She Says...about Italy and France

For the first time in my life, I saw planning ahead bite Brandon in the butt. We were meant to leave for our grand tour of Italy on Wednesday, 5 May. Brandon, always the one who plans ahead in our relationship, bought train tickets online to get us from Pisa to Lucca on Friday, 7 May. But that volcano in Iceland is still erupting and the changing winds and weather patterns mean that flights over Ireland (and Europe) will continue to be canceled whenever winds blow in an unfavorable direction.

Our flight to Pisa was canceled, and our train tickets were null and void. So I think from now on, Brandon will probably start to plan ahead at the last possible minute. This cancelation ended up being for the best though, really, because we got to see Venice. We were able to rebook our tickets for Friday morning; the only catch was that we had to fly into either Rome or Venice. We chose the latter because we thought it would be more manageable with the limited time we had there.

You’d think getting to Venice would be easy, right? We’re already in Europe. All we have to do is hop on a plane and fly there. Not so.

Oh, what a journey it was! Brandon and I woke up at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 6. I worked a full day and we caught the last train from Cork to Dublin. There were even complications the night before we flew out. News reports late in the day on Thursday were saying wind conditions might change over night and early morning flights could very possibly be affected.

When would the Irish Aviation Authority issue a statement on that possibility? At 8:30 p.m. of course: the same time as the last train to Dublin. Dublin doesn’t have any 24-hour internet cafes (somehow Cork does, though), so we stopped into a hostel to find out if they knew the flight situation. We heard that all was good to go, and decided we would head to the airport. The time was now roughly 12:30 a.m. We caught a bus and got there a little after 1 a.m.

We did our best to sleep in the airport. We settled in a spot downstairs that was quiet for about 40 minutes, until a woman sitting near us started speaking very loudly in another language on her mobile. It wasn’t a short phone call either. So we got up and desperately looked for another seat. We eventually found one. The time was now about 2 a.m. We dozed off and on for about two hours before the cricks in our neck and the early morning buzz of travelers checking in woke us up. It was now 3:30 a.m., we wearily got up, ate a breakfast we had packed, and checked in for our flight.

Almost as soon as we were up in the air, Brandon asked me, “Do you mind if I sleep on your lap?”

“No,” I responded, “Go ahead.” And go ahead he did, he did a diagonal, across-the-airplane-armrest face plant and woke up two hours later with the imprint of my jeans on his face. To be fair to Brandon, he did wake up half way through the flight and asked me if I wanted to sleep on his lap. It didn’t exactly look comfortable, so I said I was fine and continued to try to sleep sitting up.

I mention all this because, by the time we got to Venice, I could barely lift my backpack up and put one foot in front of the other. And somehow Brandon’s two hours of sleep had refreshed him completely. He even went so far as to say, “I feel great,” at some point that morning.

As you will read in Brandon’s entry, things didn’t go so well from that point on. You’ll have to read his take on this trip for the full story with all the juicy details. But basically, we got off at the wrong bus stop. I asked Brandon, “Should I go ask the bus driver which stop is for Marghera?”

“Sure?” He responded, and with that the bus came to a halt and Brandon got up. I assumed he was going to walk to the front of the bus to talk to the driver, but no, he walked straight off the bus. I just about got off after him, the doors closed and the bus drove away. It was not the correct stop, and we ended up walking three to four miles through Venice’s deserted, ugly, somewhat frightening industrial park to get to our hotel.

***

Once I finally did get a few hours of solid sleep though, I felt a million times better, and we both completely and thoroughly enjoyed Venice. The Rough Guides series says one of the best things you can do in Venice is get lost, and that is exactly what we did. Brandon and I wandered around the islands of the city for about five hours, occasionally ducking into churches to look at the incredible extravagance, until 9:30 that night. At one point, Brandon told me he thought he should give me a big hug and kiss on a bridge over one of the canals, and he did just that. There were even church bells ringing. It was beautiful.

St. Mark's Square

We spent the next morning in Venice too, and then left for Lucca. (If you want to say it like a true Italian, make it a long “u” so that it sounds like “Looo-ka.”) We had one full day in Lucca, and that was really about all we needed. It was enough to go to the top of the Guinigi Tower, eat gelato, see all the churches (that were not quite as impressive as the churches in Venice), and walk around the medieval walls of the city.

Atop the Guinigi Tower

From Lucca, we went to Corniglia, a small town on the Cinque Terre. This trip turned out to be an adventure full of twists and turns. We planned this trip to Italy so that we could do some hiking on the Cinque Terre trails. And when we got there, we found out that the trails were closed. We were both a little bummed, but I embraced this change. After all, our flight to Pisa being canceled ended up being the best thing that happened on the trip.

We made a split second decision to cancel our reservation at the hostel for the second night, and move to Nice a day early. This, too, ended up being the right move, because the hostel in Corniglia was a prison-style hostel. Seriously. It was the strictest hostel we have stayed in yet. The man at the front desk had the biggest case of seriousitis I have ever seen. That man did not smile. At all. We were really nice to him, tried to speak in Italian, always gave him a big hello. You’d think he’d at least smile. But he was the most serious person I’ve ever met. And he really didn’t have to be: he works at a hostel in a tiny town of maybe a few hundred people that looks out over the Mediterranean Sea.

This hostel had rules like: “Check out time before or ABSOLUTELY by 10 a.m.,” “Excessive alcohol consumption will NOT be tolerated. Guests who violate this rule will be thrown out on the spot.” There was video surveillance, and you also were not allowed to hold onto the key to your room. You had to leave the key at the front desk with the man that did not smile every time you went out of the hostel. I’m guessing that he used the video surveillance to see which guests were coming in and out, because he always had our two keys ready and a complete stone-faced stare on his face every time we came back in. Oh, and if you lost the key somewhere in the five feet between your room and the front desk, they charged you €5.

Corniglia was beautiful, though. You could see most of the town in under twenty minutes. But we found our way down to the marina, and sat out on the docks with our feet dipped into the sea for about forty minutes. We also found a pretty cool waterfall. And the terraced olive orchards, the mountains, and the little villages nestled into the hillside just added to the charm and the beauty.

It took about seven hours by train to get to Nice, all said and done. Nice was our last port of call, and we were happy to be done with public transit for this trip. We didn’t realize this when we booked our trip, but we arrived in Nice right before Grand Prix weekend in Monaco. And the Cannes Film Festival started while we were there. There was a good energy in the city, everything seemed very much alive and happy. We enjoyed just sitting by the beach, walking around the old town, and relaxing a little bit.

Nice water in Nice, but a rocky beach. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

There were two South African men staying in our hostel, both in their mid-forties or early fifties, who were there for Grand Prix weekend. Over several hours of wine and whiskey, they told us all about South Africa, and invited us down. We exchanged e-mails and we may take them up on it some day. That remains to be seen.

***

Thankfully, the ash cloud didn’t interfere with our flight back to Ireland. We made it back, tired, but happy. Life on the Continent seems to be a little bit more private and reserved; the South Africans picked up on this too. I was happy to get back to Ireland, where life is quite the opposite. People always go out to meet in the pub, everyone is always up for a laugh, and life in general is just a little more social.

We both found it amazing how quickly our minds adapted to another language. In the four to five days we were in Italy we both started picking up Italian very quickly. Nevertheless, after a week in a foreign country, the English language is one of the most beautiful sounds you will ever hear.