Category Archives: Italy

Ring of Tuscan goodness

This is the official Chianti chicken. Bob is ignoring the dignified history of this symbol and doing the chicken dance
from Arrested Development.

A 7:30 wake up suggests that were getting acclimated. An 11:30 departure for the golden ring of Tuscan goodness suggests that we’re all a little distracted. For many of the kids, today’s distraction was catching tadpoles from the small water garden by the driveway turnaround. This involved washing and soaking the labels off empty jam and olive jars, then dunking the jars into the water to grab some of the little wigglers. A good dunk usually netted three or four tadpoles, and how many people can say they have caught Italian tadpoles? Ok, how many can say that who weren’t Italian kids?

Chris even got into the act by procuring a hammer and nail and poking some holes into the metal tops of the jars so that the tadpoles could breathe. It was decided that lettuce was an appropriate tadpole food (perhaps radicchio would have been better for Italian tadpoles), but since we have 12 mouths to feed we were stingy with our store-bought lettuce and we did not feel it appropriate to sacrifice Silvia’s container garden lettuce. So Zoe tore up some dandelion leaves (they have dandelions in Italy, too!) and tossed those in.

Hiking from Greve to Montefiroralle

There were other distractions, too. The dogs had to be stimulated. Blogs had to be written. Eggs had to be fried. I think Sam Brooks is making a feature film. Before we hit the road to find all the fine places Silvia had laid out for us within a close driving distance, we took one final trip to the bathroom, put the tadpole jars in a shady spot and took a good look at the map. We weren’t going to get lost, if we could help it.

And…we didn’t get lost! That is the story of the day. We pretty much knew where we were all day long. This was a nice feeling.

That’s not to say that everything went exactly as planned. We were a bit time challenged. Well, to be more clear, time challenged us. That is to say, Italian time challenged us. We went to the first stop on the Ring of Tuscan Goodness, Greve in Chianti, which you might remember from us asking advice there the other day. We parked, we found the medieval square, the whole time we knew where we were and where we wanted to go. Jen and I went to the tourist information center off the square (Chris and Wendy did not want to go in because two days ago they went and asked the lady’s advice and took none of it, even though she gave a full half-hour of advice) looking for directions to a short hike that Silvia recommended to us. We even found out where there was a public toilet.

Ok, a minor hiccup after that. There are two banks on the square and I turned off at the wrong one on our first attempt to start the hike. However, after that we went up the hill to a medieval Borgo, which is like a village, and it was all very nice. Although the lady suggested a nice loop that would have brought us to a few more villages and extended our trek a kilometer or two, it was very possible that she knew we were with the Brookses and wanted to stick it to us. So we hiked back down the mountain looking for lunch.

Here is where Italian time challenged us. Our tradition is to source various lunch components and have a picnic somewhere. Every shop we wanted to get stuff from — the forno, the fromaggeria, even the take-away pizzeria– were closed up. The daily pause. Italy’s siesta. Not much happens between 1 pm and 4:30. At least not much bread and cheese are sold.

This was problematic because we were all very hungry. Luckily, we found a restaurant that was not pausing and was able to seat 12. It was a good meal, but we still like our picnics.

After this scare, we decided that we should skip most of the rest of the Ring of Goodness. It was mostly old Italian stuff, anyway. The one other stop on the tour we did make was at an old castle town – Castellina – which boasted what was described to us as the best gelato in the world. Reviews were very favorable.

Thus sustained, we were able to withstand the rest of the ride and a substantial wait until our dinner – home-made lasagna with fresh lasagna noodles – was ready.

In the medieval city of Montefioralle

Under the Tuscan sun

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This is more like it. Our hosts gave us a quick and dense set of directions for the house and descriptions of nearby attractions, and then they were off for a few days. We explored the villa, talked and played – the latter occurred like this: Lanie and Africawit were constant companions, from their in-bed story telling In the morning to their seating (or for Lanie, napping) places at dinner; similar for

Nadia and Meredith, who spent much of their time looking after the villa’s resident canines, Joya and Silvio; the rest of the kids floated around reading, playing games, trying out the very cold swimming pool and even working out on the workout room. Just about all the kids got into a spa day, using the tub and sauna in the master bedroom. Jen and Wendy explored the woods; Chris and I played a game of bocce, which, in fact, does feel more authentic in Italy. (This also may be because I won.)

