Drive to Bubbio... "heh heh, he said boobie"

Slept in, ate breakfast, packed up, out by 10. Clockwork.

Since check out was 10 am and check-in at our next place wasn't until 5pm, we had some time to kill. So we stopped in Genoa for lunch and a walkabout. The drive to Genoa was incredible: mountains, city, the Mediterranean, it had it all.  And so many tunnels!

We made our way to the city center and found public parking. A guy immediately approached us and asked for a handout, which was a first for us in Italy.

We got a lay of the land and found a restaurant. The server was very kind and helped us, even though her English was as bad as our Italian. Well, their English is always better than our Italian. But Google translate helps. This restaurant was kind of cafeteria style, limited menu. They had a panini bar (pre-made) and a couple of different hot entrees. You could get what you want at the counter, or you could order at a table. But we had to figure all that out by a combination of observing and asking questions. One of the questions I asked via Google was Is it okay to get cappuccino after 2 pm? She laughed and said of course. Whew! She also confirmed that Bubbio (our next town) is pronounced BOOB-ee-oh, not BUB-ee-oh. I had my Italian yearbook student pronounce all the places for me, but I hadn't listened to that recording in a while. So BOOBIE-oh it is. Heh heh.

We walked around town the first thing we saw was a DM, a big German drugstore chain. Cristina loves it and it's a guarantee that we're going to go in and stock up on things, so I didn't even fight it. After DM, we saw churches, a big fountain, and Christopher Columbus's house. We met a family from New Jersey at Columbus's house. The guy was bemoaning that they charge 9 euros to go in and he scoffed saying how he's not paying that (we agreed). But then his wife came out and said cheerfully that she had purchased the tickets. Ha! We were fine with not seeing the inside. Later, they said there wasn't much to the inside, but bigger than it looked on the outside. It did look quite small.

Cloister next to Columbus's house

We found some gelato (strangely, ran into the New Jersey family again) and Cristina swapped contact info (they thought maybe the universe was putting us together and we needed to swap info). We walked back a different way past a bunch of high end stores. Back at the parking area, we posed at the victory arch built to commemorate something. A victory, I'm guessing.

The drive to Bubbio continued. We arrived, got settled. The place is huge. Like the place at Corsanico, we could easily have had 10 people here. And if this was Costa Rica, we could have fit 10 more in the basement, because it was huge and mostly empty. Plenty of grilling supplies (which we didn't use). Bella and I played a game of foosball before we headed to dinner. She won.

Getting settled in our new place

We had dinner at Frankino a short walk away, and once again had a very nice server who spoke a little English and felt bad that she couldn't speak more. (It's really okay! It's our fault. We should know more Italian.) When she heard that we had been in Ireland, she got very excited because she had a book about a guy who lost a bet and carried a fridge around Ireland, hitchhiking with it. We were too full for dessert, so we decided that we'd cook at home tomorrow and come here again just for dessert, because the dessert menu looked great. The server made a reservation for us (because Friday night would be busier) and she said she'd bring the fridge-guy book.

Bedtime was a little hot. We had a fan in each room, but the house was right beside a fairly busy road, so I shut the windows for quiet. Even with the fan, it was a bit too hot to get a great night's sleep.

A leaning tower, the beach, and a goodbye

Even though Cristina and I were sleeping in, I was awake by 7:30. Cristina got up around 8 and we had breakfast with the Hines. They headed out with Bella towards Pisa.

While I was taking my shower, the power went out. Cristina checked with Lucia and Lucia checked with the neighbors. It seemed to be out throughout the neighborhood. No power meant no wifi, and the laptop was almost dead also. So blogging was on hold.

Once the Hines were finishing at Pisa (and had acquired the obligatory photo where they were pretending to hold the tower) Cristina and I drive to a pizza place at the beach that Jacoby had picked out. The pizza was...different. Not terrible, but not as good as the other pizza we've had in Italy.

Many of the beaches here are the kind where you pay for access and you get a little umbrella area with a couple of chairs. I would assume you also get food/drink service. I'm not sure how much that kind of beach access costs, but the idea of sitting within a big grid of umbrellas is not my idea of a beach trip. I'm not really a beach person anyway. I'm more of a sunrise/sunset beach person, walking in the surf. We drove a few minutes to a free beach. The walk to the actual beach was longer than I expected. Bella didn't bring flip flips and left her shoes in the car. She didn't realize how hot the sand was going to be, so she burned her feet and finally had to run to get to the water. The Mediterranean was beautiful. Jeremy liked the sand better than Florida beaches (less shelly).

