#2 Roman Holiday: May 11 - 21, 2007
Back to Europe
The mental snap shot shouted "Europe" as soon as we
deplaned in Frankfurt from Portland, with the familiar backdrop of people-scale stone buildings and the
dull grime and wear patina on the cobbled streets. And just as typical was
the foreground filled with too many people dragging on their cigarettes like it
was an Olympic event and the multitudes enveloping ice cream cones as though it
were a new love.
Being in Italy filled in more detail the next day (after our
evening flight to Rome) with the spotting of the very Mediterranean habit of
people of all ages sprinkling litter behind them like it was a birth right as
they sat, walked, and drove. Packs of parked and moving motorbikes also reminded
us of the typical Italian scene.
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And as we settled in, it could only be Rome as the high
concentration of men and women of the
cloth appeared to be from all corners of the globe. On the first morning's bus ride
into the old part of Rome I guessed that the nun in all white closest to me was from South or
Central America because of her rough wool shoulder bag with a lama motif. The
short Asiatic woman near the front of the bus in a habit of grays and blacks had me
guessing she was from SE Asia or India from the higher appearing gold content of
her ring. And perhaps the couple of nuns on the sidewalk carrying neatly folded
sweaters like cargo on their heads were from Africa. I couldn't even guess a
homeland for the darker skinned nun who wore a fisherman's cap atop her completely
encasing, traditional veil-like religious headwear.
These familiar sights and sounds of Europe resonated with
those we'd accrued over the last 6 years of travel, making
our 12 hour stay in Frankfurt that preceded our 10 day jet lag recovery junket
to Rome feel cozy. Though unlike Bill I can't speak German, the spoken and
written words surrounding me in Frankfurt were ordinary enough not to be jarring. And as we waited to board
the budget flight to Rome the same evening that we arrived, the shift towards Italian from German
in the background chatter was pleasant too. The din of Western European
foreign languages now triggers more of a relaxation response in my body
rather than setting off alarm bells in my head as it once did. Once again, it was
satisfying to feel at home in a bigger world than we lived in during our first trip abroad
together 2 decades ago.
Sticker Shock
The irksome side of actually taking our Roman holiday was
that the prices kept going up at every
turn. For the last 2 years we'd made at least the first 10 days of our return to
Europe a non-biking holiday, in part to allow us to recover from jet lag before
navigating in traffic. But the holiday also proved to be a welcome interlude
between the intensity of our calendar-oriented activities while at home and our
typically "constantly on the move" routine once on the bikes.
The original plan for this late spring return had been to
stash the bikes and most of our luggage in Frankfurt and take a fast train on to
Copenhagen. Our bikes are liabilities rather than assets in big cities, so
seeing the northern city without them seemed clever. But alas, our time
consuming debacle
with the US government in getting more visa pages added to our passports
squeezed us out of
the always expensive Copenhagen lodging market.
A budget flight to more affordable Rome seemed like a good
Plan B, but the late return of our passports limited our choices
there too. The air fares sometimes priced just pennies over the taxes rose as
the days slipped by while Bill struggled to secure an apartment in Rome. Despite
hours on the internet and a few international phone calls, we left the US with only 1
night's lodging booked for our 10 day stay and our higher than expected intra-European
air tickets (about $125 each RT)
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The flights in and out of Frankfurt and on to Rome went
smoothly and as planned, but the intermediate step of storing the bikes and
suitcases that was expected to be over $100 jumped up to over $200 because of a
technicality. Then we ended up staying 1 night each at 2 different hotels before
settling into a furnished vacation apartment in Rome, and the prices were always
more than we expected. We'd prided ourselves in keeping our lodging prices below
a $100 a night
all but a few times in the last 6 years, even in
very expensive Iceland and England and with the weakening dollar, but that price barrier melted
away in Rome.
Living Was Easy
Easy Routines
But despite the mounting expense of our trip to Rome, we
shifted our attention to the experience at hand once we were in the apartment.
We weren't in Rome long and were already pleased with it as a choice for jet lag
recovery. The warm, sunny days were nurturing in themselves and were supportive
of our half-speed brains. We've settled on big cities for this difficult
interval, despite their inherent chaos, because of the readily available of
stimulation. The urban intensity keeps our dozy brain cells activated in the daylight
hours, whether we initiate much in the way of activities or not.
Every day in Rome began and ended with an almost hour long series of
bus and metro rides between our apartment and the city center. It was a bit of a nuisance
being so far out, but our apartment in the 'burbs near the Vatican did give us
welcome relief from the air and noise pollution of the center which were
displaced by the higher density of green lawns and trees.
