Proceno
Maybe it's the Frommer's 50th anniversary (sure can't do anything on $5 a day any longer) but I've been thinking about how travel has evolved over the last several years. Of course ever since one fateful day in August 2003 when I stumbled into the best travel resource on the internet I wouldn't dream of planning a journey without starting there. But one's style of travel changes as one ages, too, and the internet has fed that change in my case.
My first European trip was probably pretty typical for a middle-class American: my then-boyfriend and I were in grad school and had enough FF miles for a round trip ticket. We didn't reserve anything except the flights in advance. We started in Berlin, staying with a friend, only that didn't work out too well since he had no plumbing (he was a poet) so we rented a room, and when that seemed to strain our budget we headed east for Prague, where life was considerably cheaper than it is now. We wound up renting a place in Vysehrad for several weeks, taking the trams, hanging out at a bar owned by a British ex-pat, hearing Mozart and Janacek etc. at whatever concert we could pick up for a few koruny, sitting in parks reading Kundera, and searching high and low for fresh fruit and vegetables and traces of my ancestors. It was October and grey so we moved on, stayed with a friend in Vienna, decided to take a train to Budapest for a few days for spas and cafes, then back to Vienna, then a train to Venice, where the high water had just receded and the sun was out, the town seemed almost empty, and we found a room for something ridiculous like 40 bucks a night (which we thought was still expensive).
Flash forward a decade or so, on the first trip with Gary, all Italy, and I reserved places for the beginning and end plus some of the middle, but we still showed up in towns and looked for accommodations, sometimes to great success, more seldomly, settling for something uncomfortable. But we viewed where we stayed as places to sleep--necessary punctuation to what we were really doing--seeing stuff.
Now I reserve all or most all of our accommodations ahead of time. We've slowed down, of course, and where we stay has become important because it's not just where we sleep; it means ties to a community, a lifestyle--and staying in apartments means integrating oneself ever so subtly more into a place, if only by virtue of the fact that you wind up shopping for food, not just postcards. Sometimes I think I learn the most about a culture by doing something mundane like shopping for a dish sponge.
Of course, we are also more spoiled. Sometimes I get wistful for being younger and being more open in travel. But there's something about travel planning that I enjoy so darn much. It's more than finding a good deal in a good location; to me it's like directing a production, scoring the rhythms, thinking ahead to how time and space will flow and how we will situate ourselves in it. The trick is to set up potentials: I know what I like, and what Gary likes (and after a few blunders on the early trips, how to account for our differences) well enough now to make plans that will allow certain kinds of things to happen, but will also leave us open enough for the degree of surprise with which we are comfortable. I know, for instance, that one of Gary's favorite things to do in Italy is buy food from small shops, so we stay in apartments when possible so he'll have a kitchen and need to do that. We both hate standing in line (who does like that?) so I will reserve something like the Uffizi in advance, but for the most part we don't plan out our days until we arrive and see what beckons. I bring enough xeroxed pages and ST printouts to have all the info we need to decide, but we're not the kind of travelers who divvy up our days in advance. Frankly, we spend a good deal of our time while traveling just *being* somehow--sitting quietly, taking walks.
So anyway here's the upcoming itinerary. It's not as slow in places as I would like, and it was very very hard to choose, as it always is, since what you choose always carries the sideshadow of what you did not choose this time.
Saturday June 23-Saturday June 30: Aix-en-Provence
La Maison de Carlotta
I went through a lot of rigmarole finding an apartment--it's tight, since there's a music festival in town--and finally located several, but decided on a B&B instead. This one looked so lovely, and we decided we'd like to be a bit "hosted" for our first time in France. Here's the discussion of that choice from the ST boards. Kevin Widrow was so helpful--he even visited the place! Where else do you get this kind of community?
Saturday June 30-Tuesday July 3: Paris
Hotel Deux-Iles
Yes, 3 nights are wholly inadequate, but we're planning to return next year, so this is just our first taste. I chose to stay on Ile St. Louis since it's central and close to the few things we definitely want to do/see, also for Gary since he's not a city guy so the quieter nature of it (I hope that's right!) appealed. I did find some really great apartments even for short-term here, but they were tres cher. Frommer's recommended Deux-Iles and the Lutece; I looked at the St.-Louis and the Henrii IV too.
On the evening of 3 July we take the Artesia train overnight to Florence. We prefer trains over planes hands down, and the last overnight train trip, on the City of New Orleans to Chicago, was a great success. We can reenact scenes from North by Northwest. I had a little trouble--well, make that a lot--booking the tickets through the SNCF website, BTW, and here's that discussion (thanks again, Kevin, for the excellent guide).
Wednesday July 4-Saturday July 7: Florence
Residenzia Il Carmine
A SlowTrav favorite.
On 7 July, train to Chiusi, where we booked a car through the AutoEurope link on the ST site (which saves you a bit!). We love the Chiusi pick-up, since we hate driving in and out of cities.
Saturday July 7-Saturday July 14: Proceno
Castello di Proceno
Our favorite little town. Here we'll be joined by our friends Jim and Michelle for the rest of the journey. We hope they like Proceno as much as we do. They're having a concert on the 8th, movie music, including Nino Rota. But mostly I can't wait to see Pucci, our hostess.
Saturday July 14-Wednesday July 18: Sorrento
Villa Monica
There were so many choices in Sorrento, where we're going in part to collect our ST contest prize, a limo excursion with Benvenuto. Villa Monica had glowing reviews on Venere and Trip Advisor, and talk about a room with a view.
Wednesday July 18: Rome
Hotel San Francesco in Trastevere
Reluctantly I cut what was going to be a week in Rome down to one lousy night, just to put us closer to the airport. But then I got to thinking--let's get up really early and have a full day with our friends in Rome, where they've never been. We can eat at the place we don't know the name of, across from San Francesco di Ripa, where there's no menu but they come to your table and shout out what's cooking, and it's good. So we chose to stay close to that, and also we're imagining the last evening drinking up on the San Francesco's rooftop terrace.
I wish we had another month. Part of cutting it shorter than I'd like--originally this was to be 6 weeks--is the darn weak dollar. Also, Grey Gardens continues to exercise its pull on us, and the dogs object to our leaving them, even though we get wonderful house/dog-sitters (it is very handy to have such great grad students around).
