TRIP TO ITALY, JUNE-JULY 2000

by Andrew McGarrell

Here are some observations--not a complete travelogue--on my trip to Italy in June-July 2000. It was a very satisfying, while somewhat adventurous, trip. I'm known to write to excess about practical things, particularly the transportation arrangements; these were pretty eventful on this trip, and I will save my report on that for the end of this write-up.

I spent most of the time in Umbertide, in Umbria, where I spent my teenage years and my family still has a house. My mother, my sister Flora, and her friend Brian all arranged to make the trip at the same time. Even though Umbertide isn't known as a tourist destination, it has a very pleasant feel; I note that only non-Italians were in the several houses on our end of our small street: Americans and Moroccan farm workers. The house is in the small part of Umbertide with historic buildings; our house has a stone dating it at 1475. When I stood outside, quite a few times I saw apparent tourists walk by and turn around at our dead-end street.

Still, Umbertide has a bustling life driven by local people. Shopping, eating, and drinking with the locals I found that prices with the lira at 2000 to the dollar weren't too different from when the rate was 1000. Businesses had changed hands--my mother noted that some of the children of the shopkeepers we knew when we first lived there were retiring--and there were many new stores in the new parts of town. Some stores and supermarkets were open Sunday afternoon, an unheard-of change making us worry about the effect on family shops. A computer store gave me easy daily Internet access; I got updates from Marco de Angeli of the Travelzine on a get-together (GTG) he was nicely working out for the end of my trip. As the volume of cars increases, we noticed many traffic circles added to slow traffic down and control intersections, and many streets had been made one-way to add parking spaces. Outside of town, there were stretches of roads that were lined with prostitutes, a sad situation since these are reportedly enslaved African and Eastern European women brought to Italy with false promises. With all the changes and the difficult realization that 2000 had arrived, we saw many traditions staying strong, notably the big crowds for the weekly outdoor market.

We spent time catching up with old friends and trying to keep the house in order. Brian hadn't been to Italy before, adding good reasons to revisit many places--in Umbria, Perugia, Assisi, and Gubbio in particular. This was my first trip to Assisi following the 1997 earthquake. In a matter of some controversy, the Basilica of San Francesco was restored ahead of people's homes; when I went to the church, it was hard to tell the difference from its pre-earthquake condition, aside from one bare ceiling vault. The rest of town was dominated by scaffolding and cranes. Gubbio was appealing as always and had a special market when we were there.

At the end of our stay, Flora and Brian went to Naples and Pompei while my mother and I stayed in Umbertide a few days; then she left to be with a friend in Switzerland while I started a tour of some important places in Tuscany, close to Umbria, where I hadn't been. After putting my mother on the train at Terontola at 7.20 a.m., I made the short drive to Montepulciano. I found it interesting to be in a picturesque small town in the early morning and find it so quiet. Since the town is famed for its wine, I wanted to stay until lunchtime; I saw the character of the town change as the morning passed and visitors arrived. I saw impressive historic buildings from the outside, and the sights of Piazza Grande. In the Palazzo Comunale (Town Hall), I went up the tower for the view below; one needed to go through the archive room, full of binders with old commercial permits. Lunch was good at the simple Osteria dell'Acquaccheta; there were long tables with multiple families with children.

I had debated whether to stop at San Gimignano; I finally did; I enjoyed the first distant view from below of the cluster of towers. When I got there, I needed to park some distance from the walls. I didn't like the crowds and the prominent banner in English promoting the Museum of Torture. I went to where I could take a picture of a tower through an arch (gate) in the walls; also since I had an appointment, I left. I can keep San Gimignano in mind to spend the night and see it in a quieter state, and explore the back streets. I drove down the twisty roads to Cecina, on the coast, where I met Flora and Brian as their train arrived from Naples.

We would spend two nights in Cecina. Why there? Flora wanted to spend some time on the beach somewhere, and another town that interested me was Volterra, so Cecina worked out as a coastal town close to Volterra. We decided this while we were already in Italy; I worried that I didn't have current information and perhaps there would be problems with the Cecina beach. The beach was fine for us, even if it wasn't the most glamorous resort. We took a day trip to Volterra, which is on a spectacular site, with an Etruscan history; the museum had many interesting artifacts.

We returned our rental car in Florence; Flora and Brian then went on to Venice, while I fulfilled my desire to see a side of Italy that had long intrigued me: the German-speaking side. I went to Bolzano, which was in Austria until World War I and is historically German-speaking. I heard Italian and German spoken about equally (and there are times when one hears more German than Italian in central Italy!), and in many ways it reminded me of a Swiss city. It's in the valley between high mountains; the streets were full of shoppers, and there were several gallerie (shopping malls) in the central city; there was a general feeling of prosperity. The colorful exteriors of the buildings kept me smiling.

