Tag Archives: adventure

October 12, 2012 · 3:58 PM

It Wasn’t All Sunshine and Roses, but Mostly it Was

When we weren’t homicidal with road rage, things in Italy were actually pretty spectacular.  Take our first dinner out, for instance.  We were staying in a town called Vorno, which is just outside the medieval walled city of Lucca.

This little town is pure Italia.  It is nestled in the hills with views into a larger valley, and it is void of tourists, apart from us, of course.  That was part of what made it a jewel of a town; we were joining their authentic lives, they weren’t contorting themselves to become the American tourists’ version of an Italian town.

Vorno only has one full service restaurant, but one is all it needs.  We knew nothing about the place except that it served rich cappucinos every morning with sugary croissants on the side.  We figured if they can make foam that well, they can probably cook up a great meal.

We spent the day biking the walls of Lucca, which is something I’ll remember as long as I live.  We rented bikes for three euro an hour and took off exploring the ancient city.  Once inside the walls, we found ramparts in various places, so at the first one we pedaled right up and were instantly charmed at the sight of the city below us.  The walls are forty feet high, though there isn’t any danger in biking them; they’re about twenty feet wide, more in some places.

We felt like a cross between Peter Pan and Mary Poppins as we flew in the sunshine along rooftops and brick chimneys.

This is from the top of another building, but shows a great view of the city.

We made the three-mile loop, stopping along the way to point out major buildings or a rooftop deck overflowing with Bougainvillea.  The chestnut trees lining the road provided desperately needed shade, as it was 95 degrees and we were exercising, like fools.

Back at the house we swapped bikes for bathing suits and jumped in the refreshing water of the pool.  After showering and dressing, we made plans to go back to Lucca for dinner.  My parents and Dave and Nancy said they’d rather stick close, so they walked to the restaurant in Vorno, which was about 300 meters down the road.

The other eight of us were in our toy cars when we passed the restaurant and saw the four of them sitting outside with glasses of Prosecco.  It was too much.  We screeched to a halt and popped out of the car to see if they might be able to change that reservation from four to twelve.  You know, just a tiny increase.

Luckily they were, and we ditched our Lucca plans faster than you can say “Ciao.”

We grabbed a table near theirs for our own apertivos, and nodded at each other in grateful approval that we’d made this choice.  Rather than navigating roads and struggling to find parking, we were watching the sun go down with our hands around cold beers and white wines.

Before we knew it they were seating us in the restaurant, on their large outdoor patio strung with lights.  It was one huge table and we were delighted.

I think it was Dave or Nancy who made the genius decision to order the entire antipasti menu for the table, and it was absolutely the best decision of the night.  Before we knew what was happening, waiters were pouring out of the kitchen with platters of food so delectable we considered canceling our main courses.  At first we thought we’d have to split everything, but then the waiter said, “No!  No!  You order the special so you get many for all.”  “Many for all” was exactly the kind of abundance we hoped to find in this little back-door town.

So out it came, plate after plate of olive oil soaked bruschetta, soft and hard cheeses, salamis and prosciutto, toasted cornmeal fried potato cakes, small mountains of olive and tomato tapenade so good we thought this was the first tomato we’d ever tasted.  Just when we thought they were done, more came.

My dad said, “This is the best meal I can fathom, and my entrée isn’t here yet.  How is this real life?”

That was the sentiment carried across the table as we opened another bottle of wine and leaned in for further conversation.

Midway through the meal, the owner came around to greet us because she lived for a couple of years in the states.

“Which one?” we asked her, thrilled that she spoke English and had a love of our country.

“Ohio,” she said with a smile.

“Oh…” we replied, not sure how to proceed.  Ohio.  Oh…hio.  Not much to elaborate on.  Should we ask what she thought of Cincinnati?  Eh, we didn’t really care.  We were far more interested in what she’d done in Italy.

“Look, my son.  Your waiter.  And my husband is the chef.  You like what you’re having?”  she asked.

We practically choked on our words trying to tell her fast enough how much we loved her food, her son, her restaurant.

When Dave nonchalantly said, “This one’s on me,” at the end of the meal, the rest of us were so overwhelmed by his and Nancy’s generosity that it put the evening completely over the top.  There were now unicorns dancing on rainbows, as far as we were concerned.

