He Says...about Italy and France

Getting to Italy was supposed to be simple: we were going to arrive in Pisa at 11:55 p.m., head immediately to our booked room, and get a good night’s sleep for the days ahead. Instead, after rebooking thanks to that damn volcano, we had to catch a plane in Dublin for Venice. At six in the morning.

Katherine didn’t get off of work until late in the afternoon, and we scrambled to catch a train to Dublin at 8:30 in the evening. We got to the capital city at midnight; figuring it wasn’t worth the money for a room to get only three or so hours of sleep, we had to camp out in the Dublin airport. I only have one thing to say about that: don’t try to sleep in the Dublin airport. It sucks.

So we landed in Venice nearly comatose with fatigue. The next adventure was finding a bus to the hotel room I hastily booked twelve hours before. We get on a bus. It says “Venezia” on it, a good sign. The first stop was at the Mestre train station outside of Venice––our hotel is also outside of Venice, but we figure it’s probably easier to ride into the city, then catch another bus out of it. My synapses were no longer firing by the time we go the Venice depot. We got on a bus––the number six––that someone says is going to Marghera, the town on the mainland where our hotel resides. Sounds good to me.

I had a crude black-and-white map of Venice and Marghera with me that I printed off of the internet. A quick judgement of distance told me that Marghera should be one of the first stops. Sure enough, someone dinged the bell and the bus stopped once on the mainland. I told Katherine that we should get out here, my worst fear being that the bus goes too far inland.

The bus took off, and then I realized that I had a new worst fear. I had no idea where we were. We were dropped off in the median of a four-lane highway. The stop was called Righi, which was cute.

See?

We darted to the side of the highway and I consulted my map. I figured we got off too early, and we were still in the industrial port area that skirts Marghera. Trying to project confidence for Katherine (who was fading fast at this point), I gestured to the north and said, “We need to go that way. Marghera should only be a few minute’s walk.”

Another bit of advice, if you’re ever heading into the industrial port area around Marghera, Italy: it is much, much bigger than it looks on a map. And much scarier. Into it we headed, and most of it looked like it was never rebuilt after World War II. Decrepit old factories and warehouses as far as the eye can see, and occasionally a dodgy character is present to stare at you. We walked for about an hour. At this point––how should I put this?––Katherine was…not happy. She was being quite vocal about how we were hopelessly lost, and that we’d never find Marghera or a bed. In her most desperate moment, she wailed (and I’m not joking), “I hate Italy and I hate Italians! Italy is nothing but a bunch of freaking lies!!!” Long story short: not an ideal start to our visit to Venice.

At the very least my sense of direction was correct. After about three miles of hot, sweaty walking through the industrial wasteland from hell, we got into the heart of Marghera. Just in time to see the number six bus driving by our hotel.

Oh, and the Mestre train station I mentioned earlier? That was a five-minute stroll from our room.

***

Thankfully, everything went much smoother after this. We had about twenty-four hours in Venice, more than enough time to get lost in its magical maze of streets and canals. It’s truly a stunning city, I can’t recommend it enough. Sure, there are literally more tourists than residents. And English is the default language, which does much to kill the exoticism. But the beauty of it all more than makes up for the shortcomings. The city is sinking into the sea as we speak, so you better go soon!


From there we went to Lucca, an small old fortified city north of Pisa. I finally got to ride one of Europe’s fancy high-speed trains––it’s a pretty sweet way to travel. Lucca is not as stunning as Venice, but manageable in size with a tiny fraction of the Venice’s crush of tourists. Fewer people speak English, so at least we got the chance to stumble through some Italian.

Outside of Lucca I found something I never thought I would be happy to see: an American-style big-box store. After two days of eating sausage and cheese from convenience stores (now that’s budget travelling), Lucca’s Esselunga Superstore was a joy to behold. We did rather well: one shopping trip there totalling €37 got us enough food for five meals, for two people. That’s €3.70 per meal, per person. Not bad!

***

Italy had one more disappointment in store for us. After Lucca we went to the Cinque Terre, a national park south of Genoa in Liguria. The park is famous for its hiking––notably the “blue route,” a path along the sea cliffs that links five small picturesque villages. The blue route was the impetus for the whole Italy trip in the first place. Well, we arrived in Corniglia (one of the villages) to find the hiking trails closed. If they get a few days of rain on the Cinque Terre the paths are apparently prone to earthslides.


Corniglia and its environs are beautiful, but without the hiking there wasn’t much to keep us there. Not a terrible thing, because the Cinque Terre towns are geared entirely toward fleecing tourists. And boy, do the tourists come in force. In Corniglia we heard English, German, French, and more English being spoken, but very little Italian. Such is the price of beauty.

Italy made me aware of how ubiquitous English has become. It’s the twenty-first century verion of Latin. Numerous times Katherine and I walked into shops, museums, or restaurants to have the Italian employees greet us in English before we even opened our mouths. Either I just look like an English speaker, or the assumption is as follows: regardless of where this tourist is from, he most likely will understand some English.

At least the French are holding out against the Anglicization of European languages. Even if they know English (and most of them seem to) it’s tough to get it out of them. My rudimentary knowledge of their language thus came in handy when we showed up in Nice, our final stop. In a nutshell Nice is like Miami, Florida, but in southern France. A Miami where the women sunbathe topless.

***

Coming through customs once back in Dublin, we were reminded of the difference between Ireland and the Continent. In the mainland airports we’ve been in, the custom officials pay only enough attention to you to determine if you’re the person pictured in your passport. They don’t say hello, they don’t smile. They generally seem miserable. But airport officials in Ireland have always been chatty, and this time was no different. The man we got this time asked us about our luck finding work, and then lapsed into a very Irish lecture of “This country is going downhill very quickly, lads. Things are getting very bad––you’ll be heading back to the States just in time.” Depressing, yes, but better than the chat I had with the customs official at Shannon Airport in County Limerick: after telling him that we have visas and live in Cork he said, “Well someone has to, I guess.”