What's in a name?

[HBG]

Appia, a familiar name.

Today we rode a section of via Appia, the old Roman road that connected Brindisi and Rome on our way from Brindisi to Amalfi.

Not at all a straight road, winding, rising and falling and with a tarmaced but broken surface. Very quiet in the towns we passed through because of a national holiday we didn't know about.

I'll come back with my Fulvia sometime. To Amalfi also!

[eog]

Look Happy now
Appia days to come!

[CesareFerrari]

The Italian national holiday you mention HBG also has a Roman origin. It is Ferragosto, founded by the emperor Augustus, originally celebrated on 1 August, but then moved to coincide with the church festival of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrated on 15 August throughout the Catholic world. Orthodox Christians celebrate the corresponding tradition of the Dormition of the Mother of God on the same day; it is the second great feast for them after Easter, and is preceded by a two week fast.

[HBG]

Thank you for explaining that. Whilst on Via Appia we passed a picnic area with a large gathering having a communal bbq, breaking the fast perhaps.

[chriswgawne]

Each summer in the 3rd week of August we drive from the Veneto to Piombino on the W Coast for the ferry to Elba where we spend 1 week in the same room of the same small family hotel (for my birthday). And on the way as we hit the coast below Pisa we pick up the via Aurelia and I start to smile and remember...........
.....our first visit to Elba was in 1972 when we flew to Pisa where we  caught an Alfa Romeo Giulia taxi (wonderful exhaust & induction noise on acceleration with a strange gear lever)  to Piombino. I had a Fulvia 3 at the time and  when the taxi turned onto the via Aurelia I remember saying to Jacky that this road was the name of a famous Lancia model ( and at the time I wondered if there was a Via Fulvia!).
So each year now I smile and am transported back to that very first journey and then I reflect on our subsequent years of Aurelia ownership. The rest of the journey S to the port passes very quickly!
Chris