late than never!

Hitting the hiking trails in Abruzzo’s Ovindoli

During the enforced time at home during lockdown, I found myself often wishing I was out in the mountains of Abruzzo, where I was sure the local residents could carry out social distancing on the hiking trails, immersed in majestic nature.

After finally getting out for a weekend in Abruzzo, I learned that nothing could be further from the truth. The residents in Ovindoli may have had a more Draconian enforcement of lockdown rules than even we faced in Rome.

Luckily, things were back to (almost) normal when my family and I were back, and we enjoyed hiking and mountain biking in the region’s wonderful nature. Just what the doctor ordered after so long confined inside the home.

I’ll definitely be back this summer and early fall to get my fill of (missed) mountain days.

Wandering the medieval streets of Rieti

After weekend trips to the seaside and the mountains, the next two weekends were spent in northern Lazio, in the medieval town of Rieti.

My younger son is a track and field athlete, and was (literally) off the starting blocks the second competition restrictions were lifted on teenage athletes. Since he runs for the team in Rieti, we couldn’t miss out on getting up to the small city for competitions.

Psychologically, it was also important that after a long “hibernation”, athletes could start competing again. After all, track and field is a sport where it’s possible to (mostly) maintain distance and, ay least in the spring/summer season, has all competitions outdoors.

Great that my son could start in again up in pretty Rieti, where we could revisit the town and explore some of the other medieval gems in the area.

This ends my Corona virus trilogy, and deeply hoping that travel will become the norm for us all soon enough.