On the surface, Barcelona doesn’t seem so different this time. Yes, certain areas have too many tourists. That was true two decades ago, but then there are more people on this planet so what can I say. One can’t help noticing the signs of conflict going on with all the Catalonian and Spanish flags hanging from apartment windows and balconies, but I’m trying to escape politics on vacation, so that can be another conversation.
We have an apartment on Carrer Parlament which is a block from the Sant Antoni food market, sterile-looking on the surface when compared to other huge food markets around the world, but only because of its new renovation. You still can’t take your eyes off the food displays. Your hands want to touch all the produce and your tastebuds want to leap out of your mouth. (Why else is my mouth hanging open?) One vendor was selling absolutely gorgeous looking Catalan dishes and another had prepared paellas that made me immediately regret eating breakfast. There were cheeses, olives galore, rows of oysters begging to be shucked, stalls with mounds of nuts from all over the Mediterranean, trays of thinly sliced fresh sardines, beautifully displayed meat stalls, and massive bowls of prepared beans, all sizes and colors. There are barnacles, octopus (Dean’s favorite seafood with squid a close second), fish I recognize from cold waters and others totally unknown to me but still gorgeous to look at.
The mother of all food markets in Barcelona is La Boqueria Market which dates back to 1217, when it was just a meat market. Located on Las Ramblas, a mecca to tourists, La Boqueria has become so clogged with foot traffic that it is starting to get a bad reputation. Keep in mind that locals are doing their shopping there, many carrying on the tradition of shopping for that day’s main meal – just like their great-grandmothers did for their families. Foodies beware. Taking photos and clogging up the aisles will not be appreciated by the locals. Beware of the old women in black: if you slow them down they will treat you like you kidnapped one of their kin and you’ll find yourself being elbowed down the aisle to stale spices and cheap knives before you even have a chance to cuss like Tony Bourdain.
However, At the Sant Antoni food market, shopping is more civilized and probably cleaner, but I am not telling you to avoid La Boqueria, which is considered one of the best food markets in the world. Just be careful with your wallet or purse. Be respectful of the locals. Go as early as possible because the crowds of serious foodies or tourist gawkers can only be described as extreme and intense. Serious sensory overload can be expected.
RESTAURANT RECOMMENDATIONS: I should mention that Parlament Street, which is a short street, still manages to have one restaurant after another. On our first evening, we dined at Basseros, right across the street. The cuisine there is Spanish with an Argentinian influence. If we had time we would go there again. Last night, we did a total flip at the restaurant Pepe Tomate that is located next door to our building. We sat down at a table, looked at the menu and decided to go with our gut or I should say gut feeling. We walked out and ventured down an alley and found a wonderful place to dine, Benzina, which means gasoline. (The space used to be a mechanics shop.) The service and food were fantastic. We ended up talking to a couple seated next to us who were celebrating their 45 anniversary. They moved to Barcelona 13 years ago to be with their grandchild and have no plans of returning to the States. Fun evening.
The other culinary surprise was Hawker 45 (Carrer de Comerc 1), an American-Chilean fusion little, totally casual restaurant that made two kick-ass dishes that we will never forget: Philippine-style pork street tacos and a Vindaloo veal stew. Don’t ask questions. Just go there if you are ever in Barcelona.
Tomorrow night, we have booked Dans Le Noir for dinner which I will only say will be a unique experience that requires us eating with ALL our senses. It is called the “blind dinner”, and I’ll be telling you about it soon.
Since so many people are using Airbnb, Homeaway, VRBO, etc., we should all try to help each other out, and by that I mean, spend more than ten seconds on our reviews. I never book a rental without reading the reviews. Often, I read something that the host had not revealed in their description, i.e. 6th floor walk-up and no elevator. Here are few considerations that would be helpful to us.
Location. For the most part, these rental companies don’t tell you the exact address of the property (understandable). Instead they provide a general area map. Often, they tell you the neighborhood and often they don’t mention that it is just on the border of it and not in the middle like the circled map implies. So, you guys out there who are writing reviews need to beat them at their game. In your comments, mention what the apartment or home is close to, i.e. across from a wonderful bakery called Le Petit Cafe or the XXX Wine shop is just around the corner. Once I see the name of an establishment, I’m off and running on Google maps. With satellite, I “do the Google stroll” along the streets around that bakery you mentioned and decide if this is the kind of neighborhood I want to stay in and/or if it will make a good base for exploring. Often, there is a photo of the entrance to the building where the rental is located which is definitely helpful. If that is the case, I look to see if there is a potential noise issue that might arise from a downstairs bar or the beginnings of a large construction project in ear shot.
