Italian Field Trips, Beach Days and Gritty City Vita Part Due

She Say is a much better photographer than I, so she goes and takes a few shots and returns back with a smile and “there’s something odd about him” to which I reply that “that’s usually the case”.

As the couple begins to pack up the 50-100 lbs of photo equipment they’ve schlepped apparently from Merry Olde to Italy She Say hollers over, “Where are you from in England’.

To which the female quickly replies “We’re from Oklahoma”

to which She Say replies, “Oh, so where did you two meet”

to which the man begins to spout steam out of his ears,

to which his female replies, “We’ve known each other since kindergarten”

to which She Say replies, “So why does he have an English accent”

to which the steam begins to escape through the man’s nose,

to which his female replies, “He thought it would be easier to pretend to be from England than to tell people we were American”

to which the man de-flatedly mumbles something and departed the terrace with his female in tow. (See note above (in prior thread) about me not believing all tourists/travelers from the US of A are horrible, but this was a new twist!)

So, having met all our fellow hotel guests and finished our prossecco we andiamoed back to our room to get dressed to head out to dinner!

You are a great writer! I look forward to reading the next installment of your travels.

I am enjoying your report, so please continue. I always say better late than never.

Ok...so...She Say had on her dress and heels and I was wearing my dress pants, blazer and smashing tie. We began our quest for finding a suitable place to eat by wandering all over the streets hoping to see something fabulous.

We sat down at what looked to be a very nice place, but I’m sorry I don’t have the name. There were basically 2 main streets that led ‘up’ from the beach/town center to the top of the town. This place was really right off the town center on the street to the right to get to the top.

We perused the menu and nothing really jumped out. The menu may have been awesome in other circumstances, but it had primarily grilled sea food and we decided we just weren’t in the mood for that. This combined with some awkward outdoor lighting and the overall ‘touristy’ feel had us turned off.

So, slightly embarrassed to say, we got up and snuck out before anyone took our order. I’m sure someone observing thought, “HA! Stooopied Ah-mericahn can’t wait for Italian server to arrive!” Which...if someone had shown up we may have stayed, but the night was young so Andiamo!

We walked (and walked) all over town. Which is fun, but we should have done more research. Not sure if anyone else is this way, but since Cinque Terre was 2nd to last on our trip I didn’t manage to do as much planning. Milano got TONS of planning as it was first on the itinerary and then lots for Venice being 2nd and so on down the line until you reach the last destination and your plan is basically ‘scout and have fun’.

We found a nice little place (wish I had more details as this covers pretty much every restaurant in town right?!) that was on one of the streets connecting the two main streets. Sadly, I don’t remember what we ate, but believe it was pretty darn good. Pretty sure we had 2 pastas and 2 secondi.

We had been seated elbow to elbow with a nice family from Switzerland. Mom, dad, mid-teen daughter and younger pre-teen son. It was actually about 20 minutes into interacting with them before they ‘discovered!’ we weren’t Italian. We had been smiling and talking in broken English-Italian with them and the waitress. I don’t know what exactly I said, but as one point the dad of the family exclaimed, “He’s joking!” which I’ve been turning over in my mind for some time to try and understand what he meant and just now realized he meant to say I was playing a joke/trick by pretending to be Italian.

Anyway, this family comes every year on vacation to Cinque Terre for like the past 10 years and always eat at this restaurant. They specifically come for I think the pasta with clams which isn’t on the menu, so they have to call the day before and remind everyone who they are and that they had been promised they could order this if they called ahead. Was very nice.

She Say and I did our best to speak English after finding out their kids were ‘studying’ English as in they spoke it better than most kids in our suburban Maryland ‘hood.’ I believe they told us all Swiss schools teach Swiss, English and either Italian or German and maybe a 3rd language...French? So, it was a lot of fun teaching the kids how ‘real’ Americans talk.

We bid our friends Buona Notte and headed back to the hotel. Surprisingly didn’t get lost.

Tune in tomorrow when La Cosa Nostra pensioners provide us with a chaise longue and fight off a rival Tunisian gang!

Thanks crwawro!

I've been compared to several Irish Poets...largely due to my brown eyes....

Thanks Nancy! You give me two years, there's nothing anyone else can do in one week I can't manage!

to which his female replies, “He thought it would be easier to pretend
to be from England than to tell people we were American”

2 questions.

1. Do Americans really feel that in some places they need to hide their nationality?
2. I recall a looong time ago hearing stories about Americans displaying a Maple Leaf on their clothing, suitcase, etc because they felt it was safer for people to think they were Canadian. is that still the case?

More please....!!!

