Coffee, Bus, Ferry, Train

We arose, we packed, we cleaned, we made sweeps (anything under the bed? anything in the bathroom? anything in the closets?, anything in the kitchen cupboards? anything on top of the armoire, oh my God, my Hannibal Lecter hat!). I'm not sure how it was agreed upon but a great plan for departures/farewells was settled on - meeting up at the Dolce Vita cafe in Poggio with our luggage, getting coffee and then leaving as our time came. Our time was going to arrive at the same time as the public bus to Portoferraio. The previous evening we had secured tickets at the wine and cheese shop next to the cafe. I was just a teensy bit proud because I actually used some of my Drive-Time-Italian-Course Italian to sort that.

So, one last cappuccino at the Dolce Vita. We laughed, we chatted, we said our goodbyes with the gobsmacking view down into Marciana Marina as a backdrop. Nora and Jim and Paul and I finally stood, gathered our chattels and bumped along the street to the middle of the first switchback below the square to wait for the bus. I had a thrill of dread as we were putting our bags into the luggage compartment under the bus. "What if we forget it?" I'm a freak. We didn't forget it but it strikes me how fraught with mishap travel can be. On the whole we did amazingly well, the delay on the train and our difficulty in finding our hotel in Rome being the only active snafus.

The bus snaked its way down and up and down and up the mountain hairpins toward Portoferraio. If I was amazed that cars and scooters didn't get into accidents on those roads it was nothing to my amazement that buses managed to negotiate them safely. The bus would completely block both sides of the road while going through the hairpins. "I died a hundred times", that line from that Amy Winehouse song came to mind. Poor Amy. Paul pointed out Napoleon's Villa to me as we went past the turnoff to same. "Next time" I thought to myself while simultaneously acknowledging that there probaby wouldn't be one.

Portoferraio. We got off the bus, retrieved our bags from the hold and walked up and down the row of shops looking for a ticket agency. We already had our ferry ticket - what we needed was a train ticket back to Rome. A slight misunderstanding occurred - I wasn't able to effectively communicate to the ticket agent that we'd already purchased our train tickets and simply needed the actual printed document. That got sorted out without TOO much trouble.

It was difficult to resist the temptation to purchase additional souvenirs in that harbourside row of shops, but I stood firm and decided that my little yellow Alfa Romeo and the stripey stone and pottery shards were enough. We walked along the wharf to where another enormous Moby ferry was disgorging passengers and cars. Verifying that it was the ferry back to Piombino, we joined the queue and boarded with the other despondent holidaymakers whose Elba sojourn had, like ours, just come to an end.

We found a big, L-shaped seating area near one of the deck exits and plunked down with our luggage piled up around us. I knew that if I sat up on deck I'd just get sad about the departure, so I stayed to guard our luggage and that of much of the rest of our party who had boarded before or after us. I had a lovely chat with Maggie Chambers during the crossing. Maggie is now in her first year at my alma mater, The University of Virginia, and we had fun talking about the school and where she'd be living, etc.

On arriving at Piombino we raced across the street to the train station in case we were in danger of missing a train in station. It turns out that it was a 'bus' day - sometimes, apparently, the train wouldn't be running and passengers would take the bus instead. Across the alley to the bus stop where a depressing number of people were already waiting. Somehow, all of those present managed to squash onto the bus when it arrived. We got off at Campiglia Marittima to find that a train was just about to leave so we bid a hasty goodbye to those of our party still present and within earshot and raced for the platform.

There is, fortunately, little to report about our train ride to Rome. All went as scheduled - Paul and I both read and dozed and it seemed like no time before we were descending at the Trastevere station and hailing a cab.

Last Night in Rome and the Flight Home

Back at the hotel, we cleaned up, took a deep breath and tried to decide what to do with our last night in Rome. Something we'd failed to accomplish on our first visit to the Piazza da Spagna was to re-create the Talented Mr. Ripley's descent of the Spanish Steps, so we set out for the Baldo degli Ubaldi metro stop and boarded a train for Spagna.

Paul stood in for Matt Damon and acquitted himself admirably. From the piazza, we set off in a westward direction, going into the occasional shop looking for shoes for Paul. Paul DID find a pair that he liked - I can't remember where. Wait, it's coming back. It was a crazy sporstwear shop that had an immense selection of bizarre t-shirts. Judging from shirts we'd seen people wearing in Rome, there seemed to be a huge market for shirts bearing "American" designs, even if they didn't make any sense at all. We'd seen people wearing garments with designs like "Nebraska Beach Party" and "College Happy Town". Baffling.