Chris and I also ventured into Figline, the nearest town with a decent supermarket. In fact it has at least three supermarkets and we went to two of them. The largest and newest, the COOP, was our actual destination because Silvia (our host, not to be confused with the larger of the villa’s dogs, Silvio) said it was the cheapest one around. Sadly, despite what Silvia calls its “Communist” leanings, COOP observes the Sabbath. We found another supermarket quickly and got most of what we wanted, but the only bread we could find was soft, sliced “Wonderbread”-style stuff. Imagine, coming to Italy and eating that kind of bread. So we found the third one and got some crusty bread, corn nuts, blood oranges and cookies. These were just the things to top off our provisions.

This was an exciting moment. Wendy
and Chris are staying in a little outbuilding,
and the keys got locked in. Chris managed
to retrieve them using a set of grabbers
and duct tape.

Checking out was not too bad, except the first place would not accept MasterCard, and the Pavliks are running low on Euro. At the second place, which does accept MasterCard, by the way, the lady in front of us at the checkout had a bit of a conundrum. From what we could gather, she didn’t have quite enough money to pay for what the checkout lady had scanned (they have checkout ladies and scanners here, just like at home). Slowly she started to alternately give items back to the teller and pull more loose change from her purse. She gave back her two bottles of Coke, her eggs, one of her sausages, and some kind of soft cheese or sour cream (I was really paying attention).

Every time she handed something back, the checkout lady would look at me and Chris, the next people in lline, rather intently. Did she want us to pay? Was this some sort of Italian tradition? On Tuscan Sundays everyone pays for the person before them? Cultures are so difficult to figure out, and, moreover, anyone who knows me knows that I pride myself on my impeccable supermarket etiquette. I was getting to feel uncomfortable.

Happily, the checkout lady was merely trying to mentally subtract returned items for the desperate lady’s total. Apparently, the Italian scanners can’t scan backwards.

In actuality, the lady wasn’t really that desperate. It was all very cordial and calm, unlike, I suspect, how something similar might go down at home. I watched and waited for the point where the lady would succumb and give back one of her several bottles and boxes of wine. She did not touch any of them. Eventually she managed to pull out enough Euros and Euro cents from her purse, and she handed back a package of cheese slices, so she could cover what she had left in her basket.

A Tuscan supermarket story with a happy ending – what could be better? We ate crusty bread, Romano cheese, prosciutto from a block that Jen carved up nicely, olive oil and garlic, sundried tomatoes, olives, pesto, balsamic vinegar, and probably some other stuff that seems to fit into our picture of a rustic Italian meal. We liked it a lot.

***

From Jen:

This place is pretty amazing, inside and out. As I was wandering around on that first morning, I wondered where the kids were. It turned out they were all in the GYM, of all places, working diligently on the various machines. Apparently this is great fun for them. (None of the adults have ventured into the gym at all.) You’d have thought the Brooks kids, at least, would have had enough exercise for this lifetime.

Lanie nodded off before the pizza
arrived, but luckily she came back
to life once it was in front of her.

We have this hillside to ourselves, and eventually the kids availed themselves of some of its other diversions: a small pond where you could catch tadpoles, a little playground, a soccer field, a badminton set. The pool, even though the weather is distinctly chilly. The dogs, which the owners had tentatively asked us to feed in the evening for the next two days, thinking we were doing them a big favor, when in reality this was a major highlight for the kids. And all of it set against a breathtaking background of Tuscan countryside. We’re staying in the middle of the Chianti region, and there are grape vines and olive trees everywhere.

We spent most of the day around the villa, no one feeling like going anywhere. For dinner we decided to head into the nearest village, Lucolena in Chianti, to a pizzeria that Silvia had highly recommended. Chris managed to successfully convey to them over the phone that a group of 12 of us would be arriving. The pizza and pasta were delicious, like everywhere else we’ve eaten here. It’s amazing to me that you can stop into any random restaurant in any tiny town you come across and expect a wonderful meal.

Zoe’s take on our day on the road

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The baths were amazing, though at some points I was afraid that Lanie (or I ) would be carried away by the current. At another hot spring in Yellowstone National Park , Wyoming, Nadia and I actually took advantage of the current, riding it down the river but in these baths we would be scraped on sharp rocks. Speaking of Yellowstone, the baths reminded me very much of the Travertine terraces. The sulphurous smell was very familiar.

At the end of our hot spring excursion, Lanie said that she felt sick, though she seemed okay later. None of us felt great due to the long, twisty mountain road. I was despairing in the back of the car as we drove aimlessly through the countryside (Editors’ note: It only seemed aimless, but it was a much longer drive than we promised.). Near the end of our drive, it was made even worse for me by Lanie pointing at every random house we passed and yelling “maybe that’s our villa!” .

