02-Aug-2008 -- This was the first visit to 43°N 14°E. The confluence is located 6.84 miles off the coast of the region Marche in the Adriatic Sea.
San Benedetto del Tronto is a city in the region Marche, in the province of Ascoli Piceno on Italy’s Adriatic coast. San Benedetto is a small, busy city with about 45,000 inhabitants and is heavily touristic in character.
Along the coastline is a broad promenade lined with literally hundreds of hotels. Its palm-trees, oleanders and pines create a tropical flair though. At the turn of the 20th century San Benedetto del Tronto was a posh spa and a much loved seaside resort. From that period date the beautiful park and the villas near the harbour. These days next to tourism San Benedetto has one of the most important fishing ports on the Adriatic coast of Italy with a dockyard and also a fish processing industry.
San Benedetto’s fishing port represented the best chance for finding a boat for bringing us to the CP, so we started there. We asked some fishermen who mended their nets after hauling in the morning catch. It was a lucky hit – the first one we asked agreed straight off and fifteen minutes later we left the port on a small fishing vessel in direction of the confluence. Weather conditions were great – it was sunny and hot and the shipmaster gave us a quick and pleasant ride. The boat made around 20kn and so it took us only about 60 minutes for the round trip.
After our return they invited us to come back at noon and have lunch together to which wee gladly agreed. Most fishermen have small storerooms at the dock to store their gear. Our host equipped his storage facilities with a small kitchen. When we arrived after a little walk the charcoal grill was burning and the water for spaghetti was already boiling. We had a great lunch with fresh fish and pasta con pomodoro e gamberoni. We spend most of the afternoon chatting in English-Italian pidgin about fishery in Italy and outside Europe. We spent a very pleasant afternoon together and we celebrated the successful visit with Limoncello and Spumante. Cheers!