Italian Trip 2016

Having identified the end point of dads journey we made our way, in two small cars hired at Leonardo da Vinci airport, to B&B La Sorghente, near Macchiagodena

Day I;

got away at 9.00 to drive to Lucito – after a lot of consideration we had become certain that Lucera in Dads’ diary had to be the small hill village of Lucito. If he had in fact made it to Lucera then he would have had to run two marathons in the space of 4 hours which seemed unlikely, although it must be said that by the time we have finished our namby pamby series of little strolls in the hills along the escapatis’ route it had come to seem a little less implausible…. The countryside hilly and the hilltop villages timeless; to transpose oneself by 75 years is not too hard. Leave one (car), drive the other to Trivento.

12.00 Walk Trivento to Lucito. Line of sight takes us down into the valley where Dads calvacade had been so thoroughly lost; while we too are often lost, it is daylight, the Germans are nowhere to be seen and Mr Google seems to know his way around surprisingly well! We eventually, after climbing steeply in hot sun, reach what have to be Dads ‘cold, high downs’ (Ht 950m.) Covered in windmills now (Mad dogs and Inglesi in the midday sun) 5.00 drink coke in Lucito and cause much discussion in bar (in which we take no part, unfortunately) – ten miles v. steep and fairly hot . Enough. Return via Campobasso. Take away a pizza and enjoy the lively throng of all ages out for their sat night. Back to B&B by 9

Day 2 (sunday);

Start day after a windy, but good, night (having succeeded in turning air con off -unlike first night which was noisy) being woken by Hum from vivid dream in which I was being served tea by Maggie Thatcher in blue….. Take some time to return to reality.. Get on road to Sulmona by 9.30. Stop for petrol and my few words of Italian are completely taken from me by the stresses of negotiating the self service machine with queue of voluble folk advising. Eventually manage to feed the right thing into the right hole and get out of their way. Thereafter drive through this geo-feast of a landscape up to Sulmona where we find the B&B (Los Amores! -didn’t they teach em Latin at Khartoum, I think to myself, as Hum had made the booking) The owner is not convinced (that we are not a romantic item) by my transparently obvious recourse to claiming that Hums was my nephew…

The B&B’s understanding of the uncle nephew relationship ???

But we can live with that. Having got the keys in our possession drive up over a 1400 metre pass and down the other side to Dads ‘Maiella feature’. The striking thing is the scale of all this. There are 2.500 metre peaks all around and a couple at 3000. They are huge and implacable / imponderable.

………..“At about this time an Italian joined me: he too was avoiding the Germans. He said they had arrived in the village below us – an outlying portion of Palombaro – at about 10 o’c last night – about two hrs before me – and were now forcing the inhabitants to work for them As the afternoon wore on I became very hungry, but eventually the Italian went off home to get himself some food , and I persuaded him to bring me back some as well. Bearing in mind that he might bring the Germans back with him, I kept myself ready to move, but he was no traitor and in due course brought me bread and hot vegetables. I left the cave as the light began to fail, and made my way south in heavy rain. There were many scattered houses, all potentially occupied by Germans, so I could not go very fast. In any case, whenever I tried to fast I fell over, my practically worn out boots affording no grip whatever on the slippery mud tracks. After 2 or 3 hrs I came to a steep escarpment. I could not see in the utter blackness whether this was precipitous or merely steep. I threw stones over & did not hear them land, so assumed it was precipitous. I therefore made a detour and approached it again a mile or two lower down:here I could hear the stones land, so started clambering down, using handholds of trees and bushes. The weather was now improving, clear patches of sky becoming visible. I shortly emerged at the head of a small stream, the whole area being being deep in slippery mud, fissured by water channels and overgrown with patches of tall wet grass. I slid and fell down this for a hundred yards or so until, when the gradient became easier I once more was able to take to my feet. Ahead was a motor road, down which I had intended to go. I now saw, however, that a couple of miles to the south west, near the edge of the mountains, there was a defile and a light. This may well have been a German control post, as it was just about there that the road I was on should join the main road between Casoli and Palena. Accordingly, I continued across country due south - the country was marshy, overgrown and dank. In a mile or so I emerged onto a lane running east and west, and bounded by a mill stream. Ahead of me was a hill, behind which I hoped was the main road and river, the crossing of which was my immediate objective. I cast about here for awhile as I was not sure of my position. I found a hydroelectric works about a mile down the mill stream, and so retraced my steps. Eventually, being satisfied as to where I was, and abandoning the idea of crossing the main road that night, I forced my way into a small hut and slept for a time on some damp bean straw. My inside however caused me to get up 6 times before dawn, so I didn’t really have a very comfortable night. When it was light I found that the shed was half full of good eating apples, so I made my breakfast off these and some bread which I still had. I dried myself in the sun and seeing no one about spent the morning in idleness. About midday I started up the hill in front of me, and reached in quite a short time the village of Civitella. Here I found a hospitable welcome and spent the rest of the day eating and drinking well. Real tea and jam was provided and, finally, a bed. The Germans, it seemed, came to the village occasionally to requisition livestock, but as there was no motor road, they… didn’t come very often and their visits were not likely to be entirely unannounced. After a good night’s rest, and much restored inside and out (except for my boots) I was conducted early in the morning down to the river’s edge: my host parted from me with tears in his eyes and many wishes for my welfare. The river, unfortunately, was in full view of the road, so I splashed through about knee deep without taking my boots off. Two German lorries passed just as I reached a strip of trees between the road and the river. I crossed the road and climbed slowly out of the valley. It was a fine sunny day and I could see Maiella behind me: the slopes where I had been were now covered in snow.” ………………….

