We are headed to Mexico!!

Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019

And we are off!

Our menagerie of three humans, three cats, two saxophones, one guitar, one harmonica, two bikes and a bunch of bags and suitcases has left Grandma’s house in Mechanicsburg, PA, and we are off on our next adventure!

Six days driving 2,400 miles to Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, Mexico, with a stop for a day in New Orleans in the middle. Follow us on the journey!

 9:21 am: Leave Mechanicsburg. Ellie starts crying.

10:16 am: Welcome to Maryland. 67 miles. Ellie is still crying.

10:26: am Welcome to West Virginia. That was quick! Still crying.

10:47 am: Welcome to Virginia. 103 miles. They are coming fast and furious! Guess what Ellie is doing?

The rest of the day: Taking turns driving through Virginia and into Tennessee.

8 PM: We finally reach Athens, Tennessee, around 7:10 PM, settle the cats into the Super 8 Hotel, and are now waiting for our food at the Applebee’s across the street. Ellie cried more than half the time and then acted out at the hotel by hissing at the other cats. Such a pleasant traveler.

Day 1 is in the books!

Kitty accommodations

Kitty accommodations

Double-decker kitties

Packing the truck
Remembering the bikes

Day 2: Tennessee to New Orleans


We were too busy enjoying New Orleans to blog about this. Watch for the blog later!


Day 3: New Orleans to Laredo


12 hours of quiet cats. ‘Nuff said. Tonight is our last night in the United States. Tomorrow we leave for Mexico!

Resetting our Marriage

Bob’s Perspective

Lisa and I have been married 23 years. Our first few years of marriage were all about our careers, and the past 21 years we have been focused on dealing with the challenges of our two kids (if you know us and our kids you know what I’m talking about).

Like many marriages, over that time, we’ve been focused on our kids, our jobs and our home. And, like many other people, that left little time for us as a couple. Even with stopping working and starting our European trip it was rush, rush, rush – we had a mountain of tasks that needed to be accomplished.

For me, however, things finally slowed down when I went to Sorrento by myself and Lisa stayed in Naples with Lexie and her relatives. It rained most of the second day I was there and I didn’t really have much to do. I began to realize how much we had been through and how lucky I was to be with someone who shared the same excitement about the adventure on which we were about to embark. I realized how lucky I was and I committed to myself to let her know that, to let her know how much I appreciated being with her and looked forward to spending time as just a couple. (Disclaimer: We really enjoy being with Lexie for this year and our visits with Aryk, but there is just the new opportunity for so much “us” time.)

View from the top of the London Eye

When we got back together in Naples, we talked about this and she told me that she had been thinking the same thing, that we had an excellent opportunity to essentially reset our relationship. We had the opportunity to throw away some of the conflicts we’ve had over time and really just enjoy one another going forward.
We’ll never have a fully carefree life, but we’re both committed to working hard to enjoy one another and our life together going forward.

Our trip to Europe was worth it just for this!

Together in Hamburg at the top of the St. Michaelis Church Tower

____________________________________________________


Lisa’s Perspective

For me, it started long before we left Colorado, in summer 2017, when we made the decision to retire early and travel,  and started planning the next phase of our lives. We spent a lot of weekend hot tub mornings discussing what our plan would be. I think for many couples, they retire but have the same habits they had before, and that can lead to dissatisfaction or boredom. Planning a new life as sojourners opened us up to a lot of new conversations and gave our relationship a new dimension.

To prepare, we traveled to Mexico several times, enjoying each other’s company as we explored different communities as potential future domiciles.

To meet in the middle of our diverse interests, Bob mentioned that he would like to try yoga, which I practice, so we would have something to do in common, and I said I would be happy to hike more with him. We also started doing more running and bike riding together, which took us full circle back to the genesis of our relationship – we met through a multisport club, the New York Flyers, in the early 90s.

Hydra Island in Greece

We have both started learning Spanish to facilitate our lives in Mexico. We are talking about taking dancing lessons, trying new foods, hiking new mountains, discovering new beaches, making new friends, tasting tequilas, learning a new language together.

