Italy

In 1998 Tom and I took a trip to Italy. I had been diagnosed with MS the year before and we decided we had better travel sooner rather than later. We chose a bus tour of Italy with a company called Perillo and they put us on a bus with a driver named Stefano and a tour guide named Anna. On our flight to Rome we met a couple that, it turned out, were active in the PFLAG chapter in Portland, Maine, and they spotted us because we wore matching rings. So we had made friends on the tour even before the tour began: An auspicious beginning.

Our tour guide, Anna, talked about life in Italy as we drove along in the bus. She was married with a couple of little children and she had the Italian point of view on everything from frozen pizza to the Pope. She noted the Italian national car was the FIAT, which stood for: “Fix It Again Tony”. Two particularly memorable sights on our trip included Capri and the Amalfi Coast.

From Sorrento we took a boat to the island of Capri. We thought it would be a good idea to take the little funicula to the top of the island and then walk back down the hill, but we got a bit lost and missed the funicula station -so we ended up walking to the top. It was a lovely walk past walled private gardens with luscious lemon trees. When we got to the top we were hungry for lunch. So Tom went into a little neighborhood market and stood with a gaggle of Italian homemakers in front of the refrigerated case. It was an interesting sight, Tom was about 2 feet taller than all of these women who were dressed in black and speaking excitedly in Italian; but they kept careful track of who was to be served next. They all pushed him to the front of the group when it was his turn to order. It was like having a dozen Italian mamas taking care of him. For lunch we had some cheese and salami and fresh bread, it tasted like it had been imported from the Italian deli in heaven. We also sank our teeth into a couple of peaches that might have been picked from the gardens we walked by on our way up. We were amazed! The peaches were so succulent; the juice ran down our chins as we delighted in the flavor. The Ralph's grocery back home never carried peaches quite like these.

After Capri, Stefano drove our bus along the Amalfi coast. I don't know how that road is today, but then it would barely accommodate two passing vehicles. If the bus came upon a car wanting to go the opposite direction we both had to stop and pull the rearview mirrors in. Then creep by each other while all the passengers held their breath, looking down the cliff to the Aegean. The Cathedral of St. Andrew in Amalfi was beautiful resting in its stone niche above the sea but I think the real lesson of the trip was: be sure you’ve got a good bus driver.