We didn't stay long, because it was the hottest, sunniest part of the day and the Hines had a long drive ahead. We said our goodbyes and the three of us headed back to Corsanico, for the first time in Europe a triplet instead of six. It will be weird not having the Hines with us!

We accidentally took the long way home. Cristina hadn't been feeling great all day, and she accidentally let me miss a couple of turns. We tried to go the way Waze redirected us, but it got very steep, very narrow, and after an awkward backing up on a teeny crooked hill, I went back down and we started over.

Nap time at home. The power came back on around 4 pm.

I finally got some blogging. Cris was still not feeling well. I found a thermometer in the bathroom, an old-school mercury thermometer. The cool thing about it is it came with a case that you swing around on a stick to force the mercury back down into the tip. I've never seen that before! She did indeed have a  slight temp of 100. I made her some chamomile tea and turned on some mindless Italian reality shows (there weren't many options on the TV). I sat in the downstairs salon (living room? foyer?) and blogged while she lay on the couch and rested. Bella and I had leftover pizza for dinner. I made Cristina some avocado toast, but she didn't have an appetite.

Rather than pack up tonight, we went to bed relatively early (10 pm) and saved the packing for the morning.

Tuscan farm tour

Today we had booked a Tuscan farm tour through Airbnb. Our last pre-booked tour before we head into the second half of our trip without the Hines.

We arrived at the farm and were greeted with a water/tea reception. We met a family from Canada on a three-week trip with their three kids (20, 18, 18). The hosts gave us a tour of the garden and vineyard (Cristina was loving it with her Seek app) culminating with a chance to feed Bacco, their pig. 

Next, we went to their wine cellar and watched a short video made by the brothers who own the farm and winery. Then the wine tasting began. We sampled five of their wines, 1 white and 4 red. Then a spell in their gift shop. We bought some olive oil and seasoned salt as gifts.

Next, we gathered in the kitchen where the chef, Luca, guided us through making pasta from scratch. We made the dough with egg and flour, then made ricotta ravioli. He also showed us how to make tortellini, as well as use a gadget to turn the leftover strips into ribbons.

The final step of the tour was eating what we made. At some terrace tables, the ravioli was served with wine and tea. The ravioli had a butter and sage sauce. Delicious. For dessert, chocolate salami, which was amazing. We sat at a table with the Canadian family, and it was fun to chat with them about high schools and college, and the differences in Canada and the US.

After the tour, we filled up the tank, stopped at a Coop (grocery store) for a few items, and found an ATM. Taking care of errands before we headed up the mountain.

We had dinner a short drive down the hill at Ristorante Rina. It had sprinkled on and off all day, and the rain and thunder came heavier during dinner. Most of us got pizza. I got one with artichokes, olives, sausage, and eggs on it. During dinner, Nancy explained that they were going to leave in the morning instead of Thursday like us, so that they'd have enough time to do the Lamborghini and Ferrari tours. So this would be our last European dinner with the Hines. It'll be weird not having them with us!

It wasn't far to the restaurant, so we took one car. On the way back, Bella and Jacoby sat in the trunk. This was a better European trunk experience for Bella. No screaming involved.

Back at home, the Hines packed up. We all sat in Nancy and Jeremy's room eating popsicles (Jeremy said the mint one tasted like toothpaste) and chatting about our trip. We decided that Cristina and I would sleep in, and Bella would go with the Hines to see the leaning tower of Pisa. Then we would join them at the beach for lunch.

We had told Lucia that it was pretty hot without a fan, so during the day, she purchased another one and left it in the house. So even though the weather was cooler because of the rain, it was nice to have a fan. A much more comfortable night of sleep.

Driving north to Corsanico

Perhaps because I was thinking about getting to the airport (metro to Termini, then train and bus to Ciampino) then getting the car, then driving through the heart of Rome to pick up the family, I didn't sleep well.

The first part of the plan went perfectly. Well, almost. I got up at 5:45 and walked to Re di Roma. I thought I bought the wrong ticket, but I finally figured out how to get through the turnstile with it. I caught the metro to Termini. No problems. In fact, I was 40 minutes early for the train that I had purchased a ticket for the night before on the Trenitalia app. I had time for a coffee, but I wasn't feeling it yet. Not hungry either.

Once they posted the platform for my train, I found the platform and got on the train. Not crowded. Picked a nice window seat on the shady side. Made it to the airport in about 10 minutes. Caught the bus to the airport (there was a little confusion, but most of the people on the train were doing the same thing, so I knew if I just followed the sunburned British tourists with rolling cases I’d be fine.)

