Monte Faito

When we were visiting the Vesuvian Institute last week, one of Larry's desires was to drive up the famous Monte Faito climb. This climb was made sort-of famous in the film "The Greatest Show on Earth" (you can see the clip here, they start the climb about 7 minutes into the segment) where Fuentes attacks his rivals. The turn off the main road is just a couple of kms from the Institute itself so on our way back to the airport we detoured up the climb. The road was technically closed and the weather less-than-ideal, as you can see, but as we like to say perche no? (why not?) so up we went. The road surface has deteriorated greatly since the film was made, perhaps La Corsa Rosa needs to return - inspiring some repairs? It was easy to imagine these rocky slopes lined with screaming tifosi as shown in the film though for us visibility was limited. Overall it reminded us of the paved section of the infamous Finestre climb in the Italian Alps, though probably not as steep. These places are sort of "holy" to us as fans of Italian cycling and it was a special experience to see this climb first-hand. Perhaps if we live here in 2013 we'll try it on bikes.