Intro Note

This website is a version of the travelogue I wrote home to friends and family in the form of emails from March to October of 2000. The photos didn't really 'happen' until I got home and saw what I had accumulated on handsfull of Canon Elph APS film, and have been integrated after the fact.

Techno-drags were much worse in 2000. I was plagued with lack of internet connections, computer problems and cell phone malfunctions which took me from exasperation to discouragement to loneliness to downright depression at times, and also led me to interact with sundry helpful and comforting souls. One of the great disappointments of the trip was my loss of many photos to the use of a primitive Sony Digicam (DCR-TRV10) which I thought I could take still pictures. They didn't even list megapixels then, and when I returned, I found they were garbage. This is why some places are not represented with photo pages. (I have replaced what should have been with others from different locations.)

The inspiration for publishing this travelogue came when I began to make plans for a return trip from 23 August to 14 November of 2006. Along the way I discovered the forums at a wonderful travel site called Slowtrav, where a community of great people encourage renting apartments and living in places we visit instead of darting around fearing we’ll miss out on something. The incredibly generous and knowledgeable people on these forums, and the separate Slow Travel site are treasure troves of useful information. People at Slowtrav write up Trip Reports with stories, photos and helpful, delicious discoveries about every destination.

Slowtrav didn't exist in 2000. If it had, I'd have learned from its wisdom to plan a different kind of journey, as I am for my upcoming trip. As it was, my stays in important cities like Venice, Rome and Florence were too short. I stayed in hotels or apartments in cities, and chose B&B's in rural areas, with visits to old and new friends and a week long rental of a charming stone cottage with a pool in the Lot of France thrown in. Parts of the trip evolved in response to my health and unpredictable events. Sometimes I had no plan and pulled over to consult Sawday's for a spot to rest my head, leading to wacky and wonderful surprises.

There were times when I didn't write at all because I was too preoccupied with living, or sick with a cold and URI, or exhausted or crabby or just plain missing my muse. In this report, I'll occasionally fill in with a reconstructed memory written after the fact of what was going on in the time gaps. (Summer, 2006)

Austria

I’m sitting outside on the corner balcony of my hotel in Garmish-Partenkirchen (say that five times fast!) with cheese and crackers and drink, having come back late to watch the sun go down on the Bavarian Alps. It’s crisp cold and getting darker. The remainder of the sunset looms over there in dark oranges framing sharp peaks whose snow looks blue. Meanwhile, looking for the classical music station amongst the paltry choices, what should I come upon but an American talk show with, guess who, Dr. Laura of all things. No classical music but Dr. Laura. Oy.

Spent the morning in continued efforts to try this or that option within the hotel for connecting to the net to get and send email, all for naught.

Then, I wandered around town down to the Partenkirchen part, which started out in A.D. 15 as the Roman town of Partanum on the trade route from Venice to Augsburg. Its main street, Ludwigsstrasse, follows the original Roman road. Garmisch is appears about 800 years later as Germaneskau aka: "German District". Today they have proud separate identities and take umbrage at being viewed interchangeably.

Along the way to the “other” side, I tried several times unsuccessfully to use my ATM card to no avail. Apparently, Wells Fargo is persona non grata here. This may prove to be a problem, but I’ll figure out something.

While eating lunch, a sweet German woman asked to join me on my outside table in the blazing spring sun, reflecting the snow of the surrounding snowy mountains into a brightness which hurt my eyes. She was waiting for her husband who was in a business meeting they’d driven 4 hours from their vacation site so he could attend, only to turn around and drive 4 hours back. She and I took up a bit together, and shopped the pedestrian street. I let her use my cell phone, and they brought me back to my hotel as I was too pooped to walk back. Then came the GOOD news: I got connected at an internet cafe & was able to send off my travelogue.

I think tomorrow I will venture over to Fussen to see the big castles whose names I can’t now recall. For now, it’s off to a “fabulous” Bavarian restaurant.

Headed over to Salzburg by way of yet another impossibly quaint Bavarian village and shopping mecca, Mittenwald, on the German/Austian border--a particularly cute one where I got a parking ticket and bought my first item: a butter yellow windbreaker jacket with oodles of bells & whistles like special waterproof microfiber fabric, a zip-out thinsulsation lining, sleeves which zip off to provide a vest, and a hidable hood...Only problem is that its color is so beautiful I stick out like a sore thumb wearing it amidst everyone else's black, black and black on black. I left the parking ticket and drove out of town doing nothing about it because I couldn't read it, and besides, catch me if you can.

The hotel here in Salzburg is a bit fancier than I’d expected. My fourth floor corner room looks out over the river, its bridges looking at night for all their worth like those of the River Seine. Took a walk around the village, and WHEW--lots of tourists and elegant shops for them to dispose of disposable money in. But the city itself is a real jewel with much beauty per square inch I’ll explore tomorrow.