We drive up to Civitella Messer Raimondo and leave Hums Fiat up there and then take the C1 over to Palombaro – it’s only about 5 miles away, as it is already nearly 3 o’clock and we feel like we were good boys yesterday, walking more than ten miles in the afternoon (and probably descending and climbing 7 or 800 metres in the process, under a hot sun) but the rules of physics must be obeyed and, although we (or google) have selected a fairly gradual descent, the metres (and heaters) do tell on us. We manage to take a path through the woods at the foot of the Maiella lump - this seems to be very likely the actual route Dad would have taken - and have to struggle through a landslide that has buried the path for about 50 metres. Otherwise fairly straightforward and a very pleasant walk. Bit of a sting in the tail – as we knew there would be – with the climb up to Civitella. There we communed briefly with an octogenarian local who was keen to show us two dead Germans but was very friendly and insistent that war was a bad thing. Thence back to Sulmona by 7.30 Took supper in the square, enjoying again the ambiance of the Mediterranean evening. The town of Ovid.

Day 3.

Eager beaver early up - concentric walking round the B&B yields (after an hour or so) an alimentazione who, while having little patience with my stupid lack of Italian, does, nevertheless, provide the wherewithal for breakfast - eggs, milk and bread. To top things off Hum manages to make the Amores coffee machine work (it had previously defied my best attempts to extract any caffeine from it). So we leave Sulmona before 9 and , trusting ourselves to lady satnav, set sail for Carpineto della Nora – the home of Rocky and the residence of Dads belt.

“………the man with the mule said he would take me to his house for the night - “ten minutes walk down the hill”, he said….…I sat with the Yugo Slavs over a good fire for half an hour, and as it was just getting really dark and raining extremely hard, my man appeared. We started off down a steep rocky track, with an almost precipitous fall on one side. In a few moments I could see neither man nor mule at more than 2 feet distance, but kept touch by sound. We went on steeply down for rather more than an hour, as it turned out, and eventually, after crossing a rocky stream bed, arrived at the man’s house. The time, after we had been in for a short while, was, I noticed. 8.30: i.e. about 2 and a half hours after sunset. We had a good meal, and not very long after they made me up a bed of sheets and blankets in front of the kitchen fire, and I went to sleep. The next day I spent in idleness. This was Carpineto, just off a motor road and well stocked with British. A signals sergeant visited me during the morning and gave me the news. There were many parties, both of officers and other ranks in the neighbourhood: there was a feeling, it seemed that the Pescara was an impossible obstacle – 80 yards wide with a 15mph current: also Germans in boats. Many, the sergeant said, had tried and come back: others had been captured, and some had just disappeared – (they had probably succeeded, I pointed out) Also, yesterday the Germans had recaptured an O.R. half a mile from where we were standing. Morale in fact seemed low, and having informed the sergeant that I was crossing the Pescara the next day, I was glad to see the last of him. My host, named ‘Rocky’ did his best to persuade me to stay, and offered to house me indefinitely, but when I had got him to understand that I was going on, he gave me much useful information as to the best route to the river. There were, it seemed, many Germans in all villages, and, in addition, patrols and sentries in the area of Forca di Penna. His wife gave me an almost new pair of socks – a fine Leander pink – and made me up some excellent egg sandwiches. I went to bed early and got up next morning about 4 am. I was given breakfast and then accompanied by Rocky for the first half hour: on parting I gave him my leather belt, a gift which pleased him greatly. The ground was very wet and heavy as the result of recent heavy rain, being a particularly sticky type of clay. I continually fell over going down hill, having no heels, and found great difficulty in going uphill at all. This was all the valley of the Pescara, cultivated land cut up by deep little gullies, many villages and small motor roads. I had a midday snack in a village about 3 miles from the Pescara and an hour later I was concealed in a wooded eminence overlooking the river and about 1 mile from it. The river looked broad and green:there was a main road and railway just beyond it. The railway was not functioning, but there was much German traffic on the road. It was obviously quite impossible to cross by daylight. Accordingly I ate some of my egg sandwiches, and amused myself by watching occasional German transport and staff cars moving about on the roads in my immediate neighbourhood. I could see also a gorge containing the river, to the west, which I took to be Forca di Penna, There was a small town and river bridge, just my side of the gorge. To the east, almost 2 miles away, was a large dam and hydroelectric works. This doubtless accounted for the breadth and apparent depth of the river to my immediate front. After a time the sun went in and it looked like rain, so I moved down to a farm just below and sufficiently far from the motor road. Here 3 highly respectable old things, looking like retired cook / housekeepers, fed me on sheeps cheese and bread: they gave me much more than I could eat and insisted on my putting what was left into my bag. Towards evening I walked down to the river bank, - now in heavy rain. It looked much wider from close up, and and as reports had said, had a fairly strong current. There was no sign of any German patrols or sentries. I went to a nearby farm, thinking to ask for something which would float, on which to put my clothes. They gave me a meal and an old coat, but didn’t seem to think much of my plan of swimming across. They directed me instead to the dam where they said I would be allowed across. Near the dam I went, as directed, to the house of an American speaking Italian; he took me to the dam keeper, who led us both past the power houses and over the dam itself by a foot bridge. There was a big volume of water coming over and the noise made one forget that it was raining so hard.. It was by now extremely dark. My Italian guide soon took leave of me, being himself somewhat lost and rather put out by some movement we could not identify……….”

Visit Mannopello first but then return to Nocciano to leave Hums Fiat and take the Citroen to Carpineto. We are feeling all on easy street about the relative altitudes until we come to see Carpineto in the distance and take in the rather deep chasm separating it from us.

