Giulia, a 12-year-old girl from Scafa (Pescara) who cannot walk, fulfilled her dream of visiting the bottom of the Well of Saint Patrick in Orvieto. Thanks to volunteers from Majella Sporting Team, she descended and ascended the 248 steps in a joelette, a one-wheeled all-terrain wheelchair. The experience, made possible by the Mountains Without Barriers project, demonstrates that inclusion can reach complex historical sites.
The joelette: simple engineering for vertical challenges 🏔️
The joelette is a wheelchair with a single central wheel and two side bars that allow two or more volunteers to carry it. Its design, similar to a load wheelbarrow, distributes weight and facilitates movement along narrow stairs and tight curves. The Well of Saint Patrick, with its 248 steps at 53 meters deep, poses a technical challenge for any device. The stability and anchoring of the joelette were key to navigating the humidity and turns of the well without incident.
248 steps down: and then you have to climb back up 😅
What Giulia didn't know is that going down 248 steps is the easy part. Climbing them, while two volunteers sweat buckets and you sit comfortably, is almost a risky sport for their arms. The girl, of course, enjoyed the most beautiful trip of her life, while the porters thought about signing up for the gym. The moral: if you want an inclusive excursion, make sure you have steel legs or good back insurance.