It’s exciting!

In the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik

Adventure Cats in Rebersburg

(Written with help from Catherine Nelson, cat sitter extraordinaire)

The scariest thing about Ellie, Equinox and Kaylee’s temporary home in Rebersburg, PA, was the ferocious toddler, Audrey, age 1 ¾. Her attitude about pets was: Wow, new toys!
The Welcome Committee
When she first met the cats, Audrey flailed her arms, jumped up and down and screeched in excitement, inciting terror in three feline hearts. Equinox wouldn’t even come out of his cat crate for the first hour, and then he ran into a closet and didn’t come out for two days.

Cats in Hiding

At first, Audrey was always grabbing at cat ears. She pulled Ellie’s tail on the first day (Lexie was very protective). But over the course of six weeks of cohabitation, she learned to gently pet a rump and not treat a cat like a doll.

Audrey Helping

Observing cat eating rituals on Day 1.

Hand feeding one treat at a time to each cat, between her own taste testing. Very helpful.

Taking one bowl of dry food and pouring it into another cat’s bowl. Very helpful.

Pouring her own water into the water dish, before spilling all the water. Very helpful.
Catherine put a baby gate between the living room and the stairs to keep the baby out (and to keep Audrey from playing with the kitty litter, “which was a trial the entire time,” she said).
Clearly Noxy is not that into her

The baby gate is very helpful
Then Catherine set up a kitty oasis at the top of the steps the first day at the top of the steps.
Kitty oasis
Kaylee and Ellie hung out there, while Equinox took a corner over the closet under the stairs. Catherine spread the quilt down there for him. Then a week later she created a cat spot inside of their dog Cory’s crate under a table.
Kaylee spent the first day and a half under a couch in the living room, so Catherine would push food under the couch for her to make sure she ate. After a couple days, she discovered the spot at the top of the stairs. There was water, and a litter box, and a corner to hide in. Catherine would bring her food bowl up there as well, and just slide the food into that little nook.
But despite having a well-deserved reputation as the original scaredy cat, Kaylee was the first cat to venture out into the rest of the house. Eventually, the others came out as well, and each claimed their spot on (or under) certain favorite chairs. Equinox hung out with Mark on the back of his work chair.
Venturing out
Catherine encouraged Audrey to feed the cats treats or put down a food bowl, making her slightly less terrifying and in fact of some value to the cats. (But then she tried to eat their food.)  She also enjoyed stacking cat food cans, but otherwise cohabitated with the cats for the last few weeks in relative peace (and separation by a baby gate, when necessary).

Ellie, the Adventure Cat, will finish the story.


After a long time putting up with the evil toddler – who I eventually deigned to allow to touch my butt on occasion – our Mommy and family finally arrived one day. We thought they were gone forever!
We had a joyous reunion. My mommy cried. 

Reunion
They put us back in the crates in the car (I cried the whole ride, of course) and took us back to Grandma Greenawalt’s, and then up to their house in Vermont a few days later. 
I really hate car rides, but I really love the house in Vermont. There’s lots of room to chase Kaylee, and there’s pretty snow outside the window, and my favorite thing: a box on top of the washing machine to sleep on.
My favorite spot

(We like it, too!)
Keep calm and carry on, I say.

Italy, Part 6: Bob’s Extra Day in Rome

I wasn’t interested in all of Lisa’s family’s Naples and Solofra excursions, so from the beginning, I had planned on spending a day with her family and then exploring on my own.

Because we were so busy before the European trip, I hadn’t had time to even think about where I would go. I considered going to Venice, Florence or even taking an overnight ferry from Naples to Sicily. However, once we were in London, I realized that I needed to make some decisions so that I could make lodging and transportation arrangements.

