Terni and Marmore Falls

Thursday 9 April 2026

We arrived in the mid afternoon Wednesday – meeting Florence, our host, at the door of our apartment block.  She took us into an enormous 2-bedroom home – which was ours for the next two nights.

After a cup of tea and foot rest, we headed off to explore the town and purchase groceries from Lidl. Although some distance away they have a very good stock of vegan food for Olivia. The rest of the evening was cooking, washing, relaxing and watching Netflix with Italian subtitles.

Learning the language

I have been using a variety of apps to learn Italian, and tonight, it was numbers.  I have an online quiz where it says a number, and I have to identify it.  I am getting quite good with numbers up to 1000, but 60 and 70 still sound too similar.

I am using duolingo and Jumpspeak and I am hoping to be better at ‘hearing’ some of the words rather than expecting to be confident to say more than a handful of pleasantries.

Nera River Park

Our plan is to expend all our energy on one massive walk from the township to the Nera River Park and home to the largest manmade waterfall in the world. The total trek took 6 hours, including lunch and waterfall watching and we covered 21km.  The hard bit was the sudden elevation and the lack of clear footpaths on the regional roads.

We headed out through the suburbs until thetown of Terni was quite some distance away.

Papigno

This tiny hamlet, 3km short of Marmore, was lovely.  Set steeply into the side of a mountain, it seemed to be home to a polulation of elderly residents, some of whom we out taking their daily constitutional. Actual population 450 souls.

Marmore Falls

The multi-tier falls were started by the Romans in 271 BC to reclaim land and divert stagnent water. They were pretty much untouched until the 1400’s when various Popes ordered that new canals be dug to restore the flow. In the late 1800’s steel mills in the area needed power, and the water was diverted to generate energy.

600 steps from top to bottom

The falls have a couple of entrances, so you either start at the top (above Belvedere) or the bottom (below Belvedere).  There are 600 steps separating them. The construction seemed interesting.

The whole flow is not needed for electricty generation so the falls are only operating for several hours each day.  We had to time our visit between 11am and 1pm to see the water at it’s most plentiful.  It was interesting to sit under a shelter that the lower end and watch the falls dying as the water is turned off.  Within 15 minutes the flow was a trickle.

Getting out of the park was tricky as the main road passed through a narrow tunnel with no pedestrian access.  A ticket collector advised us to use a separate exit lower down the river.  It seemed this exit is unmanned, and also works perfectly well as an entrace.  Which would save the E24 that I paid for us both to go in!

Leaving the Park we started the 7km slog home.  Hot tired feet and narrow walkways! We were considering a swin in the local pool, but a short reccy later that afternoon revealled that it was closed.  25C and they think it is still winter.

The only other excitement for the evening was blowing the fuse when having the clothes dryer and kettle on at the same time.  Not knowing where the fusebox is, definately makes for a fun night!!