Month: May 2025

05/07/2025  – Three shall be the number

“Then thou must count to three.. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out.”  Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In this case it is three days we are missing, or are we missing them?  Cinco De Mayo started out pretty blandly, we wandered around looking for something to eat and then started the long drive to Lucca, a small town on the outskirts of Pisa. It was an all-day affair that was topped off by never ending rain. While the rain slowed us down, it was probably a good thing as there was not much to do in the rain. Yep, if you are counting that was day one.

Day two started out with the pitter patter of rain hitting off the clay tiles of the buildings roofs, but it soon ended and the sun came out! Time to head off after having a nice breakfast – which required no hunting for an open restaurant at all! We were soon on our way to rediscover Pisa.  We had last seen this quaint town 20 years ago while on our honeymoon.  We were staying in Florence at the time and happened upon on tour bus that was headed to Pisa.  We jumped aboard and fell in love with the home of Pinocchio.  Meandering once again through the ancient streets, we finally found a parking spot…….Dang how do we pay for parking. Kathy and Dave looked and looked at the machine, punched buttons, punched some more buttons, tried Google Translate, all to no avail. Finally Kathy saw a commonly young (and Kathy forgot to mention, handsome…) man strolling on the far side of the street. Dashing across the street, risking life and limb, she asked him if he spoke English and would he be willing to help two old Americans figure out parking. He graciously obliged and soon we had it all figured out. Best of all, we were less than a block from Pisa. Strolling through the town we soon arrived at the Piazzo del Duomo, which includes the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a baptistery, the cathedral, and several museums. We had an appointment to climb to the top of the tower, but not until 2:30 pm and it was only 11:00 am. It was now time to figure out some things to do while we waited to climb. While we only had a ticket for the cathedral and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, there is still much to view. We started out by just going into the cathedral at a separate entrance to say a prayer and reflect on our journey. Kathy also had a few extra prayers for Dave as he now has both a head cold and a stomach bug. The germs are a spreading! Upon exiting we wandered around to the front of the building where we could enter the cathedral and view the many arts of work. It was amazing! Words and pictures will never do it justice. Soon it was time for lunch.  Kathy, who is feeling better, decided to try a local dish – pasta in a boar’s sauce.  Yes it tastes as horrible as it sounds.  She gagged down one bite and then shuffled the sauce and meat to a corner and just had some of the pasta. Dave, on the other hand, was still in recovery mode and had a salad.  We then wandered around all the shops and vendors located in the square. The town of Pisa is known for the story of Pinocchio and Geppetto, and so wood carvings abounded the small square. It was fun to see the unique crafts available for purchase at the local markets. Finally, it was close to the time to climb the tower, but alas we had to get rid of our bags. So Dave, of course not in top form, schlepps over across the plaza toting his day pack to drop off to the cloakroom while Kathy held their spot in line.  Not that it mattered as we were too early and had to wait, not one minute early. Who knew Italians were that regimented? Finally it was time to climb and, yep, we did that all the way to the top. The climb reminded Dave of an old-time fun house.  The spiral marble staircase slopes one way and then the other as it runs around the inside of the building perimeter.  Plus, the middle of each step has been worn down by 850 years of people climbing them.  We climbed to the top of the tower leaning sideways like a couple of drunken college kids chuckling all the way up. Finally we were at the top, or were we? Nope! There was one even smaller and narrower final staircase to reach the pinnacle.  Soon we were gazing lopsidedly from the top of the tower. Each direction afforded us different views of the city of Pisa.  It was amazing!  Well worth the 251 steps to climb to the top.  Next on the agenda was back to the hotel in Lucca with a nap for Dave and some downtime for Kathy as she worked on finishing her book she was reading. Then, it was time to do some laundry.  We had inquired about doing laundry at the hotel when we booked the reservation.  The website said laundry service was available for a “nominal fee”.  Ha!  Every item of clothing had its own “nominal fee.”  To wash a sock?  6 euros.  To wash a t-shirt?  8 euros.  Pants?  Pants??  14 euros!  We found a laundromat 3 minutes from the hotel.  We went there and did 2 full bags of laundry for 13 euros.  The machines did not take credit cards and Dave only had some small coins and a 50 euro bill.  He had to find change somewhere, but this was a residential area.  After walking around some, he found a dry cleaner open and went inside to see if he could get change.  Inside the shop was the owner, her assistant, and a man and his elderly mother. Of course, no one spoke English. But, a quick game of charades got across the idea.  The owner said that she did not have change for a 50.  I asked if there was someplace nearby that could.  Nope. <insert sad face here>  As Dave was dejectedly walking out, the customer held up his finger – the universal sign for “Hold on, I’ve got you covered.”  Them, I saw his elderly mother walking back from her car with a purse.  She was going to provide me with change!  I wish I knew how to say more than just “Grazie!” to the kind lady.  Laundry completed, a nice dinner rounded out the evening.

Day three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be the third day. Starting very similar to day one and day two, it rained. Like day one, it just seemed to rain all day. Luckily like day one, most of the day was spent traveling to Nice, France, our next stop on the journey. Along the way, we did drive to Cinque Terre National Park.  It was beautiful, but the roads left Kathy with a pit in her stomach.  Winding and narro – but paved! – Dave tried to help her out by driving well below the speed limt listed on the GPS of 90 KPH!  By the time we hit France, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.  Unfortunately so did tons of people! After a few fits and starts we finally found our hotel, parked our car and carted our bags to the room. It was now time to explore the French Riviera, and boy, is it amazing! Our hotel is right at water’s edge and over the cacophony of people, during the lulls of silence, you can hear the waves crashing against the shores. Out hotel is well name Hotel Beau Rivage  (beautiful shore) and is at the end of a pedestrian walkway. First stop was to stroll along the water’s edge in order to enjoy the pebble beach. Having driven all day, dinner was next on the agenda and we decided dinner on the beach sounded like a small slice of heaven. Seated facing the crashing waves we enjoyed a lovely dinner, Dave opted for a Caesar Salad while Kathy tried French Fries in France, along with a small steak.  Another stroll along the beach helped us clear some of the cobwebs from our brains. This allowed us the opportunity to plan our next steps, and tomorrow we decided to find a local tour to take us to Monaco. It should be nice for Dave having someone drive him instead of him having to drive through the narrow winding roads. Dave might actually get to see some of the sights.  It is time to tuck ourselves into bed.  Bonne Soir.

05/04/2025 – Sunday tidbits?

Sunday was just that Sunday, nothing too exciting unless of course you were one of the babies being baptized today at church. Dave and Kathy had an early check out time of 10 am, yet church did not start until 10:30, now what to do? Having a tad bit of time they decided they would just head to the church and people watch as the masses filed into the small church right next to our lodging for their Sunday morning rituals. The church began filling up with more and more people. Every square inch both standing and seating was occupied by someone. Little did we know, but today we got to be part of the baptism of two little boys from different families being baptized into the Catholic religion. Wow was it an event! At home, usually the ceremony of the baptism of babies takes place after mass, but not here. We were all present from the start, which began at the beginning of mass, until the very end which was not until mass was over and we were heading out the door. The priest intermittently during points of the mass did something else as part of the baptism. There were so many steps that we are not sure of all that was involved, especially since it was happening in Italian. At one point the priest held each baby high over his head to present the new member to the congregation. Quite a celebration of baptism! The priest was a little over the top after communion, the children who could not take communion lined up to get blessed, then just for good measure the priest walked through the church blessing every child who might have been missed on the first go around. A tad bit too much!

Now realizing we needed to head off to get to Salerno, we started off.  We knew the journey would seem more tedious than normal as Kathy, acting as a germ bug with her cold, might have infected Dave, but with a more lethal variant one that went from a simple head cold/cold to a stomach bug that kept him up all night dry heaving.  The drive, though, was worth it, winding our way along the Amalfi coast. We put “down” our top and donned our hats and enjoyed the beautiful breeze that blew into the car. The sounds of the ocean and the views of ancient buildings teetering along the edges of the cliffs were a magnificent way to spend a leisurely jaunt to our next hotel. We thought driving the Amalfi Coast in a Fiat convertible would be truly one of those great lifetime memories.  Driving the 6-speed manual transmission through the snaky roads was a lot of fun for Dave – until the traffic jams hit.  Zipping along the coast sounds so much better than driving bumper-to-bumper with hundreds of others. The roads, while narrow, still were not too difficult to maneuver through, until face-to-face with a tourist bus on a blind curve.  Along the way Dave, feeling a tad bit better, decided we should opt for some lunch. Not quite cured, he opted to play it safe and have some cheese and vegies, while Kathy opted for one of her fav’s – a small bit of Caprese salad. The restaurant sat on the edge of the ocean overlooking the crashing waves against the rock cliffs and the multitudes of boats that leisurely sailed below us. Being sick in Italy is just a tad bit easier than at home.

Finally, we were in Salerno and had found a spot to park and just a few steps away our home away from home for the next day. The goal of coming to the city was to learn about “Operation Avalanche”, the WWII Allied invasion of the European continent to drive the Nazi-Fascists out. Unfortunately, it was Sunday night so instead we opted to stroll along the beach and look for something to eat. Really, not even a teeny tiny little restaurant was open – not even a gelataria!  Nothing but McDonald’s, wow. Oh well, McDonald’s it was. Kathy enjoyed her Big Mac while Dave munched on a chicken sandwich. Oh well, he has his beloved Egg McMuffins to look forward to….. oh yeah – the McDonald’s doesn’t open until 10:30 am, so much for that. Last on the agenda was a stroll on the beach where Kathy dipped her toes into the cold Mediterranean Sea. Tonight a calm and early night was on the agenda, hopeful to see if Kathy can finish shaking off her head cold and Dave can catch up on some sleep from the previous night and hopefully have his tummy issues resolve.

05/03/2025 – Thar she blows!

Morning came soon enough. Kathy, who had caught a cold, was a tad bit befuddled in the morning after some doses of cold medicine and had tea instead of coffee.  The day didn’t get better. She was tasked with helping to navigate the roads to arrive at the parking lot recommended by the tour company; needless to say it didn’t go well.  The first hour of the drive was along the winding mountain roads and Dave was actually having fun downshifting and accelerating into each hairpin curve in the 6-speed Fiat.  But when we got to the City of Pompeii, chalk up another case of Google Maps failure.  After missing turns and ending up on toll roads 3 TIMES, we decided to park the car in any old parking lot and just walk to the meeting point for our tour of Pompeii. Maybe that would clear out a few cobwebs. Google Maps once again blew its stack.  We had left with plenty of time to spare before our tour was to start at 9:45 am.  However, the multiple missed turns and “rerouting” from Google Maps left us closing in on the time we needed to be there.  While walking in the direction of the rendezvous point, Dave put the location in Google Maps.  Google Maps advised Dave that there was no way to get to that location!  WHAT??  Dave tried several ways to get the place into his phone GPS, and nothing worked.  It was time for good, old fashioned “look for signs, follow the crowd, and ask for directions” techniques.  We arrived with about 5 minutes to spare.  Phew!

The Ruins of Pompeii covered a much larger area than we realized.  Our tour guide, leading about 16 of us through the jam-packed city ruins, spewed information out much like we are sure Mount Vesuvius spewed volcanic ash, pumice and toxic gases almost 2,000 years ago.  We learned a lot, but we missed even more.  Still, it was amazing to see and learn about how people lived, and died, in the year 79 AD.  Pompeii, and the 4 other nearby towns covered by the contents of Vesuvius, is mostly intact just the way they were on August 14^th, the day before the eruption.  We can’t imagine what the people were thinking at the time, not having volcanologists to advise them.  They had no idea they lived so close to an active volcano, that it would erupt, or how long and how deep the devastation would be. They were buried under 9-10 feet of ash and pumice stone over a 12-hour period.  May they rest in peace.

We ate (a lousy) lunch just outside the archeological site and then made our way back to the lodging.  We were both beat by the time we arrived, having endured heat, thousands of steps, and an insufficient meal.  Dave napped while Kathy rested.  We walked back to the restaurant we supped at yesterday and ate there again.  Again, the meal was molto buono.

A quick jaunt back to our lodging and getting ready for our drive to Salerno tomorrow rounded out our evening.  Buonasera!

05/02/2025 – Driving in Italy

Yes, we are getting old, yes, we are creatures of habit, and yes, we had our usual breakfast (or Dave did). Kathy, being more young at heart, tried something new at the usual place across the street. After breakfast we packed up and walked to a cab stand nearby to begin the next stage of our journey.  The 58 Euro fare was not bad, considering the drive into Rome cost twice that.  The driver spoke little English and tried to ask Dave which airport terminal we were flying out of.  Dave could not answer him, since we are not flying but going to the airport to pick up our rental car!  Dave used Google Translate to translate that into Italian.  The driver had stopped driving when Dave showed him the translation.  Unfortunately, he started driving again before he was finished reading it and we narrowly missed a head-on collision by inches!  Fortunately, we made it to the airport and picked up our car without having to utilize the fire, rescue, or police services of Italy.

Dave was a tad nervous about driving in Italy.  Kathy had had a vision of driving the Amalfi Coast with the top down on a convertible, her head scarf blowing in the breeze, a la Audrey Hepburn.  So, we rented a “convertible”.  All convertibles for rent in Rome were manual transmissions.  Dave hadn’t driven a stick since we sold Kathy’s Saturn coupe back in 2012.  Prior to that, both Kathy and Dave used to drive manual transmissions all the time.  Dave had several patrol vehicles in his Park Ranger career that were stick shifts, and he had to drive them fast, on winding, mountainous roads.  But – it had still been a while.  And with recent rental car snafus (“How do you shift into reverse in this automatic transmission?” in Germany, and “Why won’t this car’s engine start?” in Norway?  PS The Norway car was a hybrid and the engine doesn’t “start” like a gas engine…. You just drive it away without hearing the engine roar to life.), we were a tad edgy.  This edginess was compounded when we looked around our “convertible” Fiat 500.  All the good feelings we had about Italians vanished!  If a country’s citizens don’t know what a convertible is, they should be ashamed.  This car is NOT a convertible.  There are two buttons to retract the roof, but the car still has all of its sides.  That is not a convertible, it is a large sunroof!  Phooey on the Italianies! The car though is small enough that if we are unsure of driving it at some point we can just pick it up and park it somewhere. Yep it is the size of go cart.

We made it out of the parking lot like pros, but, Houston – We had a problem!  The GPS unit we brought from home (like we have in many other countries) failed to turn on.  Bummer.  Dave is not as familiar with the roads of Italy as he would like to be.  The device finally came on – Yea! – but did not recognize Italy –  Boo!  We had to resort to Google Maps on our phone.  This system had worked exceptionally well in walking around Rome.  The system had some major flaws when using it outside of Rome.  We followed the prompts and directions and arrived at our destination.  We found a paid parking lot, parked, and walked to find De Maria’s House – our lodging for the next 2 nights.  It was nowhere to be found.  Turns out, there are several roads with the same name and numbers in the area and Google Maps picked the wrong one.  We were still an hour and a half away.  Back in the car, we tried to pay for our 5 minutes of parking.  Dave placed the ticket he received when he drove in, but the machine kept spitting out something in Italian at us.  We tried several times, having to back up out of the way to let others get out.  Kathy finally walked around and found the place where you have to pay BEFORE you try to exit.  We eventually found our way to the lodging and settled in.  It had a FREE parking lot.  Yippee!!

Feeling that we needed to stretch out legs we decided to walk around town and do some exploring.  The roads are narrow and winding cobblestones, but cars could still pass us pedestrians.  Dave saw a cool, old stone arch up one road and wanted to walk underneath it.  We kept walking up the road and the roads kept getting narrower and narrower.  We figured the narrowing roads would be free of traffic.  Nope.  Many motorbikes – and even a few locals in cars and trucks – went by us on the 6 foot wide roadways.  We finally made it down to the other side of the ridge and Google Maps said there was a restaurant nearby.  Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t open for another hour and a half.  We hoofed it back up and down the ridge before picking up our car and looking for a place that was open.  Google Maps did find an interesting way back to our car.  Since we were in walking mode, it picked a concrete path that was about a foot wide and went in between some homes.  It was a nice treat.  Once in the car, finding an open restaurant wasn’t too hard.  Finding parking was.  We finally parked on the side of a narrow road, behind a bunch of other cars parked there.  I guess that is life on the Amalfi Coast.  We knew we were in for a good meal when the server did not speak English.  After a few miscues, our Neapolitan calzone and caprese salad were awesome. We headed back, full and satisfied and ready for another exciting time tomorrow.  The Ruins of Pompeii!