Dave & Meredith’s Travel Blog

Some of you may know that one of my less desirable traits is impatience.  I generally know what I want and I want it as soon as reasonably practicable.

So, obviously, making the most out of our vacation while being unable to walk freely is an interesting challenge for me.  If I believed in fate, I would say that someone is trying to teach me patience with this little injury.

After the crazed schedule of activities in Rome and Florence, and even the slower pace of Tuscany and Umbria, I’ve had to completely reset my expectations on what is possible to accomplish in a day.  I considered it a major triumph yesterday that I took a shower (plastic bag covering the cast, of course), fed myself breakfast, got down a flight of stairs, took a bus down the hill about 200 yards, used crutches to go about 100 more yards to the Internet point, and repeated this outing in reverse direction.  I was exhausted by the time I got back to our room.  By the way, Dave helped me the whole time, but I still think it’s an accomplishment.

Today, Dave is out exploring the Cinque Terre (he’s spent the rest of our time here taking care of me; I thought it was only fair to give him one day to do a little of what we had planned to do here in four days).  I did make it outside on my own to get a great take-away lunch of foccacia and farinata (both local specialties; both yummy).  I brought my lunch back up to our room, ate it with some of the wine we bought while tasting in Chianti, and have spent my day reading a book and writing these blog posts (unfortunately, no Internet access in the room, but at least I have Dave’s laptop to write the drafts).  Also, I successfully injected myself with my blood thinning medicine (it was easier after the wine I had with lunch ).  If I weren’t injured, I’d say that this was a waste of a day while on vacation in Italy.  But since my expectations have been reset, I think it was a pretty good day.  Especially since I haven’t managed to injure any other bones or tendons in the process.

- Meredith

So.  Klutsy Mendola has done it again.  Except this doesn’t seem to be as simple as the countless other times I’ve hurt my ankles.  This time, they put a hard cast on me.  Well, technically, it’s a half-cast.  But I can’t get it wet, can’t move my foot, can’t put any pressure on it at all. 

I don’t even know exactly what’s wrong with me, because some things are getting lost in translation.  Once again, just as I was starting to feel like I could really get by "speaking" another language, suddenly, it’s not about food or wine or travel, and I realize I know next to nothing.  When I was in the emergency room on Saturday night, I could barely understand a word people were saying to me.  And I can’t tell you how much worse it made me feel (not that my injured ankle wasn’t bad enough) when someone who had already witnessed an interaction between me and another medic said, "Lei parla inglese.  E Americana." to the next doctor, nurse or EMT who asked me what was wrong with me in italiano.  And every exchange had the same result - the word "Americana" was all that was needed for them to understand who I was and what I was all about.  It was as if all my previous attempts to speak Italian, or for that matter, any language of any country I have visited, didn’t count.  I was lumped in with every ugly American traveler who never said "Buongiorno" or "Lei parla inglese?" to an Italian before shifting into English.  It made me quite sad.

However, despite our seven-hour trip to the emergency room to get an x-ray (we’ve been assured this is quite normal), I am incredibly thankful for the kindness and care of the EMT staff in Riomaggiore, as well as the doctors and nurses who treated me at the hospital in La Spezia.  On the way to the hospital (my first-ever trip in an ambulance, complete with sirens and traffic weaving), we picked up an 86-year old woman who was having problems breathing.  At the hospital while I was waiting, I saw so many people in worse shape than me, which made me thankful that I only hurt my ankle.

I still wish I knew exactly what my problem is (Dave mentioned in his post that it could be either dislocation, torn ligament, bad sprain, or some combo).  In any event, I must stay off it for at least seven days, and then I need to see another orthopedic doctor wherever we are early next week (I’m aiming for Bologna - there are some seriously good doctors there), who will take this cast off, look at my ankle, and determine whether I need a more permanent cast (20 days to a month) or am well enough to start using a walking cast.  Cross your fingers for me that it’s the latter.

Oh, and I also have to inject myself with this blood-thinning medicine once a day.  Yep, it’s not a pill, it’s a little pre-filled syringe that I have to inject into my belly fat.  Thank god I’ve been eating all this gelato.  Dave did the injection for me the first day; maybe other people don’t have much of a problem with it, but after I held it over my stomach for a few minutes contemplating sticking a needle into my skin and pushing down on the plunger, I wimped out.  Anyway, apparently, there is a risk of getting a blood clot with this injury (other conditions apply as well), so it’s not a bad idea for me to take this medicine, and it only comes in the form of an injection.

I talked to my doctor on the phone last night (seriously, she is so awesome; everyone in the Boston area should go to Dr. Taffe).  She assured me that 1) the doctors in Italy are some of the best in the world; 2) the medicine they gave me to inject in my belly was totally safe, and the bruises I’m giving myself by doing it are totally normal and will go away, and 3) it is possible that I dislocated the bones in my ankle and I need to take seriously everything the orthopedic doctors tell me here (I had never heard of an ankle dislocation before).  She also dished out some good old-fashioned empathy, which I fully appreciated.

