We had spent the first few days of our Italy trip in Rome. Matt and I met my mother at Logan Airport in Boston in the morning and then took a shuttle back to a hotel in Revere that was allowing us to check out late. I was nervous about traveling with my mother because I don’t see her very often and sometimes I’m still stuck in teenager mode when I’m around her. but I was also very much looking forward to the uninterrupted time we would be having with her. Travel does interesting things to your relationships with people, but for the most part it brings you closer.
It was very important that my mother be here on this trip for reasons I have explained. I knew that she would be the one to really bond with the people of Italy as well as our people of Italy in Goriano. I am much more of an acquired taste, but people just gravitate to my mother. She is a natural entertainer and storyteller. I knew it would be exhausting for me to be both a tour guide and the family historian, so I thought we’d make a good team.
Our evening flight from Boston to Rome was direct. When we landed at the airport in Rome, we were in the back of the plane. Instead of having to wait to exit the front of the plane, the flight attendants opened up doors in the back and wheeled up steps. We were among the first few people to exit the plane and step onto the tarmac. I felt like a head of state.
My mother had wanted to kiss Italian ground as soon as she stepped onto it, but I suggested to her that the tarmac would not be a worthy place for this type of ceremony. This event would come much later in our trip. We took a shuttle to the airport terminal and waited for my first cousin Michael’s plane to touch down.
Our first few days in Rome were quite full. We did most of the touristic things that you do when you’re in Rome. Our first night we walked around the city. Our apartment was around the corner from the Trevi Fountain, which was mobbed with visitors no matter what time of day it was. We ate, we walked, we saw the Spanish Steps, we went back to the apartment, we went to dinner. We walked some more. The next day was spent at the Colosseum and the day after that we visited the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica.
Matt and I wanted to make sure we walked a lot. It was important that we see the city in this way. We did take a double-decker bus to the Colosseum and then later rode it around to other parts of the city. We also took the metro to the Vatican so we could experience that as well. The metro in Rome is very short. You may as well walk or take a cab unless you are a local commuting to your job.
By the time our time in Rome was ending, we were ready for Goriano Sicoli. I think I’d been expecting Rome to be full of friendly, attentive people, but mostly it just seemed that Romans were tired of tourists. It was mid-September; perhaps they had saved all of their merriment for earlier in the summer. I had spent the summer trying to learn Italian, but there were few people who would converse with me in the language. (Don’t worry. In Goriano, my efforts would eventually pay off.)
We did meet a couple of lovely people in Rome that we connected with. Miria (the dark-haired woman in the picture to the right) was one such person. We met her and her friend one night at L’Archetto Spaghetteria and Pizzeria. They were having dinner at the table behind us. She and my mother bonded beyond the language barrier (See? I told you that people love my mother). Miria had a tireless spirit for fun and, I could tell, a wicked good sense of humor. Later that evening, I found her on Facebook (she had asked me to find her) and we are now long-distance Facebook friends.
There is so much more to be said of Rome, but this is not the focus of Journey to Goriano. The night before we were to depart Rome, I talked to Sandro and told him my impressions of the Roman people. He told me that we would be falling in love with Abruzzo because the people there would embrace us with so much kindness and love. I knew he would be right.
Check out my gallery. The captions in the photos tell more of the story.
