Road trip day on a combination of the old and newer via Appia. On the old you have to watch where you are going, and on the new, watch where other people are going. Staying on the road rather than the designated path saved us a day and many kilometers.
Itri was the first town along the way, and nominally the end of the day’s official ‘stage’ but for us it was the all important mid morning coffee stop. One gets very used to two pastries and two cafe lattes for €4.20 (about CAD$5.50!). The town is dominated by the medieval castle, which controls the road through the gorge.
Back on the new road for the remainder of the day, we kept ourselves entertained observing the roadside debris. Here’s a partial list: women’s one piece bathing suit, new men’s pants(bright blue), two pairs of shorts, new adidas soccer boot, electric auger, kids snorkel and flipper set(brand new in shopping bag), a €5 banknote (kept that!) a box of fruity tea bags (still sealed in cellophane, so we kept those too), a new box spanner (left it on someone’s mailbox), a hand gun (seriously – missing the magazine and a bit the worse for wear, probably from being jettisoned from a moving vehicle!), a pile of shoes, none of which formed a pair, two volumes – not together – of what appeared to be an Italian encyclopedia set. And then there’s the other trash. I can’t count high enough to tally the glass and plastic bottles, cans, and cigarette packets. If they put a bounty on beverage containers the country would go broke!
Just outside of Formia is the tomb of Cicero. Cicero was a politician, orator, lawyer (amongst other things) and was a strong proponent of returning Rome to a Republic during the civil wars. After the death of Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony declared Cicero an enemy of the state, and he was captured in Formia and executed. This blurb on Wikipedia is a good summary of his life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero
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