Finally, we reached our villa. I was very relieved to be out of the car. It was a long , hard day but Silvia’s delicious pasta and tiramisu was a great way to end it.

Silvia’s tiramisu

It was very fun to see the Brookses again after being away from them since last summer. I feel bad for them having to bike on the mountains around the villa. They’re not complaining a lot about it, though. I know we’re going to have a lot of fun.

Also at the villa they have two big dogs and even though they are very nice we were scared of them at first because we just saw them barking over the fence and jumping up and down on their hind legs. The people who owned the villa gave us a very nice tour. We got to see all the parts of the beautiful house, such as a cool balcony that you get to from the room that I sleep in. It was fairly easy to sleep that night after I stopped talking with Meredith and Nadia. It was very late at night, past 10 o’clock. For the people at home, though, it was only 4 p.m. If I was in Durham we wouldn’t have even had dinner yet.

Our kingdom for a GPS

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Remember the three rules of The Princess Bride, like “Never get involved in a land war in Asia”? We have a fourth one to add: “Never attempt to drive anywhere in Tuscany without a superb GPS and a firm grasp of Italian.” Also, Dramamine.

We were so naïve this morning, optimistically setting out with Google directions and insufficiently detailed maps. The villa in Tuscany where we’ll be spending the next week was supposedly about 3.5 hours from Rome, and by going a bit out of our way, we could also hit a very cool-sounding attraction on the way: a thermal spring area with warm turquoise waters cascading down over a series of waterfalls. This area is known for the healing powers of its waters, and has been used for thousands of years. It’s also, we discovered, quite a bit off the beaten path.

We quickly discovered our Google directions were useless, since they said things like “Turn onto Provincial Route 105”. In Italy, provincial routes do not appear to be labeled by number. Instead, they’re labeled by the next (too small to appear on the map) village that they lead to. Also, in rural Tuscany no one seems to speak English.

It took hours to get to the Terme di Saturnia. Luckily it was a very cool place – beautiful and free and totally unspoiled, despite the substantial number of people there. It was fortunate that the waters were warm, because the day was quite chilly. It was unfortunate that we had no towels, but we managed none the less.

Then came more hours attempting to get back to the highway. We were winding through an absolutely beautiful landscape, but no one was much in the mood to appreciate it. We all chose to focus instead on not throwing up in our new rental car. Bob and I summoned up our Pimsleur-language-CD Italian skills and managed to ask for directions, but the flaw in this plan quickly became evident: we would be answered in a torrent of Italian of which we understood not a word. People were very friendly and helpful – one elderly man talked nonstop for five minutes, gesturing all the while – but we pretty much just had to rely on going the way they pointed then stopping to ask the next person along the road. (Bob and I later theorized that maybe they were saying things like, “Whatever you do, don’t go that way. That would be the WORST possible way to go.”)

We thought our troubles were over when we finally found the highway again, but we soon discovered that the directions to our villa were less than stellar. The first clue was when the exit we were supposed to be taking from the highway (again, not numbered) did not exist. There followed several more increasingly desperate hours of travel, particularly when we discovered our directions ended at a random point and there was no indication of where to go from there.

I think the low point was when we stopped at a random roadside house and I had a long conversation with an elderly deaf woman and her daughter, who tried valiantly to assist me. (At one point we even attempted to speak in French.) Eventually she pulled me to the window, and pointed across the steep valley to a distant house on the opposite hillside. “Ma dove es LA VIA?,” <”but where is THE ROAD?”, I think> I cried in despair, and there she couldn’t help me.

Now before you feel all sorry for us, let’s turn to the tale of our friends, the Brookses, who were BIKING to the villa from Florence. We passed them on the road at one point when we were all under the impression that we were a couple of kilometers away. This was a very mistaken impression. We were about 14 kilometers away, over very steep hills, and it was getting dark. Bob had been planning to go back for them but this didn’t quite work out when we couldn’t find the villa ourselves.

Asking directions in Greve in Chianti

Eventually, thankfully, we made it, thanks to a helpful resident of the tiny village of La Pescina, who was willing to walk with me and actually point out the (small, dirt) road we needed to take. Upon arrival our hostess Silvia came running out with a camera. Her husband Stefano and his friends had gone off to rescue the Brookses, and he’d called her and said, “You have to bring out your camera for this.” It was now fully dark; one of the friends drove home a few of the Brooks kids while the others walked the bikes up the final steep hill. The saintly Silvia made us a big pot of pasta since no one could conceive of getting back in a car (and it was now 8:30 at night). And she’d left an amazing tiramisu in the fridge. And the villa is amazing enough to make up for everything.

