Rome to Paris - My (Almost) and (Actual) Holiday

My (Almost) Holiday

For reasons too long to explain (and you KNOW how much I love a LOOOOONG explanation... Brevity has never been the soul of my wit...) I had the opportunity of meeting friend Gilda and a hire car in Rome, both of whom needed to get back to Paris over the course of five days. Never one to turn down the chance of travel (never mind my favourite activity of all, The Road Trip, especially with one of the few people I travel very well with) I jumped at the chance, hit the Ryanair and Easyjet websites and booked virtually cost-free flights to Rome and back from Paris. Virtually cost-free in terms of actual cash, that is, but in terms of pure nightmare travel-hell... Allow me to elaborate (Tim, this is where you can skip to the end...)

I was flying early Sunday morning the day the clocks go forward. So, working the Saturday night I decided it was easier just to stay up and slowly wend my way to Stansted Airport after work, as there was one less hour to kill and I'd get there just about in time for check-in to open. Arriving at work with suitcase and boasts of my forthcoming adventure, my spirits were only slightly dampened by the extraordinarily appalling music issuing form the cheesy-house DJ's dreadful collection. I was also most entertained (in a get-me-out-of-here kind of way) by a certain freak who claimed to know me (not impossible, I always forget the busboys, barbacks and even barmen who've been through Neighbourhood and have embarrassed myself before...). I played along for a while ("so what are you doing now?" etc etc, trying to sound like I care) until he lifted his shirt and rubbed his belly at me... (it wasn't a very nice belly either....) At this point I decided I didn't really care if I knew him ever and spent the rest of the night avoiding him, not always entirely successfully. The belly-rubbing was repeated several times during the course of the evening, but fortunately I get to hide behind a very solidly constructed concrete DJ booth.

I did not, however, avoid embarrassing the headline DJ. I'd seen the posters saying "Kate Lawler", and having heard the name SOMEWHERE before assumed she was some big-name DJ. So when I went up to introduce myself as I always do, I asked if she was Kate. She looked at me like I was some kind of complete fool and was very taken aback. Anyway, it was only an hour later that someone pointed out to me she had only won Big Brother last year... How the fuck am I supposed to know????? I don't watch that shit.... Oddly she turned out to be the best DJ of the night, but that's only in comparison with the crap that went before... HOW glad was I to switch on the lights, turn off the decks and GET THE HELL OUT ON HOLIDAY!!!

After a fairly lengthy but very uneventful sojourn on various forms of early morning public transport, I arrive at Stansted around 6.30 AM. Check-in queue is short, "ROME" is emblazoned upon the jumpy TV screen behind the check-in desk and all is seeming very worth while indeed. Haven't seen Gilda for most of a year, am excited to be on my way to new parts of Europe, the queue is moving and all is well.

Boarding pass in hand (god I love my UK passport! Ta, Steve...) I exchange my weekend's wages for Euros and laugh off the offer of free re-exchange on my way back "Trust me, I'll be spending it all..." and prance through security to find some brekkies in the departure lounge. Since my gate is clearly marked on the boarding pass I neglect to look at the departure information boards and get in a not-overwhelming queue for coffee. Only then do I hear the announcement "Will all passengers on cancelled flight 3004 to Rome please go to Zone F for re-scheduling". Horror creeps up from my stomach and explodes in my brain. Still coffee-less, I fight my way out of the departure lounge to the non-departing Zone F to be confronted with a WHOLLY overwhelming re-scheduling queue (shoulda stayed in the coffee queue a bit longer - refreshments entirely unavailable in Zone F....)

It is now close to 8.00, I've had no sleep and all is seeming Not Well At All. Behind me in the Zone F queue a particularly upper-middle-class accent is launching into complaints mode. Turns out he plays with/drives for/is something to do with Dave Gilmour, whom he is meeting in Rome and "without me there is no show!" Now, I understand his feelings, but, serously, without ME there is no road trip! Like I give a shit! Like Ryanair gives a shit! Like anyone in the queue gives a shit about anything else besides their very own cancelled flight! And, really, if you do need to get someone somewhere in this world with a reliable arrival time, why the hell would you book them onto Ryanair? So the upper-middle-class accent proceeds to make endless calls, waking poor sleep-deprived tour managers etc, asking them to call Ryanair and "tannoy me out of the queue". Poor sod. Naturally no tannoying-out-the-queue happened and he did at last shut up and accept his fate. Don't think I could have been held responsible for my behaviour if he's carried on much longer. Sleep-deprived me has less patience than well-slept me, and that's not much to start with...

