Shenanigans

The next day Paul arrived. It was surreal to see him walking over the lawn towards us: photo-shopped into the scene, magically transplanted from London. We jumped into his car and drove to a lakeside restaurant L’acquarella, to meet Piero. Walking in, we felt like famous people. All the waiters knew Paul and Piero like old friends, and guided us to a table set up especially for us under some trees at the water’s edge. We were served a starter of fritti misti straightaway, and then the most delicious fish in the world which had been presented to us just minutes before: silver-scaled, eyes gleaming.

The time we spent with Piero and Paul was very special because of their generosity in letting us slip into their strong and sweet friendship. They shared their own Italy with us: showing us their favourite places; things to do; their habits and special rituals; letting us in on their in-jokes and introducing us to their friends.

L’acquarella is their favourite restaurant and the way they always open their time together whenever Paul is over from London. It was supremely peaceful. The water of the lake gently rippling around the posts of a wooden jetty and our faces smiling at each other under the dappled sunlight coming through the trees. We were all able to catch up over lunch, which finished with an espresso and spoonfuls of walnut and chestnut ice cream served in half walnut and chestnut shells.

After lunch we drove back home and relaxed by the pool. Dani and I sitting on lounge chairs in the shade watching her father and his best friend happily play games as if they were 13 year old boys again.

Arguing about the height of the imaginary goal…

In the evening we drove to Rome, following the route that Constantine took to take Rome. We had Aperols at a streetside kiosk just next to Ponte Milvio. The Kiosk was another of Piero’s favourite places and as we drank we revelled in the atmosphere there: the people of all different ages, sets and backgrounds who had gathered together in that place and were chatting, relaxed, in the warm summer evening.

Conversation flowed smoothly from the silly to the serious and back again, and it was a huge privilege to be sat with these two men who had already lived through so much more than us already, but were also curious in what we had to say. Men who in this moment were able to be simultaneously like fathers and friends to us.

We ate at a delicious restaurant also near the bridge, and continued many discussions we had started outside. At one point we found ourselves speculating about a table of four people seated near to us. Two young men, both in blue shirts, undone. Quite handsome. Across from them set two slightly older women, not from Rome. The men we laughing and engaging the women in spirited conversation, but there seemed something slightly awkward about the whole situation. As if everyone didn’t yet know each other very well. It wasn’t immediately, but later, that we suddenly realised how funny it was that our mismatched table was there turning in our chairs and gossiping about them.

After dinner we were joined by some of Piero’s old friends, Roberto, Dario and Stefano. Roberto had been his friend since high school and all of them knew Paul well from his frequent trips here. Again, Dani and I felt privileged to be allowed into this secret boys’ space, as if we had been lowered a rope to climb into the treehouse for the first time. There was something wonderful about standing about near the Tiber watching these old friends hang out and make jokes as if no time had passed since they were kids. After a late night ice-cream on the street we got in the car and drove home.

The next day we spent at the Lake Martignano lying under trees and reading. Swimming in the warm water, or floating on our backs on surface of the water, waveless and still. We ate lunch there: another delicious meal accompanied by cool beers.

Sylvester Stallone in Cobra, no?

After lunch we decided to head to Calcuta, another of the boys’ favourite places, to have tea. Calcuta is a fortified town that stands on a the end of a promontory that rises out of a deep canyon. We walked upwards through the winding streets and had an iced tea at a little place that felt like a crow’s nest on ship. I was surprised it didn’t sway in the wind as we sat surrounded on almost all sides by a sea of indistinguishable leafy green and a canyon you couldn’t see the bottom of.

Bit windy at the top…

On our way home, we walked through a square where a show was being performed for the townsfolk. The whole population had turned out to watch, it seemed. The first row just a lot of tiny squirming children sitting in their underwear. It felt ageless; as though this was a scene that had been happening here, without much change, since the Middle Ages.

At dinner we were joined again by Roberto and treated to a feast on Lake Bracciano at a restaurant with a chef who was having a lot of fun devising delicious things for the menu. There were not many other people there apart from us, and some strange tinny dancehall was playing too quietly in the background, but it didn’t matter at all because the food was spectacular and so too was the company, and all of us were happy to have coincided in this place at this time. We sat by the lake a little bit after dinner, joined by a majestic and lonesome swan who stayed with us a while, being fed crackers, before silently floating out on the black water for the night.

