The left side of Italy

If you recall from my last posting about how walled stone cities seem to be built in Italy, if not the rest of Europe, you'll find when visiting Montepulciano that it's no exception to the rule. Find a hill, build a fortress on the top of it, surround it with buildings, build a wall. Cover every piece of soil with slabs of stone. Several hundred years later, install tourist information offices.

Let's not hide it - we came to Montepulciano for the wine. It's a wine town, and the surrounding countryside is planted full with grapevines. When we pulled into the bus station in Montepulciano, our prospects did not look very good: arriving on the weekend, and the place we had in mind turned out to be a bed breakfast on the outskirts of town to which only regional buses would reach, seven kilometers away. A quick check of the math involved in bus tickets showed us that the money we'd save on accommodation would be eaten up by transit to and from the city, and, we'd have to be out of the city by seven thirty at night if we didn't want a seven-klick hike in the dark, without sidewalks, being passed by Italian race car drivers.

So we did what most travellers do - we explored other options. A sign posted in the bus station offered rooms at a reasonable price, and our guidebook for Italy also promised a budget option in the heart of the city. So with two options, we struck up our two-person Italian phone call routine. Amy connected with the woman on the other phone, got the sense that if we went right now, we'd have a room, so that's just what we did.

It turned out as we got there, that the number at the bus station would have led us to the same place. The Il Cittino, a hostel-style hotel and restaurant, is located pretty much in the exact centre of Montepulciano, which involves much climbing of gradual hills and winding through switchback streets. Montepulciano isn't that big - you could cross from one side to the other in half of an hour - but when you're lugging packs around, every step up a hill feels like a trudge up a mountain.

Il Cittino is run by one woman - Marcella - a lovely woman who is a reserved dynamo of energy. She'd have to be: in addition to running a hotel that can cater to probably twenty people in a dozen separate rooms, she does all the cooking for a twelve-table restaurant. Lately she's been doing it single-handedly as her one permanent employee is recovering from an illness; however, she does have a weekend helper, a student from the nearby university of Siena.

We also met Henrik, one of the most interesting people I've yet to meet during our travels. Henrik isn't his real name; he's pretty secretive, and I've no wish to offend him by announcing to the world of his presence in Montepulciano. Henrik's story is pretty romantic: he came to Montepulciano seven years ago, just passing through, and his vehicle broke down. As the fog lifted, he saw the steeple of the nearby cathedral San Biagio, and it must have been a pretty spectacular vista, as he decided to make Montepulciano a permanent residence (as well, his vehicle decided not to start again, despite three days of repair, so I guess it was meant to be).

Henrik offered up to us his favourite impressions of Montepulciano: where we should and shouldn't go, what were the best deals, where was the best wine. It is fascinating to hear him speak, his English couched in a Italian accent that also betrays his northern European heritage. He is clearly a knowledgeable man, well-versed in many topics, but to describe any of them to you would be to give away points of his identity. I'll just say that it was great to spend time talking to him, and we hope to see him again during a return visit to Montepulciano.

We ate out for an early dinner at a local cafe-restaurant, Al Gambo di Gatto, where we had a light meal and some pretty great local wine. The owner, Emmanuel, and his wife Laura, were a great team with an obviously well-practiced routine: she would discuss the menu with the guests, translating where necessary, and take the orders; he would discuss the wines, profferring three for a taste and one for a selection. In Montepulciano there are two basic types of bottles, the first being the younger, cheaper selections that are aged for six to eight months and come from a variety of local grapes: fruity, lively wines. The second selection are the wines made from the local Montepulciano Nobili grapes, and aged for two to three years (or more) in oak. They're more robust, very tannic, and great cutting for through meat and game dishes. We went for a Nobili.

The presentation of the meal, and the warmth with which it was served, impressed us both, and moved me to the point of wanting to come back and do an interview for a story devoted just to the two of them and their history: why did they come to Montepulciano? What's their philosophy behind running a restaurant? So I discussed this with a very enthusiastic Laura, who suggested I return the next day when the restaurant opened.

In the meantime, we toured around Montepulciano, soaking in the flavour of yet another step-back-in-time city. That night we decided to attend what can only be described as an artistic event: "The Shop of Wilde Dreams", a combination of live jazz, video and painting. While I still am a bit unclear as to the actual order of things, my feeling is that the artists were all supposed to work off of each other when producing their art: the jazz players would play some music, the painter would react to that when painting, the video artist would project different video, and so on. But in hindsight I think the jazz artists had a few well-rehearsed numbers, and the video guy clearly had only so much material to draw upon. Only the painter could be truly improvised, and even then, there's no way of knowing whether or not he'd done his piece before. In the end it was worth seeing, and the painting was clearly inspired, but the jazz left me a bit hollow. The players - a saxophonist, keyboardist, bass player and drummer - were clearly experts, though it only became clear during their more formal numbers. In what I am going to assume was an attempt to inspire the painter, they did their best to produce a disorganized cacophany of noise, which you get the point of in a few minutes, and (at least, for me) get tired of after a few more minutes. I would have loved to stay for a few more minutes at the end to inspect the painting a bit more closely, but when they started up for their encore set of cat-strangling and screaming amidst syncopated drumming and bass-string screeching, we found it too much and evacuated the premises.

The next day I set out to do my interview, armed with my questions. When I got their, Emmanuel had no clue who I was. Absolute blank, despite my attempts to inspire some recollection as to why I'd returned. We hit a wall of miscommunication: him with little English, me with little Italian, and after a quick cup of coffee, I left. A bit crestfallen, I'll admit. I rebounded though, with a photographic tour of Montepulciano: Amy and I had separated for the morning while I was going to do the interview, and I did get some photos I liked.

We spent much of the rest of our visit walking through the city, talking to Henrik, and tasting wine. In short, a great visit. But as the weekend drew to a close we made plans to visit our next Italian city, Siena.

A short bus ride from Montepulciano delivered us into Sienna, and after looking around at some of the expensive hotel options, we realized a visit to this city had the potential to be very expensive. So we cut our costs by staying at one of the city's three youth hostels, ours located relatively inconveniently about two kilometers north of the train station, the train station being one kilometer north of the city. Not having a map which actually included enough of the city to show us where the hostel actually was, we waited at the station for bus service to resume, having asked enough people to get a reasonably certain idea of which one we should actually take.

A side comment: when travelling, asking people for directions is a good idea. However, you should ask multiple people, and at various stages of your journey. Just because the person you talk to sounds absolutely certain about the turns, distances and landmarks, doesn't mean you've actually understood it correctly, or that they really know what they're talking about.

