Over the next several months, I am serializing my six-chapter travel memoir about a trip to Italy’s Cinque Terre in 2008* here. In 2010, I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs: 5 Steps to Transform Your Travel Experiences Into Compelling Essays. It included five how-to chapters and, to provide an example, this memoir. The book is available on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, I welcome your submissions to True Stories Well Told during my “travel memoir takeover.” Let’s fill that queue for after the series ends. See submission guidelines here.

Chapter 5: The Days Blur, the Faces Don’t

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“Sapete, dove ce un camera per questa weekend?” Do you know where I can find a room for this weekend? While I nap above Paulo’s store, Jim has been using his Conversational Italian to work the system, going from store to restaurant to shop asking about rooms. Let’s hope he won’t need his Dylan Dog Italian. If he’s unsuccessful we will soon be living a traveler’s incubo.

On this Friday afternoon of the Liberation Day holiday weekend, we are halfway through our vacation. Maybe we should have had more reservations about traveling without reservations.

There are few hotels in Cinque Terre. Rooms for tourists are offered through a network of locals. For every family living here, there are two or three apartments emptied by a grandparent who died, an uncle who moved to Genoa. This area was losing population fast until the 1970s. Then tourists began to find their way to Cinque Terre. By the mid-1990s it was well known to the backpacker/youth-hostel crowd. When Rick Steves filmed a show here in 2003, the deal was sealed: prosperity ahead for every family with the asset of a room to rent.

Each day locals gather around the station, approaching the suitcase bearers, just as Sergio had greeted us in Vernazza. If they strike you as cutthroat touts, ask at the train station or simply walk the street looking for affitta camere signs, rooms for rent.

Except on a super-huge holiday weekend? What were we thinking? Rick Steves’ book said, “Book ahead if you’ll be visiting in June, July, August, on a weekend, or around a holiday.” (Of Liberation Day he says, “Stay away from the Cinque Terre.”) Oh Rick, why didn’t we listen to you?

By the time Jim returns from his hunt, I have awakened and gone to the balcony with my Dylan Dog and dictionary. He fills me in; no specific news, but some prospects. He has also asked Paulo if there’s any possibility of extending our stay in this room, but no word on that.

The stream of tourists rounding the corner by our balcony is slowing. People coming to Manarola are here by now, late afternoon sun warming them as they bask on rocks in the harbor, sit at the sidewalk cafes, or take to the trails. I find I prefer photographing them to decoding pages of Dylan Dog.
But who’s this coming through the gate to our balcony? An elderly woman with a mad cloud of silver hair, flowing embroidered denim skirt and blouse, ropes of silver jewelry around her neck, wrists, fingers. She must be one of the gypsies we’ve been warned about.

“Go away,” I say, alarmed, but my Italian comes out twisted; I say “I am leaving,” not “I demand you leave.” And in a moment I’m glad. She says she is Paulo’s mamma! She has come to tell us we have the room for the weekend! Jim makes up for my rudeness by offering conversation. After the introductions I tell her Jim is a pastry chef. She says she will bring us her specialty, a regional dessert called a bonêt.

Later she appears with two slices of a sort of chocolate ricotta pie, round and dark like a little bonnet. “It’s not good,” she apologizes, “It requires a vanilla bean, and I didn’t have one.” Thank goodness for Jim’s cooking vocabulary, otherwise we would have missed this subtlety. Even though we are about to head out for dinner, we pause to eat the dessert— without refrigeration we don’t want to risk spoilage. It indeed lacks something… but we stop to compliment her anyway before we begin our climb to Da Billy’s, a restaurant where Paulo has made a reservation for us. This is the kind of place where, if you ask “how’s the fish?” Billy comes out with a tray of them staring up at you, appearing to follow along as he consults on their relative merits as dinner.

We enjoy an appetizer of salty sardines, share a platter of lasagna while avoiding making eye contact with the slightly unnerving prawns, tiny eye-stalks imploring, little claws folded in prayer. From Billy’s balcony the sun sets over the headland and the wrinkled alleys of Manarola below slide into shadow. On the slope facing us, something like Christmas lights are coming on: white twinkles that outline a stations-of-the-cross diorama, laid out among the terraces by a man grateful for a miracle.

We are grateful for the miracle of being here, now, in the glow of wine, seafood, purple sunset, and the knowledge that we still have our temporary home over Paulo’s store. Is that the sound of his trumpet drifting up here? Yes—Paulo’s practicing again, now it’s Joni Mitchell’s “Goodbye Porkpie Hat.”

Another day and another, we wake in our room over the ceramic store, set out for some small destination, continue to wrestle against the landscape and the day-trippers, arrive at day’s end contented with what we’ve seen, done, eaten.

The plan to alternate days of rest with days of hiking has fallen apart. Every time we leave our door, it’s strenuous walking. The push/pull is as delicious as flirtation; shall we go see what’s around the next corner? But it’s uphill, or coming back will be… is it worth the effort? It is! For the price of a few steps under Cinque Terre’s magnified gravity, such views… Every turn presents a new framing of sea and sky, or a hillside striated by stone walls, or a streetscape jumble of pastel stucco. And following each little exertion comes the reward, so many pleasant little cappuccinos and glasses of wine, so many breaks for cornetti or panini or pro secco or gelati, because we need to get off our tired feet.

© 2024 Sarah White

*I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs mainly as an experiment to test the print-on-demand workflow before offering it to my clients. I had the content, from workshops I had taught for Story Circle Network’s online classes, and enjoyed adapting it to book form.

Over the next several months, I am serializing my six-chapter travel memoir about a trip to Italy’s Cinque Terre in 2008* here. In 2010, I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs: 5 Steps to Transform Your Travel Experiences Into Compelling Essays. It included five how-to chapters and, to provide an example, this memoir. The book is available on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, I welcome your submissions to True Stories Well Told during my “travel memoir takeover.” Let’s fill that queue for after the series ends. See submission guidelines here.

Chapter 4 (continued). What to Do with Thirty Thousand Guests

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A sign states, “Torre Guardiola Nature Observation Point: 25 minute walk, refreshment point, naturalist library.” A narrow paved road leads gently downward, past signed plant communities: chapparal, maccia. The plants we’re passing are the same varieties we admired on yesterday’s hike; the giant cactuses, the flowering groundcovers. Nice, but we’re losing elevation with every step on this, our day of rest. This is definitely not the place of benches for resting and picnicking I had projected in my mind’s eye.

