Monday, September 20^th, 1999

When the bus loaded, we noticed something different. The redhead wasn’t in the front seat across from the driver. We wondered if she had left with her boyfriend, but we saw her sitting in back with her parents. Maybe Enzo had caught her having sex with Silvano in the parked bus.

The plan for Monday was to travel to the south. We were going to drive by Rome and go through Naples, all the way to Sorrento. However, before we could even get started, we received some interesting news. We learned that our guide, Enzo, was leaving the tour.

He told us that he’d been to see a doctor in Florence. He’d gotten some bad news and been told that he should go home and see his own doctor right away. We heard from rumors on the bus that he’d had a sore throat. From others we head that he was very worried because all of his family members had died of cancer in their forties and fifties. This was about his age. We wondered if his health had been the reason why he’d actually been doing so little guiding on the trip.

Enzo told us that the new tour guide’s name was Giovanni. He said that Giovanni was a nice man, but that he was very quiet.

Enzo left us at an Autogrill south of Rome. We stopped for lunch. When we got back to the bus, Enzo introduced us to the new guide, Giovanni. He would be taking over the bus for the rest of the trip. We said good-bye to Enzo, gave him a good tip and wished him luck.

Giovanni was a heavy, stocky, dark-looking man. He wore black slacks with pockets in the thighs and a blue, button-up shirt and smelled of cigarette smoke. He seemed good-natured from the start. Enzo had been so dour by comparison, but perhaps he had reason.

Giovanni distinguishes himself from Enzo almost as soon as the bus started south. He talks almost constantly. We realize that Enzo statement about Giovanni being so quiet was a joke. Giovanni tells jokes, explains every building we pass, tells us about his life, and share cooking tips with us. When he tires of talking, he gives the driver a cassette of Italian folk music to play. All along, we wondered why they didn’t play music on our drives, or, better yet, videos. The bus was set up for video, but we never did see any videos, not even the ones that the guides recommended we buy.

Giovanni first told us about the area around Rome. He told us that Italian are a happy people. They are full of bad habits. They smoke. They drink. They see girls. They are happy though because they stay married. The reason that Italians stay married is that they never complain about life to their wives. Instead, they complain to their girlfriends. Then, when they feel better, they can go home happy to their wives. This is how they manage to stay married.

He talked about Italian fatalism. Italians had the view that life is a lottery. You never know what you are going to get. When I asked Giovanni how he thought Enzo was, Giovanni didn’t seem to think it was that bad. He seemed to think that Enzo was always worried about something and that his disease probably wasn’t that serious. Giovanni had been of vacation, taking a few days off from leading tours. He’d gotten a call at four o’clock that morning. He didn’t seem unhappy about it but he said that he was tired. Still, he gave an excellent performance.

"You’ve probably heard that they tax everything in Italy. Did you know that they even tax the air in Italy?" he asked the bus.

He proceeded to tell us the story about how they tax the air. He told us about his father and about when his father bought a house. His father paid all the fees and taxes it cost to buy the house, but then after he was in the house, he got a bill for a tax for a "bay window." He went to the authorities and told them that he didn’t have a bay window. They asked him if he had a balcony. He told them that he did. They said, well that is the tax for the balcony. His father argued that he couldn’t owe a tax on the balcony. He paid all his taxes on the building when he bought it. He had all the papers.

"Yes, you’ve paid all the taxes on your house," they told him. "But when you are outside on your balcony, you’re not in the building, are you?"

"This is how they tax the air," Giovanni concluded. "Very clever isn’t it?"

As we came into Naples, Giovanni told us about what kind of people Neapolitans are. He said that they are very creative and resourceful people. His grandfather was from Naples. To demonstrate Neapolitan resourcefulness, Giovanni told us the story of a man that had nothing. So this man started collecting old whisky bottles from garbage cans. He cleaned them up and had his wife make tea. He filled these bottles with tea and sold them as cheap whiskey on the street.

"This is a very common story in Naples," said Giovanni. "And I know that it is true, because I once bought one of those bottles myself."

He then told us a story about how warm friendly the Naopoltan people were. A woman went into a shoe shop in Naples and asked how much a pair of shoes in the window were.

"Why are you so rude?" the salesman asked. "You should come in, say ‘Buon Giorno. How are you?’ Then, you sit down and make yourself comfortable. You can try on some shoes. We can talk. You see how you look in the shoes. Then, if you like the shoes and the way you look in them, then you might want to ask how much they are. So, let’s start over. Buon Giorno!"

The woman greeted him and asked how he was. She sits down. The salesman tells her some jokes and pays her some compliments. He gives her some coffee. She has a wonderful time trying on shoes. He flirts with her and makes her feel beautiful. When she decides upon a pair, she is having such a good time, that she doesn’t even ask the price, but the salesman says, that because she is so beautiful, he will only charge her half price. He wraps the shoes in paper and puts them in a very pretty box. When she gets home, she tells everyone that she had the best time of her life.

"Of course," said Giovanni. "When she unwraps the pretty package, she doesn’t find any shoes, only a block of wood. But she doesn’t care. She still had the time of her life."