At this point Wendy cheerfully thinks she only has
2 km left to go.

***

From Bob:

We won’t talk too much about today, save to say that a few rules applied above and beyond Murphy’s Law. One is that the longer the road is, the better the meal at the end. Another is that anything is better with the Brookses involved.

We will get the added pleasure of seeing them observe the surrounding countryside for the first time tomorrow morning. Most of them arrived after dark and were only able to take in the building itself, which is plenty, really, to bite off in one sitting. Like the Coliseum, it loves up to our elevated expectations. Give it high marks for remoteness.

While we’re at it, we’ll give Europecar a thumbs up for convenience and for giving decent driving directions out of Rome. Driving there was something I’d been dreading. Thankfully, Jen planned for us to be leaving on a Saturday morning and traffic was light. Signage was not great, though, and we had one snag before we hit the A1. It would not be the last.

The girls also deserve much applause for rolling with the highs and lows of a marathon driving day. Zoe’s singing lessons carried them all through the worst of it.

That’s Stefano and Silvia in the background. Their four-year-old son, Andreas, took this photo. This room dates
from the 11th century! You can’t really tell but the whole thing slants to the right because it was starting to fall
over until a previous owner reinforced it.

Markets and gladiators and tired feet

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At the Campo de’Fiori

Our hotel is noisy. For such a dinky street outside our window, there’s a lot of traffic. Of course, this did not stop us from sleeping for 14 hours last night. Although the windows don’t seem to close well enough to keep out the street noise, the shutters and blinds really do well to keep out the light. I remember waking up a few times over night and thinking how strange it was that they were doing street construction in the middle of the night.

To add insult to injury, at the end of our
long walk, we had to climb these steps.

It wasn’t the middle of the night. It was probably 8 am. We didn’t really rouse ourselves until almost 10! This was ok. We’re half-acclimated to Italy time.

Missing the hotel breakfast was a little sad, but we hit the streets again, looking for more adventure. Our directional sense seems to have improved. We got around well enough to make it to the Campo di Fiori market by brunch time. And we were able to get the food we bought to the park next to the Forum square in the middle of lunch hour. Somehow we managed to find a quiet, shady park bench amid the throngs of people milling around the forum and Coliseum.

View from the top of those steps.

Our big tip of the day: Go to the Forum first. You get a combo ticket, see? (No discount for children originating outside the EU.) And the line to buy them at the Forum was 12 people deep. The line to buy tickets at the Coliseum when we finally got over there was 1,200 people deep. That was a good line to miss. The Coliseum was a good thing not to miss. Unlike many marquee tourist locations, this one held up to high expectations. Archeological exhibits inside the upper ring showed items from the everyday lives of the average Coliseum attendees — bone sewing needles, chicken bones from in-game snacks, glass beads from a bracelet, stylus pens – that were retrieved from the drains after they were swept there by workers a thousand years ago. There was much evidence of betting, ancient graffiti, and even game boards scratched into the benches to occupy people’s time while the games were at a lull.

The Roman Forum

The structure itself was solidly impressive, and larger than I expected. It was also so familiar that little description was necessary as we walked along the inner terraces. Crowds were large, but unobtrusive, except for when you were trying to take a picture or trying to avoid being in someone else picture. The gift shop was small and hidden way off to the side. That’s not to say there weren’t dozens of people milling about outside trying to sell us stuff, but the expectation has become that the whole tour would dump you into an elaborate gift store extravaganza finale. This was missing and probably will be until Disney takes over.

Orange tree

That left the walk home, which, after we ruled out a trip on the Metro, was not that bad. The area around the Coliseum, Forum and Piazza di Venizia were very crowded, but the people were genial. We may escape Rome without having our pockets picked. From there we had our bearings and it was not a long stroll at all home, with a detour for dinner for good measure.

A note on Roman dining: Those outdoor streetside cafes are inviting, especially on days like today, when the temperature was mild and you could sit outside in the evening without a jacket. The appeal of the quiet, narrow side streets is very strong; however, the streets are not always as quiet as they appear. They’re plenty narrow, alright. A few cars came surprisingly close to Jen, who occupied the end seat of our table.