Down and more down. With each step a knot of fear tightens in my belly. It’s after 10:00 now and the sun is warming the air. We’re pasty Wisconsin winter refugees; we’re not used to the strength of the sun here. We’ll be stumbling back up this hill in the full heat of midday. I fear exhaustion, heat stroke. Aprehension causes me to pause often. Will what we see when we reach the Torre Guardiola be worth what we’ll pay? Can we afford it, on this, our day of recuperation?

This is not what I had imagined when I read the words “botanical garden.” But there it is again; the preconceptions that trips up the traveler. Why would I assume that here, in the land of double-gravity, there would be level terrain, and that precious resource would be used for a park?  Silly me.

But we have achieved our goal; in the land of thirty thousand day-trippers, we have found the place where no one is. Not a soul walks this sloping road but us.

Despite my growing dread of the return climb, we keep going. Several hairpins later, we arrive at the “refreshment point.”  (I love this about Italy.) We see our first people since exiting the bus—two young lovers trying to take a self-portrait. I offer to snap the picture. A few steps more and we meet the young guard of the Torre, who asks to see our tickets, our magic Cinque Terre passes. He sells us a beer and we chat. “Nevicava a Pasqua,”he says —It was snowing on Easter. “This week is the first sun.”

“Expecting crowds today?” We draw out the conversation, putting off going back up that mountain. “Not here, maybe. But in town, yes! Last year there were so many people on Liberation Day they had to close the Via dell’Amore to two-way traffic. Police say, one hour this way, then one hour that way. Maybe again today they do that.” This guard is clearly expecting a day of leisure at his post; he’s dressed in only very short cut-off jeans. Already brown as a nut, he’s working on adding a mahogany polish to his tan. He’s a sight made for chick-flicks, all muscled torso, smiling eyes, black curls. I later comment on his diamond-hard nipples to Jim, who looks startled to hear me say it.

A little family appears behind the guard’s shoulder—coming from a trail I hadn’t noticed. Greetings all round. “Where does that go?” I ask. “Riomaggiore. Piano.” Gentle.

There is a “gentle” trail that leads back to the town! We are saved from the long climb up to the main road! After a few more minutes conversing at the “refereshment point” we decide to move on. So much for the delights of the Torre Gardiola botanical garden.

In some places this trail to Riomaggiore is carved into stone, in others constructed from large timbers. After descending through shady woods, the route turns level and exposed as it curls around the underside of the cliff. For long stretches a roof of netting protects it (and us) from falling rocks. Sometimes the trail leaves the narrow shelf of rock and proceeds on boardwalks pinned to the vertical rock. This trail represents a kind of communal labor as difficult as the building of the terraces of Cinque Terre, but performed more recently. It is part of the national park scheme, adding to the miles of trails that draw the tourists here.

An easy half hour’s walk returns us to the harbor at Riomaggiore, where a  ferry is releasing a full load of passengers. A few steps more and we’re back at the lower plaza—and a mass of tourists is roiling around us, half arriving in Riomaggiore and the other half setting out for the trail or the ferry. They’re a rippling rainbow of bright windbreakers and day-packs.

We’re ready to look for a place for lunch. But first we spot a bookstore—more Dylan Dogs? Inside, a big man whose nasal voice could hail from Wisconsin is asking for information. “Where is the Sinky Terry?”

“Cinque Terre. You are there,” says the proprietor.

“But this is Rye-o Major. Where is Sinky Terry?”

Everyone in the crowded shop exchanges sympathetic glances. Jim and I share a glance loaded with superiority. We may be tourists, but we’re not him.

Minutes later, despite the crowds—to the day-trippers it is still early for lunch—we easily find seats in a café. Soon an order of pizza alla quatre stagione heads our way. Fresh beer bubbles in our glasses.

“I feel less negative here,” Jim says. “I’m less irritated by people.”

“Are you referring to Mr. Sinky Terry?”

“Yes, but not just that.”

I know what he means—I’m falling in love with this place, and like anyone in love, I’m  generous of spirit.

After lunch we return to the lower plaza. The tourist booth offers free Internet access, so I stop to check e-mail before we walk the Via dell’Amore back to Manarola.

---

It’s been roughly 48 hours since my last Internet check-in, as Manarola has no Internet cafe. There are no messages from my work colleagues—good. There is one message from Elaine and Dave. But it is brief and vague. “Weather here good, Fred misses you” —that’s all. I’m disappointed. I want an anecdote to take to Jim, something to reassure him that while we’re enjoying all this, Fred is not unhappy where he is. Did the house-sitters not understand that when I suggested they keep us posted, I was really begging for entertaining notes like a sentimental (and guilt-ridden) pet-owner?

It doesn’t take long for worry to recede, under the influence of the Cinque Terre’s charms. Besides, we have a more immediate concern: after tonight we will be homeless. Where will we find to park our suitcases and selves over the holiday weekend?

 On the Via the sun is warm and the traffic is elbow-to-elbow, a kaleidoscope of fancy couples in leather and fur, dog-walkers, families in bright sports jackets, young lovers in shirtsleeves—but we are all so visibly happy to be here, couples and families and lovers and dogs all part of the same festive parade, the crowd doesn’t bother us. Back at our room over Paulo’s ceramics store we sleep off the exertion, the pizza and beer, glad to have a hole in which to hide from the river of people. The clamor of voices outside our window could be the roar of a waterfall.

© 2024 Sarah White

*I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs mainly as an experiment to test the print-on-demand workflow before offering it to my clients. I had the content, from workshops I had taught for Story Circle Network’s online classes, and enjoyed adapting it to book form.

Over the next several months, I am serializing my six-chapter travel memoir about a trip to Italy’s Cinque Terre in 2008* here. In 2010, I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs: 5 Steps to Transform Your Travel Experiences Into Compelling Essays. It included five how-to chapters and, to provide an example, this memoir. The book is available on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, I welcome your submissions to True Stories Well Told during my “travel memoir takeover.” Let’s fill that queue for after the series ends. See submission guidelines here.

Chapter 4: What to Do with Thirty Thousand Guests

previous post

“I propose a plan,” I began. “Let’s alternate a day of hiking with a day of rest. We need recovery time. That means tomorrow, nothing like today’s trail.”

“Agreed,” said Jim, and we clinked glasses. The glasses were filled with pro secco, the light sparkling wine that is so much more drinkable than champagne. It is the custom to serve pro secco with an assortment of finger snacks—here at the Bar del’Amore our glasses came to the table accompanied by tiny olives, salted pistachios, and peanuts. Late afternoon sun slanted through the wine, and water slapped on rock far below our feet, visible through the iron mesh of the balcony on which we were seated. This moment felt like the celebration of an anniversary if ever there was one. The waiter offered to take our picture. We raised our glasses and toasted again. This became the photo we sent to Jim’s generous brothers, the patron saints of our trip.

What to do with tomorrow’s day of rest? Friday brings the Festival of Liberation. The perfect weather promises to continue. No wonder thirty thousand Italians feel compelled to come to our corner of the country, for the day or for the weekend. Where to hide out from them?

When you are in need of rest in Cinque Terre, the problem is not just the incursion of tourists, but the gravity. It’s stronger here. Literally—the slope of everything is constantly pulling at you. Set a pen down on a café table and it rolls toward the sea. Think you’re just going to run out for a bottle of wine, or a piece of fruit? Better warm up your hamstrings. You’ll be climbing or descending from the moment you step out your door. There is an exchange rate for everything, not just in euros but in energy units. If you don’t have infinite physical energy, choosing to do one thing will mean forgoing something else.

We had discovered the Bar Dell’Amore while exploring Manarola the night before, thinking about where to have dinner. Signs led us to the start of the trail to the final Cinque Terre town to the south; Riomaggiore. The trail beckoned so invitingly we ventured around the first bend, to see what lay beyond. The answer was the Bar Dell’Amore. A tiny shed for the bar huddles against the rock wall, while the seating hangs out over the sea, the trail passing between. I love this about Italy, how a bar appears wherever you imagine there should be one.

The guidebook described the trail to Riomaggiore as a delightful 20-minute stroll, mostly level, named “Via Dell’Amore.” Behind its name lies a cute story—true or created for tourists, who knows? For centuries, Cinque Terre villagers only married each other, having no easy way to expand their dating pool. When the train route through the Cinque Terre was constructed, so was a tunnel to store the necessary dynamite, situated equidistant from the villages of Riomaggiore and Manarola. When it was no longer needed to store dynamite it became a walking path and the boys and girls of the two villages could finally meet each other. And soon, amore.

“The guidebook says there’s a botanical garden in Riomaggiore,” I tell Jim. “Picture us just sitting in the garden, studying the plants, watching the people.”

“Maybe we’ll bring a picnic,” Jim replies. And so the plan is set. Tomorrow we will follow the Via Dell’Amore to Riomaggiore to find safe harbor from the sea of day-trippers. While they clog the trails and cafes, we will take our day of rest in some corner of the botanical garden.

With that settled, we return to the main street, pick our restaurant, and happily finish our first day in Manarola over the pleasures of the table.

The next morning at breakfast we checked the maps and guides, sitting in the Café Aristide where we had been waiting when the doors opened at 7:00. Early rising is our secret weapon against the crowds.

A pamphlet described the garden as “…a military fortification of the Second World War [that] has been restyled and transformed in the Torre Guardiola Naturalistic Observation Centre. This itinerary is a full immersion in nature, one can study the vegetation, its perfumes, and observe the typical birds with the help of expert naturalistic guides.” Ah, the lovely Italian-canted English of locally-translated tourist guides.

We finished our coffee and returned to the Via Dell’Amore. Beyond the bar we found a section of trail so broad people could walk six-abreast if they cared to; so level, baby-strollers were practical. The galleries that originally stored dynamite were now covered with lovers’ graffiti. Some consider it defacement but we admired its artistry.

The trail delivered us to a lower plaza of Riomaggiore, where a tourist information booth faced large murals on the wall retaining the upper plaza. Panels explained about the “History of men and stones”—the people who had created this landscape by raising walls. The terraces of Cinque Terre contain more stone than the Great Wall of China, a poster said. And these terraces were unlike most other man-made wonders, in one way—they had been erected without coercion. The wall-builders of Cinque Terre had decided to work together for the common good, no local lord or baron subjugating them for his profit. (Historians now question the belief that the worlds’ grant erections could only be accomplished by slave labor; but we won’t let that rain on the locals’ pride in their unique inheritance.)

And what did we find, beyond the murals? An elevator to the upper plaza, an unexpected gift on this, our day of rest. On the upper main street (again, a sloping stone pavement covering a river) the shops were opening, the first day-trippers just arriving. And what a lovely town!

But where is the botanical garden? Too bad we hadn’t thought to ask, down at the information booth. We climbed the switchback streets, thinking it’s more likely to be on a promontory than down in the canyon-narrow center. We rounded a corner and were rewarded with a view of the harbor and the Via dell’Amore—but no garden.

“Torre Guardiola? Un orto botanico? No lo so.” A botanical garden named for a guard tower? No, never heard of it. That’s what the locals answered when we stopped several on the street to ask.

We returned to the main street, walked upward still looking for clues—a sign perhaps—until we reached the car-park at the town’s upper terminus. We spotted another tourist information booth guarding the barrier holding back traffic. Inside, we asked again about the botanical garden.

“Oh yes, the entrance is up that road—it’s about fifteen hundred meters. You can walk, or you can take the bus. Watch for the Blue Line, it departs right there.” The distance translates to only a mile but we’ll take the bus, thanks—our Cinque Terre passes make it free, after all, and it’s a mile uphill on this, our day of rest.

The bus winds up a satisfyingly steep incline headed south out of Riomaggiore—aren’t we glad we’re not walking?—and lets us out on a curve where fifteen or so cars are parked along a barricade. We see no evidence of a botanical garden; just the cars and the sea and sky. The bus driver points, “Torre Guardiola, thirty meters from here.”

We walk in the direction he indicated. The land drops precipitously away from the road. A little gate appears and we go through. The trail we take leads along the top of a stone retaining wall. The footpath is barely wider than our sneakers. Each course of stone stands five feet or higher. Depending on the angle of the hillside, between courses there runs a mere footpath, or an arable patch a few feet wide.

Grape vines brush our shoulders, reaching down from the terrace above. An irrigation hose snakes beside our feet. This land is being cultivated. But it doesn’t seem to be a botanical garden—where are the plant-name signs? Pebbles scuffed by our steps rattle as they tumble downward. We could be next to fall. The trail grows even narrower; Jim is grumping, “this cannot be right.” He has never liked heights.

