Greetings to old and new MVR friends!
I really like to travel, a love acquired in adulthood as there was very little opportunity in my childhood. Most of my traveling these days happens in early October when my husband George and I attend the Livorno American High School annual reunion. LAHS was the school for Army and civilian dependent kids near Pisa, Italy, where my husband attended junior high and the first semester of high school. Anyone who was a student the high school is an alum; graduation is not a criterion. We go a different place each year, depending on who volunteers to be the host. Every so often we go back to Italy.
Probably the LAHS trip that stands out most in my memory is the one that almost didn’t happen. This reunion trip that year was back to Italy, and one of the members arranged a tour- 10 days at a hotel in Tuscany and taking bus tours each day. Plus an optional follow-on trip – three days in Venice, how could we not? We also had two Iceland Air tickets from a cancelled trip to Norway. Could we possibly use them to get to Italy? And since that was also the summer of our 50th wedding anniversary, we had decided to treat ourselves to a week in Rome before the Tuscany tour.
Iceland Air was willing to swap our tickets. And wouldn’t we like to stop over in Iceland for a couple of days for no extra airfare? However, they didn’t fly to Rome in September, but they did go to Zurich. Okay, my Swiss railway fan husband was in favor of that. So our trip would take us from Boston to Iceland to Switzerland to Rome to Tuscany and Venice. We started making some arrangements ourselves, then threw up our hands and called a travel agent friend. Sheryl would be delighted to plan the rest for us. It would take several weeks to get it all set up; she would send all details shortly before we were due to leave.
Did I mention she lives in Florida? Where they get severe hurricanes? And have to evacuate? Yep, about ten days before our departure date, she did have to evacuate. Upon her return, she had no internet connection and an unreliable phone connection. Many promises were made to her–it’d restored by tomorrow for sure. But it wasn’t. Our departure day arrived with many incomplete arrangements. The theme of our next many days became “What do we do now?”
We flew off to Iceland hoping she would have info when we arrived. Alas, no. We had booked a rental car but nowhere to stay. What to do now? Trip Advisor to the rescue for a hotel in Reykjavik. We visited geyser sites and a geothermal generating plant, and saw some amazing scenery.
We still needed a flight to Zurich. Got one, it left at 7:00 a.m. It’s an hour to the airport… short night, we were pretty bagged when we arrived. Still no Sheryl and no place to stay. “What do we do now?” Sheryl had suggested Lucerne as a Swiss destination, so we drove there, arriving at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. Every car and bicycle that wasn’t being driven was parked on the street. George dropped me off at a Tourist Info where after much consultation, the two ladies there found us a perfect hotel across the lake from Lucerne, with fabulous lake and mountain views. We rode the train up to view the Jungfrau, spent a day with friends in southern Switzerland, toured Lucerne, tempted to cancel the rest of the trip and stay there.
In the meantime, we were still without a Rome hotel. Cue the refrain…. We booked a hotel through the USO just outside Vatican City. The top floor of the building had apparently been a grand apartment, taken over by the hotel and divided into guest rooms. Fabulous furniture and enormous paintings on the walls – it was like sleeping in an art gallery!
But we didn’t spend much time there, too much to see!
All-day tour of Forum + Capitoline Hill + Colosseum (I think our guide could have been Lisa’s sister), an evening tour of Rome’s fountains, eating real pizza for lunch every day. Walking about 18,000 steps a day! Too many museums, churches, sights and definitely not enough time! Must go back!
The last hurdle – meeting up with our tour group outside Florence. We decided to rent a car and drive there from Rome. Getting out of Rome on a Sunday afternoon was no picnic. We eventually managed to meet our friends and proceed to our hotel in Montecatini Terme. We spent the next several days all over Tuscany – Pisa, Siena, Florence, winery tours that included not only samples of the wines but usually a very big meal. One tour even included a cooking class where we made pasta and crostini.
Finally we were off to Venice, first class on the high-speed train. Our hotel was just down from the train station – good for finding it after we got lost wandering through the city. We took a boat tour of the lagoon, a day trip to Murano, Burano and Torcello islands, of course San Marco and the Doge’s palace. Plus our gondola ride!
Finally we got to the end of our trip that ended well. We left Venice on the bus boat across lagoon to the airport. One more night in a hotel, then a long day of flying from Venice to Zurich to Reykjavik to Boston. Finally home, and never so glad to sleep in my own bed!