the day after the return

If ever there is a day that deserves no comment, not story, no photos at all, it's the day after you've come from a beautiful trip. Every chore you do at home on that day feels dull, every step you take is on too familiar a landscape.

At the same time, it feels so wonderful to be home. I don't stress much over travel, except when I am with a child or grandchild. When I come home, the relief from not having had some cataclysmic travel event is huge (here are some personal favorite cataclysmic events from my travel days: a twelve hour flight delay, nonstop rainfall in the mountains with perhaps lightening for emphasis, lost passports, lost suitcases, lost favorite toy of child, stomach bugs, fevers without explanation -- what? You want me to stop? Well fine, but you get the idea!)

At home, I unpack the unused umbrella, the unopened children's Tylenol, the ignored Covid tests, the mostly unnecessary bandaids, the huge quantities of extra masks (because if you get Covid, even after your isolation, you need lots of fresh masks), and I think -- phew! We were lucky.

Not much to wash, sort, and put away today. I did not pack a lot of clothes. We stuck to our small carry-ons and Snowdrop was impressed or at least amused at my daily rinsing and washing. (Swimming requires a midday change of clothing, but hey, it's summer and t-shirts dry very fast.) She'd never seen anyone do hand washing before. 

After a trip to Europe I always wake up super early for a good handful of days. As I turn to the chores waiting for me outside, I think -- hey, the farmette lands look pretty good still. Especially in the very early morning light.

(the second peach tree: still not fully ripe...)

And I have some pleasant surprises! The last day of August gives me the gift of a lily or two or three still.

(Not a lily, but it is the monarch's favorite!)

The rest of the flowers are really in their fall mode already but that's okay. I like them in this stage as well.

I have appointments, I have a UPS errands, I have glasses adjustments -- this kind of nonsense is typically spread out over weeks and weeks, but I have just a wee window between trips and various activities so I pack it into this day and really, that's just fine. Get it done, move on.

In the afternoon, Ed and I ride over to Stoneman's for the corn. He'd been eating multiple ears a day in my absence (why cook dinner when you have corn...) and now I'm returning to this grand August eating habit. Well, for a few days anyway. With Labor Day we wind down the corn season. Sad but true.

And in the late afternoon, I have two treats: first of all, I go over to the young family's house. 

(Hi, Sparrow!)

(Hey there, Snowdrop!)

(Sandpiper isn't still enough for a photo.)

I was asked to tag along with Snowdrop and her mom to visit her new classroom. They really shuffled the kids around this time and she has none of her best buds in her new room, but Snowdrop is ever the social optimist and she seems not too concerned about this, nor about the fact that there seem to be two boys for every girl (the whole grade is intensely boy heavy). She is excited about what's ahead and that's such a good thing!

I have to say, the amount of work this teacher put into arranging the room for the kids is impressive. Snowdrop is one lucky kid to have someone so dedicated to the job of schooling these second graders.

And finally, toward evening, there's a second treat: Ed and I drag out the kayaks to our nearby lake. Initially I hesitated. Honestly, you can't get excited about paddling in a somewhat soupy lake after dipping oars in a clean body of Alpine water. But, I want the movement. Ed wants the movement. So we paddle. And it's a beautiful evening for it!

Dipping oars into the quiet lake at dusk creates a perfect mood for reflection. I think about traveling with my grandkids. And I think about something that a number of people have asked me -- how is it that I take Snowdrop and not the others on these trips? Will I create equally  splendid trips for the remaining four?

I think about how it's mostly a younger person who would ask that. How people my age know the answer to this question plain and clear, the answer being I don't know. 

For me, to travel alone with a grandchild, five conditions have to be met:

1. I have to be still young and healthy enough to not worry about needing medical care. 

2. I have to be still young and healthy enough to manage the demands of a child.

3. The child has to be independent enough to allow me some down time.

4. The child has to want such a trip very much and not be afraid of missing mommy and daddy

5. The child has to be old enough to manage a travel crisis.

Over time, the kids get older and you'd think, therefore, that it should all eventually work out for us all. The problem is that I, too get older. Hitting seventy next year. And with the added uncertainty of Covid, I was just barely satisfied that the first condition was being met this year. For a while, I toyed with traveling with some random additional person just in case. I did extra boosters and extra check ups on all preexisting conditions, and still I really hesitated. My doc finally convinced me we'd be okay. And we were. And still, I worried.

