Frascati

This lunchtime we went across to Frascati - yes the same as those bottles of stuff in your local Tesco/Waitrose/any wine retailer you name.It is twinned with Windsor and Maidenhead a noted British wine region! But to be honest it was very peaceful and quiet. We had a nice lunch (Insalate Caprese if you must know) at a cafe full of Italians, some of whom were clearly friends of the owner and were helping him "roadtest" some new wine and grappa! The rest of the town is fairly insignificant unless you like Baroque churches and the religious art that goes with them. But it was an American free zone so can't be bad.
We moved on to Rocca di Pappa which was quite small and on a clear day - it was just too murky today - would have great views from 800 metres up across Rome. Finally we headed home via Castelgandolfo and the Appian Way. The former was full of cops - at least three different varieties , local, national and the Carabinieri complete with very public automatic weapons. Maybe Il Pappa was at his holiday home which would be the big place surrounded by high walls topped with spikes!
But going there and back meant driving on the GRA or Rome's version of the M25. But with Roman drivers or should that be roaming drivers. Clearly all the overhead gantry signs asking for patience might as well be turned off. The hard shoulder is not for breakdowns here - its is for scooters and motorcycles to undertake and for the real motorists to show that they can do that too. I suspect most F1 drivers would think it was all a little mad. Its not that fast but the sheer unpredictability that scares me. I watched a new Fiat 500 Abarth pass me( I'm middle of 3 lanes), cut in and then undertake the guy in the outside lane cut back in front of him only to realise he is at his junction so just cut back across 3 lanes of traffic run across the chevrons into his slip road and was last seen undertaking the traffic on the slip road on the hard shoulder all without a single brakelight coming on.
Oh well tonight I need to find a way to follow the Liverpool/Fiorentina game - at 300Kms its a bit far and the only tickets you could buy from Fiorentina were for home fans - and then head on to Livorno for a couple of weeks of Tuscany visiting and letting our snail mail catch up. Don't know if the wifi is as good as here so if I disappear don't worry -as if