I knew we were eventually going to fly out of Naples to Athens, and that Naples looked interesting enough to spend a day there. Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius also interested me. Since going to Florence or Venice would necessitate more time devoted to travel than I wanted, I decided to spend an extra day in Rome after Lisa and Lexie left for Naples, spend a day and night with her family doing ancestry activities in Naples, then travel to Sorrento and use it as a base for visiting Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, Capri and the Amalfi coast.
I couldn’t stay in our Rome apartment an extra night because it was booked, but I was fortunate to find another one in the same complex, which would let me get in an hour after we left the first one. So on the day that Lisa and Lexie left for Naples, I left the apartment with them and found a coffee shop to spend an hour. That hour turned into two when I discovered that it was Daylight Savings Time fallback in Italy, and we could have slept another hour! During my coffee shop wait, the rain started, remaining relatively light until I got into the apartment, when it became torrential and I had to wait it out for a couple of hours.

A rainy Sunday in Rome, and cats

I really didn’t have a plan for the day, so once the rain stopped I decided to just get on the metro, get off at a stop we hadn’t used before, and just wander. I ended up getting off at Flaminio, at the Piazza del Popolo, and spent the day wandering down Via del Corso to the Piazza Venezia, taking in the shopping and sights along the way, including the recently excavated Forum ruins near the Palazzo Venezia.

Bob ran into the Pope!

A selfie binge

Cats of Rome

I ended the day at the cat sanctuary at Largo di Torre Argentina, the place where Caesar was murdered. Today it contains Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary, a cat shelter overseen by a group of volunteers. About 130 cats call these ruins their home. The day ended with another rainstorm, through which I walked back to the apartment, crossing the Tiber and following our previous running route to the Vatican.

Naples, not impressive

The next day I caught an early train to Naples, where I joined Lisa, Lexie and Lisa’s cousins and sister on a walking tour of her grandfather’s former home. While most likely the neighborhood where we stayed and where her grandfather lived was typical old Naples, it was nonetheless dirty and cramped. With numerous people hanging out on the streets, I didn’t feel comfortable there, and was happy to leave the next day.

Looking at Lisa’s grandfather’s door

Pompeii

My original plan was to leave for Sorrento the next morning. However, I joined Lisa, Lexie, her cousin Loraine and Loraine’s husband Dave on a trip to Pompeii. When we got to Pompeii, I saw that the train station had baggage storage, and realized I should have brought my luggage along — I could have stored it and saved the trip back to Naples to get my bags!

The family in Pompeii
My plan for my 2+ days in Sorrento was to take a boat tour of Capri one day, take a tour down the Amalfi coast another day, and spend my last morning exploring Sorrento before returning to Naples to meet up with Lisa and Lexie before heading to Athens the next day.

Greece, Part 3: Thoughts About Greece

Some thoughts about Greece:

  • It is clean! After dirty Naples, it was a refreshing change to see people out sweeping the sidewalks.
  • It is orderly! After chaotic Naples, it was a relief to see street lights and traffic lights and people who waited or the light to turn before crossing the street.
  • It is affordable! With a hotel in a prime location costing only $90 a night for a triple and meals costing as little as $6 for an entrée, we would recommend it to anyone seeking to visit a European capital on a budget. Entrance to the Acropolis was only 5 euros ($6), the National Archeological Museum was 10 euros, the Temple of Zeus was free on Sundays, the Olympic Stadium was only 5 euros – and everything was free for age 18 and under (with ID), or for EU students up to age 25. We could have taken a really nice bus from the airport for only 6 euros each, but we chose to take a taxi, which was also quite reasonable. The HoHo bus was by far the cheapest we’ve taken.
  • The food in Athens offered a different twist on the Mediterranean food we’ve had in the States, and quite wonderful. The desserts were amazing and the ice cream was excellent. The restaurants were stylish and innovative, and really made an effort to provide a comfortable atmosphere and entice people to come in and eat. Every one had a different selection, though many had the standards: moussaka, baklava, kebabs, yogurt, etc. Surprisingly, I never saw falafel on a menu.
  • There are cats everywhere. A black cat with no name resided at the café in front of the Arethusa, claiming a booth for herself out front and sleeping there all day, curled into a furry ball and occasionally opening one green eye, which delighted Lexie (who was missing her cat Ellie). A calico cat guarded the entrance to the National Garden. We ran into scores of cats on the Greek islands.
  • The weather is lovely. It was sunny and in the high 60s-mid 70s while we were there. When we ran, around 7:30 in the morning, the temperature was in the high 50s. I’m sure it gets hot in summer; the long pull-out awnings the restaurants on the islands have is proof of that. But they were tucked in for our visit and we enjoyed the warm sun.

