Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

Well, it’s probably about time to tell you about what we did a couple weeks ago, right? We’ve been off of our normal blogging pace for the last week or two so we’ll try to catch up in the next few days.

After the week in Umbria, we spent a week in Tuscany near San Gimignano and it was wonderful.  Our villa was really nice and the people who ran it were fabulous.  They served a great dinner three nights during the week we were there and it was some of the best food we’ve had on the trip.

During the week, we visited Volterra, Lucca, San Gimignano, Siena, Pisa, and some wineries in Chianti.  Of these towns, our favorites were San Gimignano, Siena, and Volterra.  Here are some snapshots from that week; Dave will also post a gallery of the nicer shots from our time in both Tuscany and Umbria [Sometime real soon now! – Dave] :

Above: A view of San Gimignano from the road our villa was on. The approach to most of the hill towns looked similar with a walled city up on a hill. San Gimignano though is known for its towers since, in many hill towns, the towers have been toppled or torn down over time.

Above: A typical view of the surrounding countryside from the inside of a hill town. Sweeping views look beautiful to us but in the past were practical for city defenses.

Above: A typical steep, winding street through a hill town. Many are too narrow for vehicles. This was in Volterra on the day we traveled from Umbria to Tuscany. Notice how there is no one on this road. It was a Saturday (see next picture).

Above: The main street leading up to the city center of San Gimignano. This was taken on a Monday. Notice the difference in the crowds in the street compared to Volterra above. San Gimignano is beautiful and definitely worth a visit but it’s also one of the most well known hill towns in Italy so be prepared for crowds.

 Above: A view of Siena’s Campo de Fiori surrounded by a typical spread of buildings with red tile roofs.

Above. The ceiling of the Piccolomini Library, a room off the side of the nave of Siena’s Duomo. This is over 500 years old and the colors are still incredibly vibrant. Definitely worth a few minutes’ side trip if you visit the Duomo.

Above: The countryside around Tuscany is an endless view of vineyards. This was on a foggy morning in the vineyards below our villa looking back towards our room.

Above: When we left Tuscany to head to the Cinque Terre, we went via Pisa and spent a few hours there in the middle of the day. The guidebooks are correct: there isn’t much to see in Pisa besides the Leaning Tower. The other two things to see are right next to it: the Duomo and the Baptistry. All three are related: the Leaning Tower’s official name is the Campanile which is a bell tower for a church. It costs 15 Euros to climb the tower so we didn’t bother. It wasn’t worth $50 for two people.

Above: In my opinion, the Baptistry was more interesting than the Leaning Tower. It’s enormous and the inside was deliberately designed for great acoustics. Every 30 minutes, one of the park officials would close the doors, walk to the center of the first floor, and sing for a few minutes. The echoes last so long that it is possible to for someone to sing a 3-note chord with themselves. We saw (heard) the park official do this several times. Very cool! Most tourists left before they closed the doors, seemingly unaware that they’d see this if they stuck around for just another minute or two.

By the way, if you go to Siena, go to a little shop called “Pizzicheria De Miccoli” right in the center between the Campo and the Duomo.  A man named Antonio will make you amazing sandwiches to eat there or take away.  We ate while standing in a corner of this small shop and watched people come in and buy salami, cheeses, wine, cookies and cakes (Antonio gives samples freely so you know what you’re getting before you get it).  My sandwich (roast pork and pesto) was the best sandwich in the world.  And it was huge.  I dropped a little on the floor (klutzy), and Antonio made me a platter with cheese, salami, a cheese brioche and an artichoke to replace what I had dropped (it was like a second meal).  One of the most fun lunches I’ve ever had.

– Meredith

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

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