The Road to Italy

It was with some trepidation that we planned our fall break road trip through Northwest Italy for a few reasons:

• We can hardly get in the car to drive to the grocery store without being asked three times “how long until we get there??????” (Always said in a plaintive and whiney tone – usually by Jim, but we ply him with snacks and he normally calms down.)  This trip was set to span 8 days, with three stops, anywhere from 3 to six hours of driving between each leg.  Unlike in the US, we do not have a car equipped with a DVD player so it is basically our kids’ version of cruel and unusual punishment.  I mean, we are driving through the Alps, but what does that have on the “Monster Truck Movie.”  (If you haven’t seen it, consider yourself lucky.)
• We were warned, numerous times, by our colleagues that driving in Italy is crazy.  Although, we took that with a grain of salt because Switzerland is one of the most orderly and controlled driving cities in the world, so by comparison, driving anywhere else seems disorderly and chaotic. (See post script)
• I recalled my grandmother telling me about how they took my dad and his three siblings to Rome when they were about the same age as our kids.  The upshot was, the kids were entirely unenthusiastic about all the “broken down old buildings”, so we fully expected the same reaction to Rome, particularly from the boys.  Claire is studying ancient Rome this quarter so we figured that would buy us at least seven minutes worth of interest, as compared to the minus five starting point with the boys.

Our itinerary was ambitious – Cinque Terre, Rome, and Milan – all in eight days.

So how did it go?

Both exactly as and better than expected.  As to the drive, it was as expected.  If driving were akin to a sport, in Switzerland, it would be golf – orderly, rule-bound, and proper.  In Italy, it would be akin to drunken dodgeball.  Luckily we wised up and once we got to Cinque Terre and opted to take the train for the last segment of the trip to Rome, which, in retrospect, we should have done for the entire trip – but we’ll chock it up to a rookie mistake.  Jim navigated like a champ, and I performed my role as the designated worrier with aplomb.

As to the rest?  The pictures below pretty much sum up the kids’ perspectives on Rome – most specifically, Abe’s.  Cinque Terre was by far all of our favorite – notwithstanding the fact that Anderson (along with an elderly woman from Seattle) got trampled at the train station by a couple of girls trying to hop on the train without a ticket.  

[The latter photo is Abe having a "moment" at the Colosseum].

My only exposure to the Italian police has been vicariously through watching the Amanda Knox documentary on Netflix so we were eager to get the heck out of dodge as quickly as possible.  I think the best summary of the experience is represented as follows: one train security guard is literally screaming into the face of this 20-something year old girl, while the other – on the phone with the police, is asking me if Anderson needs to be taken to the hospital.  In the background, Anderson is standing there happily practicing “the floss” dance, completely unharmed.  It was actually quite an ordeal –the train security were still busy berating the girls 30 minutes later when our train finally arrive.  Bottom line: don’t child trample or hop a train without a ticket in Italy.  The 2.50 euro you could save isn’t worth it.

That said, it was better than expected in that the kids were troopers – we walked 10 miles or more each day without a stroller and, although we carried Abe a fair amount, the kids hung in there amazingly well.  We’re passing along the long-held Giles tradition of being the parents speed-walking ahead of their kids urging them to “keep up!” (Ahem, Dad… which you got from Pa).  Builds character.  At least, that’s what I was told.

And it was nice to have some time with family to get away.  It is clear the kids are still processing the move – after we checked into our first Air BnB Abe kept talking about his “old school” and our “old house” in Geneva – it took us a while to realize he thought we’d moved again, which wouldn’t be a crazy assumption after three moves in 2 months. 

And the cliff notes – Cinque Terre is amazing and a must-visit site; Rome is a little overwhelming – so much history, it is a lot to take in.  I left with the following passage from E.H. Gombrich’s “A Little History of the World” reverberating in my mind:

“Imagine time as a river . . . Now we can see . . . the smoldering ruins of Carthage. In those gigantic stone funnels the Romans watched the Christians being torn to pieces by wild beasts . . . On this hill the fortress still stands where the struggle between the pope and the emperor, over which of them was to dominate the world, was finally decided. . . and there the new St Peter’s , the cause of Luther’s quarrel with the Church. . . All we know is that the river flows onwards. On and on it goes, towards an unknown sea. . .  From close up, we can see it is a real river, with rippling waves like the sea. . . Look carefully at the millions of shimmering white bubbles rising up and then vanishing with each wave. Over and over again, new bubbles come to the surface and then vanish in time with the waves. . . We are like that.  Each one of us no more than a tiny glimmering thing, a sparkling droplet on the waves of time which flow past beneath us into unknown, misty future. We leap up, look around us and, before we know it, we vanish again.  We can hardly be seen in the great river of time. . . But we must make use of that moment.  It is worth the effort.”

Here's to making it worth the effort.

We miss you all – we love you bunches.

Post script:

Switzerland is crazy about their driving rules.  I thought Chicago’s traffic cameras were stringent by they have nothing on the Swiss.  Most roads are equipped with “gray boxes” that track your speed.  We’ve been lucky enough to avoid any tickets so far but the basic framework as we understand it is as follows: if you speed regularly or excessively, the fines shift from a basic flat fee fine and are levied based on a percentage of your salary, so they get steep pretty quickly.  If you are an unrepentant speed limit violator, after a certain number of tickets (I don’t know what it is, but knowing Switzerland it is probably a paltry 3), they simply impound your car, sell it, and donate the proceeds to the government.  Probably to fund more speeding boxes.  All that is to say, driving in Switzerland is an incredibly orderly and civilized affair.

Cinque Terre:

Claire did her oral report this fall on the Pantheon - it was fun to see it in-person!