Full day. Took the fununcular up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which began being built in 1077 under an archbishop named Gebhard during some investiture conflict over whether German Emporor Heinrich IV or Pope Gregor would be the new monarch, in case you were wondering. Very interesting example of early property protection by cannonballs. Waited for teen tourists to move from this or that spot to take a picture and eventually walked down to beautiful St. Peter’s Cemetery and church, saw the Cathedral.

I got back to Salzburg in time to do the four hour Lakes and Mountains Tour--and I’m glad I did as the Sound of Music tour goes in a huge bus, whereas ours was in a more intimate minivan. Tom, our guide, was a friendly German bloke who loved Mozart and was pleased with the mix of customers on our run. He said it’s not so fun when you get a bunch of deadpan, silent types who never react or ask questions. The lakes and villages we saw were lovely, but again, more of the same cute Bavarian style. Went to the church where the wedding in Sound of Music was filmed. You know, I hate to admit it, but I never saw The Sound of Music.

Then the creme de la creme: I went to a Mozart & Hayden chamber music concert in Mirabell’s Marble and Gold room, another tastefully gilded room.

A lovely female trio played pieces for piano, violin and viola by Mozart and Hayden. They were in mid to late 20s, maybe older, and my hotel man had got me a front row center seat 2 feet from them with perfect view of how their faces sang to the music with subtle smiles, aching grimaces, furrowed brows. Their beauty was remarkable, both musically and physically.

Hallstatt is a storybook village of cobblestone and ivy and geraniums nestled into a craggy, forested mountain, hugging the shore of Lake Halstattersee. Sadly, after the long drive, it rains both days I'm here, making my explorations of tiny lanes and colorful houses soggy, cold and dreary. I vow to return one day.

Note circa 2006: I've learned that Rick Steves has discovered Hallstatt, and take some pride in having been there before his discovery of it. I wonder what's happened to its sleepiness since his kiss upon it.

This is a one night stopover en route from Vienna to Venice.

Tuscany and La Volpaia B&B

The drive from Venice began with my usual wrong exits and having to turn around and retrace steps long enough for it to take an hour to get out of town. Once on the right highway, however, my world changed. Here were hills of artistically apportioned plots in gorgeous greens, chartreuses and caramel browns not yet planted, dotted by cypress clusters which look like an artist put them there to paint.

This is what the pictures and paintings show, but they cannot capture the extraordinary sense of light which I couldn’t grasp before seeing it. It is real. A heavenly transparent veil filtering the sun into unseeable glitter. The bounty of the rain I’d complained about in Venice spawned the beauty of a Tuscan spring sprawling out before me.

When I finally found La Volpaia, the B & B I’m to stay at for the next week, I was greeted by my hosts, Silvia and Andrea. Both are Italians who speak shamefully good English--she from Milan and he, an historically Jewish Italian from Roma whose family goes back to 300 bc.

Andrea is a retired architect [or lawyer, can't recall now which] and abstract artist in his 50's with a grizzled beard and an affection for plain old Italian cigars, which he enjoys chewing and puffing on only somewhat discreetly, depending on whose presence he’s in. Of course, everyone asks him if he likes Cuban cigars, and he makes it a point to say “No, just the Italian ones”. I figure he’d get inundated with Cuban cigars if he said he liked them. He had been working in his profession for many years, but during the 80’s got sick of the indignity of the corrupt patronage system in Roma and decided to buy and remodel this property, which, according to the photographic diary, was no simple task. He’d always wanted to have a guest house because he “likes people” and wanted to be out from under the dominance of the clan.

The property was once a typical old Tuscan farmhouse, crumbling down, but now refurbished into a country home of brick archways, dark old wood beams, and a mishmash of furnishings ranging from antiques to economically recovered couches to oriental rugs of unknown origin, which, by the way, need that rubber stuff under them because they slip on the shiny wood floor. First day I fell flat on my butt stepping onto one and in process my little Canon camera hit the wall and appeared to be dead, but was later saved by another guest. A Chinese fellow named Freeman who lives with his Japanese TV commercial producer wife in, guess where, Tiburon--a town in my home county, fiddled with the camera a bit and presto!

The house is filled with Andrea’s sculptures and art. He slices pieces of driftwood with a saw on the horizontal, juxtaposing the smoothness and upward reach of the wood with jaggedness of the horizontal cuts. He is a recycler by nature and several of his pieces are made for practicality’s sake into unusually configured lights or lamps, or tables. The walls are full of his abstract watercolors in orange and yellow Chinese ink. Some incorporate carved, painted styrofoam. Sounds strange, but makes good abstract art according to guests I met. Being an impressionist art fan, his work doesn’t scratch my itch, but I appreciate its intensity and gutty boldness.