So, is this fair to the others? 

I think back to Tiziano's words -- my grandma had my father when she was sixteen, my father had me when he was 21. Kids these days are born to older grandparents. Is this fair? I honestly think that that is the wrong question to ask. You make decisions as best as you can. Questioning generational choices (me theirs, they mine) is not going to get you anywhere. Being a parent or a grandparent is tough business. You do the best you can. Most people indeed do the very best they can.

And at home, Ed and I eat corn and cheeper eggs for supper because I am not yet focused on cooking much of anything. That will come, but not today.

I toy with the idea of making a Negroni, but if there is one thing I learned, it's that you cannot recreate Italy (or France or Maine or Morocco) in your own home once you return. So I make a conventional aperitif spritz instead!  I mean, come on, it's still August! 

With cheers, and love...

the return

Early wake up. Lights still twinkling across the lake. Everything is so still. Mountains and water, in their moment of pre-morning peace.

I've done worse: earlier departures, earlier wake-ups. Still, for the little girl, where evenings end late, an early departure can be brutal. I let her sleep until the last minute. I finish packing, do multiple double checks and finally, I nudge her into her clothes, stuff her snuggle animals into her pack and we leave. There was to be a small breakfast, but in the end there was a bit of confusion on where and when and what, so I let it go. We had yesterday's lemon cake and strawberries in the room. Good enough.

The taxi ride to the airport is smooth, fast, no traffic. Less than an hour. Malpensa airport in Milan -- always so crowded, always so rushed, seems actually calm. Lines don't snake. They form, you pass through. You're done.

At the airport she just wants to rest. We eat an inconsequential breakfast, more like a snack, and she stretches out.

Just before it is time to go to the gate, Snowdrop asks:

Gaga, you know how we passed this ice cream shop on the way to the gate?

Oh no. She's not going to ask for ice cream! We had indeed passed a Gelateria in the extremely long string of airport shops just past security, seemingly miles away. We should be boarding soon. 

Please?

I look at this earnest little face that has put up with all the inconveniences of travel, with my requests for a photo, and my insistence on airport mask wearing even when most around her are mask free, and who has not always had that ice cream cone handed to her (we did not have a Gelateria within walking distance to our hotel) during this trip.

You really want to walk all the way back?

Yes.

*.    *     *

The flight takes off for Paris just a little late. 

There are no storms at the moment, but it's raining and the skies are saturated with ominous clouds. How can I not feel humbled! All the time we were in Italy, we were spared bad weather even as we are leaving now on this wet day. How good it was to have been spared this for all that we did!

Yes, all that we did. For Snowdrop, that sense of fullness isn't so obvious. Her days feel full even if she stays home and plays with the neighborhood kids. But, I tick off all she learned on our trip: how to climb a mountain. How to swim down the length of the pool and back again. How to paddle a kayak. How tired legs in a hot garden can still get you to where you need to go. How to eat big breakfasts and not mind a long wait for your food to arrive at dinnertime. She also received confirmation for what she already knew (unfortunately): that there isn't an eatery in Italy that wont serve her a plateful of noodles and a big bowl of freshly grated Parmesan at the side. In other countries, she is forced to try new things. In Italy, she begs long and hard for her favorite pasta and usually I shrug my shoulders and think -- eh, she could do worse than this for a meal.

*.    *     *

The transfer in Paris is smooth. Can you believe it? Smooth! 

Five minute wait for passport control, no need to reinspect luggage (and by the.way, in Milan, they no longer require you to take out anything -- not liquids, not tablets, not shoes), just one smooth walk over to our new terminal.

It prompts her to express great love for this airport and I smile at that because I love Paris to pieces, but Paris airport usually requires more than an extra ounce of patience. Today, no patience is required.

And because I am feeling like I want to cap this week with something easy and good, I reach into my bag of saved up miles and ask for an upgrade for the long flight back. 

Oh, but madame, this is a problem. The plane is full. The good seats -- they are not next to each other.

I shrug my shoulders and am about to walk away, but this Air France gentleman does not give up easily: let me page the passenger who is occupying the seat your granddaughter could get. Maybe he'll switch. 

I smile.