We arrive at a locked gate. In four languages it tells us: “Dangerous path. No entry.” No kidding! We carefully backtrack. As we near the road, we see what we missed before: the real entrance.

© 2024 Sarah White

*I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs mainly as an experiment to test the print-on-demand workflow before offering it to my clients. I had the content, from workshops I had taught for Story Circle Network’s online classes, and enjoyed adapting it to book form.

Over the next several months, I am serializing my six-chapter travel memoir about a trip to Italy’s Cinque Terre in 2008* here.  In 2010, I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs: 5 Steps to Transform Your Travel Experiences Into Compelling Essays. It included five how-to chapters and, to provide an example, this memoir. The book is available on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, I welcome your submissions to True Stories Well Told during my “travel memoir takeover.” Let’s fill that queue for after the series ends. See submission guidelines here.

Chapter 3 (continued). Where Sneaker Meets Rock: The Vernazza-Corniglia Trail

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I hate the responsibility of giving advice—somehow the consequences tend to accrue to the giver. We’ll never see these people again, so it’s probably safe to encourage them. “Well, take it slow. It’s grueling, but it’s worth it. We’re no athletes and it looks like we made it.” To this day I’m wondering how their hike ended. Arranging evacuation from anywhere on this trail would be nearly impossible. I try to imagine a rescue worker carrying that old man out on his back. Maybe they use EMS donkeys.

We stay chatting with the couple, happy to help them recharge for the work ahead of them, happy to rest from our labors just past. We tell them we’re celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary. They tell us they are celebrating their fiftieth. Indeed, they are from Alabama. He looks twenty years older than his wife; what did he do, marry her at age ten? Or buy her a great plastic surgeon? Good luck, Alabamans, wherever you are…

Now the trail is definitely sloping down. The winded Alabamans had just struggled up what is a nice downhill run for us. Ahead Corniglia appears as a jumble of frosting-colored blocks, little cakes of lemon, orange, and pistachio, with green shutters as a garnish. We are getting hungry.

Corniglia is the only Cinque Terre town not in a valley. Preferring safety from pirates over access to sea, the original inhabitants built on a headland. No wonder the guidebooks say to start the trail from this end. We’ve hiked 700 more feet uphill than down; those who start at this end will hike more down than up. Maybe the Alabamans will make it after all.

Gaggles of schoolchildren push past us. We reach the Corniglia trailhead where another sentinel booth shelters a teenage girl frantically checking tickets. A crowd queues up to begin their hikes. We have finished ours. We did it! And thanks to our habit of early rising, we avoided sharing the trail with a tsunami of tourists.

We have only to walk a few hundred more feet into Corniglia, and the fuel remaining in our bloodstreams might just be equal to the task. I’m quivering in every muscle, suddenly lightheaded and irritable.

We stumble up the “main street” which is about four feet wide. The moment it widens into a plaza with a restaurant, we drop into chairs under a tree and order beer and panini.

Soon the toasted sandwiches arrive, slathered with pesto and plump with slabs of fresh mozzarella, tomato, and ham. Sipping his beer, Jim says, “Now I understand how ‘restaurant’ and ‘restore’ are related. I feel tiny scaffolding in my muscles. Little workmen are climbing them, delivering the glucose for rebuilding.” As he says it, I feel it too.  In Italian the two words branch from the same root, restauro.

As we undergo restoration, we watch a comedy; it is moving day for someone in Corniglia. Men are carrying household furnishings past us. A bookshelf goes by, a headboard, a matching footboard. A mattress. A sofa. Not even a wheeled hand-truck, just the workmen lugging their loads. All we see is heads, feet, and furniture.

But Corniglia does not impress us, even though we’ve heard people say it’s their favorite of the five villages. It is truly tiny, and so far above the train station that it takes three hundred steps just to come or go. We had considered looking for lodging here but now, no…

We descend those three hundred steps, catch a train back to Vernazza, and in less than a quarter hour have returned at Sergio’s apartment, to pick up our bags. Flagging—our restoration is still far from complete—we set out to find our next home.

We reboard the southbound train and debark at Manarola, the next town south of Corniglia. Yoked to our bags again, our first priority is to find lodging. As soon as we round the corner onto Manarola’s lower main street we see a sign in the window of a ceramics store—camere—rooms. Is there one for us? With the festival tomorrow, this is iffy. But yes, maybe something can be arranged… the proprietor will make a few calls. We leave our bags with him and have a look around the tiny harbor.

“Why did we book ten days of this? We’re changing rooms every night, living out of suitcases,” Jim grouches. I start spinning alternate plans—bail and head for Rome? But when we return to the ceramics store, the owner has shuffled his guests and arranged a room for two nights. He tells us his name is Paulo and shows us to a room above his store. While I shower Jim goes out and returns with farenda (a savory fried chick-pea dish) and white wine. We snack sitting on our new balcony overlooking yet another sloping main street. I feel much closer to restored.

I turn to Jim, about to say what one of us always says to the other when enjoying food or hiking, somewhere in Italy—“Fred would enjoy this, wouldn’t he?” But the words catch in my throat. Best not to bring up our worrisome family member.

Back inside we turn on the TV, catch a news program from Genoa—they are warning visitors to be wary over the holiday weekend.  “With 30,000 people expected to visit the Cinque Terre, the gypsies are arriving in force. But so will be the police.” Oh boy, 30,000 guests tomorrow. There are already thousands here, flowing down the same route we took from the train station to the harbor, a new spurt every twenty minutes as each train disgorges its load.

My watch says 1:00, but my body says bedtime. To the dull roar of tourists outside the window we drift off to sleep, to wake in late afternoon and return to our balcony and finish the white wine we’ve left chilling in the bidet. Dylan Dog and the antics of passing day-trippers entertain us. Somewhere below someone is playing the theme from the Godfather on a trumpet—it is our host Paulo.

And so ends our latest inserimento. We are residents of Manarola now.

© 2024 Sarah White

*I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs mainly as an experiment to test the print-on-demand workflow before offering it to my clients. I had the content, from workshops I had taught for Story Circle Network’s online classes, and enjoyed adapting it to book form.