AAAANNNNYYYYYWWWAAAAAAYYYYYY. After a coffee-and-breakfast free hour or so in this new queue, my options turn out to be: flying to two alternative places in Italy, both very far from Rome, or the same flight the next morning. Tired, moody, pissed-off and dying for a fag I opt for next morning and run outside for a smoke.

So that means I have to return to London in ignominious defeat for the rest of the day. It's now heading for 10AM and I traipse the many miles to the coach station (Stansted Express wasn't even running, goddamn nightmare Engineering Works on the goddamn line) only to realise I've changed all my money into Euros.... Traipse all the way back to the Bureau de Change, feel a complete idiot and change a bit of cash back into pounds... I bravely tolerated her triumphant smile as she charged me for the re-exchange...

My (Actual) Holiday

So, Monday morning I am once again trawling London Transport at 5.30 AM and this time successfully make it onto my flight. Arrive in a Rome that is gloriously warm, sunny and thoroughly summery. Yet another coach-trip deposits me at Station Termini and there, lo and behold, is my fabulous friend Gilda. How bizarre to be meeting her in Rome! I only ever see her in Joburg. So a quick catch-up-accino later we head onto yet more public transport to go fetch the car. Not bothering to work out the bus ticketing system I get on without one and we meet a Nigerian who carefully explains How Not To Get Caught, and I don't. Very handy. We then switch to a tram and actually buy tickets, but this takes an extra 20 minutes as the MACHINES DON'T WORK! Anyway, this gets us to the car (a cute-enough-for-our-purposes silver Corsa), we consult various maps and then we're ON OUR WAY!

The plan was to spend Monday in Florence (how this translates out of Firenze is beyond me) but since we're now a day and a half late we head straight for Volterra, a tiny Medieval town in Tuscany, where we are to stay with Rachel's aunt and uncle on an olive farm. On the way we pass through Sienna, which we were later told is actually very beautiful, but the parts we passed through prove that all those Johannesburg "Tuscan Villa" developments are not actually that far off the mark... HIDEOUS!

Volterra is a walled city (er... tiny little town...) with no cars allowed in during the day, and thank god we had a hand-drawn map from Rachel's aunt to find our way. Every road seems to lead to Pisa and none to Volterra. We chuckled at the landmarks on the map until we realised that the Esso station with a mirror opposite was actually incredibly accurate and we found our way with very little hassle. Stopped at the (only) supermarket on the way for ingredients and, dusk fast approaching, went in search of the farm. Came round a corner and were totally flabbergasted by the most BEAUTIFUL cemetery - every grave and memorial plaque had a little twinkling light. Soooo gorgeous, and after a very hassle-full couple of days it was exactly the sight I needed, a place so peaceful and pretty.

Still following the map (next reliable landmark, three green dustbins) we eventually make it off the tar and on to a"rough" (sic) road. This is followed by a "rougher" road and, just past the "new house", a "very rough" road... They do say that the best 4x4 is a hire car.... Reminded me of the poster just outside the Kruger Park in SA where the address of a particular restaurant was "Under the Big Tree". So good to be in place where directions don't involve road names or junction numbers!

By now it's just about dark and we pull up to the house with just enough light to see where we're staying for the next two nights and go up to meet our hosts, Jane and Felix. They have the most beautiful, proper Tuscan house, roaring fire on the go and enough cats to make anyone feel at home. A glass of wine is pressed into our hands on arrival. We have a separate little place all to ourselves with giant, shuttered (obviously, WE'RE IN ITALY!!!) windows opening over the loveliest, barely populated valley. The kitchen and bathroom are under the bedroom and accessed by the steepest set of stairs ever (careful when you're drunk, kids!). Used to be a dove cote (or some such animal housing) in a previous existence with little arched ceilings etc. Totally lovely!

Gilda and I cook them a storming meal, and we have a great evening around the dinner table. Our hosts are fabulous company. The grappa comes out and Jane and Felix go to bed. Gilda and I sit up on the balcony and finish the grappa. Then we go downstairs to our place and finish the wine. Then we run out of cigarettes. City girls that we are, we decide there MUST be SOMEWHERE we can get fags at 1AM and jump into our 4x4 and go charging around Volterra and environs in search of that most elusive of things, an open shop. Even the Esso opposite the mirror is closed. An hour or so of fruitless driving later (Gilda is SURE we will find a ciggie machine on a roadside somewhere "there are machines everywhere in Italy!" and I am CONVINCED we'll find an open hotel...) we realise that we are, in fact, in the Tuscan countryside, not the centre of Johannesburg, and retreat to the farm to open the next bottle of wine... We rescue a half-smoked fag from the ashtray and share it's disgustingness.