Dont raise your hopes. Passengers these days, they can be so difficult.

This gentleman isn't difficult. But of course I'll switch! 

Honestly, so many people are ferociously mean and grumpy and self serving. But so many more are generous and kind and cheerful. At least this has been our experience this whole week.

*.    *     *

The flight to Detroit is long, but we arrive on time. We have only carryons, so we skip the wait for luggage  (international passengers have to clear their luggage at their first port of entry into the US). The girl is tired, but very excited to be seeing her family soon.

Last leg: the flight to Madison.

Her whole family comes to the airport. They go home, I drive to the farmette, deeply satisfied. This was perhaps the trip where we may have had major hiccups and I worried about all of them.  Covid could have really messed with us. She may have been forced to skip the first days of school were she to get sick. We may have been stuck at a place with a price that I would not have wanted to pay for extra days.  Bad weather would have completely derailed most of my hopes for the week. The airports could have had us waiting for hours, the flights may have been cancelled. But none of this happened. Our challenges were of the best kind: scale a mountain. Swim. Learn to love a different culture.

Big smile as I pull into the farmette driveway.

With so much love...

Lago d'Orta

It's our last full day by the lake. It very much feels like the end of a long vacation run for Snowdrop and frankly, I think she is very ready to return to school routines. That's likely true for a lot of kids her age. (Her "first day of school" is on Thursday. My other grandkids have varying "first days": Primrose starts a new school today, Juniper and Sparrow will continue in their same places where they will have been all summer, Sandpiper starts his school career at the end of next month.) 

Perhaps because we are at the end of vacation, we are not so ambitious today. Storms passed through at night, but the day begins for us with sunshine and just a few puffy clouds. Still, it is hot! I'm thinking we should just stick close to home and explore the community in which we live.

But first, breakfast -- our last one on this lovely spot by the lake. 

As usual, she arranges her foods just so, then devours them all, one by one, until only croissant crumbs are left.

And now for our local walk.

Our small hotel (it has a total of 18 little apartments) is actually not in Orta San Guilio proper -- it's in a community (for lack of a better word) called Pettenasco. This is where we have eaten all our dinners. This is where we go to the ferry stop if we want to catch the boat into Orta town. But apart from that -- apart from dinners and boats, we know little about this place. Does it have beach access? A grocery store? Anything else of note? We set out to explore it a little.

Again, aimless walking is not a Snowdrop favorite, but she goes along with it, especially since the alternative is a more ambitious excursion. She does not want a more ambitious excursion!

We hug the shore path. It's not especially beautiful -- it's sort of like walking a back alley in Chicago -- you see everyone's rear. That part which they don't prettify for the public. An occasional campground adds to the casual feel of this path. 

But, the vegetation is lovely and the glimpses of the lake remind you what's really at play here. 

And eventually, we get to a point where a stream, the Torrente Pescone, runs into Lago Orta and this is indeed interesting because you have the meeting of a cold current and a warmer lake, shallow here, at least at the edges.

We wade a little, but not much. Snowdrop tosses rocks, I take a look around us.

You see families and older couples in fold-up chairs, or sitting on colorful towels, faces to the waterfront for that last bit of summer loveliness.

It's a tableau out of a painting. An idle moment at the water's edge. Leisure on a strip of tired grass.

We turn in from here. I'm in search of a cafe that's on my phone map. She is anything but happy with that choice. It is getting to be quite hot and there's too little shade on these asphalt quiet roads. Still, I coax her forward and though the cafe turns out to be closed, it's appended to this community's supermarket. We don't have masks, so I'm reluctant to go into its depth, but Snowdrop does find one of those machines that spits out junk and insists that this piece of junk is exactly what she needs in life. Okay. I'm not going to stand in the way of bliss over a 2 Euro piece of nonsense. I have the coin, I try to push it in. No luck. She is crestfallen! Cant we try again? Please???

I ask the sales clerk why the damn thing wont spit out the stupid toy. She shrugs her shoulders: not our machines, not my problem. Hmmm... what if I put in single Euro coins, one after the other?  

Bingo! She gets a squishy hedgehog which she plays with for less than two minutes, but claims to love with a lifelong passion.

One more stop. 