All Roads Lead to Rome

We said goodbye to Carrie and then tended to the motorcycle: greasing, oiling, checking it. Like a horse well-rested, fed and watered, it always felt as though The Red was waiting for us patiently on the mornings on which we rode. These mornings were always ripe with anticipation as we saddled up, got connected, pulled on gloves, chose a playlist, started the bike. Feeling its ready rumble beneath us we rode out into the new day.

Riding south through Tuscany was beautiful. The landscape gradually changed from the green verdant hills of Chianti to a more classical rolling, golden landscape with lines of poplar trees leading to villas spotted around the countryside.

We had chosen to take an ancient route to Rome called La Cassia, that followed the motorway but took us through a number of towns and villages on the way. Sometimes we rode through fields of sunflowers or through a dry forest of oak trees. Then we’d be taken through the middle of a town, flashing through the lives of the inhabitants there.

Lunch time crept up on us and we were suddenly hungry. This thought appeared to us just as we were zooming past something that looked like a walled monastery.  The road signs told us that we had reached Buonconvento. Bonus Conventus – happy place. We parked up and looped the chains through our panniers and backpack before locking and covering the motorcycle.

Heading through a gate in the tall and rather beautiful wall, we now saw that this was a walled town and that inside was a network of old roads and buildings. Exploring deeper in we happened upon a restaurant and immediately sat down and asked for a cool lemonade. Before long the kind waiter also brought us the menu and we decided to share a plate of ‘orechiette con cozze fagioli’ – a pasta dish with mussels and beans that blew our minds. In taste ecstasy we sat for a while and talked to the waiter who was also a motorcyclist and told us that we had much to look forward on the road to Rome. It takes a little longer, he told us, but there are some really nice parts.

After lunch we decided to seek out the art museum in the town. The large doors were open when we got there and we climbed the large cool staircase, reaching doors set into the painted walls behind which we could hear talking or laughing. However all were locked and the gallery was, in fact, very closed. We explored our way back to the Red, wandering into a church or two in this clean and bright and happy town.

In one of these, the church of Sts. Peter and Paul, I had been stopped for a long time looking at a Madonna and Child by Matteo di Giovanni from 1450, while Dani had wandered to the front of the church and started laughing. In front of her behind the alter was the most bizarre stained glass window either of had ever seen. Grotesquely distorted faces of heros such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and even an almost unrecognisable JFK, looked down on us, painfully preserved in glass, to watch over the flock.

The road at some point further on in our journey was blocked for some reason and we were sent on a long and winding diversion up into the mountains. The road twisted all the way up and over, and for a long time we were driving in the sky, no one else around, with the land all stretched out below us.

The day was getting on, and the shadows longer and still we had not reached our destination. The evening we were going to spend at the house of Piero, a very good friend of Dani’s papa, Paul. Paul was flying out to meet us there and spend a few days together with us and his great buddy Piero. The plan was that we would arrive the day before, and amuse ourselves for an evening, before meeting them for lunch the next day. Our priority suddenly became finding ourselves a supermarket to buy ourselves supper for the evening. More than that, our priority became finding a supermarket in order to equip ourselves with a large bottle of Campari and soda water and an orange.

We finally turned off the road and shot up on a bumpy road to Piero’s house which sits on the lip of an ancient volcano. Having got through the gate, we were shown by a gardener the way to drive through the olive grove and then across the garden to the other side of the house. We stripped off and dived straight into the pool before turning our attentions to the very important task of mixing drinks and making supper.

There was a sink and a microwave in the guesthouse we were staying in but nothing else. So we emptied the little tupperware we bought to keep our electrical things dry and microwaved some tortellini in that. For drinks, we sawed a plastic bottle in half with a key to make a jug and mutilated an orange in the same way. Amazingly there was ice, and somewhere lying around we found an old zip-up Veuve Clicquot bottle cooler into which we stuffed our half plastic bottle of mixed Campari.