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After arriving in the old town area, we'd look for a shop from which
to buy fresh bread and another bottle of
inexpensive mineral water to supplement our lunch. The end of every other
day included a big grocery shopping stop for our home-cooked meals. Even though
our apartment was more than we hoped to pay, our daily expenses after that for
food, entertainment and transportation for the 2 of us was under $20.
We were lucky too in that we were in Rome during a special
culture week so that the museums we'd happened to pick were all free.
Several hours many days were filled with visiting these less famous, history-oriented museums and walking
the streets of Rome's old town, which is a history lesson in itself. When the
museum displays became uninteresting or we needed a change of pace, we'd shift
our attention from the content of the exhibits to working on our Italian
vocabulary.
Rather than being hard-working tourists, we looked at
previously visited sights like the Coliseum and the Forum from afar. Both
walking and our daily bus journeys gave us ample opportunities to admire many of
Rome's grand facades and piazzas. We did duck into the Roman Pantheon for
another look at the amazing concrete dome the Romans built and Bill was a
proxy for his sister when tossing her penny into Trevi Fountain. And as always
when we travel with or without the bikes, finding a scenic setting for our
outdoor lunch was a high priority.
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Easily Entertained
Our slower functioning, hazy brains made it easy to
linger after our picnic lunch on the Spanish Steps one day as we watched the
hustlers working the young male tourists. We weren't close enough to hear the
exchange but the body language read something like "Welcome to Rome my friend,
let me give you a gift, something to remember the Spanish Steps by." I imagined
that there was some little enticing story told as the hustler got the young man
to hold some strands between his fingers while the local quickly braided a thin
bracelet, tied it onto the guy's wrist, and severed the ends with nail clippers.
Then the press for compensation came. The young men often protested, but usually
forked over 3
€ or more.
It was amazing to watch the hustler's look for their pigeon,
sometimes waiting as long as 10 minutes for just the right one. Once the prey
was selected, the all-smiles new friend would practically dive-bomb, slowing
just in time to gently tap the tourist's shoulder. Women were rarely approached
and never as the primary target. Usually
women companions rolled their eyes in disgust at the gullibility of the
pigeon.
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We wondered if one hustler had a more elaborate scheme as
with one young man he had his fingers in the pigeon's open wallet and 10 or 20
€ bills were flashing around like some shell game.
We couldn't tell if he was shortchanging the guy with with quick switches,
passing counterfeit bills, or doing recon work. We pondered if the bracelet was
just a ploy to determine where the pigeon kept his wallet and how much it
contained as a quick cell phone call was made after he released his first prey.
We saw no such call being made by a group of hustlers that seemed to whisk off the first
scam-man from our section of steps, so we left without knowing if the drama went
beyond pocket-change for the bracelet.
Another people-sighting in Rome that left us wondering was
that of 7 different short-limbed dwarfs in 3 days--perhaps as many as I've
noticed in a life time. Each little person we saw was "solo," each in a
different part of Rome, and they spanned the decades from young children to middle-aged
adults. Our curious minds could come up with no credible explanation as to why
there was such a concentration in 1 city, especially since they looked like
locals window shopping, going to work, and strolling in a park rather than
out-of-towners here for an event.
A Bit of Hard Work
One big project while in Rome was buying our first European
chips for our new mobile phones brought from home. Bill racked up the hours
researching the phones on the internet so as to have the smallest, least expensive phones that
could be used both in Europe and the US. The gimmicks and 'gotchas' are just as
elaborate in Europe as in the US and the deal we finally got of course wasn't as good as
we thought. But we did get the initial activation and minutes fees down to about
$6 per phone, so we were pleased. (See our
Cell Phones In Europe file under SideTrips for details.)
The main purpose of the phones is for emergency backup when
hiking in the mountains, but not being cell phone owners in the US meant we had
a lot learning to do. Buying chips now would allow us to be experienced with the
European operation of the phones before we hit the Italian hiking region in a
month or 2. The in's and out's of an individual phone are challenging enough without the additional complications of making our way
around the language barriers and differences in conventions between European countries. The industry has
changed a lot in the 6 years since we were told then we couldn't buy a phone in
Europe without a domestic street address, but we still will be looking at a different
phone number in each country we use the phones in to keep the prices down.
From Down Under
Having been in New Zealand recently had me at least
partially looking at Rome through the eyes of a tourist from New Zealand. For
us, the most immediate contrast was the spring weather. We arrived in
middle-latitude New Zealand in the equivalent of early May and endured many
chilling days, downpours, and hurricane force winds. In contrast, the
temperatures for our 10 mid-May days in Rome ranged from
almost needing a sweater while we picnicked to the heat of the low 80's. The winds
picked up enough a couple of afternoons for me to hang on to my hat but they weren't
strong enough to seek out shelter when sitting--what a difference.
