9-13 From Montemarciano to Ortona

 We are leaving our seaside villa to try city life in Ortona.  The morning turned out cool, wet and windy.  The sea looked angry!  The sun is trying to peak out - and yet it is raining.  I grabbed a few more shots from my bedroom window before we finished packing up the car.

Our intent to day is to stop at a few more coastal towns as we head south to our next Airbnb destination in Ortona.  The rain was intermittent - sometimes pouring down in torrents and sometimes raining lightly.  

We got off the autostrada at Cupra Marittime and headed to the coast.  From here we drove along coastal roads stopping at a few places.  The pattern we had noticed earlier is holding true here as well.  The railroad tracks run very close to the sea.  Sometime that is still enough land to have a row of restaurants - then a sea of chairs and umbrellas right before the sea.  If there is a promenade - it is before the restaurants - so you don't get much of a view of the sea.  Of course - occasionally you do.  But none have the long walkable promenade along the sea where you can see the water for long periods.

Our other stops were to be at S Benadetto del Tronto, Martiniscura and Roseto degli Abruzzi.  I can't tell you which town the following photos were taken in.  

Lunch was late as we could not find a place while driving.  We stopped at one pizza restaurant - only to go inside and see that the pizza had been made long before and looked like pizza from the Autogrill - in other words barely eatable.  

The problem was finding a restaurant that was open and that had parking!  Michael saw an open air pizza place and there was parking across the street.  It looked like people were in the outdoor dining area.  But up close - the few people seated there were playing on their phones - not eating.  We almost gave up - but I walked to the end of the block and low and behold there was an entrance into a cafe.  People eating bakery sweets and coffee.  But I could smell pizza!  Around the corner was a single man with a pizza oven.  And further in was an actual restaurant.  We needed a bathroom - so opted for the modern looking restaurant.  And indeed you could purchase pizza here as well.  So finally I got my first pizza in Italy!  Michael got pasta - and both of us had epic sized salads.  

When we first entered the restaurant, there were not that many people.  So we took our time figuring out the menu and ordering.  As we were eating I noticed there was starting to be a waiting line of people - it kept getting longer and longer.  We wanted to leave - but not get anyone's attention to get a pizza to go box.  The waitstaff did not increase - but the number of tables did - they opened another room for guests.  I finally went to the pizza guy to ask for a box using google translate - he knew what I wanted but did not have one there.  I think I asked three people before we got one.  Finally we could pay and leave.  All three of the sections - the cafe, the pizza, and the modern restaurant were together - you paid in the cafe.  Michael tried to explain that our table did not have a number - but we were between tables 13 and 14.  The frazzled cashier named some very small amount for our meal - Michael decided not to fight it and paid the amount.  Hopefully some poor soul who got a pastry and coffee did not get saddled with our bill!

We went back on the autostrada until we got to Ortona.  Ortona is a city of 23,000 so we are hoping it will have more of what we want.