11. Milan to Rome 1970

This is one of the quiet secrets of hitchhiking through Europe in the 60/70's.  It worked better hitchhiking as a couple even if you were not.  It made some of the girls feel a lot safer and less hit upon, and the guys got rides a lot quicker too.  If it was a truck, the guy sits in the middle and the girl sits by the window.  This made for smoother shifting and less groping or "traveling" hands by the trucker missing the gear shift.  For the guys. it opened up more rides in cars because a couple seemed to be less threatening and you had  the possibility of meeting many more people that would normally bypass a lone male hitchhiking.

I teamed up with a girl to hitch from Milan to Rome anticipating a two day trip to cover the 500+ kilometers.  We started out early in the morning by taking public transportation (city bus) as far out of Milan as was possible without having to buy a transfer.  Then we started hitchhiking.  We were very lucky that day.  Our first ride got us outside of Milan heading southeast.

Open air market in Parma

Our second ride, all the way to Rome, was fantastic.  The driver was an Italian professor who was fluent in English.  His specialty was Italian history and as we passed various sights he told us the histories of each of the regions we rode through.  He told us how the country was divided into twenty self governing regions with their own Parliaments.  He would also pull off the road and show us a view from our highway of a castle or village a few miles off our route, tell us what battles took place there and why it was important.  He would tell us some of the histories of cities that we drove past.  i.e. - Parma (existed in the Bronze Age), Modena (Etruscan Settlement post Iron Age), Bologna (Etruscan & Celtic origin and the oldest University), Florence (European trade center, Renaissance and Art), and Sienna (home of the Medici family).  He bounced back and forth from history to geography telling us about its two mountain ranges and the differences.  He also pointed out the crater lakes (Lake Bolsena, Lake Bracciano and Lake di Vico) with their black sand.

 This is one of the best rides that I have had.  He gave us the choice of getting out any time, but we could not have had a better tour.  We wanted to get to Rome and that was where he was going, but on the way we were given an insight and appreciation of this gentleman's love of his country.  We also ended up with a copious list of future places to visit.  We were dropped of in a suburb of Rome with directions on how to get to the center of the city and as he turned around he stopped again to say that we must at least go back to visit the Accademia Gallery in Florence to see Michelangelo's David.

On our way into the center of the city we passed a local farmers market closing down for the night.  We ended up being resupplied with some fresh fruit and vegetables before arriving at the Olympic Village for the night.