The message that Rebecca and I got wasn’t about how warm, friendly and clever the people of Naples were, but how crooked. Giovanni attributed their "cleverness" to the fact that the seaport had been conquered and reconquered. We had always heard stories about Naples. When I’d passed through before, twenty years ago, what I had noticed were all the people selling cigarettes in the street, assumably because they’d gotten them in the country without paying taxes on them. Looking out the bus window, I saw those same people, or rather their children, still selling Marlboros to the cars in traffic.

The bus drove us around the sights of Naples while Giovanni described them. He pointed out the famous churches, forts, and building. He also pointed out the factory of a famous maker of Italian porcelain. In a few hours, he’d already done more talking than Enzo had done in several days. He told us that Naples was called the "city of banners" because of all the laundry that the woman hang out their windows across the streets. He said that the women had it all worked out. Women on one side of the street used the line one day. Women on the other side of the street used it the next. He went on to tell us how important laundry was to the people of the region. When a boy said that he was interested in a girl whose family they didn’t know, the boy’s family went to see the girl’s family’s laundry. Giovanni when on to say that some people put out good laundry just to impress the neighbors.

The view across the bay of Naples was beautiful. The famous volcano, Vesuvius, stands over the bay to the south. I had driven along the bay before, but I don’t think that I’d realized that the mountain in the distance was Vesuvius and that Pompey was nearby. After seeing Naples, we drove on down the coast toward Vesuvius and Sorrento. The area was heavily populated, but in every area of open yard, the people were growing grapes and vegetables. The south is the prime spot for agriculture. Every inch is used for growing produce.

As we drove south, Giovanni told us a story about how his mother loved plants. She gave him a plant for his apartment. She visited him and cared for the plant. When he was home, he watered the plant, but he went on a long business trip. When he came home, the leaves of the plant were all over the rug. His mother was coming the next day. He had to do something, so he took toothpicks and reattached all the leaves. His mother came over. They had a nice visit. Then she went to water the plant. Oh, she was so upset.

"But," finished Giovanni. "The story has a happy ending. She was so upset that she didn’t speak to me for weeks."

Giovanni said that you used to be able to buy houses on the bay of Naples for a reasonable price. Now, he said, the prices were impossible. He then told us much the same thing that Enzo had about rent control sending the prices of houses out of sight. Controlling the price of rent basically put an end to people renting their buildings. Instead, the lack of places to rent forced everyone to buy. This is what he blamed for the high prices. I wondered if everyone in Italy spent so much time thinking about the economy or was it just tour guides?

We drove along the cliffs of the coast through little towns built on the hillside. It was spectacular ride. The road was narrow and winding. The cliffs along one side were hundreds of feet high. In the distance, we could see the isle of Capry. The sheer drop to the right would have been more frightening if the traffic wasn’t stopped in a traffic jam. The cause of the slow traffic was far ahead. Apparently, one of the little towns along the road had a traffic light. It backed the traffic up for several miles along the single, winding road.

We finally came to Sorrento about five in the evening. This hotel too was built up in the cliffs above the sea. The bus took us to our hotel, the Parco di Prncipe. The name means "park of the prince" for the park on which it was built. It seemed pretty far from the city center. The lobby of the Parco was beautiful. Its lobby was made of highly polished marble in bold patterns of black, ivory and dark green. When we later went to our rooms later, we discovered the same beautiful marble floors.

Also waiting in the hotel lobby, we see the redhead’s boy friend. We discover later that he rode the train down to get the hotel before us. Apparently, Red found a extra room nearby.

Gradually, we discovered that there is something strange about the Parco. The bar wasn’t open. We couldn’t get any ice. It didn’t seem like there is any staff around. Our rooms were dark. The plants outside were overgrown. We tried to get rooms with more light in them because Mom was having trouble seeing, but the front desk told us that they can do nothing. Giovanni tried to help, but apparently, the Parco was full.

We heard worse complaints from others on the tour group. The man married to plastic-surgery lady told us that the ceiling in his bathroom is coming down from water damage above. He couldn’t get another room either.

"It seems like it used to be a nice hotel," suggested Rebecca.

"It used to be a Motel Six," suggested the man with the falling ceiling.

We discovered that outside, across a large park-like garden that has fallen into disrepair, another wing of the hotel stands next to the ocean cliff. Rooms in this section have views of the ocean. The bar was open. Michele advances the idea that our wing of the hotel is for servants and tour groups. By the front desk on our side of the hotel, Rebecca points out a picture of the owner of our tour company shaking hands with the owner of the hotel. She suggests that they have in a profit-sharing program.

Because the hotel Parco was far from the center of town, Giovanni offered to use the bus to take us into town for dinner. The bus drops us near the town square. Before we all go off to find a place for dinner, Giovanni takes us to a nearby gift shop. Sorrento’s claim to fame is its wood inlay work. At the gift shop, a Chinese clerk gives us a demonstration of how the inlay is done. First, they make sheets of different colored wood as thin as construction paper. A stack of sheets of different colors is then put in an electric scroll saw with a paper template on top. The template has the pattern of the picture they want to make on it. They cut along the lines. Then they take the different colors of pieces and put them together into a picture. They glue the pieces upside down on newspaper. They then put the picture, with the newspaper side up on the wood backing and sand the newspaper off the top.