I think early November was a great time to visit because it was officially “winter,” which meant fewer crowds for popular sites, but the weather was quite pleasant.
Two words: Visit Greece!

Italy, Part 4: Solofra, and Radical Discoveries

After we left Naples, we traveled into the mountains to dig deeper into the family history.

Solofra


My grandfather Domenic Troisi was actually born in a small mountain town called Solofra, about half an hour east of the city of Salerno. His father, Beniamino Troisi, met his mother, Maria Michele Buongiorno, in Solofra when she was working for his brother, the local priest. Here’s an excerpt from my grandfather’s Memory Book for his 50th anniversary:
BENIAMINO TROISI FU BIAGIO met Maria Michele Buongiorno at the home of Father Carmine Troisi who was later elevated to the Canonico and Primicerio Curato to the Parochial and Collegiate Church St. Michele Arcangelo of Solofra Province of Avellino, Italy, December 21, 1941. Miss Buongiorno at the time she met Beniamino, brother of the priest, was keeping house for Father Troisi. Both the Troisis and the Buongiornos were respected families of Solofra.

Entrance to Terranova Agriturismo
So our little group of family seekers – which consisted of my cousins Janice and Loraine Carapellucci, Loraine’s husband Dave Handley, sister Julie Holm, daughter Lexie and me – converged on Solofra on Oct. 31, settling into a charming farm BnB, Terranova Agriturismo, just outside of the village. Our plan was to experience Domenic’s Solofra by attending Mass at St. Michael the Archangel’s on All Saint’s Day.

Discovering family


But as we were eating an Italian breakfast of bread, pastry, cheese and cappuccino that morning, who should arrive in the BnB’s dining room but a man I’d never seen before who looked slightly familiar, named Alfonso Buongiorno. It turned out that Janice had made contact with Alfonso through a friend back in New York, and he was our third cousin! His great grandfather had been Maria Michele’s brother, so we shared great-great-grandparents.
Alfonso shared my cousin Janice’s passion for genealogy, and a generous Italian sense of hospitality. Over breakfast, he shared many things he had learned about our family over a decade of digging, while I took notes like crazy. 
Here are the highlights:

Revelations

Buongiornos from both sides of the ocean

The first revelation was that the Buongiornos actually lived in Tuscany before coming to Solofra. But before that, they came from the Netherlands and Spain. In Spain, they were likely Sephardic Jews who had been forced to convert to Catholicism. Many families who did this changed their surnames to names like Buongiorno (which means Good Day) or Bonanno (which means good year) so that they could continue practicing Judaism undercover yet still be able to recognize each other.

Alfonso had done a little research on Troisis as well, and said the name was Norman in origin – which Janice, who had also learned this, had taken to mean Normandy, France. No, Alfonso said, it’s actually Norman as in Vikings, most likely from Norway and Sweden! He said many Troisis were blond and blue-eyed because of this heritage.
So we came to Italy to learn we were actually Spanish Jews, Dutch, and Vikings! This helped explain some of the oddities of the DNA test I took last year.

Leather and gold


For the last 500 years, Buongiornos have been tanners, producing fine-quality leather for overseas clients. A member of the family would live in Naples and act as a liaison to sell the product.  They also used to be in the gold business until a king stopped buying their product. Today many of their leather clients are being lost to Chinese mass production and cost undercutting, so the family business is grappling with how to respond to a bit of a crisis. But the family also owns rental properties in Calabria, the southern coast of Italy across from Sicily.

Meeting family


The best part of Solofra was discovering family there! We were invited to Alfonso’s home and met his wife Maria and children Raffaela, 18, and Francisco, 15. We talked genealogy and he showed us a framed family tree he had commissioned. He presented Janice with a binder containing scanned copies of paperwork he had acquired through his own genealogy research, which almost made her drool with anticipation.

