Two Adventurers

PALMOLI – 26 October

Near Palmoli, last night we found Hotel Boomerang where we decided to spend the night and, yes, it’s owned and run by an Australian, Peter. Had a lovely dinner in the hotel, grilled vegetables, pasta with a delightful mushroom sauce, bread, and a plate of fresh fruit, followed by chestnuts hot from the hotel fireplace! Yummy! Room rate is less than anywhere else – 65 Euros including breakfast.

Today we will be taken by an architect friend of his to look at  some houses available for purchase.

This is one house that the architect showed us. Price as is was around €50,000 negotiable and he would arrange all the renovations necessary. Land was 4000 m2. All looked rather desperate but he did show one that he had renovated and it looked amazing. See below.

ROME – TAGLIACOZZO   23 October

Of course we should be staying much longer in Rome but remember, our aim here is not simply to be tourists but to mix in the search for desirable property. So we hired a car for ten days from Hertz at the main railway station and without a proper map (none were available anywhere) we tried to find the easiest way out of Rome. Our first couple of attempts were thwarted because of a huge demonstration/march by the Italian Communist Party, blocking all streets near the station! Just our luck!  However, after going around the entire station area three times our intrepid navigator managed to find the road we needed to exit towards the Abruzzo region to the east.

Within a few hours we were well away from Rome passing through Tivoli in easy traffic. It didn’t take long before we were winding our way through gorgeous mountain ranges, blown away by the sight of ancient hilltop towns perched as high up as they could go! On almost every mountain top you see these towns, at least 150 years old, standing proudly, ready as they would have been all those years ago to defend themselves against marauding armies. I took numerous photos of these as they are so awe-inspiring and hope you can see what I saw in the photos below. They just blew both of us away!

Jim is doing a fantastic  job of driving on all these winding roads and although I have my name down as a driver too I know I can’t cope with the giant drops at either side and will leave it up to him in such circumstances.

Found a little Snack Bar for lunch (panini with salami & cheese/chicken roll & cheese) heated in a sandwich press. Cheap and cheerful with a bottle of Minerale water to go with it.  Around 4pm we located a place to spend the night at Hotel Park, Tagliacozzo, with a window view out across to yet  another hilltop village  – sublime!  At €85 per room, including  breakfast, this seems to be about the going rate in a hotel or guest  house.  We discovered an interesting piece of information here  after chatting  with an Italian  guest who spoke  reasonable  English.  He told us that 44 people, himself included, who had been  evacuated from L’Aquila were staying in this hotel after the  dreadful earthquake there in April this year. Over 300 people lost  their lives and all remaining citizens have been given a roof over their heads in hotels etc while their homes are all being rebuilt. A dozen or more children were staying at the hotel too enjoying playing with new toys and wearing new clothing supplied to them. Must have been horrendous for them to experience at the time.

The trees are all sporting the most beautiful autumn colours everywhere we look. Can’t stop myself taking photos! There are also heaps of chestnuts for sale from the backs of trucks and acorns litter the ground. The olive trees are fully laden with their fruit just waiting to be picked.

FREGENE  – 21 October 2009

Yes, I know we’ve been a bit slack getting the Italian connection coming through but it’s not always easy to find Broadband or Wifi everywhere!  So – we finally arrived at Rome’s  Leonardo da Vinci Airport after a very long 13hr flight on Cathay Pacific. No complaints there though –  it was as smooth as butter all the way and the food was great too! Even managed to get around  5 hours sleep so that was a real bonus and we both wore the stretch stockings to avoid the dreaded DVT.

Had to wait over an hour at the airport for the hotel car to arrive and drive us to Fregene, a nice beachside suburb only 20mins from the airport. We had pre-booked La Conchiglia Hotel on wotif.com while in Hong Kong, and decided  to stay there near the beach so we could relax and recover a little without the hustle and bustle of a huge city to contend with.  As you’ll see from the photo, the hotel was not grand by any stretch of the imagination but in fact it was very comfortable, relatively modern inside with helpful and pleasant staff. Managed to find a Lavanderia (coin op laundry) after a short walk into the village and sat with our inexpensive capuccinos (€0.70c) and pastries while waiting for the washing to dry.

A nice walk around the village showed us some attractive three storey homes on huge blocks of land. Their Roman owners use them as weekend getaways or for longer vacations, however now they were all tightly locked up since the warm weather had finished.