We’d already faced some adversity, and we were somewhat sure more was ahead, but during this meal, in this town, with these people, we were certain we were exactly where we wanted to be.

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September 27, 2012 · 1:12 PM

The Griswolds Drive Through Tuscany

On our second full day in Italy, we decided that we’d like to visit some ancient hilltop towns, the kind that idyllically appear in the distance over rolling hills of vineyards.  We pictured the cliché images of a Tuscan-themed Barnes and Nobel calendar coming to life before our eyes.  We imagined driving dreamily through the countryside as Bocelli sang in the background.

And then we actually started driving.

Our first mistake was to caravan.  There were twelve of us, split among three toy cars.  When not one of you knows where you’re going, it doesn’t help to caravan.  It also doesn’t help when an error is made and all three cars have to U-turn in the middle of a freeway.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We decided to visit two famous hilltop towns, San Gimignano and Volterra.  Allow me to illustrate.

You can see that there is not a major expressway one can use to glide thoughtlessly to either town.  That may be why our route ended up looking like the way taken by little boy Billy from the Family Circus.

We headed south from the villa around 10AM, with Dave and Nancy taking the lead.  They, along with my father, had done some brief map work earlier that morning and felt fairly confident.  After forty minutes of winding through single-lane roads that were being used as double-lane roads, we pulled over.  I ejected myself out of our car from nausea.

After a brief powwow, we got back on the road with cheerful outlooks that all would be well.  And then we reached the freeway.

“Freeway” is an interesting term here, because one doesn’t realize one has entered until it’s too late.  One minute we were driving country roads, then a whip-fast roundabout and a wrong turn later and suddenly we’re supposed to be going 120 KPH.

The funny thing about Italian roads is you need to make four decisions in a span of ten seconds, any of which could be horribly incorrect.  You leave the roundabout, hoping you took the right exit, only to be immediately presented with a fork in the road with twelve signs accompanying it.  After that harrowing close call, the road splits again, with both signs pointing to the same town.   Pretty soon your nerves are shot and you’ve lost your caravan.  Oh, and they hate you.

This is more or less what happened all the way to San Gimignano.  We were very lost, so our fearless leader, Dave, pulled to the side of the road in the middle of a highway.  Italians must expect this of us, because they have built little pull-over areas along the major freeways.  The problem with this is not the exit from the road, it’s the reentry.  There is absolutely no, and I mean not a smidgen, of on-ramp.  You must watch a thousand cars race past you at 130 KPH and try to jump into their flow from a stopped position.  And bonus!  You must do this with a stick-shift toy car.

The real talent comes in blocking out the terrified screams of your passengers, at which I must say, Mike excelled.

At this point in our journey, at least seven of us had vowed never to travel by caravan again.  The rest simply vowed never to travel again.

Only once did we completely lose each other, and it happened so fast none of us actually knew what happened.  We exited a roundabout as a group, then Dave got on one freeway and suddenly realized it was wrong.  Like I explained earlier, immediately after getting on the freeway there was another fork in the road ahead of him, and he had no idea which one to take (none of us did), so he pulled up to the fork and stopped.  In the middle of the freeway.

Several expletives escaped the mouths of those riding in my car, and Mike quickly realized there wasn’t enough room to pull over behind Dave so with one glance he pulled a U-turn across a freeway that shaved fifteen years off the lives of his passengers, not to mention his mother-in-law in the car behind him.

Despite the danger of this activity, my father quickly followed suit, and we met up in a safer area back by the roundabout.  After several phone calls, we realized Dave had continued on the main road, so we got back on the freeway (after three attempts) and found him.

When we at last arrived at San Gimignano, no one even wanted to be there.  We were so frazzled and fried from the journey that the destination only held our contempt for drawing us there in the first place.  Plus, there was no parking.

We exploded out of our cars, airing our grievances and shouting at the sky “I’m not mad AT anyone IN PARTICULAR, I’m JUST MAD!”  Things of that nature.

Finally my mom made the call: let’s skip this and go straight to Volterra.  Even though the idea of getting back in the car was suicide for most of us, we agreed that the sooner we got somewhere less insane, the better.