No, not at the church. She dislikes the ringing of the bells (at noon now, they are going strong). I tell her if she lived here she would get used to it, but I don't push for a visit. I'll stick with admiring the tower.

Instead, we go to a fruit and veggie grocer and here we strike fruit gold. Peaches and strawberries to die for. An orange, tomatoes, some Nutella cookies. Will we finish it all before tomorrow?

We eat lunch in our room. I ask the kitchen for something light for me -- I get thin slices of veal in a tuna sauce. I'm told it's "typical" of the region.

And finally we go back to the pool. I have to say, I'll miss this little body of swimmable for her water. There isn't a smell of chlorine and of course, the views are compelling. I have nothing against our community pools back home, but they are loud. This one exudes serenity. And of course, Snowdrop has improved her swimming by leaps and bounds by having so much space and time to push herself a little more every day.

And very quickly it is evening. I'm given a Negroni. She reads books about Olympian gods, I pack. 

And now we are ready for our last meal.

(me of her...)

(she of me...)

We eat dinner. here, at the Bistrot. She gets her steak frites, I order an exquisite fish dish...

And the sun has long set and the meal was TV celebrity host worthy and the whole stay here was, from this grandma's perspective and perhaps from that of the little girl -- incredible. 

We have a long return tomorrow and of course, there is the threat of bad weather that could well disrupt everything. I didn't worry about weather for this week and I'm not going to fret about it for tomorrow. We will get home somehow. I'm sure of it.

With so much love...

Lago d'Orta, Laggo Maggiore

The northern lakes of Italy are, in my view, terrifically beautiful -- a favorite destination for a person like me, who loves to explore mountains and great bodies of water, all nestled in a mild, Mediterranean climate. There are about a half dozen of these large lakes and they extend from the Alps into the flatter plains of Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto. If you ever look at a topographical map of Italy, you see this arc of mountains, with the lakes snaking from north to south,  and suddenly they all end and you have the vast plain in which rests Milan. You can almost see how the collision of the African and Eurasian plates some 80 million years ago caused that mountain fold, sort of like a train barging into a squishy piece of dough. Well, at least that's how it all looks to me.

Lake Orta is parallel to the next giant body of water -- Lake Maggiore. True, mountains separate the two, but they are not the highest peaks and easily traversable by car. There are tunnels, there are passes. And so if I'm thinking about a day's excursion, Verbania -- a town on the shores of Lago Maggiore is a logical choice.

A few words about Lago Maggiore, which I did once visit with Ed, but my memories are fuzzy and dominated by the epic discovery then and there that I had lost my passport: we spent all our time scheming to quickly get a replacement. Being the busy travelers, and having just come by train from the Netherlands and being en route to Sicily, we needed to file police reports and schedule trips to the consulate. Lago Maggiore is blurry background noise to a very chaotic set of hours.

And that's a shame, because Maggiore is the second largest lake in Italy and it is so long (65 km or 40 miles) that actually a good chunk of it isn't in Italy at all, but rests serenely in the Swiss Alps. And this lake is exceptionally beautiful. Verbania, Lago Maggiore's big town, is about 25 kilometers from where we are here, on Lago d'Orta. 

And here's our great luck: the forecast of rain and storms fizzled and once again we wake up to plentiful sunshine. I let Snowdrop sleep in. She and I have been going to bed at the same time (that's her choice and not a good one given that I write rather late into the night) and I have to give her some extra hours, therefore, in the morning. That's fine: I catch up on stuff and I watch the early sun's reflection on the mountains of the western shore.

By 9, we are at the breakfast table.

She has developed a style: line up all the foods in a row and devour them!

And about an hour or so later, we are hitching a ride to Verbania. [I suppose "hitching" is the wrong word, as we are paying dearly for that ride. Should have I rented a car for this trip? Absolutely not! Once you have a car, you begin using it excessively. You do not go to the local trattoria for dinner, you drive over to the more notable place down the road. You skip the ferry, you don't ask Tiziano for a ride to the trail head and you don't listen to his stories of the region. So yes, I'm glad we do not have a car, even if on a rare day I have to pay for a taxi.]

Our young man of the mountains, Tiziano, told us to urge the taxi driver to take the longer route that passes near yet another lake, a small one called Lago di Mergozzo. It's hard to totally appreciate the beauty of this small lake from the window of a car, but I am glad to have seen it.