After one night in Bolzano, I made a day stop in Verona. That's another place I hadn't visited in all these years of being in Italy; I didn't stay overnight because the opera season at the Arena was opening and I worried about finding lodging. I was pleased to make the stop, however brief, in this active city (again busy street life). I saw the Arena in daytime as set up for the opera, and the churches of San Zeno and Sant'Anastasia, which charged admission and gave out brochures pointing out their features, San Zeno being an important Romanesque church with great bronze doors and important art work. I had quite a good lunch at the Bottega del Vino.

I arrived in Milan late Saturday, July 1, and stayed at the Hotel Speronari, a good value near the Duomo; on Sunday morning I saw Leonardo's restored Last Supper (a good subdued restoration) and the art at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. At midday I went to the end of the Metro line and met Marco and his sister, who drove me into the country for the GTG at an agriturismo in the province of Pavia. We were joined by Travelziner Simona from Torino and two Irish friends for a very enjoyable time of conversation and great food and wine from that popular place. That went all afternoon; it was dinnertime when I got back to the hotel and found that Flora and Brian had arrived. I told them I wouldn't join them for dinner, lacking an appetite and it being time for the Italy-France European soccer final (in Cecina I'd been caught up in the processions of cars celebrating Italy's semifinal victory). I watched the game on TV and it ended unfortunately with France's victory; it meant the streets were less noisy, but I still didn't get much sleep before we needed to wake up at 4 a.m.

PRACTICAL MATTERS

Now I'll talk about logistics. I had a free trip to Europe on Delta's frequent flyer program after taking three domestic round trips on Delta in 13 years. The bulk of the points were converted from Diners Club points for enrolling and using their card. I had the idea to fly into Florence, worrying (maybe excessively) about the crowds in Rome for the Catholic Church's Jubilee. I called Delta for reservations; with much effort, the agent booked an itinerary of Kansas City-Cincinnati-Washington Dulles on Delta, then Washington-Brussels-Florence on Sabena. This could be booked on Delta's program at that time, but Sabena would be divorced from the program by the time of the trip. I asked about taking the more direct route to Rome on Delta, but that was not available for the date. Flora, who lives in Baltimore, used my father's frequent flyer award to be booked with me out of Washington. My mother, who lives in Vermont, booked a Boston-Paris-Florence trip on Air France. Brian booked a trip from New York on Alitalia via Rome; so we were all to converge in Florence.

As departure day approached, Brian's passport hadn't arrived, in spite of his paying for expedited delivery. On the day of the trip, he needed to go to the State Department in Washington to pick it up, then take the train to New York to make his flight shortly after 4 p.m. For my trip, I got to Cincinnati and went to catch my connection to Dulles on Comair, Delta's commuter partner. They first announced a delay of about 25 minutes, no big deal; then the flight was cancelled, as were most of Comair's flights because of storms in the area (it was sunny at the airport when the first cancellations were announced, but later the storms arrived). I fly pretty often for someone whose travel is nearly all on leisure, and I hadn't experienced a problematic cancellation before; I'd been interested in having the experience to see what happens then, but with my needing an international connection and meeting with everyone, this was not a good time for it to happen.

The one agent at the gate needed to rebook all the passengers of that flight. Most of them were just going to Washington and were easily booked on a flight to National Airport. I had a complicated situation and held up the people behind me as the agent, who probably didn't need to deal often with international connections, made great efforts to find something for me but couldn't; she sent me to the Delta customer service desk in the main concourse. The agent there looked and said there was no way I could get to Florence that night; she sent me to the international check-in desk at the front of the terminal. Before checking there, I called Flora's roommate and my father to leave word of what I knew and urge Flora to go on her trip even though I wasn't there. Then I got to the next agent, and she arranged to put me on standby on both of Delta's Cincinnati-Paris flights that night, then on my mother's Air France flight to Florence. Perhaps I should have asked if they could get a message to Flora at Dulles; I called Sabena to try to get her a message and was kept on hold for about 40 minutes, then got an agent who was very unpleasant, saying it was too close to flight time (about an hour).

I went to the gate for the Paris flight; it was delayed to wait for the pilots to arrive from other flights. They also waited for other connecting pax and then called my name; I was on the flight. There was still more of a delay, attributable to the weather I suppose; we took off maybe 90 minutes late. I was glad to be on the way to Europe and don't remember much from the flight; on the fully booked flight, I had two seats to myself, and I had sparkling wine. When we arrived in Paris, my mother's flight to Florence was on the board, but listed as closed. I was already confirmed on the next flight, though. I had forwarded to my mother some tips from Susie on The Travelzine on changing terminals at Paris CDG airport; I hadn't expected that I would need them myself. I showed the Air France transit agent the carbon slip that Delta had given me in lieu of a ticket; this agent said she couldn't take that as a ticket, and sent me to the Delta ticket desk at the front of the terminal. The Delta agent said the slip was fine and sent me Terminal 2F for the Florence flight. The agent there honored the slip and issued a boarding pass. Eventually, after three hours at CDG, I got onto the small jet for the flight to Florence.