Sen say....best novella I’ve read while in quarantine! Please carry on with your adventures, love reading them!

Thank you, sen say, for the laughs, giggles and grins you have provided me this evening. I am so glad you came back to finish your trip for us. It must have been a lot of fun and I hope you are back soon to post more of your adventures. Thank you, your report is so much fun to read.

DAY 11: CINQUE TERRE

Allora!

Doesn’t seem like three weeks since I last log-ued my travel, but in these days of quarantine nothing seems quite real. She Say and I have it pretty good. We’re both still employed and healthy and in fact don’t know anyone at all with the coronavirus, so my apologies for anyone truly suffering, but this is like being in prison. I thought completing my journey would be a way to more better pass the time, but it put me into kind of a deep funk. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way reading about my dirty life and times.

However, enough with my being maudlin! It’s a new day and hopefully the temperature warms up and the wind stops blowing so fiercely and I can get us through Cinque Terre, up to Genoa and then home via Milano...or wherever we ended up!

So, my memory of this is foggy, but I am pretty sure the one downside to our hotel was we were right on the street, so round about sunrise our room was filled with the voices of workers heading off to work...and...some of these workers were driving trucks that BEEPED BEEPED BEEPED more than a tad. So, sleeping in was not an option.

We made the best of the situation and vamoosed up to the breakfast ‘area’ for breakfast (I mean what else would you expect to do in the ‘breakfast’ area.)

The breakfast area is basically the same place as the happy hour area, only decked out for breakfast. We saw all our friends from the night before, the Happy Holiday Brits and the Faux Brit and his lovely wife. This being a morning ending in Y I was slightly hungover, so ignored all.

Breakfast was pretty darn good on the baked goods side. Lots of pastries, I think toast, yummy fruit and all kinds of yummy stuff you could stuff into your guts and your pockets.

Where it fell a little short was in the omelette department.

I ain’t no professional chef, but I do cook 365 days of the year for family and friends and I am reading 9-10 cook books at any given time and I ain’t never seen no dang Italian Omelette. Fritatta? Si! Baked Eggs? Si! Peppers and eggs? Eggs of the Devil? Si, Si, Si!
They had all kinds of yummy looking omelette stuff such as raw sweet peppers, raw tomatoes, olives, cheese, but what resulted was they took 2-3 eggs and scrambled them in a bowl, then they put the eggs in a pan like you would to start cooking an omelette, then when the eggs had pretty much cooked through they put in the peppers, tomatoes, etc and (bless their hearts) tried their best to ‘fold it over’ like an omelette and then presented you with this thing that wasn’t really an omelette, but more like they had watched an American TV show or some non-Italian show in order to learn what non-Italian guests like to eat for breakfast and landed on this concoction.

Don’t get me wrong! If eating a hard-cooked, solid mass of scrambled eggs with raw veggies and unmelted cheese while the one side of the eggy mess is flapping in the breeze like an inverted door hinge is your thing you will Ell Oh Vee Eee it!

Anyway, the setting was so lovely and peaceful and everyone so nice who can complain!

Andiamo!

We started our day hiking to the graveyard high above Monterosso. The Faux Brit and his lovely wife had mentioned it to us as a short hike great for getting you acclimated. This really was a lovely, easy to moderate hike. Great views, but nothing that makes you feel as if your breakfast (‘interesting’ as it was) is going to come up.

We spent some time in the cemetery at the top, but they were doing grounds maintenance, so we weren’t sure if we were supposed to be there. We kept ourselves very respectful and kinda snuck and lurked in the opposite direction anytime we saw someone who looked official. The pinnacle is really within the cemetery, so to get the best view thankfully far from any scary ledges keep climbing once you reach the cemetery.

We visited the little church on the way down and snuck in for a minute until we saw the sign saying you have to have long pants and not shorts. I kicked in a couple of bucks to the collection box on the way up as penance.

We finished the walk around 10:30 am and using ESP basically agreed to just spend the entire rest of the day lolling at the beach. What a great decision!

Tune in tomorrow (promise!) when we rent beach chairs from la cosa nostra!

Hi Allan,

1) Do Americans really feel that in some places they need to hide their nationality?

There's 300 million of us, so I can't speak for everyone! I try to be low-key in all my shenanigans so neither wear my MAGA hat nor my I'm with Her shirt when I'm our of the house.

2) I recall a looong time ago hearing stories about Americans displaying a Maple Leaf on their clothing, suitcase, etc because they felt it was safer for people to think they were Canadian. is that still the case?

