Ciao, Italy! 2014: Fiano Romano

Hey readers!

In this post, I am going to talk about the small town where I stayed at, Fiano Romano. This town is in the province of Rome and it's about 20 miles north of the city.

Vonnie exploring the town. Yes, that's a castle behind me. :)

Though I stayed in the middle of farmland at a B&B, there was still much to explore out in the town. 

*Side note- I made my first European purchase here: water for 1,80 euros. Sounds silly, but I was pretty stoked.*

We didn't get to explore the town until the second day in Italy since the first day we were trying to get over our jet lag. 

We were taken to the heart of Romano Fiano where there was a castle. Yes, a castle!!

Image from Wikepedia because I completely forgot to take a picture of the whole castle.

Castello Ducale Orsini is a very old castle. The exact date of when it was built is unknown but it was first mentioned on record around the 1000s. Benedict monks used to own the castle until it was sold to the Orsini family in the 1400s. Later on, it became an orphanage and was owned by very rich nuns who ended up selling ALL of the castles possessions in an auction.

Top view of the castle

The castle was unfortunately closed. We wanted information about the castle but we couldn't find anyone who could help us. I saw a sign for "Biblioteca", which means library, at one entry way on the castle. I insisted we go in since who has better information than a librarian, right? 

So glad we did because we ended up meeting the librarian, Emilio. Though the library was closed, he was more than happy to give us his spare time for a tour around the library and gave us the history on the castle.

In front of their literature section

Found the chronological records of the Borgia family.

Their Christmas tree with book decorations

As a bookworm, exploring the library in the castle was the highlight of the day for me!

Afterward, the gang split up and my good friend Theresa and I decided to walk around the town. 

It was such a beautiful day to go exploring. As small as the town was, it was wonderful to see that the simplest buildings had so much history. Everything was beautifully built!

Landscape of Fiano Romano. Image from mygola.com

I hope you enjoyed this post on Fiano Romano. Next up will be about the workshops I attended.