The bus dropped us off at the hostel, a former university residence building. We spoke to Giuseppe, an older, wiry Italian man with a pleasant demeanor but no-nonsense attitude when it came to business. We could certainly have a private room, breakfast was one euro and ninety four euro cents per day, all payable in advance. And in cash. Of course, we didn't have enough so I'd have to walk down to the nearest cash machine, to which he gave me directions... you can guess the rest. I did eventually find it, and spent a few moments cursing when the door wouldn't open. I tugged on it for a few moments before deciding to try pushing the door; another curious feature of European design is that it can be the exact opposite of North American design. Light switches are pushed down to activate instead of up; some doors open out instead of in. For whatever reason, I'd been conditioned that the door should be pulled open, and this one didn't work that way.

Breakfast is worth commenting about, to the extent that the lesson learned there was don't buy three days' worth of breakfast chits if you don't know what you're going to get. Or generally, none at all if you're staying at a hostel. They are universally cheap and terrible. The coffee was, from hell.

We decided to forego the bus and walk into Sienna's old city. It turned out to be a relatively easy walk, with the exception of a few stretches where there were no sidewalks and the traffic whizzed by on the left. We walked single file, which was only complicated by the appearance of walkers coming the other way. But it only took us about a half an hour to get to the city on foot.

Sienna: another timeless, walled fortress city. I hate to think that we were getting overexposed to midieval cities, but it could possibly be. It was impressive to look at. Its streets were overflowing with character. But after a while, you just wished that you wouldn't get so lost all the time.

It was in Sienna that we would meet Lisa, the proprietor of Sienna's sole English book store. We were hoping to find the next in the series of a book that we'd been lent and had both enjoyed, and a quick search on google had turned up Lisa's store in Siena as a possible place where it might be found.

Lisa is an American transplant to Italy, having moved to Sienna some ten years ago from New York; three years ago she opened her store. A very knowledgeable and likeable person, we found the hours ticking away as we talked, finally getting around to the actual reason we'd come by - the next in the series of books we were reading. It wasn't in her stock, but she did sell us two other books that we have both since enjoyed. So if you find yourself in Sienna with a need for books in English, make your way to the Book Shop, Galleria S. Pietro 19, Sienna (+39 0577 226594).

It's at this point that I must confess some time has passed since we were actually in Siena - things have gotten busy - so the details are starting to get sketchy on what we saw and did while in the city. But I'll try to cover the big points.

We visited the Medici fortress, a huge structure on the west side of the old city (at least, it looked like the west side to me. You'll know it when you see it). Essentially, it's a big tall rectangular castle with around six diamond-shaped structures extending out from the points. The building has been reclaimed for other non-fortress uses, such as housing a musical conservatory, a high-end restaurant, and a wine museum that stocks over 1,600 different bottles from all of Italy. You would have thought that we would have visited this mecca of wine, but in the end the timing didn't work out, and we didn't make our way back there.

We also took in a visit to a museum that, in its previous life, had been a hospital dedicated to the care and well-being of the city's less fortunate. St. Maria de la Scala is undergoing constant renovation, and it is expected to continue into the long range future, so there was a fair amount of background noise to our visit. However, the main entry hall was worth the price of admission just by itself. Easily two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, the walls and ceiling were covered in frescos that depicted historic scenes including characters from the hospital's history. As we toured the hospital it became clear just how huge the structure actually is: section after section of sculpture, paintings, a small chapel, an underground section devoted to an entire collection of Egyptian artifacts, even a special exhibition of canes and walking sticks. I think we spent most of the afternoon there and left with a ravenous appetite.

At night we had the idea of perhaps seeing a movie - something we hadn't done for weeks. We'd passed a poster for the latest Woody Allen movie and thought that perhaps it was subtitled, so we tracked down the theatre. Only to find out that it was in fact dubbed, and during our conversation with Carolina, the theatre's ticket agent, she suggested that unless we really understood Italian, we weren't going to enjoy it. That didn't stop her from having a good long conversation with us, in which we talked about all sorts of things both Canadian and Italian. Speaking with Carolina was interesting: she had moved to Siena from Naples, where in the south of Italy unemployment has become a real problem. This is especially the case since the formation of the European Union and inflation that came with the adoption of the Euro. She spoke of the cost of housing (both renting an apartment and the dream of owning a house - well outside of her means) and the cost of living, both of which had risen dramatically over the past seven years. All the while I couldn't help but wonder how it was then, with this increase in prices, that the cost of transit is so cheap. Our bus tickets that took us across Italy were a pittance, as were the cost of our train tickets from place to place.

Finding a place to connect the laptop to the internet has been a bit of an ongoing challenge - wi-fi connections seem to turn up where you least expect them - and this was even more the case in Sienna. As I'd written previously, outside a banco privato we happened to see a horde of people sitting on the marble steps with their laptops. There was nothing organized, just a conglomeration of people - probably it is locally known that it's a good place to find a wi-fi signal, but for everyone else, it's just a bit of a deduction to figure out that if someone's got a laptop, they probably have wi-fi. At any rate I've already extolled just how much of a contrast it was - modern laptops in front of an ancient building, but it also summed up Italy in many ways. The people are innovative, but also thrifty. Free wi-fi is relatively rare in Italy, if not Europe, so when you find it, you take advantage of it.

I have to digress a moment to talk about the coffee in Italy. It's been a bit of a bum ride for Amy, who is a devoted tea drinker, to visit France and Italy where a cup of tea can be almost twice as expensive as a cup of coffee (and this is for a poorly-made cup of tea with a cheap tea bag). The coffee in Italy (outside of the hostels) was universally superb. The Italians have got it down pat, as opposed to the French, who produce a coffee which is from time to time just "okay". Avoid the "cafe americano" - it's not worth it and most places don't really know how to make it anyway. You just get used to drinking the smaller espresso coffee, which contains exactly the same caffeine hit, just in a more compact package.

We left Sienna to head to the Cinque Terra for the weekend. The Cinque Terra is a loosely-knit community of five picturesque fishing villages, linked by road, rail and walking paths. All five of the villages are perched on the edge of the Mediterranean sea, which makes for some pretty spectacular panoramic views along the walking paths. We opted to rent an apartment for the weekend so we could make our own meals (something we had been missing for a while) in the southern-most of the five villages, Rio Miaggiore. We'd called ahead, as you never know how busy a popular tourist desination will be - but when we arrived, it was clear that we could have found anything. We were greeted by at least two people looking to see if we were interested in renting an apartment, and an older Italian lady - Mama Rosa, it turned out - held out a sign offering rooms from a paltry fifteen euros. While Amy looked around for the usual array of tourist information (maps, guides, etc.) Mama Rosa's husband (Papa Rosa?) listed to me all the places he'd been while serving as the engineer of an oil tanker. It got to the point where he could have tried to list places he hadn't been. At any rate, we'd already had a place reserved, and later on we encountered a sign that indicated we shouldn't accept offers from places that appear to be amazing deals - as they tend to just pack people in and the conditions can be less than appealing. Good enough, then.

