The monsoon kicks in with a vengeance during the
night. This is rain on an epic scale. When we awake we are greeted by dark
ominous skies, mild temperatures at best and rain, lots of rain. One can’t help
but wonder if test cricket is due on in the vicinity as only such a spectacle
can summon such shit weather. We are sad to leave but today all roads lead to
Rome and neither of us are looking forward to navigating round this metropolis.
As we are to find out neither the weather nor the roads are our friends; the
roads are practically third world in quality and the weather is one long consistent
unrelenting downpour of torrential rain. Driving conditions are biblically bad.
We agree to try to get past Rome and stay somewhere south. The journey takes us
through some of this:
And this:
It’s laughable really, trying to let air flow through
the van by opening a window to clear steamy windscreen just results in instant
flood of the entire front cabin. Kitchen roll is getting used up apace.
We push on and on and on (Jon heroic driving effort)
and finally we land at Monte Circeo, just south of Sabaudia.We find a free
camping sport just next to the beach, which may have been the Italian restaurant
car park (sorry Gino). There is the sixteenth century Torre Paola to our left,
the stormy med in front of us and it’s moody and beautiful. Sand between toes
all is well.
We go for a quick dip in the sea in a break in the
weather only to get hugely caught out by a flash storm. We leg it back to Onzo,
whipped by stinging sheets of sand and blinded by the deluge as we dash down
the beach and then, drenched and clad only in swimming gear, race along the
small home stretch of main road that separates us from beach and safety. The
locals are understandably amused as they watch from the shelter of the bar. It’s
madly exhilarating, this is the Med pretending to be the Atlantic and doing a
fine job of it! By the time we’ve got ourselves dry it’s back to calm skies
again, amazing how it changes so fast. We take a night-time walk along the
beach, there’s not a soul around and we have it all to ourselves, it’s just
beautiful and such a contrast to the crowds of the coast in August. Certainly a
contrast to the tempest of earlier. Not to last however.
We are wiped
out by the day and it’s an early night, but the weather returns with a
vengeance! Hammering of rain on the roof like all the angles are drumming their
fingers (feathers?) at once. Neither of us has ever heard rain like it, it is
honestly like being in a car wash. We’ve got no access to the news where we
are, is Italy drowning? Is it the end of the world? Do we need a raft? An ark?
What’s Noah’s mobile number? Help.