Friday 13th November 2009 – Roseta degli Abruzzi, Italy

We plotted a route over the mountains to Foggia, soon leaving the valley and its mist. The first part of the route to Potenza was through spectacular scenery with Autumnal colours everywhere and the castle at Brienza (currently being renovated, judging by the crane) looked lovely set on a small hill with houses spilling down the slopes. We skirted Melfi with it massive castle and headed towards Foggia where the land was much flatter.
We had spotted an aire at the Sanctuario d'Incoronata just outside Foggia and decided that we would stop there for lunch and possibly visit the sanctuary. This turned out to be problematic. The huge, empty car park clearly indicated that motorhomes were not welcome but a sign pointed the way to the motorhome car park. That was the last sign that we saw even though we circled the whole site. We gave up and decided to find a lay-by on the way out of Foggia. That was another problem, as every lay-by that we passed was occupied by a prostitute or sometimes two or three. We eventually found one and had a quick lunch as the scenery was flat and uninteresting and we were being buffeted every time that a large vehicle went by.
After lunch we continued on the SS16 and continued to pass prostitutes – in over 30 km we saw more than seventy. Why here? Is wasn't at all subtle, the road was completely open with fields on both sides. With such competition, many of them must have stood or sat all day without a single client. It was a very sad sight and we wondered what had driven them to this way of life.
We drove on to the aire that we had chosen for the night – Fossacesia Marina from the Aree di Sosta book. It was shown as only open in Winter, presumably because the car park was packed in the Summer. However, as we established by intercom from the barrier, it isn't open in the Winter either! Fortunately, we had a plan B and headed on to Roseto degli Ambruzzi. Here we found huge amounts of space at the municipal sports park and, much to our amazement, free WiFi Internet. We caught up on emails, downloaded software updates and podcasts and I was about to update the blog when the WiFi link shut down at 21:30.
Photos: Atena Lucana sits on its hilltop above the misty Tanagro Valley.