The towns are so small they don't have maps to provide to tourists: they are the definition of one-street towns. In the case of Rio Maggiore, the street ascends upwards towards the mountains, at a forty-five degree angle, with shops, hotel booking agents and speciality stores flanking you on either side. There wasn't a McDonald's to be seen but there were no less than three CORA outlets, disguised in small shops. I suppose you have to stock the villages somehow.

Our meals throughout the weekend were different pasta dishes, accompanied by local Cinque Terra wines. The bottom must have fallen out of the fishing industry, as we didn't see a lot of it going on - but tourism is unquestionably the larger source of revenue now, for better or worse, as well as a thriving wine industry. The arable land available in Cinque Terra is a series of terraces that ascends the mountains, thus, everything has to be done by hand. As far as the quality of the wines, well, they didn't knock our socks off, but they were certainly very pleasant.

And now, the walking trails. We'd very efficiently planned to do our walks over the weekend: however, a signficant rainstorm had forced the regulatory body that oversees the trails to close the trail between Rio Maggiore and Corniglio (villages 3 and 5, basically) for safety concerns. The tourist office underscored that while the path between Monterossa and X was still open, the quality of the trail wasn't going to be very good, and it wasn't recommended that we walk it. We decided that rather than wait for our next visit to Cinque Terra, we'd risk the conditions. So we hopped a train to Monterossa and started our walk along the trails back to Corniglio, where we'd hop on a train back to Rio Maggiore.

The trails themselves between Corniglio and Monterossa are not for the faint of heart, the first leg taking over two hours to traverse and making a path up and down the terraces. You find yourself doing a lot of climbing, only to follow a path around the mountain and then descend back down into a valley. To top it off there are no guard rails, so coupled with some slippery, muddy paths it can make for some pretty slow going. I think we chose the right direction as it meant we could pause in Vernazza, have a look around and something to eat, and then hit the second and (slightly) less difficult path. Having just described how difficult the paths could be, the views were worth it, and the paths themselves showed off the diversity of the Cinque Terra region. It made me wonder at how difficult it would have been to cut into the mountainside and build the stair-stepping terraces on which so much is grown.

At the base of Rio Maggiore, a small marina boasts a few cafes and, further down the seaside path, a rocky beach. I remember this kind of beach from my previous visit to Nice. The ferocity of the waves means that thousands of stones get rolled up onto the beach, slowly getting chipped and eroded until they become small pebbles. The sound of the waves crashing onto the rocks is incredible to listen to, as it gives you an indication of just how strong the waves are. Occasionally there is also a moment, a pause in the waves crashing onto the stoney shore, where you can hear the water receding and carrying away the thousands of smaller stones that aren't heavy enough to remain on the shoreline. It's quite hypnotic and we spent a few hours there.

While we were there they never did take the path between Rio Maggiore and Corniglio, as the conditions actually deteriorated on the paths during our stay (they even closed the paths between the other villages). We did do another hike (again, alot of climbing up through the terraced mountain sides) that took us to the western end of the five villages, where we encountered a nature reserve that gave us a panoramic view of the Mediterranean sea. In short: Cinque Terra is well worth the visit, but I don't think you need to spend a lot of time there to appreciate it.

We had figured out already that our next stop was going to be to visit my cousin Mary, who I hadn't seen for over twenty years, who lives on the other side of the Alps in France. We'd already booked our train tickets from Torino, but it meant spending the night there. So we took the train to Torino and spent a very few hours there. My impressions of the city are scattered, but essentially, they cleaned it up for the Olympics a few years ago and it shows. A new train station was added to allow access to the Olympic facilities, and the tourist office has a wealth of information at their fingertips. They armed us with a list of the hotels in Torino, a map of the city, and we set off to find ourselves a reasonably inexpensive place to spend the night.

Our first stop, the Albergo Romana, did not impress. For fifty euros we would have the pleasure of a dingy guest room, washroom down the hall. I haven't haggled much this trip, but I really couldn't believe the room was worth it. In addition, while I'm not an expert on tourism, I felt that we weren't in the prime tourist season and that it shouldn't be so expensive. The hotel guide even went so far as to list high- and low-season prices. So I suggested it was perhaps more expensive than we'd like, and offered forty euros, but despite us being the only people in the place, she didn't budge. So we did, and left - no hard feelings.

Our next stop, just down the street, was completely different. Granted, by this point we had been walking around a bit with our packs, but the people were nice, the room was excellent with its own toilet and shower, and internet access, for five euros more than the last place. I guess with the success of the Olympics, the whole city has inflated its prices, but at the very least, the consumer should feel like they are getting something for the money.

The train from Torino to Chambery, France was a ride of having one's face pressed up against the glass. For us, mountains are pretty amazing - yes, Canada has the Rockies but we haven't seen them yet - so crossing the Alps was stunning. There are even more impressions to be conveyed about the alps, but I'll save them for the next installment.

Wine review: Tavernello

For those who like to occasionally venture off of the sunny side of the street, there are also wines to drink while you're there. Tavernello is conveniently packaged in a set of three formed plastic drinking boxes and can be yours from any supermarket for the incredibly economical price of just over a single euro (1.12€, less with tear-away coupon).

At first glance, Tavernello Vinodo (tavola rosso) isn't much to look at. The packages are opened by pulling off a single shiny plastic silver tab, allowing your waiter to ask perhaps, "shall I rip it open a container or two for you?" After wiping up the spilled droplets of ruby-coloured liquid that have spurted from the container to your shirt sleeves, you are rewarded with a bouquet of deep earthy tones of mushroom, berry, and prune. As well, slight hints of pomegranate, raspberry, and camomile are evident after the wine has been allowed to breathe, and these scents are best accentuated by swirling the wine around in a plastic cup.

