from Palermo: chaos with a splash of color

UPDATE FIRST: Remember yesterday’s post? Lost passport, desperate calls, strategizing, hoping for a way to keep most of the week intact, to not lose days and reservations, to make it all somehow repair itself in the one business hour that we have in Milan before we need to head for the airport.

And it does. Pure magic. I show up at the Consulate in Milan 45 minutes early and join the line waiting for the office to open. An official comes out and asks if there are any Americans in line. I step out. Suddenly there is a long line and there is me. Officials come out, I tell them that in three hours my plane will leave. They rush me through forms, photos, payments and I am out of there with new passport in hand in 61 minutes. [It helped that I had all my other papers with me, not lost or stolen.] Yay staff at American Consulate in Milano. And so truly and terribly sorry for all those who come with visa applications, who are still probably waiting in line.


And finally, Palermo.





In my youth, I had traveled through eastern Sicily, but I never made it to Palermo. Seedy, dirty, colorful, exploding with people, everywhere people: standing in groups in narrow doorways, leaning out windows, together in balconies, watching the world go by and talking. Gesturing, talking, laughing, flirting, kids playing, men, everywhere men in groups. Why is it that our men do not know what to say to each other and here and in France, men cannot stop? Unleashed, they tell endless stories from days that cannot have had so many stories within them?













We walk through the medieval quarter, through endless dark streets, buildings close together, balconies and shutters almost touching. Is Wednesday laundry day?





A cookie stop and then a Palermo aperitif stop (Campari and soda and a Sicilian orange). Ed looks dubiously at me as I stir this bright red drink in a tiny local bar, with the formidable mother-in-law sitting at the side, shouting out observations to the daughter-in-law behind the counter (of the “get them their check!” type).










oasis of calm


Late in the evening we are back at the Inn. A simple good meal of antipasti and perfectly cooked spaghetti, with shrimp and zucchini. I look at the wine list: can you recommend a Sicilian wine? They are all Sicilian, Signora. Of course. And proud of it.



antipasti


spaghetti with shrimp and zucchini

from Isola dei Pescatori (nr. Stresa), Italy: …what now?

First, why am I on a tiny island in the middle of a large lake (Lago Maggiore) surrounded by hills and mountains?





Because it seemed like an interesting place to pause for a night. Wednesday we fly down to Palermo. Here’s the lucky thing: I do not have to worry about the infamous pickpockets of Palermo. They wont steal my passport. I don’t have my passport. As best as I can figure out, it’s hidden in a little black case, snuggly nestled on the baggage rack of the train that runs between Switzerland and Italy.

I discovered its absence yesterday (Tuesday), during our final hour of train travel. Unfortunately, it was not the same train as the one that is now home to my little navy book that allows me to cross borders.


Finally, we arrive in Stresa – the place from which we take a ferry to the tiny island, where a tiny and empty at this time of the year hotel is holding a room for us. A room with a view.





Paco, owner of the hotel, is at the desk. Paco is the single most helpful individual on the planet.

No problems getting here?
Actually, a monster of a problem.
I tell him of my sudden realization that I am without passport.

And thus I enter into the labyrinthine bureaucracy of passport replacement. With very little time before a plane is to fly us down to Palermo (Wednesday, noon).

For passpost replacement, you need to take eight steps (the consulate recording tells me).
First, do not come to the consulate without an official police report (so inviting).

Paco, I need a police report.
Ah. You go to the carabinieri on the mainland, you will be there three, four hours. You will miss the last ferry to the island. I call for you to ask if they will see you. When you go, do not tell them where you are staying, okay? Do not use my name there at all (why? I wonder…). Allora, they say they will see you in half an hour.

Paco, maybe we should go back to Milan tonight. I need to make a personal appearance at the Consulate first thing tomorrow.
No. Milano hotels are all bad, all expensive. Let me find a room for you at a hotel here, on the mainland, close to the train. You can take the first train out tomorrow.
Can we find someone to take us to the mainland tomorrow before dawn? We’d like to stay here, at your hotel.
Bene! Giancarlo will come in his boat. He will take you tomorrow before the sun comes up. He will help you.

