Dave & Meredith’s Travel Blog

I’ve just posted three more galleries of photographs from our trip to Italy. It feels good to finally be caught up since we left Venice one week ago. So without further ado, the gallery from the Cinque Terre is here, the gallery from Lake Como, Ravenna, and Bologna is here, and the gallery from Venice is here. And of course, the Photo Galleries page has been updated with the same links. Any feedback is welcome. Enjoy!

- Dave

If you are one of our faithful readers, you already know that after leaving Tuscany we went to the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre are a group of 5 towns (hence Cinque Terre, the Five Earths) along the northwestern coast of Italy. We stayed in the southernmost one: Riomaggiore, named for the river that used to run through the center of the town. The towns are very small, very colorful, very quaint, and almost all are built on a slope, clinging to cliffs that drop down to the sea. It all adds up to something very picturesque:

Above: Riomaggiore’s marina

The towns are beautiful and should be on everyone’s Italy itinerary but be warned that this was the first place we’ve been on our trip where we felt the presence of a lot of the young American crowd on a budget. That in itself isn’t so bad - good for them for traveling outside the USA - but to be honest, sometimes the attitudes that come with that bug me. There’s an interest in seeing the sights but not an (apparent) interest in having a local experience. In shops, they don’t start a purchase by bothering to try to speak Italian. While my own clothes are clearly “travel clothes,” their clothes are shorts, tank tops, flip-flops etc. which you just don’t see Italians wearing. I shouldn’t lump that entire category of people into one but there does seem to be a common profile.

One of the most common things people do when visiting the Cinque Terre is the coastal walk: a hiking trail that runs from Riomaggiore to Monterosso, the northernmost town. With Mer back at the room, I set off to hike this on my own. I got a late start so my plan was to hike only to the 4th town and then take a train back. It was a bleak day, starting out gray, drizzling after the second town, and raining a lot by the fourth town.

The section of trail between the first town, Riomaggiore, and the second town, Manarola, is especially well known and is called the Via d’Amore. I was by myself and it’s true, with a trail and scenery like this, I couldn’t help but fall in love with myself all over again:

Above: The Via d’Amore

These two towns are very close together. The walk was about 15 minutes and then I entered Manarola which is the smallest of the 5 towns. It was quaint and I took a quick 30-minute tour of the town including a path above town through the terraced vineyards:

Above: The vineyard trail above Manarola

As the trail loops back towards town, it has some very nice views of the part of town near the marina:

Above: a view of Manarola center from the vineyard trail.

After leaving Manarola, it started drizzling so it took about 30 minutes to get to the next town, Corniglia. Corniglia is the only Cinque Terre town without a marina/harbor. It’s built on top of its cliff and doesn’t run downward. This is the second smallest town in the Cinque Terre and I thought the least scenic. It was pleasant though and a walk up the main street ended in nice views. Along the way, I had great gelato at a place that has a flavor based on local honey. Not a common flavor here. Yum!

Above: A picture of Corniglia’s main square

After leaving Corniglia, I hiked the longest portion of my hike to the next town: Vernazza. This part of the trail is the most lush, and offers great views back to Corniglia;

Above: A picture looking south to Corniglia with Manarola in the background on the left (look closely).

This was slow going since it was rainy. Since this part of the trail has the most ups and downs and was somewhat muddy, it was a bit treacherous and took almost an hour to get to Vernazza. Even with the rain though, there were some nice scenes:

Above: A scene from the trail to Vernazza.

It was a relief to get to Vernazza, knowing I could dry off. The town is probably the nicest of the Cinque Terre and I think I would stay there next time I come. It’s the biggest of the four towns I saw: small enough to be nice but big enough to have some variety of stores and places to eat.

Above: The view of Vernazza seen from the trail above town.

My original plan was to walk all the way back to Riomaggiore but with the rain and muddy trails, it was nice to take the train back to Riomaggiore after spending some time in Vernazza. With the hours spent on the trail coming north, it took only ten minutes south to Riomaggiore. We left the Cinque Terre the next morning for Lake Como. And of course, that was the best weather we saw in the Cinque Terre. A clear day with vibrant blue seas. Oh well.

Above: a view of Riomaggiore from the road above as we drove away and on to Lake Como.

- Dave

Here is the view from the window of our apartment in Riomaggiore (Cinque Terre):

- Meredith

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at a sign, a menu or something in a store window here and spent the brain cycles to decipher the Italian only to realize once I’m done that the English was already there right below. But that said, it’s been amusing reading the English because it usually isn’t 100% right. Sometimes it’s technically correct but very flowery or awkward. Sometimes it uses wrong grammar or is misspelled. Sometimes it’s amusing such as the pizzeria in Florence with a handmade sign on the wall. The English part read, “Please retain your paper plate for the inevitable second slice.” Then there’s this one in a public toilet in Manarola where I felt compelled to take a picture:

Now, unless I’ve been doing it wrong all these years, I think you need to flash the toilet before and during the act, not after. Maybe things are different here. I hope I’m not unfairly judging another culture.

- Dave

Here are some pictures of the Incident. I made them all black-and-white to give them that gritty, breaking-news, as-it-happened feel. Trust me, it’s like you’re at the scene.

Above, I’m standing right where the Incident occurred: at the Riomaggiore police station, on the landing of the stairs that are to my right, leading to our parking garage above. Meredith is aided by valiant paramedics to the waiting ambulance. She sets her jaw, a glint appears in her eye, and she boldly hops forward.

Above, Meredith, with ankle wrapped and moving with determination, bravely approaches the ambulance door.

Above, through the ambulance back door, another paramedic straps Meredith in for the twisty, treacherous 20-minute drive down to the emergency room. You can’t see her face but, take it from me, it shows true grit.

Above, the orthopedic technician is overcome with emotion and can’t go on. Meredith must take charge, pointing and directing him on what to do next. Her strength is unwavering.

Above, the next evening, we go to a cafe with rules. Emboldened by the latent reserves of power revealed during the Incident, Meredith laughingly calls them: “rules.”

Above, emboldened by her victorious dance with death, she places her plastered foot on a chair, scoffing at signs clearly meant only for the lesser.

Above, Meredith confidently uses her crutches to vault away from the cafe and up the near-vertical streets of Riomaggiore, smiling with the thought that she can put her feet on chairs now with impunity.

And that’s how it happened. Trust me. I was there.

- Dave

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