The house nestles in a hilly area with multidirectional views of breathtaking Tuscan terrain. There’s a stable and pastures for 6 horses--their prize a beautiful chestnut quarter horse stallion with long flowing mane and tail in butterscotch. The oldest is a mare about nine looking somewhat apolussa.

There are also 6 cats, only 2 of whom have names, the rest numbers, and 2 dogs, although Silvia tells people she only has one dog, which means Paco the lovably spoiled chunky black lab. They both love and treat him like the child they never had, and old photos show her feeding Paco at the table with a napkin around his neck in a way which, if done by a New York dowager would be sickening, but in Silvia’s case, is very amusing.

The second dog, Cuchco, a black and white border collie mix, stays chained up because, as she says, with fierce resentment, “He’s a cat killer”. Apparently Paco brought him home one day and he turned out to treat cats like prey, and they were never able to find a home for him. So they keep him chained up except for daily runs, and while Paco’s in the dining room with guests being treated to amazing bones and scraps, poor old Cuchco is alone outside. I, of course, took him my scraps, making it a jokeful matter. To be fair, he does have a good chunk of freedom during the day when the cats are “put up”, when he runs for miles, and they give him treats sometimes, but not like Paco. Talk about identifying with the underdog.

Silvia’s usually talking about something or other she might do for you in the delightful Italian way where her enthusiasm and energy make her talk over you and it’s hard to get a word in crosswise. If she’s not talking with you, she’s prattling on while she walks around the property working, talking to Paco or a cat or a horse or the air.

Silvia and Andrea together are a hoot, rattling on over each other and then apologizing one to the other midstream, as if they’re really trying hard to stop doing that. Many delightful after dinner conversations are peppered with such antics making the rich history and opinions they vehemently express unclear sometimes, despite their good English. Silvia is by nature a political analyst who sees most issues in terms of politics and economics, while Andrea’s preferred window on things is historical, and depending on the guests, the conversation can become very engaging.

Joseph is an absolute sweetheart Filipino man who lives and works there with his wife, Leta, and their 3 month old girl whose name I forget. They clean up dishes after dinner and prepare breakfast, clean rooms and such. I trudge downstairs sleepy eyed each morning for my cappuccino which he happily makes for me, calling me “Miss Karen”. I think I might have known him before, as the affectional click clearly went off. We share musical tastes and he was thrilled to be able to tape my Beatles CD’s and a compilation CD of soft rock hits from the 80’s.

Silvia fixes everything else, which is a lot of work and extraordinarily delicious. I followed her around the kitchen like a child, taking notes, as she zipped from one task to the next.

Brief story. Slept all day mostly after having felt flu aches all night long, and rainy weather invited same on Monday.

Pork loin w/mashed potatoes:

Tiramisu:

In bowl: 4 yolks & 4-5 T. sugar & w/immersion blender, blend it till it becomes white & soft...Add one T. sweet wine marsala? Blend in.

Put in wider pan on stove w/water, low flame, stirring till water is a little boiling, and hot and swells & let it cool. In same bowl add mascarpone galbani: 500 g package, about 1 cup & blend it in w/immersion blender & pour over lady fingers & spread. & cover w/saran wrap & put in fridge for 2-3 hours, can do day before... Sprinkle w/ bitter chocolate powder liberally before serving.

Best I’ve ever had.

Unable to get connected to internet since Saturday, which is bugging me more than it should. I decided to get out into the Tuscan world even tho it was raining lightly, but by the time I got to San Gimignano, a “main” medieval town to see, it was POURING--big disappointment from photo point of view. Chose not to visit the Medieval Torture Museum, thank you.

But I DID begin my introduction to the extraordinarily beautiful array of Tuscan pottery, plates, vases, etc, which both fill the tourist shops, and are represented by artists who have their own shops. Sylvano, husband of a woman I talked with before leaving, has his shop on the main square, and his work was stunning. The beauty of this stuff is just too hard for me to resist, not that I ever really try all that hard to resist. I got a couple of pieces, vowing that would be all, but we all know how that story goes.

All we guests dragged in to La Volpaia about five all wet and tired. A very dear “normal” American family of 2 charming grandparents, their two handsome, retired military sons with lovely second wives, and a darling pair of daughters of one of the couples had arrived the night before. Nice people not of my page so to speak, but very warm, loving and kind. The grandma Janine took a shine to me, and she and her hubby want me to come visit in Seattle area.

People are taken by my story, I must say. When they hear I'm on a six month trip alone, not knowing how long I'll live, all manner of responses spring forth. "How brave!" or "All alone???" or… I've begun to let myself go wigless, as the damn thing bugs me.

Baby lamb leg baked in slow oven w/white wine & rosemary & garlic.

