Day 12
Day 12 - Sperlonga (on the drive to Vico Equense)
We left Rome on an uneventful drive, however very picturesque, to Sperlonga. The kids swam in the sea and had a blast with four foot waves. "Surf's Up"....Italian style! Most Italians chose to stay on the beach, only the crazy Canadians went out into the wild surf!
This is also the location of Emperor Tiberius' summer home and grotto. The ruins left are of his huge villa on the beach and a very cool grotto (which can be seen in the picture above).
After leaving Sperlonga, it was off to Vico Equense and our next airbnb.....and things got quite interesting!
Gert 2.0 (our name for our GPS), let us down for the first time. If not for the return of Niki Lauda and his impressive handling of the little red car, everything would have gone downhill (literally!).
There were a few wrong turns and a few dead ends...... this was very unfortunate since we were travelling on the NARROWEST uphill roads with more hairpin turns than what would seem possible. The Italians take these roads as if there was nothing to it....they even pass you on an uphill blind curve at full speed if you are not travelling "fast enough". We felt that travelling on a road with high walls on both sides (which required Micki to get out and help navigate through), room for barely one car, having to tuck the little red car's mirrors in on both sides, honking the whole way to warn cars coming the other way definitely warranted a little bit of caution! But that's just me. We were actually fairly sure that the "road" was a goat path (or an italian equivalent) until another car zipped on through ahead of us as if we were the crazy ones waiting at the entrance deciding whether to reverse or go! After proudly navigating the path, we were rewarded with a dead end! This meant two things....... we were definitely lost (leading to a Ross-o-meter)......and we had to go back down the SAME goat path.......ugh!
At this point we had been travelling the Italian outback for what seemed an eternity and with Gert 2.0 assuring us that we were 14 minutes away from our destination (but funny that we never got any closer than 14 minutes no matter how long we drove!)., Micki had to finally make a VERY expensive phone call to our hosts to let them know we were indeed having navigational difficulties. We found a very nice elderly man who the kids named Papa Frances (he was our saviour) who spoke to our host on the phone in Italian and pointed us in the right direction (4 km straight up!).
You can see why we did not post last night.... when we finally arrived safe and sound....high on our hill....we were done!!!
Greg Out.
Italian Word of the Day : predate which means lost ....for obvious reasons.
We left Rome on an uneventful drive, however very picturesque, to Sperlonga. The kids swam in the sea and had a blast with four foot waves. "Surf's Up"....Italian style! Most Italians chose to stay on the beach, only the crazy Canadians went out into the wild surf!
This is also the location of Emperor Tiberius' summer home and grotto. The ruins left are of his huge villa on the beach and a very cool grotto (which can be seen in the picture above).
After leaving Sperlonga, it was off to Vico Equense and our next airbnb.....and things got quite interesting!
Gert 2.0 (our name for our GPS), let us down for the first time. If not for the return of Niki Lauda and his impressive handling of the little red car, everything would have gone downhill (literally!).
There were a few wrong turns and a few dead ends...... this was very unfortunate since we were travelling on the NARROWEST uphill roads with more hairpin turns than what would seem possible. The Italians take these roads as if there was nothing to it....they even pass you on an uphill blind curve at full speed if you are not travelling "fast enough". We felt that travelling on a road with high walls on both sides (which required Micki to get out and help navigate through), room for barely one car, having to tuck the little red car's mirrors in on both sides, honking the whole way to warn cars coming the other way definitely warranted a little bit of caution! But that's just me. We were actually fairly sure that the "road" was a goat path (or an italian equivalent) until another car zipped on through ahead of us as if we were the crazy ones waiting at the entrance deciding whether to reverse or go! After proudly navigating the path, we were rewarded with a dead end! This meant two things....... we were definitely lost (leading to a Ross-o-meter)......and we had to go back down the SAME goat path.......ugh!
At this point we had been travelling the Italian outback for what seemed an eternity and with Gert 2.0 assuring us that we were 14 minutes away from our destination (but funny that we never got any closer than 14 minutes no matter how long we drove!)., Micki had to finally make a VERY expensive phone call to our hosts to let them know we were indeed having navigational difficulties. We found a very nice elderly man who the kids named Papa Frances (he was our saviour) who spoke to our host on the phone in Italian and pointed us in the right direction (4 km straight up!).
You can see why we did not post last night.... when we finally arrived safe and sound....high on our hill....we were done!!!
Greg Out.
Italian Word of the Day : predate which means lost ....for obvious reasons.
A view from the goat path: