The Longest Day Continues

When we last left our weary travelers, they were just checking into their room in the Italian hamlet of Castelrotto.  Eager for adventure (they did not come all the way to Europe just to take a nap), they headed out to explore the town.  I did not realize how easy it would be to know you were not in the United States anymore just by a single glance at the world around you.  The architecture of the buildings was just different enough; some had murals beckoning back to knightly themes and fables of yore.  In the middle of town rose a gigantic bell tower, the likes of which you would be unlikely to see in an American town.  In Italy it is said that many people fall in love with the sound of their hometown bells and that they can discern it from any other bells in the country.  It was fascinating to think that this monolith sticking out from the sleepy hamlet could be such a unifying force.  

 As we walked the narrow streets we marveled at the integration of both new and old.  A town a thousand years old maintaining its pastoral charm while integrating the modern conveniences of the 21^st century.  As we would see throughout our trip, this integration is far from seamless, oftentimes we would walk by wires running along the sides of buildings until a hole was bored through 800 year old stucco to bring power to the inside.  Modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and showers would have to be incorporated into square footage not necessarily conducive to the comfort of a particular large American, and yet the charm was constant. 

 But back to the sights and sounds we were seeing in that moment.  We headed to the church, a square building whose exterior bespoke of its more modern lineage (around 1850).  Arthur wondered whether the Reformation would have gone this far south in Austria but it took two seconds inside the cavernous room to show the strength of Catholicism in the region.  It was a wonderfully ornate church, the first of many (Alex rolls her eyes) that we would tour.  In the square outside of the church a few of the locals were strolling by or gathering to chat.  On Sundays they all still make a point to wear traditional clothing.  Alex liked the idea of everyone in the town joining together to keep these traditions alive since wearing lederhosen by yourself can lead to being the brunt of a lot of jokes.  

 Outside of town we walked up a hill where buildings depicting scenes of the stations of the cross line the trail to the top.  This led up to a Roman fort.  Older than the town by centuries, the fort beckons back past the days of feudalism to the era of Roman imperial rule.  Never ones for taking the same path twice, we ventured down the back side of the hill on the Peace Trail surrounded by a fairy tale forest with mushrooms and toadstools that hearken back to the illustrated books of our youth.  

 We ambled back into town and Alex directed us towards the only restaurant open on Sunday evenings.  Alex had spinach dumplings and though the name was really, really German, Arthur basically had pork chops in the creamiest mushroom sauce you can imagine.  As would be our standard practice, we switched plates halfway through the meal so we could both experience twice as much food on this trip, spinach dumplings despite what you might imaging are actually quite tasty and filling.  By now it was dark and the weary travelers who couldn’t keep their eyes open during dinner headed back to the hotel for a well earned night's repose. And there we will leave them until tomorrow.  Omnia Vincit Amor.

The Longest Day

Day one of our vacation actually lasted 35 hours; from central time, it ran from 4 am on a Saturday to 3 pm the following Sunday.  It involved entering into a new country, and a ton of travel via "planes, trains, and automobiles."  It was less than optimal, but both of us were too excited to allow the temporary tribulations offset the zeal for the land for which we were seeking.  Were that it was always so easy to be so longsighted.

As mentioned, our day began with a 4 am wake-up call in order to be at the airport in time.  Alex noted how easy it was loading for our flight in our small regional airport, which actually got us to Dallas 10 minutes early.  Not that the 10 minutes did much for us; we had a 5 hour layover anyway.

We both wanted to try to stay awake as much as possible so that we'd sleep better on our 10 hour international flight, so we did a lot of walking around the airport.  Arthur, thirsty for adventure, took to exploring some of the fancier stores and was surprised that Alex did not want to join in the fun.  When asked where her sense of adventure way, Alex replied she was going to a country where neither of us spoke the language well and advised Arthur not to push it.

We finally loaded the plane and found ourselves sitting next to some Texas Aggie fans who were present during a certain dark day on our own Alma Mater's history back in '98.  We politely stated that it was nice someone had a good time during that particular event and set about the task of falling asleep, a task which neither of us were particularly successful in achieving.  Alex might have got an hour in or so; Arthur never could quite find a way to fall asleep.  At least they had a good selection of movies on the flight and the food was good.

Finally, we touched down in Rome.  For Arthur, this was a first European encounter.  Alex was once in a Parisian airport trying to get to Atlanta, so that hardly counts.  Here the new experiences came quickly.  We found an ATM to get some European currency, went through customs were a bored looking guy pretty unhesitatingly stamped our passport, and figured out how to purchase train tickets from an automated machine by playing a little "monkey see, monkey do" with the couple ahead of us.  That got us to the main terminal in Rome, from which connected with our five hour ride to Bolzano.

