From: Rainer Subject: Rainer's Europe Trip 1998 -- part 26 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 01:34:07 EST Hi all. It was a short night. I woke up early at 0500, anxious about flying home today, so I wrote a couple of more parts. My goal of completing the journal before I leave Europe will fall a little short. There is just a little bit left describing our trip to Cinque Terre, the return to Paris, the unexpected overnight in Tornia, and the last, pleasant, but full day of our trip in Paris. I'll probably get to finish that on the plane and mail them out from Portland. In theory, that is still part of the trip, just not emailed from Europe. Cheers, Rainer Monday, 10/19 -- part 26 Our first morning in Italy has us waking up to rain, not just a shower, but heavy rain and lightning and thunder. The view of the lake almost totally disappears in the downpour. Last night the concierge said that the view is obscured because of the humidity. Boy, is it ever! I wait with getting the car hoping that the rain will let up. It doesn't. In Italy there are warnings in the tour books and even on the designated parking areas around hotels and rest areas that such-and-such an area is not supervised. Don't leave anything in your car. Break-ins and thefts are common. The parking area for the hotel is several blocks away and locked from midnight to 0800. The car's still there when I pick it up. Another 28,000 Lire is added to the hotel bill, which comes close to 400,000. The money is ridiculous. We were surprised that there are coins. The smallest denomination bills are 1000s, which are used frequently in parking meters to buy 20 or 30 minutes of parking time. After packing the car and waiting to get all of the windows defogged from our rumaging around and being wet to begin with (it's very warm in Como) we head out on our drive to today's destination, La Spezia. We've studied the maps and this seems like it's conveniently located between Pisa and Cinque Terre, the two places we really want to visit next. The plan is to stay there for 4 nights. We're glad to get out of Como and on the freeway, here called the autostrade. The rain doesn't get better. It get's worse. There are some real downpours on the autostrade. Around Milano the traffic is very heavy in addition to the rain. This has the benefit of giving us more time to figure out the signs and which way to go since the traffic is at a crawl. Autostrade toll booths take visa, give no receipts, and a computer voice says stuff like, "You inserted your card wrong," and "Arivaderci." Of course it says it all in Italian which I don't understand. When the toll booth says "Arivaderci" it is a good thing, because it indicates that you're done and the little ramp thingy lifts up and lets you leave the toll booth. There are quite a few toll boths on the way to La Spezia and we add several more thousands of Monopoly money to our account. After Milano the traffic thins out considerably and driving is much less stressful. However, the rain doesn't slacken. There's not much scenery although we are doing a lot of descending as we get closer to the coast. La Spezia reminds me of northern New Jersey -- very industrial and crowded. The 45 minute detour into and back out of town is a waste since none of us want to even bother looking for a place to stay here. The GPS helps me get back. We decide to go for Lucca, instead. Lucca seems nicer; it's much smaller. We have some trouble finding the hotel, a 13th century villa, that we picked out of the book. It's supposed to be 2 miles (miles not kilometers) out of town on the highway to Pisa. We give the directions some slack and drive at least 10 km with no sign of the villa. We, actually Vera, asks for direction since her Italian is so much better than mine. She shows people the book with the name of the hotel. People shake their heads and shrug their shoulders. We turn around and head back and ask some more. Two young guys say something about 200 meters up the road on the right. There's nothing there. We ask again. Of course no one that we ask speaks any English. The last man gives us at least 5 minutes of instructions with lots of hand motions. At least he seems to have recognized the hotel name and communicated to us that we need to go back into Lucca to a traffic light. I don't know what else he said. We thank him and drive on. It turns out that we are the alternate route of the highway mentioned in the book -- same number but with the little letters "bis" under them. No one knew what that meant. The Italian dictionary that we have along is worthless. We've not found anything in it yet. We find the hotel. Hooray. The place seems empty and they do have a room. The room is even more expensive than the night before, but everybody wants to stop. It's been a long, hard drive today. It's almost dark and we want a home. The plan was to stay for 4 nights, but because of the price, nearly half a million (without breakfast) we only commit for 1. The room is very large, a suite. The ceilings are very high -- reminiscent of the Hotel Kolumbus in Berlin. Everything, even the refrigerator for the minibar is covered in an awful blue material. I hate to say wall paper because it's not paper. It's some sort of patterned cloth or fabric. There's no restaurant in the Villa Prinzipessa so we head into town for some dinner and also to find some snacks, drinks, a bank machine which doesn't work, and new headphone for the split ones currently attached to the Sony Discman. The rain starts up while we're driving around Lucca. We seem to be in rush hour. My Italian driving skills have been honed already and we survive. We stop at another hotel and look at the room, almost a fourth of the rate we're paying at the Prinzipessa, but two thirds of the family doesn't like it. It doesn't look like we need to make a reservation so we leave it open until later tomorrow hoping to decide over dinner what will happen next. The lady at this hotel, The Napolean, gives us instructions on where we can find a place to eat -- a local spaghetteria. The instructions are simple and in English. But we still can't find the place. We stop to ask at what appears to be a bar where this place might be. This place was it. The restaurant part in the back room was dark since it didn't open until 1900. We were early. We order a vino, birra, and sprite and sit in the bar until the restaurant opens. Dinner is very good after a bit of a struggle with all Italian menu and the crummy dictionary which doesn't contain anything useful. The liter of wine makes me feel better than I have in a long time. It is here, over dinner, that I decide to pick up writing the journal again. Later in the room I outline what's happened since I stopped writing and build the framework for the rest. Plans take shape for tomorrow: visit Pisa and then find a smaller town up the coast near Cinque Terre. Lucca seems nicer that the other towns we've visited in Italy. Size seems to have a lot to do with it. Size does matter.