As it turns out this is deceptive – for some reason steepness and distance perceived from the wheel of a car are very different from the same elements appreciated on foot – and we storm up the hill like a couple of proper athletes. We enjoy the prosperous and measured countryside of this area; if there had been any cattle their paws would have been folded and the purring would have been heard from afar. Dad made his way through here in darkness and heavy rain, alone and with the knowledge that he had to somehow get across the swollen Pescara without getting drowned, captured or shot. An olive grove where the farmer had ploughed between the trees gave a clear warning of the difficulties of walking across this ground when broken and wet – your feet would weigh half a ton each within a short while and you would slip and stumble and sprain -it may be Italian clay but its attributes are the same everywhere when you add water. When he says in his account that it was ‘heavy going’ you have to reckon that there may be a bit of British understatement going on.

Jays we see on several occasions and I wondered if I didn’t see a Hoopoe -must remember to look it up and see how big they are – it definitely had a crest and bright colours at any rate. A party of dogs, off for a days entertainment, we met just as one of their number was caught by his owner and had to postpone his holiday -We met a couple of them a few hours later, looking very pleased with themselves and a bit knackered. Mr Google helped us along some surprisingly pleasant tracks until the final push required us to make the ascent of the village of Nocciano. I reached the top having tried to maintain the brisk progress made to date over the easier ground…. Mistake. Smaller steps are better!

After rehydration operations we drove in the Fiat to try and locate the hydroelectric dam over which Dad had finally crossed the river. We couldn’t find it and the river seems much smaller and meeker than either Dads account or the map would lead one to expect. A mystery to solve later. ( Hum has this moment informed me that it was destroyed by the RAF in April 1944 though was later reinstated – so we have somehow just missed it)

We then went back to pick up the other car and returned to Sulmona via the spectacular Forca di Penna. Suppered in the square -slightly less expansively than last night- Returned to Los Amores and planned tomorrows campaign.

Day 4;

Good nights sleep – woke 7 and breakfasted. Left by 8.45 for Amatrice, our destination of choice. Ms Satnav decided to send us via some even more spectacular mountains and passes than yesterday; we went first to L’Aquila,which is a high town on a plain that I assume must have been a volcanic crater at one point; like Sulmona, but higher, ringed with mountains. Then we went still higher in order to cross the line of the Gran Sasso.

On this route we got a full impression of the scale of all this and wondered at the resolve Dad (and others in his shoes) must have managed to maintain in the face of this stark mass. Arrival at Campotosto did nothing to diminish this feeling.

“………. a religious procession caused me to leave the road at one point, and a few miles further on I could not avoid having my photograph taken by some enthusiastic but harmless youths. I aimed to reach Campotosto for the night, and had to press on for the last five miles or so to avoid being left out in the dark. The last stretch was over rough and sparsely inhabited sheep grazings. From a ridge above Campotosto I saw beyond a long lake directly in my path, and from where I was, could see no convenient way round it. In Campotosto I soon found a billet and had a good meal of mutton stew. This , it seemed, was entirely a sheep country, and in normal times they used to move their flocks to the Roman Campagna for the winter. Now however they were afraid to do this, but did not know how they were going to feed their sheep. Hence, I suppose, the mutton stew. Some women had bought back a story that hundreds of Germans were lurking near the lake that I had seen, and consequently everyone said that it was impossible to go anywhere near the lake. The stories were however vague as to location, and varied considerably. I had no doubt that some Germans had been seen somewhere, but doubted whether a cordon had in fact been thrown across all approaches to the lake. I spent the night in a farm with 3 Australians and a drunk Italian. Next morning the Australians started off in an easterly, or even north easterly, direction on account of the stories about the dangers of going near the lake. I continued on my course to the east end of the lake, using a covered approach through woods. I was able to overlook the dam by which the road crossed: a few hundred yards short of the dam was a power house and near the power house a working party, supervised by what appeared to be armed and uniformed guards, was digging a ditch. They seemed intent on their own business, so I walked across the dam and was soon out of sight behind a ridge. In the valley below me was now the Teramo – Aquila main road, and beyond this was the Gran Sasso itself, looking very craggy and immensely high……..”

The lake is man-made (in 1939) massive and high (at 1300 m or more) and lies at the flank of these large, and in many instances snow streaked, peaks. The lower shoulders often thickly wooded while the upper reaches look in many instances impregnable. You would have to choose carefully before you commenced your ascent.

We left one car at the southern end of the lake and drove the 13k to Campotosto where, in deference to a now chilly wind and threatening sky, we dressed up a bit more than the last few days for our stroll. Bought some nosh in the village shop and set off around the lake. We thought a few times that we might be given the chance to empathise more fully with Dads drenched drudgeries by getting a soaking ourselves but it never quite came to it. We came to the dam, which he had slipped across under the nose of disinterested guards and spent some time time trying to establish from the diary exactly where his path would have lain beyond. We eventually agreed on a likely route (which I have yet to mark on the map)

We marched on, stopping in a brief sunny spell to eat prosciutto and pomodori (me) and bread and energy bar (hum) and then carried on without incident to the car. My legs are feeling a bit whimsical after yesterdays stormtrooper ascent of Nocciano, so I am pleased that our route is 95% flat today. Hopefully tomorrow I will have repaired myself for whatever awaits us! Rejoin the two little cars and cruise gently down the hill to Amatrice where after some fiddly diddly we find our very cheap B&B and go out for a coffee on the ‘High Street’ Sun is now out but it is cold and we repair to the room to get showers and plus dressed a bit.