Juice them, filter juice; add half cup Superfine sugar & some water [half cup] & boil in pan till sugar melts….Let it cool & pour in plastic flat container in freezer...Stir occasionally 1/2 hour...Put in bowl & immersion blender & switch on & return to same container, repeat one hour later. Place one clemintine slice on each serving and go to heaven.

Lazio

Today I leave Firenze feeling I've just scratched the surface. I long to rent an apartment here for a month, and even went to look at a dark, ground floor studio on the Oltrarno side of the river, much more neighborhoodly than the fancy Duomo side. Ah, will there be a next trip?

The drive down the autobahn from Florence to the B & B in Lazio surprised me with shifting terrain and an uncanny new perception. The rows of poplars and other deciduous trees which just two weeks before had been bare winter stick forms now are budding leaves of greens, gold and even a hint of orange, as if I were experiencing the reversal of autumn, right here before me, but in less vivid hues.

Unlike the Tuscan rolling patchworks of greens and fallow caramel plots with their designer cypress reaching to sky in batches here and there, the Lazio countryside brings new beauty, gradually shifting to more and different types of trees of more varied coloration. The area is dotted with outcroppings of sandy colored calanques from plateaued rises, some with ancient stone villages perched on top looking ready to slide down the sandy soil beneath them. This dryer soil no doubt accounts for the somewhat less verdant cast to the landscape than in Tuscany.

L’Ombrolico, my Umbrian B & B, is another refurbished old stone farmhouse, which my wry and dour English ex-pat hostess named Dawne had orchestrated over the past 15 years. As I arrived into the circular dirt driveway, she sat at her outside table under the porch with her long silver-taupe tresses rolled into a casual bun on top of her head, framing a smiling, almost crimson face. She was doing a crossword while sipping on a drink.

Before seeing her, I am overwhelmed by the bountiful riotous mass of yellow Lady Banks roses and Wisteria cascading down over the porch roof and climbing up the second floor windows. The property, which early “before” pictures showed plopped in the middle of a barren wasteland, was now filled with flowering spring trees, expanses of grass, and small fields of grapevines no longer harvested for wine. But the prize which sent me bounding from my car with cameras in hand was an extraordinary pink peony tree, only four foot tall after nine years, now in full delicious pink bloom with flowers half a foot wide.

A charmingly dilapidated old animal barn with the typical curved terra cotta roof tiles sat off to the right by itself. It’s about as tall as me, and once housed pigs, chickens and rabbits in the early years before Dawne’s divorce from the man who helped create what was to have been a family home. Now, with only Dawne to manage everything, only the shell remains, curled over in places with green vines, and a picturesque old blue metal washpot hosting a lemon tree in early stages of life sits beside it.

My first floor room looks out from my bed to a porch with my own sitting table, framed by the hanging roses and wisteria. I look through a huge heavy glass door protected by an attached medieval iron grate. I sit at my porch table in the late evenings falling in love with nightingales chortling a cacophony of songs to one another from one acre to the next.

Dawne had planted many olive trees years ago along the dirt road to her driveway, providing a rich nesting haven near the Tiber river creek across the road. This, my first exposure to these lovely birds, hypnotized me. In California, most of the birds have one repetitive song or sound or tweet.

Not nightingales. They actually converse musically with each other--at least that’s what I invent--in a most beautifully complex and variegated range of clucks, whistles, warbles and such as I’ve never heard before. I guess in the U.S. they mostly live in the south, but, despite the fact it's probably not their correct ecosystem, I want to import some to Meadow Way and see how they do out there in the Fairfax Cascades.

But to begin with, I can barely get to our local town a few kilometers away because I keep stopping to take pictures of this garden or that building or one particularly spectacular peach rose climbing up a terra cotta wall which takes my breath away. The older Italians at these properties look at me and my platinum head with grimly cautious puzzlement, shaking their heads until I smile and holler, “Molto bella giardino!!”, which usually brings a welcoming dentally challenged smile in return.

Once in town, I wind my way around the impossibly narrow cobbled streets, again stopping here and there to shoot a picture, getting the same stone face look of curiousity until I warmed the chill in one way or another.

At the top of one hill in a small plaza behind the church, a drama ensued as I encountered a middle aged woman with a baby in a stroller, a boy about eleven and a wonderful ancient woman with brown leathered skin who must have been at least ninety.

I'm in my car with the window down. The conversation, if you can call it that, starts with a question I ask in fractured Italian, at which point an avalanche of enthusiastic goodwill pours out of the two women towards me, talking over each other in blur of animated instructions, arms flailing this way and that. I laughed and say the one thing I mastered from the Pimsleur tapes: “Io no capisco l’Italiano et le no capiche l’Anglaise”, (I don't understand Italian and you don't understand English!) which apparently registered as a green light to continue in the if-I-just-speak-louder-and-slower-then-she’ll-understand-mode so common here. So on they went, arguing, I think, about which one was saying the right thing to me or not.

