Italy... By the Book

Though old and a little crusty, like some of its pizza, Italy is still a pretty cool country. I was there back in 1994 driving around free and easy with my wife as we toured Europe by car for 2 months. This time we visited Italy with my parents and our daughter. It was a whirlwind trip that proved once and for all that vacations could be as tedious and stressful as work, if not more!

We started by leaving Kuala Lumpur on the ‘red-eye’ flight arriving in Rome in the early morning of some day, I think Monday. This was a group-packaged tour. There were 44 of us in the group and we collected our luggage and started dragging them to the coach. Our tour of Rome was to begin without even a decent cup of coffee. Forget about sleep or shower after the long flight. Our tour leader said that we had an itinerary that we HAD to follow.

We drove straight to Vatican City where we met up with a local tour leader who filled us in on some of the details of the Vatican. I can’t remember a word she said other than the Pope lived there, but then I already knew that. We had a total of 30 minutes to walk around and look at the Vatican… 30 minutes!!! Took me nearly that long to get to the men’s room, which incidentally is not used by the Pope… I think he uses the woods, at least that’s what I hear.

We then piled on the bus and took off for the Coliseum. We parked and walked to the old arena and were given another 30 minutes to take in one of the greatest architectural features of Rome. We didn’t even have enough time to go inside. Walking around the Coliseum is kind of pointless since it’s circular and looks the same from every angle.

Then it started to rain as we made our way to our first meal in Rome. The tour leader kept saying, “when in Rome do as the Romans do”. Then why, oh why, did we have a Chinese lunch? Here we are in Rome, Italy and we’re eating Chinese food?

The rain didn’t let up during our lunch of roast duck, pig’s feet, old fish, some kind of vegetable and lumpy rice. We walked through the rain to get back to our bus. On the bus, wet and sticky, our guide said that we had 2 more places we had to see because it was on our itinerary. That tad-burned itinerary!

We drove to the Spanish Steps and then got dumped out of the bus and were told we had 2 hours to walk around… in the rain. Well, it did finally quit raining and I was able to dry off by standing in front of some musky warm air coming out of an old building’s air vent along the street. During the rain we sat in a McDonald’s drinking coffee. I have to say that the McDonalds in Italy serve up some real good coffee.

After a couple of hours we were bussed to The Trevi Fountain and spent another hour milling about looking at a bunch of people throwing coins in the pool. We were told that we needed to get dinner around there because the hotel had no food and the tour did not include dinner for the first night. So we bought a bunch of pizza and piled on the bus for our trip to the hotel. It was now about 7:00pm and the hotel was on the outskirts of Rome.

Incidentally, tour group hotels are all out on the fringes of the city and are like prison camps for tourists. Once at the hotel there is absolutely nothing to do except stay in your room.

We had a wakeup call at 6:00am the next morning, filed down to the hotel’s mess hall for the included continental breakfast and then hauled our luggage back to the bus for our trip north.

Our first stop of the day, other than highway pit stops where we ate a lot of our lunches, was Pisa to view the famous leaning tower. We had about an hour to walk around and look at the crooked building. On our first trip to Italy we by-passed this place. It really is an awesome sight and I wish we had passed through here on our first visit when we had more time. I would have liked to go inside to see how a slanted floor felt.

We climbed back on the bus and headed to Florence. There we saw Piazza Signoria and Piazza Santa Croce. We then drove up to the hilltop Piazza Michelangelo to see the big replica of the statue of David and to get an overview of the city. Then it was off to our first Italian dinner. After dinner we headed out to our tourist hotel somewhere off the highway on the outskirts of some city for a short night’s sleep.

The next morning, bright and early, we boarded the bus and headed to Venice. After parking, we boarded a ferryboat and headed to St. Mark’s Square. We dilly-dallied in the square for a while feeding pigeons and oohing and ahhing over the square, the architecture, and the number of tourists. We then went to see a glass blowing factory and after given the opportunity to buy glass stuff we were turned loose for about 3 hours.



We were told repeatedly by our tour leader not to venture away from the square or waterfront; not to penetrate into the small twisting streets that make up Venice. So, the first thing we did was turn our backs to the waterfront and entered the small winding streets. We had spent a few days in Venice back in ’94 and we had to show my parents what it was like ‘inside’ the city. We found a small café and had coffee and pastries and strolled along the narrow streets, crossing bridges and watching the gondolas. At the right time and distance (our memory could only remember so many right and left turns), we turned around and headed back, carefully remembering the number of turns and the direction of each junction we passed through earlier. My daughter sprinkled sugar along the way and it helped to find our way back.

We got back on the ferryboat, back on the bus, and headed back to another tourist prison hotel for the night.

The next day we woke up early and though most everyone just wanted to go to Milan (there were a lot of big spenders in our group) we did have an itinerary to follow. So we quickly made our way to Verona, parked, quickly shuffled past the Arena and went to view Juliet’s balcony. We then spent a little time in the street market, had lunch, and headed back to the bus and on to Milan.

In Milan, the tour guide brought us to look at the Duomo, one of the largest cathedrals in the world, the La Scala Opera House, and the glass-domed Victor Emmanuelle II Galleria. We were then given a couple of hours to shop or browse around. We had coffee at McDonalds because it was raining outside and Gucci, Versace, Fratelli Rossetti, Prada, Cartier etc. never really did anything for me. I’m a Levi kind of guy.

The next day was a free day in Milan so we walked around the city window browsing, eating, and drinking coffee.

The next morning, Saturday I think, the bus was boarded and we headed to the airport. Our group was flying back to Kuala Lumpur, but we were renting a car and heading up to Lake Maggiore to stay for a few days in Verbano, near the Swiss border.

Now the next few days were bliss. We stayed in a real hotel right on the lake in the center of town. This was no tourist prison. This was a nice hotel with friendly staff, nice breakfasts, and views of the lake from the window. We drove up to look at the Cascata del Toce, a 143-meter high waterfall in the Formazza Valley. We crossed into Switzerland and spent time in the town of Locarno. We visited castles. We ate chocolate. I was able to walk along the lakefront, through the old towns, and along a river that sported several nice waterfalls. And, we had authentic Italian food, not Chinese (all of the meals provided on the tour, with the exception of one dinner, was Chinese food). In fact, we ate a lot of authentic Italian food; too much! Our daily dose of ice cream didn’t help either.

We drove back to the airport after our stay at the lake and flew back to Kuala Lumpur with a better appreciation for the free and easy style of traveling and with a few added pounds around the waistline.

Now my tone of writing may seem to indicate that I did not enjoy this trip very much. Well, to the contrary, it was truly a wonderful vacation because of the shared company of my wife and daughter and my mom and dad. Though grueling at times due to the darned ‘itinerary’, the time spent together with my family will never be forgotten. And… I wouldn’t have changed one thing about this trip, even the Chinese dinners!

“Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.”
John Steinbeck