At the carabinieri, things are calm. Children play in the courtyard, my officer fills out a form, precisely, with care. My college days Italian suffices. We make it through every irrelevant question. We shake hands, he stamps a piece of paper, I leave.



across the street from the carabinieri


At a grand hotel by the lake Ed buys me an expensive drink. And another. And expensive internet so that I can finally email my completed questions for the law school exam. And do a blog post. Running, I just make it for the last ferry that makes a last run to the island.

A moment of calm. The island has no cars, no commerce at this time of the year. But it has the views, and the sound of water, and alley cats, moving around, eyeing us suspiciously. Did you forget to return to the mainland? No, we’re not day trippers. We’re here for the night.




Someone in the kitchen of our little hotel with the wonderful view cooks up a wonderful meal. They open a bubbly prosecco – on the house, for all your worries. We eat gnocchi with saffron, radicchio and tomatoes, grilled fish from the lake, cakes too – you must have all three, for all your worries. And we packed you a bag of food for your journey tomorrow. It’s not much – cakes, yogurts, juice, maybe you can have it with an espresso on the train.













At 6 in the morning, Giancarlo pulls up his boat, we climb in, cross to the mainland. He gives us a ride to the railway station.
Paco wants you to email him when all is resolved, so he knows you’re okay.

A small island with the most wonderful view, and food, and people who take away the worry with cakes and prosecco and kind hearts.

from a night on the train, chuggin’ along for 18 hours to Italy

Leaving Groningen. Mission accomplished. A series of good meetings.

[Thank you letter to my hosts will include this: I apologize that I was wearing a sweatshirt and pants. I had a professional outfit all packed and ready but it was too damn cold to wear it.]

Many nice memories of a town and a canal.



doing laundry on a boat


I forgive Groningen the Internet issues, the weather even. You could get a good cup of coffee just about anywhere and with it, a tasty little applenoot cake. I love that name! I want to be called an applenoot from hereon.



Before boarding the all-nighter, we shop for dinner: bread and cheese, tomatoes, lots of chocolate and a bottle of Italian wine. To celebrate the southern skies. You know, the ones with sunshine and real spring.


it's what's for dinner

Night train to Italy, with a pre-dawn change in Switzerland. Seats that sort of lean back. Ed and I, we are the oldest twosome in the car. Young kids with dreadlocks and long wisps of hair falling into the aisle as they sleep. Me, I am writing a blog.

The final six hours are through the Alps. The Swiss, they are so jaded. Another mountain. Yawn. Nose in newspaper, wake me up if something really interesting happens.



he reads, she dreams

I can never get tired of train travel in Europe. Go to sleep by the North Sea, pass by vineyard and mountains, wake up in the Italian boot that kicks around the waters of the Mediterranean. A food trolley rolls through your car early; the man sells coffee and croissants, you buy some, reach in for more chocolate and the left over grapes and do nothing if that is your will, but look outside and wonder what a day is like for the person walking along the path, up, up to his house at the edge of a village, with the colors of spring Alpine flowers and grasses filling your head and his. Winter’s all forgotten, done with.

UPDATE: tune in tomorrow to find out what happens to complicated travel plans when Nina leaves behind her passport on train.

from Groningen, the Netherlands: love thy neighbor’s food

Sunday. Three trains later we are in Groningen (home of a beautiful old university -- one with which we have an exchange progam, hence my visit here).

How about that weather! Tonight’s low is the average low for midwinter: 1 degree C!
Thanks, young taxi driver, for the message of gloom.

I am reminded of any small Dutch city. There’s a canal. There are barges. There are ornamented buildings. There are bicycles. There is no decent place to get something to eat after 9:30 at night.





But I was promised Internet at the hotel and that has not happened either. No matter, I am busy working all night Sunday and meeting with people all morning Monday. Later this evening I have an overnight train to catch for Italy. Sitting up and working this night as well. I can put aside blogging for a day, can’t I?

It appears that I cannot. And so I sit at a public library, work through their Internet technical difficulties and post.

As for food last night – I am going to mark the day off as irregular on account of the Queen’s birthday. Who feels like paying attention to cooking on such a special day. Still, I find Dutch menus hard, mostly because I do not understand what is meant by quintessentially Dutch food. Last night, I was stumped yet again and so I opted for the “Flemish special”: when in doubt, get fish and chips. Of course, because this is not Belgium, the chips (aka fries) weren’t extraordinary. But good enough.