The taste of the wine, while lacking in any real body or character, is obviously structured so as not to offend or charm anyone: this is clearly a wine for pairing, and indeed, when matched with a smelly cheese or spicy salami, the flavour of the wine is dramatically improved. With notes of prune, evergreen, blackberry, rubbing alcohol and old shoe, Tavernello smells slightly better than it tastes and is probably enjoyed most on the sixth or seventh box. It is slightly tannic, possibly having been fermented in a French oak barrel, or more likely, fermented with crushed oak chips, and will leave your lips puckering.

Thankfully, there is little aftertaste, and the wine has a pleasant warmth and smoothness. Best drunk immediately: do not cellar.

Unlocking Umbria

The story so far: Amy and Andrew, safely ensconced in an agritourismo farmstay in Perugia, contemplate their next moves through Italy. The grasp on Italian is improving (a dozen or so words and phrases instead of "si", "non" and "gratzi") and we're getting used to the Italian schedule for shops and restaurants.

Our night in Olivetano Agritourismo was one of the nicer sleeps we've had so far. Perhaps being outside the city, with little to no traffic to speak of, made the difference. As well, most hotels have effective systems on the windows to block absolutely all light from the outside world; when we closed the shutters, it was so black you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. In this particular room, there are exterior shutters, with diagonal- and downward-facing slats to allow ventilation, and interior window shutters, with little window-doors inset into the room-facing side to let you open the windows and let in light without opening the windows and letting in air. That took less figuring out than the door and toilet.

The door into the room was complicated. To lock the door you had to lift the handle upwards to engage the locking mechanism, then turn your key around three times in the lock before the door would be locked. That took a bit of trial and error before we actually left the room secured. The toilet used a different flush mechanism that we hadn't encountered before, essentially an upward-pointing button that attached to a tank set high in the wall. And don't even get me started on the bidet - I have no idea how to use this thing. After seeing toilets flush with massive buttons set into the wall, pedals on the floor, and chains attached to levers, we just get to chalk this system up to another "regional difference" that you just get used to.

A little aside about "regional differences": Amy and I have come to use the term to describe something you encounter while travelling that is different than what you're used to, that you don't necessarily like, but that in the end, you really have absolutely no power over and have no capacity to change. In most instances it's because we can't explain how we'd like anything differently, so apart from the absolutely necessary, you just accept and enjoy the difference. Some travellers don't get to this point, however, and seem motivated to let you know how something is better somewhere else than the way it is here. I know that they do it out of a sense of trying to be helpful, but in some conversations with tourists I find it needlessly pessimistic. As a result, we try and showcase the good, rather than harp on the mediocre.

So, back to Olivetano Agritourismo. We awoke the next morning to head downstairs for our breakfast, served up by an older gentleman tending the bar. I wish I'd known, at the time, how to ask what his name was. Our communication was limited, but we figured out drinks (tea and cafe americano), we ate the cornettes (Italian version of a croissant, and definitely "regionally different" than same) that were hidden from sight and insect by an unfolded white paper serviette; we ate the compact melba toast and peach preserves. The gentleman then had a lengthy conversation with us in Italian, of which I got about ten percent. In the end we figured we'd go for a walk around the farm's property before settling up and heading out. It seems pretty universal that of the people we've had to talk to in order to arrange things, most of the Italians are very good about making absolutely certain the correct information has changed hands. In this case it meant we had essentially the same conversation about three times, in extremely simple English and Italian, to explain that we would take a walk for about an hour, and then pick up our things and head out. It was then that our host suggested we head up the hill to see the Casa de Domenica, which a helpful fellow with enough English and Italian to serve as a translator, explained was the region's equivalent to Disneyland.

So walk up the hill we did, passing by the groves of olive trees from which the farm surely took its name, making several turns and passing into more and more desolate and degraded roads before finally arriving at the top and the Casa. We weren't tempted to go in, even though it was set up with rides, a cowboy theme park and an honest-to-goodness Saturn V rocket (or at least, a replica). We were also on a schedule, and the view of Perugia from the hilltop was pretty spectacular. This was the first of several panoramic vistas we'd be party to seeing over the next few days.

Our removal from the Olivetano farm was simple enough, and we did get to chat to the old guy for a few minutes before we left, telling him about the places we'd been and the ones next in Italy that we were to go to. Gubbio and Lago Trasimeno got good reviews ("ah, Gubbio, si, motto bono...") but as soon as we indicated that we were going to visit places outside of Umbria, he was less complimentary. When we mentioned Montepulciano, he said something which can only be translated as "Montepulciano. Why the heck would you want to go there?" This was not to be a unique phenomenon. Later, we would come to talk to an older woman later on at a bus stop who explained (at least, I think this is what she was saying) that Perugia was the prettiest place in Umbria, if not Italy, and that we'd be crazy not to spend at least a few days here getting the most out of the city. But then, when I responded with that most universal of communication tools, the vacant stare of incomprehension, my guess is she figured that she'd packed too much into the sentence and lowered it down a notch for me. "Perugia; belissimo, si?" To which I could offer a healthy, "Si, Perugia, belissimo."

It's a bit frustrating not being able to communicate in an advanced way as I might be able to in English, and I think as a consequence it keeps one on the outside of a culture. It's one thing to see sites, but when you're surrounded by people who are lively and vibrant, you really want to get to know them. It really does encourage me to learn Italian, but then, we're here for such a short time, and we've got a couple of other countries to visit yet where we're going to have exactly the same problem: Spain, Portugal, India and Nepal; our English will only carry us so far.

Our guidebook pointed us to a new hostel in the city, but the map we had only covered the city centre; Olivetano, as well as the train station and our hostel destination, were both off the map. But from our vantage point atop the hill, I could see a building with "SPAGNOLI" emblazoned atop it in huge letters, and made the (at the time) perfectly reasonable assumption that the hotel-sized building was probably the hostel. So now we had a direction, and it didn't look so far. We hoisted our packs on our backs and started walking.

And walking: mostly up, as it turned out. We would walk on the sidewalk on the left side of the street, which would suddenly end, and be replaced by a sidewalk on the right side of the street. We would then have to wait for an opening in in traffic to dash to the other side, only to walk forty paces to the end of the new sidewalk. Repeat. I'm sure this is an exercise to keep Italians at a peak level of alertness, but then again, it seems everyone has a car and just drives everywhere. If they need to cross the street, perhaps they just drive there.

When we got to the Spagnoli building, it turned out to be, of course, not the hostel. We were greeted by a big steel gate, and absolutely no indication of the building's true purpose. A security guard did eventually come out to investigate who the heck we were, and very helpfully informed us that this was not, as we had come to understand, the Hostel Mario Spagnoli. I'm learning from prior mistakes: I had written down the address of the hostel. When I asked him where Via Cortonese was ("per favore, dove Via Cortonese?"), he did make a gesture to his right and said twenty minutes. Which took us up a hill onto a thoroughfare with no sidewalks at all, and a lot of traffic. It was one of those brisk, fun walks that leaves you sweaty and clammy.

We got directions at a gas station, confirming we were heading in the right direction, and continued on our way; after a few more twists and turns, we finally arrived at the Ostello with very sore backs and shoulders. It was a good test of just how much and how far we can go with the packs, and where we'd need extra padding and various adjustments.

After a brief siesta we headed out in search of food, and armed with a few restaurant recommendations, we set out at the (in retrospect) perfectly reasonable time of six o'clock. Monday, Perugia, six o'clock; the city might as well have been abandoned but for the constant traffic. It was only later we realized the very different schedule that Italians follow: restaurants don't even open until about seven thirty. When we did find a place that looked reasonable, a Chinese restaurant ("Ristorante Cinese Imperiale") we were the only ones there, and they were still setting up. But they did feed us very well, they themselves eating at the same time as us.

As we hadn't intended on spending any time in Perugia, we spent an hour the next morning monopolizing the hostel's pay-phone to arrange our stays in Gubbio, Lago Trasimeno and Montepulciano. We'd learned from our Perugia experience (Bruce Springsteen, remember?) that especially on the weekends, it pays to book ahead, even if it means you won't have the luxury of finding the places that aren't advertised or haven't registered with the tourist office. Sometimes, it's better to be prepared than to get lucky, as you can also get very unlucky as well. We made quite the sight, Amy and I; her on the phone doing the talking, me with the phrase book, trying to flip to the appropriate page to fill in the obvious words in Italian. It worked out surprisingly well, and we managed to make bookings in all three places. A city bus later and we were at the bus station, making our way to Gubbio.

Gubbio is a walled medieval city located in the mountains of northern Umbria, remarkable for its preservation. It's the kind of city movie producers would drool over for period pieces, except that it would be almost impossible to get the requisite vans, trailers and trucks into the city. The roads are too thin, go up very steep angles, and have buildings in the way. We stayed two nights in Gubbio, the first in the Grotto del Angelo, a restaurant-hotel in the city core, and the second in a bed & breakfast just outside the city walls.

I can't tell you the distinction between a hill and a mountain, but Gubbio is built on top of one; I know this because we climbed to the top of it by way of a tourist path that criss-crossed upwards, and I was pretty tired at the end. But it provided a spectacular view of the city and the hill / mountains in the distance. It was one of those walks that just kept on ascending, with your ears popping to remind you that yes, you are pretty high up. At the top of the hill / mountain was a church, and the silence that resonated when we entered the courtyard was very special; as a place of worship it would be very effective, as it was highly removed from the noise of the city. But the ascension up the hill / mountain wasn't complete: there was still a nature trail that rose even higher, and we continued. At the top of this trail (the very top) was an old castle ruin, which you could (of course) climb. At the top of this castle was a truly spectacular view of the entire range of hill / mountains surrounding Gubbio. It was also very cold, so while we stayed long enough to appreciate, we lingered just long enough to drink in the panoramic vista and then trekked down again.

After a second day of aimless exploration through Gubbio's ancient city streets, a roman amphitheatre and excellent gelato, we moved onto Casteligano del Lago, one of four main beach towns surrounding Lago Trasimeno. We had to pass through Perugia to switch buses, and our experience with the bus the second time around wasn't nearly as smooth as the first; we waited an hour for a bus that didn't come, and then relied heavily on the kindness of the driver to know exactly when we should get off the bus. But we arrived in Casteligano del Lago without incident, called Guiseppe, our bed and breakfast host, who came and fetched us back to the room in question - not two minutes away, but it might as well have been an hour, as we had no map and no sense of the layout of the town.

During the summer, Casteligano del Lago is probably positively hopping with business, with throngs of holiday-makers. But eventually the autumn comes, people go back to work and kids go back to school, and its population and speed returns to normal. In short, we were among the very few visitors to the city, and it was very slow-paced. Which was actually exactly what we were looking for, so it worked out pretty well.

The logic behind Italian cities seems to be pretty straightforward and direct: find the tallest hill in the area, build a castle on it, build stone houses, buildings and churches around the castle, and then build a wall around the whole thing. To make it easy for carts and wagons to get around, lay down great stone tiles for a road. Finally, as you're labouring on the larger buildings, ensure there is a huge piazza in the centre of town so that people have a place to gather. If you've got a sense of humour and want to confuse visitors to the city in about a thousand years, make sure that you don't use any right angles when it comes to laying out a street, and turn the streets in curves and double-backs. To finish the deal, make a half-dozen huge portico gates and arrange them at varying points around the city wall. To those unaccustomed to walking through such a city, it's like taking a step back in time. Except that the city has adapted to the needs of its citizens as time has gone by, including adding lights, power, water lines, signs, telephone wires, and telephone booths. So you have to use your imagination a bit.

Casteligano del Lago is one of larger towns to perch upon Lago Trasimeno, and as such it's well equipped with all the stores you could need on the outskirts. Like CORA in France, COOP is a prominent supermarket chain that we've found in every city we've come across; UPIM and CONAD are also competitors. One day we shopped at the COOP that was fifteen minutes' walk from our apartment and ate our picnic meal in a meadow overlooking the Lago, but for the most part we dined and toured in the older part of the town, the walled segment that stands perched atop a small hill and is surrounded by a grove of olive trees. The trees are planted in rows, the ground scalloped in a way that makes it look like grand steps of land through which stone stairways cut upwards to form a vertical path.

The olive trees themselves, like the rest of the city, have probably been standing for hundreds of years; they seem to grow impossibly, looking like they have had huge sections cut out of them, or have split apart. And yet they produce hundreds of olives, and despite the sizeable holes you could pass your hand through, the trees are obviously healthy.

We dined out twice in Casteligano del Lago, once at a restaurant called Papri-ka, and the last night of our stay at Vinolente. Papri-ka was on a Wednesday night, so it wasn't very busy, but we found ourselves among a table of Americans and a table of Australians. We didn't have much of a chance to speak with the Americans, but we did spend a fair amount of time talking with John and Lizette, sampling each other's wine, and generally having a great time. It's funny that we get to know other travellers better than we would get to know the actual residents of the cities we visit, but I suppose that given the language barrier, and the fact that we have more in common with fellow travellers (ie., we're all travelling), it makes sense.