The church



The church has a plaque on the outside dedicated to Monsignor Carmine Buongiorno, also called Il Canonico, my great great uncle. Inside there is a chapel set up by the family through an endowment. His gravestone is in the floor of a back room, behind the  sacristy.

All Saints Day


We joined the All Saints Day procession of Solofra residents walking in the rain under dark umbrellas down to the town cemetery, preceded by the town band playing mournful tunes. Once there, where you could buy colorful flowers from a roadside peddler, we entered the heavy gates and split up, looking for old Troisi and Buongiorno graves. As we wandered among the raised monuments, we watched people clean their family members’ graves and decorate them with flowers and pictures. A memorial mass was held in the chapel in the middle, and the choir voices drifted through the alleys between the small houses that held multiple family members’ graves. It was fascinating.

Here is Alfonso’s family tree:

Next up — Italy, Part 5: Lexie learns about her heritage

Greece, Part 1: Athens and Antiquity

We added Greece to our itinerary at the last minute. Bob said, “Hey, since we’ll be in Italy anyway and Greece is so close, how about we finish the vacation on a Greek Island?” He had been to Greece about 30 years ago and remembered it fondly.

I couldn’t think of a reason to say no, especially after we found incredibly cheap 4- and 5-star hotels and apartments available during the time we would be there – as low as $26 a night for a really nice two-bedroom apartment in a resort near the sea. The catch? November officially launches the winter season in Greece. So while we could find affordable, beautiful lodging, it would be too cold to go to the beach and no restaurants would be open.

So the islands were out

But then Lexie chimed in that she was really interested in mythology from her World Civilization class and books she had read, and she would LOVE to visit Athens and see the ruins and the seat of western civilization.

So Athens was in

So we added three days in Athens to the journey. I found a boutique hotel in a location that Booking.com gave a grade of 10. Bob did some research into what to do while there, finding guides to what to do in one day in Athens, or two days in Athens. He worried that we had booked too much time there and would be bored.

He was wrong.

Temple of Zeus, sunset
From the second we stepped off the plane, we were in love. The airport was new and modern and welcoming to tourists. The weather in early November was sunny and in the low 70s. (This is considered winter?) The cab driver was friendly, and his cab was large and state-of-the-art, with leather seats and the most advanced GPS we ever saw. A self-driving car (Lexie had a moment of panic about him not watching the road until he shared this piece of information), the Mercedes made its way to our hotel while he chatted away about sights we should see and places we should visit and pointed them out on his 3D, shape-shifting GPS screen.
The Arethusa Hotel, as it turned out, was just a short block to one of the main squares in Athens, Syntagma Square. When we arrived, a bellman promptly grabbed our luggage and delivered it to our room for us – a nice change from the hoofing around we had done in Naples, and a good idea since the elevators were tiny. From the wall to wall windows, the city view was delightful, the towels thick and fluffy, the beds soft and comfy. We looked at each other with delight and said, “We deserve this!”

The National Garden

National Garden selfie

Emporr busts in the National Garden

The next morning, getting up early to run, Bob and I discovered that the National Garden, with miles upon miles of running trails and views of the Temple of Zeus, was only two blocks away.  We saw scores of fit runners covering the trails in small groups. Then we went to the breakfast room. Mama mia!  Hotel Arethusa offered a delicious, abundant Greek/American buffet breakfast that included Greek yogurt, granola; spinach, meat and cheese pies; eggs, toast, fruit, cold cuts and cheese, Nutella and jams, eight kinds of coffee, juices, hot chocolate, and more. All this for just 80 euros a night ($90)!

Changing of the Guard

We started, at our cab driver’s recommendation, at the Parliament at 11 AM on Sunday morning to watch the Changing of the Guard. This happens quietly every hour round the clock, but the Sunday morning show is 30 minutes long and a spectacle designed to entertain a crowd. And in fact, hundreds of people turned out to watch, jostling with each other to get the best pictures and video. It was wonderful! Soldiers somehow managed to look manly high-kicking in perfect synchronization while wearing traditional country guard uniforms, which consisted of white tutus, matching white tights, red berets with long black feathers down one side, and black clogs with large tassels on top. Their serious faces and the long red and black rifles they carried certainly helped.