Over the next several months, I am serializing my six-chapter travel memoir about a trip to Italy’s Cinque Terre in 2008* here.  In 2010, I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs: 5 Steps to Transform Your Travel Experiences Into Compelling Essays. It included five how-to chapters and, to provide an example, this memoir. The book is available on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, I welcome your submissions to True Stories Well Told during my “travel memoir takeover.” Let’s fill that queue for after the series ends. See submission guidelines here.

Chapter 3. Where Sneaker Meets Rock: The Vernazza-Corniglia Trail

previous post

“Today we hike,” I announce to Jim over cappuccinos and sfogliatelle at our new favorite restaurant, the Pirati di Cinque Terre. We discovered this place yesterday while exploring Vernazza. The million marzipan marvels in the Pirates’ pastry case drew us in that afternoon, but on advice of the Sicilian owner we put our euros down for an iced strawberry dessert instead. Velvety layers of cream schmoozed with crystallized berry-blood on my tongue. No wonder we came back for breakfast.

Walking back to our little apartment, I noticed on a wall the red and white slashes marking the CAI trail to Corniglia, four kilometers to the south.  This trail is our prime objective today. We are finally where sneaker meets rock; where the entire premise for our Cinque Terre vacation meets reality.

The main attraction of this region is the hiking. People come from all over the world to test themselves against these trails. Are we, at 50-something and coming out of a Wisconsin winter, fit for the task? Rick Steves’ son trotted the full seven miles of trail from Riomaggiore to Montorosso al Mare in 1 hour 31 minutes, the proud father brags in his guide book. But Rick’s boy was one third our age and three times as athletic… at least.

Trepidation trickles through my coffee-and-carbs optimism. I hope we haven’t waited ten years too late to tackle Cinque Terre.

Back at the apartment we pack our bags, leave them at Sergio’s, and set out.

My watch registers 9 a.m. as we start the trail. It’s cool in the sun, but the trail begins with stairs cut into rock, and the exercise quickly warms me. In a few minutes we emerge from the passage between buildings and get our first glimpse back at Vernazza from above. We’ve already gained about 300 feet. I’m puffing but pleased; the view below is a fairytale come true, buildings a jumble of frosting colors, a church dome and a fortified turret jutting above the roofscape. Imposing rock headlands rise above the village in the valley. The lay of the land is finally evident, what could be guessed at but not seen down in Vernazza itself.

As we begin to climb again, a German boy blows past us, veering from our roughly sea-parallel trail onto a steeper path heading inland. He carries nothing; no water, no fuel. He is a goat; we are two plodding mules.

Next, we pass a little sentinel’s booth, but no ticket-taker waits. These trails are managed as a national park, and there is a fee to use them. We have purchased 3-day passes that allow us trail, train, and bus access throughout the five towns and the trails between and above them.

The Cinque Terre is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Wikipedia explains why: “Over centuries, man has carefully built terraces on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the sea.” The terraces were built to create a little arable land, so the inhabitants could dine on more than fish. Little plots for vegetables, larger plots for grapevines and olive trees, were the goal. Its achievement is visible everywhere. The landscape we move through is all dry-stone rock wall to our left, vertiginous drops and sea/sky vistas to our right. Turn your head and your eyes take in now close-ups, now panoramic views.

In our planning phase we targeted a near-impossibility: to be in Cinque Terre exactly when the spring flowers bloom. And we did it! Here they are! Irises escaped from domestic gardens are blooming everywhere.  And poppies! And valerian, oxalis, bedstraw! So many flowers we stop looking them up in our “300 Pianti e Fiori” book, just photograph them for identification later.

While some of the wildflowers are the woodland spring ephemerals we’d expected, others are less familiar—great prickly pear cactuses, agaves, aloe vera—desert species we have only seen in pots grow as big as boulders. “Maquis,” Jim—a hobby botanist—pronounces. The plant book confirms that this term, macchia in Italian, refers to the dense evergreen shrubbery of high, dry Mediterranean landscapes.

Am I asking Jim about these plants just to pause in our climb?

Sometimes the trail levels off for a few paces, giving me a chance to catch my breath, still the pounding in my ears. But then the trail goes up again. I find myself doing the “Everest Shuffle” inexperienced climbers use to ascend serious mountains. Put one foot just a little ahead of the other, rock your weight forward, step, rock, step, and so ascend in tiny increments.

We sit a moment, leaning back against rocks striated with convoluted twists. Some prehistoric giant crumpled this coast like a ball of paper. Can there be higher still to go? Yes, there can.

We climb on.

Resting again, I ponder the history these slopes have seen. The coves below harbored pirates who preyed on the shipping traffic along Italy’s west coast.  The villagers cast their lot sometimes with the pirates, providing supplies; other times they held out, building defensive fortifications on the headlands. One of these towers is visible in the distance—above Corniglia?

Just when I can’t Everest-shuffle another step, the trail finally levels out. Instead of watching my feet I’m again able to look around, take in the nets furled under olive trees for future harvest, the coastal views framed by lush spring foliage. The map says this is 221 meters above our starting point at sea level. That’s 726 feet. It is nearing 10:00a.m. I have never worked a harder hour in my life. I’m fagged but triumphant.

A sign announces “Corniglia, 2km.” It also says “BAR.” I love this about Italy. Every hiking trail should have a bar halfway along it.

We round a corner and find ourselves entering the micro-hamlet of Prevo. The trail descends stairs to pass directly under someone’s house, where the advertised “bar” turns out to be a room in their basement.

Out the other side the trail finally, blessedly, begins to descend more than it rises. Above us there seems no end to the mountainside. Somewhere the dry-stone terracing must give way to a gentler angle of ascent, but we can’t see it.

The national park area ends at the ridgeline, well over 2,000 feet above sea level. Along the mountain ridge a sacred pilgrimage route emerged in the 1300s. The faithful built shrines and small churches along the route. But connection between the pilgrimage route and the villages below was slow to come. There are few roads, even today. Gaze wherever you like, you’ll hardly see anything a peasant wouldn’t have seen two hundred years ago. Only glimpses of train tracks, where they emerge momentarily from tunnels, speak of the industrial age. The trains rode in on a scheme of national improvement after Italian unification, 1861—the new government hoped railways would tie the new nation together. How those trains must have changed life in the Cinque Terre! (Am I thinking about this to distract myself from my exhaustion?)

