What I did on my Summer Vacation
By
Ted Kane
(photos by Christy Luna)

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There's no better way to kick of the summer than with a nice vacation. This year, for the first time in close to two decades, I went and did what all those right-wingers have been telling us to do for so long--I went to Europe, Italy to be specific, albeit only for two weeks. It was a family vacation, and Christy and I joined my parents as well as my sister Laura and her family (husband Bill and their 12-year old daughter Rachel). We spent the first week at house in a coastal town called Recco in Liguria, then went to Chianti for the second week. But we went all over, really; took a hike in the Cinque Terre, visited the museums of Florence, tasted wine at a couple of vineyards, took in the Coliseum in Rome and even went to Monte Carlo one day to offer an obligatory ten euro to the gaming gods. We also got to spend a very hot couple of hours each way on the Tube during our all too brief layover in London on the way back.

I have really fond memories of Recco, a sleepy little town on the Italian Riviera. The pace of life was just so completely different than what we are used to here, it was really charming. Instead of going to big supermarkets, you go to smaller grocers and special markets for fresh produce, meat and cheese. And you don't do anything more strenuous than relax on the beach or drink coffee in a shop between one and four in the afternoon when commerce more or less grinds to a halt. The food we ate was wonderful...we found great restaurants, ranging from delicious pizza shops to fine dinning. Recco also had a little train station, and we rode the excellent Trenitalia service for a couple of day trips.

One of the trips we took was to the Cinque Terra, five cities that are linked by hiking trails. Having read a lot of travel propaganda about what a pleasant excursion this was, I was in no way prepared for how grueling it would be; the ‘forty-five’ minute walk I expected between the towns of Monterosso and Vernazza ended up being a steep, over ninety-minute march through very narrow trails. It was worth it, though. The views were magnificent and it just made the wine and gelato taste that much better at the end of the hike.

Chianti was a whole different thing altogether. We stayed in a vineyard, in the backhouse of an ancient castle. It was certainly picturesque and the wine was not too bad, but the building itself was overrun with ants and the mold was rough on my allergies. Still, it was a great base of operations. And let me tell you, Chinati makes Napa look like Palookaville, everywhere you look, rolling vineyards. We spent a couple of days in Greve, and visited a couple of vineyards, most notably the wonderful Casaloste, whose wares we hauled across the Atlantic and over to the Pacific. We visited the charming city of San Gimignano, drinking its famed white Vernaccia wine and exploring the local shops and museums. We saw the walled cities of Monteriggioni and, too briefly, Siena.

We went once through Siena at the end of a day’s travels intending to come back, but once we went to Florence the next day, it was all over. A friend of Christy’s described Florence as a museum of a city, but it’s really a theme park of museum of a city. So much history and so much art, everywhere you look. The house where Dante lived. The Uffizi, housing an unbelievable collection of art—world famous paintings and sculpture one after the other to the point where you were overloaded with it. The National Gallery with Michelangelo’s David and a magnificent collection of early musical instruments. So much to see and take in, we did what we could in a limited amount of time.

All good things come to an end, though, and it was time to go home. We got into Rome a few hours before our flight home and had enough time to take in the Coliseum. What a magnificent old structure, where the echoes of history still resound. Let’s hope they never embrace American values there, or else it’ll probably be renovated with PSL’s and luxury boxes for the wealthy.

We had a great time in Italy, seeing the sights and reconnecting with the family. We kept busy, but got to relax also. Next time, I won’t wait as long before leaving the country. It’s really nice to get a chance of pace and perspective.