At the corner pizza shop we are treated to a translator which enables us to buy Pasta Amatriciana – spag/pig (delicious) for our supper. (The waitress, on realising how stupid we were flounced off and we thought we were going to go hungry, but she then re appeared and had high level conversation with one of the other customers who had some english and was charmingly coerced into his role as interpreter)

Day 5;

Early start. Drove to Arquata del Tronte – looks quite a town on the map but is in fact a two horse affair, and only looks large because the roads are so squiggly that at 1:200000 it makes it look like there’s lots going on. We had to drive down some outrageous lanes littered with avalanche debris – I nearly ran my little C1 into a two or three ton boulder that had not completely got off the road on tits way down to the bottom of the valley! Parked eventually at Borgo, just the other side of Arquata on the basis that, if we were to walk the 15 or so miles from Castelluccio to Arquata, having the last mile up a precipitous route would be unpopular with ourselves once we got there…. Drove the C1 up to Castelluccio which was exactly as dad had described it, and lay in what was, to my unaccustomed eyes, a fairly jaw droppping landscape.

“……..Arrangements were made for us to be taken in the morning to the H.Q. of the Banda in which most of the Yugoslavs were organized. Also we found a cobbler, and before starting out, we got him to patch up our shoes. It was, however a makeshift job, as he had no leather and few nails. He fed us liberally on walnuts while we were waiting. In due time a S African O.R. arrived to conduct us to Banda H.Q. and we started at about 9 am. An hour’s march brought us to a secluded valley set among high grass downs and beech woods; about 30 of the Banda were living in two or three shepherd’s cabins and in one of these we had a conference with their leader. He was an Italian captain-doctor, and appeared to have achieved a fair degree of organisation.

He wanted arms, boots and medical equipment, and suggested that these should be dropped by parachute in a valley near the village of Castelluccio; he said that the village was friendly and that there would be no danger of the Germans observing the operation, as the locality was extremely remote , though easy to identify from the air. We promised to inform the British of his request, and shortly took our leave. I due course, I informed the British military authorities of this, but they did not pursue the matter further.

Incidentally we heard that a few weeks previously a Fascist in Castelluccio had informed the Germans of a projected move of a body of Yugoslavs, and had thereby caused about 30 of them to be captured or shot by the Germans, who had laid a successful ambush on their line of march. As we went on our way we discussed the question of separation. It seemed likely to be easier to travel singly in the German rear areas which we were now approaching, and as form now on our individual plans diverged, we decided to go our own way in the near future. The rest of the morning we spent on these high downs in bright sunshine tempered by a pleasant breeze. Monte Vittore was a little to our east , and probably a thousand feet or so above us. After lunch, during which we heard heavy bombing, probably of Terni, about 40 miles away, we made our way towards Castelluccio, directed by a man with 2 mules who was going to Norcia which we could see far below us. We soon saw the village of Castelluccio on a steep conical hill, looking like a hill fort; this hill was at the North end of a level grass plain, about 5 miles by 2 miles, and both the plain and conical hill were completely surrounded and overlooked by a circle of high hills – still grass with occasional beechwoods in the re entrants. This was where the Italian captain had suggested the parachutes should be dropped, and it seemed to us an entirely suitable place. The plain itself, though about 2000 feet below where we were standing, was high, and except for Castelluccio, completely isolated. We could just make out flocks of sheep grazing on the plain, and what appeared to be a line of telegraph poles running down it’s length. Slowly we climbed down on to the plain; the hillside was extremely steep and we were glad of the sheepwalks with which it was traversed. We took about 45 minutes getting down and as much again to cross the plain. Another couple of miles ahead of us (to the east) was a white house, past which a road from Castelluccio appeared to go through a pass in the hill. We made for this pass, and another hour brought us to the edge of a great abyss. The ground fell away steeply beneath us, and clouds floated a few hundred feet below: as we watched some of them were sucked up the side of the mountain on our left, and were soon weaving mistily above our heads and catching the last sunlight. We saw far below us a town – Arquata – and could make out the deep valley in which the main road must run. Our objective was Pietrilama, which we had been told was just over the pass we were now on. We could see no sign of it, but started off down a track , which seemed to lead into the valley. It was quite dark by the time we reached Pietrilama: we met a priest in the street, who, quickly shaking off a curious crowd, led us to a barn, and eventually to his own house, where we had an excellent meal. Here Van managed to get quite a good map, in book form; Peter had the 1:200,000 map we had got from the Bazanis, near Reggio, and I had the 1:100,000 motor touring map of Malaberti, so were all well provided for. We slept in the barn that we had been taken to in the first place, and I got up about 4 a.m.leaving Peter and Van still there, as I was being shown across the main road by some Italians. After waiting for half an hour in a house while the chestnut collecting party gathered, I set off with one youth for the next village on the way to Arquata, as otherwise I might have waited indefinitely, many of the party having decided to go to mass – it was a Sunday – at the last minute………….”

Parked up, had a coffee (and a pastry that I think might well have been able to tell a few stories about 1943 itself) and then set off by 9 am. Sun was out but it was cold – the C1 had told me it was 3 degrees not sure if I believe that but we soon warmed up as we headed off in the wrong direction on a track that we liked the look of. The first legs of the day are a bit like being a yoof again, but this illusion was quickly blown away by middle aged puffing and panting as we laboured an unnecessary mile or two around the lower reaches of the mountains surrounding the plain

Eventually returned to the straight and narrow by back tracking into the centre of the plain where we caught a nice young track running down towards the Forca di Presta (the pass we were headed for) Although it had all looked pretty level we actually had to climb something like 300 metres up to the pass against a cold and howling gale – the battle between the North wind and the sun was temporarily won by the former and by the time we reached the pass we were fully dressed again!

The white house that Dad saw at the north end of the plain is now a ruin but still clearly identifiable. At the pass we stopped to try and establish the route they would have taken thereafter (as we did not feel up to the challenge of descending 1000 metre over rough woodland and forest ourselves) We admired ‘the abyss’ - no clouds float up to us, it being a clear day, but it was an impressive vista anyway.

Looking out from the pass toward Arquata.

