An Interesting Travel Day

It was a sad farewell to Naples. I hope to return soon. The atmosphere is so energizing. I started out at 5am in the morning to catch the train to Sumona. It was a beautiful train ride, when I was awake. With the lack of sleep the night before and the movement of the train, it was hard to stay awake.

Rather than sit in Pescara until the 5pm bus, I decided to spend the afternoon in Sumona. It is a wonderful small city, so one day was enough to see the whole town. One thing I immediately noticed were how nice the people were dressed, especially the men. In Italy there are always a lot of men standing around chatting. In Abruzzo all the men had either suits or leather jackets, or very nice casual jackets on with nice casual corduroy pants. They also were much better looking than the men in Sicily (you know my impression of Sicilian men). I may be bias, since my heritage is Abruzzo.

I had a very nice lunch with good wine, which was a mistake. While waiting for the train, I did not hear that the binario changed for Pescara and I was getting on the wrong train. The conductors stopped me and said I should have been listening. I played dumb and said I couldn’t speak Italian. The bad thing about traveling alone is that you can never let your guard down (or drink too much).

Once I got to Pescara, I looked for the bus to Roccamorice. Did I tell you how much I hate the bus system in Italy? There is no clear indication as to which bus went to Roccamorice or where to stand to wait for the bus. I was finally told to take the bus going to Sumona, which stops in Roccamorice (wasn’t I just in Sumona??). After 1 ½ hours of driving back through cities that I just saw on my way to Pescara, a bunch of people got off the bus. The bus driver said I needed to get off the bus also and get on another bus (now I was really confused). Apparently there is a special bus that goes up to Roccamorice; again I was never told. I was told by Maria at Tholos to get off at the Pit Stop Bar. It was very dark and buses do not stop unless you ring the bell; I had no idea if I was in Roccamorice or where this bar was. I tried asking the driver to let me off at the bar and he acted like I was saying something foreign (it is called the Pit Stop Bar even in Italian). I finally found someone to help and after being in a bus for 2 ½ hours, I finally arrived at my destination. It has been a very long day.

So far the Tholos is beautiful and the people are fantastic. They have chickens, dogs with puppies, and a donkey. It feels like home already. Tomorrow I will give you a better description of the farm. For now I am going to bed and get some sleep.

Ciao for now