Adventure of a lifetime, guided by the cimitero lights

Rocca Massima appears as a beacon above the valley running from Velletri to the sea and the balcony of our apartment in Giulianello has a grandstand view. The medieval village, perched on the peak that stands proud 740 metres above the valley creates a majestic monument that is intriguing, impressive and beckons the people in the valley upwards to embrace its charm, its history and the exquisite panoramic view. It is surrounded on three sides by a crown of mountains with a sweeping valley leading all the way to the Mediterranean Sea which can be seen on a clear day when the heat haze in the summer and the cloud cover around the peak in winter abate. In the middle of the winter it proudly wears a crown of snow.

Giulianello nestles in the valley at its base, standing guard over the narrow winding path to the top. To drive the distance you won’t use the gears on the top end of the synchro. The bottom three will be sufficient. People who go by car take a few trips to get somewhat comfortable with the ride, a few more if they are the nervous type. There is a great number of bends, many of which turn back completely on themselves albeit at a different height. The drop is steep but there is a guard rail to catch the cars that wander too close to the edge. The road is paved but narrow and one has to be very wary about meeting oncoming cars face to face, especially on the bends – and the road is basically all bends. Then there is the odd cyclist training for the Giro Italia that has to be accommodated. Rarely are there pedestrians, but if there were the combination of ascending and descending cars and pedestrian leaves precious little margin between embankment on one side and guard rail on the other.

So, not only does Rocca beckon visitors for the view, the historical and architectural mystique but it also shouts out to the adventurous – the (usually young around their twenties) who are going to attempt the 140 kph slide down the kilometre long flying fox from the top to the landing spot towards the bottom, but also the (very) odd seventy year old who regards chasing impossible challenges as some sort of recognisable achievement. It is a chance to experience the self-appreciating thrill of doing something that everyone else regards as lunacy. So, not once, but twice this intrepid soul has tackled the ascent door to door (that is, from the apartment door in Giulianello to the summit of Rocca and return) on foot.

Now it needs to be said that your body and mind need to be in exactly the right condition to tackle this feat. It is a 10.3 kilometre climb straight up and a 10.3 kilometre run back down. Your body needs to be prepared and the best way to achieve that is NOT to let it know what’s ahead. You need to take the plunge without warning. If the body or the mind gets the slightest sniff that this is about to happen it will simply freeze into inaction. So the timing of the journey is important. It must be absolutely spontaneous or else your legs are simply not going to leave the lounge. Your heart needs to be in the right frame of mind. It is not enough for it to be physically up to the task, it has the vital function of deciding when to go, which is to say that it has to be in a certain disposition too to push the “go” button.

So for me there have been two such occasions: one in the summer of 2018 on a thirty degree day (which is quite mild by Italian standards at that time of year) and the other at 2:30 am on Venerdi 2 Agosto 2019. The necessary cardiac conditions are not particularly important but let’s simply say that, unlike most athletic challenges, being calm, calculating and at peace with the world are not amongst them.

Remember, the timing MUST be spontaneous so it is definitely NOT about weather conditions or the temperature or even the actual time of the ascent. So everything was “good to go” for the night ascent because the body and brain had absolutely no warning of what was about to occur. As it turned out a nocturnal attempt made good sense – cooler climb (down to 28 degrees rather than the daytime 38) and there was the likelihood of almost no traffic.

There was no moon and I left the torch on the kitchen table so finding the way was a bit of a trick. Fortunately the road had white lines on both sides so I simply had to steer a course keeping one on either side of me.

The track is a cork screw. It winds its way around the mountain so as to maintain a fairly steady gradient. The Ancient Romans were bloody good at civil engineering as we know and it is extraordinary that they can build a road ten kilometres long climbing 740 metres with precisely the same gradient all the way. It wouldn’t vary by two degrees from bottom to the summit, except for the last 300 metres. It is as though the mountain suddenly put on a growth spurt during construction. For exactly ten kilometres it is possible not to break stride. Every single step is the same. Breathing is laboured but completely regular. No strain on limbs from a variation of pace or length of stride – everything completely consistent. They built roads, these guys, for that very purpose - to march legions across the country with minimal physical effort, preserving as much energy as possible for combat. The engineers stuck to the same measures wherever they constructed a road, even up to Rocca Massima where there was no intention to exercise military might.

