Arrival at Contrada Durano

After an uneventful flight we disembarked at Fiumicino Airport in Rome and picked up our rental car(s). I say car(s) because the experience could be likened to that of Goldilocks. The first car, a Peugeot 3008 was way too big, and even though it had an automatic transmission, we rejected it when Duncan couldn't get it out of the tight parking space without nearly hitting the car behind. I guess because we are from N. America the Avis clerk thought we'd be happy with it. I knew I could never manage it on the Italian roads regardless of the gearshift. Compared to our Honda Accord, it was a monster. Then they offered us a Nissan Micra which was too small, insufficient for our bags and backpacks. When we offered to come back the next day, they gave us a trim compact Fiat Bravo, so third time lucky.

We borrowed a Garmin GPS from friends which even though loaded with the correct card for Italy couldn't seem to find any of the streets. So we resorted to navigation by the seat of our pants and miraculously ended up at our hotel, a nice modern airport version with an inspiring view of the Mar Tirreno from our window! We believe that is the Mediterranean Sea.  We slept a long time, almost missing the wonderful sumptuous breakfast, and were thrilled when the waitress gave us three leftover pastries to enjoy for lunch. They were delizioso.

After checking the web, we found instructions for resetting the Garmin and giving it time to find the maps via satellite, voila, it is now working; we thought we'd broken it. I'm beginning to believe one can find the answers to most problems on the Internet! Purchasing a SIM card and signing up for an Italian phone plan, proved to be far easier than we could have imagined. Lucky we took our passports, as one needs them to purchase the cards - something to do with terrorists using cell phones to detonate bombs is what our friend warned us.

A 4 hour drive brought us to this idyllic Agriturismo Contrada Durano, a little piece of paradise. We are right in the mountains where my dad was hiding (somewhere) 70 years ago. Concetta and Jimmy, our hosts, assure us that nearly every peasant family for miles around was assisting Allied soldiers so I'm not sure we'll get any closer to his actual location. But we are awfully glad we came this far.

Agriturismo Contrada Durano

Room with a View