Then we sat on the wall at the end of Piero’s garden, by a stand of fig trees, overlooking the fertile crater of the ancient volcano. We were happy, and at peace, and slightly drunk sipping our favourite drink as the red sun sank lower and lower and the bells on the dusky animals far below tinkled gently as they played and ran in the cool evening air.

Tuscany

We had left Bologna early. Happy in the early morning to be dressing in washed clothes. We had even removed the linings of our helmets and washed them. Hannah had an exam the morning of our departure so we wished her luck as we left. She would then head to the university to sit opposite her professor and talk to him about Italian directors. As it turned out, we heard from her later, she had waited all day for her exam. When her professor was finally ready to see her the school was closed, so she was examined in a bar. It went well however, so all was good.

This morning’s journey took us down past Florence to the Chianti region of Tuscany. Leaving the autostrada, we were once again flanked by fields that glowed green with vines. The road we took was sometimes unsurfaced, so we bumped over the chalky pebbles in the shade of the oaks that lined the road until we reached our next stop in the village of Badia a Passignano.

My step-mother, Carrie, was, through sheer luck, over from the States, accompanying my father on a work trip in Madrid. Learning that we were to be in Tuscany she amazingly booked flights to Florence to meet us. We had found a very sweet place to stay, in some converted stables belonging to an old farmhouse in this ancient village.
 

We arrived before her and went to buy some things for lunch. Back at the house we put on water for the homemade pasta, and cut up some sweet red tomatoes for the salad. Carrie was driving to find us in the house from the airport at Florence. We thought we had timed it perfectly so that she would arrive in time for lunch, but the time that we had expected to see her came and went. After another while had passed I had pulled a chair up to the little window that overlooked the road and was watching the road like a sick puppy, desperately worried about what could have happened on the motorway from Florence. It turned out that she had been and searched for us, but the instructions I had given her were not helpful at all since the stables were tucked somewhere behind the house and were a bit hidden. Thinking we had gone off exploring she had left a note and gone to find lunch.

Once we found each other however all was well and we were overjoyed at finding each other – in Tuscany of all places!

Our first suggestion was to find a lake supposed to be a short walk away through a vineyard and a wood. Gaily leading Carrie off we trotted into the wood on a small path that quickly lost itself in a tangle of thorny undergrowth. I tried to battle through to find a way down, determined to reach the lake, but eventually had to capitulate, my legs streaked with blood.

Deciding that cool showers were as good at this point, if not better, we turned home to change for dinner.

A better suggestion than the lake suggestion was to head to Montefioralle, a fortified town that crowned the mountain in a spiral shape of cobbled streets and tiny, almost unbelievably picturesque, houses.

It was such fun to run around and explore that place, and especially fun with Carrie, who had always wanted to visit Tuscany, and was able to give voice to our collective wonderment with her own, particularly contagious, brand of New World enthusiasm.

The place we had chosen for dinner looked out over a magnificent view of the surrounding region, and we were there to watch the sun go down. We ate some good, unfussy plates of pasta: wild boar ragù and mushroom tagliatelle full of truffles and a carafe of a young local wine. Our waiter was Polish, incredibly tall and handsome in a particular way that reminded Dani and me of a gigolo in a trashy TV series we had at one time been hooked on. This meant that we both had to try very hard to stifle giggles as he stood and described the dessert menu to us in Italian.

The next morning it was cool enough to eat breakfast outside so we happily sat and swallowed the now obligatory coffees along with almost a whole jar of the most delicious apricot jam. Rich and complex it must have been made with some sun-dried apricots in it as well.

Our morning was spent driving around and exploring the market at Tavernalle – being fed bits of cheese and salami by the sweet, smiling vendors. Lunch was a feast of wonders laid out on a long table back at home, an accompanied by a superior bottle of Chianti Classico.

   

Surrounded by lines upon lines of ripening grapes we couldn’t not go to a vineyard to learn a little more about the winemaking in the region. The afternoon took us through the grand ancient gates of the Castello Verrazzano, and into their cool cellars, where the great barrels of wine aged. We learned that the primary grape in the region, San Giovese, meant blood of Jove and had been grown in these fields since Roman times.

