northampton, ma

It's been awhile, mostly due to the fact that I have been with my father for the last week, who came over to travel around with me for 12 days. We've had a very busy week so far, consisting of three days in Rome, two in Siena, and two in Assisi at Brigolante. There's a lot to write about, hopefully I'll remember all of it.

First I must backtrack back to Ischia, and the amazing entrance of two girls from New York. If you ever wanted to witness the pinnacle of Fast Travel, you would do well by meeting these girls and hearing their story. They had only been in Europe for 5 days and their travels went like this: day one, fly into Paris and night train to Milan. Day two, Cinque Terre. Day three - Florence; day four - Rome, day five - Ischia. I met them on their fifth day, wherein they told me of their future itinerary: day 6 - ferry from Ischia to Naples, train from Naples to Bari, overnight ferry from Bari to Corfu, Greece. One night there and then a ferry and train to Athens. Athens for a day and then a flight to Copenhagen. The rest of their trip they didn't get into, but essentially the plan they were executing was Paris to Athens to Copenhagen in 8 days. I have to hand it to them, they were ambitious, but good god I'd rather stay home then do that kind of trip.

I didn't really want to leave Ischia, although I knew it was time. If it weren't for my father's arrival into Rome I would perhaps have succumbed to the temptation, but surely would have ended up in a traveller's rut (where you get too comfortable in one place, ending up staying there but also riding a very fine balance between relaxation and boredom, tending to boredom). Besides, I had to eventually leave because I left my passport in Naples and was pushing 10 days on Ischia and running the risk that the (very nice) hostel workers in Naples would get tired of seeing my passport in their drawer and would hawk it to someone on the street. So I left, picked up my father in the Rome airport, and began another new phase of my trip: travelling with Dad.

Travelling with someone is an entirely different experience than travelling by oneself, both good and bad. At least when you travel with someone you know as well as a parent you know your limitations with the other person, and that generally leads to less arguing and general bad times. Him and I had travelled for three weeks together in 2003 when I was studying in Bologna, so I knew that it would be (and it is) a good time and not really that stressful. I use the word stress because as anyone who has travelled both solo and with a partner/group, the latter has a lot more opportunity for stress than the former. At least, if you are the type who is ''independent-alpha'' and enjoys one's own company. I suppose some would find travelling solo to be more stressful than having someone with them, those who don't share this A-type personality trait. Anyway, last time we had travelled together we only saw Milan, Bologna, and Venice in Italy, so this time I wanted to show him the central region of Italy. It helped that I won a free week at Brigolante, an agriturismo outside of Assisi (and in reality, this free week is probably what convinced him to come in the first place, he can't resist a bargain).

One interesting thing that travelling with a partner does is that it makes you more active. By myself I tend to be sedentiary and lazy about sightseeing, but when you are with another person (especially one new to the area of travel) you are always going to be more active. And so it went in Rome. We had a busy three days of seeing the sights, with me finally going into the Colusseum and Sistene Chapel. It's not that I didn't want to go to these places on my prior adventures in Rome. To borrow a brilliant phrase from the British, I simply couldn't be bothered. The Colusseum was actually a lot more cool than I thought it would be (I had imagined it would be flooded with tourists when in fact it wasn't so bad). The Sistene Chapel was the exact opposite ... pretty and interesting, but not worth the torturous walk through narrow Vatican Museum corridors smashed with a million other tourists and a suffocating lack of air. In fact, the wait to get into the museum was peanuts compared to the horribly slow going from the entrance to the Chapel. We did have some good times otherwise in Rome, enjoying a night out at the Trevi Fountain, good eats at Da Baffetto and Da Francesco, sightseeing the very fashionable Rome women, and a fun guided tour of ''off beaten track'' Rome with Tony of 3 Millenia Tours (another freeby thanks to Slowtrav.com). Tony and the two of us shared very similar interests, so we had some good banter. Our only request to Tony was that he put us at a good place to watch the Italy-Ukraine match, which he did to perfection. Italy won 3-0 and a crazy party erupted in piazza Venezia and the roads branching off it. Italy at its finest.

(sidenote: I'm in Rebecca's office here at Brigolante, listening to her sing to her kids about cappucino and vino. Apparently one of them enjoys vino, based off his shouted reply of VINOOO.)

We escaped sweltering Rome to Siena, where we stayed with a brilliant lady named Beatrice and enjoyed the festivities and craze of the Palio.

[another sidenote, to those not familiar with the Palio: it's a centuries old tradition of Siena, happening twice a year. At its most simple, it's a horse race around their main town square. There are 18 neighborhoods of Siena, called 'contradas' and ten of them get to race each time. There's a lot of intrigue and history here, with some contradas being arch-enemies and some being friends. The jockeys backstab each other and try to make sure certain enemies lose and get paid a whole lot of money for doing so. The whole event is one big party and full of festivities and processions and whatnot, but it can also involve violence if one contrada doesn't like the outcome and goes looking for trouble. I'd guesstimate that around 100,000 people come to Siena for the event.]

We met up with Cristina and watched the race at the society house of her contrada, Selva. It was an excellent time, up until the horse from the Pantera contrada passed up its enemy L'Aquila on the very last corner and won the Palio. It was an incredible finish, a last second pass for victory. Everyone then skipped out of the party and neighborhood to avoid any potential brawl between the two warring contradas, who happened to be located just next door to where we were watching the race. The Palio is taken extremely seriously by the people of Siena, to the point that they will get in big fights over the outcome. Cristina told me a story of two years ago, the same two contradas got into a brawl that sent four policemen into the hospital. She too was freaked out by the result and was the first one out the door. We took a more relaxed approach and left maybe an hour later, after enjoying some beers on their beautiful terrace. We didn't see any fights, but instead had a great time afterwards with beer and slow meandering and hanging out in the plaza people watching and shooting the shit.

Yesterday we arrived here at Brigolante, Rebecca and Stefano's family farm and guesthouse. It's absolutely serene and beautiful here, of which I'll write more later. Ci vediamo!

[one last sidenote, starring Rebecca and her son:

Son: Mom you gave me too many peas! Rebecca: How about thanking your mother for giving you peas, I think that's what you wanted to say. Son: Thank you Mom for giving me too many peas.

Priceless.]