Hop On Hop Off Bus


Next we boarded the Hop On Hop Off bus to get a quick lay of the land. We took lots of great pictures from the top level of the double-decker, where every corner brought a new discovery. The tour was informative and comprehensive, and the headphones actually worked well. We used the bus as transit after the initial circle, and visited the original Olympic Stadium (including the underground tunnel, a museum that featured Olympic posters and torches, and of course the winners’ podium), the Temple of Zeus (our timing at sunset created amazing light for the pictures), Hadrian’s Arch, the Plaka (an atmospheric old city with wonderful shopping and dining options), the Acropolis and Parthenon (of course), the National Archeological Museum (where you can eat in a café surrounded by ancient sculptures), and even the Flea Market.

Views from the HoHo:

Acropolis

Fish market

Next … Greece, Part 2: The Islands, and Observations

Italy, Part 3: Rome

Rome was literally eye-popping. We stepped out of a subway for the first time and were immediately accosted by the enormous, imposing Coliseum. All three of us stopped and gasped simultaneously. The scale of it was, as Lexie put it, “incredible. I don’t even know how to describe it.”

That pretty much describes Rome: Larger than life.

The Colosseum

Since we only had a couple days in Italy’s capital, we decided we had no time to waste waiting in line unnecessarily. So we took a skip-the-line tour of the Colosseum, the largest amphitheater ever built, circa AD 70. (We picked the first person who approached us, but you might want to do more research than that.) Though it was partially destroyed by a major earthquake, it is surprisingly intact, and truly spectacular. We were able to climb fairly high and peered down at the space where gladiators fight and public executions were the spectacle of the day.
The Colosseum

It is flanked by the Roman Forum, which for centuries was the center of day-to-day life in Rome, and Palatine Hill, one of the most ancient parts of the city.

The Forum and Palatine Hill

Our Morning Walking Tour


The second morning, Lexie slept late while Bob and I took the subway to the Trevi Fountain, the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world  Again, we got so much more than we expected. It was huge, built into the side of a big stone building, and glorious. Description, legend. It turned out we were there at the least crowded time of the day, so we were able to each throw a coin in the fountain over our left shoulders. (According to legend, one coin means you will return to Rome, two means you will find new romance and three means you will get married. We already have two and three covered.) Suddenly the 1950s song Three Coins in the Fountain makes more sense.

Trevi Fountain

We then had an overpriced breakfast of croissants and cappuccinos across the way from the fountain, basking in the location and the glorious leisure It is in a charming old section of Rome with narrow streets and no cars. We walked along, taking pictures of a large diversity of creative, small shop windows, and came along a Pinocchio shop – ah, yes, that childhood tale about Gepetto, the lonely shoemaker and his wooden doll who turned into a real boy, is Italian in origin!

Gepetto’s workshop

Our wanderings also took us through the Fifth Avenue of Rome – Gucci, Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna, etc. — to the famous Spanish Steps, which we had never heard of, but they are glorious and worth a visit.  It’s127 steps up, and nearby is the apartment where Keats died at the age  of 29 – just a little literary trivia.
Spanish Steps

We found the Pantheon, an ancient temple to the Roman gods converted to a Catholic Church that was simply amazing. It is circular, 142 feet wide and 142 feet tall, with a hole in the roof that lets light in as well as rain, and a drain in the floor. It is one of the best preserved of all Roman buildings because it has been in continuous use and is still used as a church and to host concerts today.  It was also not crowded, and had pews we could sit in to rest our tired feet.

