It has been a long time since my last post (almost 2 months) and for those of you who like to read this crazy tale, I apologize.  In the meantime there has been a visit from my daughter, Jessica,and her family visiting not only Lecce and the Salento, but they started in Rome and we met them for a trip to Pompeii.

We then took a trip to the U.S. to attend the weddings of two of our daughter Jamie’s best friends (each like a daughter to us).  One near Kalispell, Montana on the Flathead River:

All decked out

The Ceremony

The Bride andGroom

The first Dance

The spot

one on a rooftop facility in Seattle:

The Location

The Bride and Groom

The Family

and on the way between the two we stopped off in Spokane to visit my two older daughters and their children:

The adults

Erika and Corey

Jessica and Matt

9 of my ten grandchildren

Since we returned there has been a week in Mantova (Mantua in English) and a couple of trips to Monopoli, an incredibly cute small city along the Adriatic coast just south of Bari.

But I will get to all of that later, first a story of the difference between Italy and the United States.

The most often asked questions we have received during our stay in Seattle have been, “What do you like about Italy?”,  “What are the differences between here and there?”,  and “Are you going to stay there forever?”

I will answer the last one first.  At this point, we just don’t know.  We just renewed the lease for our current apartment in Lecce for another 6 months.  We will then need to return to the U.S. for a short  period of time to sell our house in Seattle.  After that, it is all an open question.

We tried to answer the other questions while we were home, but the answers were all rather vague and non-committal.  So with this post, I am going to try to shed some light on the subject by telling a story of similar events that happened to us, one while we were in Spokane and one that happened here upon our return.

In Spokane, we were visiting my two older daughters, Erika and Jessica, and my 10 grandchildren (well, 9 as one was off at dance camp in Portland).  We spent several hours in Manito Park, chatting and just lounging in the sun on the beautiful (if slightly smoke-filled) day.

That evening, the six adults went out to dinner at a local Asian fusion restaurant.  I will not name names.  It listed its closing time at 9 pm and we arrived about 7:30.  The food was good and we were having a great time talking and catching up on life.  About 8:30 I noticed that the staff seemed to be getting ready to close up and I said something about it to the group, but was assured that the closing time was 9:00 and we had sometime to relax, ordering more food and drinks.

By 8:45 the staff at the restaurant was moving around us busily, stacking chairs and obviously somewhat put out that we were not taking the hint and leaving.  Rather than just politely telling us that since now that all of the other customers had left (the last other group just left), the staff just kept getting louder and more aggressive with their not-so-subtle hints.

When we finally asked about their 9 pm closing time, we were told that they were a small business and couldn’t just stay open for us. We had paid our not-so-little check, so we took our leave.  I could not resist pointing out that their behavior was about as rudely as I had ever been treated in a restaurant and it would make it difficult to want to return.  They seemed to be unconcerned about their actions or our reaction to them and just wanted to get home.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and Holly and I are in Lecce suffering from jet lag and needing something to eat.  It is already 11:30 pm, but many restaurants here are still open so we walk to one of the main streets and find the first one that catches our attention.   A very polite young man tells us that, yes, they are open and they would be glad to serve us.  He apologizes that he doesn’t speak English very well and offers to have one of the other staff who speaks better  English wait on us.  We assure him that we speak Italian well enough (well, Holly does) and he doesn’t have to worry.  We order a light dinner off of the menu (pennies on the dollar of what we spent in Spokane) and enjoy sitting outside on one of the narrow streets of Lecce watching the constant flow of people walking by.

Finally, we asked for the check and the young man was prompt and polite in obliging us.  I then walk inside to pay and notice that they are preparing to close and many of the chairs are stacked on tables.  As in Spokane, I think we were the last to leave.  When I walked up to the cash register, there is a lovely, incredibly polite young woman behind the counter.  She was obviously the person that the waiter had offered up to wait on us as her English was excellent.  I apologized that we had stayed so long as they were getting ready to close.  She seemed a little perplexed by my apology, and proceeded to talk to me for several minutes about Lecce, what we were dong here and how we liked Italy.  It was as pleasant an experience as we have had in a restaurant this year.

Now, I don’t want to throw the young staff in Spokane under the bus on this.  I am sure they wanted to get on with other more important things in their lives, homework, sweethearts or just relaxing after a day of putting up with their customers.  I also understand that we have pleasant experiences and not so pleasant ones everywhere we go depending on the kind of day we are having and what has gone wrong in the day for the others we encounter.

Our lives are actually what we do and how we react to what is happening now, each moment.  My absolute perception is that I find more people here in Italy that live that way than I did living in the U.S.  It makes almost everything just a little more pleasant.

I hope that helps answer the questions at the top of this post.  Your comments and ideas are welcome.