Back to work headaches. They will disappear once I leave these northern dark skies and cross the border into Italy. Certo.

from Buren, Germany: spargel and potatoes, with butter

Why, of all places, Buren? Ed, my traveling companion, does business with a factory owner here. You know, Ed, the relaxed guy with the duffle bag? Who avoids meat and avoids fancy cars and living spaces (try: sheep shed just south of Madison)?

We speed by train to Koln, then to Dortmund, and there waits Oskar, ready to take care of us. Oskar, politely dressed in tweeds to meet Ed, dressed in an old t-shirt and jeans (don’t forget the duffle bag). Ed, his big time American buyer who routinely requests shipments of parts needed for vintage BMW motorcycles in the US. Oskar, who drives the most gadget filled car I have ever seen, opening the door for Ed, who proudly drives a 93 Geo (I think; I can’t really tell as the rust has eaten away any markings), with pink stripes, because it came that way; purchase price: $600.

If Ed is an original who-knows-what, the elderly Oskar is a quintessential German industrialist (you know, in my imagination, since in truth he is the only German industrialist I have ever met). He puts his car in the fast lane of the highway and stays there for the entire fifty mile trip home.

There are no speed limits on this highway? Ed asks this staring at the speedometer which is registering 180 km/hr ( approximately 105 miles) and still climbing, as sheets of rain drench the road, and wimpy cars jump out of the way, to make room for the big black bullet, driven by a man with very gray hair.

Oskar booked us a room at a lovely inn in the center of Buren. We had searched the Net and asked about a few simple choices on the outskirts. I think he must have thought we were Americans without an imagination. He ignored them all and placed us in a hotel fitting for one of his major clients.

He points now to a church across the street. Looks very old, very… Christian.
You want to go in tomorrow? To look, sure. A noble if ancient history, there.


[N.b.: Buren is known for the castle on the outskirts, where Himmler set up his experimental epicenter for the breeding of the superior race. We went there today. Wewelsburg – a beautiful castle turned ugly.]






In the evening Oskar and his wife prove that what goes on in the German kitchen can be splendid. In the home kitchen that is. Buren is pork country and we have it wonderfully prepared with roasted veggies, on kebab sticks.



But it’s the dessert that deserves loud clapping and hooting, if only Mr and Mrs Oskar did not seem so refined and proper. An appfel kuchen (forgive spelling, it’s not my language) with vanilla ice cream and a home made eggnog sauce.



And the drinks! You’d think it would be all about beer, but no. A lovely aperitif of a local bubbly white poured over brandied apricots, followed by a German Riesling look-alike (actually two bottles of it, as we are all in the mood), followed by an herby digestive, lovingly called killepitsch. I received a present bottle to take back home. I’ll serve it with the story of why it has the word kill in the name, a story that seems to trace it back to the drinking habits of German soldiers during The War.


In the morning Ed and I sit down to a German breakfast. Bread, yes of course. And cheese and boiled eggs. And meats and salamis and all the rest of it, the part that was to be expected.



After, as Ed and Oskar meet over machines, Mrs. Oskar and I walk through the town, out of town, around town. Best to keep moving. It’s 3 degrees C outside and the umbrella needs a raise every now and then.








Shit weather. Those were Oskar’s first words to us at the train station. Agreed. But a golden day nonetheless sparked by the amazing generosity of our hosts. Down to the very last golden spear of pale asparagus that we eat for lunch, along with boiled potatoes and wine. Beer for the boys. Cakes at the café for all of us.

from Apremont, France: horses, horses, horses…(and lobsters).

For a little village (with no Internet), this place has a handful of nice surprises.

When gray stone houses have high stone fences and dense hedges, you get that itch to find an opening and look inside. Shocking color! Little gardens built into rocks and along paths, trees so full of blooms you have to wonder why they are this excited to let it all out.







Ocean colors


It’s horse country here. Not because of the proximate Chantilly racetracks. They graze and raise their horses in Apremont for the sole purpose of playing polo. How do I know this? I walk past the fields and I see this:











But the village itself is really small. From the point of view of commerce, there is one tabac and one country restaurant. That is it.

