Italian road trip – Day 5 – Crossing Italy from Grottammare to Rome

After a hearty breakfast, we explored the Grottammare fortress and beach, then got on the road to Rome. That’s right, that day we planned to cross the whole of Italy, from the coast of the Adriatic Sea almost to the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, which we would reach on our sixth day after exploring Rome. I believe we took the route highlighted on this screenshot from Google Maps, the one marked with blue.

Route from Grottammare to Rome

We crossed the mountains, took a quick tour of Tivoli by car and could not stop anywhere, apparently there was some sort of local holiday that day and the streets were packed with people. Since I was driving, I have no photos from there. We pushed on and reached Rome just in time for the evening traffic, which meant it took till after dark to reach the historic part of the city. Because at that time things like online maps viewable on phones and GPS navigation and being able to do instant searches for hotels on phones weren’t available, we had a most stressful time finding a hotel. They were all full or were asking astronomical prices. We finally ended up paying a taxi driver to lead us to a hotel by driving ahead of us. By the time we were in our rooms, it was past 9:30 pm, we had spent most of our day in our car and most of that in terrible city traffic. But we were grateful to finally have a bed to sleep in and a shower with hot (or somewhat hot) water.

Now you get to enjoy the photos. If you’d like to see the other posts from our trip, here are days 1, 2, 3 (part 1 and part 2) and 4; and here’s the overview.

Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Grottammare, Italy.

A black cat from the medieval city of Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Grottammare, Italy.

Adriatic Sea near Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Grottammare, Italy.

A wonderful and sociable tomcat from the medieval city of Grottamare, Italy. Remarkably similar to our own Bubu.

Grottammare, Italy

Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Another adorable cat from the medieval city of Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Adriatic Sea, Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Grottammare, Italy.

Artesian fountain, Grottammare, Italy.

Grottammare, Italy

Over Grottammare, Italy.

Grass, after rainfall. On the road between Grottammare and Rome, Italy.

On the road between Grottammare and Rome, Italy.

An ancient castle and town, nestled on a tall hillside in the mountainous Abruzzo region of Italy.

In the Abruzzo region of Italy, on the road to Rome.

You get a real sense of the size of these mountains if you look at the little village nestled at their footsteps. On the road between Grottammare and Rome, Italy.