April 25, 2025
In Ortona: Day one
A full day with more than the usual amount of material to show and tell, so let's get started and steal or spare the words where we can.
Our apartment
As promised, here is a look at our spacious AirBnB apartment. It's huge, probably twice what we really need - but very nice. It's got all the features you'd want: refrigerator and freezer, gas powered range, Nespresso machine, washer, heat, a comfortable bed and bedroom, a spare bedroom in case you brought guests, a large master bathroom, and even a half bath.
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 3 | Link |
4 days ago
4 days ago
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
An update on our status
I've been coy about sharing the real reason we ended up staying in Termoli for a fourth night a week ago. I've been holding off saying anything until I knew which way things were going to go, but it's time now.
About three weeks ago I dropped my prednisone dosage to 40 mg/day once I finally realized I was supposed to self-taper following the schedule my rheumatologist prescribed for me. A week later he sent me an updated schedule, and following it I dropped to 20 mg/day. A few days after that I realized that my vision was becoming blurry - blurry enough so that Rachael's face was out of focus when she was only fifteen feet away on the opposite side of the room.
This was alarming and frightening. As I've said before, I have the sense that I'm living on borrowed time, and it would be devastating if my vision badly worsened again. In my office visit I was told that if something like this happened I should immediately increase my dosage back to 60 mg and notify the doctor. I did, and to our immense relief within probably less than six hours my vision was back to its new normal again.
We didn't really know what to expect next though, and it wouldn't have surprised us if we were advised to end the tour and return home - something we've known was a possibility all along. We decided to stay in Termoli for another night thinking we might hear back, and we notified our AirBnB host in Bari that we might be coming back early to collect our suitcases and head home.
That didn't happen though. When we didn't hear anything the next day we decided to continue on to Vasto so I could take the blood test I had scheduled and send the results in. At about 2:00 this morning we were awakened with a call from the nurse, who interviewed me to go over the history of events and my current status (no pain, no headaches, no jaw pain, just the usual questions I'm familiar with by now). And then a half an hour later we're awakened by a second call, this one from the rheumatologist.
The bottom line - my test results were good, and he sees no evidence that there is a return of my GCA symptoms. It's unclear what was happening a week ago, but perhaps I was just reducing the dosage too fast by going from 60 to 20 in under three weeks? In any case he thought I was fine to continue; so the trip is still on. And, for what it's worth, I feel really good. 40 mg is definitely better than 60, and hopefully dropping to 20 in two weeks will be successful this time.
It looks like we have until sometime between two and three in the afternoon to fit our walk and ride in, after which rain and possible thunderstorms are expected. So that's one constraint on the day. Another is the fact that today is April 25, Liberation Day - a national holiday in Italy commemorating the victory of the Italian resistance movement against Nazi Germany and the Italian Social Republic. The day is described as one when nearly everything is closed, so we don't know if we'll need to resort to cereal and snacks for our main meal today.
We plan an early start - about nine for myself - but when I look up after finishing the previous day's post I'm startled to see it's nearing ten already. It feels too tight to fit the ride in now, especially with no guarantees about when the weather will arrive, so I change my plans and decide to take a walking tour of the town. Rachael and I leave shortly after, with the plan that we'll track each other on the Garmins, keep in touch by phone, and meet back in town somewhere around two. When I walk through town I'll keep my eye out for places that look open for lunch.
She immediately disappears in the distance, and I head for the most important sights in town - the basilica and castle in the old medieval quarter. I start with the basilica, as it closes at one. It's open when I arrive, but some sections are closed off and there's a small musical group rehearsing. It looks like there's some sort of program scheduled for the day, presumably to celebrate the holiday.
From the Italian.it tourism website:
The Cathedral of San Tommaso in Ortona is dedicated to St Thomas the apostle. The relics of the saint are kept inside the church, which was originally erected on the ruins of a pagan place of worship, and then rebuilt after the Second World War.
The facade of the cathedral, with its two ogival arches in Gothic style, built in 1311 by Nicola Mancino from Ortona, is all that remains of its original form. The portal was in fact rebuilt with fragments that survived the war. Inside the chapel there are two ceramic panels attributed to Tommaso Cascella. The saint's skull is enclosed in a silver bust placed in a shrine of the altar, and the relic is exhibited only on the occasion of solemn celebrations, such as the Feast of the Pardon, which is held on the first Sunday of May.
