5/18 We left Mattinata around 8:30 AM heading to San Salvo Marino, further up the Adriatic coast. We wanted to take the scenic route along the water. We had our directions in our phones and headed out to see what we could see. Little did I know that I was going to be on the white knuckle express with a journey that went way up into the mountains on a narrow road and would wind around like nobody’s business. I think I said Mamma Mia, OMG, and a few other Italian and English expletives while I had the death grip on the door. A few gasps, closed eyes – no wait I can’t close my eyes, what if Jim doesn’t see this next hairpin curve??? We went up the mountain road, down the mountain road, back up and down a few times for almost three hours. Jim was exhausted with all the shifting (manual /standard transmission) and my hand had cramps and I used every scary word I could think of along with a few curses! Prayers were also in here and getting louder by the minute. The Good Lord was with us and saved us on a couple of these turns. Jim had to pay close attention because he had to make sure as we made these turns that no one was coming the other way and possibly be in our lane. Lots of horn honking just as a warning. One thing we did see and boy was it cute. We came to a turn and on the left side of the road on the downside of a hill were cows eating. There was a fence so they weren’t going anywhere but the funniest thing was to see these very large cows right there and the biggest one had a very large cow bell around his neck and it was ringing as he ate. Gotta love it!

We made a couple of stops at pullouts for photos along the way because it really was beautiful. As we went up the mountain the sea was on our right, mountains on our left. We took a few photos of the sea. This one had fishing nets that were in circular traps in a line near one another.

Once again we arrived in San Salvo Marina in time for lunch so we parked the car, wandered around a bit and found a restaurant that was open for lunch. I decided I wanted an appetizer of mussels and my meal was to be a chicken cutlet. The gal brought out the mussels and I almost fainted when I saw this large bowl with over 60 mussels in it. I know the number because I counted them as I opened them. Hey Jim how can this be an appetizer? It’s enough for 3 meals! OMG I cannot eat all of this plus my chicken!

Guess what? I ate all but the three Jim ate! After a reasonable and relaxing amount of time, our cameriere brought out our lunch. Yep, ate that too but did not finish the fries. Needless to say, I ate not one single thing the rest of the day or night! Little piggie. Jim couldn’t believe I ate that much; better do more walking.

We walked along the tree-lined bike path for a while then checked the area out. It is a beach resort and they are getting ready for the tourist season. We felt like we were in Florida or Myrtle Beach, SC. High rise apartments, rides for the kids, work on the beach, and preparations for a new beach walkway, restaurants, shops.

Some photos of the new concept for their promenade along the beach front. It is going to be beautiful but if you are looking to the old Italy to visit, you’d better come soon because it really is changing.

We are often surprised by various discoveries that show the reach of some of our “common” institutions in the United States. This has to be the ninth or tenth memorial we’ve seen on this trip that was either built and maintained by or simply maintained by Lions Clubs. We had no idea how far reaching the Lions are. The plaque on the left says that the maintenance of this work is carried out by the Lions Club of San Salvo.

We reached the time of day here on Friday for another Italian pranzo or lunch, begun at about 1:00 PM. We pretty much went straight to the main course today although normally, these dishes would be the primi or first course – in other words, pasta in most cases. We overdid it two days ago so held ourselves to one course only today. We stepped around the corner to Sole e Luna di Vecchio Alessandro (sun and moon of old Alexander) where we stuck with pasta and fish. Mine had crabs – for you aficionados, Blue Crab, like from the Chesapeake Bay or Charleston, SC – although the waiter insisted they are Italian crabs. Jim had pasta cut on a chittara which looks sort of like a guitar (chittara means guitar by the way.) It is a wood box with the equivalent of guitar or violin strings used to cut the pasta into strips, or noodles. Jim’s chittara pasta was topped with a pesto that included tonno or tuna and cherry tomatoes.

Well, we are wrapping things up here at the beach. It’s time to head up into the hills and mountains tomorrow. We begin with a short drive up to Ortona and a reunion with my cousin Gabriella and her marito Antonino. We’ll have lunch (pranzo) with them, catch up on the last six years, make plans for the next five weeks and then head on to Chieti and our next apartment. As we finish up here in San Salvo Marina, let me leave you with one of the more beautiful aspects of being in Abruzzo – La Maiella, the second highest mountain massif in the continental Apennines after the Gran Sasso d’Italia. The Gran Sasso is also located in Abruzzo. No wonder we like it here. Anyway, from our balcony and 55 miles away, La Maiella beckons us. Our next post will be from Chieti and may take an extra couple of days to post as we settle in for the next five weeks in Abruzzo.