We also met a nice trio from Ireland, Michael, Aine and her sister (whose name I forget), who live not far from my uncle Sandy in Wexford. The smallest things give rise to long conversations - in this case, we helped them take some wine down to their car, and left probably a half an hour later, addresses and travel tips exchanged.

The main fortress in Casteligano del Lago was worth a short walkabout. Overlooking the Lago, you have an impressive view, and the castle has been well-maintained, but it is an empty shell; you walk around the ramparts, but don't get to venture inside the main keep and see how it would have been used in its day. The interior of the compound was also off-limits in the off-season, but from the ramparts we could see that it had been converted into an open-air theatre space, with a large open stage sitting opposite ten rows of chairs. We surmised from the structure behind the stage that there would be a space underneath the stage, perhaps to allow setpieces to be raised and lowered.

We left Casteligano del Lago well-rested and well-fed, en route to leave Umbria and venture into Tuscany. I haven't regretted not renting a car in Italy, despite the freedom of movement it offers; the signs are deceptive, sporadic, and obviously, in Italian. At least in France we could understand the signs. In addition, we have seen parking to be a nightmare, there are astoundingly steep hills to climb, the turns are sharp, and the cars are all manual transmission. We have seen on more than one occasion two vehicles come to a sharp stop and start honking at each other until one reverses enough to let the other through. In short, I'm relatively content to let a bus or train driver do all the driving for us. However, the trip through Umbria towards Tuscany, with its panoramas of rolling hills and lush countryside, made me want to have the bus pull over to drink it all in. There's a reason people come to Italy; there's an ageless feel to the land, that is foreign and familiar all at once. I know I will come here again, hopefully armed with a better grasp on the language, to get to know the people that live here.

Wireless in Sienna

In front of a private bank, an impressive stone building with marble floor tiles, a wrought iron gate that spans easily fifty feet, over a dozen people sit on steps easily four hundred years old with their laptops, feasting on free wireless internet connections.

As trucks pass by the street mere inches from where we sat, and hordes of tourists pass by the other way, it's a microcosm of Italy: old tradition mixed with modern technology, the old refusing to let go, but accommodating in one way or another, the new.

I'll be writing in more detail of our travels from Umbria into Tuscany, from Perugia, to Gubbio, some time by the lake in Lago Trasimeno, into Montepulciano in Tuscany, and now, into Siena. We've met some incredibly nice people - John and Lizette from Australia, Michael and Aine from Ireland, Hans and Marcella in Montepulciano - and just today, Lisa in Siena. All are immense stories that I will have a hard time putting succintly. I'll love every minute of it.

Misunderstood across Europe

We've done so much in such a short time that I'm starting to feel an internal pressure to keep up. The last dispatch covered Ireland, but we've already gone through Germany and are now in Italy; I'll try and get up to speed in this dispatch.

I'll be very arbitrary and try to gloss over Germany. Germany was a side trip for a small work contract with an American website devoted to digital cameras and imaging, The Imaging Resource. Every two years a camera conference is held in Cologne, Germany: the Photokina. I've been to camera conferences with I.R. before, but in comparison to American shows the Photokina is massive: eleven halls in the Koelnmesse taken up by pretty much anything related to photography. My contribution to the website's coverage was video: my cohort Shawn and I can be seen in several videos here.

Cologne was fun: busy, but fun. For me, getting paid to cover a camera convention is a pretty big bonus, and it's icing on the cake that the guys I get to work with are really fun, too. In the end we put together twenty-seven videos of Photokina content, and I'm proud to say that's probably the most video coverage of any website. But more than just the conference, the actual city was very kind to us. Two of the meals we had in restaurants will stand out in my mind for quite some time, an Italian restaurant (The Arena) and an upscale bistro in downtown Cologne, "2 Cross". Both of these restaurants had one crucial ingredient in common: the service. It's my belief that customers come to a restaurant only partially for the food; mostly, they come for the experience. And part of that experience is feeling welcomed. That was certainly the case in both of these restaurants.

We left Cologne on October 2nd, taking a train through Germany to have a five-hour stopover in Munich, and then an overnight train into Venice. We managed to get into Munich on the last day of Oktoberfest, which you think would probably be a really neat experience, especially if you like beer. As it happens, I don't really have a big thing for beer - especially massive sopping tankards of it - but the Germans seem to. In fact, they get right into it, dressing up and imbibing as much beer as is humanly possible. And then rolling around the streets and singing, and bouncing off walls, people, lamps, each other. It got old a bit fast, especially when glass started getting dropped and breaking with some regularity and tempers flared. I think it would be fun to speak (and sing) German and get on the inside of the party, but much like being the guy who arrived too late to the all-night kegger and there's no beer left, it's not quite as much fun.

But visiting Munich was made completely worthwhile by exactly one random point of chaos: an old, grizzled, blues-piano-playing busker dude. The guy was probably in his sixties, a portly frame and dressed all in black; long, unkempt white hair that flowed past his shoulders and a beard that trickled past his biceps. But man, could he play his piano, and quite the sight that was too. It was the perfect accompaniment to him; a rickety upright piano anchored to a wide dolly, such that it could be wheeled in and out of places, and when he played it, the whole thing wobbled and slid from side to side, bouncing around so much at times that you thought it would collapse at any moment. And the piano, worn by years of use and misuse, strings broken, the tops of the ivory keys cracked and missing, probably not even able to hold tune. But the whole ensemble worked, and he made it work. The man could play the blues, peppering the keys with his fingers, swinging his body and tapping his feet to keep the time. His lyrics came out in German and broken English, slurred a bit either way. And the crowd loved him, filling his jar with change and bills. It just goes to show you that in most cases, it's not the instrument but the player, and this guy could play.

We hopped back on the train at eleven thirty and shared our couchette cabin with a Korean girl named Mini, who just happened to be studying in Calgary and was taking some time off to travel. She too was going to Venice, and we chatted for a while before settling in to be lulled to sleep by the gentle, cradling rocking of the train.

A bit of backstory. In my previous trip to Europe in 1998, I thought the idea of spending twenty extra dollars on a sleeping car was just a waste of good money. So I did a night train between Prague and Venice, sleeping in a seat that reclined quite well. As it turned out, this was a pretty dumb idea, because in each country you pass through, the border patrol wanders through the train, waking up people that aren't in sleeping cars and checking their passports. So during this one particular overnight trip, I was awoken, as I recall it, at least four times. And it wasn't the comfortable a sleep. So by saving a few dollars, I was a write off for the next day, where I essentially crashed on arrival at the first bed I could find.

