Day 67 Vasto to Chieti

In which Sid and Doris use old railways to make progress up the Adriatic coast, passing fishing platforms and old battle sites before climbing to a faded grand hotel.
It is Saturday morning and very quickly we are passed by a Wiry Old Gent on a thin bike. This is good news, all day the traffic is sharing with cyclists. We even see two couples with full touring loads.  HELLOOOO!! The first tourists we have really seen since Joe the Ukrainian.

The hills that fill the centre of the country mean that the coast is crowded with towns, river mouths, railways and roads. The old railway has been taken up between Vasto and Pescara. The new line has a new route and the old railbed is gradually being surfaced to give a way for pedestrians and cyclists to get along the coast without tangling with the cars. We spot an asphalt section with a cyclist on it so go down to try our luck. It is not all Tarmac yet but we wind our way between tarmac-laying machines showing that it is definitely a work in progress.

 It is very good to be away from even Saturday traffic. However, much of the route is now strada bianchi which while flat in the macro sense is not in the micro, so speeds and comfort come down. Sid is no fan of unsurfaced roads. Anyway we bash along part paved and part bum hurter and have the adventure of going through the old tunnels. Sid and Doris dearly love a bit of Industrial Archeology.

 
There is also IA to be had along the old Adriatic Road, which had, and in some places still have, maintenance HQs from time to time and Doris gets the picture (she says she is very happy getting km500 as she failed to capture km790 when we joined the road after Bari).

Once we are along the old road again we can see more of the old railway structures, such as this elegant  bridge/causeway.

 
From here we can also see the fishing piers. The antennae you see in the picture carry nets. These are dropped down into the water and then craned up. Some of these piers have a restaurant too, to provide the vertically integrated enterprise. Sea to table over about 20 metres.

We have decided to go up into Ortona for lunch, a town of maybe 10,000 people. Just before the town we stop at the Canadian War Cemetery, which like all Commonwealth War Graves is immaculate – and, as Doris observes, like all Commonwealth War Graves we have visited, has nobody in sight doing the maintenance. Do they steal out at night to cut the grass, we wonder?

In the little cloister is a plaque that tells the story of the Italian campaign from 1943. The point of the Italian campaign was to remove German forces from the Russian and later, the Western fronts – it was essentially a distraction and so had skeleton resources assigned – the plaque at the cemetery wonders how much more successful it would have been had it been properly manned. On each coast the armies fought from one river to the next. We have already passed the Sangro River cemetery.

The battle for Ortona, which has a serious port, pitched the German First Parachute Regiment (probably the best German forces in Italy) against the Royal Edmontons and Scots Seaforth Highlanders. It has been described as a mini Stalingrad. Our own visit to Ortona was essentially for rations to carry our battle on to Chieti. In the town are plaques describing the battle which must have ruined the town. For real Anoraks, look up Mouse Holing as a street fighting technique. The German war cemetery is on the West coast at Cassino and gathers the dead from the South Italy campaign.

On a lighter note there is an excellent wool shop in Ortona who may have sponsored some yarn bombing. Less offensive than the Canadian six pounder or German 88mm, though the colours are a bit brighter than Field Gray or Olive Drab.

Towards the end of the day we turn off the coast road and come up into Chieti high town. Wiry Sid settles into his elegant drops and rides like “S”. This has cost a lot of leg height but generally we feel well rewarded. Eventually we have done 83 k and 813 metres of ascent. Boy, it was hot, and once again we realise gloomily that tomorrow our first action will be to give all that height back and drop into the valley.

We have hunted down Roman based buildings, the Cathedral of San Giustino and The Center of Industry and Agriculure. Though in many ways this looks late 19th century (soon after the Unification of Italy, we spotted it for a 1930s Fascist building. It has an eagle, a bloke with a roundy helmet (on his head) and Fasces woven around the window frames. It fits into its square very well and no one refers to its history. How delicate.

We enjoy the town, not quite joining in with a wedding that seems to be hanging around in a remarkably low key and (now we think about it) groom-less way.

We also get to marvel at the eccentricity of a shop window imagining how an Italian landing on the moon 50 years ago might have been – this area has been enthusiastically celebrating the Apollo anniversary. If you thought Sid and Doris a bit Bonkers you should see this Nativity on the Moon. If you can read Italian and tell is what is going on, please do add a note in the Comments.  Note this is only one bit of the window, many other nativity sets are out of view, we had to go in close so you can enjoy the detail.

Our Grand Albergo hotel reminds us of our honeymoon tour of France 30 years ago. Our room has 1970s furnishings and wallpaper. The public rooms look as if furnished in 1950 by people trying to recreate a late 19th century parlour. As normal our room is now festooned with freshly washed pantaloons, being dried by the fine wind from across The Cities of the Plain.  We admire the comprehensive view from our window, bought dearly with knee and bottom pain, height which will be tossed away carelessly as tomorrow’s route plan starts with a descent back onto that plain [it’s that nasty little triangle on the left hand side of the route profile – D].

Dinner is out in the street with what we think is extraordinarily slow service (and the Italians probably think is Getting A Move On To Serve Those Weirdly Impatient Foreigners].  Sid and Doris do get a bit lonesome for conversation, and tonight’s victims are a very nice Swiss couple and their self-silencing child which inserted its very own, very large, dummy.  The child’s father turned out to work In Insurance and had come across Sid’s brother in his working life, which was strangely comforting.

And at the last hour Vehicle of the Day is sorted. This trike did have some competition. As we left the wedding party a tired priest, in a tired soutane, drove away in a vairy tired Lancia Delta. No not an Integrale. A five door hatchback in golden beige with added dirt.

After dinner we rush briskly (?) home to watch TdF on catch up like the dedicated cyclists we are. ‘Hem, hem’ as Molesworth would surely say.

We leave you with a few more pictures from Chieti.  Just another town, somewhere in Italy.