Sherlocking In Italy (Part 1)
By Don Hobbs

I have been on holiday for the past two week in Italy. Joyce and I along with our traveling companions, Bob and Jan Grimes, flew to Rome, rented a car and drove about 2 ½ hours northeast to the Abuzzo region. Abuzzo is the least touristy region of Italy we came to find out. Nearly every time we told someone where we were staying, they would either ask why or did we have relatives there. We actually chose it because it seemed like an interesting area and none of us were disappointed.

We rented a hilltop villa in a small village call Rocamarice, which was founded more than 1,000 years ago. Our first night there, we met a couple from the Netherlands who were also staying in a small apartment next door. They were glass artists, who had been commissioned to do some glass sculptures for a local wine producer named Zaccagnini. As it turned out, the owners of our villa, Rocco worked for Mr. Zaccagnini and his wife Angelina gave us a bottle of their white wine as a welcoming present. We shared our bottle with the artists, Femka Schapp and Sjerk Timmer. Over the next several nights, we would gather at the outside dinning table and have fabulous conversation. As we found out later, they had won numerous awards for their art and had traveled all over the world teaching their art technique. They were equally impressed at meeting their first Sherlockian.

Femke Schapp

In Italy, they do not number their roads the way we do in the United States, instead, they number every kilometer and mark every one-hundred meters as well. If you get on a road at it’s beginning, you will see 0 over the Roman Numeral I, 0 over II, the 0 over III and so on until you reach the 1 kilometer marker. This will be over the road number, such as SP 66. During my 2 weeks in Italy, I was able to photograph kilometer 4 marker on several different roads. We would be barreling down the Autostrada at 140 Km and I would tell Joyce to be ready because the 4 sign was fast approaching. She learned quickly that using the “sport” setting on the digital camera, the photograph was ready quite acceptable. I decided that it could be a great challenge for the Italian Sherlockians to see who could photograph the most “Signs of 4”. I also found many house number 4’s.

Every little village we stopped at seemed to have a new book store or at lease a shop with a large selection of books to sell. I picked up several new editions of the Canon but was frustrated in trying to find used book shops. Before reaching Rome, I was only able to find one used shop in Sorrento and the proprietor looked at me in mild bewilderment and shook his head. No was all he said.

Next week I will share some the Vatican’s hidden Sherlockian treasure.

House Number Sorrento

Happy Collecting!!