It was a great vacation, a great break in Italy for 4 days.
The kiasu me's preparation before the trip.
I flew to Ancona, east coast of Italy on my first day and spend the other 3 days in Rome.
The great view of the Mount Alps from the plane.
Obviously I didn't read enough before booking my trip. I only read the lines in
The Rough Guide to Rome when I was on the coach to Rome. It says
"If you can, you should avoid visiting Rome in July and August, when the weather is hot and sticky, and those Romans that don't make their living exclusively from the tourist industry have left town; many business are closed."Thinking that I am from the tropical country with summer all year long, I was quite sure that it will not be an issue to me, until I arrived in the city, stepped out from the coach...
I felt the heat immediately, it was an absolutely insane 42.5 degree Celcius on my first day in Rome!
Luckily you get to see these beautiful water fountains everywhere in the city, which carry the natural mineral water from miles away. It did save my days in Rome indeed.
A lot of walking in Rome, now I totally agreed with the famous idiom "Rome wasn't built in one day" that I've been listening since I was a small boy. I have to walk because there are so many interesting places every few steps away and I don't want to miss it.
Measured on map, I've covered 20km in the city by foot on the second day itself, double of my one day walking record set in Paris last year. Furthermore this round I was carrying my camera bag with 4 lenses at all time. My shoulders and foots are still aching now. I think I need one full week to fully recover.
Taken 700 pictures during this trip. Hopefully it won't takes me too long to process it.
Ancona airport is a real quiet one, I was the only passenger on the bus to Ancona centre.
I was kind of lost in Ancona, Sonia has given me a few options but it was quite difficult to check for direction as most of the local doesn't speak English. I found a Chinese shop and the lady was really kind and directed me to Passetto, a nice seaside.
Monumento ai Caduti - the memorial to the victims of the 1st World War.
It's heaven and it has the Summer that never came to London.
The color and the texture of the sea is just lovely.
As I had extra time before heading south to meet Sonia's Aunt Ada at Civitanova Marche, I stopped by at Loreto as I was told there's a nice church there. I thought it was within walking distance but apparently it's not possible when I checked with a young man, he was kind enough to give me a free lift to the church. However I regretted soon after arriving as I only had half an hour to catch the last train and it's not possible to walk back by foot! Luckily another kind man gave me a lift back to the station on time. I'd met some nice people even though there were some language barriers.
Ada picked me up the station and we had dinner at her son's place at Civitanova Marche, luckily her little daughter Lavenia speaks a bit of English so we could communicate a bit. We drove to San Benedetto Del Tronto to spend a night there at her new apartment. Everything is nice except there was no water supply being connected yet. What a day as I'd been sweating the whole day and couldn't take shower...
I took the coach to Rome early next morning, it was a 3 hours journey to the west coast.
Took some pictures when the bus stopped by mid way for a break, and I nearly missed the bus for this.
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