On we went, and things were fine — right up until a semi truck rolled up behind us.  Our caravan was moving along, minding the speed limit like good little Americans, and then the truck driver reminded us, by forceful use of his horn, that this is not how things are done in Italia.

“This truck is ON MY ASS!” Mike hollered, while the rest of us turned in horror to see a truck, literally inches from our bumper, that was so big we couldn’t see the driver.  The monstrosity of this truck made our car look like one of the car game pieces in The Game of Life.

He blared his horn and revved up behind us as we screamed.  Mike yelled for me to get on the phone to the lead car, and tell my dad to GO FASTER.  LIVES ARE AT STAKE.

My mom answered.  “We can’t go any faster.  We read somewhere that there are cameras on Italian roads that capture you breaking the speed limit, and then fine you,” she explained.

I told her if that were true, why were all the other cars speeding?  She said she didn’t know, but she did know “your father will not go any faster.”

I politely told her which songs to play at the funerals of Brian, Amy, Mike and Abby, and hung up.

Shortly after the truck turned off of our road, we were still venting our frustrations and railing against the difficulty of getting around a foreign country, when Brian said, “Guys.  Are you seeing this?”

We looked out our windows and gasped.  That cheesy Tuscan Barnes and Noble calendar?  It was live in front of us.  Bocelli?  He started to sing.   Our eyes took in miles and miles of vineyards, olive groves, undulating hills made golden by the sun.  And some astounding hilltop villas, just to send us over the top.

And we got it.

“Ugh,” we said sheepishly.  “We’re the worst, aren’t we?  I mean perspective, yes?”

“This is blowing my mind, honestly, LOOK AT THIS,” he added.

“Take a picture!  Where’s my camera?!” Amy chimed in.

“Mike – not you!  You keep your eyes on the road,” I instructed.

The same reaction must have been happening in the other two cars, because soon my dad was pulling over, and this time it wasn’t the side of the freeway, it was a winery.  Hallelujah.

We were the only people there (wine tasting at noon might have something to do with it) and we tasted their homemade olive oil and wine, purchasing several bottles to enjoy later that evening.  We were revived by the wine and by forgiving each other’s driving, we were climbing our way back to sanity, and soon enough, we arrived in Volterra.

We had a fabulous time exploring the medieval city, and the journey home was absolutely painless.  Later, over the bottles of wine we bought, we agreed that perhaps the morning was our crash course, and now we were weathered masters of the Italian roads.

It’s also possible that victorious sentiment was inspired less by actuality, and more by our second glass of hard-earned wine.

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September 11, 2012 · 10:19 PM

To Pisa, One Way or Another

As our plane touched down at JFK a few weeks ago on our way to Italy, I was excited that our first leg of the journey was over, and I was about to see Amy and Brian.  We had coordinated our flights brilliantly, with them joining us at JFK from Philly to take the flight to Pisa.

I turned on my phone to text her that we had landed, and instead saw a text that read, “We’re not coming to JFK.  Our flight was cancelled.”

I showed Mike the text and rolled my eyes.  “She should know me enough to know I hate these types of jokes.  They’re not funny.  I’m not laid-back enough to think these jokes are funny.”

Another message popped through, this time from Brian, showing a picture of Amy apparently crying.

“Sheesh,” I said, “they really like to take these practical jokes all the way, don’t they?”

To put an end to this comedy hour, I called Amy.

“Ha,” I said when she picked up. “Ha. Ha.”

“I’m not joking,” she said with a meekness that could only come from crushing disappointment.  “Our flight is canceled so we’re not flying with you.  We are now booked on a flight to Paris, getting into Pisa about the same time you are.”

I looked at Mike with my hand over my mouth.  I was so shocked and sad I didn’t know what to say.  We discussed how we were both completely deflated from the burst bubble of flying to Europe together, and slightly anxious about having to find each other on the other side.

I consoled her and told her this was the most infuriating cancellation, but we both agreed there wasn’t anything to do but maybe drown our sorrows in a few brewskies.

The rest of the gang was getting ready to deplane so I did the awkward cross-aisle-mouth-words-and-half-speak to let them know Amy and Brian would not be on our flight.  They all sagged in disappointment as well, but said, hey, it’s not like they’re not coming on the trip at all — get a grip!

