Capocroce to Terracina – 7th June
Distance: 16.6 km – Elevation +60 m -100 m
Weather: Sunny. Temperature: High 32 degrees
After a very comfortable night and with just a flat 16 kilometre walk ahead of me I enjoyed a late breakfast in the company of the B&B’s siamese cat.
It was a beautiful morning with a cloudless wide blue sky stretching in front of me as I started out on what I knew was going to be a perfectly flat walk, the first day since I left Rome where there have not been any hills to climb or descend. I followed quiet rural roads and dirt tracks through a mixture of cultivated farmland. Part of the track ran parallel to the Amoseno River. Just after Molino Cipolla the path takes to the ancient consular road, the Via Appia Antica providing a perfectly straight road for the final 4 kilometres into Terracina.
I arrived in Terracina at 1.00 pm and entered the old town through the Porta Romana. My first stop was a small restaurant in the main street where I enjoyed a tasty lunch. After lunch, I made my way to my accommodation, a small hotel just a 10 minute walk from the old town. I was welcomed by the owner’s son who took me to my spacious room with its own balcony looking out across the rooftops of Terracina and the sea. Later in the afternoon, I returned to the old town to explore the Roman ruins and to enjoy a glass of beer in the Piazza del Municipio which is built over the ancient Roman Forum Aemilianum and where there is a well preserved original section of the Via Appia Antica. In the evening I walked to the sea and later after returning to the hotel I sat on the terrace with a bottle of wine with the scent of the nearby Bougainvilleas wafting in the warm evening air, reflecting on the first week of my pilgrimage. it has been a memorable week both challenging and rewarding – 150 kilometres through the ancient hill towns of the Lupini mountains.