When I got to the airport, I first noticed the taxi stand that we had stood at for over an hour. There was no line, and plenty of taxis. The signage for rental cars was lacking, so I went all the way into the terminal and then followed the signs as if I had just arrived on a plane. The signs directed me out into the front of the airport past the taxi stand…and then nothing. I walked around for 15 minutes or so looking for any sign of rental cars. I finally asked a police officer and he directed me to where the car rental offices were. I didn’t see a sign for the company I was renting from, so I asked a lady from Avis. She said I needed to call my company, so I made the call and was told that I needed to go to the one and only gas station on the airport grounds and wait for a shuttle (no signs there at all). I waited there for another 15 minutes and started to wonder if I was in the wrong place, but finally the shuttle picked me up and took me off-airport to my car rental place. I had no trouble getting the car (other than a brief moment when he didn’t think he could give me the car because my driver’s license said Francis Wayne Eury and my credit card said Francis W Eury. They didn’t match. Are you kidding me? But he made a phone call and got approval from his supervisor.) The car was a station wagon, as ordered. Gasoline, stick shift. A Renault Megane. He said I didn't need to worry about taking pics of the condition because I had full coverage. He also gave me a free second driver. Cristina didn’t get the international driving permit though, since we didn't think she’d be driving. I asked him how much that mattered. “If you get stopped by police, just have her tell them that she was driving for you because you had a headache.” Will that work? I asked. “Yes, especially with as hot as it’s been.”

Renault Megane...our chariot for the next 25 days

I entered the address into the GPS and hot the road. It felt strangely comfortable to be driving on the right side again. I had no issues getting back to the apartment by 10 am, despite the bad reputation that driving in Rome has. Everyone was ready to go with the luggage already downstairs. Jeremy had already picked up their car from Termini, so with all our luggage packed up, we stayed parked and walked up to Zama Cafe for one more Zama cappuccino and pastry.

The drive to our next Airbnb in Corsanico was about 4 hours. The GPS wanted to take us up the coast, but it was faster to go through the interior, so we did that. A few notes about driving on Italian motorways. The tolls are expensive. It cost about 30 dollars in tolls to drive from Rome to Corsanico. The other thing is sometimes the on-ramp doesn’t give you much room to merge, and people aren’t good about moving over when they see you coming on. There was at least one time where I had to stop at the edge of the motorway, at a full stop, waiting for a hole to jump in. That’s not great road design. But the roads are well-maintained, and there are lots of tunnels, which I appreciate because as much as curvy mountain roads are pretty, they are slow and use more gas. I like just cutting through the mountain and keeping things straight and level.

One consistency from our other European trips: Audi drivers still drive the fastest and are the rudest.

We stopped at an osteria (pub or tavern) for lunch. It was so hot and sunny. I couldn’t help but think We have four more weeks of this? We left jacket weather in Ireland for this? Cristina ordered a mixed antipasti, which was like a charcuterie board with meats, fruits, and cheeses, and even some beans. The rest of us ordered pasta, but unlike the other pastas we’d ordered, this one was a large plate-full. If I’d known it was going to be that much food, I’d have split one with Bella.

 

After the meal, I apologized (in Italian) to the waitress for my insufficient Italian. She very graciously returned the apology for her bad English (which was better than my Italian).

Fun fact: there was a shower in the men’s bathroom. I wonder if this restaurant serves as a kind of truck stop?

As soon as we got back on the road, the Hines realized they’d left Jeremy’s hat, so they went back and we went on. We later stopped at a service plaza for bottles of water.

When we got close to Corsanico, we stopped at a grocery store and waited there for the Hines. While we waited, we tried to find gelato, but were unsuccessful. We found a cute little book store cafe which warranted some photos for Sofia.

We could tell that our new place was a bit up a mountain, so we wanted to stock up on groceries before we got too far away from those options. The grocery store was huge, and it was easy to spend an hour in there looking at all the items. We decide to make Caprese salads for a light dinner (after eating so much pasta for lunch). The olive oil section was nearly half an entire aisle. We joked about it, but I’m sure foreigners to the US think our entire aisle of breakfast cereals is overkill. We are, after all, the kings of overkill.

We headed up to the Airbnb. The roads got smaller and curvier. There was one place where the road went between two buildings. It was a narrow space. So narrow in fact that I clipped the side mirror. The mirrors fold up and I decided then that I would fold both mirrors up before future trips.

