We drove a little over an hour to Isernia today.  Here’s why Isernia is on the map.

In 1978, the federal government was cutting up the landscape to build one of many highways through southern Italy.  These highways would make it easier and faster to transport goods and move around the country.  So the government cut through a small hill next to Isernia to create this highway.  An amateur archeological enthusiast was passing through and thought, “Is that a bone protruding through an earthen wall along the highway?”

Flash forward to today.  This is now a major archeological site which has been in development for over 40 years to discover its history.  The craziest thing is that this site indicates human habitation 600,000 to 700,000 years ago, and it is the first known location of human use of fire in Europe.  (This thing about the fire might be a rumor because the official literature did not mention this.)  In any case, it was a very interesting visit.

The main museum contains wonderful exhibits about human physical evolution, social evolution, and transitioning from nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled social units who call a place home.

Specifically for the Iserrnia site, it was interesting to learn that archeological discovery ranged from animal bones to flint and limestone tools.  The animal bones suggest that the humans hunted a variety of large animals and only brought home the body parts that had the most meat.  The bones also suggest that the humans made tools to crack open the bones to eat the marrow which would have been an important part of the nutrition in their genetic development.

In any case, this museum was fascinating with great information on regional history and archeology and discoveries.

The museum also had a pavilion where archeologists are still working, and Chad said, “I can’t believe you can still hear the cars going by.  And all because I guy said – what is that thing sticking out of the dirt?  Is that a bone?”  It was indeed the bone of an animal.

After this museum and looking at all of these animal bones, we were, well, hungry.  We found a great restaurant in town for a relaxing meal.

Isernia has been decimated by 8 major earthquakes over the centuries – the last being in 1984 – and the town is mostly rebuilt and relatively new.  We weren’t sure what would be left of the old town.  It was also raining so we decided to just head home rather than walk around and explore.

On the way home to Guardialfiera, we decided to eschew the federal highway that we took into the city and take the longer mountain road home.  To make a long story short, we went up and up on hairpin turns, on roads that were the width of about 1-1/2 cars so it was always an adventure to pass another car coming your way, and you never knew how the condition of the road would treat your car.

In the end, the mountain road was worth it because we came upon a field of commercial windmills, and they are unbelievably tall.  They look tall from down below, but when you are actually at the base of these guys, wow!  I’m guessing 10-12 stories tall.

So this slow mountain drive up and over and finally down into Guardialfiera was worth the angst and curvy ride of the mountain drive back home.

And returning to Guardialfiera, we were greeted with warm, semi-sunny weather, which was such a blessing after a week and a half of non-stop clouds and rain. 

We took a nice long walk around the village.  Then we took some playing cards up to our little bar to have a pre-dinner drink and play our favorite Italian card game of Scopa. 

Then back to the house for a dinner of salad with tuna before retiring for the evening.