The old woman walks over to my car window. Her leathery tanned skin wrinkled around loving old blue eyes and her face was framed by shocks of skewed silver hair which jostled about as she grinned a beautiful five tooth smile right into my soul. She stared at my Annie Lennox platinum hair, gently rubbing the skin on my arm in a grandmotherly gesture I read as a mixture of surprise or compliment, or perhaps even compassionate understanding that I'd had cancer. I'll never know. She kept looking deep into my eyes, repeating a word I didn’t understand, each time slower and louder, over and over, and it drove me nuts because I was loving this woman and could not communicate with her. Eventually I had to sadly give up on the effort, and we were full of mutually affectionate areviderci’s and buena sera’s as they all waved goodbye to me. I drove down the hill with tears in my eyes.

I move on towards Montepulciano, for which I had a village map borrowed from Dawne, and eventually arrive at the local chaos zone just outside a stone archway and narrow cobbled road leading up inside the old village walls. This common feature of Italian hill towns is usually the spot just outside an entry to walled towns in which driving is only permitted, if at all, for residents living inside the wall--supposedly. But, since all the shops and views and sights to see at the church piazza are way up at the top, or on the way to the top, all visitors--whether Italian or otherwise--have an interest in getting a better place to park where there isn’t so much climbing to do.

So, depending on the day and the village, you have many little cars competing to get inside the walls to sneak a parking place at the same time others are trying to get out, all honking at one another and it’s a mess. Mostly the Italians are engaged in this fiasco: except for the real rich Americans in Mercedes or BMW’s who feel just as entitled as the Italians, male tourist drivers tend to resist temptation to join the competitive fray and abide by the signs preventing entry by car. I guess they figure that experiencing the joys of a few moments of this particular kind of male comraderie are not worth risking expensive car damage to regret later on. Ah, but I digress.

This spot is often also where two or three roads converge at a roundabout and one is faced with parking or choosing in short order which of the other roads you want to take, because if you sit there and stare at the list of signs with arrows pointing this way and that trying to figure out which one to take, everyone gets mad at you and starts honking.

Usually there’s a local bar with myriad local folk of different ages, sizes and shapes, and numbers of teeth sitting outside along with the tourists, having espresso, wine, beer, Coca-Lite, cocktails, aperitifs, gelatto or pastry--a pick your poison kind of joint. Little groups of old women or men sit on benches, the men outyelling each other to make a point, the women chatting and watching the local drama evolve.

There is some type of parking arrangement which you are never sure you belong in, bordering, perhaps, a little park of greenery or an administrative building; and, if the place is at all busy, maybe an Italian cop or local man helping to direct traffic. This chaotic, animated spot is where Italian country life converges mornings till one and evenings between five and ten, both in general, and between those who live inside and outside the village walls.

So, on this particular day when I come upon this teeming melange of life, I circle the roundabout a couple of times to try to get my bearings and end up parked amongst a bunch of teenagers socializing near their vehicles by a park while I proceed to study my little map of the village and they all stare at the platinum Americana.

But, I can’t figure out where I am on the map. The street names are different. Thankfully, there is a cop over there, partly directing traffic, partly carrying on conversation with local friends, and partly answering questions for disoriented tourists like me. When I get his attention after a few minutes, I gesture to my map and tried to ask him where I am on this map so I can get oriented. He has trouble understanding me, and after several efforts, gestures me to wait as he kindly calls in to his office to get an English speaker to translate for me.

Meanwhile, all his local Italian friends circle around me, some trying to outyell each other to answer the question, others making indecipherable suggestions to the cop, and still others making noises and gestures to tease him about his eagerness to help this odd platinum blonde Americana woman. When the English speaking lady gets on his police phone, I told her what I was trying to do, she told him, and his eyes lit up with satisfaction! “AHHH, Si, signora”....

And, after trying for several moments to figure out where we were standing on this map, he looks at me like I'm crazy, pointing out that this is not, in fact, a map of THIS town, MonteFIASCONE, but of MontePULCIANO, at which point, the cop and I and the accumulated crowd of curious onlookers around us all burst out laughing while I kept repeating “Ei-yeai-YEI!, mama-MIA!!!...Io stupido Americana!!” The old use-self-deprication-to-avoid-humiliation maneuver. Having realized I wasn’t where I thought I was, I grabbed my cameras and proceeded slowly up the cobbled hill into the village, and took in remarkable views of Lake Bolsena instead of the Lazio countryside.