We met our hosts, Lucia and Elisabetta, and they gave us the tour of the house. Huge is the best word to describe it. They made the same assumption that Michele did, that 6 people only needed 3 king beds, but they quickly made up a twin bed in a fourth bedroom when we explained Bella and Jacoby. A giant curving staircase led from the lower salon area to the upstairs bedrooms. The views were spectacular (though the sky was a little foggy). There was a large veranda that the front bedrooms shared, and on the ground level, a large terrace with picnic tables and umbrellas was the perfect place for eating outside.

We said goodbye to our hosts and got settled. I whipped up six Caprese salads and we ate outside. It had been a long travel day so as it got late, we just got ready for bed. There was no AC and it was pretty hot, and there were only 3 fans. Cristina and I served as tribute to be the room without a fan. We left the windows open, plugged in one of those bug things to keep the mosquitos at bay, and hit the sack.

Nightime view from our Airbnb

E-biking in Rome

I made coffee in one of those stovetop espresso makers (called a Moka pot) that I’ve seen used many times, but for whatever reason I never purchased one for myself. I’ll admit, since I had never used one, I watched a quick YouTube video. I used some of our coffee bought in Ireland. It’s actually very easy to use! I scrambled some eggs and made toast.

After two tours on Saturday, today was relatively light: an e-bike tour and then pack up to leave Rome in the morning. We bused to the bike shop (24-hour pass use #4!) and got fitted for our e-bikes. An e-bike has multilevel pedal assist, so that as you pedal, it gives you a little assistance. Makes going up hills a breeze. It only works when you’re pedaling. When you coast, it’s just like a normal bike. And you can adjust the level of assistance. It definitely inspired me to look into buying an e-bike to commute to GHS, now that I won't have a kid to take to school with me. I could totally bike every day with an e-bike. I know people who commute by normal bike every day, so I know I sound like a wuss, but I’m just being realistic. I commuted by bike when we were first married and we only had one car and a baby at home, but now with several cars in the household, I don’t bike but once in a blue moon. But I would like to save gas, for the planet and my wallet.

We set off with our South African tour guide, Glenn. He took us out the old gates of Rome and we rode the Appian Way, one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. The first part was constructed in 312 BC. It’s an old road.

Parts of the road are cobblestone, and other parts are larger stones that aren’t the smoothest bike ride. But there are little dirt trails on the sides when it gets too rough. Bella’s chain came off on a particularly bumpy part.

One of the highlights of the ride was stopping for a herd of goats and sheep. We had hoped to be stopped by a herd of sheep in Ireland but it never happened. So we finally got our sheep stoppage in Rome.

It’s cool that you can be in one of the biggest cities in the world and take a bike just a few kilometers and be out in the countryside with goats bleeting at you.

Unfortunately, Glenn took a tumble off his bike and scraped up his hands. He said he just held the handlebars too loosely, and when he hit a pothole, he lost control. It happened right in front of Bella and me. The rest of the ride, I made sure not to hold the handlebars loosely!

Another highlight was biking to the aqueduct, including part that runs through a park and can be climbed on. Glenn explained how the aqueduct, which enabled Rome to thrive and become the center of a worldwide empire, was also one of the reasons for its demise, when barbarians destroyed the aqueduct and cut off the water to Rome. I always knew the aqueduct was a big deal, but hearing it put that way gave it new gravitas.

The final stop on the bike tour was at a spring where locals bottle up the mineral water for health benefits. The water tasted a little salty, because it’s so chock full of minerals. Glenn described it as the original Gatorade, which we then educated him on how Gatorade was invented in our home town. He had no idea. At the spring were several vendors selling a variety of foods and drinks. One place sold bulk locally produced wine by the liter. You can either fill your own bottle, or buy a plastic 1.5 liter bottle. I got 1.5 liters of a secco rosso (dry red). I also bought a porchetta (pronounced por-ketta) which is a large, deboned piece of pork seasoned with salt and herbs before being slow-roasted to create a crispy skin exterior and moist, aromatic meat within, served on a roll. Porchetta is indeed a little piece of heaven for meat-lovers. I had read about them months ago while planning this trip but forgot about them until Glenn said you could get them at the spring booths. Munching porchetta with some red wine out of a big plastic bottle while biking through Rome. Good times.

We loaded up and biked back to the bike shop. Waited for the bus back to home. While waiting, I chugged some wine out of my plastic bottle and a group of Japanese people in traditional kimonos and make-up walked up and caught a bus. It was surreal.

By the way, we used our 24-hour passes a grand total of five times. Good deal!

We were super hot and dusty after our excursion, so it felt so good to get back and shower and put on fresh clothes. For our final night in Rome, we opted for a little restaurant in Zama Plaza that we had passed by many times. Like most restaurants in Italy, it didn’t open till 7 pm. Also, there’s a place called Pompi that is renowned for its tiramisu. Since they were open mid-day we decided to go have tiramisu, then a little nap, then dinner at La Madia.