The chef has been cooking up local foods in the kitchen of this particular country auberge for some thirty years. Does food ever become predictable? No. And that's just excellent. You do not want to go out of your way to find food and realize that the place offers no surprises. Not a problem at the Auberge. The seasonal Brittany lobster is splendidly presented: boiled, broiled, baked, wrapped in aspic, creamed in a bisque. There are just a few locals in the dining room. They all choose the lobster run. Me and them, them and me. Community over lobster tails.


pancake wrapped lobster in aspic, radish custard, chutney, parmesan cookie



lobster bisque



spiced tail, two types of a potato, one type of everything else.


God, what a way to start a trip. I justify the indulgence by pointing out that it is Ed’s only night in France and tomorrow we’ll be hosted by Germans and who knows what will appear on our plates. I imagine they have a different attitude about food, there, in the villages of Germany. When I was a teenager, I spent a month in Eastern Germany (because I am Polish and I guess one needs to show a sign of neighborliness even if I’m not altogether sure the feeling was historically reciprocated). Don’t much remember the food. Given me, that says a lot.

So indeed, the meal is splendid. Chef Jean Claude smiles endlessly. I want to hug and kiss him but realize that such a display of affection may be misinterpreted.

Nothing left then but for me to wake up the next day before dawn and venture forth for a morning walk, just to see those earliest beams assert themselves on the stone walls.





Followed by a basket of croissant type pasteries and then a frantic effort to catch the proper and timely train into Germany. It becomes cold and drizzly in central Europe. Figures.



layers of croissants



to Germany, for now.

P.S.: No, no Internet access here in Buren, Germany either. Not even dial up at the hotel. I infiltrated the proprietor's private office to post this. Man, I am brazen. I post now to the audible belly-laughter from the floor below. Good thing they're all preoccupied with late night week-end indulgences or else I'd never have coaxed anyone to let me work here, behind the kitchen doors.

from Apremont, France: simple pleasures and no Internet

Where did I come up with this one – a village so close and yet so far?

It is the first stop – a day of rest. I chose Apremont because it is very very slow-paced and it has a country restaurant. With a few rooms at the side. The appealing qualities of Apremont.

But how to get there? It goes like this: from the airport, to a Paris train station, then, by train, onto the nearby Chantilly – a town of lace and racetracks and chateaux and nearby forests, then, well, then you’re stuck. I guess you could always walk to Apremont…

Nina, if you wheel your own suitcase and carry your own heavy pack while I just tag along with my little duffle bag, people will talk.
Well then, as a special favor, I'll let you pull it...

There have to be buses to Apremont, non?

Oh, but first thing’s first. You know that you are where you want to be when you look up (this is still in Chantilly) and see this:



chestnuts in bloom

And when it takes no more than five minutes to locate a café that will serve you this:



Chantilly: fresh and honest


People watching. You could say that it was the first thing I did (other than trying to get places) on this side of the ocean. Over a plate of cheeses and a salad, with slices of tomato and baguette. So simple, even a kid could do it. Or eat it:



Chantilly: two girls and a flower


Back then to the problem of how to get from Chantilly to Apremont. We have established that there are no buses that run there. So taxi maybe? It’s only about six or seven kilometers. No taxis come to you in Chantilly. You have to do tricks and ask lots of people.

People get curious about us, with the yellow and blue backpack, the big suitcase and a small red duffle (the latter is Ed’s the rest – well, mine).

Where are you from? The question this time comes from a guy smoking his, let’s pretend, very French cigarette.
And where are you headed? Yes? Well you should leave Chantilly. I’am from here. I hate it. The people think they are rich.
Hmm. It could be that they are. Creamy white buildings, like the cream that made the name famous. Lovely. With flowers everywhere.





After many such innocuous and quasi-helpful conversations, we are finally whisked off in a fancy cab.

In Apremont, we settle in to the Internet-not-available-not-even-dial-up “restaurant with four guest rooms,” La Grange aux Loupes.



Apremont: no to Internet, but yes to a French poodle


Helpful types suggest I hike over to the fancy resort outside of town… Surely they’ll have the wiring. Oh yes, indeed.

Meantime, the sun is pulling at me. God, it’s gorgeous here. So why is it that tomorrow we leave? That is the nature of this trip: to move on even when you’re not particularly inclined to do so. I have an agenda!



the houses of Apremont