Take Post
Anzio-Rome October 23rd
I should have mentioned that the reason I didn’t go further than Frosinone yesterday ,is that 10 Bty’s last gun position before going into reserve was just outside of town to the north-west. From that point they, like the rest of the Division, went into reserve and did not go back into action until August 6th, 1944 when they were just south-west of Florence. We’ll pick that trail up later.
For now I have decided to stay another day in Anzio and use the opportunity to go into Rome. Before I leave I will visit the cemetery here.
What can you say about Rome that hasn’t been said before. I’ll just tell you where I went…you can fill in the descriptive blanks.
I caught the train at Anzio Colonia at 09:16 and from the Termini in Rome took the Metro to the Barberini stop. I wanted to see the Trevi Fountain first. I took a few snaps but what struck me, as I looked at this amazing piece of work, was how that contrasted with all the other pieces of sculpture in all the cemeteries I’ve been visiting. We are such weird beings to be able to make something like Trevi (and indeed all the other marvels I saw today) yet still find a way to kill each other in large quantities.
From Trevi I ambled through the streets to the Colosseum and walked all the way around it. Just to make sure it wasn’t fake. I made two attempts to leave by the south but found myself at dead ends both times…once because they are digging up the entire Via di San Gregorio.
I looped back to Largo C Ricci and had a lovely lunch and sip of wine al fresco. I then went in search of the Tiber River. The entire Roman Forum area is under excavation/repair/something so it was a long walk around and down to the river where I took a few shots of the Ponte Fabrico (I like bridges).
At Ponte Garibaldi I turned north and wandered up to the Piazza delle Cinque Lune then turned right through the Piazza di Montecitorio and on to the Trevi Fountain again. The crowds were even bigger so I avoided the area and worked my way back to Barberini and the Termini.
I boarded the train for Nettuno at 18:16…I simply got on the first car, which, of course is at the back end of the train. The ride is roughly an hour and when I got to Anzio Colonia the train stopped and I pressed the button to open the door…only to find that I was not at the platform but about 50 m away from it. I thought of jumping out but then the door closed and the train moved off. The end of the line is Nettuno which was 4.5 km away and the train does make the run back the same way…so I thought I’d just wait. To my surprise there’s another Anzio station just 2 km down the line so I decided to get off there. I knew that it wasn’t all that far to walk back to my Albergo. In fact it was 1.74 km back…I measured it.
When you stop laughing at me…say good night.
Stand Down