  

At the tasting we were sat across from some Argentinian sisters, one of  whom proceeded to discuss the regional differences in Italy but only in regard to boys. ‘Ah, don’t go South,’ she told us ‘short and dark’. ‘They’re all liars anyway, but we know their lies, and the ones from the North at at least handsome while they’re lying so it’s OK!’. She lived in Switzerland and we got the impression that she made regular forays into Italy, judging by her extensive knowledge of the local fauna.

For dinner we returned to Carrie’s lunch place from the first day and sat for a long time on some white sofas outside drinking Aperols telling stories and chatting. The whole evening was intensely sweet and we promised to repeat more girls’ holidays like this. Where next, Carrie? 🙂

A letter from the Infernal Babez

 For some of you the next few posts may read with a certain sense of dramatic irony, being privy to more recent developments in this adventure. 
Since the blog now lags a couple of weeks behind us, we will continue as we were, writing from memory. 

At some point soon, we hope to be up to date and so reconcile this account more closely with current reality. 

Please read on. It has given us huge pleasure to have a sense of you with us, and to be able to share all that we have seen and done and felt with you. How much richer of an adventure we have been having with all of you with us! Thank you for accompanying us this far. 

Eternally, 

The Infernal Babez.

Bologna

Once again into the arms of angels: Hannah met us and opened the gate into the large cool courtyard in the centre of Bologna where she lives with her gentle-eyed Sicilian boyfriend, Mirko.  

 
Once again, hot, sweaty and dusty after a day on the road, we could only properly speak after cold showers and a change of clothes. 

We all sat around the kitchen table, strategically positioned in a crossfire of cooling fans, sipping lemonade with mint leaves. We spoke about the heat that had descended on the whole of Europe, but particularly Bologna, which sits in a bowl-shaped dip between mountains. 

Hannah raised her large pale blue eyed to the sky. ‘I can’t deal with heat. People complain about English weather, but I think it’s pretty alright. Actually I like it a lot.’

Hannah has been in Bologna for almost a year studying Italian and theatre. She and Mirko, a student of Italian literature and sociology, met while at the university. They now live together with some friends in a charming apartment with heavy wooden doors and high ceilings in the centre of Bologna. 

We suggested that the time had come for Camparis, and so the four of us ventured out in search of a drink. 

The city that presented itself around us was one of many arched walkways under the buildings lined with bookshops, tabacchi and bars. We were led to a place where we could sit outside on upturned crates and sip a cool Campari, surrounded by other students discussing things and talking a lot with their hands. 

Our stay in Bologna was wonderful and a welcome pause in our so far rather speeded-up tour of Italy. 

 
That evening we were taken to try homemade pasta and a delicious meat ragù. We stayed for a long time talked about all kinds of things. After dinner our sweet hosts walked with us around the city on a night tour full of stories and secrets. 

 
The next day we were left to our own devices while the others studied and so we explored the insides of some of the churches and wrote some postcards and Dani had her first Aperol spritz…  

 
After a lunch of all kinds of treats: salami and Parma ham, ricotta, olives and a delicious salad, we crashed the graduation celebration of one of Mirko’s good friends. 

We had already been seeing many graduands in the streets of Bologna over the last couple of days. They were identifiable by the laurel wreaths they wore. The faces of these youths, framed by the rich green leaves of the the laurel, looked timeless and noble.  

 
Their friends crowded around them, laughed and drank and sang a song: 

‘Dottore, dottore

Dottore del buco del cul

Vaffancul, Vaffancul’

At the graduation party were lots of the graduate’s friends from the town in Sicily where both he and Mirko are from. Dani and I enjoyed walking in and seeing the group of them sitting together, identifiably different to the other Italians: shirts open, small gold chains, dark glasses… 

In fact, we seemed to spend most of our time in Bologna surrounded by Sicilians and Southern Italians. We left for the next leg of our journey with a long list of foods that we must, on no account, neglect to try once we reached Sicily.

