We're home!

One last macchiato in Lucca

We've been back in Somerville for almost a week now. Thankfully the flight back was uneventful, and we even had an empty seat in our row which gave us a little extra comfort. We're now un-jet lagged after a couple days of waking up at 4-6am.

It's nice to be back. At the end of our trip we had a couple weeks of travel with a lot of stops, a lot of hotels, and a lot of trains. Definitely more hectic than our time in Italy which was mostly spent in a few smaller places where we could settle in and appreciate the local flavors at a slower pace. Spending time in these small towns gave us many chances to meet locals and other travelers. Here's a few memories of people and places that we wanted to write down to remember.

Chris

On our first day in Assisi I walked way up to the top of the city to a little sandwich shop to pick up lunch. While I was waiting for the order I practiced speaking Italian with the grandma that owned the place. A few minutes later another grandma showed up and I was introduced as “un Americano” to Chris, who spoke perfect English. She was born in NYC, but had lived in Assisi for 20 years, and sometimes she’d come to help her friends that owned the sandwich shop.

And then a couple nights later Vanessa and I went to dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, tucked away in a little alley, and who was there? Chris! She’d come to help her other friends at the restaurant. After dinner she sat and chatted for a few minutes. Her family was Italian and living in NYC, but they all moved back to Italy when she was little. And then when she was in college, everyone moved back to the US, but she stayed in Italy. She got married, had a couple kids, and now has grandchildren, including a couple in Canada. She says it might finally be time to move again.

Dolcemio Tiramisù

A little shop in Assisi that sells 14 different flavors of Tiramisu. We tried 5 different flavors on different nights, and I can’t tell you which is the best, they were all great. It’s got a perfect 5 star rating on Google, with over 100 reviews. It’s owned by a husband and wife who would speak Italian with us, and help us as we stumbled through our conversation. They were very kind and patient, always happy to see us and chat with us about our days.

Michelle

Michelle was waiting to take the bus down to the train station when we were leaving Assisi. We had a little time to kill at the train station before our trains, so we sat and chatted. She’s German, a grad student in archeology studying the late bronze age. For a few summers she’s gone to these caves on islands off the coast of Spain to study the cave paintings and artifacts in the caves. This year she was able to spend a few weeks traveling before the semester started.

Gabriella

Gabriella owns a shop selling local Cortona wines, just off one of the main squares. One afternoon we were walking by after lunch and she was sitting outside. The shop happened to be empty (most people were probably still having lunch) and she practically dragged us inside to give us a free tasting of a few local wines. While we were there and chatting, the fedex guys showed up to pick up 10-20 cases of wine. She was shipping them to people who’d bought them that week and wanted them sent home. So we didn’t feel too bad about trying a bunch of free wine and only buying a little bottle of balsamic. Like many of the Italians we met, Gabriella took great pride in her work. She was very warm and loved getting to know people. We became fast friends and would say hello whenever we passed by her shop.

Dino

Dino was another traveler we met waiting for the bus, this time in Florence. He’s a car designer and said that he had a mental block, so he took all his vacation time to take a month traveling Italy and see friends. He’d just been out on the east coast, to the area around Ancona on the Adriatic. He said that, unlike Florence, that area had no tourists, and wasn’t even very busy this time of year. The food was cheap, the beaches were beautiful, and mostly empty a the end of the summer. Almost sounds too good to be true. Clearly more research is needed, perhaps in the form of our next trip.

Caffè Canto Alla Mela

20 years ago Vanessa spent a semester abroad in Florence. We ended up spending a lot of time in her old neighborhood. The city was so much busier than the last time we were here for our honeymoon 14 years ago. Everyone we talked to was surprised at how many people there were this year. All the big tourist attractions were completely packed, so we spent a lot of time away from the center of town and the big Duomo. Caffè Canto Alla Mela was the neighborhood cafe that Vanessa used to go to every morning for her espresso. We stopped in, and it turns out that the lady working the counter was the daughter of the Armenian couple that owned the place and was helping out for the day. She actually remembered the barista who used to work there 20 years ago, Fabrizio. She said that she used to have a crush on him (and possibly still does). 

Aivi

On one of our nights in Florence we had dinner at a bookstore that sets up tables to serve dinner every night. They’re all vegetarian, and their specialty is their Indian/Italian fusion dosas. They also had a bunch of other interesting dishes, both traditional and unexpected. They offered a special with a salad, a pasta and main course for 20 euro, and they all came out at once on one plate. Everything on the menu looked great, so it was really hard to choose. It was all very tasty.

Sitting next to us was Aivi, who we started talking to get some advice on what to try since she’d just gotten her order. She was traveling by herself, having given a talk at a conference at the beginning of the week. Her husband couldn’t make it, but she took the rest of the week to see the city, and had a sketchbook filled up with drawings from around Florence. Like Vanessa, she too had studied art abroad in Florence and couldn't get over how much busier the city is today. Her and her husband are now both physicians living in Minneapolis. She studies neurological diseases by dissecting cadavers. Neat!

Cats

Vanessa here. That's just a sampling of the many people we met in our time in Italy. There were many other kind and generous people we met on our travels who went out of their way to get to know us a little bit and getting to know them always lifted our spirits. We are very grateful we got to meet so many wonderful people. But enough about people. Let's not forget why we really came to Italy. For the cats.

Mindola is technically Croatian, but we can only assume from her warm heart and Croatian/Italian blended name that she is of Italian decent. She loved getting her pets so much that she was constantly in motion to make sure she was getting pets from the best angles. She'd circle around you, rubbing up against you, and finally stop for a moment for pets all the while moving her front paws up and down in enjoyment. She was the tiniest, sweetest, and most adorable cat.

Gianni Grande and Mandorla (aka TT2) were our Ceppaloni cats. They immediately made us feel at home and acted as if we had always lived there and been their humans all along. They greeted us every time we went outside or came home and comforted us while we were sick. They'd entertain us all by chasing geckos and trying to run into the house whenever we opened the door. Of all the cats I met, Mandorla and I bonded the most. I'd go back to the tiny town of Ceppoloni for no other reason than just to see her again.

Finally, we called our Assisi cat Francis. Always looking a little disheveled and as if he had just woken up from a nap, likely because that's exactly what he was last doing. He was a little slower to warm up to us, but that's a quality I appreciate. Once he did, he hung out on our patio often and was always ready for pets. He'd flop down and roll on his back while purring loudly. Eventually I'd have to pry myself away for dinner or to go back to work. What a sweet, lazy boy.

And of course there were countless sweet kitties we met on our many walks as well. But it's great to be home where we can visit our friends and family and American cats whenever we want. We missed you all! 

Especially Defora.