Pantheon

The Vatican

We went back to our apartment (Homeaway did us right; our two-bedroom was gorgeous, comfortable and close to the subway, and since we booked an off-season rental only two weeks before, we were able to get the price lowered) to get Lexie, who had been sleeping late (she is 18, after all), and headed out for the obligatory tour of the Vatican. We chose a 3 PM tour to avoid the morning crowds, which Bob and I had witnessed firsthand the previous morning when we ran past the Vatican and had to dodge the lines. Again, we paid extra to skip the line, and were led through the Vatican Museums by a stylish Liberian woman whose English accent was too thick for Bob to decipher. (Thanks to time spent with a Liberian friend when I lived in New York, I understood her just fine.)
The Vatican Museum (actually, museums) is one of the largest museums in the world, featuring an immense collection amassed by popes throughout the centuries. The tour was a little too quick, but interesting nonetheless, especially the Map Room. I would like to go back in my own and take the time to linger. I also discovered the secret to seeing the Vatican without the crowds is to wait till the afternoon, a time when no Skip the Line premium would have been necessary. Here are some highlights:

The Sistine Chapel was a feast to behold, although Michelangelo’s famous creation image was surprisingly small in the center of the ceiling, and the elbow-to-elbow crowd made it challenging to view. (Sorry, no photos are allowed in the Sistine Chapel.)

St. Peter’s Square

St. Peter’s Basilica was glorious, but I was disappointed to be denied seeing the Pieta sculpture, which was behind a curtain and required a premium to view. I made sure to buy a couple of packable souvenirs and posted postcards to my brother John, who is a Catholic priest, and my stepmother, Katy. Because it was a Saturday evening, I could have gotten a free ticket to see the Pope say Mass the next morning from the nuns in the gift shop. Unfortunately, we planned to travel at the same time, so I didn’t. If you ever travel to Rome, you should know admission is free on the last Sunday of every month, so plan accordingly!

St. Peter’s Basilica

Cats of Rome


Bob stayed an extra day and visited Torre Argentina, the spot where Julius Caesar was killed, a ruin that is now a Cat Sanctuary.

Thoughts on Rome

A few thoughts on Rome:

  • It is OLD.
  • It is Catholic! I realized this, but still, it’s a surprise to see so many nuns and priests and monks in the streets of a city.
  • There are no footpaths or grassy places to run, though there is a path along the Tiber River, which was just a bit too far from our apartment.
  • Because of the density of the center or the city, public transit is limited to the edges and you have to walk a lot, on cobblestones. We skipped the Hop On Hop Off Bus because the reviews made clear the buses couldn’t actually get near the most popular sites, and stops were few and far between.
  • The menu is extremely limited: pizza and pasta. And more pizza. And more pasta. And gelato, gelato, gelato. It’s wonderful! But after a while, no matter how good it is, you get tired of the same menu.
  • There are a lot of beggars, who seemed like a throwback to another time. We saw women in scarves lying on the sidewalk with heads bowed in prayer and cup extended, and young men with gnarled legs and feet propelling themselves on skateboards, distorted hands inside of heavy boots and cups extended.
  • It is larger than life. From the Vatican to the Coliseum to the Fountain of Trevi, everything is so big, it takes your breath away.

Two and a half days was not enough time. We will be back!

Next up — Italy, Part 4: Solofra, and Radical Discoveries

Italy, Part 2: Why Italy

Why Italy?

Italy was actually the impetus for this whole European adventure. 