Traffic is picking up on the trail now. Each group is coming from Corniglia to the south—no one has passed us coming from Vernazza since that one German boy. We nod hello, exchange just enough greeting to discern nationality. Here come two Norwegians, now a handful of Swedes. Only the Germans sport technical hiking gear. The rest could be out for a stroll. Now nineteen French come, following a tour guide. Now a pair from Belgium. Jim and I begin to joke about the “United Nations of Cinque Terre.”

We come to a little picnic area. A trail splits off down to a cove that our guidebook tells us is a popular nude beach. It is the only place along this coast where the meeting of water and cliff is less than vertical; the rocky little beach was caused by a landslide in the early 20th century.

 “Does it get a lot more rugged than this?” The woman who accosts us sounds concerned; her husband is slumped at the picnic table, panting heavily. “I’ve had two knee replacements,” he huffs. They’re dressed in tracksuits and gold bling; they look, and sound, as if they’ve stepped from a shopping mall in Alabama.

Jim and I look at each other. What to tell these people? Turn back, there’s no way you’re equal to this terrain?

© 2024 Sarah White

*I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs mainly as an experiment to test the print-on-demand workflow before offering it to my clients. I had the content, from workshops I had taught for Story Circle Network’s online classes, and enjoyed adapting it to book form.

Over the next several months, I am serializing my six-chapter travel memoir about a trip to Italy’s Cinque Terre in 2008* here.  In 2010, I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs: 5 Steps to Transform Your Travel Experiences Into Compelling Essays. It included five how-to chapters and, to provide an example, this memoir. The book is available on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, I welcome your submissions to True Stories Well Told during my “travel memoir takeover.” Let’s fill that queue for after the series ends. See submission guidelines here.

Chapter 2 (continued). Arrival in Cinque Terre: the Challenge of Inserimento

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We leave our bags in our new home and head out to find lunch, flowing with the crowd downhill. Vernazza, like each of the five Cinque Terre towns, has been built against the two sides of a ravine flanking a brook. Sometime in its history the brook was covered over so what were once merely sidewalks down both sides became a paved street broadening and slanting to the west. In Vernazza (as we’ll discover in other villages we visit) that sloping main street terminates in a plaza and a port of sorts. With seas too rough and terrain too steep for harbor berths, the fishermen use a gantry system to raise boats from the waterfront into the plaza where they drop them onto wheeled frames, then roll them home to park outside their doorways.

Thousands of day-trippers are pouring in. Boats already crowd the main street. It’s a canyon four stories deep, walled with pastel stucco buildings accented with grids of green window shutters. A cacophony of crowd noise echoes around us. High-pitched children’s squeals and a toy-train whistle rise above the roar.

We shuffle shoulder to shoulder toward the plaza surrounded by people descending from the train station. Even more people are spurting out of cracks between the buildings. I spot the white/red paint slashes that are the markings of the C.A.I. trails (Club Alpino Italiano) this area is famous for. Hikers who began the day in villages north or south of Vernazza are arriving, just in time for lunch.

We decide rather than fight them for a restaurant table, we will picnic. We buy arancini (deep-fried rice balled around morsels of cheese or meat) and squid salad, then claim seats on a bench by the railing that separates the plaza from the drop to the little harbor below.

From the crowds and merriment, you would think this was the festival day already.  The student groups are chattering. A saxophonist is playing for tips. A national news crew is doing a “first beautiful day of Spring” story, stopping people for interviews. I overhear someone say this is the first day the sun has shown in over a month.

Ordinarily Jim and I hate crowds; we dislike finding that we have chosen the same thing at the same time thousands of others have. It offends our sense of ourselves as special, apart (and no doubt better) than the masses. Can we control our knee-jerk reaction? To arrive at noon in a place awash in its maximum capacity of day-trippers is to risk feeling alienated.

Here is where our inserimento will go well or badly, which will inflect the rest of our trip. Here in Vernazza the story-in-progress is mass delirium generated by unaccustomed warmth, sun, and scenery. In addition to the school groups there are couples and families who woke finally to a promise of Spring in the air and blew off whatever responsibilities to head for the Cinque Terre for the day… and who could blame them. The universal festival mood affects us too. We feel at home, and find we don’t really mind our thousands of guests.

Jim and I finish our lunch, then a gelato, then head back to our little apartment.  Jim goes out again for a bottle of white wine, and I go out to check email at the Internet café.

I don’t believe in incessant email-checking while on vacation, but I have subcontracted a lot of work while I am away. I have been offline three days, and fear questions are piling up. And of course there is the question of how Fred is doing.

At the Internet café I find that all is okay with my work, but there is no word from the house-sitters. This worries me. Where is the chipper “we’re all fine” message?  Maybe an anecdote to amuse and reassure us? Am I just being a sentimental pet-owner?

Our Cinque Terre inserimento ends with us on our terrace high above the crowds in the street, reading our Dylan Dogs and growing drowsy from the sun and wine. I let my eyes drift shut and listen to the sound of diners becoming shoppers in the street below. Evening should be lovely once the day-trippers leave…

I try not to think about what no news from home might mean. To not think comes easily high on an Italian terrace in warm sun.

© 2024 Sarah White

*I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs mainly as an experiment to test the print-on-demand workflow before offering it to my clients. I had the content, from workshops I had taught for Story Circle Network’s online classes, and enjoyed adapting it to book form.

Over the next several months, I am serializing my six-chapter travel memoir about a trip to Italy’s Cinque Terre in 2008* here.  In 2010, I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs: 5 Steps to Transform Your Travel Experiences Into Compelling Essays. It included five how-to chapters and, to provide an example, this memoir. The book is available on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, I welcome your submissions to True Stories Well Told during my “travel memoir takeover.” Let’s fill that queue for after the series ends. See submission guidelines here.

Chapter 2. Arrival in Cinque Terre: the Challenge of Inserimento

previous post

“Questo treno non firma a Vernazza,” the conductor is saying.

This train doesn’t stop at Vernazza? That’s silly! The tickets we bought say Vernazza, and we boarded from the track where we were told to wait. I even asked a young woman on the platform, carefully composing my Italian: “Is this the train for La Spezia?” I used the name of the next major station beyond the five little villages, assuming it was more likely to be recognized. “Si,” she had replied. But when the train stopped, none of the waiting passengers boarded it—only Jim and me.

I should be more careful how I phrase my questions when I’m far from home. Ask exactly what I want to know.

The conductor is urgently trying to get a point across. “Questo treno è espresso, riservo.” Now we know why the other passengers didn’t board; somehow they knew this train, with its reserved seats only, didn’t stop until past the Cinque Terre.

