The ubiquitous cappuccino

What do you do in Italy in August when Italians are all at the beach and it’s hot? Rent a car and head to the Pisan hills. My adventure in these hills began when a friend and I rented an apartment for two weeks. The apartment was listed as a modern apartment on a farm in Piastraia. A small, Italian farm was a topic of interest, this was a part of Italy we had not explored and the price was right. All we had to do was find it. This was no small task as we discovered upon entering the “net” of the Pisan hills; that tangle of small roads that will cause you to get lost even when you have been there before. Many wrong turns later, far from most anywhere and designated only by a small sign reading Piastraia, we found our little farm, a small house inhabited by Elvira and her son, Roberto, with several small out-buildings and two modern, reasonably well-appointed apartments attached as rentals. We settled in. I took the bedroom with the big bed and my shorter friend took the small bed in the main room. (I think I still owe her for that arrangement!) On the tree-sheltered stone patio just as the sun was hitting that perfect late afternoon Tuscan light, we began our evening ritual of a chilled glass of prosecco and recapped our day. The Pisan hills awaited us.

The Italian way to start the day is with a quick cappuccino at the local bar. On a small farm, there is no bar. So, on day two, we set out in search of our morning coffee. A brief, gesticulating conversation in Italian with Elvira led us on a fifteen minute uphill climb to the tiny town of Ceppato. Excellent! Well, perhaps not. There is a bar but it is only open on the weekends. Farmers and really small-town dwellers make their own coffee. We truly were the lost tourists just looking for a cup of coffee, when the miracle of Piero appeared and our beautiful relationship with Ceppato began. Piero became our advisor, encyclopedia and friend. No question went unresearched, no request unfulfilled. We were the adopted Americans and we were privileged to participate in Ceppato life culminating on our last night with their Zuppa sotto le Stelle but more about that later.

About the “net,” before you begin your journey, invest in a good, detailed map of Tuscany. I recommend Carte Stradale D’Italia as it lists the tiniest of towns. You will see that all roads lead somewhere but not always where you meant to go. This is half the fun, but it’s good to be able to find your way home. On this map, the net is comprised of the red roads; others will color them white, still others yellow. Mostly, you are looking for the small, unnumbered roads that form a net-like image, twisting, turning, connecting, with the occasional dangling thread. The net encompasses the area leading south out of Pontedera to Volterra, west along the Cecina River to the sea then north bordered by the A12 in the direction of Livorno. Within this area, you will find the ancient city of Volterra, where I have witnessed a Rocky Horror Show production in the middle of the piazza, the charming town of Casciana Terme with its baths and a wonderful winery, Fattoria Uccelliera, run by a delightful young woman and her family near the town of Fauglia. In the course of your adventure, you will get lost; you will have to turn around–many times. Do not despair, you may discover another Ceppato and it will all be worth the effort.

I am a proponent of traveling light. This stems from growing up in the heavy Samsonite-suitcase-as-graduation-present era without the funds to hire a porter. I once traveled three weeks in Thailand with two smallish nylon SportSacs and had room to spare for the souvenirs. Thus, the purchase of a monster suitcase for six months in Italy was out of character. The reasoning was well-founded as changes in weather required a much larger wardrobe, not an outrageous assumption. What was outrageous was thinking that such a bag would be portable and hiring a porter was still out of the question.

Baggage claim in airports is always a challenge, fraught with the anxiety that the airline and your bag will not agree on a destination. Upon arrival at Fiorentino, I approached the whirring conveyor belt eagle-eyed with fingers crossed. I watched as bag after bag met its owner. Bag after bag was not mine. It was so big, how could I have missed it? How could the airline have missed it? If you are a seasoned traveler, you will recognize that panicky feeling when the whirring stops and the empty conveyor belt grinds to a halt, all bags claimed. No monster bag in sight. The next four days were spent in the same travel clothes until monster was finally found and delivered three-and-a-half hours north of Rome. Airlines will deliver if they find the bag.

Onward with the monster. If you are lucky, such bags will only take up all of the room in the small trunks of cars common in Europe. If not, they won’t fit at all. I was safe if I traveled alone and kept the spare tire in the back seat but I was ready to ditch monster after three months. Unfortunately, circumstances and logistics prevented this disposal and I found myself again at baggage claim, this time in Venice. My fears were unfounded this time and the monster appeared for claiming. Struggling it onto the hotel launch, I made my way through the canals toward my home for the next three weeks in sestiere San Marco, a short walk from Piazza San Marco, two sets of bridge stairs from the launch dock, a fifth floor walk up. Monster is again a problem.

Old Venetian apartments have very high ceilings, eleven feet or higher. It’s a long way up five flights of stairs. The overnight flight from San Francisco with a stopover at Heathrow was not conducive to hauling a giant bag up those stairs so the monster spent the night in the trash room just inside the door. The next morning, braced with a strong cup of Italian coffee, I met the challenge and managed, step by step, to reach the top. It would be at least another three months before that bag saw the light of day. I bought a smaller bag, stored the monster in my friend’s closet then proceeded to travel throughout Italy with a greatly reduced wardrobe and a significantly lighter load. The bag now resides in a storage locker where it holds more reasonably sized bags. It’s a reminder–if you bring it, you carry it.

I follow the crowd. Climbing the spiral stairs up from deep beneath Montmarte at the Lamarck/ Caulaincourt Metro stop, I am happy to be a baggage-light traveler.

