First of all, I did make it home from Italy in one piece. It took 10 hours on a train, 7 hours in Milan, a 16 hour bus, a metro ride and finally an hour train to get from Bari, Italy to Orléans. It was not an easy trip, nor a free one, but I do have some great stories to tell.
But before I talk about Italy I have to cover the first part of my spring vacation. I think if I were going to give this vacation a label, it would be transportation hell -- it’s very fitting. First of all, Seamus, Caitlin and I had planned to visit Chenonceau, which is a really awesome chateau that I saw with my parents over Christmas (and 4 years ago). Unfortunately, SNCF was on strike during the first week of vacation from Tuesday to Thursday. So, Friday morning we went to the train station all set to buy tickets - except... the strike wasn’t over. I had previously thought that strikes could only happen on the days that were specified, but turns out I was wrong! We were at the train station at 9 am, with a picnic packed and found out that we could indeed get to Chenonceau.... at 6 pm. So instead we went to Parc Floral in Orléans, which is an amazing place. We brought our picnic, enjoyed it on the lawn and played frisbee for a good while. We spent 6 or 7 hours wandering around and had a blast.
The next day we headed off to Paris to visit Adam, a friend of Seamus’. We had a really lovely time. We went to the Luxembourg gardens and sat on the grass (which, it turns out, is forbidden). The very best part of sitting on the grass at the Luxembourg Gardens? Everybody else copies you and then gets in trouble! Ha! That evening Seamus and Adam went to a play while Caitlin and I drank wine in a cafe with a view of Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and the Seine. I think we might have gotten the better deal. That night we partied it up at Adam’s school apartment - which was actually in the school. We slept in the next day and then wandered around Paris. Drank some wine in front of the Eiffel Tower and spent the time trying to find a cheap way to get out of the sudden, surprising cold/rain.
During the second week of our vacation, a trip to Italy was planned. On Wednesday 6 of us headed off for Italy, Caitlin, Seamus, Samantha, Jenny, Catherine and myself. I swear, this trip was a marvel in public transportation, we took a tram to a train to a metro to a bus to a plane. We got into Bari in the evening and were met by friends of Samantha who were amazingly nice. Due to space concerns, Seamus and I had to stay in a B&B while the four girls stayed with the family. We stayed in a really beautiful little town, Polignano a Mare in the world’s cutest B&B ever. Polignano a Mare is right on the Adriatic and an adorable little place. We had a decent dinner for super cheap and the next day headed on a a little trip to visit a huge cave and an adorable little town, Alberobello. The caves were really, really amazing. We ended up getting a personal tour guide, due to some confusion over what to do with 6 english speakers, and even though it was all in Italian, Catherine was able to translate amazingly. I think it might have been the best tour I’ve ever gone on. The guide was really nice and even let us sneak pictures:
That afternoon we headed to Alberobello, which is a cute little town made up of Trulli, traditional round houses. The town is very touristy, but the houses were adorable! We did some tourist shopping and picture taking and then headed back.
Trulli houses
That night Seamus and I had dinner at a sandwich place where the waitress was, essentially, ecstatic to meet us! It was such a change from France!
Friday we had planned to go Leece, but ended up exploring Bari and Ostuni instead. Bari is a harbor town and a bit rough around the edges, but the historical center is gorgeous! In the afternoon we got an adorable tour of Ostuni, the white city, by Antonio (Samantha’s friend’s boyfriend’s father) who besides his gorgeous house in Torre a Mare has a little place is Ostuni. The town is built (carved?) all out of white stone on a hilltop and is composed of tiny, winding streets. It was adorable.
That night, the girls, and Sammie’s friend and her boyfriend (Natalia and Valerio) came to Polignano to have dinner with Seamus and I. We ended up eating at a lovely pizza place. Friday, of course, was the day that we realized there were significant problems with the whole Volcano issue. At this point our flight was still on, and we felt fairly confident it would end up being ok (how wrong we were...)
Saturday, which was supposed to be our last full day, we went sailing! Antonio and Anna-Maria have an 8 person boat and offered to take us out on the Adriatic! It was an absolutely incredible experience and, even though I got sea sick 10 minutes in, I loved every minute. On the boat we learned that our flight had been canceled - which seemed perfectly fine with all of us. The weather had finally gotten nice and we all thought, hey, extra vacation days! In the afternoon we sent e-mails to teachers and parents and decided to wait and see where the adventure took us. That evening Natalia and Valerio had a Salsa competition in... wait for it... Monopoli! We decided to go and ended up watching Salsa dancing for 6 hours. I have to say, I had no idea how exhausting the whole experience could be. After 6 hours I think I was more tired than most of the dancers (who had the whole adrenaline rush advantage). At 2 am we all headed back to Antonio and Anna-Maria’s (where there was magically space for Seamus and I). Our original flight, but now canceled flight was at 9 am on Sunday. We planned to go the airport the next morning to sort out the whole flight problem (on 4 hours sleep), figuring that you never know what’ll happen.