We walked to Pompi. Or rather some of us walked and those under the age of 20 rented scooters. Bella had wanted to do scooters at some point and this seemed like the best time. So she and Jacoby got their scooter time on the way to tiramisu.

Pompi was great. We got four different kinds of tiramisu to share (but Bella got her own). Nancy and Jacoby also got gelato. I got a coffee, even though it was afternoon. When in Rome. I did forgo the cappuccino since we’ve heard that it’s bad form to drink dairy in your coffee after 10 am or so. The reason, as explained by Pete, was because at midday you drink wine and eat pasta, and putting dairy in your coffee causes indigestion. Sigh. Okay, Italy. I’ll play along. For now.

We walked back to the apartment and got our little pre-dinner nap.

We got a table at La Madia around 7:30 and realized for the first time that we’ve been kind of ordering wrong at restaurants. We’re used to looking at a menu and picking the meal you want, and it will come with sides. And maybe you get an appetizer, or maybe not. Instead of individual meals, many of the restaurant’s menus here have it broken down into courses: antipasti (appetizers), primi (first courses, usually pasta or risotto), secondi (second courses, usually the protein like fish or beef), contorni (side dishes, like salads or potatoes) and then you have dolci (desserts), and THEN you have coffee (not with the dessert.) We know all this because Nancy had googled it and then Cristina finally asked one of the waiters and he had enough English explain it further. So the food prices had seemed kind of good to us (each course was in the 8 to 15 euro range) but if everyone ordered an antipasto, primo, secondo, and dolce, most meals would be in the 35-50 euro range per person. That’s a bit too much for our budget, and likely way more food than we can eat. But Italian restaurants also expect you to stay for two hours, so you’re eating those courses over a good chunk of time. It’s an experience, not just sustenance. I like the idea, but I doubt we’ll follow that procedure in our time here. We might adapt and start getting one or two of each course to share, family style.

Back at home, we packed up. I had to get up early to take a train to Ciampino to pick up the rental car that would carry us throughout the rest of our time in Italy.

Doing the touristy requirements

We got up and headed downstairs to get coffee and a little pastry for breakfast at Zama Cafe. One of the pleasant surprises in Italy is how inexpensive this kind of breakfast is. We got 4 cappuccinos and 5 pastries for a total of about 11 euros. And it was excellent cappuccino, made in a big expensive espresso machine, none of that push-button espresso here.

We tried to figure out the bus for the Colosseum, or a taxi, but we started to run out of time, so we opted to walk it again. We knew it was about a 30-minute walk. Bella and I walked a bit faster than the rest so that we could at least get to the meeting spot and let Pete know that we were running late (though a text message worked too). We met Pete near the water dispenser at the Colosseum. He had a guide friend named Luciana who was going to be doing our tour. We said goodbye to Pete and headed inside the Colosseum, through the metal detectors. It was crowded, as I knew it would be, but not that big of a deal. It helped to have a guide shepherd us through, so we didn’t have to try to figure out where to go.

The Colosseum was more impressive than I thought it would be. Luciana did a great job of explaining things, including with visual examples she’d flip to in a binder she carried. “This is what it looks like now, but this [flip page] is what it used to look like.” Another advantage of having a guided tour is that it is more focused. It has a definite beginning and end. Unlike when you are browsing on your own and it can go on forever. Since some people like to linger and read every placard, and others prefer to graze, the self-tour can be draggy. But Luciana swept us through briskly, but with plenty of time for photos and selfies.

That said, especially after the previous night and the 30-minute walk, it was tiring. When we finished, we headed over to the Roman Forum, which is basically a massive archaeological ruin of the Roman town center from antiquity. It was cool, but the day was so incredibly hot and sunny that halfway through, I was wilting. We all were. Luciana did a great job of explaining things, but the last hour was kind of lost on me. I just wanted to get out of the sun.

We said goodbye to Luciana, filled out water bottles, and looked for a place to eat lunch. There is no shortage of outdoor cafes and restaurants in Rome, and from our limited Italian, the menus all looked somewhat similar. We picked one and got a table inside. Our first sit-down meal in Italy. Most of us got some form of pasta, and it was all delicious. As an appetizer, we got bruschetta with ricotta and honey. It was different and tasty. The menus in Italy don't always have English translations, but it’s fun to take a chance on something instead of googling it and knowing exactly what you’re getting. My pasta was a kind I don’t think I have tried before. It was like spaghetti, but hollow. In other words, it was like long straws of pasta, but not much bigger than spaghetti.