We paid for our mistake. The fine for boarding without reservations plus the additional fare for La Spezia doubled the cost of our tickets, which even so only came to the price of a modest lunch. Trains in Italy are a bargain, subsidized by the state.

The slight young woman in her conductor’s uniform was officious about correcting our mistake, but nothing short of arrest could have upset us. Fueled by cappuccinos and brioche, warmed by sun pouring through the windows of our empty cabin, we could withstand the disappointment of an hour spent waiting for trains to carry us to La Spezia and back.

Pouring rain had greeted us on our arrival in Genoa just thirty-six hours earlier. We’d spent a day sightseeing under gray skies, chill stalking us through the cramped corridors of Genoa’s medieval center. It’s the largest in Europe, according to the guidebooks, but as we explored on foot, the ancient streets kept giving way to dicey harbor alleys or ominous-looking housing blocks. Genoa is a little too real for tourism. We were ready to ditch the place.

I unfolded a newspaper—but scenes outside the train’s windows kept pulling my attention from its pages. The industrial sheds covered with graffiti soon gave way to suburban housing blocks, then glimpses of sea and villas surrounded by palm trees. The station signs flew past. Each sign announced a place name we’d fingered on our maps.  Portofino, Santa Margherita—the fancy resorts of the Italian Riviera, too rich for our blood.

Then Sestri Levanti, and then the sign for the first of the Cinque Terre’s villages, Monterosso al Mare. It was gone in a blink. The train entered a tunnel and seconds later, blink—there went Vernazza. Blink—Corniglia. Blink—Manarola. Tunnels swallowed the train between the villages; each occupies a valley and the train is routed through the headlands that separate their narrow ravines. Blink-blink-blink: the light strobed in as the tunnel opened into long galleries, arched windows framing sea views. Blink—Riomaggiore, the last of the five villages. The map had told us the Cinque Terre region is not large; it had taken perhaps 15 minutes for the train to speed past all five towns.

We heard “La Spezia” over the loudspeakers. The train slowed to a stop. We entered the station, purchased new tickets for Vernazza, and resumed waiting. Jim saw a newsstand and disappeared. He reappeared moments later with the first new purchase of Dylan Dogs.

Dylan Dog comic books are our secret vice. These gothic horror/suspense tales feature a young British investigator, a dream detective. He works with Scotland Yard whenever a case involves paranormal phenomena. He is a sex addict and the cases tend to involve beautiful young women.

We first encountered Signore Dog on our first trip to Italy, just after we’d broken free of the Italian Rotary Club. We were sitting at an outdoor café in sunny Spoleto, a just-opened bottle of pino grigio in front of us, and Jim had purchased the comic at a nearby newsstand. We had so much fun then, heads bent together over the illustrated pages, taking turns manning the dictionary to decode the unfamiliar vocabulary. Words like hurlo—scream—incubo—nightmare—fantasme—ghost—you don’t learn those in Conversational Italian class.

We’ve amassed Dylan Dogs on every trip since, buying all we could find, stockpiling for study on the sofa after trip’s end. We were happy now about the unintended detour, fresh Dylan Dogs in hand, lunch in Vernazza dead ahead.

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Optimism wrapped me like a sunny cloak, but dread pulled on its hem. Arrivals make me nervous. The problem, when I have planned a trip and finally arrive at the place I’ve been fantasizing about, is inserimento—insertion—making the transition from traveler to temporary resident.

How do you sync up with the place you’ve reached? What is its story, and what is your place in it? When expectations crash into reality, how do you handle the impact? If insertion goes badly, you soon feel like a walking wallet to be harvested of your cash, rewarded at worst with Chinese-made souvenirs or at best a few local products. If insertion goes well, you are living a new life you were always meant for. Either can influence your mood for days. On a short vacation there’s a lot riding on inserimento.

Many people deal with this by careful planning. Me, I prefer the potential in leaving a lot to chance. Jim has too often borne the brunt of my casual attitude, and I’ve learned to prepare for that, too. Reading guidebooks, I skip the sections about lodging and restaurants; I highlight the descriptions of natural wonders. Nerves frayed by disappointment can be re-knit under the influence of flora and fauna. I travel with a list of nature spots like someone else might carry Pepto Bismol.

For this trip I had made only one reservation, for the first night, an exception to my “travel without reservations” rule chosen in hopes of softening the landing after the international flight. I booked us into the Torre Cambiaso, a boutique hotel on Genoa’s outskirts, chosen for online descriptions like “…once the home of a noble family, set in its own private gardens, with a lake, several grottos and a secluded grove where peacocks roam.” If I had known just how far on the outskirts—or that the on-site restaurant would be closed the day we arrived—or that rain would preclude enjoyment of the grottos and groves—well, that’s why I mostly travel without fixed plans.

At midday the train releases us into the main street of Vernazza with four tour groups, mostly school children. We bob down the street, carried along by their tide. Jim and I are the only ones with suitcases—me with a small roller bag, Jim with a grip, our messenger bags and that’s it—we travel light. But even this load is heavy enough that our first thought is lodging. In these crowds, this might be a competition sport.

A small man materializes at Jim’s elbow asking if perhaps we are looking for a room. “What gave us away?” jokes Jim. There’s something instantly likeable about the little man’s smile. The rest of our deal-making is accomplished with relaxed humor, because we all know that we will take whatever he is offering. It turns out to be a little apartment just a few steps away, which he will give us at a good price because he has just repainted the kitchen; it can’t be used. “Good price, but one night only,” he says: day after tomorrow is the festival, and the room is already booked. He is referring to the Festival of Liberation, April 25, a holiday celebrating the end of World War II. (I realized this holiday fell during the dates I’d chosen for our trip, and had decided in advance to accept whatever complications that meant. You try finding out what day the dwarf irises plan to bloom. I went with the botanical guide’s estimated dates and ignored the travel guidebooks’ mentions of holiday crowds.)

The apartment is a stack of rooms one on top of the other, like children’s blocks. The street door opens onto a stairway up to the living room above a shop, with a tiny bedroom off to one side. Above that is the kitchen—this is a regional custom, the kitchen at the top of the house, designed to prevent fires from spreading. (This is why Genoa has the oldest surviving medieval center—it was never destroyed by fire, thanks to the kitchens on top.) One has to think about all the food, all the water, lugged up to those top-floor kitchens—women’s work, heavy labor.