So stuff in hand we left for the airport at 8 or so, hoping to find a solution to our flight problem. Caitlin, Seamus and I were in a car with Valerio heading toward the airport when we got pulled over by the Carabinari, the nasty Italian military police. I thought that maybe we had been speeding, but it was much more exciting than that! First, I should say that my seat belt didn’t work (and in fact was stuck behind my seat). So when we got pulled over, I didn’t want Valerio to get in trouble for a lack of seat belt, and so, with the advice of Seamus, decided to very quickly fall asleep (yes, I know there are many things wrong with the ideas presented in the last two sentences, but I also know that I had 4 hours sleep). So there I am, pretending to snooze away while 2 very large and angry looking carabinari are circling the car. Valerio is in conversation with one of them, when all of a sudden the other one knocks really loudly on my window and yells something at me in Italian. So, since I don’t speak Italian, I have nothing to say in response. Literally, all I can do is sit there looking scared saying, “I don’t speak Italian.” Awesome. Apparently, he was satisfied with my frightened look and so moved on to Seamus (who was in the front seat) and starts yelling at him. But, again, we have the same problem. Seamus doesn’t speak Italian. So this guy keeps yelling and all Seamus can do is sit and look scared and say, “I don’t speak Italian.” He realizes that Carabinari man just wants him to roll down the window, which he does, which then prompts the lovely police man to keep trying to talk to Seamus. Now, at this point you would think it would be obvious that, besides the driver, none of us speak Italian and therefore have NO idea what these people are saying to us. Valerio says to carabinari man, these people don’t speak Italian - does that stop them? Nope. Angry police officer #1 comes round to where Caitlin is sitting, jerks open the door and proceeds to look us up and down as if we were the most suspicious people on the planet. Then the guy looks at me, really intensely, and says ... something in Italian. He quickly translates to, “NAME!” So I say my name. Then he yells, “NAME!” So I say my name again. Then he gives up and yells something in Italian and then, “PASSPORTS, DOCUMENTS!” At which point we all had to give them our passports. While they were investigating our documents in their nice car, Valerio explains that they think he’s an illegal taxi and wanted him to prove that we were his friends. Now, I have to admit, I wasn’t sure how he would prove this. Caitlin is from Canada, Seamus, Ireland and I’m from the States. We couldn’t even prove that we were friends if we had to! Fortunately, Caitlin and I both have french visas and OFII forms, so I’m guessing they must have realized that we lived in France. After about a minute they yell for Valerio to come out of the car where they proceed to ask him, apparently 4 times, if he was an illegal taxi. Then they asked if he had a problem with justice. He somehow passed their ridiculous test because nothing happened. Our passports were returned and Valerio didn’t get in any trouble. The best part? After we’re all free to go, Carabinari man comes to my window and yells, “GOOD MORNING!” To which all three of us say, “Good morning.” To which he yells, “GOOD MORNING!” So we again say, “Good morning.” And then he yells ... “GOOD MORNING,” and walked back to his car. I think it might have been the only English phrase he knew - but he certainly knew it well!
We finally get to the airport, only to find out that everything we need to do to change our flights was online. But we do learn that there’s space on a flight leaving Wednesday at 6 am out of Milan (which is a good 9 hour train ride away, but you gotta do what you gotta do...). So we head back to the house and start exploring our options. Except, we can’t change our flight online (RyanAir, I hate you). Meanwhile, the family made a really lovely lunch for us - including a new favorite of mine: artichoke heart, tomato and pickle salad with a vinaigrette dressing. We also got to sample some homemade lemoncello made with lemons from their tree in the backyard! Now I really wish I had a lemon tree at home!
We spent our last day enjoying Torre a Mare - which is an adorable little town. It’s right on the ocean and as cute as can be. The climate is a lot like Arizona, including orange trees in bloom, cactus and nice dry air but with an ocean right there! Talk about a dream location!
Wednesday night we heading to the train station for our midnight sleeper train. The train pulls in, we hop on and figure we are finally good to go ... or not. The 6 of us were in 4 different cabins and we all made a horrifying discovery at the same time - our tickets were for the day before. When we changed them, the man gave us a lot of hassle but finally changed them for us. When he handed over the tickets, Catherine (who had been doing all the talking, and a great job of it) put them in her purse and none of us ever gave it a second thought. We were so tired, frustrated and disoriented that Caitlin and I actually believed it was the 20th and tried to argue the date with the conductor. By the time we realize our error the train is moving and we’re in a pickle. One conductor (who must have been in charge) tells us it’s ok, there’s space on the train we just need to follow him and sort it out. So the 6 of us follow him to the end of the train and after 2 hours of phone calls and sitting on the floor of the train we were finally allowed to pay for a new ticket and stay on the train. At 2 am we finally went to sleep.
The next day we spent an hour in the customer complaint office filling out forms for a refund that we may or may not get in 4 to 5 months. Which honestly, all I could do was laugh. I’m chalking that up to an expensive lesson.
Since we had about 6 hours before our bus, we wearily decided to go and see the Duomo - which was really cool.
The Milan Duomo
We slept our way through lunch and a metro ride to the bus station, and then all hell broke loose. We had purchased tickets online, but had to go through a ridiculous check in process that was incredibly poorly managed. Having a ticket isn’t good enough for EuroLines, you have to be on some magic list. Which Seamus, Jenny and I were on, but the other girls weren’t. Which meant that they wouldn’t let them on the bus. So after 10 minutes of Seamus, Jenny and I arguing in 2 different languages we finally broke down and started yelling (I even had to scream) and then, they magically put them on a different bus! They weren’t ever on the list, but they got to go home. The bus trip, well, I don’t really want to talk about it. First of all, 16 hours on a bus is never fun. Second, 16 hours on a bus with asshole, incompetent drivers is even less fun. And I’m going to leave it at that.
We finally made it home to Orléans after 36 hours of traveling. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a train station.
All in all, it was an amazing trip and an insane adventure. Someday I might even get a refund from RyanAir and TrenItalia. I’m not holding my breath though.
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