It is hot and muggy. It dropped all the way to 74º last night, a cool evening? Forecast today is 92º. The humidity adds to the heat, hovering around 85-90%. The slightest activity brings cascades of sweat down the face and a soaked shirt. It is not that we are sweating more than when we did the PCT under similar temperatures, it’s that the humidity keeps the sweat from evaporating. The air is already saturated with water. The water on the skin has no where to go. On the PCT, the air was super dry. Any moisture that percolated to the surface of the skin was immediately whisked away into the atmosphere, providing cooling and dry skin. Not so here. The moisture clings to the skin. My hands feel wet. My shirt is soaked. We shower 3 or 4 times a day, partly to cool down, and partly to get the salty sweat off our skin. I washed my shirts in the sink last night and hung them on hangers to dry. Eight hours later and they are still wet. It is humid.
We got up, showered and were on the sun porch at 8:00 am. Liana had a typical Italian breakfast laid out for us, Zwieback type toast, jam, nectarines, tea, prepackaged pastries. All starch and sugar. No protein. Still, it tasted good and filled in the holes of hunger.
We walked to the train station, about 10 minutes away and boarded the train to the last town on the line, Nettuno. We had purchased our train tickets on line last night, €1.20 each for the 7 minute ride. The train comes once an hour from Rome, the same we rode into Anzio yesterday. Today, we are riding to the last stop. Anzio and Nettuno are no longer separate. They have grown into one big interlocked town, but they each have an identity and a train stop.
From the train station, it is about a kilometer to the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, where 7,861 service men and women are buried who fought to liberate southern Italy in 1943 and 1944. Along the way, you see a town similar to Anzio. It looks and feels very rundown and dirty. Everything needs a coat of paint. Walls need repair. Litter lies everywhere. But, once you walk through the gates of the cemetery, everything becomes spotless. The grass is watered and glows green, in contrast to the dry and brown grass in the rest of the town. The lawn is meticulously kept. We saw the workers out mowing grass, shaving off less than an inch to keep the place perfect. And of course, the white marble crosses and stars in perfect arcing rows glistened in the sun. It was spectacular.
We stopped first at the bathrooms, then the visitors center. There we inquired if we could check to see if anyone from Toledo was buried in the cemetery. The young woman said the data base could not search by home town, but she could get us paper files that were. She disappeared, then returned with a notebook, the kind you see in movies from the 1950’s, plywood tops and bottoms between the metal rings. Inside, we found hand typed parchments separated by tabs into states. We flipped to Washington. There the towns were alphabetized. No on from Toledo. But, we did find one of the fallen came from Winlock. We had his information printed. We toured the visitors center briefly, watching the 10 minute movie and walked through the displays.
From the visitor’s center we walked out into the graveyard, headed for Section G, grave 51 where our Winlock soldier was buried. The grass was wet underneath, indications of heavy watering. We found 51, took a picture, then headed for the monument at the far end. There we looked at the displays, then walked back down the rows of graves and exited the cemetery.
You might be asking, “What about sailing with the French speaking north Italian man, Maurice, that you met yesterday?” Well, Sally’s forecast had been right. The wind was really whipping, the Mediterranean was a froth of white caps and rollers. There was not a small craft out on the waves, except one wind surfer having a blast. Everyone else had the good sense to stay off the water. We did not want to wait until 10:00 am to meet with him to not go sailing. We knew he would not go in this weather, so we skipped the rendezvous and had gone straight to the cemetery.
We walked back into downtown Nettuno and straight to the seashore. The morning temperatures were in the high 80’s, but the wind was helping to remove the sweat. Good thing, because the air was full of very fine sand blown up off the beach. We would have been sand coated had we been moist.
We stopped at a seaside outdoor restaurant. Sally ordered a fish salad and a Coke. We sat at a table shaded by large umbrella’s shivering in the gale and relaxed, enjoying the people at the tables around us. Sally found the fish salad, literally 90% chunks of fish meat with a little carrot thrown in, smothered in olive oil to be too fishy and oily. I finished it for her as we watched three tables of card players try to control their cards in the wind. This was a diverse group. One was 6 boys, aged 16-19 playing cards, laughing and having a good time. One table was two women, ages late 40’s playing a two handed game while an aged gentleman watched. The third table was a family of four. Of the 6 tables occupied, including us, 3 were engaged in a nearly noon card game.
We continued our walk south, further into Nettuno, before turning around and heading back toward the train station. We walked north of the train station through the older parts of the town before circling back to the train. We rode back to Anzio, walked to the B&B, showered, and settled down for a nap.
We rose about 5:00 pm and headed for Anzio, intent on a dinner of something green. We walked into this seaport fishing town and checked the restaurants. They served pizza or fish, but not much in the way of a salad. We settle on the seaside snack shack we had eaten lunch at yesterday. They had a great salad. The owner is a early forties man with a big smile and welcoming personality. Yesterday, he had charmed us with his tolerance for our poor Italian and his humor. Today, he welcomed us back as old friends, smiling, laughing and taking a real interest in us. All this, from what looks like a hot dog stand at the beach. But, he produces a great green salad loaded with tomatoes, cheese, corn, etc. We had his “Maxi Fruit” plate for dessert, a dinner sized platter piled high with cut nectarines, cantaloupe, apples, pineapple and fresh coconut. We lounged over dinner for an hour, seated in plastic deck chairs under his canopy, watching the kids play soccer in the sand on the beach and talking about the end of our trip.
We walked back into Anzio and found a repeat of last night. The piazza was alive with people, the stores all open. We wandered into the “Emporium” a hardware/kitchen/housewares/everything store crammed floor to ceiling with everything imaginable. Although we purchased nothing, we enjoyed the inventory as the owners drug outside displays in from the piazza into the aisle, closing up the store for the night.
We wandered back through town to our B&B, showered, again, and were soon asleep. Tomorrow, we head for Rome via the train, do some last minute shopping for gifts for people, enjoy one more night in the town, then head for home.
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