I had an amazing and successful day today.
At 10h30 I headed up to the Pesaro bus/train station, just in case I wanted to try to catch the 11h00 bus to Tavullia. But I found an actual bus station, with a closed ticket counter, and got the impression that a ticket might be required. So I bought a map of Italy from the train station, decided that the distance from Tavullia down to Montecchio on the river Foglia was about 7km, and made the decision to take a taxi (26 Euro) to Montecchio, have lunch there, and then hike up to Tavullia to experience the path that the BC Dragoons, aka the Canadian 5th Armoured Brigade, would have taken to crash through the Gothic line up to Point 204 on Aug. 31, 1944.
I had the great fortune of getting a taxi driver who could speak a little English. I told him my plan to hike from Montecchio to Tavullia, and he pulled out his map of the area (better than mine!) and then he agreed it was possible. But he said there are no taxis in Tavullia or Montecchio, so I made an appointment with him to pick me up at Montecchio at 16h30.
Right at the entrance to Montecchio, there was a pretty cemetary with a big cross. The cabbie, probably in his late fifties, said that was a British war cemetary. I vaguely remembered reading about a Montecchio war cemetary on the Canadian Veterans' Services webpage. What luck that was. After my lunch in Montecchio, I went to the cemetary. The left half were Canadians, the right half were Brits, over 500 in all. There were BC Dragoons there, as well as Canadians from several other regiments that I had read about in Gothic Line stories: the Perths, the Lord Strathcona Horse, the Princess Patricias, the Cape Breton Highlanders, the Canadian Light Artillery. I took several photos, and signed the guest register. The tombstones had names, ages, regiment, date of death, and sometimes a quote. The grave of Vokes, the BCD leader who died in that battle, was there, a regular tombstone.
For me, there were three things that moved me. First, I didn't expect the cemetary to be so well kept and pretty. The second was the realization that there were over 250 Canadians buried there in a remote part of Italy where the non-English-speaking locals rarely meet modern-day Canadians. Third, it was really daunting to see the number of tombstones with the identical day of death. (There were also dates from the last week of August up to maybe Sept. 8th; there must be other cemetaries for other periods, like the week-plus Coriano Ridge battles in mid-September. I also started wondering where the Nazis are buried...)
The hike up to Tavullia was scenic; took 1.5 hours to go the 5-6 kilometres, with an elevation change of 100m. So many rolling hills; I can see how some BCD tanks got lost trying to find Point 204. Near Tavullia there were three other roads that joined in at the same point of town: the first to Montegridolfo, the second to Pozzo Alto, and the third to Gradara. I did not see the Point 204 monument that I was expecting to see on this road. Being Sunday, the village was quiet. Many buildings had the number 46 displayed, which puzzled me until I saw a poster of Valentino Rossi. I think he is a 7-time world champion of grand prix motorcycle racing, and his jersey number is 46. Most Italians know Tavullia as the hometown of number 46!
After lunch in town, and noting the time, I headed back, disappointed that I couldn't find point 204 or the monument, but I got another stroke of luck. Just outside the village, at the turnoff to Gradara, there was a brown "Gothic Line" directional arrow, with the number 204 on it. Ha! It pointed down the way I came, but I guessed that it was going to be the 2nd turnoff, towards Pozzo Alto, because of something in that Veterans' Affairs speech I read. I started jogging around a few winds, worried at the time and if I really had the right road, and then finally around another bend I found a limp Italian flag with a limp red-and-white flag. I was so elated. It is a pretty monument, I think built in 1994, so isolated and about events long forgotten. I'll have to remember to compliment someone on the fine efforts they make to keep these monuments looking so good. I only spent 3 minutes there, snapping pictures and a video clip. It is quite close to the top of that particular high hill, which must be the fabled Point 204. I took a photo of the detailed war map at the site. In fact, the war map suggested a faster way down to Montecchio, and I started taking it for about 5 minutes, before deciding that I wasn't about to take a new and poorly-kept road in dwindling sunlight. (Sunset here in November is shortly after 16h30.)
I jogged down the route I came up, contemplating hitchhiking for the first time in my life, but the jogging downhill was making good progress and I got the 16h30 taxi fine. As I sweated and fogged up the taxi, the cabbie said he remembered that there was a Canadian war memorial up there because he remembered the Canadian military there once. He said none of the young Italians know much about WWII. He said he was born after the war, and that his papa was put to work in a factory by the Germans at the time.
I showered, rested (my toes were more sore than my legs and back), and had dinner in the hotel restaurant with much the same people that ate there yesterday. I wanted to tell them what I had done that day, but I spoke no Italian and they spoke no English. Then, halfway through dinner, I start weeping! I kid you not. It was triggered by something I read in the visitor's register at the Montecchio was cemetary. The address was British, and under Comments the entry said, "We still love you Dad." It's sadder when I mention that the entry was made in 2006.
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