It looked as if their guides and advisers could have known ways down a heavily wooded spur of the mountain that headed pretty much straight for Arquata. We opted for the road, taking to tracks whenever they looked likely – though I don’t think we managed to shorten our journey by much. We lunched in the sun once we had got far enough down the 12 km of hill road for the wind to be less extreme, and then dozed a bit, listening to the cuckoos and soughing pines. Eventually moved on down; arriving in Piedilama we went to examine the church and found, along with his photograph, the tomb of Antonio Filipponi, the priest of the village and quite possibly the priest in Dads account; the dates seem to work.

Dying in 1952, ( a motorcycle accident according to our sources) he would have been a young priest of 27 or 8 when he harboured the three escapati. Carrying on down the hill we stopped to have a coke and the patron (a dead spit of Tom Shanahan) got his mate to tell us about a memorial at some distance which we might be interested in. We explained that we had walked far enough already and parted with much goodwill. We were almost back at the car when a beaten up four wheel drive screeched to a halt behind us….He had remembered and now wanted to show us. He was very excited and pleased about this and our lines of communication were so poor that we took the line of least resistance and jumped in his jeep as we were bidden and roared back up the hill to – I had guessed it but hadn’t the heart to try and vocalise it – the church.

So I photographed the tomb again and, after warm remonstrations of esteem and affection on all sides he drove us back down the hill to our car. He found the Fiat 500 very funny – I can’t imagine why. He was a truly charming and delightful person.

We then made the trek back to Castelluccio in our amusing Fiat, passing our two friends now back in their cafe, fetched the Citroen and drove back to Arquata by a different route as we couldn’t quite face a 4th trip down the same one when there is quite so much else to see. And so there was! More astonishing views, more ridiculous roads and finally, (as I am writing this having showered but prior to going out on the search for supper) I’m hoping, more Pasta Amatriciana.

Day 6;

Set off in good time to drive up to Sigillo. Satnav takes us via Castelluccio again – although not by the much visited first route – but this does nothing to diminish the splendour of the drive. On the descent the other side, along, in part, a more or less likely line of Dads ascent, we gradually lose the ‘mountain feeling’. It all seems to jump forward a few decades and up a few salary levels; these, I guess, will be the people who come to where we have just been to play. We find Campodonico, our target village and, leaving the Fiat there, drive on to Cancelli – which is as close to the railway track where they thought they got shot at as possible.

“………. Our immediate objective was to cross the Via Tiburtina in the neighbourhood of Sigillo. By midday we were overlooking the valley in which the road ran, but had an intricate piece of country to cross before we reached it. We were in the valley itself by late afternoon, having crossed a river and with about 4 miles of cultivations and a low ridge between us and the road. As we passed through a farmyard on this ridge, a woman leaned out of a window and asked pleasantly if we wanted anything. As a result we passed the night at the farm and were well fed and entertained. My boots were repaired with innumerable nails, with many of which I was soon to have intimate contact. Our clothes were washed and we spent a comfortable night in a spare stall in the cowshed, only disturbed by the working oxen being fed at about 4 o’c in the morning. Autumn sowing was in progress and they were all making an early start. We departed overloaded with grapes , and ate our breakfast in a thicket at a decent distance from the house. We crossed the Via Tiburtina within an hour: there was a certain amount of heavy traffic on it, but good covered approaches through vineyards. After crossing we were soon in the hills again, now of the open grass down type and climbing steeply. On the tops we saw a party of 3 a mile or so away, but they did not seem to want to meet us, so we never discovered who they were. There was now a road and railway in front of us, running due east from the Via Tiburtina. We crossed in bad order, being exposed for a long time while approaching the road, and sliding uncomfortably down a steep scree onto the railway. As we regained cover on the farther side, we heard a shot and thought we heard the bullet, but as nothing further came of it , we continued on our way. We now struck an unusual feature – a valley running in the same direction as we were going. It had a minor road, and one or two small villages. We started off along the road, thinking to cover a good distance. We shortly met an Italian soldier – a cavalryman on a bicycle. He looked at us with a knowing look, and rode on. Next, in a dirty village, a dirty corporal attached himself to us: he had, he said, escaped from the Germans and was determined to assist us. We heard a bus coming up the hill behind us, and accordingly took cover in a ditch: I then gathered that the corporal intended to stop the bus within a few yards of where we were hiding. This was not in accordance with our plans, as even if the corporal were untraitorous, the bus might well have been full of undesirable characters. We therefore removed ourselves, and the corporal, a few hundred yards away from the road, and, as the buses passed – there were two of them – we watched our corporal. At the next turning we asked him which way he was going, and on hearing his choice, chose the other way. He went unwillingly – but had not quite the neck to stay with us. Soon we saw in front of us the village of Campodonico. Here, a few days before, 2 English had been recaptured: the story, which eventually I heard from Thomas, was as follows: Hugo Haig, Alan Cameron and Thomas were drinking in a pub, when 2 carabinieri came in. One held the door with a pistol, while the other telephoned for the Germans; but before it was too late Thomas barged his way past the guard and made off. In due time the Germans arrived, and presumably took off Haig and Cameron. This event had made a tremendous impression on the locals: we were warned on all sides not to go near Campodonico. We therefore left the road and took to a mule track running parallel to it , but further up the hill. Towards evening we were well up the valley, and beyond the motor road: we found a suitable billet in a small village, and while waiting for our meal encountered 2 other ex-members of PG 49. One, Williams – a gunner and the other nicknamed Cuckoo, a Wykehamist but surname unknown. We walked with them for a mile or two next morning, until our ways parted. They we noticed were much better disguised than we were: none of our party had hats, and in general nobody could imagine for a moment that we were anything other than escaping English prisoners. It is possible that our half hearted efforts at disguise might have deceived an unobservant German at 300 yards…...”

