D44 San Ambrogia to Alife

After a reasonable night I got cracking and negotiated a tricky but of main road cycling to get across to the northern aspect of this major communication route having wandered along the southern fringe the previous day. I got to my breakfast cafe in the first village back on the route and enjoyed a morning chat over coffee with a young lawyer back home in the village for the August holidat from Milan. He was a cyclist and able to confirm the route on which via a tunnel through the looming volcanic outcrop up ahead was going to take me across into the neighbouring region.
This tunnel was fortunately less than a Km long, straight so the exit was visible, downhill but not too much and most importantly well surfaced with little traffic so not too dante-esque!
On the far side there was yet another change to the landscape as I traversed a wooded estate complete with workers cottages reminiscent of a colonial haciendo in Latin america!

I also spotted a rare sign for eurovelo 5 noteworthy enough to justify a stop to capture  the image above. The reassurance of encountering a sign for the wandering cycle tourer cannot be overstated.
I then had a long and increasingly  hot  run into my next target Alife and running low on water, food and energy I rolled through the Roman gateway into a perfectly multilateral walled town just as the Romans had designed it. Unfortunately I was knackered and all that was on my mind was lunch. Only one problem with this - where were all the inhabitants. On the beach, home in bed in the heat or had there been a zombie invasion? I said as much to the one lad loitering in the town square who responded not unreasonably that he didn't understand the clearly and red faced stranger! However he did understand the the word restaurant and directed me beyond the town. Ho w far I dejected asked? Oh the same distance as between the town hates he gestured in a brilliant piece of improvised communication. I set out more in desperation than hope as everything else was clearly shut for who knows how long!
The asphalt road turned into a stony track which led to a compound where I found a long ranch style building. I opened the door to find a n extended family just finishing what looked like it had been an excellent and  vinous lunch. No I was informed the restaurant wasn't open this lunchtime but after a pregnant pause with this crestfallen rider of course they would feed me! Christ I could have kissed the young woman who over the course of the afternoon I learnt was Ileria, a keen restaurateur like her parents who having learnt all she could from home was hoping to be London bound!

judging by the excellent lunch and the guys she had learnt the basics off she has a great future! After numerous digestives of the local green liqueur pressed on me and a short fiesta in their garden I set out at 5pm refreshed and reinvigorated! Not only that but Ileria pressed on me the best panini I have ever tastes for my supper which I enjoyed in the xool.if the evening in a far more rural wild camp under the stars and the rising full moon 30km down the rural road I was following.