Visiting Ortona

[Hunter]

My wife and I are visiting Rome for a week in April.  We're planning on touring the attractions in Rome and Vatican City, but we're also looking at some day trips to other places within a reasonable distance.  I would like to rent a car and drive across to Ortona .  I was wondering if anyone here has visited Ortona and what your impressions were; are there any 'must-see' or 'waste-of-time' places to visit?  Any other recommendations on sites to visit?

 

[Blackadder1916]

It's been quite sometime (1994) since I last visited Ortona, so things may/should have changed considerably.  At that time (though it was a clean and pleasant community) it was not what I would describe as a "tourist destination", and was primarily a seaport and much the same as most other small cities on the Adriatic coast.  However, your interest is probably its Canadian military historical connections.  If you are expecting to find numerous memorials, museums or similar attractions (such as is found in locations like Normandy/Juno Beach or Vimy) you may be disappointed.  When I was in Ortona (as a side trip on the last CFB Lahr battlefield study tour) there were a few reminders of its WW2 history but unless one was already familiar with the battle, there was little that educated the already uninformed.

A little googling provided the information that this memorial and a museum about the battle have been added in the intervening years.

The only additional sites that I can think of in the immediate area are Casa Barardi and the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery.

If your time in the area, as well as research time before your trip is limited, I would suggest that you try to find a battlefield guide for the area.  Unfortunately, I am unable to adequately recommend any but have seen some reviews about "The Canadian Battlefields in Italy - Ortona & the Liri Valley".  You may be able to find a copy in your local library.

 

[Redeye]

My wife and I are visiting Rome for a week in April.  We're planning on touring the attractions in Rome and Vatican City, but we're also looking at some day trips to other places within a reasonable distance.  I would like to rent a car and drive across to Ortona .  I was wondering if anyone here has visited Ortona and what your impressions were; are there any 'must-see' or 'waste-of-time' places to visit?  Any other recommendations on sites to visit?

I was there in 2005. There is a pretty small museum about the battle, but that's really about it. It's not a tourist destination, although you could make your way over to the Moro River Cemetery. With some research, you can find places like Sterlin Castle, but they're not really marked in any significant way.

What was most striking is the contrast of the relatively new looking Ortona (since so much of it was destroyed) compared to the other settlements around it. There's still old wars pock-marked with bullets, and even one wall which still has "ALLIED TROOPS CURFEW AT 1900 NIGHTLY" visible in fading black paint on it around the corner from the museum.

One of the best ways to learn about that part of the war (which started 5 Dec 1943 with the Battle Of The Moro River) is Saverio di Tullio's graphic novel/comic book Road To Ortona. It's an incredibly accessible, historically accurate telling of the tale.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

I was stationed in Naples, Italy from '99 to '03 and we always had our main Remembrance Day Ceremonies at the Moro River War Cemetery.

As such I can only echo what the previous posters have said. The museum that Redeye talks about was, at the time, kind of unique as it wasn't ran by the state government, but was a private affair. When I was there in '02  they had just opened and had some displays of uniforms and equipment that had been donated to the museum. In 2006, a Sherman tank was moved from the Netherlands to Ortona as part of a war memorial. More info here.

The Moro River War Memorial has over 1700 graves, the majority of them being Canadian and is the largest single grouping of Canadian war dead in Italy. It's just a couple of minutes south of Ortona and the best way to get there is to take the secondary coastal road* (SS16) south out of Ortona and the War Cemetery is right beside the highway (left side, if heading south) . You can also travel south from the Cemetery to observe the type of terrain the Canadian and Germans fought over and you can also pull over if you want, an option not advisable if you take the autostrada. 

The cemetery is very poignant and I never left there with a dry eye. Very sad. And you never know what you are going to find. One of my aunts married a gentlemen who's family was from the Red Deer and Edmonton area and imagine my surprise when, after the '02 ceremony, I came upon an gravestone of a young soldier from the Loyal Edmonton Regiment with the same last name! Same Family? Possible? Another gravestone I remember was of an officer in Yugoslav Army and I always wondered how a Yugoslav soldier ended up being buried in Italy?

* Not the A14 Autostrada.

Another possible site is Monte Cassino. Very large Commonwealth War Cemetery with about 800 Canadian interned there. One can also visit the cathedral itself that overlooks the area and gives you an birdeyes view of the terrain the Allied soldiers had to fight through.

Happy, and safe, travels.

 

[Rifleman62]

The Canadian Battlefields in Italy

Sicily and Southern Italy

This book transports the reader to Sicily, where Canadian soldiers fought in the summer of 1943. With remarkable new three-dimensional satellite maps, this book is sure to be enjoyable reading for anyone with an interest in Canada’s Second World War experience.

Published by the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies and distributed by Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Catalog/mcgeer-sicily.shtml

You can purchase at a better price. I have the Normandy guides.