Lee Note 23 Martha McKean April 14, 2001

Dear Kay,

I'm sorry that I haven't responded sooner for your request for a trip report. We came back to all our volunteer groups needing attention and a son who is moving to New Jersey from Austin very soon. We are making the best of the little time he has left near us.

The trip to Italy was wonderful! All the things that guide books had warned us about didn't turn out to be a problem. Rome in the off season was cool, clean, quiet and there were no Gypsy children. They must have been sent South for the winter. We had an excellent hotel a block from the entrance to the Vatican museum. The walking was great and we covered lots of ground. We had been to Rome for a partial day tour from a Mediterranean cruise so could skip most of the Roman part.

We picked up a rental car and headed north along the coast to Siena. We had been concerned about driving with the wild Italian drivers but, though they flew past us when we were going 80 mph, they were very good drivers. The roads were quite good and well marked. It was lots better than driving the Houston freeways and I 10.

We took the autostrada most of the way to Siena inserting our Visa card into a machine to pay the tolls. I was always afraid that it would keep my card but we always got it back. The countryside became increasingly beautiful as we went north and east, gently rolling hills of brilliant spring green with farmsteads atop most hills with olive trees, vineyards and sheep.

Our arrival in Siena was not well timed. We arrived about 6:30 pm just in time for the passegiatta (evening stroll) when everyone takes to the streets for a leisurely stroll. It was obvious that although the hotel had told us we could drive there to leave our luggage that we were not supposed to be driving through town at that time. It was like driving in a flock of meandering sheep. In Medieval towns there is no going down a side street. Going 1 mph we finally arrived at the hotel and took the car to the car park and left it for the rest of the stay.

We came to love Siena after we recovered from the initial trauma. We took the bus from Siena to Florence for the day and covered most of the major sights. It was exhausting but good. We intend to return for a more thorough visit in the future. There is more art and architecture than one can absorb in one visit.

From Siena we drove to Luca, a wonderful, lesser-known hill town that our children had visited on their honeymoon and recommended. We chose to go through the Chianti area and found wonderful scenery and towns along the way. We had not planned to stop at San Giminano thinking it would be too touristy but we arrived about lunch time and found it very interesting and a good stop. Luca is small and very quaint, very little altered inside the wall, which is still intact. We had an excellent hotel here also.

We did a morning trip to Pisa from Luca. Pisa was overrun with teenagers and trinket sellers but since we arrived early in the day we escaped most of the crowd.

We went back roads to Assisi through more spectacular scenery, only once going off in the wrong direction. My husband had brought his compass, which I thought was a bit silly, but it kept us from going astray on that occasion.

The basilica of St. Francis rises up the side of the hill and is a remarkable sight from the plain below as you approach. We loved Assisi. Much has been restored since the devastating earthquake but there is still a lot of reconstruction going on. Our hotel entrance was down a construction tunnel but once inside it was lovely with a view of flowering trees in a garden below. If you are going to Assisi, go before your knees give out. It is all up and down steep medieval streets. Walking in the rain at night on these narrow lanes gave us a feeling of the oldness of it all.

We reluctantly headed back to Rome to turn in the car and fly back to Houston. It was a wonderful experience in many ways, the sights, the scenery, the art, the architecture, the food, and the people. We want to return and do the Lake Country and Milan in the future. We now know that we can find our way around in a foreign speaking country. We had driven all over England and New Zealand and the major towns of Belgium and Holland (where much English is spoken) but never in rural areas. I "speak" really well with my hands and with a few key direction words there wasn't a problem. I highly recommend a trip like this.

If anyone has any questions or wants any further information I'd love to share what I know. I'd also love to hear about others' travel experiences. Martha Jones Trautwein gave us good advice about Italy before the trip, which was reassuring.

Thanks so much for all you have done to reunite our class. It is great fun to read about classmates' journeys since 1960.

Martha McKean Wright