Bob needed air in his little tire but neither of our tire pumps would fit so we had our excuse to sleep in a little since the bike store across the street didn't open until 8:00. We hid our bike boxes at the back of the hotel's luggage room and headed out into the wild wild traffic.
One last stop at one of the grand entrances in the Roman Wall to top off Matt's tires and the real adventure began.
Even as we left, there were still a lot of landmarks to ping back and forth to. The Pyramid of Cestius looks relatively new because of a cleaning it underwent in 1999, but it was actually erected around 12 B.C, just after the Roman conquests of Egypt. When built, it stood alone outside the walls of Rome, but in 271 AD when Emperor Aurelian expanded the city, it was built into the new city wall. The inscriptions on it say it was built as a tomb for Cestius, but nobody seems to know who he was, and tomb raids over the years have left the pyramid empty.
We tried staying off of the main roads as much as possible and found some interesting ways through parks and side streets. Only one turned into a dead end. We ended up by, what looked like, some sort of gypsy camp... maybe a Roman version of a carnival camp, not really sure. As we turned around a pack of small 4-6 year old kids spotted us and came running after us wanting a ride on Bob. It would have been fun taking them for a ride, but I'm sure it would have gone out of control and we would have been stuck there with a pile of kids three or four layer deep pinning us down. Besides, we were just a little too nervous about the surroundings to hang out there, so we sped off. After looking up this area, ex Mattatoio, on the internet, it turns out it was a former slaughter house of Rome, and now is used for movie festivals, concerts and such. Not quite the Gorge at George, but to each their own.
We continued heading out of town and soon rode off of our detailed city map. We ended up following some fairly major highways which were actually better for bikes despite the high speed traffic, because a wide shoulder (or scooter lane) was provided for long stretches. After stopping to spend our last Euros on lunch (dry sandwiches and Coca Cola), we continued on the highway heading southwest. Finally the city began to fade away behind us and we saw the first hay bales of Rural Italy. Since we were out of cash, we decided we better find an ATM soon and turned off the highway toward Acillia.
This is when it really hit us that we should have paid more attention in our Italian class. These people couldn't speak English at all. We tried asking a couple of women for directions to an ATM (had to show them my bank card) and they spent five minutes trying to tell us where we could find one. The women seemed to be telling us that there was a big piazza several blocks down the street with a bank in it that had an ATM. We thanked them and wheeled away thinking we did a pretty good job muddling through a conversation. Then, after going about ten feet, I glanced across the road and there was an ATM within a stones throw. We got a good laugh out of it but weren't discouraged by our lack of communication skills. Once we had cash, we decided we should search out an internet cafe and shoot an e-mail home. We stopped a business man... he'd know where we might find an internet cafe. Yeah right. He wasn't sure what we were asking for until a couple other men listening to our conversation joined in and the five of us stood there all talking at the same time trying to span the language gap. They seemed to know where one was but disagreed for several minutes on how to get there. We tried following their directions but never found the cafe. This is when we began to realize that if a thing wasn't within eye-shot, directions weren't really very useful.
We were heading West at any rate so it was all good. We might have turned around and gone back to the highway, but the road took us down hill and we didn't feel like going the wrong direction up hill to go back, so we just kept going.
We ended up taking out the compass and figured as long as we were heading the right direction, that was good enough. We even followed this canal for a while without a clue as to where it might take us. All we knew is it was ultimately going to the ocean. The ancient Roman Direction Gods were looking down on us though and It worked out great. Seemed we couldn't make a wrong turn.
We weren't quite sure where we were but the roads were still going the right direction. We parted with the canal for a while, then came to one of our first hills, it was just a bridge that went over a canal (same one we followed earlier I think, but not sure). Anyway, at the top of the bridge we were very happily surprised when we saw the sea for the very first time. A few more minutes and we were at the beach near Lido di Ostria.
After having dinner at a seaside cafe which included an interesting conversation with Danielle and her boyfriend (who were on their way to Rome for a Bruce Springsteen concert), we wandered down to the sea for our first steps in the Tyrrhenian Sea (an ancient name for the Etruscans).
