Now We Are Sixty: Italy

We debated about what to do for Paul’s vacation week this April. We wanted to go somewhere warm after a long winter and we wanted to go somewhere special to celebrate our 40th anniversary. (Paul fell in love with me in kindergarten and we got married shortly after that.) An email offering a self-guided, eight-day hiking trip in the Umbria region of Italy came at just the right time.

We had done similar trips in Tuscany, Provence and Austria so we knew what to expect. On a self-guided trip, the tour organizer plans your route, books your hotels, gives you walking directions from town to town and moves your luggage so all you have to carry with you is water, lunch and a jacket. You have someone to call if you need help, but you hike at your own pace, use the directions, maps and a compass to follow the route and stop when you want to for food or photos.

It was a marvelous adventure. During the six days of actual walking, we made our way through forests, farms, mountains, olive groves and vineyards on dirt paths, gravel roads, grassy fields and occasional stretches of asphalt. We saw beautiful vistas of the Umbrian countryside. We walked along the Tiber River, beside mountain streams and next to a canal dating back to Roman times. We climbed into an Etruscan tomb, out of the Grotto of St. Francis and through a dark, dark, dark tunnel. We visited countless churches and abbeys, some in the simple, stone Romanesque style and others filled with ornate woodwork

and colorful frescoes. It was difficult to keep their names straight – I do know we visited multiple churches of San Francesco and San Pietro and we did not see San Arrhythmia, San Dyspepsia or Santa Euphoria. We also didn’t see traffic, Burger Kings or many Americans, who all carry Rick Steves guides, like us.

We stayed in six different, charming old towns, two of which were familiar to us – Assisi, home of St. Francis, and Spoleto, home of the music festival. The city walls and history of these towns date back to the Etruscans and Umbrians of pre-Roman times. The Romans added impressive arches at the entry ways and wide streets crossing at the central piazza of each town. During Roman and medieval times, the locals built stone houses along an intricate maze of twisty, narrow streets which

were perfect for self defense then and hide and seek now. All but one of the towns were built into rock hillsides so the streets were steep - I was disappointed to find that the uphill pedestrian walkways labeled “escalators” on the city maps did not move.

All of our hotels were small, friendly, family-run places. One had a shady patio, another offered us a room with a balcony and, a third hotel provided us with a canopy bed and a picturesque view of tile rooftops. One of the larger hotels was originally a palazzo and contained some lovely frescoes. Most of the bathrooms were tiny but we adapted to them; in one town, however, I had to turn down a second scoop of gelato for fear I wouldn’t fit into the shower.

Of course, the food was fabulous. Beginning with the first breakfast, Paul developed a croissant addiction while I went for bread and chocolate. We ate delicious slices of pizza, local cheeses and gelato – nocciollo (hazelnut) is my new favorite flavor. Freshly-made pastas came in many shapes including large flat triangles and big tubes with sauces like Amatriciana (spicy tomato and bacon), Arugula Pesto and Artichoke Carbonara (bacon, cheese and eggs.) We passed two guys collecting

wild asparagus on one of our hikes and, that evening, ordered pasta with wild asparagus, which has a strong, green taste. Umbria is also famous for truffles – the mushroom kind, not the chocolate kind. Our forest hiking trails passed private truffle-hunting reserves; and we enjoyed the distinctive, earthy flavor of truffles in pasta sauces, on bruschetta toasts and on roast veal. We also sampled the local wines the best of which were made with Sagrantino, a grape unique to the area.

We did learn that Umbria is not for vegetarians - this is the land of beef, lamb, sausages, salame and prosciutto ham as well as game like wild boar, rabbit and pigeons. When I ordered a Grigliata Mista (mixed grill) for dinner, I got all of the above. One morning, we saw the Porchetta Wagon parked in the middle of a large piazza. Our friend Buzz, who grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Scranton, had introduced us to

porchetta, a deliciously seasoned pork roast (pronounced por-ket-ta). In Umbria, it was much, much bigger. The Porchetta man had practically a whole pig and was cutting off slices for sandwiches - breakfast for the local guys. If McDonald’s gets wind of this, it will be “Bye, Bye Egg McMuffin” and “Hello, McPorchetta.” The porchetta sandwich we took on our hike that day was excellent.