Next "morning" (closer to "midday") we emerge and go for a stroll around the farm. Absolutely GORGEOUS. It's on the slope of a very steep valley and the spring flowers are bursting out EVERYWHERE... Yellow flowers and white flowers and purple flowers and little tiny blue flowers that shine like little tiny lights when the sun hits them at a certain angle. Just glorious! A while later we pop back into our Loggia for some breakfast (proscuitto, mozzarella with TASTE, vine tomatoes, with TASTE!)

Then we go explore the town. We re-trace all our steps of the night before, park up outside the town walls and walk in - the first thing we find is a bloody fag machine! It hadn’t occurred to us to actually go INTO the town, we thought we’d try the mountainsides instead…

Volterra is the kind of fortified hilltop town where they still religiously (excuse the pun) ring the church bells every hour. A very pleasing habit, except at 5AM. They've picked up some islamic habits round here! No cars allowed, lots of schoolkids, no adults – wondering what do people DO here? Hunt down the piazza for coffee only to find this is the only European town where there is not a single restaurant/coffee bar on the entire central square.

Having just eaten breakfast we weren’t hungry, until MUCH later when we’d been walking for hours, with the day getting colder and colder, when, naturally, everything was closed again…. This siesta thing - thought it was only in hot places. Volterra in March is bloody freezing when the clouds roll in.

We thought it would be amusing to go to the Museum of Torture. It wasn't. The place was filled with genuine torture implements from down the ages, from head-crushers to racks, to starvation cages where people were left to starve until there putrified bodies dripped out, from impalers to spiked chairs, shoulder disjointers to breast manglers, it was a very disturbing experience indeed! Then on to some slightly disappointing ruins in the park on top of the central hill, where we inadvertantly interrupted a romantic tryst... Eventually we give up on food and go shopping instead: I get some tops, Gilda a gorgeous bag. Gilda has pecorino and honey chocolate (mine was just a praline thing but yummy) and we buy a bottle of grappa to replace Felix's (the best grappa we’ll ever taste, according to the suave Italian salesman. He forced us to taste several even though it’s the last thing in the world we want to have passing our lips… I couldn't really taste the difference as I was trying to swallow without tasting anything at all, so just took his word for it and bought the stuff.) Food-wise we resorted to the supermarket again and came home to make carbonara instead… While in Rome... And bought five bottles of the most divine olive oil, hand-pressed on the farm (a decision I was to regret after losing the car and traipsing around Paris public transport with 5 heavy bottles!)

After recovery from a late lunch we headed back into town for Wild Boar and Olives, and met two Italian boys on the way. Bumped into them after dinner again and went for drinks. The first place they took us to was a bloody Irish pub! In Volterra! The LAST place we remotely wanted to drink in, so asked if we could go somewhere else, hoping desperately for some cutesy Trattoria or summat. What we got was the only other open bar in town, the Internet Cafe... Which was less disappointing when we looked through the glass floor and found we were sitting above an ancient artesian well. So that was cool enough, and after one drink and some stilted language-problem conversation, headed home for the rest of the wine (we DID think to buy fags this time...)

Too few hours later and the alarm was going off. We had decided we really MUST be on the road by 9.30. We set off at 12. It was an epic 8hr drive- over the Simplon Pass (through the Alps!) into Switzerland, where we were staying with Olivier (an old Alchema friend) and his girlfriend Caroli. Unbelievable amount of snow, totally glorious with the melt setting in and waterfalls everywhere, including frozen ones! So special. Stopped for snowball fight but way too cold so we were on our way pretty quick. The daylight stayed with us all the way and hit the road overlooking lake Geneva at sunset – so beautiful with sun setting behind mountains that fall straight into the lake. Super special. Met Olivier at “the airport next to the bus station on the main street of Lausanne” (didn’t quite believe it but there it was, an airport in the middle of the city like it was a sports field or something).

Lausanne is a small city without terribly much requirement for parking spaces. But there was a football match on that night and there was NO parking anywhere. Olivier finally spotted the tiniest spot which we laughed at the possibility of fitting into. So we handed him the keys and witnessed the most AMAZING parking manouver (STILL don't know how to spell that word...) EVER! OK, it was about a 20-point turn, but when he finally had it in the space, there was less than 30cm to spare all round the vehicle. Astonishing!