After a satisfying photo session and a lovely sunset over the lake, I find my way to a popular local restaurant for grilled chicken, and am positioned to observe an initially puzzling group which introduced me to the commonness of interracial adoption. At a long table whose end faces me are three caucasian adults and five kids representing three races and two families.

They all live in Montefiascone and speak Italian, but when the woman on the center of the right side helps me translate with the waitress, I discover she's French, and married to a German husband who sat across from her. Between them they had two caucasian sons of their own, 11 and 3, and an adopted East Indian girl about 8 with a casted broken ankle who kept competing for attention with the 3 year old by leaning into the French woman’s lap. The 11 year old son sat down at the other end of the table, torn between being too old for that mushy stuff and clearly feeling left out, but not wanting to let his father notice this.

An Italian woman sits next to the German man. She is a close friend of the couple, and the adoptive mother of 2 black girls of 7 or 8 who also vie with each other for HER lap space or cuddles when they weren’t enjoying the game of escorting the Indian girl to the bathroom since she couldn’t walk with the cast.

I was touched by the scene of this motley crew, and as they rose to organize the bunch to leave I commented to the French woman, “Bella famillia!” She smiled and said they were really two families and that her Italian friend had adopted the two black girls.

Apparently this sort of thing is very common here, as there are many refugees from Africa, Sri Lanka, and other places to be scooped up by the family oriented Italians, who love their bambinos so very much that I was a bit ashamed at priorities at home, where even loving adoptive parents hold out for white babies.

I got predictably lost on the way home to L’Ombrilico, driving a VERY long way around to get there, since it was dark and that doubled the potential for wrong turns in this country road world.

Deruta is an old town north of Rome where many ceramic artists’ studios are--the ones who make the stuff you see everywhere else, and some you don’t see anywhere. If you take the south exit in, you pass all these huge ceramics stores aiming to get tourists and markups before they get to the little village where all the real studios are.

According to some of the artists I spoke to, even in the village some stores’ proprietors claim to be artists when they’re not. I learned that many of the designs I’d been seeing were ancient ones being reproduced or modified by the current artists, whose work had passed down for generations through the family, while some create original work.

I had already broken my vow, ha ha, to not buy any ceramics on this trip except a few tiles to complete the kitchen, and perhaps a few plates to put up on the walls over the dining table and sliding glass doors. But, as is my wont, I gave in when I’d stumbled upon a lone ceramic artist in a Tuscan town called Certado. She had a quiet, unassuming way, and an assistant who helped her pack things being sent to sale locations, and seemed invested in protecting her from giving away the store.

Everything she had there was original and incredibly beautiful and, according to a pair of young American women who walked in while I was perusing the stock, was the prettiest stuff they’d seen and had the best prices anywhere. And they rattled off all the places they’d been and what they’d seen. They’d come back for more against their better judgement. So, by the time I got to Deruda the stuff I’d accumulated took up needed space in my car, and I’d been looking for a way to get it shipped back home.

I wandered through town drooling over the beauty and trying real hard to just take pictures instead of buy, but of course was only partially successful. When I’d come upon an artist I like and get to chatting with, my discipline got mowed over by my wish to honor my affection for the person with a purchase.

One shop had some beautiful work done by a charming, short, bald man in his 90’s who took great delight in having me take a picture of him at his wheel, something he obviously did several times a day. Later it occurred to me he probably didn't do pottery anymore but sold himself as a tourism feature.

I got an exquisitely painted plate of a woman’s face in profile and a framed set of two tiles from an old design of a woman and man on a country road. The woman is carrying a heavy load of wood and sticks on her back and had just paused to put her her hands on her hips and send a frown back at her man on the other tile, who was only carrying the lightweight bread on his back. This amused me, and the old man, his daughter and I got a good laugh from my things-never-change-do-they observation.

Then, I had a moving experience at another shop, where I came upon an adorable young woman with stark black short hair, painstakingly painting a pot. Her name was Annalisa, and as we talked in fractured Englitalian, she asked about my trip. I told her the story of my cancer, its remission, the possibilities of recurrence and death, and my wish to come and savor the joys of beauty while I still have the chance to do so.

To my surprise, as I spoke her dark and lovely doe eyes gradually filled with huge tears which were soon pouring down her beautiful face. I felt terrible and began to tear up as well, and tried to reassure her. “It’s ok, Annalisa....I’m very happy to be here, and I didn’t want to make you sad”....She replied something like “Le et corragio a forte donna...”--expressing her amazement at what she felt were my courage and strength. I thanked her, said as many reassuring things as I could to help her gather herself together, and proceeded to look around the shop--probably for something to buy for a memory and because I felt so guilty.

She suddenly popped up from her seat, saying “Una momento...”, went over to a shelf, and picked up a beautiful ceramic bell she’d painted, and held it out to me with a huge smile, saying that this was her gift to me, as the bell is a sign of good luck.