It is sunny, the valley is green and pleasant, the slopes on either side thickly wooded and climbing, as we are soon to establish, about 600 metres above the valley floor. We are a bit dissatisfied with the apparent prospect of a straight forward walk down this obliging valley and so turn off to the right at the first opportunity in order to see whether Caccioni might be the ‘dirty village’ of Dads account. This involves a bit of a climb but yields the pleasing result that we find a muletrack.

Whether or not Caccioni was the dirty village remains a matter of speculation; We felt that the name maybe went against it and it was clearly still a fairly poor settlement today (albeit enthusiastically beautified by a socialist style muralist); its position also made it a likely contender. If it was then it is more than likely that we followed the escaper’s tracks exactly along the track that we now followed and equally that the village we came to next and the bit of road beyond it were the scenes of their tussle with the ‘dirty corporal’. We were even nearly run down by a descendant of one of the buses from which they hid that came howling along the valley road unexpectedly as we rejoined it…

We assumed that their next moves took them south east over the hills overlooking Campodonico and so we took an unpromising little track off the main road, (waving goodbye to the dirty corporal and leaving him to continue on to Campodonico) which headed sharply up the mountainside in a series of long zig zags for about an hour. We found ourselves, eventually, a bit warm and almost straight above the spot where we had left the valley road, so we then proceeded along the crest in the direction of Campodonico and the car.

There were a few points where it would have been likely that they would have taken a leftwards and south easterly turning to bring them into the next valley, but we now felt that we had honoured our 10 mile average already and so followed the tracks natural descent toward the village – something of at least, we reckoned, a 1 in 4 gradient, rough and difficult going….

Once down to earth again we went to examine whether the bar where the capture / partial escape episode of their colleagues had occurred was still in existence. At the far end of the village there was indeed a bar, but it was a relatively newly built affair ,and although offering very necessary rehydration, services was not a candidate. The village itself was old and we saw several buildings that might well have been bars at one time.

Returned to Concelli and attempted to further reconnoitre where they would have crossed the railway line. Here we had an irritating encounter with the Carabinieri. Mussolini’s grandson was one of them, with creepy watery blue eyes and a sarcastic and insinuating line of conversation. There were major roadworks going on here with a series of new tunnels being excavated and it turned out that we had wandered into a restricted zone…. Hums passport seemed to reinforce their belief that we were Al Quaida oppos looking to blow up a mountain or some such and so we were kept by the side of the road, splattered with their innuendo and pried into by the questions for more than half an hour. By the time they left us we both felt knackered and filthy – and it wasn’t from either the walking or the heat of the day.! If his ancestor had not been Mussolini in person but merely the carabinieri who had been guarding the bar door at Campodonico in October 1943 then I hope that the escaper’s push was a lot closer to an outright uppercut…….

We then proceeded to get severely lost - as ms satnav had not been told about the roadworks; the result of this was that we ended up driving along the road that they had had to cross and in so doing confirmed with some emphasis that Concelli was the only crossing possibility that really fitted the account. So we felt we had achieved yet another ‘definite‘ Drove thence to Sigillo and got lost again in the open vineyards that they had walked through while approaching the Via Tiburtino or RN3

By this time we were exhausted and when we found ourselves up yet another grassy track about to turn into a field we decided to head for our nights lodgings in Gubbio – it was nearly 6 pm now in any case. However again, without having located the actual farm where they had spent the night prior to crossing the main road – which we had hoped to at least narrow down a bit – we felt that we had pretty much found their line of travel to within at least half a mile or thereabouts.

Into Gubbio in their rush hour. Its almost like the UK in terms of traffic. After the almost deserted roads of the Abruzzi and the Maiella it is quite overpowering. Roadworks and rush hour combine to mean that , eventually, we park up and make our way to our destination in the heart of this mediaeval town on foot. Prosperous and bourgeois … beautiful buildings etc. Our hostess, a voluble lady who is clearly letting out her whole house in the touristy central part of town while living somewhere cheaper herself, is charm and and helpfulness - with a touch of nuttiness. Her tour of the house is minute and detailed and we are, by the end, waiting for the instructions as to what to feed the dog and whether the kids homework needs to be finished tonight or for next week. Although we had booked two single beds we are lumbered with one large double and we allow this misunderstanding to stand as, to rectify it would probably take at least another hour and we are now dead on our feet and all we want is to get some food and hit the sack! This is what we do. (although Hum ends up slipping downstairs and sleeping on the sofa at 2 am as I am, allegedly, whistling – sounds a bit of an euphemism for snoring like a pig – true to say I have a slightly blocked up nose in the morning….)

Day 7;

After much talk of omelette for breakfast we dashed off at 8 without, - feeling that the forecast of rain later in the day suggested an early rather than a late start. Drove to Pietralunga, home of the ‘ferocious mareschali di carabinieri’, left the Fiat there, visited the supermarket – where I was pleased to find some walnuts, as they seem to have been a bit of a staple of the escapati diet, and head off toward Citta di Castello by a rough track/road that we have decided to take a chance on as it looks to be very likely their route through these tortuous, thickly wooded and precipitous valleys and mounts.