It is indeed lovely! It's fed entirely by mountain streams and motorboats are forbidden on it so that it is one of the cleanest lakes of them all. [Though when Maggiore floods, the small river that joins the two reverses its flow so that it is possible for pollutants from Maggiore to enter it, but this is rare event. And here I'm just going to add that for us, the absence of much motorboat traffic on Orta too was notable and blissfully wonderful. Yes, they do have boats traversing it, but here we are, still in the thick of the summer season and we see hardly any boats at all. An hour will go by and I will neither hear nor see a single motorboat. Yesterday, out in the kayak, we rarely had to deal with the waves of a passing speed boats. It's not that you cannot use a boat on Orta, it's just that the lake is not (yet) a major destination and most people here do not own or use a boat. The lake thus is one of the quieter ones I've been to in Italy. This kind of water peacefulness is unimaginable back home, where even on our tiny Lake Waubesa, boat traffic is out of control.]

Okay, we are in Verbania. A town to walk in, a lakefront to admire.

Walking a town's old streets is probably not the best activity for a seven year old -- wandering aimlessly is not something kids like to do, but she is a good sport and she is used to these strolls. And the start of it has something that she has missed -- a playground!

Followed by another favorite -- a visit to a store that sells stuff to lure the casual shopper. Gifts for those back home and those not back home.

And I see that Tiziano was correct: surprisingly perhaps, Verbania is not really a tourist town. There's no one in this store. There's no one up and down this block. It's Sunday, so we do see the occasional Italian family strolling by the lake, but honestly, the place seems rather empty. As if the Italians who live here haven't yet returned from their vacation, or given the heat of the day, maybe they chose to stay home.

I had made a lunch reservation for 12:30 at Locanda 81 -- an eatery that does not usually do lunches except on the weekend. I know nothing about it except what's on the Internet, but it seems to have food that's creative and good, with possibilities that might please even a suspicious Snowdrop.

We sit at a table outside and really, the setting is lovely: shaded and with rose vines climbing to the roof. In the end she opts for her usual pasta... 

... but mine is unusual and fabulous. Porcini, tiny onions, mussels, lemon, parsley. So beautifully delicious.

After lunch (which happens to be right by the bell tower)...

... we walk over to a Gelateria for the obligatory gelato. She sticks with chocolate, but me, I see my Italian favorite -- frutti di bosco. Fruits of the forest. Nothing is as good on that flavor on a cone on a hot summer day. Nothing.

We then crisscross the city to the edge of town... 

... to what is regarded as a major "sight" here -- the Giardini Botanici di Villa Taranto. Sounds Italian? Well, the gardens are essentially Italian, but they were created by a Scottish captain who brought in plants from outside and inside of this region. He willed the gardens to Italy and so upon his death, they were opened to the public. And they are exceptional! Possibly the most stunning Italian gardens I've come across. 

The highlights of August? Certainly the dahlias!

(she tries her hand at taking pictures...)

And water lilies...

(monster lily leaves!)

And so much more!

I must admit we were hot toward the end. There is a bit of climbing and the path appears to circumnavigate the gardens in such a way that it's difficult to cut it short and scoot out halfway. Which perhaps is a good thing: we saw most everything!

(taken by a friendly stranger)

Properly exhausted, we head home. Snowdrop rests, but not for long. Summer has made a full comeback. The pool beckons. For both of us.

Until the big clouds roll in again.

The dinner choice is easy: today and tomorrow (our last days here), we're returning to places which for us were the winners of our stay. Today it's Vecchio Forno dallo Zio Aldo. We started our trip here and my memories of that first evening are precious, despite our enormous tiredness. The food choices? Pasta and pizza, in some combinations of sauce, with and without seafood and of course cheese. 

(She is in an excited phase of planning out a book about misleading advertising. No, really, that's her topic.)

We walk home on familiar paths. She's bouncy. I'm... nostalgic, with a wide smile.

I am determined to get the girl onto a better sleep schedule, but I'm fighting a losing battle here. She resists sleep, perhaps because dinners are always so late (they end well after 9). No matter. We're on a weird schedule here. Travel disrupts, but with such rewards that you switch your focus and let go of mundane concerns. We are in our bedroom by the lake. All is fine in our small corner of the world.

With love...