9 November 2024–Driving Day from Porto Cesareo, Puglia to Frosinone, Lazio: It was our final long drive in Italy. We drove to Frosinone, which is close to Rome. The purpose of staying in Frosinone for a few days was to provide an opportunity to visit with my Aunt Luciana Palombi (my Uncle Dorino Carzoli’s (spouse) and at least some of my cousins who live in Prossedi nearby. Along the way, we saw more olive trees, including groves upon groves of olive trees destroyed from Xylella (bacterium that is thought to have come on some ornamental plants from South America). Given how large of an industry it is in the Puglia region, I am saddened to imagine just how devastating this must have been for all of the olive growers there…. The affected trees that are still standing appear dry and lifeless compared to even the ancient millennial and still-producing olive trees we saw yesterday! We were also to see our Apennine Mountains along the way. They look so different, depending where we are seeing them. Farther south in Italy, they look sort of desert-like, not too different from some of the landscape we’ve seen in Oregon. At times, they appear rocky. And, as we approached Frosinone, they became green, lush with vegetation, and framing/cradling small hill and mountainside/mountaintop towns. Our B&B is also called La Perla, just like part of the name of the B&B in Porto Cesareo, except there is no Ionian Sea nor beach here. This is more rural and old, although this town has been bombed several times during the World Wars in Europe. We are lucky in the U.S. to have never experienced World Wars on our soil. The destruction can be enormous. It is surprising that so much valuable artwork, for example, has managed to survive in these regions. Dinner was in a local restaurant in Frosinone. Dad had an interesting beef “steak” in blueberry and walnut gravy, which he said was not only “interesting,” but it was also delicious. I had…pizza quattro formaggi. These pizzas are good, but the individual pizzas are huge. Half of it is in our refrigerator here, waiting for Dad and me to warm it up and finish it. Dessert was good. It was a Sbricciolata with chocolate and white cream (custard :). The sbricciolata literally means “crumbled”, and it was composed of wafer-like pastry, in pieces, with powdered sugar, and nested atop the homemade chocolate and vanilla cream. (I LOVE crema, so I could have eaten just the custard and left the rest behind. But that’s just I…). Even Dad loved this dessert.
Our Travels 