Our final morning in Capestrano is again beautiful & peaceful. We are packing our bags & leaving this mountain at 8:00 AM to drive across this country for a town on the west coast, Nettuno. 

Our destination, the Sicily Rome American Cemetary is by Google-time an estimated 3 hour drive. The route takes us through the mountains, in tunnels, over bridges and past various construction zones. There is only one construction zone that stops the flow of traffic too much. It’s where they have to put both directions of traffic through a single lane so yeah, you have to wait your turn. After all the highway driving and our pit stop at the Autogrill rest area, we are routed onto small roads to reach Nettuno. (BTW, Sue wonders what’s up with all the enormous products at the rest areas - giant can’s of Pringles, huge bars of Toblerone almost as tall as Sue, etc!). Some of the little roads are steep as they climb little mountains and others are so narrow your adrenaline kicks in for a bit. We encounter no difficulties once this little baby car decided to get up the steep roads but we did run into a stoppage in the middle of a tiny road at a railroad crossing. Several men were messing around with the barrier device and we thought, oh no! We’ll be here forever if they don’t fix that soon. Then after several minutes of waiting and watching other cars arrive, we see the men get away from the tracks and a commuter train comes barreling through. Once the train leaves, the gates raise like there was never any doubt. Hmmm... 

On our way again, we reach the town of Nettuno and finally our destination. Once here, we are directed to the parking places. There are 9 places and there are only a few other cars here. The visitor center is across from the parking and is feeling good inside because of the a/c. It’s’ another scorcher out there! Inside the visitor center there are exhibits and a short film that very nicely explains the cemetery and the WWII landings and liberation of Italy from the Nazis. The Americans lost in this war are memorialized in this cemetery if their family choose to have them remain buried here where they lost their lives in service to country and world. There are around 7000 service members buried or memorialized on the missing wall in this cemetery, all of which died in the action from Rome south to Sicily. Sue’s great-uncle is buried here. When we arrive inside the visitor center, there is a sign that asks family members of service members buried here to notify the office staff. Sue gives Luca her information and he asks us to wait here for the superintendent to take us to the family room. We looked at some exhibits and watched the film. Then Melanie, the superintendent, takes us to the adjacent building into the family room. Melanie shares a ton of information about the cemetery and the work going on here. She gives Sue more information about how to find out more about what happened here and the experience of her great-uncle. Next, Luca takes us by golf cart out into the cemetery. We visit the monument where he explains the statues and maps. He shows us the chapel and walls of thousands of missing American service members from this area in the war. After this visit, we hop back on the golf cart and ride over to the place where Sue’s great-uncle is buried. There are thousands of gleaming white gravestones, most of them crosses. At the site, Luca takes some sand from the beaches of Anzio.- the site of the very important landing here - and rubs it into the lettering on the stone so that it stands out. He then places an American flag and Italian flag at either side of the stone. Luca leaves us here for awhile. 

The whole experience visiting the cemetery and gravesite for Sue’s great-uncle, Jack Oddo, was very special.