Get the Lay of the Land. Google Maps are also good for spotting all the restaurants, bars, markets, public transportation, etc. When I have multiple listings that I like, that has often been a deciding factor in my decision. (This afternoon, I did just that when looking at Copenhagen, Denmark. So much to do where we will be staying and tons of restaurants, cafes and cocktail lounges. I started looking up some of the restaurants online, reading their menus. It was just too much. I had to go downstairs and whip up a snack.)
Spill the Beans. If you noticed in the host’s description that they had failed to tell you about all those stairs or the nearby relentless construction, bring it up. Some people don’t want to return at the end of a long day of walking to four flights of steep stairs in Amsterdam. Others are light sleepers and they need to know. (I use a white-noise app on my phone to drown out street noise at night.) Even if the host was terrific and left a bottle of wine for you (which you should mention), if the plumbing is terrible or the hot water is short-lived, let it be known. I know. Sometimes it is hard to say anything negative when the host has been so agreeable and kind, but you owe it to us. There is an exception: when a problem arose during your stay but the landlord tackled it immediately or offered you some kind of compensation. I once didn’t reveal an issue with the property I was renting because the host told me he was getting it fixed the next day. If you mention construction, it doesn’t hurt to say if it looks like it is on the verge of completion…or at the very beginning. I should also add that when I read one review out of 15 that is very negative, I often put less value on it, especially if it seems unreasonable.
Give us your Recommendations. If there is a divine bakery that makes croissants fresh every morning, I want the name. That goes for any restaurants you consider memorable. If there was a particular dish you had that you dream about, I want to know that too. (I’ll tell you about mine: Dionysos Zonar’s restaurant located at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Order either the Greek platter or the seafood mezza. If weather allows, eat out on the terrace. I think there are two Dionysos in Athens so tell the taxi driver it is the one below the Acropolis. They’ll know it. It’s be around over 50 years.)
This also goes for supermarkets or open-air markets on certain days of the week. If there is a place to do laundry, once again give us the name or describe the location. (Airbnb & Homeway encrypt addresses and email addresses, but you probably can get away with the cross streets.)
So next time you do a review of your rental and you’re feeling lazy and you want to write something lame like, “Nice host. cozy apartment” which is almost as bad as Elaine in Seinfeld trying to put a positive spin on George Costanza as a blind date for a friend — just spill the beans. Help us all out.
We recently joined an organization called Trusted Housesitters, a global organization that lists house sitters/pet sitters. You pay an annual fee of $119 as well as the persons seeking to be house sitters. It is a network for finding someone who wants to travel (on their own dime) to your destination and housesit/pet sit with no costs to yourself except that they are living in your house, using your utilities and using your staples to assist them in food preparation. These people are vetted and have criminal background checks. Many of them are what you would call a professional house sitter. When you look at their profiles, you see why they do this professionally: they have traveled all over the world and lived in some gorgeous homes along the way, made new friends in exotic places, and often have repeat stays in the same homes.
The largest number of members are from the UK, then USA, and Australia.
You have to post a profile of yourself, photos of your home and why you enlisted the help of the organization. This site attracts people who love to travel. When you are planning a trip, you post your dates which you want to travel and see if anyone is interested. We took our first trip, posted our dates and got 12 people who were interested. Two from Australia, one from New Zealand, one from Switzerland, one from the UK, and the rest from the United States. In one case, one was a mother who wanted to visit her son but not stay with him. (Something about not wanting to be a 24-hour babysitter.) One was a gentleman from the UK, who wasn’t available for our dates but we wanted me to save his info and let me know about our next trip. He was looking for a month long stay which is something we are planning later this year. Actually, we had two people who asked us to save their profile for future trips.
When you review the profiles of the house sitters, you see all their reviews from past “gigs” and you also see a world map that shows all the places they have house-sat. The ones who have been at this for a long time have been to places like London, Paris, Provence, Beijing, Thailand, Auckland, Sydney, Tokyo, etc. Obviously, the more reviews you have, the better the locations. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
So how did our first house-sitters do? Well, first of all, we selected a couple from Austin because we figured it would be easier to have locals since this was our first booking. They came over a week before we left and spent an hour with us. Lovely, young couple, named Nathan and Bunny. Bunny had a web-based business so she was home all the time with Sofi, the roving escape artist in our neighborhood. Nathan is a senior technician at pool company and took very good care of our pool, even giving us tips on how to improve the performance of our spa heater. The both were conscientious, thoughtful, asked smart questions about our home and I would love to hang with them any day of the week.