Accommodations in Rome however had us immediately longing for
New Zealand and no doubt left the Kiwi tourists wondering what they were doing
wrong. The prices were all over the map in New Zealand, but the quality
with few exceptions was quite high. The Kiwi motel culture places the burden of
putting the kitchen back in order on the guests and all seemed well trained to
do so thoughtfully. Rooms were generally quite clean and in good repair. Not so
in Rome. We immediately noticed the substandard (or lack?) of vacuuming in the
rooms, the worn-out mattresses, and never-quite-right accessories in our 3
different Roman abodes.
And darn it anyway, when one is in central or southern Italy,
the standards slip, and even at the $150/night lodging we were making repairs to
make the space acceptable. For that price one shouldn't be fiddling with the
shower drain to get it flowing or standing on chairs to bang away at
outdoor roller shades or using extra blankets to fill in the hollow of a worn out
mattress. But Bill had spent hours in the States and we'd devoted 6 hours of our
first day in Rome to getting the lodging we had, so we made the needed
modifications By comparison, the tweaking we did to our New Zealand rooms were always on a
much smaller scale.
But on our second full day in Rome we bought our first of many
boxes of strawberries for under US$2 per pound and were buying other produce for a fraction of what
we paid in New Zealand. It was a joy to be tourists and have access to a good
variety of food at good prices, a combination we never knew in New
Zealand.
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Also coming from a young country like the US, Kiwi tourists
must be absolutely blown away like we are at the clutter of ancient history
around Rome. Like in Oregon, something 50 or 100 years old is historical in New
Zealand. In Rome one sees evidence of a lifestyle that was more refined 2700
years ago than in our young territories a hundred years back.
New Zealander's accustomed to constantly wind-freshened clean
air and little noise pollution must be overwhelmed by the insults to their minds
and bodies when in Rome. And they must feel left high and dry when they walk
into a closet-sized Roman tourist info office where the staff person is prepared
to do little more than hand out a free map of the old town and answer "Yes/No"
questions. In contrast, the tourist officials in New Zealand are happy to plan
your entire stay in their country, down to making any or all of your lodging,
transportation, and event reservations for the cost of the more distance phone
calls. And the laid-back, trusting Kiwi's must be easy marks for the
legendary Roman pickpockets and scammers, several of which we learned about
second hand.
Out in city traffic, the Kiwi's must be rethinking
childhood stories of the power of St Christopher to protect pedestrians, as when
a pedestrian steps out into a sea of autos, the waters part around the Roman
walker. In New Zealand, the auto's have the right away and they exercise it to
the hilt. The relationship between drivers and pedestrians in Italy requires
some boldness but nonetheless is a congenial negotiation whereas in New Zealand
the drivers expect and receive submission to their greater legal rights.
Other Contrasts
And just as I imagined the Kiwi's reeling from contrasts
between their world and life in Rome, we had our chuckles and gasps too from the
contrasts with our traditions.
Mediterranean Diet
We, like many, have been seduced by the promises of the
Mediterranean Diet that among other things includes an abundance of fruits,
vegetables, and olive oil. We even have a half quart bottle on my bike that is
reserved for our olive oil for cooking. Given that backdrop, I was stunned to
see a prominent white tin in a Roman grocery store labeled in Italian "Hearts."
Among a sea of olive oil containers, this bottle of corn oil pronounced that it
was scientifically proven to reduce cholesterol.
We also scratched our heads as we struggled to understand what
the old Mediterranean Diet offered for breakfast. The modern one in the hotels
is usually limited to white bread, jam, cookies, and strong coffee--hardly our
idea of a breakfast of champions. The breakfast aisle in the grocery stores is
stuffed with other similar white flour and sugar products and the healthiest of
the few breakfast cereals contained about the same amount of sugar as our
lunchtime dark chocolate bar.
Pharmaceuticals
We've learned over the years to not make too many
assumptions about what is or isn't a prescription drug in Europe, as we've
bought things like epinephrine and the potent antibiotic Cipro over the counter
when abroad.
This trip I was curious about the price and availability of an anti-reflux
medication I had just started taking. The one pharmacist explained that indeed
the product was a prescription item in Italy but if I was already taking it, she
would sell it to me. When asked if I needed to show her the tablet or some
paperwork, the answer was "No." The price was in the range of US prices for
similar products.
This gray area that doesn't exist in the US with prescription
drugs came up last year when in Corsica, a French island. I was turned down by 3
or 4 pharmacists when I wanted to buy an antifungal medication but another
happily sold me as much as I wanted of the expensive, prescription drug.
