Blogs from Marche, Italy, Europe

Buonasera fellow travelblogger - We have escaped Ancona and are heading north on the Autostrada Adriatica. What a lovely name for a motorway . It makes the M1 sound mundane and ordinary. We follow our English friend as we head out of a busy heavily policed town. He must do this run with regular monotony as he knows how to exit the port. He is younger than us and will probably drive all night and be back in the UK tomorrow. We pass places we know. Rimini with its miles and miles of sunbeds, the motoGP track at Misano. We have been a couple of times to watch races there, Corriano , the birthplace and burial place of Simoncelli the bike rider and Gradara with its lit up castle . It looks pretty at night . ... read more

Looking back my last blog was 2015 . It may seem that I haven't been travelling but not true ... in 2016 My travels toook me to visit friends and family in Dubai, Malta and Sweden ... places which I love but were not new to me so I was very lazy and didn't do blogs!! But here I am and back to travel to pastures new this year. In January I was in Dubai and February- March had a trip to Spain and now accompanied by Beenvy and the runaway mouse it is my first week in Italy. Le Marche is an area I have not been to before and I don't think gets as many tourists as Tuscany or Umbria . It is a beautiful region , lush and green hills and in the ... read more

Geo: 43.4403, 13.6074We both picked up our hire cars (Bolli's and I) in Modena this morning ready to hit the road. Mine booked via Qantas cost a bomb vs their's via Expedia. Lesson learnt. Sure I'll get points, at a cost. Oh well, on a budget for a few weeks now. Jasper, Mr GPS, got me on the autostrade no problemo. Everything ends with o in Italio so we use o at the end of almost all words now-o. Once I was comfortable with my car I took my first road trip stop. Quick mozzarella salad lunch-o. Tapped on the shoulder whilst at the servery so hoped it was my first proposition now I'm on my own. Who would have guessed it - Ginnetto and Leso. Seems they have tapped into Jasper and I can't escape. ... read more

On a holiday all days are special but some more special than others. Today started with a reunion, to deliver a bottle of wine, with Agostino the patron saint of rescuing stranded women on bicycles. He had moved but as fate would have it we found him loading wood, onto his truck, on the side of the road near his new house in the same street. Then started the pilgramage back to the pasticceria in Fossombrone for MORE delicious cakes. How many can one respectfully buy without being greedy! So many choices- such decisions. As fate would have it again (how blessed we are today), we met some locals who were fascinated with our 'french' car, and one of these three lovely gentleman was writing a book about the history of Fossombrone and could speak English! ... read more

Today we wanted a quiet non-city day so set off to try and find the Nationale Reserve Gola del Furlo. It is harder than one would think to get off the main roads however after several attempts and going through some beautiful smaller towns, we found the Strada Sant Anna which led to the amazing pass between two mountains cut in half by the river. The Furlo Pass is a gorge on the ancient Roman road Via Flaminia in the Marche region of central Italy, where it passes near the Candigliano river, a tributary of the Metauro. The tunnels in this pass, of which there are two, were built for emperor Caeser in 76 AD. as a trade route which became terrorised by bandits but the tunnels still remain unaltered. Anna and liz had ridden through ... read more