The Pontine Marshes and Parco Nazionale Circeo

10/23 - Borgo Sabotino to Sabaudia - 19.90

Taking my leave of Mo and her menagerie, I started off for Sabaudia at the head of the Circeo National Park. Before reaching the coast, I got to see more of the Pontine Plains, one of the more interesting places in the region of Lazio. For centuries, this large tract was totally unusable, a vast stretch of marshland infested with mosquitoes. For all their engineering genius, the Romans had been unable to successfully drain this swamp, and so it sat, waiting for the 20th Century, when Mussolini finally did what nobody before could do. He brought in the best Venetian canal architects, introduced Eucalyptus trees in abundance (they absorb moisture like a sponge), and when it had finally been drained, he split up the land into parcels and gave it to the peasants, along with animals and the tools to farm it. In doing so, he won the eternal adulation of this area's residents, who quietly but fiercely defend Il Duce. History is never fully black and white, my friends.

So, walking through this area, which circumstances caused to be composed nearly entirely of fascist-era architecture (yuck!), I finally reached the coast, stretching infinitely in either direction. As I walked along, civilization slowly gave way to the National Park of Circeo, and the landscape began to look exactly like San Diego, California. The low brush, punctuated by eucalyptus and various species of palms, gave way to ample distances of empty, sandy beaches. I walked a while along the sand, much more fun in theory than in practice, as my clunky shoes sank right through the soft sand, making me expend twice the energy to keep my pace. Even when I gave up and went back up on the road above, it was still great to smell that salt breeze, and feel like I was home. The icing on the cake came at sunset, when I saw a group of surfers catching some (small) waves, taking advantage of a somewhat stormy sea. I chatted it up with a few surfers, was delighted to see that Italian surfers are exactly as you would picture them, both in speech and in comportment, and having quenched my nostalgia for home, took the final steps to Sabaudia.

After finding a hotel, I took the owner's suggestion for a dinner spot, making sure to ask for Arturo at the "Happy Days Pizzeria" (they seem to be obsessed with that show here, by the way). The service was terrible. The man at the register grunted me toward a terrible table by the threshold, then promptly ignored me for a full ten minutes. I grew steadily angrier, but desiring to practice my new found and hard earned depths of patience, I waited, contenting myself with picturing different scenarios of my abrupt departure ("Hey, where are you going?" "Somewhere where they actually want my business!" "No, please, we're sorry, we'll serve you now!"). I pushed the chair out a bit, steeled myself for an unpleasant encounter, tensed the leg muscles, and, of course, sensing through that magical sixth sense that only restaurant people have, they came at that exact moment with the menu. I exhaled the adrenaline and stress, took a moment, and soon service began as could be expected; that is, not stellar, but befitting a pizzeria in this part of Italy. At one point I even calmed enough to mention to Arturo that I had been sent by the hotel owner, and he seemed to take that well, even stepping up my service a smidge.

In the end, I was glad I stayed, eating well enough: pizza, salad, wine, and water. But the best part came when it was time to pay the bill. It was a 20€ meal, but when Arturo shoved the bill/receipt toward me, it read €8.50. I wondered if I got the insider discount, or if he simply cared so little that he didn't bother to do the math of what I had eaten. It certainly was not because I had charmed anyone, but anyways I was not going to say anything. This wasn't a case of forgetting something, as he had even itemized the things I had consumed. It just came out at half the price of what I had seen on the menu. Stepping out, I smiled as I compared this action to my experiences in the North of Italy, where they would never have taken such little time to examine what I had eaten. Whatever the case, it was a good thing for me, and in my opinion, I deserved it after the crappy service I had received in the beginning. So, rewarding myself with a gelato, I took one last walk around, and returned to my hotel.