So, excited to have taken the leap and tried this organization. It is going to make retirement and traveling so much easier and without the outrageous kennel fees. Sofi will be so much happier and the house will not be vacant while we are exploring new places. Sitters will get to experience the beauty around Lake Travis and be close enough to Austin to enjoy the food and music scene.
If anyone is interested in joining, please consider mentioning us so we can win some points they will go toward the annual fee.
West of Coromandel, on the scenic route along Firth Bay
I started planning for this trip to New Zealand five months ago and in a couple of hours, we will be boarding our flight to San Francisco, then on to Auckland, New Zealand. I am having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that we are leaving tonight (Thursday) at 11 pm from SFO and will arrive in Auckland shortly after sunrise on SATURDAY.Equally weird, on our return, we leave on a Tuesday at 2 pm and our plane touches down here in Austin the same day, an hour later.
I knew a little bit about New Zealand, but planning the trip was more of a challenge than usual because I simply didn’t know the lay of the land.One of the challenges has been the names of towns.A large portion of the names are in Maori, an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of New Zealand.I did learn that the vowels are pronounced the same as in the Spanish language.One major difference is WH Is generally pronounced like an F (the top front teeth and bottom lip barely touch). A significant thing to know since a lot of towns start with Wh.
There is one name of a town in New Zealand that would stump most people and that is the longest name place of any in the world per the Guiness World Records.Located near Porangahau in Hawke’s Bay (North Island wine country) is Taumata whakatangi hangakoauau o tamatea turi pukakapiki maunga horo nuku pokai whenua kitanatahu”, which translates into English as “the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as ‘landeater’, played his flute to his loved one.” Locals simply call it Taumata Hill.
I don’t begin to even think I know everything about traveling. There are travel warriors out there who are always one step ahead of the rest of us, so I’ll talk about what I do know. For the past ten years I have been booking short term rentals instead of hotels when we travel. My primary experience has been with VRBO, Homeaway and AirBnB. There are others, like Roomorama or Flipkey, but I’ve never used them. Once, when we went to Argentina, after receiving a friend’s recommendation, I booked a fabulous apartment in Recoleta through a local real estate agency Reynolds Properties short term rentals in Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires Apt (Old World Charm of Recoleta)
It was a smooth transaction and a wonderful apartment. For the most part, all have been very good choices. I have nothing against hotels, except they can be more expensive and if you are in one place for an extended period, they often feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable. I do remember a trip to Paris back in 2007. Our hotel was in a great location, charming but tiny and cramped (often described as “cozy”). After a while, I don’t give a flip about charm if there isn’t a place to sit except the bed or nowhere to put toiletries or my reading glasses. I vowed then that I would only stay in a hotel if it was for a day or two. Over that time period, I would seek out rentals.
I’ll warn you: Finding the right rental can take hours of your time. It’s a process, and hopefully some of these guidelines will save you precious time — Time that you can use to nail down some restaurants you want to check out!
First of all, why get a rental instead of a hotel?
It can be less expensive than a hotel. Compare prices of apartments with hotel.com or tripadvisor if you are skeptical about a property.
You will have access to a kitchen. I love this aspect. At breakfast time, I can sit at a dining room table in my jammies with spiked rooster hair and eat breakfast at my own pace.
In most instances, you will have more space than a hotel, and that may even include a studio apartment. (I really look at the photos of a rental property. Futon couches and flimsy chairs are a turn off. I want a chair I can curl up with a book and relax.)
You get to “live like a local” in a neighborhood. On market days, you won’t drool over food stalls. You can actually take home that fresh pasta or basket of fresh picked berries and experiment in your kitchen…or not.
Unless you are looking for a property in the suburbs, the biggest demand in rental properties tend to be in the thick of things. Hotels can often be in an area of the city that dies when the sun goes down and office workers head home or located by a mall. Yikes. I want to walk out the door and find restaurants and bars around me.