Maybe it was the same article I read in GQ magazine back in the 1980s. Apparently international ladies were more eager to share an aperitivo with our Northern cousins. Wish I still had the article so I could confirm it was written by a Canuck! On a serious note I'm pretty sure the US Department of State does not list 'safe to travel as long as you're disguised as a Canadian' as part of their travel alerts.

:-)

Thanks SJ, Judy and Andi!!! Really glad you like it! Makes my day!

A very important event in my life was about to take place!

The only shoes I’d brought along were a comfy pair of sneaker-style walking shoes and some old beat-up, but very comfy dress shoes. I’d switched back and forth between them our whole trip, but neither was going to do for spending some relaxing time at the beach!

Before She Say and I made our way to the beach we paid a visit to the little town square looking for flips flops, or sandals, or surf shoes, or basically anything that would be more appropriate. We found (I say we found, but it’s kind of like saying Columbus discovered America...you really can’t miss this place!) a cute little shop with postcards and sunblock, junk jewelry and similar beachy type stuff for sale. Sadly, there was no great, big, display of flip flops, or sandals, or surf shoes. Luckily, the owner approached and after I explained my dilemma he got the biggest smile and showed me where he had 3 boxes of shoes stashed away!

These shoes...how to describe? While they weren’t flip flops, or sandals, or surf shoes they were kind of like espadrilles for men with a lot of confidence - of which I reek! They had a soft, like popcorn sole and blue and white stripes. Lots of blue and white stripes. I mean you can’t get more blue and white stripes on a man’s shoe. Now hopefully they would fit!

The first pair out of box #1 was sadly too small. The owner assured me no need to worry as he took out the pair from box #2. Naturally these were too small. I began to worry I’d be stuck clomping over the paradisiacal beach in my dress shoes and black socks, or sneakers and big 1970s style basketball socks when box #3 was opened! Call me Goldilocks, because the third pair was just right!

Off to the beach we went.

We were heading to the ‘larger’ part of the beach which is closer to the train station and farther away from Vernazza (to the right as you face the water). We had to take a bit longer stroll which was great as the weather and people and everything was so beautiful. You walk through a tunnel in a mountain maybe 100 yards long and everyone glares at anyone daring to try to get by in a car. Great fun!

When we were there there was a pretty girl playing a flute at one end of the tunnel. The music filled the tunnel and made it all seem like a carnival.

The girl did have music she was playing through a beat box, or an ipod or something and she was basically just playing the flute along to it, so some of the time she would just stand there dancing with her flute while the beat box, or ipod did all the heavy lifting. This appears to be becoming more and more popular wherever we travel. I understand the wonders of technology can help the buskers performance for the better, but I miss the solo performance.

And now here we are at the beach! So beautiful, but where to sit? You can plunk your towel down pretty much anywhere, or you can rent a beach longue chair including umbrella and plunk down in style. I’m sure you can bring your own chair and umbrella, but we were following Rick’s packing advice and no interpretation would include bringing a chaise longue and umbrella!

As you may have gleaned I am the more spendthrifty of this traveling couple. Typically I’m pretty tight unless I’m spending on food or wine, but I’ll be gosh darned if I won’t cough up a few bucks to sit in style while lazing by the Tyrrhenian Sea!

We approached the two young lads running the chair rental operation. One appeared to be a fit 72 and the other a spry 82. Both had great tans, bellies that had grown over the years to a satisfying paunch, shocks of white hair, bright red banana hammocks and were each working on a bottle of beer and a cigarette at 11:30 in the morning. I’m pretty sure if they had invited me to an arm-wrestling match, trial by ditch digging, or any other feat of strength I’d have been first runner up. They had a little round table where they collected the money and watched the girls go by.

I asked how much and they said $20, so I said great and handed over $40 and they hopped to! The lads led us to two chairs as we raced to keep up, they toweled the chairs down, adjusted the umbrella, smiled at She Say and respectfully winked at me as they left us alone, in fact seemed to forget we even existed, as they returned to their table, beers and cigarettes.

We settled into our chairs and felt as if we were truly on vacation for perhaps the first time in 11 days, which was actually how long we had been on vacation. No trains to catch, no directions to decipher, no annoying fellow travelers to deal with. In fact, the chair beside me was empty and the next chair was occupied by an age-appropriate lady in a stunning white string bikini. I hadn’t felt this much potential for a truly great once-in-a-lifetime vacation experience since She Say and I encountered the all-female polizia force at the Milano airport!

Yes indeedy I thought to myself as I grabbed my novel from our bag and settled back to let things unfold when what should I hear but, “Hey babe look what I found!”. This was shouted by what appeared to be a Sea Ogre lugging two large rocks out of the aforementioned Tyrrhenian Sea.

Tune in tomorrow when our newfound friends have an emergency!