The ladies in the group weren't in a shopping mood yet. Estrogen levels were low. It was time for dinner. We found a restaurant close by. The service was exceptionally friendly, but the food was only mediocre. Our hopes were high at the beginning of the meal because the bread was the tastiest we’d had in Italy. Italian bread varies dramatically from region to region. In Milan, it had been thick, dry—as in dry like dust—and extremely bland. It was so bland that it was practically German. It got a little better in Venice and a little better in Florence, but this was the first really tasty bread that we’d had. However, after the bread, the meal went down hill. I had Gnocchi della Sorrento and a mixed seafood plate. Both were just okay. After all the good meals we’d had, it was Sorrento was a bit of a let down. Either that or our luck in finding good restaurants had run out.

After dinner, the buying hormones were in full force. The shops were open and Sorrento is a very cute town for shopping. Unlike the major cities we’d been in, Sorrento is a pure tourist town, but it was an upscale tourist town with especially nice shops. It was already dark when we were shopping, but everything was open and the streets were busy. They closed off the center of town to traffic so that he shoppers and diners had free reign.

There was one especially cute alleyway with shops on it. I’ve seen a lot of shopping alleyways in urope and elsewhere, but this is the first alley I’ve seen that does it right. It had strung little twinkly-lights all across the alley so that is was brightly light, but really inviting. I found myself drawn down it, lured by the light. It was, however, away from where we had to meet the bus. The ladies didn’t want to do the extra waling when there were so many shops in the right direction. They called me back from the light. I just know there were some interesting places down that alley, but I never got back to it.

Actually, it turned out that there was a ceramic shop that we’d passed finding somewhere to eat. The female contingent wanted to get back to it. Mom was still looking for more plates. Rebecca and Michele were looking for anything cute. Each of them ended up making a purchase. This wouldn’t have been so bad except that the shop was run by a lady in her eighties. A clerked helped us make our selections, but the ancient owner insisted on wrapping everything. All the clerks in Italy wrap your gift purchases like Christmas presents. In this case, the old woman did it with glacial slowness. Fold one corner. Pat is down. Fold another corner. The owner was also the only one that could handle the money, so it looked like it was going to take us days to get out of the store. Of course, this could have been a crafty strategy. The longer she wrapped, the longer the ladies shopped.

It was taking so long that I was in danger of falling asleep. I’d found a chair by the counter to rest in while watching the mesmerizingly slow wrapping process. Instead of letting the young clerk help, the old woman finally called her younger sister and her even older mother to help. With all three of them working—fold this corner, pat it down, fold that corner—it looked like it would only take hours to get out of the store instead of days. I found their slowness in unison almost hypnotizing.

While there were folding, we had plenty of time to talk. At first, it didn’t seem like the old woman spoke any English, but when her sister and mother came, she seemed more willing to talk. She told us that she had a son in America. They’d just had a baby. She was going to visit them.

"Where do they live?" Rebecca asked.

"Minnesota," the old woman said.

"When are you going to see them?" Rebecca asked.

"February," said the old lady.

"February in Minnesota?" said Rebecca with some concern. "It is very, very cold."

"Yes, here too, that is why we close the shop," said the old lady. "That is why we are going in February."

Rebecca tried to communicate the difference between cold weather in southern Italy and cold in Minnesota. In southern Italy, it might get down to forty degrees. It never freezes or snows. This old lady didn’t have a clue. I hope she lives through the experience.

We returned to the rendezvous point. The bus was going to pick us up in a half hour, but Rebecca wasn’t feeling well. She wanted to get back to the room. Mom and Michele could wait for the bus, but Rebecca wanted to walk. It was supposedly only about a twenty-minute walk. Rebecca didn’t think it seemed even that far. She guessed ten minutes at the most.

It turned out to be closer to twenty-five minutes and only that because Rebecca was racing the bus. After deciding to walk, she wasn’t going to let it beat up. She may not have been feeling well, but she didn’t show it as I tried to keep up with her. I tried to stay near her because it was pitch black and she was wearing black. Cars and motorbikes were screaming by all around us. The streets narrowed and the sidewalks disappeared, but the traffic kept up.

We’d walked so long and so fast that we’d begun to wonder if we’d made a wrong turn or missed the Hotel Parco. We started debating what side of the road we thought the hotel was on. We were about to turn around when we finally saw the gates of the Parco. Rebecca had been right about what side it was on. We’d beaten the bus. It was a small comfort.

When we get to the room, the news on the television is about the earthquake in Taiwan. CNN has pictures of whole buildings tipped over at an angle. The Taiwanese must build really good buildings for them to hold together so well when they fall over. Of course, it can’t be good that they do fall over. It is the third major quake in a month after bad quakes Turkey and Greece.