In an effort to see as much of Italy as we can, a few weeks ago we took a trip to Genoa (Genova in Italian) to see not only the city but also the Ligurian Coast (the Italian Riviera if you will).  Liguria is the thin region of Italy that extends along the coast from the French border past Genova, Portofino, the Cinque Terre to the Tuscan border.  It is a true wonderland of beautiful cities and towns clinging to the shore with views that take your breath away.

We stayed in the “centro storico” (historic center) of Genova near the port.  It is an absolute warren of small streets and alleyways that can easily get you going in circles and lose track of direction, but small enough that you cannot really get lost.

The main square Piazza De Ferrari

The tiled sidewalks

The tiled sidewalks

They did have a lot of scooters

Porta Soprana

We stayed just a few blocks from the beautiful old Cathedral of Saint Lawrence built between the 12th and 14th century.  It was everything you come to expect from these magnificent structures, but it had an added bonus.  In 1941 during WW II the British were bombarding the city and the cathedral was struck by a shell.  The device miraculously (according to some, an actual miracle) did not explode.  They have disarmed the shell and it is still on display in the building.

Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

Inside the Cattedrale

Inside the Cattedrale

The bomb that did not explode

Genova is the only city I know where you can commute to your residential neighborhood by an elevator or a funicular.  Very close to the port and the old city they have both.  The hallway to the elevator is a work of art in itself and the views from the top of both are spectacular.

Hallway to the elevator

Hallway to the elevator

Top of the elevator

View from the top of the elevator

Funicular

Panorama of Genova from top of funicular

Earlier I sent a couple of photos of Portofino, but because it is such a beautiful and unique place, I wanted to include a few more for you.   Because it is on a peninsula, you need to somehow get the two or three miles from the train station to the actual town.  We walked to the castle that overlooks the port and to the lighthouse beyond.  It was a hot day and we were hot and thirsty once we reached the lighthouse.  To our pleasant surprise, once we reached it, there was a little cafe/snack bar with drinks and eats over-looking the sea.   What a treat.

There is  a bus that runs on a regular schedule and we took it out and half way back.  We then got off and walked back to Santa Margherita Ligure where the train station is, following the red carpeted walk between the two.  As beautiful a walk as you will find in this world.

Holly at the port

The port with the castle in the background

The castle from below

It is a playground for the rich

I loved this boat

View from the Castle

Beautiful sailboats

The lighthouse

The rest spot

Follow the red carpet

Inside the castle there were many pictures of famous visitors. I loved this one.

As we traveled up and down the coast, we found beautiful sea walks, amazing architecture and marvelous views everywhere we went.  The one foundation compound we found was worthy of a Bond or science fiction movie.  We looked it up and they say they are involved in medical research, but, look at that building.

What most of you probably remember about Genova from your elementary school days is that it is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo).  His childhood home has been rebuilt and stands just a few feet from the old city gate seen in the photos above.  In the US, he now comes with a lot of baggage.  In Seattle they even changed his holiday to Native American Day.  However, in Genova (also in Barcelona) he has many statues and monuments dedicated to him.  I found this one especially telling.  Note the young, half-naked, native woman being presented as part of the treasure found in the new world.  Even with our current administration, I am not sure you could get away with this in the US.

For reasons I cannot fathom, the blog site suddenly started sucking resources so my web host shut it down for a few days.  I fiddled with it to see if I could find out the reason for the problems, but all I really did was fiddle.  I told them I did not know if any of my tweaks would correct the problems.  They turned it back on and things seem to be normal for the time being.  If any of you tried to visit the site and got an error, you should be good to go now.  If you visit the site and see any issues, please let me know so I can pass the information along.

On a happier note, we are going to Polignano a Mare (a seaside town not far north of us, see previous post) to see the Red Bull World Cliff Diving Championship today.  Watch for us on your TV.  With 70,000 people expected, maybe not.

For any of you that follow this blog, you must know that Holly and I do not usually travel with large groups.  Rarely have either of us ever signed up for a group tour of any kind.  So when our Italian friends, Paola and Maurizio (not to be confused with our friends Paola and Gianfranco, or Roberta and Maurizio – yeah – we get confused sometimes too) asked if we wanted to accompany them on a tour they were taking to Albania, we had to think about it (at least for a few minutes).  But in the end we figured what could go wrong traveling with a group of Italians to a country where they would speak little Italian or English and has a reputation of being a little bit on the shady side of life.  It was the right decision and we had a great time.

What is any adventure without a little, well, adventure.  After asking several times exactly where we needed to meet up for the ferry we were taking from Bari to Durrës, we were just told, “the check-in desk  for the ferry company”.  The port is a big place and Google maps took us to the place where the ships actually dock and depart from.  Well, that is not where you need to check-in.  That place is 3 km away and we need to be there soon.  We got that figured out, got our boarding passes with the rest of our group, and returned to the place of embarkation only to find relative chaos in the boarding area.  We waited well over an hour and a half to finally get on board and into our room well after the scheduled departure time of 10 pm.  Finally, the ferry departed after 1 am and we spent a rather miserable night, arriving in Albania nearly 2 hours late.  At that point, I was very grateful that everything had been arranged ahead of time and there was nice bus waiting to take us where we were going.