  

Day Four: Aosta Valley

Leaving the campsite, Dani was again shouted at by the bitter old lady in this deceptive paradise. We left faster than usual and had a recuperative breakfast in the town on top of the hill. Sitting on a wall eating pastries and drinking peach juice, we spread out our map on the road and planned our day’s journey through the back routes.  This way of driving was much better. It took us through all the little towns, each one different. When our tummies made us aware of the time, we turned off to a town called Tromello. Driving into the main square we saw two cafés on adjacent sides. Outside one was a long line of old men on plastic chairs who leaned back, talked and shouted at each other in loud, happy voices. We decided to sit at a table at the other cafe where there was more space and shade. Before we’d even managed to fully throw off the leather jackets etc we were intercepted by a small, sinewy old man with a sweet smile. He was trying to explain/ask us something with great urgency. We became worried that we had parked in the wrong place, or done something forbidden for some reason. He changed tack and told us to wait while he fetched someone who could speak English. 

Back he came with another lady in tow. Lina, as she introduced herself, was from the Ukraine and had lived in Tromello for the last five years. She explained that Giancarlo, as we later knew him, was asking whether we were pilgrims on the Via Francigena. At first we didn’t understand at all what they were saying ‘Peregrine?’ ‘What?’ Eventually we were made to understand that his concern was that we should have our little books stamped with the appropriate Tromello stop stamp. When we told them we didn’t have such a book, Giancarlo immediately jumped on a tiny bicycle painted red green and white and cycled off across the square. Minutes later he returned, spritely and smiling, with two certificates in Latin, each with a stamp, and two pilgrim badges. 

We spent a long time in the warm square happily talking to Lina, and through her, to Giancarlo. We heard about their lives, and their friendship and life in Tromello. We drank Crodino, a kind of aperitivo without alcohol, and ate a plate of little delicious things.   Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from our new friends and left in high spirits, with the day reaching peak heat, on the next leg of our journey. 

After a couple of hours, the road carried us upwards and into wine country. The day was hot. Perhaps the hottest yet, and we were exhausted, sticky, and dusty by the time we stopped at the B&B we had booked. Welcomed with wide arms and wide smiles into their cool and charming house, bottles of cold water pressed immediately into our hands, we felt as if we had arrived by accident in paradise, or at least to a place inhabited by angels. 

After a quick siesta in our Marilyn Monroe themed room, we were invited to sit downstairs and drink a bottle of fresh, slightly effervescent white wine grown on the vineyard next door. Maurice, our host, always addressed his round, giggling wife as ‘amore infinito’ prompting huge grins from me and Dani each time.   

We sat in the horizontal evening light, amazed and happy that we had reached this magical place. Luisito, a cat, sauntered up and stretched out next to the motorcycle, his relaxation an embodiment of all our states.   We ate dinner together with the angels in a pizzeria that they had gone to on their first date after moving into the area. Our Italian was improving, and the pizzas were delicious and tasted of anchovy. After our meal we drove a circuitous route home in order to be shown a panoramic view of the surrounding country. The blue hills had grown soft and immaterial in the dusk, and glittered with the lights of many happy hearths. 

Day 3: Into Italy

 We had bought eggs for breakfast. So our meal had beautiful colours and was truly revolting. Have you ever tried eating a boiled egg with no salt? Almost couldn’t swallow. Anyway, we got it down and did our press-ups and then we were away again. This time we rode into a crisp morning full of promise with the mountains ahead of us looking more convincing.    

 It wasn’t long before we reached the Mont Blanc Tunnel. It wasn’t as exciting as we’d anticipated driving through this magnificent mountain apart from that on the other side was Italy. We were spat out, blinking, into the daylight. Italia. We stopped for another espresso at another roadside stop. Usually I don’t drink sugar in my coffee, preferring to have something sweet beside it, but the Italian coffee is so damn strong, I have to stir in a lot of sugar to soften it a bit. We relaxed for moment in this strange border stop at the top of a mountain, and watched the man arrange fresh Arancini with the fresh vine tomatoes in the deli counter among the duty free boxes of limoncello and milka chocolate. So much care and concentration went on trying to be artful, yet his manly hand plonked them down any old way anyway. On the way to the bathroom Dani was tricked by a sudden ‘bonjour’ coming from an otherwise quiet television set in an empty room and replied with a cheery ‘bonjour’ of her own. The woman heading to the restrooms behind her chuckled. We got off the motorways finally and the other motorcyclists on the road greeted us with outstretched arm or raised fist. They alone knew our particular joy. The sun was just emerging coolly over the mountain peaks as we leant into the turns, hearts swelling with happiness at having reached this new place, Mont Blanc framed in my wing mirrors.

