My European experience of Spring 2010

This happened 3 years ago in April, but the memories keep returning every Spring! My mind is still bathed in colors, flowers, street music, lakes and meadows, trains and cute, but fast small cars, bicycles and tasty food.  As a female in my second fifty with a number of physical challenges, I got used to public transportation again for the first time in about 25 years!

The idea of a Spring holiday was to avoid the heat and the crowds while paying less money for the trip. At the same time, I met up with my favorite man who was exploring Europe already when I arrived.  The basic route for our train trip was to go to Venice (after a few days of Switzerland with my sister and family for Easter) for at least 3 days, then to the Cinque Terre via Florence and Pisa, and visit a special friend in southern France before heading back to western Switzerland.

My relatives greeted me with a pair of modern hiking poles to help support my weak legs while traveling. Using them helped the busy Italians be more compassionate, so quite often someone gave up their seat for me on the crowded waterbus in Venice, or let me use a washroom where nobody else was allowed to do so! (Or was it the desperate expression on my face??) In Venice, there were only 2 public washrooms marked on the city map. The cost was 1 to 2 euro to use the facilities, but as I learned, this didn’t guarantee toilet paper or soap…. This gave me a real reason not to drink any coffee in Venice!

People seemed to be used to tourists there, and they often answered back in English when I tried my best to speak Italian….  L

Instead of spending a fortune on eating in restaurants, it was spent for an unforgettable ride in one of the many gondolas cruising the Grande Canale and many small canals. The friendly “Gondolieri” explained some history about Venice and its buildings as well as singing a couple of the typical Italian songs, as per my request. One gondola that passed us even had an accordion player on board, which heightened my excitement instantly, because it reminded me of my dad.

The camera was aimed at everything and everyone, including the colorful laundry hanging over the window sills, the flowers and the buildings.

Travel was much easier for me on the west coast of northern Italy, the Cinque Terre, just north of Pisa. We went to see the leaning tower of Pisa and had a typical Italian dinner at one of those sidewalk restaurants. A bottle of wine was a lot cheaper than 2 glasses, so we dared each other to finish that bottle while the tower seemed to lean a bit more each half hour. J

People were a lot friendlier and the washrooms were easier to find. When it was necessary, I would buy a cappuccino to get to a washroom, but to my surprise, they were mostly without the seat! Oh well, live and learn.

The food was more reasonably priced than in Venice, and the breakfast was often included in the hotel price. Other than the delicious crusty Pizzas, the Gnocchi with pesto sauce and the sword fish were the most enjoyable. A glass of local wine was a special treat to go with a meal. One “Pensione” in Vernazza even decorated the coffee and tea with edible flower pedals! The culture is so rich from the existence of many hundred years and even the trees look more defined then here. It was a definite joy to witness the blooming of all the plants and trees, because the climate was many weeks ahead of a spring in Alberta!

Arriving in Nice (France) just in time before the French train strike started was more than good luck. I enjoyed the viewpoints and markets as much as the historic old buildings and churches (one of them had the same name as my mother). I surprised myself at conversing in French, which I haven’t done for over 30 years. Another amazing experience was the flight from Nice to Geneva over the snow covered Alps, just before all the flights got cancelled because of the eruption of the volcano in Iceland.

It felt like home when we arrived in Switzerland again, where the public washrooms still cost money, but they were clean and “normal” to me. The trains were punctual, frequent and fast, and everything was a lot cleaner. Our relatives in Neuchatel greeted us with tasty food and a round or two of Miniature Golf. Their home was located just above Lake Neuchatel and just below a local mountain, where the “funiculare” took us up to a viewpoint.

I experienced many beautiful views without needing much leg work. Between the views, the people and the colors, it was truly food for the soul as much as for the stomach. To top it up, I realized how much I enjoy using different languages and hope to use them more often.