Almost getting run over while
eating dinner

From Jen:

It was another gorgeous, sunny day today – an important factor given that everything we’ve been doing is outside. On the other hand, this may have encouraged us to become a little overambitious in the amount of walking we took on. In our defense, there was a transit strike today, so we didn’t have the option of taking a bus or metro anyway (though given our propensity to take wrong turns, we’re more comfortable on foot where the consequences aren’t as dramatic).

2/3 of the kids were beat by the time we got to the Roman Forum. Bob and I took turns exploring with Zoe while the other two rested (and Lanie actually fell asleep at one point). We all made it up Palatine Hill, which was my favorite part in any case – you could walk amongst the ruins and through beautiful gardens, with fragrant magnolias and orange trees, with a beautiful view of the Forum and Rome laid out beneath you. (Once we got done with this portion of the walking, Zoe joined the ranks of the exhausted.)

The kids rallied for the Colosseum, though. (This was mostly because we told them there would be gelato afterwards. This is a powerful motivator. And then we noticed that it was after 6:00 by the time we left the Colosseum, so we pulled a bait and switch and made them eat dinner first.)

All roads lead to here

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At Trevi Fountain. It seemed like everywhere we wanted to go involved going through this piazza, so we saw
quite a lot of Trevi Fountain. This is in the uncrowded early morning hours — usually it’s thronged with people.

Confession: I didn’t like Rome too much last time I was here. When you’re a 21-year old college student staying in youth hostels, it seems you get a lot of unwanted attention from various sleazy young men. Fortunately, it seems this is not a problem when you’re a 41-year old mother of three.

It’s evening in Rome, and we’re still standing. It’s been a very busy day. Our flight left Boston at 5 pm last night, and I have to say that we’ve become big fans of Alitalia. We got dinner – macaroni and cheese with what appeared to be pancetta – plus wine and various other snacks. We had pillows and blankets and headphones. The kids had Phineas and Ferb to watch on their individual TV sets. (We also got breakfast – pastry and yogurt and, unaccountably, Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. But given that this was served at around midnight EST, we were marginally less enthusiastic.) Also, the coffee I had on the plane was better than just about anything I’ve had in an American restaurant.

The kids managed to sleep a few hours on the plane, before we were woken up for “breakfast” at 11:45 pm (or 5:45 am, as the case may be). Our flight landed an hour later and we were up for the day. The taxi ride to our hotel was a real thrill ride, careening down narrow cobblestone alleys that were completely unsuited to automotive traffic, buildings and pedestrians flashing by about 6 inches away on either side.

The Spanish Steps (again, early morning
hours; again, usually thronged)

It was much too early to get into our hotel, of course, so we set off on a walking tour of nearby landmarks. As it turns out, our hotel room doesn’t have a lot to recommend it (unless you’re a fan of aged décor and unreliable plumbing), but the location is great. We were a short walk from the Spanish Steps and the spectacular Trevi Fountain. These are normally packed with people, but at 7:30 am were only populated by a few street cleaners.

At this point we fell prey to what we’ve since found is the Rome Directional Vortex, which rendered both of us completely unable to read a map. We were supposedly about 5 minutes from the Pantheon, according to the Google directions I’d printed out earlier, and we were supposed to be meeting our friends the Brookses (whom we haven’t seen in 10 months) there. But somehow neither Bob nor I was at all able to navigate. We’d find where we were on the map, determine which direction to go, then stop a few minutes later, pull out the map to check our progress, scratch our heads, and discovered we had no idea where we were. We then had to find ourselves on the map again and restart the cycle. We must have walked for miles, mostly in the wrong direction, attempting to get to the Pantheon. Luckily, Rome offers many rewards to the wanderer, with amazing architecture, ancient ruins, and fascinating people-watching everywhere you looked.

Reunited at the Pantheon

Finally we made it, and there was much excitement being reunited with our friends again. It was clear that we needed to go somewhere where the kids could run around and squeal without disturbing hordes of people, so we set off for the Villa Borghese, a huge, beautiful park near our hotel. Here Bob and I managed to get lost in the park. We were attempting to find this particular playground, but eventually just gave up in despair.

Probably the kids’ favorite stop of the day was the Piazza Navona, a huge oval piazza with the famous Fountain of the Four Rivers and lots of artists and street performers. Nadia desperately wanted to give all of them coins, and given that the smallest coins we had were 2 euros each, that would have been a rather expensive proposition.

Despite all the horsey rides, Lanie didn’t
quite make it through the day.

