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John: Teramo, Gran Sasso, Abruzzo/Abruzzi region. Yes, hard to get to by rail, but what beautiful country!!!There is so much National Park around this area, it is regarded as the greenest, most natural area in Europe, with many unique flora and fauna species. After hiring a car for the day (yes, left hand drive on RHS of road) and exploring national parks, stunning remote villages in the hills and driving up to the snow covered peaks of the Gran Sasso mountains, I would have to agree. Love it!!! More on the hire car: it was a manual, no autos available, Renault Clio diesel, awesome car- after 15 minutes and taking out one Peugeot mirror driving out of the city, I settled and it was like I had always driven LHS steering and RHS road. Yes, I might look at buying a small place here as an investment, because inevitably, rail transport links will have to improve.
Loretta: Our accommodation is in the historical area of the city, which is quite lovely, and the hotel staff, Carmine and especially Nicoletta, are warm and friendly and have gone out of their way to help us.
Teramo is a surprisingly big city with over 300,000 people living here. This is a unique location in that it is only 20km from both the coast (which is expansive, but flat) and ski slopes. However you absolutely need a car to reach the many ski resort locations and the many villages that make up the Abruzzo region. There are parts of the scenery here that remind us of the North Coast. It is rugged with many hilltop locations trialling downward to picturesque valleys. Surprisingly wheat is grown in the region along with tobacco, saffron and other small crops.
We wanted to visit L'Aquila, a town which was devastated by earthquakes in April, 2009, but unfortunately couldn't get there by public transport. We will stop at L'Aquila on our way to Rome when we catch a bus that takes two hours rather than catch a train and make numerous changes that will take in excess of eight hours for us to reach our final destination of our wonderful trip.
Teramo has quite a few ancient ruins, some of which are being reconstructed to original specifications. The piazzas are very popular here and provide a local meeting point for many of the local older men (I guess the women must gather somewhere but they aren't to be seen- unless of course they are all home cooking for a late lunch!) Everything shuts down in Teramo around 1.30pm each day for the traditional siesta and comes back to life around 3.30 when the streets are a buzz of people and dogs again-there are lots of nice dogs here in Teramo. You notice everyone else's dog when you miss your own old dog & unfortunately we haven't got up close enough to pat any.
We are obviously being way overcharged for our cappuccinos in Australia, and are paying €2.40 that's under $3 for two coffees & you even get a biscuit at some places. We haven't had a bad coffee yet in Italy!
It is John's birthday today and we are going to take things slow (we are both tired & have seen Teramo as a place to ease the pace) so we decide to venture out and walk some of the back streets, although being a pedestrian in Teramo is quite challenging as there is very little room to actually walk-so it's pretty much single file & we have to raise our voices if we want to hear each other. John got some lovely birthday wishes from family which he really appreciated.
Again, when we leave tomorrow, it will be with regret......
PS. I found that perfect pair of boots on the last evening in Lucca, 200 metres from our accommodation.
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