A trip to Italy

With a sidebar in Holland…

Hello to my readers. I thank you for that…for being my readers, I mean. Whether it’s my Notes, or my stories, it really doesn’t matter, as there are over 1000 of you. I’ve been here for two years now, (as of June 2nd), and it’s been two years of healing and growing—yes, even at my age. Some of you know me, but most of you don’t, and that’s the amazing part. The fact that people not only like what I write, but like to read my comments and other words. My Notes are different from my stories. You can’t read my stories unless you’re subscribed to my Stack, or I put up the link for everyone to read…which is why I put them up on Notes. So rather than just hanging around the periphery, why not come on in and join the fun? Oh wait a minute, that’s me having fun in the sun right now, isn’t it?

In case you haven’t heard, I’m on hiatus. I’ve shut down my page, and am just making random comments when travel allows. That’s just my way of saying I’m on holidays. I guess that’s vacation in England, or something like that. It was supposed to be a combination second honeymoon and wedding anniversary. We had planned to take this trip a few years ago, with a friend, but then Covid happened, and everything went South. It took a year to get our money back. But our plans have changed because it is our Fortieth Anniversary, and I was hoping we could treat it as a second honeymoon…well, that’s what it’s like in all the Rom-coms. Reality sometimes gets in the way.

We arrived in Amsterdam and were met at the airport by my cousin, and her husband. It was the 27th of May. We were booked for a chocolate walking tour in Brussels three days later, which was amazing to say the least. I’m not going to try and describe the architecture, or tell you what style it is, in Brussels. We’ve all seen the pictures. It’s enough to say that Brussels takes you breath away.

But it’s the people you meet along the way, isn’t it? There was the travel agent who was on her first vacation in six years. You find out quite quickly how much Covid screwed things up for other people,not just yourselves. That’s all water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned. It stopped me just as much as it stopped a lot of other people. The wife had it and was bedridden for about ten days. It happened at the same time I had my accident at work, which meant that everyone left us alone. That all happened in January of 2022.

We finally managed to get our shit together though, and decided that it was time to go to Europe again. I think the last time we were in Holland was way back in 2013. This time we wanted to see certain things—like the Alps—and do special things—like do north Italy. We want to visit Cinque Terra on the coast. We also wanted to stop by Lake Como. That’s where we are right now. A quaint place? I don’t think that’s the word to describe it. All the streets where we are, are cobblestones. The streets are narrow, filled with tables and placards showing you what they have to offer. We’re right beside the Duomo, the church, and when we went inside to look at it yesterday, it left us speechless. Like everything else here in Italy, Como is old. It has a history of war with Milan, and everything centred around the Church. I can see why someone might want to live in a place like this. I certainly wouldn’t mind it one little bit. The view of the surrounding hills and the magnificent houses pasted to the hillsides is stunning—again, breath-taking. The first thing I would have if I lived here, to be sure, is a boat, and a house overlooking the lake.

But first, let me tell you what happened to the wife, back in Holland. It was only a few days ago. Right now, she’s in a lot of pain as a result. My cousin and her husband like to do the outdoorsy things, which is great. It forces me to get off my ass. We always walk around whatever city we’re in. We did Brussels and walked on our little chocolate tour, built chocolate treats like we were all in grade three, which didn’t impress my wife, too much. When we got back to Holland that night, the buses had already stopped, so my cousin’s husband came out to pick us up while she was at choral practice. We’d missed our train and had to wait for the next one, so we were already behind. She, of course, (meaning the wife) was freaking out because we were inconveniencing my cousin’s husband. (He said we weren’t, but she couldn’t accept that.)

We had to be back in Holland because there was going to be a family gathering of all the cousins on the Sunday. The night before, we were invited to go to a 50th birthday party for five different women - one of whom was my cousin’s daughter-in-law. As there was going to be drinking involved, it was decided that we would travel by bicycle. Sounds great already, doesn’t it? It was a 10 K ride, flat, with no hills. On that ride, I ended up riding with my cousin’s husband, and the girls were lagging behind. We would look behind once in a while, but not often. On one such glance back, something appeared to be amiss. It looked like there had been a fall. He told me to wait where I was while he went back to check things out. He said it didn’t look serious.

He came back and told me we could go ahead. As we rode along, he told me that my wife had fallen off the bike, and left it pretty well like that. Well, she fell, and the one time she wasn’t wearing a helmet, falls, and hits the left side of her head and face on the pavement. She fell, and we think she either bruised her ribs, or maybe cracked one. She’s got a massive bruise on her upper, outer thigh; a bruise on her ribs, another on her arm, close to her elbow…and a black eye that came in three days later, just in time for us to go on our Grand Tour. She looks like a victim of abuse. She told me she was going to “flinch” every time I raised my hand in her direction. That woman is a little twisted.

She’s having a difficult time catching her breath, and I told her she has to force herself to breathe properly, or she will leave herself open to pneumonia. It’s been hard, but she does understand the seriousness of it. She has a hard time getting in and out of bed, but she manages. She does one of those coughing-crying-whining things, every time she tries to catch her breath, or coughs, or—God forbid—sneezes. If you’ve ever cracked or broken a rib, you’ll understand.

So the next day, (having gotten her a ride home with my cousin’s son at the end of the night), after the fall, we go to the Cousins Reunion. The thing you have to understand about the cousins is that pretty well all of them speak English. My wife’s been around my mother and my aunts long enough over the last forty years, which has given her time to pick a few things up. They sometimes speak a mix of Dutch and English to her. They all love her though. I think that’s a result of her smile. She has one of those smiles that just lights up a room. They all grabbed her and hugged her. She’s short, and had to stretch up to greet them. They didn’t know she was hurting, and she didn’t tell them.

I think they may have heard stories about her from the various visiting relatives that have come to Canada over the years. Two aunts were at our wedding. A same aunt and an uncle were visiting for my parents’ forty-fifth anniversary, after which my uncle lifted her up and carried her out over his shoulder. The children were young, and cute. The daughter was under two years, and my dad stood her on the picnic table outside. And when we were here last, we’d met a few of the cousins. Now we got to meet the rest. They all knew her because of Facebook, as well.

The day before we left, my cousin and her husband had to leave for an overnight trip. One of my other cousins has a boat, and the next thing we know, we’re boating, drinking wine, and singing, while my cousin strummed the guitar; we stopped off and do a tour of Zaandam, see the windmills from the water, which by the way, is the best way to see them.

Now, with all of this, my wife is still in pain. She has a hard time getting in and out of the boat, but you’d never know it. When they ask how we’re getting to the train station in Amsterdam, we say we plan to take the bus to Zaandam, and a connecting Sprinter train to Amsterdam Central. They offer to drive us. We take them up on that.

And that’s brought us here. Through Zurich, by train, and then the mountains south, to Lake Como, with me basically handling the two overnight bags and carry-on suitcases, for each of us. Four bags, over cobblestoned streets, getting lost, and finally arriving.

Today we leave for Bologna, and cooking classes, which I thought was just one. It should be amazing. We did one in Florence the last time we were here. Let’s hope this is as good. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write again, but I’ll try to keep you posted.