An illustration of the kamikaze brand of tourism we employed with Zach: Started the day in Rome, Took the Train to Livorno (near Pisa), Got the car and traveled to Padua (near Venice) via Mount Altuzzo. Geographically speaking, that took us from central Italy on the west coast Northward and then East to the other coast. In other words, a lot of traveling.
Mount Altuzzo is the site of one of the battles Kristin's Grandfather Mack fought in in WWII. While Florence may be the nearest big city, it felt like it was a good distance out in the country. Because of the write-up from the WWII era Stars and Stripes newspaper the family has been able to read about the battle, we decided visiting Mount Altuzzo should be one of our goals while we were here in Europe. We were glad that we could see it, and connect with Papaw Mack in such a special way.
A view of the roadside monument leading up to the mountain, placed by Americans in the 80's to commemorate the sacrifices of Papaw's unit fighting the Germans. Note the steep tree-covered slope beyond.
Kristin and Zach pose next to the monument's rocky base, with Mount Altuzzo in the background.
My bride and I pose on top of the mountain, looking down to the valley below.
We've been on guided tours of "Battle of the Bulge" battlefields in and around Bastogne, Belgium, so we have a better eye for spotting the remains of fox holes and bunkers. Kristin spotted this bunker fairly easily. The sides of the mountain still had artillery craters visible, albeit grown over with wildflowers.
We were all amazed at the beauty of the site- the yellow field of flowers and the blue sky made it hard to imagine the intense fighting that went on here.
On the way back to the car, we found...
Bikers! Lots of 'em. The street was clogged with them, and more were coming in by the minute. Zach described it, "as if someone kicked over an ant hill and bikers poured out." It was a great day for a drive in the Italian countryside, and this was a particularly twisty mountain road. There were pictures inside the restaurant in the yellow building you see behind all the bikers that indicated there used to be some sort of hill climb car race held there in the 30's. Looked like it would be fun.
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