Coronavirus Restrictions Lead to New Discoveries

Planning a trip used to mean finding cheap flights from Chicago. But now that I live in Italy I just get out google maps (I guess you can't really get those out) and type in the distance from Venice to wherever I want to go to see how long the road trip will take. 

Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus I'm not planning a trip, but I'm still checking google maps.  I need to learn my boundaries.  We're only allowed to leave our town for grocery shopping, medical appointments (non-essential are cancelled anyway) hopsital trips and work (in which case a large part of work in Italy has stopped).  And seeing that banks and post offices are still open (I've heard only the ones with big glass windows at the counter) I guess you must be able to go there, too.

Here's a quick review.  At first we were told to stay in Italy, but we could move about the country (at least I think that was a rule).  Then some provinces were closed (mine included) and we couldn't leave our province.  Next came the lockdown of all of the provinces, which is easier to visualize when you say the whole country couldn't move from one province to another.  That later became the law for towns. A resident of one Italian town with hills and vineyards and olive groves couldn't visit their family in the next town with cobblestone streets and medeival walls and castles. 
         
At first the idea of the town lockdown was hard to take.  On runs and walks I've always headed north and east of home, but I quickly learned those were the fastest ways out of town.  It was time to explore the south and west, where I could go a couple of kilometers without leaving my city limits.

On the first day I saw my horizons stretching. I found spectacular new views of the same mountains. I discovered an abandoned villa in the woods where the surrounding stone wall is being rebuilt.  I said hello to a lady picking weeds for her salad and waved at unknown farmers plowing and sowing (my students would ask why those words aren't pronounced the same) a huge field with no tractors. I felt anything but restricted.

This is what Italian farmers do on lockdown.

Then, just as I was getting used to my new home away from home, my boundaries were once again reduced.  The new law requires that I stay within 200 meters of my house. It was time for more google maps.  I prefer my shiny silver compass for drawing perfect circles, but that doesn't work on a touchscreen. So I put the dot on my little blue house, set the distance at 200 meters and drew my new boundaries.

This morning I successfully completed 11 kilometers in my lockdown zone.  Unfortunately, my idea of laps in the vineyard is no longer possible.  The closest one is 50 meters outside my circle.  Luckily, olive groves are still available.  And there's nothing like a few laps between rows of dried up cornstalks to cheer you up.

I asked my neighbor if I could climb his fence and I discovered this. If only my 200 meters didn't stop at the bottom of the hill.