Pescara - Under The Real Italian Sun

My longest train ride, Stuttgart (Via Zurich & Milano) – Pescara, travel time in total 14,5 hours including a bit less than an hour transfer times. Ï can tell you that even that I like to travel in trains that start to be quite much. If you wonder where Pescara is, take a look at the map and find Rome first and then focus your eyes on the Eastern coast of Italy and you will find Pescara. I arrived there in the middle of the night (02:28) but luckily Simone had promised to pick me up from station.

On the following morning we headed up back to the railway station again to pick up Giulia, Simone’s friend who I met in Ireland as she visited there. Together we were firstly planned to spend just a day at the beach but even that it was warm (+25-30 degrees), it was little bit too windy for that. So instead of that we had first walk along the beach and enjoyed morning (ice)coffees to get the day started. Pescara is actually quite big city but not really that touristic at all, I think that in General whole Italian East coast is unknown territory for tourists, except Rimini, or at least I experienced that because I think that I didn’t hear other languages spoken than Italian.

Anyways the clock was ticking onwards and it started to be lunchtime. Since it was nice summer day we decided to have a picnic lunch in the park. Focaccia, cheese, salami and tomatoes… That’s all you need besides good company and relaxed atmosphere of course. During our lunch hour(s), wind has also calmed down so we went to beach to enjoy sun for a while before Giulia needed to leave back to Ancona. Pescara was the Southest point of my trip and the (almost) Northest point was The Hague, both of these places I enjoyed sun at the beach but got sunburned in only one place… At the Hague of course :D

For the dinner Simone took me to his grandparents to a real countryside of the Italy, place where function of mobile phones were unsure and Italian hospitality were on its best. But before going there I needed to solve a problem: There was a train strike coming up in Italy at next day (Sat) starting from 9pm lasting 24 hours. There was few guaranteed trains but not many… So my plans were more or less ruined so I decide to go for adventurous option which I will tell later on but first back to the Italian countryside.

Italians are known for their passion about food… And grandparents are often the worst (or the best in this scenario) to serve you a delicious dinner. Table was served with two types of pizza, meat skewers and combination of oven baked potatoes, meat and onions. I know I can eat a lot, especially when the food was so delicious but after 5 pizza slices, 19 skewers and few scoops of oven baked combination I needed to give up… The table just wouldn’t turn empty, result Italy 1 – Sami 0. But I can say that I slept like a baby that night.

There was no need for the breakfast at the morning so it was time to say goodbyes to Simone’s grandparents and thank them for everything. Next direction up to the mountains, the region is known of its both options either to enjoy the beach or go to the mountains, both being only not more than around hour driving distance for each others. Roads were narrow and curvy, which reminded us about Ireland, only differences was that differences in highs were changing more and Simone was driving instead of me. First stop was a castle on the top of a mountain, beautiful miles long views on every direction. Probably was great place to live in a summer but wouldn’t necessarily want to try it on a winter times.

While the “serpentine roads” guided us down from the castle, we had two more stops to go before I needed to be back at railway station. First one was a lake in the valley between mountains where the water was turquoise and grass green. Chilling on the grass and after going for a lunch into a small Italian restaurant. Family owned, only Italian speaking, no menus so the waiter told us (or to Simone) what was on offer that day. We had some antipastos for starters and homemade pasta as main course, all products as much as possible from local area. I also enjoyed class of white wine, from a local wine yard of course.

I had such an great real Italian experience that after all, I would sit happily more than those 14 hours on train to experience that all. But it was still time for the show to go on. So my adventurous plan was to took an evening train to Venice where I will arrive Saturday at 10pm without any further plans. No people I knew, no idea about accommodation or when and where the road will take me next… My target is to reach München Germany before Sunday 10pm when the football world championship final starts but we’ll see how this goes.