We then settled into a FABULOUS Cheese Fondue (include cherry liqueur to dip your bread in so it explodes in your mouth beneath the cheese) and a good catch up, and took in the beautiful night view over the lake and all the pretty lights around it… Awkward moment (happily resolved) when Caroli kind of asked whether we wanted to sleep together (when are people going to stop thinking I’m gay??????) and Gilda heard in her voice that another bed was actually available, so grabbed it – just as well as I woke at 4AM and read the rest of the night.

Went to see Olivier’s studio in the VERY EARLY morning before a 9AM leave for Paris… Not making the same mistake again...

The studio was surprisingly amazing! I’m so used to people’s bedroom studios that to find a mate who has a live room, a vocal booth, control room (well fitted out), a large lounge area, store room AND fully equipped kitchen, was a great pleasure and surprise. All built by his good self, really fabulous. Very proud of him!

It was absolutely pissing down with rain as we left Lausanne – could barely take in the lake view as it was totally enshrouded in mist, as we emabarked on the least pleasant part of the journey – driving through TIPPING rain on narrow motorways through what just has to be the DULLEST part of France… Verging on ugly it is boring boring boring. Only enlivened by the partaking of a MASSIVE feed at a motorway stop, although not quite a great culinary experience it was memorable in being exactly what was needed.

Arriving in Paris we had to play all kinds of illegal parking games to get anywhere near our hotel. I stayed with the car while Gilda went in to negotiate with the classically unpleasant and nasty Parisienne. She had loads of problems with the old cow and took ages, while I sat nervously watching four (yes, FOUR!) policemen approach the car in a pincer movement. Racked my brains for my Standard 7 French, and managed to formulate a half-sentence about my friend being inside the hotel and please please to give us 10 minutes, and was just practising it out loud when a white unmarked car pulled up and all four cops jumped in and roared away! Saved by the Paris Riots!

Naturally, we totally forgot to fill the car, so started the car-returning process with trepidation – and there’s no petrol available in central Paris (yeah let’s just knock down a couple of grade 1 listed buildings to stick a shell garage in), so we bit the bullet and accepted we could either spend our entire evening losing our way through rush hour traffic to find petrol or just pay the double-price asked by Avis. Couldn’t find the Avis office at first (it was in a piss-soaked alleyway underneath a bridge surrounded by construction hoardings) and when we finally DID, the “estimated cost” of €395 for the ten days suddenly escalated to €750 . 4 hrs late was another whole day’s charge. Ok, fair enough. Then they’d neglected to mention that VAT was not included. Then there was a limited mileage thing, which they’d also failed to mention to Gilda and Joao when they rented it in the first place, and then some random “airport/railway station “ surcharge. Plus the petrol. Anyway. So we resorted to that time-tested method, LOTS OF BEER, to steel the nerves before failing to negotiate our way out of any one of the additional charges… So our afternoon on Paris was spent in a railway station bar and an overheated Avis office…

Walked back to the latin quarter via a quick sqizz at Notre Dame and then had to find an internet café to do very boring bank things to recover from the method we had to use to pay for the extra car stuff, which took another hour’s walking around, after which we could FINALLY relax and enjoy the last couple of hours of being in Paris, in the dinkiest resturant just near the Pantheon. Has exactly 5 tables and is run solely by the proprietor with two guys in the “kitchen” (more like a galley in a very un-generously sized boat). Much free sangria comes your way while waiting for a table, and when you eventually do get one, the wine comes in pitchers, the tables are well-used and rickety, the fare simnple and utterly delicious and the attempts at communication with the proprietor hilarious and incredibly good-natured with more free Calvados at the end. So damn fantastic! Made all the avis nonsense worthwhile and I found myself forgiving Paris.

Attempt at and early night (1AM) and another 5AM alarm clock to experience, once more, the pleasure that is Easyjet…

The strange world that is low cost flight travel – I quickly zipped past the elegance of Charles de Gaulle main terminals and into the shed at the back with low cost flooring and bare light bulbs. Low cost staff, massively over-eager security check (first day on the job) and a wide selection of exactly one (naturally overpriced) café with not even enough French pride to serve a fresh pain au chocolat… Get what you pay for I suppose! Even the announcements are done in a stumbling bumbling manner, even the French ones...

So, a MASSIVELY enjoyable holiday - thanks muchly to Jane and Felix and Olivier and Caroli... And to Gilda who had to do ALL the driving since we never managed to get me insured...