But in the sleeping car, however, it's much more civilized. They hold on to your passport for you and do the presentation in your stead, and give it back to you in the morning. And you get an actual bed, six feet long and two feet wide, enough padding to get you through the night, a sheet, a pillow and a blanket. And yes, the rocking of the train did lull me to sleep. I even woke up before the alarm we'd set to alert us that we were probably getting close to Venice, but that probably had more to do with mental conditioning than anything else.

We parted ways with Mini at the train station, getting ourselves situated as has become our pattern (swing by the tourist office, get some maps and flyers) and then headed off for the same hostel I stayed at when last I was in Venice: Archie's Rooms.

I didn't take any pictures at Archie's, but it's probably kinder not to. It really is one of those places that has to be seen to be believed. I don't think it's registered in any guidebook, making it one of Venice's best-kept secrets. Where most hotels start at fifty euros per night, you can get a private room at Archie's for twenty-two euros per person, with access to cooking facilities, free internet and (recently, apparently), a ping-pong table. It's a bit removed from the main action in Venice - the Piazza San Marco - but if you're willing to spend the half hour walking, you can really get anywhere in short order.

Archie's is a two-story building; you enter from a non-descript side entrance that doesn't do much to advertise the presence of the hostel. You are alerted to the fact that it's a hostel by the word "R O O M S" painted onto the corner window, but not much else. Your first impression of the interior of the place is unmistakeable: it's a mish-mash of different styles and decorations, mostly cheap, put together in a hodge-podge, year after year, until it has finally arrived in its current state of organized chaos. You climb three short sets of stairs, turning at right angles until you reach the first floor, walking around the ping-pong table on the main floor as you go.

The owner, Archie Baghin, has a lot less to do with the operation than he used to, having turned over the day-to-day running of the hostel to his two sons, Uri and Ambri. I told Archie, to his great delight, that I had stayed in the hostel six years previously, and returned because I'd had such a nice stay, but I only had the opportunity to tell him when he breezed through the hostel en route from one engagement to another. Archie is well educated: he has (at least, he says he has) two Doctorate degrees in literature. When I asked him where he was going he said he was now teaching english to students at the local school, which he found greatly satisfying.

Our room was number eleven, a double bed made up of two singles pushed together, and an assortment of furniture that looked as if it had been found on the curb. A desk lamp hung suspended in the corner to provide some additional light to the single fluorescent bulb on the ceiling; however, the lamp didn't work. A table with three mis-matched chairs sat in the corner, and an old Ikea convertible sofabed sat opposite. Rounded out with a sink and a mirror, it was all we needed for Venice.

Venice. How much have I missed it: the filthy, green dishwater of the canals, that produces suds in the wake of all the boat traffic; the complete lack of cars and scooters; the bustle of October tourists, smart enough to wait until the summer tourist season has ended; the labyrinth of alleys, canal bridge crossings and handful of major streets, designed to enfold you into the city's stoney bosom; African immigrants selling knock-off Fendi bags on the tourist drags, having spread them out onto neatly pulled white blankets; the ludicrously priced gondola rides, complete with impossibly macho gondoliers; the pastel-hued buildings, with the waters of the Mediterranean sea lapping at their bases; the high tide, flooding the streets and causing complete disarry in the Piazza San Marco; so many things. In short, a city unlike any other, and yet somehow it thrives on the constant flood of tourists and their dollars, each seeking to drink in the atmosphere that is Venice, to have their picture taken on a canal. The perfect counterpart to the small army of trinket sellers, buskers and restauranters that happily inflate prices to meet the market demand.

And yet, it was still cheaper, in many ways, than in Paris.

It's the small moments that I really enjoyed in Venice, like getting lost. Just when you think you have the city's design figured out, or at least how to follow the map to get from one place to another, you take a wrong turn and are in some empty Campo (courtyard) with nothing to guide you but a water fountain and thousand-year-old buildings. You walk around for ten minutes, thinking your destination is just around the corner, and then suddenly you come upon the edge of the city, looking out of the water. To take a wrong turn in Venice is to go completely off the map - unless you've got one, and more importantly, one in colour. The canals don't show up as well in black and white.

In short, I loved Venice - and I'm sure the hundred thousand other tourists that were there loved it as well. It's also a popular destination for humongous cruise ships, and we met several American and Canadian tourists who had either just arrived on, or were about to embark on, the Grand Princess, a boat that could probably fill a couple of football fields, and probably use up an oil field's worth of gas just getting out of the harbour. I hate to generalize about tourists, especially American ones (as I've indicated previously, I've met plenty of good ones), but the ones in Venice were some of the worst. No patience, little tolerance, and very demanding. We saw Americans walk out of a restaurant because it was going to cost an extra Euro to have a bottle of water at their table, rather than get it at the take-away price. In their defence, having talked to the other of the pair, they'd had a long travel day, but our experience was just so much different than theirs. Other tourists told us that they'd forgotten to read their Rick Steves guidebook the night before their first meal in Venice and had broken some of the "rules" - namely, that they should only ever get the house wine, as it's all the same, and that if the restaurant has menus in more than one language, it's going to be too expensive. Perhaps we've already grown accustomed to the fact that things are just different here. I hope they have a better time on the ship.

We toured all around Venice: north side, south side, the islands (Murano and Burano), the Rialto, the Piazza San Marco, and finally the Biennale Venezia. The Rialto and Piazza San Marco you've seen in photographs; Murano is great if you like glass and all things made from it; Burano was as pretty an island town as you can get. No two adjoining houses were painted the same impossibly bright hue of every rainbow colour you can imagine. But the Bienniale captured us for the entire day.

The Biennale Venezia was suggested to us by a new acquaintance, a German architecture student by the name of Leif ("pronounced Life, not Leaf"). The Biennale is a permanent exhibition site in Venice, a series of pavilions sponsored by various countries as well as a grand one for Italy, and in each pavilion, an exhibition of some sort pertaining to the theme (which one assumes changes every two years, hence the name). The current theme was Changing Cities, so each country took its own stab at it in more or less interesting ways. Some made static displays, such as Switzerland, which documented the change occuring in the Dominican Republic, in a series of pod-like platforms which combined images and text. Others, such as the British pavilion, were very hands-on and encouraged you to get in there and move things around, and basically, play. The British effort concentrated on the scales used by architects in their work: 1:1,000,000, 1:10,000, 1:100 and 1:1; how changing your perspective can change your point of view. In one example, they had a table set up with different wooden objects, each marked with its relevant scale: a dog at 1:10, a windmill at 1:100, a building at 1:1,1000. You could move them around on the table, which was more or less fun in and of itself; but the more interesting result (which we only discovered later, we were so wrapped up) was that a video camera was projecting what we were arranging onto a screen behind us, so you looked across the whole table with a very different point of view.