The kids were rock stars today. We didn’t end up getting back to our hotel until after 7pm at night, so we all made it the full day on little to no sleep. In addition, we walked for miles and miles. (Lanie is the exception to this, as she convinced all of the other 7 kids to play a “horsey” game wherein they gave her piggy back rides. Somehow, Tom Sawyer-like, she managed to have them all fighting over the privilege of who would get to carry her around next while she crouched on their backs and shouted, “Canter! Gallop!”.)

***

From Bob:

This was a long day, indeed. Even beyond all the international travel elements, and the rigors of being in a different country, this family really pounds the pavement. I think most Romans would be ready for bed if they followed us around from the Spanish steps to all the way through our urban hike around town.

At one point, we decided it was just a little too early to pack it in, so we took a walk from the second-highest-rated restaurant in Rome (which happens to be a gelato shop) all the way to the Piazza Navona. Chris Brooks’ smart phone told us it would be .6 kilometers, which seemed like no sweat. Getting four adults across this particular .6 kilometers of Roman terrain would have been a nice stroll. There were mostly pedestrian-friendly alleyways and street vendors, and lots of pedestrians by this time of the evening.

Getting eight kids across this route was a little more involved, what with all the pedestrians, street

Gelato! At supposedly the 2nd best place in Rome.

vendors and small Roman automobiles that seem to consider themselves pedestrians. Oh, and I forgot Wendy’s mom Susan, she was there too. She was just as sturdy a travel as the kids were. My point is, that if you just counted our mileage it might not seem like that much, but we covered some ground. Enough ground, in fact, that Lanie gave out just as our final trip back to the hotel commenced. I had to carry her limp form all the way home. It actually wasn’t that bad, though I wish our hotel room was on the first floor and not the fourth.

Now for what we learned during all this walking. Somebody could write a book about all this old stuff here. It won’t be me though, because I really didn’t take a lot of the dates and facts in very well. I’m generally quite interested in history, but history here is rather oppressive. It keeps following you around and jumping out behind every corner. This little fountain here the middle of this lonely plaza used to be for cows, apparently. And this statue commemorates this incredibly famous person from antiquity, while that enormous edifice is for some guy I’ve never heard of who died in 1873 (which, in Rome, was yesterday). The ancient ruins on this block are different from the ancient ruins over there because…I’ve got nothing. I have no idea why these ruins are different from those. I won’t be able to relay how dense the historical atmosphere is here. Every five minutes, not at all figuratively, there is a new building in front of you that makes you say to your wife, “That must be special.” And you wife says back, “Yeah.” And then you complete the same conversation five minutes down the road.

One of the ubiquitous Roman fountains

What has stuck with me, and what I think the Romans do particularly well, is water. Yes, this includes the famous fountains, which are beautiful to behold, and offer a nice gathering point for living statues and spray paint artists. But I’m mostly referring to the small, barely conspicuous flows of water that we encountered countless times today just splashing away in little out of the way corners. Sometimes they’re just pipes sticking up out of the ground bubbling away, sometimes the water emerges from a lion’s mouth or a maiden’s bucket.

This is how old Europe does drinking water. I assume it’s carried in on the same aqueduct that brings water to the Trevi. It’s potable, we know, because we’ve been drinking it all day. We would not have thought to do this on our own, but we saw lots and lots of Roman folk walk right up and take a swig. Businessmen hold their ties out of the way and lean right in. Scores of school kids gather round with empty soda bottles and push each other out of the way to fill up. “Que fresca!” I heard one kid say. Although this sounded like Spanish to me, I did not disagree with the sentiment. It was quite good, fresh water.

At one point in the afternoon we knew we had pizza coming and we were in the middle of a park. We were out of water, but I knew there was water somewhere. We roamed the park looking for a drinking fountain. All we could find were the decorative kind. Maybe you could drink out of them, but we could only reach the standing water part of the fountain, and I wasn’t sure that the spraying part wasn’t just recycled from the pool anyway. There was one little fountain that had a trickle coming out of a rock that dripped down into a small, but deep pool. I was thinking about swinging in and trying to figure out how to snatch some, when a huge dog ran right in front of us and jumped in the pool and started licking the rock. The kids in my water search party did not think this was a good sign.

The last drinking fountain we remembered was at the top of the Spanish Steps, which didn’t seem too far away on the map. Jen and Nadia ventured out and were defeated by the Roman streets. It’s a tough city to get around in because of all the streets. It sounds weird, I know, but it’s true. They have so many streets here, but most of them are only 50 feet long. You’re on one street, then there’s a huge but otherwise nondescript piece of antiquity, and then you’re not on that street anymore, it’s another street and it’s difficult to figure out how you got there. It’s taking us quite a while to get used to this.

