Day One: Turin to Rome
I am afraid this is another post without any photos as I am not good at finding copyright free ones on the internet and do not have any of that time any longer.
In 1970 we were both teaching English as a foreign language
for International House, a large private language school, in Turin, Northern
Italy. However, we were not an item and
so our Christmas plans were made individually.
I knew that I would probably only be able to stay in Europe for one more
year so it was very important for me to see as much of the country as possible
in every break we had. We had a
fortnight’s holiday or thereabouts at Christmas so I decided to go south. One of the other teachers was Cathy from
Melbourne, Australia so we did this trip together.
Somehow we settled on going to Rome and Naples. We were extremely badly paid (so badly that
we never even opened back accounts) so all offers of hospitality were taken up
eagerly. We knew two students from
Naples who happened to be friends. One
was in one of my classes and the other in one of Cathy’s. The family of the one in Cathy’s class had a
flat in Naples but they were going to be at their holiday house in Viareggio
for the holiday period so they offered us use of the flat. The one in my class was going to be with his
family but there was no problem as they had access to cars and could take us
round. Then the one in my class broke
his arm which meant he could not drive.
That proved to be interesting. They
told us that Naples was THE place to be at New Year as it was famous for its
fireworks. So we accepted the
invitation.
There was an International House in Rome. One of the teachers there offered us use of
her flat which we gratefully accepted.
Then there was the question of transport. Although we were prepared to travel by train,
the school employed a young Italian medical student as an Italian teacher. He was in effect taking time out from his
studies and he owned a car. It was a
very old Fiat Cinquecento but he offered us a lift to Rome because he came from
Cassino, site of a very famous battle in the Second World War and he was going
home for Christmas. We both knew about
the battle of Cassino because there had been Anzac troops there. Gianni said he would take us as far as Rome
because his parents did not know he had this car (he also had a better one that
they knew about) so he planned to dump it somewhere near the railway station in
Rome and arrive home by train. Then he
invited us to visit him in Cassino so we planned to have a few days in Rome,
take the train to Naples but break the journey in Cassino overnight and be in
Naples in time for New Year. The trip
was sorted! We finished teaching at 10
pm on 23rd December so we thought we had time to get to Rome for
Christmas. What we did not know at that
point is that Italians celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. This involves a large meal and a trip to
midnight mass. Presents are not given
until Epiphany so it was all very different from a British Christmas such as we
had both grown up with.
Day 1: Turin to
Tuscany and Rome
We decided to leave Turin late on 23 December as soon as the
school closed. Gianni did not want to go
on the autoroutes because you had to pay so we planned to make the journey on
the equivalent of A roads. The first leg
was to go down to the Mediterranean coast, park the car for a couple of hours
and get a bit of sleep. Then we planned
to continue through Tuscany and to stop at Pisa so we two Antipodeans could see
the Leaning Tower. We set off in the car
which was very packed up with Christmas presents for Gianni’s family and with
all his gear as he was in effect moving back to Rome to continue his
studies. I can remember almost having to
climb into the car!
We drove to the coast. We stopped somewhere near Genoa on a cliff but
all I can remember was being parked high above the sea. We attempted to sleep but not very
successfully. When it was light, and
remember it was almost the shortest day, we prepared to move but one of the
lights on the dashboard came on. It was
the first of many problems. The radiator
was almost empty. We had a bottle of
water with us so we topped it up and drove on.
I cannot remember much about the first part of the journey that day but
I think we went through Viareggio where one of our Neapolitan students was with
his family. Then we left the coast and
made our way the short distance to Pisa, getting there late morning. We ‘did’ the cathedral and the leaning tower
although I do not think we went up the tower.
The weather was very grey and gloomy and we knew from the weather
forecast that snow was forecast.
However, there was none in sight.
We then started off again, knowing that we had to reach Rome
that night so Gianni could arrive home ‘by train’ on Christmas Day. We drove vaguely in the direction of Florence
but then turned onto a main road through the Appenines. At one point we passed round the edge of a
wonderful medieval town complete with towers.