Pete had told us a good place to get a cheap hat for Cristina, so after lunch we found a gift shop and she got a hat. She thinks it’s a little gaudy, but it keeps the sun at bay, and that’s ultimately what matters. She also bought a new fan to replace the one she brought from Florida but lost.

We walked to the metro station and bought 24-hour passes. Pete said as long as you use it more than twice, it’s a better deal to get the 24-hour. We rode the metro back to Re di Roma and walked back to the apartment. Back in Ireland, Bella had introduced Cristina to an app called Seek that identifies plants and flowers when you take pics of them. So it quickly became common for Cristina to drop behind everyone because she’s busy taking photos of plants in her Seek app. This time, she was lagging because there was a vendor selling miscellaneous junk, including fans for 1 euro (at the hat shop they were 3 euros). We left her behind. Back at home, we crashed in the glorious coolness of our rooms where we had left the AC running. Cristina messaged me from a mini-market and asked about getting stuff for breakfast. She came home with eggs, peaches, bananas, yogurt, jam, and bread.

Pete met us around 6 for our food/drink tour, and we took the bus (24-hour pass use #2) to the bohemian area called Trastevere. And so began our food/drink tour, which consisted of Pete walking us to different places and him ordering/buying a specific thing for us to try. The area is very quirky and attractive, so it was a fun walk.

  

Here’s what we sampled on our tour:

First we went to a coffee place that specializes in an espresso made with sugar (not the norm for the sugar to be in the coffee during the brewing process). That kicked us off. The espresso was okay, but too sweet for my liking.

The night before, I had asked Pete what all the bright orange drinks we saw everyone drinking were, and he had explained Aperol spritzes to us: Aperol (an Italian bitter apéritif made of gentian, rhubarb, and cinchona, among other ingredients. It has a vibrant orange hue. Its name comes from the Italian slang word for aperitivo, which is apero) mixed with prosecco, digestive bitters, soda water, and an orange slice. It’s very much an Italian thing (like I said, as we passed outdoor cafes, everyone seemed to be drinking them). Pete was going to do wine next, but since I had asked about the Aperol spritzes, we did those. And strangely enough, he felt that the best spritzes were poured at an Irish pub. It was bizarre stepping into an Irish pub in the heart of Rome after spending a week in Ireland. We finally got to taste the icy orange drink that everyone was drinking. I understood why, as it is quite refreshing in the hot Italian summer. Again, a bit too sweet for my preference. I think if it was mixed with some extra soda water it could be delicious, but I didn’t feel like I could ask for that kind of modification so I just dealt with it. I think Bella finished hers and Cristina’s. And maybe even some of Jacoby’s.

Next, time for some food. Pete got us a plate of suppli (pronounced SOUP-lee) which are an Italian street food. Deep fried rice balls. Delicious. He served them to us with some cold Ichnusa, an unfiltered Italian beer. There were four kinds of suppli, each one with different seasonings and fillings. I don’t remember what they all were, but they were all great, as street food usually is.

Our next stop was pizza. And more Italian beer. By this point, the weariness in our backs and feet was starting to decrease.

Pizza is often cut with shears here

The next stop was grappa, a spirit distilled from the leftover parts of the wine-making process. Basically, all the skins, seeds, and stems that are leftover (pomace) get turned into a strong brandy. Very Italian. In fact, it has to be produced in Italy to be called grappa. This is a sipping spirit, not a shot. Bella wasn’t crazy about the taste, but she wanted her feet to stop hurting, so she drank hers in a few big sips. Then she finished Cristina’s. She wanted to finish Jacoby’s, but we cut her off. Needless to say, for the rest of the evening, she walked holding my arm.

The second to last stop was for fried cod, a very Roman street food. It was super hot and very salty. But yummy. The kids didn't care for it.

The final stop on our food tour was gelato. Everyone got a cup of three flavors. I don’t think there is such a thing as bad gelato, but I am up to the challenge to test that theory.

By this point it was after 10, and we were exhausted and a little drunk. Pete walked us to the bus stop, but for some reason, our bus didn’t show up at the scheduled time, so we waited till the next one, which meant we didn't get on the bus still close to midnight. We said our final goodbye to Pete and got off at Re di Roma and walked home. Long day!

Italy!