Our Vacation Rental Collobrières, France (above art gallery)
What neighborhood appeals to you? This is where some research is necessary. Perhaps, you are already familiar with the area, which helps. Figure out how you will likely spend your time. Will it be mostly going to museums, looking at architecture, galleries, or are you content with mostly exploring shops, eating in cafes, sipping wine and watching people? Look at a public transportation map and figure out how you will be getting around. Just Google or Bing “neighborhoods of your desired city” and you’ll find a wealth of information. Also, don’t just rely on the Internet. There are some excellent books out there and a lot of them are at your library, so no additional costs to you. Personally, I love Rick Steves’ books and website stories.
More recently, I’ve started looking at blogs by expats in areas that I am interested in visiting. Those blogs lead to other blogs or other websites and my notes become a notebook. It’s equivalent to working on a puzzle on the dining room table. Consult friends who have visited your destination. Consult friends of friends who have lived there.
There is another way of knowing what neighborhood is the most appealing. I watch a lot of House Hunters International and when I see an area full of restaurants, bars, and galleries in a city of interest, I jot it down for later use. Note: The TV series has become so contrived and scripted now that I can fast forward through a 30 minute segment in 7.35 minutes. (For the love of God, can they please stop having the buyers say, “Now we’re talking” or “We have a lot to think about”)
Once you have decided on your preferred location, start looking at rentals on established rental websites, such as Homeaway, VRBO, or AirBnB. I have not used Flipkey, but it also becoming popular. Here’s a Rick Steves article about vacation rentals. https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/sleeping-eating/find-vacation-rentals
Orvieto Apartment (Italy)
Looking for Your Rental: This is where you put on your detective hat. First sign in and create an account at the sites you have chosen to review. This way you can keep a list of favorites and any correspondence you may rack up with owners. Always remember, other people are looking, so if you zero in on a place that you love, don’t wait too long to make your booking.
Begin your search and place your booking as early as you can. The best properties go first. Also, many properties get repeat business and they are often the cream of the crop.
You may find yourself scanning the descriptions of properties. That’s understandable, but if you are really interested in a property, before you take any steps to contact the owner, thoroughly read the description.
Study the photos. Does the furniture look worn? Does there seem to be natural light coming in? If you can’t quite figure out the configuration of the apartment, ask if there is a floorplan available.
Study the amenities list carefully. Some of the things you want to look for:
What size is the bed? Outside of the USA, king-size beds are rare. A double in Europe is usually the equivalent of two twin beds together. A full is a little bigger than a twin.
Know if there is a shower and tub combination or just a shower.
If the apartment is on the 5th floor, don’t assume there is an elevator. In a lot of countries that will not be the case.
If you are going in the summer, and with recent heat waves in Europe, you may want air conditioning. Ask what rooms are air conditioned because sometimes it can be just the main room, or just the main bedroom. What is the source of heat in the winter?
If you have picked a bustling part of a city and you are concerned about noise pollution, ask if the windows are double-paned.
Know the terrain around the property. If you don’t mind climbing hill after hill at the end of day of playing tourists, then go for it. Me. I don’t want to have to hail a cab all the time. I want to walk but I always don’t want to walk and pant, day after day.
What all is included? Linens, towels, dishwasher, utensils and kitchenware for cooking?
Is there a washing machine, and specifically, is there a dryer? Often a dryer means some drying racks. If there is not a dryer, know that can be common in Continental Europe.
Is there WI-FI? Sometimes they will say they have free Internet, but it’s just a hard line modem/router. How many devices can it support?
If there is a TV, do they have cable or satellite and, if so, are there any English channels?
If you will have a rental car, find out if parking comes with the property. If not, where is the closest parking facility or is on street parking viable?
Does the owner have a list of recommendations, i.e. restaurants, grocery markets, ATMs, phone numbers for calling a taxi to the airport, or nearby metro or bus stops?
Is this an “Owner occupied” or “Holiday Rental”? Owner occupied means that you will be surrounded by a lot of the owners’ personal items, something I personally would not like. A holiday rental will be more geared to your needs and less “hands off”. VRBO and Homeaway are usually dedicated rental properties.
Read Reviews, then read them Again. This is often where your detective work really comes to play. Note references to noise pollution or poor water pressure. If more than one review has comments about a lousy mattress, you may want to know if the owner has addressed this issue or just not chance it. Do, however, notice if a reviewer seems to have expected much more than the price would warrant, you may need to trust that review accordingly. Keep in mind, renters often form a connection with their hosts and don’t want to say anything negative in reviews, but watch for subtle hints.