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
From there it's a short walk to the Aragonese Castle. From photos of the castle, I anticipated just walking past it and taking a few shots before looking over the park/green-space below it to see if there were any birds flying around in the canopy. I ended up walking inside though and following the route along the parapet, admiring the amazing views down to the sea and back toward town. It was a thoroughly rewarding experience.
From the context poster in front of the castle:
The castle that stands majestically on the hill overlooking Ortona was built in 1452 by King Alfonso of Aragon over the foundations of an ancient fort to defend the town and coastline that was once - as it still is - an important port of call for trade. The construction was ordered to be built by Royal Decree, at the expense of the whole of the Province of Apruzzo Citeriore, following one of the many raids made by the Venetians, during which the landing base had been destroyed (ie. the ancient port) along with the seaside burgh with its stores and fleet.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 2 | Link |
4 days ago
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 2 | Link |
4 days ago
Some shots from the ancient town, in the small neighborhood between the basilica and castle:
| Heart | 4 | Comment | 2 | Link |
4 days ago
While I've been exploring town I've been with increasing frustration trying to contact Rachael. I started trying to call when I came to one of the restaurants we were interested in and found that even though it was open they were fully booked. When I called her though it went straight to her mailbox, as did the next three or four calls. I left a pair of testy messages asking her to please call, but began really getting concerned when I saw that she wasn't showing up on the Garmin either. This was lining up as a real problem, since there's only one key to our place (I have it), and I have no way of contacting or locating her.
But there's one more possibility - I check my email and am relieved to see that her Garmin has launched an invitation to track her; so I can at least locate her now, and can see that she's nearly four miles down the coast and approaching the farthest point of her planned walk.
In the meantime I walk west to Terramia, the other restaurant we were interested in, and find the same situation - they are open for lunch today, so they too are fully booked. It looks like a nice place to eat though so I make a reservation for tomorrow and then look over the edge to the west at the gloomy sky that appears to be rolling in earlier than expected.
Finally she calls, just as I'm nearing the basilica again and just as I feel a few light drops precipitating. She never did receive any of my messages I left, and is just calling now because it felt like time to check in. Later we'll discover the problem - her eSIM card was switched to her Oregon number, so she wasn't receiving my attempts to call her French one; and the Garmin wasn't tracking her because it's linked to the French one.
I quickly go over the situation with her. The rain looks like it’s coming in nearly two hours early, so she should turn back and walk fast. When she gets near the duomo she should give me a call so we can locate each other and meet up. And then I sit on a bench in the park for about twenty minutes until the rains arrive, after which I relocate to an overhang at a nearby gas station and spend the next half hour keeping dry and watching her progress. And she does walk fast - remarkably fast really, and arrives by the duomo at 1:30, a half hour earlier than I'd hoped she could arrive by. Later she'll say that she kept about a 4-1/2 mile average and was pushing 5 mph part of the way.
We step inside the same place we ate yesterday and are relieved when we're waved in and seated at a warm table in the back, near the kitchen. We enjoy an excellent meal again. I have a generous serving of lamb with grilled potatoes on the side while she has what she describes as one of the best dishes she's had anywhere: a beautiful plate of tortellini filled with goat cheese in a Montepulciano wine sauce that I should have taken more care to get a better photo of. She raved about how delicious it was! And this time I try the NA beer instead of the wine and enjoy it enough that I have a second.
While we're waiting for our lunch to arrive and Rachael's looking around impatiently at everyone else who's getting served before us, she shares her small gallery of photos she stopped for. Not many, because she wanted to get as many miles in as she could - and of course on the way back she was racing at breakneck speed.
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 3 | Link |
4 days ago
And then we walked back to our room - full, happy to be together, and feeling lucky that the rains stopped long enough for us to get home dry. Later in the afternoon though I'll check the weather and realize I'd picked the wrong time for tomorrow's lunch reservation at Ristorante Terramia. Its forecast is to be wet in the morning and clearing around noon, so we'd rather eat at 12:30 when the place opens than at 2 in order to have a larger window for our planned ride and walk.
It's only about a half mile to the restaurant so I walk over there not long before they reopen for the evening, change our booking, and then turn around to look west toward the mountains of Abruzzo. It would have been worth the walk even without the reservation change. Just as I was last year when I saw them from further south in Molise, I'm startled by the scale of the mountains of Abruzzo.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 11 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 4 |
3 days ago