I protested, tears welling in my eyes, but I could see that this was an important and heartfelt gesture which meant a great deal for her to make and for me to receive. She took pleasure in writing “Good Luck” and her name inside the bell, and as she happily wrapped it, I told her the story of being embarrassed over my platinum hair, and she said, “No, no, no...I didn’t want to tell you this, but when you came in, I wanted to do my own hair that way--perhaps for the summer I will.” Midstream in all this her husband came in with a friend, which eased the incredibly intense emotionality between us. I left with profuse grazias, my bell well secured in bubblewrap and my heart full of love and gratitude for this moment of life.

Soon after this, I came upon a handsome fellow named Sergio who has a shop in Palm Springs which, combined with his good looks, aroused a doubtful caution in me born of some deep mysterious mistrust. But as the interaction unfolded I came to like the guy a lot. His studio currently opened up onto a massive terrace with a magnificent view, as he was in the middle of a major remodel job with the entire west wall down.

Sergio's whole family--wife, kids, parents, siblings and their spouses--all live in this old stone building built around an ancient stone ceramics furnace which he took me downstairs to see. Buoyed by my interest, he then took me around a corner into his basement studio where things waiting to be fired in the new oven were. Along the way, I noticed the makings of wood crates and thought AHA!, maybe this is the pottery-in-my-car solution.

Before long I was trying to explain to him with the help of his brother’s well-intended but iffy translating, my dilemma of having a bunch of ceramics I needed to ship home, but not knowing how to go about it or who to entrust the task to, since the items were bought from different artists. Sergio eventually got the picture, and was more than happy to to crate and send it.

Once the business was completed and I’d bought a plate I loved from him as a token of my appreciation, we continued sharing--I, my digital pictures of my trip, including sculptures by the Renaissance artist Andrea della Robbia from the Galleria dell’Accademia, and he, his book on della Robbia, showing me how many of the ceramic designs done by he and other artists came from Robbia....And then, some old black and white photographs of the town, it’s central furnace, now in his shop, and one shot of a row of young kids working at potting wheels to produce and paint pots. He pointed to one boy with pride and said, “My padre’s padre”...

I left Deruda with a full heart and an empty trunk, and given my experience thus far with sending anything anywhere to or from Europe, a hope that the crate actually arrives home on Meadow Way.

Bad News

Well, I knew things were going too well. This newsflash interrupts the flow of the travelogue thing, but it's been a bad news week for me here.

Silvia and Andrea had recommended a visit to Tellaro over the touristed Cinque Terre, so I ambled over there on Sunday and stayed at a charming old family hotel called Locanda Miranda, which, by the way, served the most amazing fresh seafood meal I've had so far. I spent an afternoon puttering the narrow alleys of this colorful little village, shooting wow after wow of views and scenes which made me smile. I'd been leery of the chaotic scene of Cinque Terre, especially given my compromised physical state, and left Tellaro sated with her delights, and vowed to return one day to the CT.

Next morning I headed northwest into France, and by day's end stopped to look up what would become my first non-reserved stopover--this one a hotel fave of good old Rick Steves in the Cote d'Azure town of Antibes. Rick's choices are often not oriented towards car drivers, and this little number ended me up in a small downtown section of Antibes filled with impossible one way streets. (I'm sure, however, it was perfectly located for train travelers!) The guy at the hotel, once I found it, was a chipper, helpful gay fellow with an Australian accent who assured me I could park for free for the night "over there".

The "over there" I first chose was a lot for the post office, and once in a parking place, I had the feeling it wasn't the right one. On the periphery of my attention I noticed a young black boy in a red and white hooded windbreaker behaving a bit strangely, but figured Oh Well. I got out of the car and walked partway back to the hotel, but then decided Mr. Hotel Guy meant a different "over there", so went back to move the car. The boy was skulking about, running to and fro with no apparent agenda, which I didn't really get until later. As I got in to move the car and leave the lot to go around the block, I noticed him following me around the block, running. I vaguely recall some kind of PC thought along the lines that I ought not assume bad things of black kids.

I stopped to park my car in what I thought to be the correct "over there", and had just pulled into a parallel place. Black kid runs past my car on the sidewalk, swooshing his windbreaker over his head and back, dashing past as if to show he wasn't following me after all. And then, before I could turn off the key to the car, he dashed back, pulled open the passenger door and grabbed my purse from the seat next to me, and ran like hell up the block--gone with the wind, as I jumped out of the car screaming "HEY, STOP THAT KID", running after him like in the TV cop shows.

A group of old men on the corner looked barely concerned and made no move to do anything. When I returned to them a few moments later to ask what direction he'd gone in, one pointed one direction, another to a different direction. Clearly, he was gone johnson, and this was no uncommon event. Another stupid American tourist, they probably thought.

