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Standing on the edge of the hilltop, I stare down into the
valley and soak in my first good view of it since I arrived maybe an hour or
more ago. The afternoon sun seems to be glistening off the surface of the
valley, almost like it’s topped with a giant mirror that’s acres long and acres
wide. It suddenly dawns on me, the only thing that can possibly glisten in the
sun like that is surface water.
A lake or a large pond. A body of
water fed by a wide stream. Maybe the same stream we crossed earlier, near da
Vinci’s childhood home.
But, if the center of the valley is
the location of the cave, how can a lake be covering it? Maybe it’s possible it
has filled with ground water over the centuries. But somehow I’m not convinced
of that theory, if only because this region of Ita