Contact the Owners Don’t rely on the website’s availability calendars to always be up to date. Contact the owners and give them your dates. If you have any questions, pose them now so you don’t waste everyone’s time. Ask them to furnish you with the street address if the property is indeed available for your requested time frame. Map out the location on Google Maps, and go one step further, check out the building and the neighborhood on Google’s street view. I studied our apartment in Orvieto, Italy so often that when we arrived in the town in our rental car, I was able to guide my husband directly to our apartment. (I also already knew where a bakery and a wine café was located.)
Read the Fine Print Before you Book
Read the Fine Print My preference is Homeaway and VRBO. There contract is straightforward, but then I have used them the most. I found AirBnB’s website easy to navigate, but I loathe their cancellation policy. The only time I have used them was when I booked a house in Philadelphia. I accidentally booked the wrong place, caught the mistake before 24 hours had lapsed and contacted the owner, who was great. The booking was five months away. I went to my account on AirBnB and cancelled my reservation, then booked the correct house. I rechecked the transaction and my account clearly showed my cancellation before 24 hours the period. Five days later, I get a call from the original property owner, telling me I was still registered to rent his place. After going into my account, I noticed I was no longer cancelled. I did this immediately, then got an email that they were keeping half of my deposit (around $600). Keep in mind this was a booking five months away! Their “help desk” is maddening, a list of multiple choices to explain your problem (none of which included my situation). I wrote several messages to them and I never received a direct reply. After two weeks, I got an email telling me that they were returning all of my deposit except a $100 administration fee. Way too much time was spent dealing with them and not once did anyone answer my questions. So, don’t hit that send button until you are certain you have the right place! Good luck if you have to cancel at all.
I’ll be posting shortly more information on what to look for when you first arrive at your rental.
We sampled chocolates everywhere we could. We bought truffles in shops on St. Germain and thoroughly enjoyed them all. Then we went to Josephine Vannier’s artisanal chocolate shop in Marais, just a block or two from the Place de Vosges. At first, I thought we were passing a curio shop. There was a guitar in the window and a saxophone. Fertility dolls and what appeared to be some African masks, and elaborately covered books. Then we realized the shop windows were filled with chocolate sculptures. Inside we discovered even more goodies.
I did a double take when I saw a display of chocolate dildos, which coincidentally had been reduced 50%, but Dean said no. All I can say — chocolate is chocolate. [In hindsight, I should have bought all of them. I could have had a party and cut all of them up (but one) into individual bite sizes (no pun intended) and served them up to my guests — then held up the lone, in-tact dildo. I really missed the boat on that one.]
Chocolate guitar/books
Chocolate Fertility Goodess
Art and chocolate at the same time. Had a car hit me just seconds earlier, and by some miracle, I actually went to heaven after all? Here’s there link. chocolate and art. Go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dome, walk the Seine and get chocolates at Josephine Vannier’s. Go just to see their window shop display.
I don’t know who Josephine Vannier is but I wish we were close relatives.
Located on 4 Rue du Pas de la Mule
Watch how many people press their noses to the window. The sales people should take photos of what we all look like as we admire their artful play on delectable chocolates.
For years, we have been going to the beloved taxidermy place called Deyrolle, located on the fashionable Rue de Bac off of St. Germain. Deyrolle Exhibits
Deroyle Taxidermy
I say beloved because several years ago when a fire devastated this stuffed menagerie, Parisians came out in droves to help. Afterwards, the army offered to house anything salvageable. The renown auction house, Christie’s set up a foundation to raise funds through an auction. Hermes created a scarf to raise funds, and animals from other countries were donated. All for a taxidermy place, you say? Go there.
Deyrolle is a magical place. Sometimes, you are looking at creatures that no longer exist. The wood floors have signs of fire and the orangutan that I “talked to” last visit is gone. The back room is still full of preserved butterflies and insects from places like Madagascar, a place I probably will never see. There are shells so outrageous that only God could have thought them up. You are looking at beauty, never beasts even if they once could have snapped your head off.
As we left, I spotted a side office. A woman was working at her computer. On her desk was a stuffed monkey and a large, regal bird. There were other creatures scattered around her office like the rest of us stack folders and arrange photos of family. It all made perfect sense.
