We hadn't booked our first night's accommodation in Italy. Our logic being if we pick up a rental vehicle from the airport arriving early evening, we could spend some time finding the address, so we opted to head to the coast in the direction of Civitavecchio as I was wanting to check out this old port city. In the dark on this balmy summer evening driving our Italian Fiat we saw a sign, Pensione (accommodation), while Leigh found somewhere to park, I jumped out to make enquiries about accommodation. Euro 70 with ensuite and a balcony seemed very reasonable, and this included fee car parking on site, so booked in for the night in San Marinella. The owner had no English so I was winging it with my limited Italian.
The owner recommended an eating place around the corner, so we ordered a pizza each thinking for 7euro each they would be small, did we get a shock when 2 large wood fired pizzas arrived. What's worse they were so delicious we ate the lot and went home feeling disgusted for making little pigs of ourselves. The whole meal cost under 20euro with 2 glasses of house wine; can't complain about that!!

We strolled across the road to the beach, looks like a nice place we said we would check it out in the morning.

After a good nights sleep we checked on Google as to our location and found we were about half an hour from Civitavecchio. We decided to book in an extra night here as the town seemed nice in the dark of night, we could explore Civitavecchio, do our laundry there, return back to San Marinella and go for a swim. This is exactly what we did and had a great day, returning after the swim for a shower and ready to go out for dinner.

We stumbled into this great location, the more we explored San Marinella the more we loved this place. We explored the other side of town and found a castle that was hosting a wedding reception, as we discovered when asking the security guard at the gate. One of the musicians sat with him and confirmed the reception was in progress. We chatted with them for some 20 minutes, they were charming Italians, the security guard lived in rthe neiboring village, claiming the best beach was in his village. The musician had an amazing sense of humor, and made us laugh with his jokes. What is heaven? Where the Frenchman is the chef, the Italian is the lover, the Swiss is the accountant, the German is the mechanic and the English is the policeman . What is Hell? Where the Swiss is the lover, the Italian the accountant , the English the Chef, the Frenchman is the mechanic and the German is the policeman. We left and walked down the road into a plaza to find a delightful outdoor restaurant to have dinner.

Back home by 11.30pm to our faulty towers delightful Penione. They lock the front door at 11.30pm; curfew time!! The following morning we check out, another beautifully hot day We finally worked this place out as the owner invites us to join him in an expresso. His wife? Or daughter? Or some relative? who would never make eye contact with us when speaking to us appears to be blind but functioning like a sighted person. Here I was thinking she was rude. Shame on me!! Another woman, originally from America but has lived in Italy for 50 years, seemed part of this Pensione family and has been working here. She was the sticky beak of the place, making an announcement to all in ear shot "here they come" each time we arrived. Quite humorous, we then named this place our Faulty Towers". The owner was a delightful 70+ gentleman, when he discovered I was born in Trieste, he would say "ah Triestina". He gave us the bill at checkout, not charging us for the expressos. The America piped in "they are on the house, he is not charging you for them!!". We shook hands, he kissed my cheeks and shook our hand, as did the American. We felt like part of the family, come back again someday we were welcomed. Bye to our lovable Faulty Towers.

Hi to all our lovable friends and family back home!!