I had my first arrival at the small Florence airport; as I feared, my suitcase did not arrive. I had a smaller bag than on past trips but was not ready to take a carry-on alone, especially through all those changes of planes. At Cincinnati, I'd heard an agent say that all the Comair bags were likely to be in a hopeless pile with all the cancellations; still, a baggage handler stood by at the gate as they called the standby pax, giving me hope that they were getting my bag. As I prepared to file my lost luggage report, I saw that Flora's flight from Brussels, where I had been scheduled, which was supposed to arrive an hour earlier than I, was delayed until an hour later. I called the hotel and found that my mother and Brian had arrived. I filed the report, the first Brussels pax were coming out as I finished, and there was Flora. We were relieved that we both made it. She reported that the Brussels-Florence flight had limited the number of pax because of a problem with the door (?); they were going to put others on a flight to Bologna and bus to Florence. Flora didn't like that and pretended to be part of a group that was authorized for the Florence flight; it turned out they were from the school where she teaches once a week, so it wasn't such a transgression. They boarded and sat on the ground for some time; Flora pressed the call button to ask why the delay; they said because there were no pax in front the plane was unbalanced and they were putting weights on the seats; that was disconcerting to the assertive people who had gotten onto that flight.

So we went on to the hotel I'd reserved, the Hotel Maxim. I had some concerns about it being a one-star hotel, but the comfort was fine and it was a good deal for a centrally located hotel. Although we did nothing but outdoor wandering in Florence, it was a good arrival point, particularly with the lack of heavy traffic in the city center. I had booked an Avis rental car with a good deal from Auto Europe. I booked it for the afternoon of the day after our arrival, to have some recovery from the flight before driving in Italy; I was glad that wasn't delayed by a day. I had some hope for an upgrade, but we still had a small new Fiat Punto. We left without word of my bag; if we'd had my bag, we would have needed to put someone on the train.

We got to Umbertide; as another day passed, I was increasingly worried about ever seeing my bag. My report had an Air France code, but the original tag said nothing about AF, since I wasn't scheduled to fly with them; I worried that the connection would not be made. I called Delta's Italian number and they didn't want to look up my tag number, saying under interline rules the report went through AF even if Delta lost the bag. We don't have a phone in Umbertide; we gave the number of an American friend in the next town, Citta' di Castello. We had lunch and an afternoon with this friend; as we were leaving, we got the call that the bag had been found and was being delivered to our house. The revised tag said that it went on my original Sabena flight numbers; I don't know which day.

I called Sabena to get seat assignments for Flora's and my return flights; I probably wouldn't have called just to reconfirm. They said that my reservation was cancelled because I hadn't taken the outbound flight. I made clear that this was beyond my control; they said the flight was full and they could only put me on the waiting list. I called Delta, since their cancelled flight was to blame; they kept me on hold and worked it out with Sabena, getting me confirmed on the flights.

In the middle weekend of our stay in Umbertide, we had a visit from Martina from Torino, a young woman we like very much who spent a year with us in the States as an exchange student. After bringing her from the train, I parked the car, checked to see if it was within the space, it wasn't; I went in to move it, and the key wouldn't turn. I called Avis, and they said they could only tow it and I would need to go to Perugia the next day to get another car. It's good that it was Friday night rather than Saturday, since even Avis's airport office is closed Sunday. It worked well that the new car was a roomier Rover, which allowed all five of us to go to Gubbio.

Another event with a logistical consequence was that Flora and Brian found a kitten in an Umbertide traffic circle at midnight. They named the kitten Umberto and were determined to bring him back to Baltimore; he was just old enough to get his shots. They were going to travel around Italy and my mother was going to visit her cat-loving friend near Geneva. The initial plan was that my mother would take the cat to Switzerland, then take the train to Milan, hand him to me, and turn around to return to Switzerland. I didn't think this was good in the first place and I had very little time in Milan, most of it taken up with the GTG. It would be better to take him to Vermont and then get him to Baltimore. As booked, my mother, Flora, and I were all connecting in Brussels on the same day, but the former would get there after our flight had left. She arranged to get an earlier flight from Geneva to Brussels so we could have a reunion and the kitten could be handed over.

So finally, we got to the new terminal at Milan Malpensa Airport and took the first flight of the day at 6.40 a.m. to get to Brussels. The flight had a short delay because of visibility in Brussels; we all got there and had our reunion, sitting in the Diners Club lounge. The cute kitten got doting attention from many quarters, and was well-behaved through the transatlantic flight. I slept through most of it. We arrived at Washington Dulles and breezed through customs; Flora went off to find a way to Baltimore, while I had to go via Atlanta to Kansas City.

This trip meant a lot to me; thanks to anyone who has read through this.

You may write me at mcgarrel@griffon.mwsc.edu