Since 1872
Then there is Auruoze, the pest exterminator shop on Rue des Halles, where you buy poisons to kill rats and other city vermin. You are asking yourself. Why does one frequent places like this as? First of all, we stumbled on the place decades ago while looking for a car model shop, which turns out to be next door. It’s the window front display that grabs your attention. Stuffed rats dancing in a circle with several other rats hanging from traps above, their necks clearly broken.
In the past we’ve always just taken photos and went next door, but this time, I ventured inside and purchased some of the old fashioned mouse traps called Lucifer. I just know they will come in handy for an art project. I’m thinking some kind of political satire about Congress. Stay tuned.
The sniff test. We haven’t washed our clothes since Italy and have begun smelling our clothes to see if they are good for one more public wearing. Yesterday, Dean asked me to do the sniff test on a shirt he wanted to wear. Not surprisingly, it reeked of croissants. Continue reading →
Paris has flown by. Tomorrow we head home. I will hopefully be able to work on my Paris postings during the return flight and wrap up this trip sometime next week when I am working with a real computer.
The apartment worked out beautifully, although the master bathroom was weird. The design was so awkward. I won’t even try to explain except to say it would bring tears of joy to an American liability attorney. You basically take a cat walk on polished granite tiles to get to the deep, sunken tub/shower. Getting in or out is challenging especially when the wet tiles turn the floor into an ice rink. I think a breathalyzer test should be a requirement before venturing near that tub. Thank God there is a powder room for answering the calls of nature in the middle of the night, because to get to the master toilet, you must use that same cat walk.
Actually, having a big tub in a Paris apartment is uncommon, and I probably wouldn’t have been such a wuz if I hadn’t fallen on my knee on the second day of our trip. When one knee is giving you trouble, you can be guaranteed that some other body part will get jealous and retaliate, like the other knee.
We’ve eaten fresh croissants every morning. Our white-tiled kitchen floor has drifts of flaky croissant crumbs piled in corners and under the table. A broom is in order before we turn in our keys.
101 Public Toilets. Flushing a toilet can be a hide-and-seek game at times. If it isn’t obvious, just stand back and look around. It can be a lone button on the wall, maybe plastic or an antique brass looking thing that you might pick up in a flea market and wonder what it was for. It can be a chain hanging from the ceiling, a foot pedal, a sleek plastic, flush surfaced button that isn’t even noticeable at first glance. Like I said, just keep looking around and you’ll figure it out. Years ago in Madrid, I went into a restaurant bathroom, a cavernous room with a lone toilet. A light switch turned on automatically when I opened the door. I sat down and in only enough time to say out loud, I wish I had eaten some prunes, a timer turned off the light and I was thrown into total darkness. I spent the next few minutes feeling walls trying to find a light switch.
It’s all in the name. Or at least one must wonder why a group of ancient people named their town Bastardo. We passed the sign on one of our road trips, which started a slew of questions. What do you call someone from Bastardo? Bastardos or Bastardas? What do they call the mascot of their soccer team? Sons of bitches? Do they skip over the security question “what city were you born?”, simply because it causes too many problems? Of course, none of these questions were obviously important enough for us to turn around and check out the town of Bastardo.
A gorgeous drive. Originally, we were going to drive to nearby Todi, another charming hill town close to Orvieto. Along the way, we decided to pass on Todi and head over to Spoleto to a restaurant specializing in truffle dishes. The drive through the Martani Mountains, with occasional glimpses of a meandering river, was inspiring. We took turns driving so we each had a chance to gaze out the window and enjoy the scenery. The road is as curly and winding as my hair on a humid day but we both enjoyed ourselves tremendously, despite the tendency for Italian drivers to have issues with space. Specifically, wanting to be in our space.
On the way back, we stopped at a typical country restaurant that had a view of the river and vineyards below. We were the only tourists there. Loved that little place. I got a bottle of Prosecco that cost what a glass of same costs in the States.
Oh, and one other obscure little thing that puzzles me. There isn’t a word in the Italian language for “hangover”. The closest thing they have is “postumi di sbornia”, which means the aftermath of drunkenness. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? I will admit I never saw anyone drunk in Italy, but there must have been a tourist somewhere on a beach nursing a splitting head, cursing the light of day, and swearing off grappa for the rest of their life, or at least until happy hour. In spite of all the wonderful wine (and beer) Dean and I sampled, I am happy to report that during our entire trip, we never had a postumi di sbornia.
