When traveling in Italy, I am aware of the cultural differences in subtle ways.  I notice that the urban landscape is not littered with franchise restaurants.  Yes, McDonald’s has a presence, but it is a small one.  There do not appear to be nationwide Starbucks or Dairy Queen-equivalent chains;  instead, local proprietors set up espresso bars and gelato shops.  When Italians go out to eat, they don’t ask what ethnic cuisine to seek.  There are few non-Italian options (mostly Asian), because Italians just can’t find anything better than their own.  And they have good reason to think so.

Here is a sampling of the food we enjoyed during this trip.

On learning that Vesuvius is overdue for its next eruption, we decided to go visit the famous volcano.  Who knows, it may be only weeks before it next erupts!

Getting to Vesuvius is a multi-step process.  You drive to a “parking area” (which is really one lane of a two lane road allocated to parking) at 800m elevation.  You pay for the parking.

Then you pay for a shuttle to take you to a foot trail entrance gate at 1000m. 

Then it becomes challenging.  Entry is by pre-sold tickets available online only.  This is a popular trail in a national park, and the park limits the number of hikers on the trail.  The tickets are sold out weeks in advance, but there is a “last minute” ticket mechanism, limited by the number of people on the trail at the moment.  They release ten tickets every half-hour or so, and to get one you must request, be approved, and purchase them on-site.

But there is no ticket agent at the gate to do this.  It is done online only.  We are near the summit of the volcano in a mountain wilderness area with limited cell phone connections and we need to go online somehow to do this.  

Recognizing this situation, the park set up a local wifi.  There is a poster at the entry gate (in Italian) that helps to connect to it.  Fortunately, I have my personal translator available.  This is the beginning of a lengthy process that included the following steps, nearly all of which required entering and re-entering your name, address, and email:

1. Register to gain wifi access.
2. Register to the national park system.  After doing so, confirm by responding to the email they send.
3. Register to the ticket vendor.  This is a separate third party from the national parks.  Create a password and respond to another email to confirm.
4. Register for tickets.  Request a date and time.  This page was very confusing; it was unclear how to do this.
5. Provide payment- credit card credentials.
6. Tickets are then issued.  But the web page does not display them.  Some other web page or background email contained links to them.

We needed assistance three or four times to get through these gauntlets, with Poldi speaking Italian with the park entry attendants and playing the “we’re old and don’t understand” card.

Eventually, we got it, and the ticket image with its barcode appeared on my phone, but then, presenting it at the gate turnstile, with its scanner, I could not place the phone in the correct position.  Once again, the attendant had to hold my phone in the right spot for me.  Sometimes it’s embarrassing to be a retired computer pioneer.

On narrow European streets, smaller is better, so Poldi rented a Fiat 500 for our visit to Naples.   She paid extra so that we could both be drivers.  I was pleased that the seat could accommodate my long legs, and I looked forward to driving a manual transmission again.  Normally, I drive, she navigates, but as I attempted to pull out of the rental car lot, it became apparent that something was wrong.  I could not feather the clutch, and hitting the brake pedal caused the engine to rev.  My feet were too big to fit in the well, and my shoes were interfering with the side wall and the other pedals.  I could not drive this car!

Poldi came to the rescue.  Her dainty size-9 feet were compatible with the assumptions made by Fiat’s engineers, and she was able to drive to our accommodations.  I don’t measure up to her navigator skills, so I’m wondering if maybe all I need is a pair of fine Italian shoes to drive this car.

Driving the city streets in Italian traffic is harrowing.  Poldi is still getting accustomed to the Fiat’s clutch and gearbox, and I am on my learning curve as a navigator.  I am constantly annoyed at the “forward is up” dynamic orientation used by Apple Maps on my phone GPS display (why can’t I just set a preference for “north is up?”).  Somehow, we got through the Napoli traffic without incident, despite the best efforts of motorcycles weaving around cars and pedestrians.  I don’t see why there aren’t more collisions.

When we get past the city traffic and narrow winding streets, the roads remain narrow and winding, and in mountainous terrain sometimes with curves so tight they place large mirrors to provide a glimpse of approaching cars, uphill or downhill.

We marvel at the busses that require both lanes to make the turn.  Poldi encountered one.  The bus stopped.  Poldi stopped.  It was up to her to reverse and go up the road she was descending to provide clearance for the bus.  Unfortunately, the car slipped out of gear as she tried.  After several such false efforts and repeated slips, she had finally backed up enough for the bus to pass.

This album includes a photo of the little Fiat, and some pictures of the funky hostel where we stayed for a week. It was as you might envision: young people finding the most economical way to travel through foreign lands, engaging with each other as they prepare meals in the communal kitchen and philosophising over beer at night. We were the old hippies in the group, enjoying the virtual trip back to the sixties.

In the history of humans before engines and motors, which is pretty much all of civilization, everything had to be done by muscle, either human or animal, with the exception of a few locations where wind and water energy could be harnessed.  On Crete, in the fertile lands of the Lasithi Plateau, windmills were built to power millstones for grinding grain, and to pump water into irrigation canals (which of course were dug by hand).

We saw the remnants of old windmills, stone structures built where the wind was strongest, and windmills in fields, most of them no longer working, replaced by motor-driven pumps when electric power became available.

Our travels take us to another beach, Elafonisi, famous for its pink sand beaches.  It is very popular and we spent another afternoon in the sun.  There is no pink sand however, except for a small patch we discovered at the far side of the lagoon.

Pictures of this part of Crete are in this album: