I spend part of the year in a small hill town in central Italy. The town is Sarnano, four hours and a bit at speed by road north east of Rome in the province of Le Marche, the far reaches of an earlier time. Head north from Fiumicino towards Florence and then east to Spoleto, Foligno, and Civitanova. Construction of the town under the peaks of the Sibilini Mountains began in the year 1265.

Today the town has a population of about 3,500 people. Once they lived inside the high and surrounding walls, but currently that number includes the population outside, houses working up the adjacent hills and leeching off the various secondary roads to the neighboring hill towns of Amandola and San Ginesio.