June 15
We decided to take a break from vacationing and hang out in the little beach town of Martinsicuro. We left Trani on Thursday and went to the site of the Battle of Cannne that took place in 216BC. It was a gigantic battle between Hannibal’s Carthaginians and the larger Roman army. Well, Hannibal seriously kicked the Romans’ butt in what is regarded as the biggest defeat in Roman history. In fact, it pretty much spelled the end of the Roman empire.
Unfortunately, the park didn’t open until 10:00 and it was only 8:30 so we didn’t get a chance to walk around. But we managed to grab a couple of pictures from the road.
Then we headed to Lanciano where there is a church that holds the Miracle Eucharist. This event took place in the 8th century in Lanciano. When a monk, who had doubts about Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, said the words of consecration at Mass, bread and wine turned into flesh and five droplets of blood. This event has been investigated over the years, as late as the 1980s, and is verified to be true. The blood is still in the sanctuary of the Church of San Francisco. When we arrived at the church, there were quite a few worshippers so we didn’t want to get too close to take pictures.
We also saw the Basilica, but there was a funeral going on so we didn’t stop there to get pictures either.
After getting back to our car, we drove about 90 minutes to Martinsicuro. According to booking.com, it was a beach front hotel….it’s not. It’s about 650 meters from the beach. That was disappointing as we were looking forward to hearing the waves crash along the beach but as neither one of us are that big into the beach (I hate the sand) it wasn’t that big of a deal.
We went to the beach Thursday afternoon and the water wasn’t too cold but it wasn’t all that clean. We only waded for a few minutes, hung out under the umbrella for about an hour, then headed back to the hotel.
Yesterday, we hung out at the pool all day. We got down there at 10am and stayed until about 4:30. The pool area is very nice and the water is a little cold but it was quiet, clean and sand-less. We made sandwiches for lunch and had pork chops for dinner. The only reason we got up to 3000 on our steps was because we went for a walk after dinner to get gelato. It was a wonderfully relaxing day.
So, today is Saturday and we plan the day to be a duplicate of yesterday. It’s a little cloudy today but there is no forecast of rain so it’s back to the pool for the day. We have a little more ham, cheese and bread for lunch but we’re going to go out to dinner. It’s been almost a week since I’ve had a pizza and the place across the street looks pretty good so I think that’s where we’ll go tonight.
Tomorrow we’re heading to Assisi for the day, then it’s on to Bologna and Florence before checking into the Hilton Vacation Resort in Tuscany on Friday. Florence is my favorite city in the world so I’m very excited about visiting there again. We’ve already done the “must see” attractions, so just like Rome, we’ll have a chance to visit the less well-known attractions and take time to sit in a sidewalk café and simply enjoy being in Florence. Can’t wait.
Well, the pool is calling our names so off we go.