Canada's entry was a bit disappointing for me: it was entitled SweaterLodge, and while it was a pretty impressive effort, it didn't take long for the point to be made. The two Vancouver artists took 10,000 plastic water containers and recycled them into a thread from which they made a giant polar fleece sweater, something in the order of 40 feet wide. This was suspended from the ceiling, making a sort of canopy, with scale models of it set about. In the middle of the pavilion were three bicycles, attached to video projectors; the idea was you sat on a bike and pedalled, and the presentation would play at the speed to which you pedalled. Amy and I both wondered what was going to become of the sweater at the end of the presentation.

The Spanish pavilion was really quite something; three halls of ordered video displays, all presenting three-minute videos of the women of Spain and how they interact with their cities. While the occupational precentage was pretty high on architects in terms of representation, there were women from all walks of life: professors, police officers, nurses, punk rockers and skateboarders, gallery owners, homemakers.

The French pavilion was a constant work-in-progress: "meta-ville". A group of artists from various disciplines had been assembled to work, eat and live together in the pavilion space, so their exhibition was essentially that the world could come in to visit them as they went about their daily life. When we visited they were just getting into a meal, so we really didn't get to see what types of art they were working on, but we did see a guy with a oxyacetalene torch doing some welding before we arrived. To be honest, I thought it might be closed for renovations; all part of the show, it turned out.

The Finnish / Swedish / Norwegian pavilion profiled "arctic cities" of which each country has at least one, and how they are designed differently to operate effectively in the constant snow conditions. Apart from the pretty models of houses and buildings, I must admit that by this point we had absorbed so much information in only a few hours, I couldn't tell you what made each so special.

There were a couple of other notable pavilions: a few examples. South Korea exhibited a design for a new type of graveyard that uses vertical space and allows the left-behinds to send text-message "virtual flowers" to the dearly departed. China showed a design of a new city area in Shanghai that will allow the people that live there to get from one transit station to another in no more than five minutes, and is shaped like a big hill cut up into smaller chunks, to allow for efficient distribution of wind and solar power. The United States exhibited a tribute to the devastation of Louisiana by the Katrina hurricane, showing in words, pictures and video the resulting catastrophe, as well as some designs that are being put forward for solutions to what make become a regular problem (that is, massive hurricanes).

The Italian pavilion showed a plethora of different projects, including a room devoted to the changing situation in Ireland, given its ongoing economic boom and the problems it is having with development; a room devoted to the phenomenon of "shrinking cities," where somes cities, due to problems such as the environment, changing work models, and an aging population, are losing their people and even their grasp on the land. Venice is a fitting place for the discussion; the city is waging a battle against rising water levels (it's the opposite of the perceived problem, that Venice is sinking), but with differing opinions on how best to spend a large budget devoted to halting the flooding, nothing of substance is actually yet being done.

We weren't halfway through the Italian pavilion before being advised that the site was closing in fifteen minutes. Clearly you could spend a lot of time here, but by that time we were ready to go; five hours in what is essentially a large outdoor museum is probably about as much time as you can realistically devote. All in all, a pretty great way to spend an afternoon.

We left Venice on Saturday, heading for Perugia, with a goal of actually spending more time in surrounding towns such as Gubbio, a medieval hill-town, and Casteligano de Lago, a city nearby Lago Trasimeno. Some beach time is now called for, as we spent the better part of two hours today walking around Perugia looking for our next place to stay with our packs weighing us down.

Which brings me around to the end of this dispatch, in which I'll relate exactly why I've titled it "Misunderstood across Europe". As it happens, you can be absolutely confident in knowing that what you're saying is technically correct in another language, and still confuse the pants off the person to whom you're speaking. Here are two marvellous examples.

In France, we stopped our driving trip across the Loire in Orleans to have some lunch and stretch our legs. Deciding to get back underway, we dropped by a nearby hotel to see if we could use their bathroom before heading off. In my best French I asked: "Est-ce que c'est possible d'utilizer la salle de bain?" Which, translated in France-French, was me asking if I could perhaps have a bath. I wish I had my camera ready to capture the look on her face, a complete stranger coming off the street asking if they could have a bath. It was marvellous, and given that I thought I'd said the exact correct thing, I had no idea what I'd just asked: thankfully, Amy was alert to the difference and amended my request for "la toilette".

And just last night, our first night in Perugia. Bruce Springsteen played last night, which meant that pretty much every hotel room for miles around has been booked. We started off by calling a few places, then just decided to see if the Tourist office could set something up, which they did; a room in a farmhouse just outside the city. Before you go thinking that we were away in a manger, no room for the night, "agri-tourism" is actually a big business now across Italy, if not most of Europe, where farms have figured out that tourists will actually pay to get away from big tourist centres, rather than stay right in the centre of them. So we took a quick taxi to Olivetano Agritourismo, and were immediately glad to have spent the eight euros to do so - the place didn't have a sign. Even if we had navigated the bus system to get there, we'd probably have walked right by it. As it was we eventually found our way in and into a room with Silvio, the establishment's owner. On his way out between his broken English and our broken Italian, he asked if we wanted something to eat. We said we might be down, and later decided that we could probably use something small and perhaps a glass of wine. We should have figured out that this was not going be the typical restaurant experience when we saw no sign, no menu, and tables full of locals when we entered. We sat down blissfully to have our glass of wine, and say, a dessert.

Well, they had other plans. Turns out on the weekends, they have a complete five-course meal, at a set price, so when we asked the pleasant girl who came by to offer us the antipasti if we could just have some "dolce", you'd think I'd taken off my shirt and started twirling it over my head. She quickly called over Antonio, the head waiter, a swarthy guy in a white dress shirt and pin-striped jacket, and eventually Silvio, to figure out exactly what the heck our problem was. Between us in our linguistic conference we figured out that we were in fact going to stay for the whole meal, and that we were going to need a few vegetarian options. It was probably the most chaos they'd had in the meal hall for some time, and we decided we were just going to sit there and let them put whatever food they could imagine in front of us, and we were going to enjoy every minute of it. It wasn't like we had much in the way of options: we were sleeping just above, and that could have been more than a touch awkward the next morning if we just up and left. But in the end we had a really great meal, complete with a vegetarian main instead of the traditional meat-fest that was to follow.

Amy and I could only imagine what would have happened if some of the tourists we'd seen in Venice had happened into the same situation; probably an incident worthy of diplomatic intervention.