Outside our wet-paint kitchen is a little terrace overlooking the main street. Our haggling with our host amounts only to assuring we may use the terrace, if we promise not to touch anything in the kitchen. “I’m Sergio Calla, if you have any needs, my house is just there, across the street? That little door just to the left of the store is mine.”

© 2024 Sarah White

*I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs mainly as an experiment to test the print-on-demand workflow before offering it to my clients. I had the content, from workshops I had taught for Story Circle Network’s online classes, and enjoyed adapting it to book form.

By Sarah White

In 2010, I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs: 5 Steps to Transform Your Travel Experiences Into Compelling Essays, which included five how-to chapters and, to provide an example, my six-chapter travel memoir about a trip to Italy’s Cinque Terre in 2008*. I am serializing that memoir here over the next several months. The book is available on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, I welcome your submissions to True Stories Well Told during my “travel memoir takeover.” Let’s fill that queue for after the series ends. See submission guidelines here.

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Chapter 1. The Gift

“There won’t be any presents for you this year,” my brother-in-law begins, over the phone. It is Christmas 2007, and my husband and I are staying with another of his brothers in Chicago. As happens every holiday, the oldest brother calls in from Virginia,  and we have a nice holiday chat.

“Really, we have everything we want or need,” I say, not sure how he expects me to respond.

He continues, “The brothers have decided to combine your Christmas and anniversary gifts this year. Marcella told me you guys want to go back to Italy. We’ll pay the airfare. You’ll have to handle the rest.”

“That’s tremendous!” My heart starts packing, but my brain hesitates. There is a hurdle to overcome. Could we really accept a gift so generous? From people who had done so much for us over the years? You bet.

But what will we do with our elderly fox terrier, Fred? His decline has tethered us close to home. We haven’t ventured out of state, much less out of country, in years. “I can’t wait to go. Thank you, thank you all. Here, let me put Jim on.” I hand the phone to my husband.

We’re approaching our twenty-fifth year of marriage. In truth, planning trips to Europe is hardly realistic right now. In addition to the dog situation, I have just returned to freelance writing, and Jim is working only part time as a pastry chef. But I want to slip free of our cares. I am eager to play at being the people we were twenty-five years ago, full of bohemian bonhomie, unconcerned about health insurance, retirement funds. Or even the people we were fifteen years ago on our first trip to Italy, in love with everything we saw, heard, and tasted. Italy has been the third partner in our marriage ever since.

For some years I’ve had my heart set on seeing Italy’s Cinque Terre—the section of coast south of the expensive Italian Riviera where little fishing villages cling to cliffs. I’ve chosen the end of April for our trip, angling to catch the wildflowers in bloom on the west-facing slopes. From 365 days, we hoped to choose the five or so that would deliver a bigger, better version of our original honeymoon in Wisconsin’s Door County, where the dwarf irises and ladyslippers enchanted us.

If we can go, that is. Jim and I are round-the-clock caretakers now. Over the last year Fred has weakened and developed a limp. His needs are few: a spot in the sun in the yard on a good day, a spot on the sofa otherwise; a few walks to relieve himself, a meal at sundown, usually small portions of whatever we’re having. My husband has taken to planning our menu around what will make a nice dinner for Fred. (We’ve been eating a lot of rice and beef.) We’re aware we don’t have many years left together; we’re making his sunset as pleasant as we would wish for ourselves. Child-free, we have lavished our love on this family member who has been our baby, then our friend, and finally our grumpy old boss.

We tried kenneling Fred just once. When we went to retrieve him the chorus of howls hit us too hard, and we never went back. Instead, each time we’ve traveled we’ve left Fred home alone, with friends lined up to visit. But our circle of friends has grown smaller, and Fred’s needs have grown more complex. Now we want to spend ten days in Italy. We need a new solution.

House sitters. My old college friend Dave and his partner Elaine both work from home at a country crossroads an hour south of Madison. Might they enjoy a stay in our little cottage near the lake, with free high-speed Internet, premium cable, and dozens of restaurants nearby? With a cute little fox terrier as major domo?

Jim has never met the couple, but Fred and I have camped with them a couple of times. Just down the street lives my camping buddy Jane, who has been one of Fred’s favorite people since puppyhood. She can be the expert on all matters Fred for Elaine and Dave if needed.

After discussing the house-sitter idea with Jim—who private as he is, puts up surprisingly little resistance—I float the idea to my friends.

Elaine stops by the house to talk it over. Fred greets her happily, even though he is nearly blind and deaf. I show her around the house and yard, then we walk down to the neighborhood pizza parlor to talk. I point out amenities as we go—the world-class botanical garden, a great coffee shop.

“Is there a tennis court nearby?”

“Let me think… yes, beyond the gardens, I believe so.”

Elaine and Dave agree to the job.

I begin making lists for them—This Old House, This Old Neighborhood… This Old Dog. His habits, needs, commands he recognizes. But oh, such denial… not a mention of the latest development, that we have been carrying him upstairs to bed. He has slept at our feet for fourteen years. I do not mention that he will probably expect the same of Elaine and Dave.

Jim and I prepare for departure. I shop for new clothes; he stocks up Fred-meals in the freezer. Just as I was surprised he didn’t protest against outsiders living inside our walls, I am now surprised that he doesn’t express concern over how Fred will adapt. If he is worrying, he’s keeping it compartmentalized like the frozen dinners.

Elaine stops by for one more walk-through. We show her how to work the TV remote, give a quick tour of the kitchen. We work out the logistics for departure.

The timing is a bit awkward: we need to leave the house on Sunday about noon to catch the bus to O’Hare. She and Dave can’t get to town until closer to 4:00. So we tell Fred the plan, give him a hug, and leave.

We make our escape with our denial still intact. By the time Fred wakes from his nap to find strangers moving into his home, we’ll be boarding our flight to Rome. By the time we are in Fulmicino Airport watching businessmen gesture into their cell phones, waiting for our connection to Genoa, he will be one day into his role as Dave and Elaine’s dog. What, in his elderly confusion, will he make of all this?

© 2024 Sarah White

*I self-published Write Your Travel Memoirs mainly as an experiment to test the print-on-demand workflow before offering it to my clients. I had the content, from workshops I had taught for Story Circle Network’s online classes, and enjoyed adapting it to book form.