From: Venafro
To: Cassino
Miles: 15
Total: 569
Today’s trek was another 15 miles through the heart of central Italy, highlighted by our walk through a 6/10 mile long tunnel, and ending in the historic city of Cassino.
We got moving at 8:30 after a light breakfast at our B&B in Venafro. I say light because it was pretty slim pickins. What we’ve found so far with the B&B situation is they are only as nice as the effort put into them by their owners. Some are over-the-top nice, and some are just a dry and warm place to lay your head. Last nights was the latter.
From studying today’s route last night, we noticed that if we followed the recommended walking track through the back roads, it was two miles longer and had 500 feet more climbing than if we followed the driving route on the main highway. However, about four miles into the driving route was a tunnel. The cutoff to the backroads option, avoiding the tunnel, was well before the tunnel making it even farther out of our way if we found the tunnel to be too dangerous. After some discussion we decided to opt for the shorter distance with less climb and assume we could walk through the tunnel on the main road. Once we got there, we could see that the tunnel was lighted, and had a small shoulder, so we went for it. While the traffic was heavy with a lot of trucks, we made it through to the other end in about 10 minutes.
After our successful tunnel trek, we had a long, gradual downgrade toward our destination of Cassino. I mentioned earlier Cassino has some significant history. During WW II, a famous, and very costly battle took place here, known as the Battle of Monte Cassino. In fact, my father fought in that battle as a member of the U.S. Army’s 36th Division in 1944. Like most WW II veterans, my dad has passed away. Now that I find myself in Cassino, I wish I knew more details about my dad’s time in Italy in WW II.
Tomorrow we have a day off here in Cassino. It’s a very nice city and we’re looking forward to our last rest stop before reaching Rome this coming Sunday. Hope you all have a great day. Thanks for reading.