In the purse were: probable equivalent of $5-600 cash of various foreign denominations; my cell phone; my newly purchased Minolta camera bought after I lost my Canon in Positano; my passport; 2 credit cards--one with a pin number-- and my ATM-Masterard; my checkbook with drivers license; my MCI calling card, and sundry other helpful items like my calculator and currency converter, and my little spiral notebook with accumulated phone numbers, notes on people, etc.

When I returned frantic to the hotel, Jean Paul, gay guy, was totally unable to deal with how upset I was, and wanted to reassure me that at least I had my life (hmmmm...irony happens, bud: you don't know the half of it!) and wasn't raped, and yes, I'll have to make some phone calls, but this is nothing to get all stressed out and emotional over.

I took a quick run around the locale looking in bushes and trash on the assumption he'd just take the money out and throw the rest away, but of course, found nothing. Then Jean Paul got his friend to take me up to the police station to file a report, which is the most important thing to do in these circumstances (they say). By now it's 7:30 p.m. and the woman at the front desk was a sweet, but recent transfer to this station who didn't know the area and it made conveying the basics to her difficult since I could make no sense of the map she showed me and she knew nothing of the hotel. Her efforts to get help from a male colleague were met with a bored look. I had to come back the next day to have my report taken. Clearly a useless endeavor.

That night was spent making a gazillion calls to the states to stop credit cards, arrange for a new one to be sent, and such. Tuesday morning, my friend Gisele in Seguret (whose B&B is pictured above), whom I'd called the night before, sent her ADORABLE 24 year old nephew who works in a bank in Antibes over to help me out. He brought me some money and spent a good 2 hours on the phone helping me determine the details of having money wired to Western Union there.

Just having this gorgeous and amazingly sweet and competent guy to help me soothed the edges of my mental frenzy. I was a basket case. So I spent the rest of that day till about 4 dealing with the police report--taken by a tough-woman kind of gal with a good sense of humor who was angry, I think, about not being spelled for lunch, and the experience of communicating with her was another amusing story.

I then went to the post office, where Western Union operates from, and went through a long procedure to collect the $1000 I'd had Wells Fargo wire me...feeling idiotic as I stood in line crying from the accumulated frustration of it all.

Finally left Antibes about 4, totally wiped out and tired, and was intending to head up to Seguret to Gisele, but it soon became clear that it was way too far. Plus, I had to go to Marseille to the Consulate to get my passport replaced.

So I looked up an obscure B&B near St. Tropez, where I was met by a squat old woman whose front entry and much of her property were done in beautifully patterned bright tiles. Not only did she have a room, she helped me immeasurably with getting into Marseille, trusting me to send payment to her when I could.

I then tackled getting into downtown Marseille to this small hotel where I had a reservation, once again amidst a maze of tiny one way streets which had me driving in circles before I could find the place, but ended up blessed again with another sweet and handsome French guy at the hotel who was most helpful. Then, yesterday morning early I did the American Consulate thing to get a passport replacement, and soon left town to head to Uzes, where I wanted to stay for a night or so before heading to the Dordogne for my two week stay there.

On the way, I was determined to return to a small hill village up behind what I'd thought was the Pont du Gard where I'd taken some of my best pictures last year--the one Sarah Lampland has, and one which Donna has in her bathroom. I later learned it was actually Aqueduc de Roquefavor. Approaching this pont, I discover that the whole scene has changed such that I couldn't get to the road which would lead me to Ventebren. On my way to give up and head to Uzes, I was crossing a bridge over the river, and proceeded, in some moment of spaced out exhaustion, to rear-end a small car stopped for a red light in front of me.

Oh my god! Just what I needed: a car accident. The fellow I hit was okay, as was I and his little car sustained hardly visible damage of any kind, whereas the whole hood of my Volvo was crunched up, headlight damaged, barely drivable.

He calmly pulled from his glove compartment the papers for European auto accidents which we both fill out to send to our respective insurance companies, and took the lead in quickly filling his out and helping me with mine. I survived the crisis with yet another new list of bureaucratic phone calls and dilemmas to solve on getting the car repaired while I'm in Domme.

Happily, I stumbled upon a charming place to stay in Uzes (Hotel D'Entraigues) with good internet access, a terrace, two rooms with a kitchenette, all for $58/nite, so I'm going to stay here till Sunday morning and rest, take care of some business and endeavor to gather what wits I still have back about me. Tried to get Wells Fargo to wire me another $1000 to last till my new ATM card arrives in Domme, but they'd only send $500.

So, more than you wanted to know, I'm sure, about my fall from grace over here, but perhaps this can help temper any envy flowing around out there amongst my dear ones. For now I gotta go and make some more calls.