Good Ol' Days
The post-9/11 hypersensitivity to security
that has
become a necessary evil in the US isn't as oppressive in Rome. The
serrated kitchen knife borrowed from our apartment that was in my backpack
raised no eyebrows when it went through the scanner at one museum
entrance. At another, I was sure it was our seemingly abandoned heap of
backpacks and water bottle that caused a museum guard to come running, but no,
it was the inappropriate touching of an exhibit that caused the scurry. Our
backpacks that were right next to where the offending incident occurred were completely
ignored.
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A Final Italian Lesson
After string of days focused on museums, our last
leisurely day in Rome was spent taking a self-guided walking tour for children, one that was
written in Italian. The day before we had purchased a children's book on the
animals of Rome in hopes of nudging us to keep reading some Italian while in
German speaking countries. Half of the book was focused on live animals out and
about in the city. I thought the second half of the book was on zoo animals,
which was less intriguing.
But fortunately Bill took a more careful look at the book's format
and discovered that the zoo animals were really stone animals--the zoo carved in the
many city monuments. The clever angle was too tempting to resist so we set out
the next morning to do the tour on the fly.
The level of difficulty of the book was a better match for us than we
realized when we purchased it as we could guess at about 2/3's of the story at
each monument with quick read. Looking up even a half dozen words in our
electronic dictionaries filled in a lot of the missing ideas. Though it was hard
work, we were delighted with the dual rewards of deciphering much of the text and
learning the stories about the monuments that were intended to pique the
interest of children. It was too bad we hadn't had the book at the start
of our stay in Rome, but even using it 1 day should hook us in to reading more
of it in the coming weeks.
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Back to Frankfurt
As the jet lag fog began to clear and sleep was less of a
struggle, Bill began itching to get back on the bikes. His nagging back
discomfort of the last 6 months seemed resolved and he was anxious to road test
it.
Usually I am the restless one, the one wanting to move on, but not this
time. No need to end this leisurely interval in Rome welled up in me and I
enjoyed having our days effortlessly filled with its complex images. Practical matters like the time being up on the
prepaid apartment and return airfare kept me from having to seriously consider
just how long I'd be happy coasting in Rome.
After 10 nights in Rome, we would rewind the movie and
take the bus out to the secondary airport in Rome; hop on another, even later
evening flight, and then check-in to a suburban airport hotel near Koblenz. The next morning we'd make the 90 minute bus journey back to
Frankfurt's international airport and pay the handsome ransom on our bikes and checked
luggage.
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The plan was to transfer all the gear from our stashed
checked luggage and the carry-on luggage that went on to Rome with us into our
panniers and ride out from the airport. It was designed as a short riding day,
especially since a complete damage assessment hadn't been done on the bikes
since they flew nearly naked from Portland. We knew 1 water bottle cage would need
to be reshaped and hoped that was the extent of the mishaps.
Where We Are Now, May 31, 2007
We are
in the city of Trier in southwestern Germany, a day or 2's ride from France. We
visited Trier in 2001 and were looking forward to revisiting the 3 Roman museums
which are unfortunately all closed. We'll swing by Trier again in the next week
or 2 after they've reopened for a special exhibit. In the meantime, we'll
continue our generally southwest journey from Frankfurt towards Metz, France for
a short visit to that as of yet unvisited area.
We are doing well and enjoying being on our bikes and on the
road again. The rainy days made us wonder why we were doing this and the warm,
sunny days that had us cruising the rivers lined with vineyard carpeted hills
reminded us that this indeed is the good life.
Love,
Barb
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PS: A Request for Disposable Luggage
Are you in the Portland/Vancouver area with some luggage you
plan to discard but that still has a little life left in it? If so, we'd
happily take it off your hands this December.
As we were leaving Portland a friend mentioned that he had a
suitcase or 2 lined up for donating to a charity and I commented that we were
always in the market for disposable luggage. This May in Frankfurt was typical,
where we abandoned 3 pieces of luggage at the airport. It's a painful process to
just ditch usable goods, but we can't carry them with us for months and the cost
of storage is prohibitive.
Our compromise is to buy the cheapest luggage we can find
that we think will survive the journey. This time it was a fine soft-sided
suitcase we found at a Portland thrift shop for $5; a now-disintegrating, $15 duffle
bag we purchased in Frankfurt last October and managed to take to and from New
Zealand and back to Frankfurt by making repairs both on the road and again at
home; and a carry-on bag that made the same journey as the duffle, though with a
defunct zipper on its last trip back to Frankfurt and Rome.
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This winter we'll be looking for more luggage to make the one way trip back to Europe in the early spring and then be ditched. We usually need a combination of lightweight, large bags to check-in and smaller bags that just make the carry-on limits. Wheels and good handles are huge assets and intact zippers a must. Let us know if you have suitcases we could squeeze 1 more journey out of before they are retired. Thanks.
