Arrival in Macerata at 9 p.m.

October, the last appointment finished at 8 p.m. I was in Fermo, in the Marche region, and needed to eat and book a hotel. I didn’t have any phone tokens (it was 1982), so I decided to head to Macerata, a place I had never visited. I was curious and, at the same time, confident that within an hour I would have solved both issues. Even with little lighting, the landscape I encountered was very pleasant, suggesting soft, sparsely populated hills, all waiting to be discovered.
Finally, I arrived in the city and found a square slightly uphill with a brick pavement. It was deserted; no one passed by to ask for some information. Few lights, complete silence. I followed the signs of some colourful shopfronts, hoping to find an open bar, but there was nothing. I knew that by persevering I would eventually solve the situation, but the call of the sea, left only a few hours earlier, began to overpower my fatigue. At midnight I fell asleep in Civitanova Marche in a hotel by the sea.