There are markers along the way, although, in the darkness, I could not read them. They are numbered from 1 at the bottom to 9 at the top so you get some idea of your progress when you make the ascent in daylight. The final 300 metres is worth special mention. It is about that time when the zig zags on the signs get blurred into a block and you see the multitude of lights at the cimitero. What people unused to traveling the Mediterranean probably don’t realise is that bodies are buried ABOVE the ground. I first saw this coming into the bayou country as you enter New Orleans. There they bury people above the ground simply because you strike water immediately that you put a backhoe into service. Perfectly understandable. But all around the Mediterranean that isn’t an issue. Cimiteri, like castelli, are usually constructed on hilltops. Makes sense. The living get to see who approaches from a distance and the deceased get a shorter trek to Heaven.

Well Italians, correctly, don’t want the deceased to spend eternity in darkness so they quite purposely install a little light, usually red in colour but when the red fades over time, white. So each concrete above-the-ground tomb has a light. Not on the inside where the occupant could use it for reading, but on the outside so that the living can see when it’s time to change globes. These concrete tombs are often four or sometimes more stories high. Ladders are provided for loved ones who come to swap the flowers over and presumably for the incumbent should he or she need to make a frantic dash to the relief station.

Anyhow, at night, this display of lights, from a distance, looks like a little city so, to the weary traveller, it is the first sign that the journey is nearing its end. The eerie thing about the Rocca Massima cimitero is that it is offset from the village - it is on a separate little peak of its own and there is yet another winding road to reach it. So the vision of termination that one sees after the arduous walk at the summit is illusionary – rather like a mirage on a sun baked highway in Australia’s outback. You see the vision of the sea, a lake of water in what you know is a barren, dusty, rocky desert devoid of visible water. The lights of the cimitero beckon the weary traveller but the more you travel towards them the more distant they become!

The thought struck me that is not necessarily a bad thing. The thought of a fast approaching permanent resting place is not what I was particularly hoping to find! Very few, I should think, would be making a desperate dash to get to the cemetery in time – unless, of course, you weren’t the one in the box.

Well it seems that the course was purposely built in two parts – the steady ten kilometre grind to stake your credentials and then a gut busting final three hundred metre “dash” to the finish line with the lights of the cimitero staring you in the eye every inch of the way with the Grim Reaper standing at the entrata, daring you to survive the journey.

Well, survive it I did. A bit ahead of schedule and I had to spend a few hours waiting at the very top for the sun to rise. Time for the legs to stiffen, the arms to start aching and the sense of balance to go walkabout. And then the 10.3 kilometre journey back down. Under the conditions it is every bit as difficult going down as it is going up but the journey is a tad shorter in time. In 2018 it took me 4.5 hours taking a Harry the Hare approach (fast stretches with numerous breaks) and 2 hours down. This year, the night time journey tortoise style took 2.5 hours on the ascent and 2 hours down. Well, at least, that created a PB.

But, of course, this wasn’t about making personal best performances. It wasn’t even about conquest – about setting a difficult goal and its achievement. It wasn’t about self-fulfilment or personal satisfaction. It was all about overcoming some psychological issues – about resolving a sleepless night – and, in this, it was absolutely successful. But it is nice to know, in hindsight, as a supplementary matter, that the body and mind still had the ability to tackle and succeed in the tussle between the limitations of Man and the endless and relentless challenges of nature. There is no honour roll at the base, or the summit, of Rocca Massima to record how many brave souls have successfully accepted the challenge but I shouldn’t think that it would destroy a forest if they were to make one. They could probably achieve it with a sapling.