So we did — we had some lunch and drank a couple of beers to pass the five-hour layover.  Kelly and I led Erin and Sam in a brief barre workout along a terminal wall that had handrails.  We boarded our flight, took melatonin/Ambien/red wine to help us sleep, and eight hours later we landed in Pisa.

While the rest of the group went to retrieve our tiny toy rental cars, Kelly and I waited for our diverted travelers to arrive.  About 45 minutes later I got a text from Brian that only said, “We need address.  No bags.”

“Unbelievable,” I said to Kelly, while also noting in my head that responding to his text would cost me fifty cents.  Rather than replying we tried to find the baggage service area, and instead found a jail.

“Oh my gosh, that’s Bri!” I yelled when we saw him.  He couldn’t hear us; he was inside the little prison.  We saw his head through a window that looked like a teller window, with double-pane glass and a tiny open slot for paper and exchanging words.  The door to the room was a cylinder, which couldn’t be rotated from the outside.  Amy looked over at me with a mix of helplessness and rage as she tried to communicate with the baggage lady.

I slipped a piece of paper with the villa address on it under the window to Brian who handed it to the woman.  She asked a series of nonsensical questions like “Is this a real address?” and “What is the cell phone number of the owner?”  Amy gritted her teeth and said, “You don’t need the cell phone number of the owner of the house.  You need MY cell phone number and I’ve already given it to you.”  Kelly and I astutely observed that this was not going well.

When they were finally released from San Quentin, they came barreling out of the room with a level of frustration only known by those who have had a canceled flight and lost luggage in a foreign country.

It occurred to me then how laughable my original vision was of Kelly meeting Amy and Brian — everyone at JFK cheerfully meeting for a fabulous flight to Italy!  Instead, Amy and Brian were yanked around, luggage-less, and anything but excited.  Kelly would later admit to Brian and Amy that she was slightly afraid, given the thundercloud of anger hanging over their heads, but of course, who could blame them?

This is also why no one minded in the least when, an hour later, we were all standing outside of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Brian, Amy and Mike looked for ten minutes and then said, “People, we need to eat.  Peace.”  We all said please, do whatever you want, you deserve an award, please have a drink on me, etc.

However, my mom, Erin, Sam, Aaron and Kelly were not quite ready to leave.  We walked up to the Duomo and decided to go inside (the shade from the 95 degree heat was motivation enough).  It was stunningly beautiful, and we spent about fifteen minutes exploring the interior.

The building across from it was the Baptistry of St John, and we entered and were instantly somewhat underwhelmed.  It was still large and beautiful, and deeply impressive for a building completed in 1363, but it was very plain, with little adornment of any kind.

There were signs for silence throughout the circular room, and Erin nudged us that the ticket-taker was walking into the room, presumably to shush us.  He entered and gave a “shhhhh” that was practically deafening, and then he mounted the baptismal font to stand in front of everyone.  We had no idea what he was doing, and then without warning his voice rang out in a clear, deep tenor.

“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh, ooooooooooooh, oooooooooooooooooooooooooh,” he sang, going deeper with each note.  He held each note about three seconds, then would change to a different key.  The most incredible thing happened: his voice never stopped.  He was showcasing the baptistry’s acoustics in an astonishing way — as he sang, each note lasted far longer than he held it, building on one another until it sounded as though a hundred men were singing around us.  It was spellbinding.

Kelly looked at me with eyes as wide as the font, and mouthed “I have goosebumps.”  I did too, so I gripped her arm as we listened together.  I closed my eyes to amplify the sound, which so filled the room it was as if we could see the music.

Just as simply as he entered the room, the man exited it.  Everyone stood there in stunned silence, unable to move.  Finally we burst outside and exchanged exclamations about what we’d just heard.

When we reunited with Mike, Amy and Brian back at the car, they were as refreshed as we were — the lunch and beer had treated them well.  We felt like we had been traveling for days, and we had — two plane rides and a tourist stop and we were feeling the wear and tear.  We all agreed we couldn’t picture anything better than getting to the villa for a swim, so we piled in the car and headed on our way.

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