....I think it's time to go.

Got up real early and walked through the Vatican when it was empty and quiet. Bagged the Sistine Chapel, though I really wanted to see Michaelangelo's frescos. It didn't open until 10 am and by then the line was 5 blocks long, plus it was $19. Walked through Rome to the Coliseum. The present city and the ancient buildings and architecture are woven together so traveling through it at moments is like going back in time. Another line and $15. Contimplated scaling the walls after dark. There was no way I wasn't going to see where it all went down, but decided to just wait until evening when the line diminshed and pay after hearing back from, Sandra, the only English speaking person in the little town of Sant'Elia where my grandfather was born. She agreed to help translate for me with Lucia, a nice woman who worked in the records department of the town office. I had decided to leave there after 5 days of not making much progress. We found my grandfather's name in less than an hour, but after that it was going to take some work. It was apparent only authorized personel could handle the birth records of whom I was not. I knew tracing back all those years to find out whether I had any living family in Sant'Elia was a lot of work which I was willing to do, but asking a town employee to do it I was afraid was too much, so after 4 days of trying to keep busy with things I myself could do, calling numbers in the phone book with Lucia, going to the cemetary, "talking" with the old men in the park, I left them with a nicely written note thanking them for their help and in a very delicate way suggested the idea of me looking through the records then I left the area to give it some time and space.
Sitting outside the Coliseum not having heard any response in 4 more days I explored the idea of leaving Italy and seeing other parts of Europe I'd passed up wanting to give myself enough time in Italy to find my grandfather's birthplace. I decided to call Sandra. She made a few calls for me and got me another meeting on the 7th in the records department, so I had to get back to Sant'Elia, about 110km away.

The Coliseum, 70 AD, was worth every penny, well, every euro. Just being there inside that arena knowing what took place there was enough, but there was an additional gallery of sculptures, paintings and artifacts dating back to 430 BC installed on the upper level.

Thinking about how somenone on a particular day in their life made these with their own hands and, now, I was standing here looking at them on my own journey connected a lot of time and history between us.

At my campsite near the Vatican.


June 6th, 2007, the outskirts of cassino, Italy
Took the train from Rome to Cassino and walked the road to Sant'Elia to where I remembered it crossed over the Fiume Rapido, Fast River. I needed to clean up for my meeting. Lowered the pack down off the bridge and the jumped over the rail myself the moment there weren't any cars coming from either direction. Washed my clothes along the banks of the river and then myself. Though there was still trash in the woods around me it was nice to find a little sanctuary down there out of sight along the high overgrown banks of the clean and peaceful flowing river. Big cities tax my spirits after a certain amount of time. It's been weeks since I've had an actual conversation with anyone.
There was still plenty of light left in the day after I finished my laundry so I left my little camp under the bridge and walked back into Cassino and got a bottle of milk and a box of cereal and had a big bowl for dinner and one for breakfast in the morning. Kept the milk nice and cold by leaving it in the mountain waters of the river overnight.

Slept on the concrete pillar that supported the bridge in the middle of the river with my own little moat rapido around me.

*Steve Chadborne back in Maine, USA, for contacting me and offering financial support if I ever needed it on the road.