Travel Tips

Dear Everyone,

Greetings from Rome ! I hope that you are all keeping well… and will forgive me for sending out this "dear-everyone-message" rather than personalized letters. Once we have the computer hooked up at home, I will be in a better position to write frequently.

Today, August 15th, is the holiday Ferragosto celebrating the Madonna of the Assumption – but in actuality most of the month of August is a holiday here. Many shops and businesses are closed, no mail is delivered and everyone seems to be either on vacation or at the beach.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The final day and a half prior to departing on August 2nd –was it really only a week and a half ago?! – I spent in panic-stricken packing and apartment-cleaning. Thank goodness for my friend Daniela who "took charge" on Saturday and got us (myself plus three terrified felines) to the airport on time and in one piece. We would never have made it otherwise, since I am accustomed to traveling light and was utterly overwhelmed by the prospect of moving three cat carriers, two suitcases, a carry-on bag and one boxed VCR.

Fortunately, after all the fuss over the documentation required for the cats (which vaccinations needed to have been done when, etc.), I was not asked even a single question. Not by Alitalia at Logan Airport and certainly not by anyone at Malpensa Airport in Milan, where passport control didn’t even look at the 6-month residence visa I spent a good four hours in line to obtain. So now I guess I am left with the best-documented cats in history. (Sigh.)

The 300-mile drive from Milan to Rome brought home what Gianluca has been telling me for the past several months: temperatures across Italy have been excruciatingly high (hovering around 100 degrees F) since the end of April with nary a drop of rain to be found anywhere, so the fields are parched and the sun is positively unbearable during the day.

As a result of the draught, fans have become a non-existent commodity in department stores all across Rome. We literally spent the better part of a day driving around from one shop to another in search of a fan of some description – all to no avail. Fortunately Gianluca had an extra one at home, so we are fine.

The cats have adjusted well to the new apartment, all in all. When we first arrived, however, they stubbornly entrenched themselves in the darkest and dirtiest corner of the storage space behind the bathroom and successfully held the fort for nearly two days in spite of our best efforts. (Karlov, formerly white, is now a dingy shade of gray.)

After Gianluca constructed a barricade to close off the storage space (consisting of two cat carriers, bags of cat litter and the laundry basket), the cats turned to trying to climb out onto the roof whenever we opened the windows. So far they have succeeded twice in scaring the daylights out of me, but both times we managed to get them back inside one way or another.

Little by little, I am "listening my way into Italian" and picking up details here and there… There are many many dialects, however, which differ considerably from one another. For example, when I listen to Gianluca’s parents speaking together, I sometimes get the uncanny impression that I am hearing a southern Slavic language since they often change the "s" sound into "sh" or "sht".

On August 6th we headed off to Crete for a week’s vacation, stopping in at the local police station en route to the airport to take care of the formalities involved in registering me as a foreign resident. I must say, they were by far the friendliest immigration officials I have ever met anywhere in my life. (Then again, this is a country in which the civil status of an unmarried woman is classified as "nubile," without certain of the English-language connotations…)

After an extra-thorough fingerprinting job – all fingers on both hands twice + imprints of the full length of my fingers + palms – we were wished a pleasant vacation and sent on our merry way…

…which brings me to Crete ! This message is already getting long, so I will try to be selective from here on. Imagine an island on which the craggy, multi-colored rock-and-sand landscapes of the American Southwest or the Black Hills of South Dakota slope down to a sea the color of the Florida Keys… and that image will give you a fair idea of what Crete looks like.

The Orthodox churches (of which there are many) are generally round rather than rectangular, white with red domes, and they can be seen perching improbably at the top of even the highest of cliffs. Taxi drivers cross themselves as they drive past. I didn’t notice any stained glass panels as we typically think of them (i.e. representing particular personages or biblical scenes), but many churches did have little circles of colored glass set into one or more walls. These created "spots" of orange, red, blue etc. light on the floor, pews and chandeliers of the church interior – a cheery and curiously appealing effect. Tiny replicas of churches, containing one or more icons, dot the roadside.

Our hotel was located just outside of Ierapetra on the southern coast, looking out onto the tranquil Sea of Libya. The sun was hot and the terrain rugged, but a strong wind called the "meltemi", which blows down from the Balkans during this season, kept the temperature comfortable. When not relaxing on the beach, we were driving around the island in a rental car (which, in passing, is a very good deal economically speaking, to say nothing of a great way to see the interior of the island). Alas, we managed to miss most of the places on the must-see list provided by my friend Yannis, since they were predominantly on the other side of the island. Next time, Yannis !

We did, however, visit the ruins of four of the major Minoan sites – Knossos, Phestos, Zakros and Gournia – which are truly spectacular. I particularly enjoyed Knossos, since archeologists have gone to great length to provide the visitor with visual "clues", for lack of a better word, of how the palace must have looked in ancient times.

And speaking of things ancient and traditional – I had gone to Crete with high hopes of immersing myself in new folk songs and dances… only to find, much to my chagrin, that the radio played largely "techno-sirtaki" and "pop-kalamatiano." So imagine my joy, one day as we were driving up a mountain, to hear the song that our dance group uses for "haniotiko" ! ("Do you want me to stop the car so that you can get out and dance?" Gianluca inquired.)

There is much more to write about Crete, but I will stop here for now since we are heading out to a festival this evening. I will write again soon, and in the meantime please do stay in touch !

- Cathy

P.S. I am extremely sunburned !!!