Ciao Dall 'Italia!

Oh! Oh! It could've been so good!

We were greeted by Andrea Gatti, President of the local Italian Military Vehicle Club and Herman Pfaulter, a German born US citizen with whom Andrea caught a ride with, when we left the boat at Ancona, Italy. Herman drives a US Navy Yankee Joe and is coming with us on the trip all the way to Normandy.

They were the perfect pair to lead the convoy to the next camping ground but for some reason they did not. So away shot our fragmented groups in every direction once again arriving at the camp site which hadn't opened for the season, so a decision was made to travel a further 100 km on to Urbino. We arrived late to a remote pine forested hillside campsite with no running water or toilets and everyone did their block, all deciding to make the most of yet another night on bread and canned foods.

I felt extremely disappointed to have missed the company of Andrea with whom I had set up the Italian liason after his reading my "Anzac Convoy" article in the British Motor Vehicle Trust magazine called "Windscreen." With his local knowledge this part of the leg would be so enjoyable.

He was staying with Herman, and Lang didn't know where they were to enable me to give him a call. I planned to drive him at least part of the way in Yankee Joe the following day, so he could give me the run down of the area we were passing through. It's all very well to go on scenic mountain runs but it's costly in a 65 year old truck not knowing what you're looking at and it's only pretty.

We could see an interesting medieval city across on the opposite hilltop from the camp ground, and headed towards it to find some Saturday night "action." A new outdoor commemorative sculpture honouring Raphael was in progress and the military General was also attending the exhibition of some of Raphael's work. An impromptu performance by one of their leading sopranos in the icecream parlour was especially enjoyable.

HAVING DINNER IN THIS SETTING WAS OUR SECOND MOST ENJOYABLE CONVOY EXPERIENCE!

As soon as we found this wonderful place we radioed back to camp about it. No one had mentioned that this was one of the prettiest and relatively unknown of all of Italy's historical cities - no tourists!

We'd all over reacted and there was proper facilities at the camping park further down the hill.

We met up with Andrea when we got together in San Piero the next evening. Last year he had arranged the "Column of Victory" convoy for 140 military vehicles which followed the path taken by the US liberation forces in WW2. He just shook his head at our convoy!

Groups of us wandering into Scaperia were rounded up by members of the Italian Military Vehicle Club for a photo shoot downtown in a narrow street. Unfortunately it was Sunday afternoon siesta time, so there were very few people around.

Seven well decked out jeeps met us and escorted us to the camping ground where we enjoyed members hospitality over a beer provided most generously by Philipo.

We presented them with an Australian Flag which was generously given to us by our Federal Member of Parliament, Bernie Ripoll, and agreed to meet up again at Normandy!

FLORENCE AND PISA

A group of us caught the train into Florence for a look around in the morning. We then followed Nigel and Lisa, Bob and Anne for the 120 km picturesque journey through to Pisa.