Luckily, Nadia and Jen made it back to o

ur playground headquarters, albeit without any water, and guess who managed to save the day? Me, of course. Well, it was really a school trip of third graders from Lazio or somewhere and they were all gathered in a big crowd right there next to our playground. A mass of orange baseball caps jostling for position in the middle of a Roman park can mean just one thing. I grabbed a water bottle and went right over and, after patiently waiting my turn, filled right up.

You can check this story out yourself. Just go to the big park up on the hill and go over to where the puppet theater is next to the playground and the hut with little kids’ rides like the ones in the mall that for some reason our kids did not seem to notice the whole time we were there today. There’s a fountain right in that place. Bathrooms are another story, though.

The pizza was really good, too.

At the Villa Borghese. That one boy on the left is not one of ours, lest you be confused.

I’m too sexy for Milan

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Jen has given us plenty of information about Italy over the half-year or so, but she saved the most terrifying until almost the very end. A week before our trip, as we start packing our clothes, she tells us all: “The Italians are very fashionable people. They don’t think much of people who dress sloppy. ”

I know how crazy you all think Jen is, but her story somewhat checks out. The other night she and I went to our town’s newest (and fanciest) restaurant and we saw a fellow localite who said her family was going to Italy this year, too, and that her daughter insisted on going first to Milan to buy lots of clothes. Not Venice for the boats. Not Pisa for the leaning tower. Not anywhere for linguini. Straight to the fashion capital to outfit herself for the rest of the trip. The girl is nine. So yeah, the Italians are clothes crazy.

This is cause for concern. I’m not saying that several of us Pavliks don’t think we’re pretty snappy dressers, but Jen had to drop a real bomb on us: “Nobody wears shorts in Europe. If you wear shorts they’ll think you’re an American tourist.” This statement sure sent ripples through our family. Many of us self-styled snappy dressers rely heavily on the short pants and sandals look. Just last week, on the first sunny day of spring, Nadia was ready to trade in all her winter clothes for one pair of shorts and a tank top. That was all she’d need until December, she said.

But none of us wants to be lumped in with rude American tourists, me possibly the least. And as it stands, I think I’m the one who’s in most danger of being singled out.

Here’s why. After several hours of fretting over shortslessness, the rest of the family got a reprieve. Jen managed to explain that modestly long skirts would be comfortable and stylish, and they’ll likely be acceptable in all the famous old churches we’ll find ourselves in. The Italians really go in for skirts, Jen says. On women.

Here we get a sense of the nature of the problem. Sure, day-glow yellow
shorts, white socks and black shoes were fine in Crimea 20 years ago –
otherwise why would Kathleen, Axwig and this unidentified Ukrainian
young woman been walking the streets of Yalta with me. But I’ll have to
shift my style to adjust to a more discerning fashion culture in Western Europe.

I will have to walk the medieval streets of Lucca and Siena the way Columbus himself did, in chinos (flat-front, of course. History shows it was Columbus who began the arduous work of undermining the Native American tradition of pleated pants). I don’t think I’ll risk jeans, even. Pickpocket magnets, those are. I can wear a bathing suit for swimming – go ahead, conjure up an image of me wearing a European-style speedo, that still won’t make it happen. And anyway, regardless of my style of suit, don’t expect me to come home with a leg tan.

I do at least have some snazzy shirts to bring along, including a nice red and black number that I got at Easter. The Italians will eat that one up. I think I’ll risk the pickpockets a few times by wearing my US soccer shirt. Rude Americans don’t wear soccer shirts, I’ll venture. So I should be ok. Also I have a money belt.

That’s right, I’ve been to Yalta. And I rode the bumper cars
there with Dave Baxter.

My wardrobe will be nothing like Zoe’s, who has already packed a range of dresses, skirts and colorful capris. Nadia might fare the best of all, because she’s got a sense of style that is pretty well-developed (although she could not convince Jen – even with the unlikely backing of Grandma – that her leggings should be worn without a skirt or long shirt to cover her bottom). At any given time, Lanie will likely have on multiple shades of pink and a disarming grin, so I’m not worried about her.

It’s me who’s most likely to cause an international sartorial incident. Wish me luck and send fashion advice.

On the road again

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Emboldened by our success this summer, we’re gearing up for our next adventure. This time, we’re off to Italy! So it’s not a “getaway van” so much as a “getaway plane/rental car”.