My cousin Janice Carapellucci has been passionately pursuing our family roots on the Troisi side for a decade, especially the artist Donato Buongiorno, who was my Italian grandfather Domenic Troisi’s uncle and his family’s sponsor when they came to the United States from Naples in 1907. (She collects his work, as he was a fairly prominent artist at the turn of the last century, and hopes to stage a show of his work in New York City in spring 2019. Her website is donatusbuongiorno.com.)
In addition, my sister Julie Holm and her husband Mark visited Italy about a decade ago and found the hometown where my grandfather was born, Solofra, a picturesque village of goldsmiths and leather tanners located in lush mountains about a half hour east of Salerno.
Janice has been planning a family expedition to Naples and Solofra for years. When my daughter Lexie decided to take a gap year before starting college, I decided the timing of the trip this fall provided a wonderful opportunity for her to learn about her Italian family history.
Then it turned into our travel version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie: If we were going to be in Italy for the family reunion, we may as well go to Rome for a couple days first. And since Spain is close by, we might as well visit our exchange student, Laia, and her family, in Barcelona. And while we were in Europe, we should visit our oldest, Aryk, at Keele University in England. And if we were going to be in England, we need to spend time in London and get tickets to Hamilton in the West End.  And if we were going to be so close to Germany, we needed to visit my brother Pat and his family outside Hamburg. And since Icelandair, with the cheapest flight to Hamburg, offered a free stop-off in Reykjavik, we had to spend a few days in Iceland. And because Italy is so close to Greece, we added Athens.
So the Italy portion of our trip can be divided into two distinct sections: sightseeing in Rome and ancestry-seeking in Naples and Solofra. You’ve already seen a report from Naples. I realize we are going out of order, but that’s the nature of travel. These blogs need to be posted when they’re written. Thanks for being flexible!
Next … Italy, Part 3: Rome

London, Part 3: Running & Other Activities

Running in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park


The most wonderful surprise for Bob and me was the quality of the running in London. Truly magnificent! Kensington Gardens was a block and a half away from the flat we rented, and it is glorious. We were running along, talking about how it reminded us of Central Park, when we realized we were in the back yard of the Royal residences, separated by just a polo field. We speculated about which “cottage” (really, mansions) belonged to Wills and Kate, and which housed Harry and Meghan. Next thing you knew we were at Kensington Palace! Its gardens were beautful and it is actually open to visitors, though we never got there to see the Princess Diana Fashion Exhibit. 

We discovered Round Pond on one run, the Serpentine on another, the Princess Diana Memorial on another, and green parakeets that let people feed them out of their hands on another. The morning dew made the park glow eerily. 
Kensington Palace

And right beside Kensington Gardens was Hyde Park, not quite as Frederick Olmstead-like, but still large and lovely, with a huge grassy green in the center which doubtless hosts loads of picnickers and probably outdoor concerts in the summertime.

We agreed we would probably get in fantastic running shape if we lived in London, as Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park are only one example of London’s abundance of green spaces.

Other Highlights

Other highlights of our days in London included:
38,000-pound silverplate set at Harrods
Metal art at the V&A
  • We visited the Church of St. Martin in the Fields, near Leicester Square, where we attended a Mozart concert in the evening in tribute to my parents, who when they lived outside of London in the late 1980s used to attend classical concerts there.
  • We discovered the London Film Festival was going on and went to see the hysterically funny documentary “I Used to be Normal: A Boy Band Fangirl Story,” in a far-flung London neighborhood (ethnic, not touristy, sort of Queens-like) after an unusual and unexpectedly delicious meal at a Turkish restaurant.
  • We visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, aka the V&A, which focuses on design and saw a new history of photography exhibition that had been dedicated by Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge  (just Kate to us commoners), just a few days before. I loved the museum’s display of metal art, and we mostly passed on the paintings of dead people.
  • We spent a couple of hours in the world-famous, over-the-top luxurious Harrods’s Department store, where we perused 2000-pound ($2,600 US) coffeemakers, 38,000-pound ($50,000) silver-plate cutlery sets, 3050-pound ($4000) purses, swords, wine glasses (some only 45 pounds each – $$60) and so much more, each item more decadent, expensive and unnecessary than the next. We bought nothing but bought picnic food in the surprisingly reasonable little deli in the chocolate section and picnicked out in a courtyard by the Tube station.
  • On our last day, we visited the Tower of London, enjoying a tour by a very British Yeoman something-or-other, taking in the Crown Jewels, watching a video of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 (poor girl looked terrified, in my opinion), and seeing the extreme excess and ostentatiousness of the soup tureens and salt containers for royal banquets hundreds of years past. We learned about the checkered and grisly past of the royal family, especially Henry IIX, and wondered if Meghan knows what she got herself into.
    Our guide
A beheading about to happen at the Tower of London
And now … goodbye London, off to Italy!

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