Last Saturday, I rested in David and Lucille Wilson’s home, napping between rain showers. They have carved a little piece of paradise on the edge of the Burgundy region of France, expanding the 16th-century Prebytère (vicarage) next to the parish church of Livry. Flower gardens, lawn, vegetable garden and a recently acquired neighbouring parcel grace the property. Continue reading
On my way to Rome last Saturday, I learned that the usual places where I stay were filled. My friends were out of town. 
I booked a tent site at the Happy Camping Roma, across the Via Aurelia from my old high school. I had camped there in May 1986 (see the blog post for 10 May 2014), when it was still a primitive campground. Today it is a vast, modern complex with cabins, bungalows, dormitory “tent houses”, a pool, restaurant, bar and discotheque. Continue reading
In the summer of 1967, I was given my one shot at leadership ashore while at the US Naval Academy. As a Midshipman Second Class, I was a squad leader in a cohort of other 2/c midshipmen (rising college juniors, for those needing a conversion) going through summer training. At the Naval Academy, the summers before our Third Class and First Class years were devoted to afloat training, the 3/c filling enlisted billets on ships and the 1/c trying junior officer roles. Continue reading
Trip update: This week’s blog is the trip update. Besides riding between offices, I have packed a suitcase to mail ahead, packed and checked my panniers for the road. By last Thursday, all perishable food and opened containers were gone. With luck, next week I will run one last load of laundry (linens, bedclothes, towels) and sanitize the decks and countertops, defrost the refrigerator (leaving it open), turn off the electricity, water and gas, and lock the door on my way out. Continue reading
Madonna di Riposo
Last time (23 April), I wrote that Mom bought us bicycles for our birthdays in August of 1958. I turned 11 and David 9. We had moved to a comfortable, ground-floor flat on the Via Aurelia, in the Madonna di Riposo neighbourhood, located at the top of the hill near where three broad, dual-carriageway avenues Via Gregorio VII, Via Baldo degli Ubaldi and the Circonvallazione Cornelia met and intersected the Via Aurelia. Continue reading
Sperlonga
Trip update: Last weekend, I rode North along the coast to Terracina. My objective was to take the ancient Via Appia from Terracina into the Aurunci mountains past Fondi and Itri and back to Formia, about 70 km round trip. I had never ridden that section of the Via Appia, because I was always taking the coast road (the Via Flacca). Continue reading
It was a very different time and a very different place. 
The Marshall Plan was still helping to rebuild the countries of Western Europe devastated by World War II. My first memories of Rome as a nine-year-old boy were of broad boulevards with almost no automobiles. Those who did not take public transit rode bicycles, and the well-off had mopeds, which were just bicycles with a friction motor on the front wheel. Continue reading
Trip update: On Saturday and Sunday, I took long rides into the Aurunci Mountains, which plunge into the Gulf of Gaeta. During World War II, these hills were the western end of the Gunther Line; the Sangro Valley, where I was last fall and winter, was the other end. Entire towns vanished into rubble and thousands of soldiers and civilians perished on that line during the last eight months of the war. When I lived here in the early 1970s, many square miles of the hills still contained minefields waiting to be cleared. Continue reading
Trip update: Saturday before the Great Vigil of Easter, I rode out to the Castelli Romani in the Alban Hills. Basically, I got on the Via Appia two blocks from the hostel and rode south for two hours. 
I passed the aqueduct of Acqua Felice, where the earth has risen so much since ancient times, that people have turned the tops of the arches into storage cages. The ancient road led me gently up to the Regional Park of the Castelli Romani, where I had a splendid view of the Agro Pontino (the Pontine Plain). 
It was known as the Pontine Marshes, an inhabitable, malarial swamp, until Mussolini had them drained. The air was clear, thanks to there being no industry or traffic belching fumes on the holiday weekend. I could see the Tyrrhenian Sea 40 km away. Continue reading
Trip update: Last weekend I finished moving into the new flat in Formia. Well, not new, considering that the building is several hundred years old, but freshly painted. By mid-week, I had replaced the burned out incandescent lamps in the chandeliers with LEDs and the brilliance lifts my spirits every time that I turn them on. Continue reading
The Freewheeling Freelancer 