“…...To the east of us there was a deep and narrow valley, leading up out of the plain, and in a secluded pocket, we saw a farm, which we decided was our objective for the night. We went steeply down through scrub for 1000 feet or so , and called at the house. Only a minor female relative was in, and before accepting us, she had to shout across 3 broad fields to the master of the house, asking whether the escaping English prisoners might stay the night. Permission was given and we set about shaving and washing socks as the light failed. In due time the family returned from the fields and we sat down to our meal in the large dark kitchen. Many women and more children sat around in the dark corners: a couple of them brought us, the farmer and one or two of his half grown sons, our food. The farmer was in his way an outstanding man; dignified and gracious to an extraordinary degree, and whenever he spoke, causing silence among his numerous household. He showed the utmost concern for our comfort when we went to bed in an empty store room, himself bringing coats and blankets and tucking them under our toes. We were none the less rather cold; nothing, we knew by now, equalled deep wheat straw for warmth and comfort, other than a proper bed with really adequate bed clothes. Next day we continued the circumnavigation of a quadrant of the rim. This entailed a lot of up and down work, hampered at times by mist and rain. We crossed a motor road in the course of the morning and lunched in the cottage of a man whose sole possession, except for his very small house, seemed to be a donkey. He was not, he said, a regular labourer, but he did odd jobs, assisted by the donkey, for whoever had need of him. He received a small pension from some company in the Argentine, where he had worked for many years. Towards evening we crossed a main road, going due east from Civita Castello, at a point just below Bocca Seriola, and about 12 mile from C. Castello. We saw two cars on the road, both of them Italian. We found a farm a mile beyond the road , and spent a comfortable night in the cowshed. It was in any case a much warmer night , the clear weather of the day before having now turned to steady rain. It was still raining in the morning and this delayed our start by an hour or so. Foxes and badgers abounded in this area,as I saw skins here and also at the farm we stayed at the night before. We got wet very soon, when we did start, but counterbalanced this by a long ‘elevenses’ at the house of and American speaking Italian: we drank a considerable quantity of good white wine, and inspected his tobacco drying apparatus. It was apparently Sunday, and our host was clearly taking the morning off. By nightfall, in spite of these delays, and in spite, myself , of being considerably upset inside (perhaps the result of the gnocchi that we had had for lunch) we had made a good step on and were near Pietralunga. Here, rumour said, was a ferocious mareschiallo di carabinieri: a fascist, a friend of the Tedeschi, he would shoot us as soon as look at us. Accordingly we stopped short of the town, and billeted ourselves on a family who at first were not pleased to see us. However, they cheered up as time went on, and we spent a comfortable night in a home made wattle shed. I the morning we left Pietralunga to the west and continued south into a mountainous and difficult area east of the Gubbio plain…...”

Descendant of the dogs with the spiked collar

Abandon the C1 in a clearing in the middle of nowhere – Hope to find it again later! And get walking. It’s a good walking day – cool breeze and intermittent hot sun, and we make good time through the forest (where we are told there are still wolves) Much upping and downing, but not nearly as taxing as yesterday’s zig zag mule tracks by Campodonico. Cuckoos and jays, a couple of deer, distant song of the chainsaw, half dozen of the white sheepdogs standing guard over a flock of sheep in a clearing. This is about the only life we come across, apart from the birdsong everywhere, until we come onto a metalled road again on the approach to Pietralunga,. Then it’s a couple of cars and a few old folk pottering about, until, having collected the Fiat and driven round by the metalled road to find the little turquoise car in its lonely clearing, we re-engage with the hustle and bustle that appears to be the norm up here. Return to Gubbio by 6 and spend easy evening – phone and whatsapp Jules (who, it turns out, doesn’t seem to approve of my sun-hat for some reason!) . Pack the cars and get a very nice bite to eat in an unpretentious eatery down by the church end of town – possibly not the most accurate of descriptions as there seem to be quite a few churches in Gubbio…..

Day 8;

We have our omelette this time and still manage to leave by 9. It rained a lot in the night but suspends operations while we drive up to La Verna in order to have the satisfaction (for me, that is, at any rate) of completing coverage of both halves of Dads route, albeit extremely briefly for the first half (with Odile in 2003) and very intermittently for the second in these last days.

“…..Peter could pick out to the west the camp at Poppi where he had spent last winter. In one small hamlet we had news of one of the Poppi guards, who had been friendly, and so we made our way to his house. He was away, but nonetheless the connection ensured us a welcome, and we were communally entertained, each of us having a meal in a different house. We all slept together in a bedroom of the absent Poppi guard’s house, and were very cold. There was a bitter north wind, and I would have much preferred our usual bed of straw to a third share of a somewhat inadequate covering of thin blankets. By dawn I had all my clothes on again. We breakfasted off a revolting concoction made from chestnut meal – rather like polenta, only nastier – and warmed only by the kindness of our hosts, we continued along an extremely bleak hillside. We had a lesser main road to cross, and observed it below us for a mile or two; there was a small amount of traffic on it, and in addition 2 sinister looking gentlemen in dark uniform, carrying small haversacks and going the same way as us. None the less, we crossed without incident, and went on at a good pace: I was in the lead and still feeling very cold. We set our course for La Verna, another monastery; we could see it’s massive wooded hill – almost a mountain – to the south of us and made fair going. We kept on high ground, above the roads and villages, till midday. We lunched in a warm corner on a south slope and then descended to cross a road. We paused for a while in a village, being invited in with considerable aplomb by girl aged about 7 to eat some excellent grapes. As we approached the La Verna feature we went through a most pleasant stretch of wold-like country, good pasture and arable land, enclosed, well stocked with sheep,and much less ragged and abrupt than most of the hill country we had seen. I saw partridges and several woodcock. As we climbed up to La Verna we returned to the rougher and poorer country of the hills. The monastery was embedded high up in the side of a limestone cliff,and after debating whether the results would repay the effort, we toiled up to it. We waited for a long time in an outside yard, talking to a monk, while a meal was got ready. The sun was failing, and the wind keen. These monks wore black, and believed in a spartan life: our stew was greasy and the wine watered: we were told plainly that we could not stay the night……..”