Emerging from the sports shop, we recalibrated our detection equipment from 'shoes' to 'food'. Dismissing several place as either too posh or grotty, we suddenly emerged onto the Piazza del Popolo, one of the must-sees on my list that I'd already despaired of getting to see. It was a lovely time to be there - the sun was so low that only the upper part of the twin churches and the requisite Egyptian obelisk were illuminated. We spent some time admiring the fountain with it's spouting lions and watching the sunlight move upwards on the facades of the churches. There were a couple of street performers plying their trade - one of them was playing electric guitar along to some music blaring out of an amp. As we were walking over to better hear him we practically ran into the St. Pierre's who were making their way across the piazza toward their hotel. We asked them if they'd eaten and they said there were about to rejoin John and Carolyn and company and find a place to eat. We followed them back to their hotel, but after some difficulty locating the Marshes we quietly decided to strike out on our own and leave them to it. I felt a little guilty bailing on what would have been our last group outing in Italy, but we'd already said goodbye a number of times and, frankly, we jut weren't up for any more logistical challenges.

Paul and I said hasty goodbyes and slunk off in the direction of the Piazza Navona. Near same, we found a little pastry shop/cafe that looked eager enough and ordered a couple of slices of pizza and two cans of Nasty Blue. Carrying our purchases, we made our way along a narrow street and found a likely-looking stretch of curb to sit on opposite a floodlit church facade. That impromptu little picnic turned out to be one of our most treasured memories of the trip. The pizza was fantastic - mine had chunks of potato on it. We sat there, getting looks from passersby and not caring, enjoying our food, talking about our experiences in Italy, watching the blue of the sky deepen against the yellow floodlighting of the beautiful little church. The meal was like a last-minute consolation prize from the Eternal City.

One last walk across the Ponte Wotsit, one last hair-raising cab ride along the Gregorio to our hotel, one last bottle of wine on our hotel room patio. We awoke the next morning to a brilliant sunrise over the dome of the Basilica, humped our luggage downstairs and into the boot of a cab and set out for Fiumicino. Our driver very considerately radioed to Cab Central to determine which Terminal to turf us out at as we were passing the Villa Doria Pamphili park where we'd walked what seemed a month before. Back onto the airport highway on which our driver hit a top speed of 145 kmph (~90 mph) on the autostrada. Not terribly scary as it was a straightaway with little traffic. We were grateful for his efficiency after getting to the airport and finding a long line at the ticket counter even three hours before the flight.

We were a little bemused by the organisation at the airport. One looks at a video board to determine the "desk number" for one's flight. It turns out that the number means little as the "desks" are served by one long queue and it doesn't matter which desk you go to in the end, anyway. We saw more than one traveller running to the front of the line trying to figure out how to get to their particular "desk".

Tickets in hand, we had a quick meal at the eatery upstairs - lovely panini and coffee, and then went through security. Just past security we found ourselves in duty-free fantasyland - liquor, chocolates, souvenirs. I bought a silo of Perugina Baci and a slab of chocolate with whole hazelnuts in. Making our way towards the gate, Paul stopped at a shop to buy some gifts for family members (why do these things not occur to me?) and then made a stop in the "most awful toilet in Italy" where he overheard an American youth proclaim that that restroom was the reason he was glad to be going home. Bless 'im.

Good heavens, this day's account was supposed to be a throwaway - it's already as long as most of the others. Sorry about that.

Little left to be said. I spent the flight jotting down trip milestones and snorting myself awake to wonder if what I was seeing was a different movie than at the last time I snorted myself awake. Just when I was feeling all James-Bondian in the line for passport control (I had donned my hat once more) I realised that I'd just dropped my passport which was handed back to me by a community-spirited fellow traveler. We were met at the curb by John and Mary, Paul's brother and sister-in-law who, for reasons known only to themselves, had offered to drive down to pick us up.

After the drive north to Wisconsin during which we blah-blah-blah'd incessantly about the trip, we went to the restaurant-formerly-know-as-Riptide for lunch. It was so lovely to arrive back in the states and break bread with loved ones. I was relieved to NOT be, in the words once again of W.S. Gilbert: "That idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own". The trip had been delightful - the wonders of Italy had been fantastic, but it was good to be back where we belonged.