Albania is not part of the Euro Zone and their currency is the lek.  We were told that the Euro was widely accepted but I always think that is not the best way to deal with exchange rates as you are at the mercy of whatever exchange rate the vendor you are dealing with thinks appropriate.  So I only took a few Euros and expected that we could extract money from cash machines on arrival.  As you have probably already guessed, it wasn’t that easy.  Our cards would not work.  I won’t go into the details, but after a loan from one of the other tour members (Antonio in the waterfall picture later in the post) and several calls to our credit union (with the time difference, we had to wait for 6 hours to do that) we were able to get the money we needed to pay back the loan and have what we needed for the rest of the trip.

The ferry preparing to load

The crossing the next morning

We made it

The old Roman amphitheater in Durrës

Nice use of an old wall with a new bar

The people who arranged our trip are experts on Albania and on our trip from Durrës to Shkudër they had arranged a stop for lunch at a place that we would never have found.  It bills itself as the only slow food place in Albania.  After several wonderful courses of food, wine and several desserts, the bill came –  11 Euros each.  There was something to be said about this whole arrangement.

Our lunch spot

Lunch view

The preparation

My new profile picture

Maurizio and Paola

One of three desserts

Just as we were about to arrive in Shkudër, the bus pulled over so we could climb up to the old castle that guarded the whole area and its tremendous views of the surrounding valley.  We then spent the night in the city and some time touring and having several great meals.

The vegetable vendors there were plentiful and had great looking produce.  They ranged from rather sophisticated markets to little old ladies, that I am sure had grown everything they were selling, just sitting on the sidewalk with their wares spread out before them.

View from the castle

View from the castle

The castle ruins

The whole gang

Eastern Orthodox church

Vegetables

We then separated into two smaller buses that were ready for the rough road we had ahead.  It was not a long distance we had to travel to where we were staying in the Albanian Alps, but the last 10 or 12 miles took several hours.  It was amazing country (for those of you who have spent time in the North Cascades the place looks familiar) and where we ended up was worth all of the rather bouncy ride.

The trip through the rain and mist

Yes, that is the road.

The view from the top

The main guest house

The view from our room

View up the valley

View from the back yard

The church in the meadow

The next day it was time to do some trekking.  There was short hike (2 miles?) to the Blue Eye, a gorgeous little pond seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  However, it had a small platform in the middle of the stream where you could order food and/or a cold beer.  We opted for the beer.  My Facebook friends have already seen some of this, but for the rest of you, there is a story here.

I was siting beside the Blue Eye when I looked over and saw a snake coming out of the grass no more that 6 feet from me.  Not knowing what it was, I was duly cautious and we called over some others to see if they could identify it.  “Oh, yes”, they said, “That is a European Viper.”  “Is it dangerous?”, we asked.  “Oh yes, it is deadly.” they said.  Good to know.  We kept our distance, but I did manage to snap off one good picture.

We took another hike to a waterfall that was about the same distance, but much steeper, on our way passing over a footbridge across a very narrow, steep gorge.  I am not sure the pictures do it justice.

One of the fun things of the trip was that there were several very nice children on the trip whose English was quite good and they had fun practicing with us.  I don’t think some of them had ever seen a mountain or a waterfall before.  This place was magic for them.

The first bridge

Stop along the way

Beautiful clear water

The human chain

Yes, that is a waitress taking orders

The water of the Blue Eye

Our little visitor

The narrow gorge

The narrow gorge

Antonio and yours truly

Guess who?

On our way back to Durrës to catch our ferry home, we stopped for some lunch and shopping in Krujë.  It is not far from the Albanian capital of Tirana (you could see the city in the distance.  It was also on the strongholds of one the Albanian national heroes,  a man known as Skanderbeg.  I won’t get into too much of the history of this rather incredible figure, but just enough to say that, if the Albanians are to be believed, he kept the mighty Ottoman Empire (he served them as a young man) out of Europe for many years, defeating them at nearly every turn.  Although Albania did eventually fall to the Ottomans (after Skanderbeg died of malaria) and was ruled by them for nearly 500 years, many credit him with delaying their advance long enough for Europe to finally get their act together so they could finally halt the Ottoman advance just outside of Vienna.  We had lunch at a restaurant with a view of his ruined castle in Krujë.

View from our lunch restaurant

Skanderbeg’s castle

I am not sure how many group tours we have in us, but this one was quite wonderful,  great food, great prices, great scenery and most of all, great people.