Heading out of Rome, we really didn't see all that much; mostly residential apartments and a little industrial area.  Then we went past the ancient wall of the city, and we were reminded of the age of this city.  The train was actually very comfortable with plenty of leg room and Arthur finally got some sleep as we passed mile after mile of grapes and apple trees.

In Bolzano, we found our bus stop and began deciphering how exactly to tell what bus to get on.  With some help from Tom, an Oregon man who flew out specifically from the hiking, we concluded that we ought to ask one of the locals.  Fortunately there was a young political science student who spoke excellent English there to finally get us squared away.  We enjoyed chatting with her until our bus arrived, and then it was off to Castlerotto.  Also thank goodness for some kind Germans on the bus that helped us get off on the right stop.  Each town had two or three stops and not sleeping as well as not being able to read German was impairing our decision making ability

We were now in basically German territory.  Italy gained sovereignty over the area at the end of WW1, but everyone speaks German, and it was interesting viewing the architecture of the buildings.  The feeling was much more like exploring a fable land from the Brothers Grimm than the Roman forum.  We couldn't wait to explore further, and we finally got to our hotel.  Believe it or not, we are now in early afternoon of day one.

So our day is not quite over, dear reader, but this particular post entry has run longer than a post should, and so you'll have to turn in next time to continue the adventures of Alex and Arthur.  Until then, Omnia Vincit Amor.

Every journey starts with a single step...

Every journey starts somewhere.  Our trip to Italy didn't beginning with our flight from the Manhattan airport but much earlier.  If you were looking forward to the nitty-gritty details of day one that will be another blog and really day one included us wanting to sleep most of the time so it won't be that exciting of a post.  This post is the back story of our trip-- the first few steps.

For as long as I have known Arthur going to St. Peters Basilica has been on his bucket list. Since Arthur isn't Catholic I originally thought this was a little strange.  Then three or four years ago he started saving for a trip to Italy to see St. Peters with a stock savings plan through work.  I will admit that was thinking to myself, "It's great to be putting away money but we probably won't actually use it for Italy but we may have other things we need to pay for down the road like a house, car, etc that it will be great to have money already saved up."  About a year ago the savings plan came due and he sold the stock and asked when we were heading to Italy.  After a month of going back and forth I finally jumped into the idea of doing this trip.  I tossed in the idea of doing several countries in Europe because who knows when we might get the chance again but it finally boiled down to two weeks in Italy to really experience Italy.

For the past year we have been preparing for Italy as if it was a university study abroad program.  We listened to lectures, read books, watched videos-- many by college professors in preparation.  We studied Italian, learned about the ancient Romans, watched videos on architecture appreciation, read books on art history with a focus on the Italian Renaissance, and learned about contemporary Italian culture.  For the average traveler this might be a little much but we wanted to know about what we were seeing and doing.  Prior to this study I would not have been able to distinguish a Gothic church from Baroque or a Giotto painting from Carvaggio.  But oh my there is a difference.  We were excited to see certain works of art in person I didn't know existed before this that made the museums so much more fun.  Understanding Roman architecture made the ruins on brick and rubble come to life.

If I am honest the part I spent the most time on was learning Italian-- usually on a daily basis for the last year-- and I was disappointed by my level of actually being able to use it day to day while traveling.  However everything I learned was self-taught through internet resources and I had never actually exchanged any words with an Italian speaker until we landed in the country.  My reading skills were pretty good, listening was about 25-50% comprehension, and speaking we were able to get by.  A lot of the time people knew some English so it was just easier to default to English and my Italian words did not come out of my mouth fast enough for fast paced interactions.  Was it necessary to study a language for a year before traveling-- not at all.  But my motivation was to also learn a language.  Learning as always come very easy for me except for languages.  I wanted to see if I could learn another language and to what level.  Am I fluent? No, not even conversational with speaking since it is very hard to practice this by yourself.  However I could ease drop on phone conversations and guided tours in Italian, read signs, and most importantly order gelato.

Outside of studying for this trip there was the planning aspect.  Since we didn't go with a tour group we were responsible for making all the reservations, figuring out details, planning an itinerary.  My two thoughts on this are:  thank goodness for the internet and email and I might be a Rick Steves groupie.  First, how did people figure out any info before the internet?  I looked up directions, bought train tickets, reserved museum tickets, and booked hotels on the internet.  This is another time my Italian came in handy was emailing to make hotel reservations especially since we stayed in a few convents which are less touristy and the nuns were less likely to communicate in English.  As to being a Rick Steves groupie I poured over his guide books for Italy, Rome, Florence, Tuscany, etc.  We watched all of his TV shows on Italy to figure out where to go.  Arthur gave me a hard time that I wouldn't even eat at a restaurant unless it was recommended in the Rick Steves guidebook.  This is basically true but why reinvent the wheel if people have done research and have already figured out what's the best.  We would have missed basil gelato if not for the suggestion in the guidebook and that would have been terrible.

