A reasonably early start on a cool and overcast morning saw us soon on the ring road around Rome. We came off at junction 18 to join the SS6 (the Roman Via Casilina) but discovered that Saturday morning is not the best time to travel on this road through many miles of the suburbs of Rome. Everyone was out shopping, markets caused traffic chaos and the driving was atrocious, even by Italian standards. Still it was an experience and the Italians seemed to take it all in their stride even though a few gasps of astonishment did pass my lips!
The journey was uninspiring at the beginning but the scenery improved later even if the weather didn't let us enjoy it. Rain and very low cloud obscured most of the mountains and we found ourselves repeating that British landlady's mantra of “the view is lovely from here when it's clear”. The lack of campsites and aires had us driving quite a long distance today but we had identified an aire that was in our Camperstop Europe (2007) guide, the latest Guida Camper book and the April 2009 Agri Plein Air (agrotourism) booklet that we had just acquired from our Italian friends at Ai Cuivin. I am sure that you have worked out what is coming next! We arrived at the specified coordinates and found nothing, so Jane checked with the owner of the village garage. “Chiuso”, closed he said, as in “closed for ever”. We looked at our options and decided to head into Benevento, another 40 minutes further on. This worked well and we soon found the car park and, although both guides said that a payment was required (€5 according to one of them), the barriers were up and there was nowhere to pay.
Photos: The Santuario dell'Addolorata dominated the valley south west of Isernia on the SS17.
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