July 7, 2018 - Running in Italy and England Is a Blast!

Mark here (Actually, I'm here on all of the posts, but this one is exclusively mine.).  I love to run, and I typically get out five days (sometimes 6) per week (usually 25-30 miles per week).  It has been really fun to explore new, interesting, and beautiful places through my running.  I don't often take pictures when I run (For some reason, it's not that easy. 😉), but I thought I would share a sampling of some of the places I have been able to explore.

Italy:

Rome has some amazing green spaces right in the middle of the city.  My favorite for running was in Parco della Caffarella, which is bordered by the Appian Way, which is probably Rome's most famous ancient road.  Wikipedia says the following about the park:

The Caffarella Park (Italian: Parco della Caffarella) is a large park in Rome, Italy, protected from development. It is part of the Parco Regionale Appia Antica (Appian Way Regional Park). The park is contained in the Caffarella Valley and is bordered on its northern side by the Via Latina and on its southern by the Appian Way. It stretches from the Aurelian Wall up to the Via dell'Almone. It contains several items of archaeological interest, as well as a working farm, and has considerable ecological value, with 78 species of birds and fauna.

I was amazed that there could be such a massive, seemingly undeveloped, green space in the middle of a major metropolitan city.  The first time I went, I got up in the morning and took the subway (Metro) for a couple of stops from our house out to the park.  I had a fabulous run and then went back to the subway to go home.  I had not factored in that it would be rush hour, that the subway would be TOTALLY PACKED, and that I would be very sweaty.  I felt bad (probably not as bad as those who had to pack in around me), but I hopped on anyway.  I must say, however, that it is a good way to claim some personal space on a jam-packed subway!  Not wanting to do that again, I figured out that I could take the subway out to the park and then run the 4-6 miles (depending on how much I ran around in the park) home.

 I thought I would include a map of one of my runs, so you could see how big the park is.  It is a substantial wedge of green space that runs along the ancient Appian Way right into the center of the city.  The green dot is where I got off the subway and the black, checkered dot is our house.  I ran home on probably the most famous, ancient, Roman road! 

The park is remarkably wild.  It was weird to be so close to city and, yet, feel like I was out in nature or at least in farmland.  I loved it!

There are trails crisscrossing the entire park.  It's a runner's dream!

I saw many rabbits, pheasants, and dogs.

The other interesting thing about the park is the quantity of ancient Roman ruins, etc.  The picture below is a Roman cistern dating back to 100 A.D. and the next picture is of a Roman aqueduct.

One minute I'd be running on what seemed to be an inconsequential trail, and the next I would stumble across the "Nympheum of Egeria," a spring-fed grotto complete with statuary that dates back to the second century A.D.  It was a little mind-blowing.

There were also communal gardens and a working sheep farm in the park.  Again, very strange to see right in the middle of the city.

We posted about this earlier, but I went looking for the Circus of Maxentius (Circo di Massenzio), an ancient chariot racetrack, which was just outside of the park.  It involved a little bit of bush whacking and fence jumping, but it was totally worth it.

My only complaint about Parco della Caffarella is that I wasn't able to explore it as much as I would have liked.  In late March, I had just gotten to the park and was running down a hill, when I stepped on a loose rock and badly twisted my ankle.  It was quite painful, but I decided to run the four miles home anyway (I never claimed to be very bright. 😬).  It became quite swollen and painful, and I ended up not running on it for over a month.  This was quite frustrating to me, as I really love running and exploring.  I began running again in mid-May, right before we left for England.  My ankle is back to normal now.  Before we left Rome, I took a few more runs in the park and did a little more exploring.  I took the pictures below while on the Appian Way and then in another park, Villa Celimontana.

England:

Though I completely loved running in Rome, running in Derbyshire, England has been heaven!!!  The English public walkway system and the thousands of miles of tiny, winding, back roads provide limitless possibilities for the adventurous runner.  I really believe that I could explore for the rest of my life and not find all the running/walking trails.  It's not just the quantity of trails either.  It is spectacularly beautiful here!

Several times I drove to Carsington Water, a relatively large reservoir near our home, to run.  It has a fantastic running/walking trail, much of it in the shade of large, beautiful trees, that surrounds the reservoir.

I took Heather and Hannah with me to Carsington Water one day.  I dropped them off, parked the car some distance away (parking is always the hard part), and then ran around the reservoir to find them in this beautiful spot.

I was nervous to run on the road at first (Alright, I'm still nervous to run on the road!) because the roads are so narrow and winding here and because people drive so fast; however, I found several routes near our house in the Turnditch area that allowed me to only spend a short amount of time on the busier roads.  I just had to be ready to dive into the bushes at any second.  The back-road runs I was able to find were awesome!  So beautiful and peaceful!!!  By the way, all of the roads in the pictures that follow are two-way roads!  They're fun to run, but a little anxiety-provoking to drive!

On June 22nd, we moved from our Turnditch home to the old mill (turned tourist) town of Cromford.  Wow!  Such a great place for a runner!!!  There were trails everywhere, and most were easily accessible right from where we lived (No driving or parking involved, Yay!)!  My favorite was the High Peak Trail, a 17-mile trail that was a railway in the 1800s.  It is beautiful and diverse.  It has several substantial inclines for which they used stationary steam engines to help the cars up the hill.

Old quarry equipment along the trail.

Much of the trail is wooded, with occasional parts that opened to beautiful views as well.  The picture below shows the town of Cromford.  Our house was on the far left side of this picture.

The picture below show one of the stations that provided the power to pull cars up the inclines.

At the top of the hill, the trail passes through a moor, which is also crisscrossed with trails that I wish I could have explored more.

Right above our house in Cromford there were some great limestone rocks, called Black Rocks, that provided fantastic views of the valley and lots of scrambling fun!

Cromford and several of the surrounding towns (e.g., Matlock) were textile mill towns.  To transport their raw materials and finished products, they created a canal system.  The canals are no longer functioning, and they have developed a wonderful trail along them.

We were only in Cromford for nine days, and it wasn't nearly enough to explore the running options of the area.  We now live in the middle of a golf course in the town of Duffield.  Maybe I sound like a broken record, but the running trails here are amazing too!  There is a "road" above our house, called North Lane, that apparently was build by the Romans, over a thousand years ago.  It is only used for foot traffic now.  There are also multiple trails that connect with it and that cut through the golf course.  I'm sure that I will yet discover other amazing trails/paths here.

Notice the old cobbles.  There is a paper sign they just posted along the trail that says that they are currently conducting an archaeological dig to determine just how old the road is.

It has beautiful views of the town of Belper below.

As you can see, it requires some care to avoid turning an ankle.

We are unsure what this large wall is.  During a walk this morning, we asked a woman on the trail what it was.  She said that she had heard that it was a shooting range during the Napoleonic period.

This is a public walkway that drops down from North Lane to the Derwent River below.  It was probably used by mill workers to walk to their jobs.  It made for a nice run down to the river. 

All in all, I have loved running in the places we have lived!  I love how it feels to run, but it makes it an adventure to be able to explore beautiful and interesting places.