La Verna is in the clouds and as we go for a wander in the woods to the North West it begins to rain – our first proper wetting of the trip! (In fact Dad and co had apparently approached La Verna from below as they had to make their minds up as to whether or not to make the ascent; our foray to the North West was generally climbing up and away from the buildings, so we came to realise that their approach to the monastery must have been circuitous) Visit the porch that Odile and I had identified as probably being where they had sat and shivered over their greasy soup and watered down wine of rejection and then set off for the journey back to Rome. We have booked a B&B near Viterbo about 100 miles away. Coming down the hairpins from La Verna is thoroughly unpleasant as the little Citroen has steamed up inside -due to my being sopping wet I presume – and I can’t persuade it to demist...the side windows and a thick margin of the front windshield remain stubbornly opaque and so, particularly on the left hand hairpins, I have to lean right over into the passenger seat as I am going around the bend in order to have any idea of what might be coming up the hill at me. After finally reaching the bottom in one piece I find a well concealed lever nestling amongst the arcane controls of the heating and air con side of things that gradually dispels the fog and, by the time we reach the autostrada at Arezzo it is pretty much all clear again. The rain has now stopped and I have dried out as well. At the turn off for Vittorchiano I pick up two young Poles who are going to visit the Parco del Mostri at Bomarzo. Once I have understood what it is – a 16th century sculpture garden of monsters and nymphs, gods and bears it begins to seem foolish to pass by without having a look.

If ever there was a reward for picking up a hitchhiker then this was it! It was a wonderful, surreal collection of massive pieces that had lain abandoned and ruinous until discovered and re ordered by (I think) Mr. et Mrs Bettini. (Ave and Salve Mr and Mrs B). in the early to mid 20th C. The afternoon had become almost balmy now and we wandered around these enchanted and enchanting gardens for several hours. My mobile phone camera is now bursting at the seams.. Eventually, reluctantly we leave for ‘il Moai’ B&B where we find ourselves presented, yet again, with a double bed. This time we insist and before long signor B&B appears and twin beds are produced amidst much apology and remonstrations of undying etc etc…

The young Pole had mentioned that their next bit of sightseeing was to be Monte Cassino, for it had been, apparently, Polish soldiers who had been ‘first over the top’ in the final assault. Afterwards I regretted not making some ‘old timer’ish interjection such as spare a thought for the German boys who perished there too; I had the feeling that their interest in this subject was not just avid but also more than slightly nationalistic and yet I would guess that they were younger than Sam and Pete; however can’t fault them on the choice of the Parco del Mostri.

Our trip ends fairly successfully; we’ve managed to average somewhere in the region of 10 miles a day, often along identifiable stretches of Dads route and have driven along quite a lot more of it one way and another. Google has to be acknowledged as making the task of putting geographical flesh onto the journal a whole lot easier, but even without that we have not done badly.

We wandered into Vitorchiano from the outlying B&B and find ourselves in a fairy tale mediaeval warren of houses, alleys, stairs...when you go too far in any one direction you come to a railed precipice with the occasional cat daring the outside transits. Who on earth fixed the drainpipes and gutters on the cliff faces of these buildings? It must be nearly 250 ft down to the woods at the bottom- still more from the upstairs windows of these barnacle dwellings..now that’s a bedroom view to grow up with! Though I suppose illicit exits from your window at night become a bit impractical.

The b&b’s recommended restaurant, at which we eventually present ourselves, are either fully booked or don’t like the cut of our jib (or both) so we are obliged to stalk the lanes, hungrily, for a bit longer. Finally we happen upon a cheerful pair of gents sat outside a small bar . We enquire as to the possibilities, which prove to be promising , and then, because I had managed to conduct our whole conversation up to this point in my very slowly expanding Italian, I manage to illuminate for our hosts the full contours of first our foolishness and then our ignorance by electing to settle down under the arch outside. Foolish as we were clearly going to be cold – and quite possibly wet – (even though we felt quite sheltered under the arch and tucked into a little return in the wall) My ignorance was then revealed in its full glory by my unhideable failure to understand the ensuing barrage of expostulation and entreaty. In the circumstance the only course seemed to be to stick to our gun, however paltry it might have seemed to any sane person, and so we were finally settled outside as requested with an ad hoc tablecloth on a barrel, to be waited on personally by the kindly and charming patron who came and sat with us for quite some time in order to guide us through the very short menu. It is rare that one is made to feel so genuinely welcome and so we were really pleased, once we had become too cold to stay any longer in our self inflicted purgatory of an icy wind tunnel, to be able to tip him properly at the end of the meal and to feel that this was completely welcome and not in the slightest awkward. It was an extremely cheering finish to our day.

Day 9;

We awoke early and departed without breakfast ( at which omission our signor b&b appeared dejected, but it had looked as if this ceremony would not be a quick one and we were keen to get going) Drove back to Bomarzo where there is a rather splendid palace of the Orsinis (I think the original patron of the Parco del Mostri was perhaps an Orsini). Had a coffee and a wander and discovered on enquiring, that the P d M opened at 8 on a Sunday. Nipped down there to buy some postcards for the grandchildren and a mug for Myles then set sail for the airport. A moderately tedious drive culminating in alarming mayhem around the airport itself. Congratulate ourselves warmly on getting the two little cars back to their home without mishap; it has been a close call on a couple of occasions. Penetrate the airport in order to begin a five hour wait (we had erred badly on the early side as regards the time we had agreed to return the cars) All the courtesy grace and kindliness of our hosts of the last seven or eight days is highlighted by the rudeness and coldness of the contacts that one has in this unpleasant place. Best not to dwell on it.

Flight uneventful and a bit late. Catch my train with five minutes to spare, forgetting to post the cards that I had been unable to post at the airport (because it was a Sunday and because they were so unhelpful - but we weren’t going to dwell on that) so they will instead have to have a devonian postmark- which I expect Scott might notice, but I doubt that the others will spot it – Home around 10 (not there yet at time of writing but I think someone should meet me at Totnes – Fingers crossed - as I’ve had enough today)

Following in the footsteps

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