We rode a few more miles before stopping for a bira where we met a bus driver who seemed to enjoy our struggle with the language as we spent over an hour practicing each others language and laughing about our mistakes. A few more miles, and we set up camp.
7-June: Beach Camp to Rain Camp
We passed through a number of harbor towns as we pedaled south including Anzio. The site of a major Allied offensive in WWII. We only road about 40 miles this day. It was just too hard to pass up all that beach.
Just as we were about to give up on Italian food, we stumbled into a small restaurant a little ways off the road. This was Antonio's place and he made some very excellent (although meatless) spaghetti. He also shared some very good home made wine with us and we had a lot of fun stumbling through a conversation with him and another patron that was eating there at the time (the dog lady... we never did catch her name). They thought we were pretty nuts for our style of vacationing.
We found a campground by the beach (forgot to take a picture) and spent a few hours dozing under an umbrella and swimming in the ocean. We were getting hungry but were getting tired of eating dry sandwiches and meatless spaghetti. Then we remembered seeing a sign for a Mc Donald's and decided to go in search of. Well, five miles out we still hadn't found the all American cuisine so we stopped at one of the many pizzerias that we had passed on our way out. They lifted up the two pans of pizza that had been sitting in the display case for who knows how long and we decided to keep searching. They didn't listen and began cutting up the pie with scissors. They really wanted us to eat that stuff. We left and headed towards camp. By this time, all the restaurants and pizzerias that we had passed on our way out were closed. We ended up eating at a restaurant only a few hundred yards from our camp. Still, we'd switch it with a Domino's extravaganza any day. They just don't know how pizza should be made over here.
That night a thunder stormed rolled overhead and lit things up as it dumped on us for an hour or so. We had everything bundled up so it was more entertaining than anything else. We were glad however, that we weren't camping on the beach that night.
8-June: Spiagia to L. di Fogliano
We ended up on the highway for several miles, but tried to find the back roads whenever possible.
If more of the road signs were as clear as this one getting to where we wanted to go would be a breeze. But in reality, we were guessing most of the time.
The city on the hill in the background is Sperlonga. This section of beach known as the Riviera di Ulisse, or Ulysses' Coast. Everyone was still gearing up for tourist season which starts in a couple of weeks when the schools let out. It was hard to imagine this beach being filled to capacity. It was even harder to imagine how much more crowed the roads were about to become.
According to legend, Ulysses moored his ships in the Gulf of Gaeta and lived for
many years on the slopes of Monte Circeo with the enchantress Circe. During the
Roman Empire, the area became a favorite holiday destination, particularly with
Emperor Tiberius (AD 14-3). (The word sperlonga comes from the Latin
speluncae for the caves that are typical of the region.) Sperlonga's
brief period as a leisure resort for noblemen was followed by centuries of
isolation and decline. Tiberius' villa was occupied by monks for several
centuries, until they moved to the greater safety of the rocky promontory above
the beach, 180 feet above sea level.
Watchtowers along the coast remain as evidence of a long-standing threat of
invasion by sea. The Saracens and other invaders plundered Sperlonga repeatedly
between the 6th and 18th centuries. It was only after World War II that
Sperlonga reclaimed its function as a leisure resort.
It was obviously built before they needed cars to get around in. The vias (streets) were just an arms width and it had stairs leading every which way.
This was an amazing place to explore and everywhere you turned there was another amazing perspective.
The farther south we went, the bigger the expected tourist turnout seemed to be. All of these beaches were empty but ready to go. We met a Canadian who visited every year (in-laws)... he said July and August were the months to avoid. I guess we hit it right.
We rode a few more hours... ran across a Mc Donald's around dinner time... I've got to admit, it tasted pretty good, even though I almost NEVER eat there at home.
We rolled into a campground around 8:30 and set up camp. It sprinkled a little that night but nothing like the night before. Seems like there's something that jumps out to offer a way to identify each place we go and for this campground it was a strange animal sound coming from the covered vineyard next to the campground. We couldn't figure out what it was, sometimes it quacked like a duck, and then it sounded more like a cat in heat, and then it sounded like a someone snoring.