Also to get ready for the world of international travel we realized that we needed to catch up with the 21st century and get a credit card and a smart phone.  It is nearly impossible to make hotel reservations with a debit card overseas.  This required more visits and calls to the bank than getting a mortgage on our home-- not even joking.  And in the end it still didn't work and we had to get a credit card.  We only used our debit card to get cash from ATMs but the credit card was handy for train tickets and paying for hotels.  The smart phone is essentially a Swiss army knife for travelers.  I am still not convinced that I needed it for my everyday life but one the road it was great.  We used it as our camera, we could email to confirm reservations, text or call our parents to reassure them we didn't fall off the side of a mountain.  I used it a lot to screen shot guidebook pages or trail information.  We had a navigation map using GPS to know where in the world we were after we got off the subway and an app with train schedules and stops so we knew when our stop was coming up.  Additionally we had the Rick Steves Europe app which had podcasts about Italy and Europe which was our entertainment on the train or audio tours of the bigger sites so we didn't have to pay for guided tours.  These were the best!

The final step before our trip was packing.  We were going to be gone for two weeks, using only public transportation, and traveling all over the northern half of Italy so packing was key.  We needed to be able to carry all of our stuff easily through train stations and while walking up to 30 minutes to our hotel.  Since we were seeing a lot of ground that also meant being in a new place every 2-3 nights so packing everything up frequently.  We decided to just take backpacks as our luggage.  This made a huge difference in our trip but apparently is out of the norm since we were frequently asked where our luggage was when we arrived somewhere new.  We each had 2 pairs of pants, 4 shirts, a sweater, a pair of hiking boots, and a rain jacket.  We did do laundry in our hotel every few nights and were glad we don't have to wash clothes by hand in a bidet all the time.  We had a small pack we used as our day bag for the guide book, water, snacks, sweaters, sunglasses, and emergency travel kit.  I think our packs weighed in at 15 pounds.  It was a nice change from our true backpacking trips since we didn't need a tent, several days of food, etc.  If we needed something we could go out and buy it-- we were in Italy and not a remote island only accessible by ferry boat.

I love logistics and planning.  I am contemplating a second career of being a travel planner or tour guide in retirement.  So I enjoyed all the prep work for the most part and I feel more comfortable if I am prepared for what is coming.  Some people like to travel without reservations and have the flexibility to go where they want or stay longer.  However for us on our first international trip knowing what to expect was helpful since there was enough other "unknowns" (like figuring out how to flush the toilets).  The planning helped us get started off on the right foot four our trip which really made the trip a great experience. It also helped decrease the stress of making decisions on the fly or getting lost (as much) which was probably very helpful to maintain the peace in our relationship while traveling for 2 weeks with each other.  Omnia Vincit Amor.

Italy Prelude

Faithful readers may feel aggrieved by the lack of high-flying action this blog has become so beloved for over the past several months.  Maybe they fell aggrieved over the lack of action of any sort whatsoever.  Whatever the grievance, Alex and I hope to appease you all over the next several months.  You see, we just got back from vacationing in Italy, an adventure aesthetic, culinary, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and many other adjectives besides.

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing our trip with you, our beloved readers.  We will take you with us as we enter a land where we don't speak the language or know the people, and yet learn to thrive.  We'll share with you the exquisite sites and sounds.  And the food.  Oh, the food.

Our trip will begin by getting up to the Italian Alps, experiencing a far more Germanic/Swiss culture than the Italian one to come.  After the mountains, we'll head down to Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance, then out to the Cinque Terre to experience a provincial life to satisfy the flighty Belle.  We'll take you to Siena, Florence's great rival, to stay at an agriturismo and experience the beauty and history of Tuscany.

Finally, we'll head to The Eternal City, Rome.  There, we will see what time leaves of its mightiest civilizations, and stand beside you amazed yet again both at what rots away and what it preserved forever.  We'll gawk again at the cavernous cathedrals and be moved by the great artist's renderings of the divine mystery of an infinite God laying himself down for his infinitely fallen creatures.  We will stand in awe of what wonders these depraved, fallen beings of long ago were able to achieve without machinery.

The experience has been a very profound one upon me.  It is a wonder do experience another culture, and it is groundbreaking to stand where history was made.  I come from a land with about 3 centuries to be affected by.  Here, the history goes back 25 centuries easily, with the very founding of Rome itself.  You'll hear me marvel at the effect of history, at the my thoughts peering back and trying to think the thoughts of great men after them.

Dear reader, if we can complete the project before us, you are in for a treat.  We want to record these things not just for you but for our own memory and reflection.  So much of what we have seen came at us like drinking from a fire hydrant, and we need to process all of this.  What follows is part of the very experience of this vacation, the remembering.  We hope you enjoy.  As our friends the Romans would say: Omnia Vincit Amore.