It was not San Giminiano. For
years I tried to find out where it was but never succeeded. Soon after three o’clock it began to get
dark. It was then that we noticed the
cars coming towards us had snow on their roofs and that some of them had
chains. We were fairly innocent about
these things. I had spent the previous
winter in Germany so I knew about European winters and the problems of driving
in snow but of course this was not something that Australians and New
Zealanders knew about. It was Cathy’s
first winter in Europe so she certainly knew nothing about the conditions. Gianni had spent a year in New England as an
American Field Scholar so he had some experience of hard winters. We did not know the area we were driving
through at all although I remember bears were mentioned at some point. I was very relieved when Gianni suggested we
bought some chains. I had briefly
belonged to a ski club in New Zealand and I knew about putting on chains but as
a student with little money Gianni was reluctant to buy any, not least because
snow was very rare in Rome and further south.
It must have been between four and five o’clock when we reached a lovely
traditional town with shops where we could buy them! It was totally dark by then but the town was
lit up for Christmas and I can still remember the Christmas tree in the market
square. We bought some chains but then
we had to put them on! We managed that
and set off again. I felt much more
confident that we would not skid although there were bridges which were quite
icy. Meanwhile the radiator continued to
play up.
The evening wore on. I
cannot remember stopping for food at all but we had assumed we would be in Rome
before midnight. There came a point
where we realised that our bottle of water had frozen solid and that we were
going to have to get water from somewhere to top up the radiator. Gianni said that all Italian towns had a town
fountain so we began looking. We found a
town and drove into it, only to find that there was a fountain but it had
frozen solid! Gianni was not daunted and
said we would have to ask someone for water.
We found somewhere with lots of lights on which I think may have been a
café. The family were eating their
Christmas meal but they filled up our water bottle and we went on. Then we realised we were descending from the
mountains. I can remember crossing a
bridge which was very icy and being glad we had the chains. Then there was no more snow but it was
raining heavily. We decided to remove
the chains. Fine, but when we had driven
another couple of miles, we realised that we had dropped the key! We had to turn round, go back, and fortunately
we found the key lying in the road.
We thought our problems were over but then we realised we
were almost out of petrol. We were going
to have to stop and get some more. Not
easy when everything was shut. It was
close to midnight by this time. The road
we were on ran along the top of the hills and all the towns were in the
valleys. I do not think we had a map at
all. We just had to take the next
turning which had a direction sign for a village and descend. By now the car was more or less running on an
empty tank but Gianni thought there would be a petrol station. Although it was a descent to the town we
would have to drive back up to the main road.
There was no sign of a petrol station but we found a church. Midnight mass was in full swing and the whole
town were there. I remember that there
was someone playing a transistor and that the service seemed very laid back. We went in and attempted to thaw out for a
bit. Gianni then found someone to ask and we were directed to a petrol station. I remember Gianni was reluctant to fill the
car with petrol as he was planning to abandon it in Rome. This meant guessing how much we would need to
get us into central Rome.
Then it was back on the road. It was still pouring with rain and by this
time, as we approached Rome, there were terrible traffic jams because everyone
was driving home from Midnight Mass. The
apartment we were aiming for was in the suburbs but Gianni seemed to know where
he was going. We found it. What a relief! But then we could not get in. There were a number of bells on the gate but
we did not recognize the name of our colleague, nor could we find the bell for the caretaker. Later in the holiday we realised this was
because the word for caretaker in the north was different from the one used in
the south! So we could not go to our
colleague’s apartment. Gianni said he
would find us a pensione near the station.
Little did we innocent antipodeans know that most places around the
station were brothels. By this time it
was about two a.m. so not a time of night for innocent people to be
abroad. Gianni found a building very
near the station with several pensiones in it.
He then spent some time negotiating with a mature couple who owned one
of these and they agreed to put us up but not until they realised that ‘the
young man’ was not going to join us. So
we removed our luggage from the car and finally got to bed. Gianni found somewhere to ‘dump’ the car and
continued his journey by the first morning train. I can remember that during our stay in the
pensione there was a constant stream of railway porters coming and going in the
building. Doubtless they were
patronizing some of the less respectable pensiones. It was only when we rejoined Gianni at
Cassino that we learnt about all of this.
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