Hotel Holidays Abruzzo

... is a beautiful mountain village, and our hosts, Shona’s cousin Eva and her husband Bruce, are very hospitable, helpful and hugely entertaining. We had two great nights with them, including Eva cooking a multi course Provencal meal on Sunday night (they had returned from Provence on Saturday).

We drove to nearby Sulmona for dinner on Saturday night– this is a much larger town than Introdacqua ...

Monday was beach day. We packed a lunch and left early, around 8:30am, for the sandy beach of Formia. The day was beautiful and hot, a high of 36C at the beach.

We spent a lazy and relaxing day in the water and sun-tanning. We were introduced to Creme Cafe, a slush-type espresso drink. It was too die for. It was so refreshing and good. Actually, since our arrival in Italy ...

... away, we can see the remains of the foundations of the old Roman Amphitheatre. It was a smaller version of the Colosseo in Rome and sat about 20,000 people.

Next we visited the Commonwealth War Cemetery located in the heart of Cassino. Here are buried the young Canadian, British, Indian, Australian and New Zealander soldiers that fought in the area of Cassino from February to June of 1945.

We ended the day with another 3 hour long supper.

Our regional train (less comfortable and slower than the EuroStar ES trains) from Rome to Casino left on time and arrived on time in mid-morning at the "Stazionne di Cassino". My two cousins, Franca and Rosetta, were waiting for us. They both live, with their families and my uncle Abel, in a suburb of Cassino, Cervaro. They live more in the countryside and are surrounded by beautiful ...

... then I realized this was a huge terminal and had no idea where I was supposed to go. I went back to lady I bought my ticket from because she knew at least 15 words of English, which was better than the other couple people I tried to ask. She told me to go to gate 11 and pointed to the left. I went there, but the gates only went up to #8. I walked back and forth a couple times hoping a gate 9, 10, and 11 would appear but no such luck. I studied a few of the signs ...

... reflecting on the importance of "keeping your head" and remaining calm... eating pizza at a local restaurant... eating fruit from the trees and orchards surrounding the farm... figs, apricots, apples, plums and pears... spending time lazing about... soaking in the fresh air... and conversations with other farm stay guests... learning about their home countries of Trinidad, Brazil, Austria, New Zealand and France... watching the ...

Barb and Alex had a personal mission to visit Isernia in the Molise Province so we headed off to explore the interior of Italy. Isernia was small and definitely not a tourist location so we were able to experience a true siesta afternoon where nothing, I mean nothing was open, had the best Italian meal in all of our travels, struggled with the language as no one new English, wandered through all the small streets and just had a nice day.

... the only buses we found in Italy were you buy the tickets on board) up the hill to the monastery. It was pretty amazing to think it had all been rebuilt from scratch. It is a shame it was bombed in the war (on orders of a NZer), and it's easy to criticise the loss of such buildings now but we watched a DVD at our B&B which summed up the context in which decision like that were made - it was at a time in the war when the ...

... The balconies and windows were decorated with berry bushes and thick flower pots, and at this time of morning lines of white sheets and tablecloths were hung out to dry. A curious three-legged dog watched us closely as we walked by but wagged his tail when I came close to pet him. The walkways were like narrow alleys with doors and windows facing each other against the old brick walls. Giovanni said that the people that ...

We head out on the highway (really it's the world's curviest two lane road). Our morning was off to a rocky start. Our bus in to town didn't arrive on time. This is not odd for busses in L'Aquila but our bus was really late. Then we figured out it didn't run at all on Saturday. Not to worry a 30 minute wait for its stand in, and we were on our way to the bus station. The reality of Abruzzo's public transportation system made it clear that we had to rent a car if we wanted to ...