Eventful Anzio

On our way south we spent a couple of days visiting San Gimignano in Tuscany, seemingly a whole medieval town of follies.  Standing on a hilltop with impressive views anyway, the 14^th century way of outdoing your neighbour was to build a bigger tower than his (or hers).  Although to be honest, in 14^th century Italy it was probably his.  Families outdid each other and at one time there were 72 towers in existence although only 15 now survive.  It really is like a middle ages Manhattan.  Swarming with tourists even in the low season, it has been tarted up to cater for us but remains a beautiful charming place of warmish tan stone, full of interesting alleys and nooks and crannies to explore.

Anzio was where the allies, mostly British and United States landed troops to conquer Italy quickly instead of working all the way up from the south and until we got here we had no idea how big an operation it was.  It seems to have been almost like a practice for D-Day, landing troops from the sea onto sandy beaches defended by the Germans.

Our task in Anzio was to scatter Heather’s Dad’s ashes as near as we could to where his ship was sunk in 1944.  Having completed 15 Arctic convoys he was lucky that HMS Inglefield went down in the Med, even in February.  Eric always remembered the shipmates who went down with the ship.  He was picked up by an American ship and in the last few years by judicious use of the internet managed to contact one of the US sailors who rescued him.  The ashes were going to be scattered at sea off Weymouth but Heather’s brother Michael got Eric to admit that off Anzio would be better “as long as it’s no trouble”.  Thanks Mike.

So, pondering our options over a delicious gelato and having been to the Anzio Museum we pitched up at the Italian Coastguard.  We’ve been surprised by how few Italians speak any English and the coastguards didn’t buck the trend.  I hold my hands up here because we don’t speak any Italian either and “I would like to scatter my father-in-laws ashes at sea” wasn’t in our phrase book.   One young Coastguard, Gennaro spoke a tiny amount of English.   We only wanted to know the location of the Inglefield so we could hire a boat to take us to the co-ordinates but they seemed to think we wanted them to take us out.  Authority was needed and we were told to come back the next day when a representative of the Commune and a news gatherer would be present as we went out in the coastguard’s launch.  In fact scattering ashes in Italy is illegal (ha !) so we were going to cast some flowers overboard plus the ashes if the opportunity arose.  As it turned out, authority had not arrived the next day but might the day after.  We decided that we could discern a pattern here and made our excuses, saying with profuse thanks that we would make our own arrangements.

Getting a boat seemed so difficult we didn’t even really try, but pedalos were available at the beach off which we were sure the Inglefield lay.  The sea wasn’t rough but it was rough enough for second thoughts and we decided that scattering Eric’s ashes from the beach as close as we could get would be meeting his wishes.  We parked in a cliff top car park in a residential area, walked down to the beach, scattered the ashes and the flowers and back up.  Half an hour, tops.

The van was not a tidy van and it was certainly not a happy van.  It had been broken into and vansacked.  Telephoto lens, two pairs of binoculars, an ipod, an open box of charging cables and our hanging up clothes were gone.   I had only two shirts left, one dirty and one I was wearing.  Heather remembered someone on a motor bike arriving after us and in retrospect we think it was probably him but hadn’t thought it at the time.   The window on the sliding door had been forced and the door opened.   Checking the catches we could see that they had just bent as the window was levered.  It would have been as quick as opening an unlocked door and every motorhome and caravan you see has the same catches.   Cheap, nasty and useless.  I’ve been giving some thought to improving the security on the van and have some ideas but Heather isn’t at all keen on the one involving an extremely strong spring and a razor sharp axe.

The Carabinieri were like the Keystone Cops, not as funny but just as useless.  The police phone number gave the unobtainable tone so we upped and off to the station.   Again, no-one spoke English and we were asked to wait.  Nothing happened except a shift change and after half an hour plus, I just went and stood by the desk making those “what the bloody hell is happening noises”.  Fortunately for us, a woman was visiting who spoke excellent English and helped us enormously.  All we needed was a police report to wave at our Insurance Company for a claim.  Wish us luck.   Two hours and a bit later we walked out with a multiple rubber stamped and typed report.   We knew nothing was going to happen, the police weren’t interested in serial numbers or anything relevant and our sneak thief probably makes a fine living just following a foreign car or motorhome until it stops and the owners walk away.  Remember, “as long as it’s no trouble”.  Thanks Mike.

I do find myself occasionally thinking about our sneak thief and I confess the thoughts are usually quite uncharitable.