A bulk of thick, gloomy clouds was amassed in the sky over the festival hill by the time we opened our eyes this day, hinting at possible showers. We spent an easy day in the tent waiting for the sky to adopt some merrier mood. And we packed slowly after that happened. It was already afternoon when we were departing from the Blackmoon Festival.
Our destination on that day was no other than the eternal city, Italy’s capital, Rome. The plan was to have an easy ride along some 8 km downhill to the town of Moie, where we’d board over on the train to Rome. But the ride turned out to be not that easy after all… By the moment we had eventually cycled nearly all the 8 km downhill – and still, no Moie was in sight – I only then realized that I’d missed the right way and we were going down the hill in the opposite direction.
We went the whole hill up again, and down the proper side, and by 17:00 we were at the forsaken railway station of Moie. The next – and last – train to Rome was scheduled to halt by the vacant platform at 18:00. We had a spare hour, during which we headed downtown to Moie and had an espresso and an ice-cream at a small, forlorn cafe – forlorn, given that the casual in Italian small towns bunch of old men playing cards and smoking incessantly with the owner in the back-room does not count for customers.
At 18:00 plus a few minutes, our bikes were loaded and stabilized in the small hall intervening the two frontmost of the train’s cars. And we seated by the window, marveling at the exquisite views created as the sun was departing from the sky, while we were crossing over from Marche into Lazio.
By around 22:00, we were pushing the bicycles out of the central train station of Rome, among the mainly consisted of junkies, beggars, rascals, and heavily armed policemen other people present at the station. As soon as we exited the station, we had an Italian pizza at a sketchy Indian restaurant. Hunger satisfied, we started on our way pedaling through Rome’s plentifully illuminated night streets and avenues.
We were in need of a beach and a place to stay. Our destination was the coastal town of Ostia, situated some 30-plus-a-few km west of the capital, where we found a modestly priced camping site. We left the city and its noise behind us, and, torches signaling our existence to bypassing car drivers, we got to move steadily seawards on that utterly dark and apparently endlessly straight road. Saltiness was suddenly felt in the air, and a few moments later, the road finally ended in front of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The time was 3 am already. Both because it should probably not be open, and because it’d be quite pointless to pay a whole day stay for a few hours, we decided not to make for the camping right away. Instead, we got a drink from an open canteen and sat on a bench before the beach where we got a soft nap while waiting for the morning.
Accommodation and Activities in Italy
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