Everything went off without a hitch. We got up in time, we loaded the cars, and we left on time. The drive to the airport was easy, especially at 3:15 in the morning. We got to the airport and dropped everyone off at the terminal with the luggage, then we took the cars back. It took us a little while to find the right place (not great signage) but it turned out to be very close to the departure terminal. The line to get our boarding passes and check bags was long, but not too bad. Security was also long, but moved at a pretty brisk pace, so can't complain. We had paid for an extra carry-on and loaded up a small backpack with vacuum bags of clothes, the Berkey, and a big container of vitamin powder. It was a challenge to get that bag zipped up, and of course that was the one that had to be hand searched. The guy pulled everything out and I got to load it for a second time. I didn't get it zipped all the way. No biggie.

We got to our gate and grabbed some coffee and pastries. The flight boarded on time (we walked out on the tarmac and boarded from front and rear of plane) but unfortunately it could not push back on time. We sat for a while and by the time we took off, we were an hour late. Compared to Montreal, not bad.

Ryanair is strict on baggage (size and weight), but we didn't have any issues. The smaller bags we bought for this trip did great. And our trusty luggage scale continues to make life easy.

For the first time, the six of us were flying together. The plane had three seats together on either side of the aisle. Cristina, Bella, and I were in row 11, and the Hines were two rows behind us. The flight was unremarkable. No frills, of course, with Ryanair. Small uncomfortable seats, no food or drinks (unless you buy it), no wifi or info screens in the seats. But we knew what we were getting going in. The guy across the aisle from me lucked up and had two empty seats beside him, so he stretched out and slept, but first, he watched Tik Tok videos at full volume on his phone. Headphones, dude, headphones.

I swore I would not just complain about Ryanair, since that's an easy thing to do. So I will share these positives: The flight took the length of time it was supposed to, they didn't lose our luggage, and it was a smooth ride. And it was cheap!

The flight to Rome was 2 hours 45 minutes, and we landed exactly an hour later than our original time. When we stepped off the plane, my first thought was "it feels like Phoenix." After the crisp coolness of Ireland, it was very hot.

Arrival in Italy

I updated our Airbnb host and we got in line for a taxi. We waited. And waited. There were very few taxis. We asked an airport worker if this was normal and he said something about a taxi strike. He seemed kind of bored and annoyed with us. Jeez. The original plan was to get a big taxi that could take all six of us, but since taxis were so few and far between, we decided to just take whatever we can get and go in two taxis. We finally got a taxi and I showed him the address (I had written it on a scrap of paper). He seemed to know where he was going, so the first half of our traveling party set off.

The taxi driver didn't speak much English but he tried and was very friendly. He had driven taxi in Rome for 30 years. Only one time did he ask to see the address again. Impressive. No GPS, no Google maps, no paper map. OG taxi driver. We got to the Airbnb and Michele, our host, was waiting for us. It cost 31 euros to get there from the airport.

Michele didn't speak much English either, but he showed us around the apartment and gave us the important info (how to lock up, how to turn on the stove, how to open and close the shutters). The apartment is in an area with high-rise apartments and our was on the 8th floor (just below the penthouse. The tiny elevator could fit 3 people and had a 300 kg weight limit. So we would have to go up and down in two shifts. 

Michele had a nice manual with restaurants and public transit tips. Even though the listing said central AC, the AC units were in the bedrooms...only three bedrooms. The fourth bedroom, really more of a study, only had a sofa bed and a fan. Michele had just assumed that for a party of 6, we only needed 3 king-size beds. Since the king beds in each bedroom were just two twin beds pushed together, Bella and Jacoby decided to separate the beds and share a room so they could both have AC. 

We said goodbye to Michele, got settled, and headed down for some food. Our first pizza in Italy. We found a cute little takeaway pizza place near the Zama Plaza, which was just a short walk from our apartment. They sold whole pizzas or by the meter. We went with 4 whole pizzas. They were roughly 5 euros each. So cheap! Since this was a takeaway place, we took them back to the apartment and pigged out.

It was so hot, Bella did a Maz and stretched out on the cool terrazzo

The view from our apartment

We got cleaned up and refreshed and rested a bit before meeting up Pete for our first walking tour. "Walking with Pete" is an American tour guide who has lived in Rome for decades. He was highly recommended by Alix Shunick, a family friend. Pete met us at our apartment and we set off towards the Colosseum. He showed us the awesome water stations that are all over Rome where you can fill your water bottles with good clean water. The one near the Colosseum even had a choice between still or sparkling!

