Overland 1972 - Day 20

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Day 20 - Thursday 2nd March.

The challenge today is to travel to Ancona on the east coast. The route is not particularly obvious but anyway it always depends on the luck of the lifts being offered. I left the hostel at 10am. The first lift drove me to the Ring Road and almost immediately a second lift to the autostrade. However I was dropped at a quite difficult spot as there were two prostitutes hanging around and a line of other hitch-hikers. After a walk further along the road, a car stopped and after much map pointing it appeared that he was heading in the right direction. Unfortunately the driver did not speak English or French and so it was a quiet journey just enjoying the scenery. The route was slightly rural as we drove via Narni, Terni, Spoleto, Tolentino and Macerata - clearly the driver had his special quiet route which avoided some of the main roads. The advantage of the route was the beautiful and constantly changing scenery from green valleys to rugged hillsides including the crossing of the Appennines.

I was dropped about 5 Km from a small Youth Hostel on the coast at Porto Potenza Picena. This short trip was completed courtesy of a lorry driver and at 3.30pm I was 35Km south of Ancona by the side of what appeared to be a fairly busy road. The weather had remained cold all day but I was very cheerful having succeeded in getting this far. The early arrival meant that I had enough time to enjoy a walk along the seafront and take in some fresh sea air. The Youth Hostel was situated at the back of a hotel/restaurant and it overlooked the sea - no hot water though. It is amazing looking back, how many places did not offer hot water ! I ate at the hostel for 550 Lira - pasta and chicken albeit with quite a lot of bones. There were only two other guests both Italian. We spoke a little French and one kindly offered me a lift to Ancona in the morning. So today Thursday 2nd was my last day of planned hitch-hiking as from Yugoslavia to Malaysia we expected all of our travelling to use local transport.

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