We made sure we attended breakfast earlier rather than later to ensure that bread, cheese and meats were available to us. Whilst we were in the breakfast room, Mauro, who we met during the battle of Cassino discussion the previous night, made a point of shaking our hands and saying goodbye to us before he left.

After breakfast we drove to Gaeta encountering misty mountains and rain before arriving in Gaeta to glorious sunshine. We parked in the medieval part of the town walked up a hill to St Francis’ Church which spectacularly towers over the harbour. Unfortunately, we arrived to find the church wasn’t open.

We followed the uphill pathway and came across a ‘you are here’ signboard which gave us two options: walking up a twisting hill path to see a spectacular view or walk to the nearby Castello Angioino. We chose the Castello hoping to learn some history of the area.

As we arrived, we met an Italian who currently lives in America. It was interesting that he immediately thought we were British because usually, especially, in France we are often mistaken for locals. The American Italian found out that there was an English-speaking tour in half an hour. The tour was interesting: Today the Castello is home to a university but prior to that it was a prison used to incarcerate conscientious objectors. The conditions they were kept in were pretty grim. The prison also used to house two German SS officers convicted of war crimes. Those officers were provided a much better standard of accommodation than the conscientious objectors and allowed the conscientious objectors as servants.

After our tour we walked down the hill to the seafront for lunch. We chose a café that was serving Sfogliatelle Ricce, layered crunchy dough filled with orange and cinnamon flavoured ricotta cream. It was delicious.

We returned to Cassino and our hotel where we chilled out for a while before walking to the Lord Baden Powell Garden which we hadn’t quite managed to walk to the day before. We stopped for a refreshing drink of freshly squeezed orange before entering the garden turned out to be a green space and park so there was not much to see. We made a brief circuit of the green space before heading back to the hotel, stopping for a glass of wine along the way.

Back at the hotel, I freshened up before heading back into town to dine (for the second time) in Sir Jaspers. We found the food to be just as good as it was on our first visit.

We wandered back into town for one final nightcap. We were expecting to enjoy this in the Botanical cocktail bar which to our disappointment was closed for the evening. We chose the bar next door which didn’t stock dry ‘Blush’ Rose wines. The bar did however stock a dry rose non blush wine which I found a refreshing change. Sadly we couldn’t linger for me to sample a second glass we had an early morning start to get to the airport on time!

The alarm woke us at 4am. We got washed and dressed then drove the short distance to Manchester airport.

When we arrived at the meet and greet car park, the barrier didn’t lift to let us in. Mr C pressed the intercom button to speak to someone who checked his details up on the system. Mr C was informed that he had booked a space in ‘Self-Parking’ rather than meet and greet which meant we had to travel the short distance to the carpark next door. The lower levels were quite full so we had to drive to a higher level to find a space.

It was the same distance from the car park to check in as it would have been from the meet and greet car park. Manchester airport operates a self-check in system where you weigh your own bags and attach labels before taking them to the desk for passports and boarding cards to be checked. Luckily there was a friendly Jet2 rep on hand to help us with the procedure.

The extra time needed to park the car meant that there wasn’t time for Mr C to have the cooked breakfast he was looking forward to. We grabbed a sandwich to eat on the plane and headed to the boarding area for our flight.

The flight was slightly delayed but once we were on our way everything ran smoothly apart from a bit of turbulence over the Alps.

We had booked a hire car rather than a private transfer. This also proved to be a saga. We were expecting it to pick the car up at the airport but we found that the car hire company operated just outside the airport and we had to wait for a shuttle bus to take us there. The shuttle bus arrives every 10 minutes but the first bus dropped passengers off but didn’t pick up the passengers that were waiting (us and another family). Mr C phoned the company and was told that the shuttle bus was currently on its way.

Eventually we got to the rental centre where we were informed that our insurance wasn’t fully comprehensive so we elected to upgrade our cover for an extra cost based on an incident we experienced in Cyprus several years ago.

When all the paperwork was signed, we were told that the car had been upgraded. Our allocated car was large and had damage in several places. There was a bit of to and froing and photographing the damages, including tape on the windscreen which we learned had recently been replaced.

Eventually we were able to set off towards to our hotel in Cassino. The car Lynk & Co was big, wide, hybrid and automatic, a whole new adventure for Mr C. We were now thankful that we didn’t have to drive through the busy airport traffic.

The journey to our hotel, La Pace ran smoothly except for some confusion about taking a ticket instead of paying at the motorway toll booth. We checked into the Hotel La Pace and were shown to our room. We had a balcony and amazing view looking towards the mountains and Montecassino Abbey. We had a refreshing drink in the hotel café bar and set up a time slot with the proprietor for his talk on WWII and the battle of Cassino. Then, Mr C headed into town to orient himself and find nearby restaurants, including Sir Jaspers that the hotel receptionist had booked us into for that evening.

He was gone for ages…

Eventually I receive a phone call, he was lost! I suggested he used Google Maps to find his way back. When he eventually arrived back at the hotel it was time to leave again to get to St Jaspers.

We were able to sit outside where we shared a bruschetta starter before our main courses. I had chosen ravioli pasta with a mushroom sauce. When my meal arrived it was gnocchi, not pasta. I was told that ravioli was finished and now they were serving homemade gnocchi with the same sauce. I followed this with light chocolate cake that had layers of pistachio cream sprinkled with pistachios. It was delicious.

We headed to the town square which was buzzing with activity and we sat enjoying a nightcap in one of the bars watching people, especially ladies, promenading backwards and forwards along the street. Eventually, it was time to go back to the hotel, the short way round, glimpsing the Abbey and Castle illuminated atop the mountains.