North along the western coast to Rome

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Friday 16th October
North along the western coast to Rome.
Time has come to move on again and the day has dawned sunny and clear a radical change from yesterday’s grey and rather bleak sky.
We plan to use the motorway to clear ourselves of the Naples area and then head to the coast and take whatever road we can to drive along the coastline to Rome.
After our tidy up yesterday it doesn’t take long after breakfast to have everything ready to pack into RR and be ready to head away.
Neither the owner or his sister,who showed us around when we arrived,have been in contact to say when they will drop by to pick up payment for our stay.So when 9am ticked by Gretchen rang the owner to see what the story was.He said he would send his sister and so we went on packing the luggage and our stores into RR.
Another half hour went by and still she hadn’t arrived and so we left the money and keys on the bench and closed the gate behind us and drove off towards the motorway and Naples.
While our stay in Sorrento was comfortable and the apartment had all we wanted with facilities and views,except when the internet failed when we could have done with it,the narrow roads have been a nightmare to drive on and the Italian drivers a trial to deal with both ahead and behind us as well as opposing them.Because of this we didn’t perhaps get as far out on the peninsula as we might have liked to and explore the area a bit more.So we have to say our expectations were not met as far as this little section of the BBA is concerned.But then again there have been so many highlights on this adventure that perhaps we are always now expecting a bit too much with each successive stop having to be better than the last.
We negotiated our way through the Naples motorway system easily and turned off at Capua heading for the coast 40km away on route #7
The land around Naples outside of the city limits is very productive with large market gardens all over the place.Then as we moved a little further away the market gardens gave way to fruit orchards of peach and apricot trees.
The coastal towns we passed through weren’t that attractive but the views out to sea made up for that.As we drove along the coast road it came to us again as it has in other parts of Europe where there been coastline that we have travelled that people here don’t put the same value in living by the sea that we do in New Zealand.Some of the houses at Lido di Latina right on the beach,were really little more than shacks.
Homes were a bit more exclusive looking atSan Felice where the sand was a golden brown colour and the beach,empty of people,stretched for kilometres away to the north.On the other side of the coast road were houses that fronted onto a lagoon.There didn’t appear to be anyone around,although it was the time for the afternoon ‘siesta’,so perhaps the properties are holiday homes.
The population of towns went up considerably when we reached Nettuno and here we found a Pam supermercati to get in the supplies we needed for our 4 night stay in the camping ground just outside the GRA in Rome.
One of the things we have found useful in the supermarkets in Italy have been the shopping baskets on little wheels that you pull along behind you are walk up and down the aisles.The big trolleys usually cost €1 to unlock which you get back when you go through the checkout.But this method can be a nuisance especially when you can’t find a €1 coin.And the basket you can get to carry doesn’t hold enough and get heavy loaded up with beer and wine,as you can imagine.So it’s a bit like having a little dolls pram to pull behind you click clacking over the tiled floor of the supermarket.Gretchen reckons that with me pulling one of these trollies she can’t lose me!!
The twin towns of Nettuno and Anzio had been a beachhead for the American 5th Army in WW2 when they started the liberation and there is another of those American cemetaries here but we gave this one a miss wanting instead to push on to Rome and get settled in.
The beach coastline continued on past Anzio and in fact the quality of the apartments on the other side of the road from the beach got a little more upmarket but still way short of what you would see in a similar situation in New Zealand.
The camping ground we are heading for is on the Via Christopher Columbus and this road is one of the arterial routes from the coast to the GRA and on into the city so we expected it to be easy to find and so it was.
The kilometre marks counted down as we got closer to the city and we were looking for #18 again which we came across but too late to take the turn at a set of lights to the campground which is located on the other side of the 4 lane highway.No worries we thought there would be another turn and set of lights within a kilometre or two.....or more like 6 or 7!!The trouble is that no one actually lives on or close enough to the Via CC to warrant or need any other chances to cross over and go back in the direction of the coast.
So we were an extra 30 minutes getting to the camp site after dealing with heavy rush hour traffic once we could finally make a sort of U turn.
After doing our check in and emptying RR into the mobile home we set off on a reccy of the camp site which believe us is huge.While we were out walking to buy some internet time we were passed by a steady stream of people coming off buses at the gate.There were literally hundreds of people of all sizes and ages.We asked one where they were from and she explained they were all from a small town in Germany and had been in Rome for 5 days as a group of some 600.Some had come by bus and some by air.
We walked over to the other side of the camp where their compound appeared to be to find a whole kitchen set up from 3 or 4 catering trucks and a dining room under cover with plasic tables and chairs.It seemed people were coming to the kitchen in relays and getting what looked like some tasty food being cooked right on the spot for them.Trust the Germans to be able to organise something of this scale!!
Our dinner was going to be a much more modest left over pasta from our last night in Sorrento!!
A little problem surfaced as we checked the internet before we went to bed.The guy running the apartment in Sorrento had charged our travel card for the accommodation and we had paid in cash as well !!The BBA could be in severe financial difficulty if we don't get this sorted out quick!!A short sharp email was despatched to the owner of the apartment and we shall await his response with interest.

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Comments

[Chris]

What a tip!
Don't leave such a big tip next time you stay anywhere. The sister probably thought what generous kiwis. The best tip you can leave next time is a brochure about NZ. Don't suppose there will be a next time. We will remember this lesson.