This is a big step for us. Bob and I haven’t been to Europe since our study abroad days half a lifetime ago. The kids have never been. Their only experience outside the U.S. was not exactly a culture shock (Day 2: O Canada!). Despite the fact that our 5-week cross-country road trip required LOTS of planning, it also seemed to me less intimidating than a trip that involves passports, foreign languages, different currency, and a six-hour time change.

While last summer we were engaged in laying in supply of beef jerky, peanut butter, and approximately 597 travel games/books for the car, this time our needs are somewhat different. Where should we change currency, and how much should we bring? What kind of rental car insurance do you need in Italy? We’re buying money belts, a power adapter, a cheap European cell phone. We’re listening to Pimsleur Conversational Italian CDs. (We’ve been impressed with these, but I also think they are designed for a certain kind of traveler. We’ve spent a lot of time learning such things as, “Do you want to come back to my place?” The kids are fond of pointing out that we’ve learned the words for beer and wine, but not water or milk. One particularly hilarious lesson involved a man repeatedly trying to get a woman to go back to his place, and her escalating series of refusals. (I guess the Pimsleur folks feel that a visitor to Italy is likely to be able to use either one side of this dialog or the other.) In any case, it’s entertaining listening to your 5-year-old dutifully parroting back such gems as “Would you like to drink something with me?” and “I’ll have two beers, please.”)

My friends Nancy and Julie with our ubiquitous backpacks

I’m the only one who’s been to Italy before, but under very different circumstances. It was my friend Julie and I (and sometimes her brother Jim, and possibly our friend Nancy – was Nancy with us in Italy at all? This is the kind of trip it was, where fellow travelers came and went, and the details fade after 20+ years). We were carefree college students rambling our way around Europe, carrying only our Eurail passes, passports, remnants of various currencies, and whatever small amount of clothing would fit into our backpacks. We rented bunk beds in cheap youth hostels and made meals out of bread and cheese bought from street vendors and rated museums by their “life-suck” potential.

This is the sort of scene that most likely will NOT occur
on this European vacation.

The regular American tourists we saw back then – people like we are now, with kids and rolling suitcases and rental cars – existed on a completely different plane than we did. Despite the fact that they had private hotel rooms and regular hot meals and various other creature comforts, I wouldn’t have traded places. To me, they were Tourists with a capital T, seeing the sights but not really feeling the life of whatever city we were in. For the most part the only locals they spoke with were those who were selling or trying to sell them something. Though we were often visiting the same sites they did, we felt like we were in a different world – immersed in the crowds of young multi-national grungy backpackers, riding city buses and striking up acquaintances from all over the world. (Also, given our appearance after weeks on the road, certainly no one would have bothered trying to sell us anything.)

I think this is the Spanish Steps in Rome.
When Bob saw this picture, he started
shouting, “The puzzle! The puzzle!” It seems
we spent several months of our lives this year
working on a puzzle of this very scene. (No, I
didn’t recognize it.) We had to get out
the box to confirm it.

With three kids in tow, and rather higher standards for safety and hygiene, I have no illusions that I can replicate this earlier experience. But I’m hoping to travel (relatively) light just the same. This passage from The Joy of Less by Francine Jay made me think of our earlier travels:

Think about what a pain it is to drag around two or three heavy suitcases when you’re on vacation. You’ve anticipated the trip for ages, and when you disembark from your plane you can’t wait to explore the sights. Not so fast — first you have to wait (and wait and wait) for your bags to appear on the luggage carousel. Next, you need to haul them through the airport. You might as well head to the taxi stand, as maneuvering them on the subway would be nearly impossible…When you finally reach [your hotel], you collapse in exhaustion…

This is the sort of classy accommodations
Julie and I stayed in. This was in Venice —
I wonder if they have any vacancies?

Imagine traveling with only a light backpack instead…You arrive at your destination, leap off the plane…jump on the subway, catch a bus, or start walking in the direction of your hotel. Along the way, you experience all the sights, sounds, and smells of a foreign city, with the time and energy to savor it all.

So my old friend the backpack is coming down from the attic. And we’re asking the kids to fit all their stuff into their school backpacks, so they can carry it themselves. We won’t have a car while we’re in Rome or Venice. Certainly we’ll do a lot of walking, and maybe we’ll take a city bus or two.

Our friends the Brookses, who we’re spending most of the trip with, certainly have this down. They’ve spent much of the past 8 months biking around Europe, lugging all their possessions (including camping gear) along with them and having fabulous adventures. Surely we can survive a 12-day trip with substantially less.