We said farewell to Annalisa, Max the dog and Roger the rabbit and the lovely B&B she runs and arrived in 5 minutes on the Appia at the railway station of Terracina where I drove 50 meters on the wrong side of the road that immediately caused that a carabinieri patrol car stopped behind our van. The carabinieri asked me “Where are you heading and why did you make such a dangerous move? I did not think it was dangerous because there was no traffic at all and apart from no-entry the sign that I missed there was no evidence that I was driving on the wrong side of the road. After some explanation he let us go for us to go to our target the coffee bar at the train station.
The Terracina station is the only train station in Italy (that I know of) where the station master was piping heavy metal music over the all the load speakers. We think something from Metallica. After the coffee we were glad to get out of that place and leave Metallica behind us. We said goodbye to Eric who was going to drive the van today and Lucina, Pedro and I headed out climbing towards the hills behind the town of Terracina to find the original Appia constructed in 312 BC.
Not after long just after the turnoff to the cemetery we found the first exposed part of the Appia and became exited to get confirmation that we were on track. After that first indication we found many more and also a big block of marble lying beside the road with Latin inscriptions that Pedro tried in vain to read, too damaged and fragmented sentences. A little bit further we passed the small village of Piazza Palatina and the road became even more interesting with beautiful pieces of the Appia and nice panoramic views of the sea and Fondi in the far distance. We followed the Appia until we found three houses constructed on top of it blocking our way, fences, fences, gates. Luckily, we found one gate that was open and tried to find the road again but failed, I looked at maps with the way markers I had set and at Google Maps on my cell phone but the road was gone. What followed was a fight of an hour trying to find the road again in an area where there were many terraced olive groves separated by nice a wild vegetation with many bushes with nice thorns, and our legs and arms became witness of close encounters with these thorns. After a long struggle I found civilization below a stone quarry and a nice villa that was under construction. We arrived there around 15.10 and decided to call Erik so that he could come and meet us and bring our sandwiches.
While we were wating for Erik and old Farmer came shuffling towards us and asked us what we were doing, I replied that we were walking the Appia from Rome to Brindisi but that unfortunately we had lost the road and to my opinion we should be higher up near the stone quarry. He mumbled in Italian “non sai niente della Appia” you do not know nothing of the Appia. I told him quite convinced that to my idea the Appia passed higher up where We lost it. “L’Appia passa li indicava con il suo braccio! Vedi quei due ulivi con l’albero di frutta in mezzo? La passa L’Appia nel passato hanno anche tolto un sacco di pietre della strada”. The Appia is there! Pointing with his arm at a point in a field nearby. Do you see those two olive trees with the fruit tree in the middle? That is where the Appia is or was because in the past they removed a lot of the pavement stones. Since we lost time with our fight with the bushes, we decided to drive straight to the old customs gate at the border between Lazio and Campania.
We started to take pictures at the gate but had to escape for 5 minutes into our van because a big swarm of bees that were looking for a new home decided to visit us. After the bees went around the corner we took some more pictures near the plaque with inscription mounted on the gate that stated that Mozart had passed underneath this gate on his way to Naples (probably to get a Pizza).
We left Erik and the van and started walking towards Fondi again, near the gate and we could cross underneath the national road where we found the spring of Saint Biagio with apparently very clean water. Not knowing that it was drinkable we did not fill our empty canteens. Our walk continued in a flat landscape with many farms and orchards next to the railroad. We managed to pick and eat some oranges and were greeted by small groups of cycling Indians who went home from working in the fields. At 19.00 hours we called it quits and called Erik to pick us up just before entering Fondi. When we greeted Erik, Pedro noticed that he had lost his Roman military amulet, a bronze phallus with wings, Erik’s mood changed into deep dark gloom, after the theft also he flying phallus was gone! Disaster struck again!! We started to debate to drive back to the small supermarket where Erik had bought refreshments for us. But when I got behind the wheel of the van I told and astonished Erik that I refused to drive back to the supermarket ( he did not know yet that I had found his amulet next to the van on the street) when I extended my closed fist to him and opened it he kissed me on the cheek and promised to prepare breakfast for me for the reminder of the trip.