- Meredith

We are now in Riomaggiore (one of the Cinque Terre) and have been since Saturday evening. We haven’t had much chance to blog, explore, or really, do much of anything though as we have had a hiccup. On Saturday, we arrived, checked into our apartment, then went up the hill to park our car. We were walking down the stairs from the garage to the street and as we got to the bottom, Meredith stumbled and rolled her left ankle. (I’m not sure if the Italian above is 100% correct but ankle = caviglia.) Luckily the garage was over the police station and we had paramedics there in about 2 minutes. We waited awhile to see if the pain went away but it only got worse.

To make a long story short: Meredith got a ride to the local “big city’s” emergency room in an ambulance and we spent 7 hours there, finally getting to bed in the wee hours. She now has crutches and a half-cast (rigid in back and bottom, soft in front). We had x-rays and nothing was broken but with the language barrier, it felt like 3 different doctors told us 3 different things (it seems like it’s one or more of a bad sprain, a dislocation, or a torn ligament). If you know anything about Italy, you know that of all places in the country that would be the worst to attempt with crutches, it’s the Cinque Terre. These are 5 towns built on the sides of hills leading down to the sea. We did see one guy wheeling his wife down the main road in Riomaggiore in a wheelchair backwards. That’s dedication. We’ve spent most of our time with a return visit to the hospital and dealing with the little things that become huge things when you can’t walk easily. It gives one perspective on daily challenges for handicapped people, especially when away from home.

We leave the Cinque Terre tomorrow morning and Meredith is in good spirits so I am heading out to explore for a day while she spends time in the room reading and perhaps writing her own blog post on all this. Now, we’re contacting hotels for the rest of our trip asking for accessibility and maybe ground floor rooms. In a week, we’ll go to a hospital in Bologna for a check up. If things go well, they will say we can take the cast off and use a splint so she will be more mobile. If not, the cast may stay on for several more weeks.

I have pictures of the event but this Internet point is so paranoid that I can’t even plug in a memory key with them so they’ll have to wait for a future blog post. We’ll keep everyone updated with any progress. Ciao!

- Dave

Here is the view from our window in our villa/apartment in Tuscany:

- Meredith

Our strategy for Tuscany and Umbria was to base ourselves in two separate villa apartments over two weeks (one east and sort of south and one west and sort of north). The way most of the villas and farmhouses work here is that you rent a place for a week starting and ending on a Saturday. So, the first apartment we stayed in was from May 3 - 10, and the one we’re in now is from May 10 - 17. Here are the two locations on an interactive map:

View Larger Map

Villa #1 was in Umbria, just over the Tuscan border. That allowed us to see some of Umbria, as well as visit some of the hill towns in Southern Tuscany. Here are some photos of it:

Our Villa in Umbria

Our Villa in Umbria

Using this villa as a base, we visited the towns of Assisi, Spello, and Citta della Pieve in Umbria, and Cortona, Montalcino, Pienza and Montepulciano in Tuscany. Although there are so many hill towns to visit here, each town has a different combination of character, sights, and charm. Of the towns we visited during our first week, Cortona, Montepulciano and Spello were our favorites (see pictures below). One of the nice things about this area is just picking a destination for the day, getting a map at the Tourist Info center, and then just wandering around. We stop for food, wine and gelato at various points in the day, step into churches and enjoy the art and architecture (I try to guess the century based on the style and then read any signs posted in the church to see if I’m right), and wander around tiny alleys until we get to a point in town that has a fabulous view of the surrounding area (usually up high or out on the city walls). It’s a pretty chill way to be a tourist. It’s working for me, especially after the craziness of Rome and Florence.

Typical Street in Spello

Typical Street in Cortona

View of Cortona from Santa Margherita Church on top of the hill

View of the countryside from Montepulciano

Villa #2 (where we are now until Saturday) is about 4 kilometers from San Gimignano in Tuscany. We’ll provide a report at the end of the week about the towns we visit from here (obviously San Gimignano, Siena and Chianti country are on the list, but we’ll get to some more out of the way places too).

- Meredith

Meredith has her series of posts about the views from our windows but I was moved on our first day in Umbria to show you what really counts. Here’s the view from our first villa’s crapper:

- Dave

The first day in our villa in Umbria, all we did was chill out and do laundry.  It was so nice not to be racing around, and we really needed to wash our clothes.

Macchina Lavanderia

- Meredith

Here is the view from our window in our villa/apartment in Umbria:

- Meredith

We haven’t had a scale in any of the rooms or apartments we’ve stayed in (thank goodness!), but there are mirrors.  I’m clearly gaining weight.  At least we’re walking a lot, or it wouldn’t be pretty.  I would be remiss in sharing my Italian experiences if I left out how great and how copious the food is here.  Also, there’s the gelato.  At least once a day.  I’d say we’re averaging about 1.75 per day since we arrived (those two days when we had gelato three times were a bit over the top).

- Meredith

We’ve finally had the right combination of time and Internet access to prepare and upload a few galleries. You can click here for a few pictures from Rome, here for a few in the Sorrento area (Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Positano), and here for Florence. As usual, the Photo Galleries page has also been updated with the same links. Stay tuned for pictures from Umbria and Tuscany…

- Dave