We reached Aosta by lunchtime. We tried to check emails and plan some things at an internet point in a gambling hall. The computer was too slow to function. The flashing lights start making us angry. We gave up and found lunch in dodgy plaza with a laughing, wiry waitress. 

We arrived at the lake hot, dusty, and pouring sweat into our boots and jackets. Leaping off the motorcycle we were greeted at once by a man getting off his own Ducati. Though we could see he was a sweet person we were unable to make conversation in our state of discomfort. Perdone! Lago! Si! Ciao! Grazie! Ciao! Ciao! Little did we know we would have more obstacles between us and that cool, still, water. Dragging panniers and backpack into the campsite, we were beset by a thick swarm of mosquitoes attracted by the heat and salt of our weary bodies. Forced to keep our leathers on as protection we put up our tents: Dani leaping and swearing; me, grim-faced and stoic.    We tried then to pay upfront so that we could make an early start the next day. The sour-faced old lady managing the campsite wasn’t having any of it. ‘Niente!’ she screamed at Dani who was valiantly trying to communicate. This was the last straw at the end of a long, hot day and I came back from parking the motorcycle to find Dani with tears streaming down her face. Feeling helpless and without the vocabulary to stick up for ourselves, we decided to capitulate and headed, finally, to the water.

Day 2: Troyes to Annecy

We woke early in the morning and headed out to look for a boulangerie. The morning light was soft and golden, and the air was already hot. We found a bakery that sold us some particularly greasy croissants. Some people outside still in evening clothes at 6am having come from a discotheque somewhere. One girl still with a glass of something in her hand. One young man, shirt untucked, chewing the end of a long baguette. We ate our buttery breakfast with a cafe au lait and then headed back to the bike. Our destination today was the Lac d’Annecy. 

   
 The interesting thing about being the driver on a trip like this is that you are concentrating hard on the road and don’t get to enjoy the view as the pillion is able to. Peripherally aware of the changing country that flashes past, one’s main sense becomes smell. The hot air amplifies this so that smells get funnelled into your nostrils up through your helmet. You feel exactly like a dog that sticks its nose out of a moving car window. Different places smell differently. The sappy smell of green barley fields; the warm, sweet smell of manure – distinguishable between cow and pig. At one point the central dividing line between the carriageways was planted with roses that were intensely fragrant in the heat. Now in France the landscape was finally changing from flat agricultural fields to something else. The first clue was the smell of Cyprus trees, and then the road began to undulate and the first mountains began to rise up around us.  Finally the inimitable, fresh, mineral smell of the Alps and we knew our adventure had begun. 

   No sooner had we had this thought than the roadside petrol station we had planned on stopping at revealed itself as a construction site and we were in trouble. The next one was more than 50km away and we knew we were running close to the end of the tank. No choice for it but to continue on. A few more kilometres further and we switched to onto the reserve tank. An important part of our mad improvised system is a TomTom, tied on with safety pins and shoelaces onto the back of my leather jacket that Dani can operate from her control-centre position as pillion. It was precisely at this moment that Mr. Tom decided to go completely haywire. Offering us tantalising promises of petrol stations at estimated distances that fluctuated by the minute and then changing view at crucial moments, it did it’s utmost to have us begging for help on the hard shoulder. In the end the sweet, reliable motorcycle carried us there, aided by some downhill stretches where I could engage the clutch and coast in the slow lane. We vowed never to let it get so close again.  

 Apparently there is a lake at Annecy, but we were too tired to bother when we got to our hotel. Too late for the early supermarket opening times we found a place that sold us some suspect looking pasta sauce that promised ‘tender and tasty meat’. Cowpig. We cooked it in our hotel room and practiced being bikers. Sprawled in front of tv. Cans of beer. Eating meat. Bellies out. Relaxing. When the novelty of watching Joey from Friends speak French wore off, we watched a reality tv program called ‘C’est quoi, l’amour?’ about a young, terminally ill, gymnast negotiating relationships with his family and friends and creating memories which eventually had us both in tears. Crying into our beers and onto our bellies, the illusion that we were real bikers was once again in question.