Most of our travel from place to place was on foot, but we used some public transportation with mixed success. We started in Rome with “The Missing Train Game,” an Italian classic. As in the past, we knew the game had begun when our train was overdue in the station and, after several garbled announcements in Italian, the only people left on the platform were Americans and British, staring at the train schedules. Later in the week, we played a variation, “Bus? What Bus?” when we learned that the bus we were supposed to take back to our hotel did not exist. After our week of hiking, we were ready

to return to Rome and unexpectedly got into a round of “Bus Anxiety.” This harrowing game began with us seated comfortable on a bus that we understood would take us directly from the small town of Norcia to Rome. After riding for about 20 minutes, however, the driver, who spoke no English, pulled into a parking lot, motioned us off the bus and dropped us and our suitcases at the outskirts of a tiny, nameless town. I was pretty sure he said that another bus was coming “subito” (soon) and he drove away with a sympathetic look and soothing gestures; but we had a tense few minutes until the next bus came along. Younger people do better with games like these.

How did we manage with the language? Well, I love the sound of the Italian language –it has lots of words that are similar to English; it is melodic, unlike German; and it has simple and consistent pronunciation, unlike French. We heard plenty of Italian on this trip because few people spoke English in the towns we visited. Before our first visit to Italy in 1997, I took a semester of Italian classes, learning verb forms, pronouns,

agreement between nouns and adjectives and a long, long list of vocabulary words. I communicated pretty well on that trip, but it wore me out. I felt like a two-year-old who has lots she wants to say but can’t always get it across and who, at the same time, only understands a fraction of the words being thrown at her. This visit to Italy was less exhausting, linguistically, because, at 60-plus, speaking Italian perfectly was not a goal of mine. (Actually, I’m not in the habit of doing anything perfectly any more.)

Last-minute studying of my Italian phrasebooks gave me all I needed to know. As I wove my way through

the crowded train station, I sprinkled “scusi’s” everywhere. When I rolled my suitcase over a woman’s foot, the phrase “mi dispiaci” (I’m sorry) just popped right out. In bakeries or bars, I got comfortable using the word “basta,” which is not a curse but the word for “finished” or “enough.” And when someone unleashed a string of Italian words at me, “non capisco” (I don’t understand) was on the job. It wasn’t a big deal if I said “We is going” or “We am going” or “We to go” instead of “We are going,” and, if I used a feminine adjective with a masculine noun, I wrote it off as a unisex experience. I successfully made and canceled dinner reservations, got directions to our hotels, and ordered and paid for biscotti, wine and sunglasses in Italian without stirring up the grammar police. Va bene (that’s okay, very good)!

While this was a really wonderful vacation, like most things, it wasn’t perfect. As it turns out, my good old friendly hiking boots decided they weren’t up for a trip like this but they forgot to tell me that. After a day and a half of rocky trails both uphill and downhill, my two big toes and one of my smaller toes got my attention with swelling and purple toenails. I lay awake that night wondering what gangrene looks like. Fortunately bidets are just the right size for soaking your feet and, with two boxes of

BandAids, my feet made it through six days of hiking plus a day in Rome. I am still not speaking to my hiking boots, however, and they are officially grounded.

And, while we were happy for the opportunity to see Rome again, we

also realized that we may be getting too old for the city’s noise and confusion and craziness. In just ten waking hours there, Paul got locked in the hotel bathroom, we paid 8 Euros apiece for a beer, and we got lost 15 times, including three times within 2 blocks of our hotel. After the quiet countryside, we found the crowds overwhelming – both the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps were like the OSU stadium during

the Michigan game. Paul also decided that Italians choose espresso over regular coffee because public restrooms are so scarce. Still, we enjoyed revisiting the Forum, which has undergone major excavation and restoration since 1997; and we enjoyed a delicious dinner in a quiet restaurant near our hotel before getting lost for the fifteenth time.

So we’ve been back for over a week, and we’re still reliving the experience as we organize photos and notes for our journal. I miss starting out on a hiking adventure each morning. I miss stopping at a scenic spot for a snack of pizza or biscotti. I miss sipping wine and people-watching from an outdoor café table at the end of the afternoon. And I miss the friendliness of the people we met who helped us and encouraged us and made this trip one we’ll always remember.

P.S. Many people have expressed concern about my feet - since we came home, they look worse but feel much better so I can bike and golf and walk even though I'm out of the running for this summer's Pretty Feet contest.

If you want to see the complete set of Paul’s photos from our hike, you