Trevi Fountain

The Spanish Steps

Having been up since 2:45 am and all the airport traveling, the hour-long wait in the sun for a taxi, the whole day had just been exhausting. In retrospect, a walking tour of Rome was probably a bad idea for our first night. But we did it. We saw the Colosseum, Trevi fountain (I got yelled out by a cop for sitting on part of the fountain), the Spanish steps, and a bunch of other churches and sights that all kind of blurred together. We were all bleary-eyed. Bella and I thought we were going to eat dinner before gelato, but everyone was so tired that we basically had gelato for dinner. Sensing how we were the walking dead, Pete bought us metro tickets and helped us get on the metro that would take us close to our apartment (Re di Roma station)

We had a Colosseum and Roman Forum tour in the morning, so we got to bed as quickly as possible.

The Disney World of prehistoric tombs

Jacoby was feeling a little better, but the Hines decided to skip Newgrange and have a rest and recovery day.

Access to Newgrange is by guided tour only, and while it would have been cool to visit on the actual summer solstice, the tomb is actually aligned to interact with the winter solstice. Newgrange is only 7 minutes from our Airbnb, but we were still a couple minutes late for our 10:30 tour. It wasn't a big deal, though, because they build in some time to go through the visitor center before the tour begins.

In the parking lot, we were approached by an older gentleman who asked us if we had some kind of object that he could use to break his car window, because he locked his keys in the car. One of the stranger requests I've gotten in a parking lot. We did not have anything for him.

Newgrange is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. The entrance, the parking lot, the visitor center, everything clearly showed how much more polished and organized Newgrange is compared to Uisneach and Hill of Tara. It's the Disney World of prehistoric tombs. Uisneach is still our bae, but Newgrange is impressive in the same way German engineering is impressive. And Hill of Tara, sorry to say, is kind of the red-headed step child (just an idiom...no offense intended to the Irish gingers).

We had three unused tickets with the Hines not coming, and while they couldn't refund them, they said we were welcome to sell them to anyone. Cristina overheard the guy at the entrance explaining to a couple that they had to have reservations, so Cristina let them know we had tickets if they wanted to go at 10:30 (when our reservation was). They were super appreciative that they got to visit Newgrange, and we were glad to get the Hine's money back for 2 of their 3 tickets. The couple was from France, and Cristina made friends with them (of course!) to the extent that they invited us to visit if we make it to France.

Bella, tired from her Dublin day, was not in the best of moods, but she soldiered on. Bella and I went pretty fast through the visitors center because we were supposed to catch the bus at a very specific time. Cristina was far behind when it was time for the bus, so I went back for her. She was practically still at the start!

We made the bus and went to the first tomb mound, then watched a video (which the Irish call a film, but they pronounce it with two syllables, like fillum.) Then we bused to the main event, the Newgrange tomb for a guided tour and a re-enactment of the Winter Solstice experience through the use of high-powered electric lights situated within the tomb. The finale of a Newgrange tour results in us standing inside the tomb where the guide then turns off the lights, and then turns on ones simulating the sunlight that would appear on the winter solstice. To experience the phenomenon on the actual morning of the Winter Solstice from inside Newgrange, visitors must enter an annual lottery. Something like 30,000 people enter the lottery and sixty are chosen each year. Winners are permitted to bring a single guest. The winners are split into groups of ten and taken in on the five days around the solstice in December when sunlight can enter the chamber, weather permitting. Can you imagine being one of the 30,000 and getting there only to have cloudy skies prevent the sun from doing its thing? To me, the simulation was just fine.

Preparing to go inside the main tomb

And like clockwork, we were bused back to the visitor center and our Newgrange tour was over. Back in the parking lot, we saw a locksmith working on the van of the guy who asked us to help him smash his window.

Newgrange was our main activity for the day. The only other thing to do was eat one last dinner in an Irish pub and pack up. Because of our early flight and expectedly long lines at Dublin airport, we had to leave the Airbnb by 3:15 am.

Cristina and I took one last trip to Tesco because she was thinking of getting some linen pants she had seen there (and what the heck, I had plenty of gas). I wore my "I Shot JR" t-shirt, hoping to get a reaction from someone before leaving Ireland. The girl in Tesco, about 20 years old, that helped Cristina didn't know what it meant. We told her it was from Father Ted (a popular Irish sitcom in the 90's). She didn't know it. Oh well. I guess the equivalent of that would be an American 20 year old not understanding a Soup Nazi reference from Seinfeld.

We had dinner at a gastropub, where Cristina finally got fish and chips. I got a Guinness pie. Bella got a veggie curry, which she asked if it had mushrooms. The server said no. But when it came, it had tons of mushrooms. But they swapped it for her for one with no mushrooms. It was a little too spicy for Bella. 

Bella wore the Ireland hoodie she got in Dublin

Last dinner together in Ireland

Cristina finally got fish and chips

Back home, we packed up and got ready for a long night/morning of traveling