Before leaving Guardialfiera on Monday morning, we made the rounds of our favorite vendors to say good-bye and thank you.  The grocer’s wife gave us hugs.  The butcher’s wife connected with me on Facebook.  And then we stopped into our little bar to get an espresso and say good-bye to Leo, the owner.  There were a couple of times that I thought I would start crying, but I held it together.

We left the village at 9:30 am and hit the road.  On previous visits to Italy, we have always taken the southern route between Rome and Abruzzo/Molise.  This time, we decided to take the northern route.  We went up the coast to Pescara and then took the interstate tollway west to Rome.

The drive was beautiful going through the Appenine Mountains.  Unlike regional and provincial mountains roads with all of their hairpin turns and ups and downs, the interstate has gentler curves and gentler inclines.  On the interstate, if there is a mountain – tunnel through the mountain.  If there is a valley – bridge over the valley.  We didn’t drive through snow ourselves, but we could see snow on distance mountaintops even though it was May 21.  I didn’t take any photos because there is just no way to capture the experience.

At 12:30 pm, we realized that we wouldn’t make it to Rome in time for lunch, so we stopped at a gas station restaurant to get sandwiches.  In the US, this would not sounds very delicious, but in Italy, the interstate has gas station restaurants with good food.  You can get sandwiches, pizza, pasta plates, chicken parmesan, and fresh cooked veggies.

Chad’s roasted veggie sandwich on focaccia

My sandwich was mortadella, stracciatella cheese, and chopped pistachio on focaccia

Then we continued our drive into Rome, and had a harrowing adventure trying to drive to our apartment in the center of the city.  I wish I had thought to take a video, but I was too busy looking in 360-degrees of direction and trying to help Chad navigate while he was white-knuckle driving. 

At major intersections, the traffic in one direction will clog up the intersection, and then the light turns green for the traffic coming from the perpendicular direction.  Then everyone is vying for a spot in the intersection amid lots of horn-honking.

When we finally arrived at our apartment, we had to double-park to unload the car, and then I ferried all of the luggage up two flights of stairs while Chad went to look for parking.  He found parking for four hours, so we rested for a bit and then went back out to find overnight parking for the car and found a 24-hour garage.  After relocating the car, we did the whole “let’s go have an evening cocktail” thing and relaxed.

The next morning, we drove to the airport to return the car.  Once again, we went through crazy Rome traffic with honking and traffic jams and 5 “lanes” of traffic trying to merge into 2 actual lanes.  Our little car enabled us to have some great adventures over the last 2+ months, but we were happy to give her a hug good-bye.

Then we took the Leonardo Express train from the airport back to the city center.  Since it was now lunchtime, we went to a nearby restaurant that specializes in food from Abruzzo where Chad has relatives.  We chatted with the owner/manager (not sure of his title) and learned that his family knows Chad’s relatives, so it was a small-town moment in a large city.

the entrance to the restaurant with Abruzzo food

we sat at a table on the sidewalk

our appetizers included pallotte – the bread/cheese/egg version of meatballs – plus artichokes deep-fried in the manner of the Roman Jewish quarter – not pictured, white Pecorino wine from Abruzzo

the restaurant served bottled water from the Abruzzo region, which I thought was a nice touch – plus, it’s our favorite sparkling water in Italy

for entrees, I had Abruzzese lasagna and Chad had traditional steak with potatoes and chicory – also we had Abruzzese red wine

and after lunch – espresso for Chad and a genziana (traditional digestivo from Abruzzo) for me

After lunch, we meandered slowly across the city and back to our apartment.  At Largo Torre di Argentina, we saw the most classic Roman road rage incident ever.  There is a large street that comes in from the northwest and part of it splits off to the left to go on the north side of the city block and part of it splits off to the right to go down the west side.  But there really are no specific traffic lanes.

Note: this next story contains adult content and strong language.

Apparently, a delivery driver was wavering on which direction to go and was irritating the car driver behind him.  The car driver sped around him, and then stopped in the middle of the street and started gesturing and yelling the Italian version of “pick a direction!” or “pick a lane!”  (Now mimic this hand gesture by taking your left hand, touch all of your fingers and thumbs together, and shake your hand in the air while sticking it out of a car window.)  Then the van driver stopped and started shouting as well.  (Now stick your left arm straight out of the car window, palm up and cupped a little bit, and shake it up and down.)  The van driver yelled a bunch of stuff we couldn’t hear and then yelled, “Coglioni” which basically means the equivalent of “Balls!” and then sped off.

Rome is awesome.