Traveling light is my signature. I always have the smallest backpack, fewest number of bags, least amount of superfluous clothing of anyone in any group. My goal is to carry everything on the plane, no checked luggage. I have it down to a science and, over the years, have found the perfect bags to meet that goal. Baggage-light means arriving at De Gaulle with a small daypack and a cabin-sized rolling bag ready to walk, however far, up however many steps to reach my destination without hailing a taxi. The trip into Paris from De Gaulle on public transportation was a breeze, on the flat or escalators, taking me from Gare de Nord to line 4 to line 12 arriving at my destination in just under an hour. Perfect.

Back to that spiral staircase. By landing number five, I am struggling with my baggage-light load and think I may not make it to the top. This upward journey started with three straight flights before the spiral even began. I was already panting at the second turn and praying that the end was near on the fourth. The good and the bad about a spiral staircase is that you can’t see that end.

The architect of those stairs must have known that five turns are all a body can withstand because that fifth landing was the last. As I proceeded to the exit gate, exhausted but happy to have made it and relieved that the return trip would be down, I watched a large number of people disembark from the elevator. Who knew?

Balance is key when confronted with a squat toilet. For the westerner, it is useful to have a handle for stability, but, more importantly, to have strong leg muscles. I am no stranger to squat toilets. My first encounter was, surprisingly, in a small town in France. There have been times when I would have welcomed the squat. For example, on the train to Mexico City when I discovered the reason the seats were unsittable as the door flew open on a bend in the rails and I saw the woman standing on the toilet. Better a hole in the floor.

But the biggest challenge came at the bus station in Kaili. My guide had gone to buy the tickets and I was left to fend for myself with bags. I manage to travel with a relatively light load, keeping my backpack to 12 kilos with camera gear in a front pack so walking and climbing stairs do not hamper me. A squat toilet presents a different problem that may not be apparent until too late. There I was, pants around my knees using the walls for a little support, when it came time to get up. My leg muscles failed me. I could not raise myself to a standing position and I didn’t know how to yell, “Help, I’m stuck in this position, get me out of here” in Chinese. Nor would my pride have allowed me to do that even if I had known the words. This was a small space with not enough room to propel myself forward and get up camel style. This required a straight up motion. Several false starts and I was officially concerned that there was no way up that didn’t entail sitting on the toilet floor, or worse, and removing the backpack. The solution presented itself when I looked up and saw that I could reach the top of the door. Pull myself up. By this time, the leg muscles were jelly and useless. Arm muscles, my weakest, were required. Panting and panicked, I struggled, legs quivering and tears in my eyes, gaining upward movement an inch at a time. With one final end-of-strength pull, I was upright; shaking and heart pounding, but upright. With a nonchalance I didn’t feel, I opened the door and stepped out into the crowded room. My backpack was never out of sight, but the next time it will be on the floor.

The sky was dark when we started for the bus stop. I had asked Kyra what time the bus came but her answer was vague. Seven o’clock, maybe, or eight or nine, if it comes. This is the small village of Zhaoxing in Guizhou Province, China and there is much that is vague. We stopped for a quick bowl of noodles for breakfast then walked to the center of town where, we supposed, the bus would stop, if it came. At seven, no bus. Kyra left several times to recheck the schedule. Always the same, maybe now, maybe later, maybe maybe. Her aunt sat with us for awhile, sharing juicy oranges and nuts. She spoke no English and my Chinese is limited to the most basic of pleasantries but she wanted to share in the waiting. Five past eight, we heard the clatter of a struggling bus coming up the main street, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. Kyra stepped out to wave the driver down, otherwise he would have kept up his momentum and driven straight through. She spoke briefly with the driver, handed him a slip of paper and waved me onto the bus. I had the note with directions in Chinese she had given me the night before but I was happy to have someone sharing the knowledge who spoke the language.

It was a small bus and almost full but I found an empty seat where I was able to sit the necessary sideways. It’s a rare Chinese bus that allows me to sit any other way. I require either two seats or an aisle. I settled in for the 9 hour bus ride and waved goodby to Kyra and her tiny home town. I was on my own for the next four days with only a vague idea of where I was going and no idea where I would be sleeping. As the bus made its way along the rutted road, it stopped occasionally to pick up passengers until there was standing room only and my legs were swung out into the aisle. Two hours into the trip, the bus stopped.

There was a noisy discussion that seemed to indicate that this was unusual. Most of the passengers left the bus and headed toward another bus stopped just ahead. No one had said anything about a transfer point and we were a long way from anything resembling a town. A twinge of apprehension prickled my neck as I contemplated my next move. To stay or not to stay. The young couple who spoke just a little English started to leave just as the bus driver returned to the bus with note in hand and started pointing at me. The couple and the remaining people on the bus now came to my aid and started gesturing toward the exit. I got the message. Get off the bus. The first step was into a mud hole. Clearly the bus exchange was a result of the recent rains that left a portion of the road impassable forcing us to slip and slide our way through the muck separating the two buses. The good news was a bus upgrade to a newer, larger bus with seats for everyone.

Next stop, Kaili, where I did expect a transfer and was armed with my second note in Chinese and the correct pronunciation of Guiyang, my destination for the night. A semblance of a line was forming in front of a lone window and I dutifully joined it. Ticket buyers kept coming in from all angles to get to the window. Each, it seemed, had a special situation until I realized that they all wanted to buy tickets just as I did. With that realization, the bony elbows leapt from my side and became knives cutting through the crowd as I allowed no others to push past me until I reached the window, shouted my request and thumped my money on the counter. Success. I had the ticket and the body was intact. I boarded my third bus of the day and positioned myself nicely in the front seat with plenty of leg room only to discover that we had assigned seats and mine was in the back of the bus amongst the vendors and their overflowing bundles taking up the aisles. Knees pressed against the seat, onward, bus!