Walking Italy's Scenic Towns I: The Planning

Back in the dark months of COVID when there was no vaccine and no end in sight to isolation and “sheltering in place,” we were bundling up in the winter air and watching European travel documentaries by Rick Steves and Stanley Tucci’s food travelogue called Searching for Italy.

Our boys each had one night a week that they cooked for all of us.

The four of us would hunker down with our baked potatoes, homemade meatloaf, or warm scones, and revel in some vicarious experiences – walking down Italian roads to places where people gather, converse, laugh, and eat together – the very things we could not do with others.

Interspersed in those months were times that I could not walk due to a back injury. While the kids were in school, I’d make some food for myself and retreat upstairs to our bedroom for a day (or sometimes a week) of lying still. I couldn’t sit up, but I could lie supine and read while holding a book above my face. Now and then I’d stand to practice my ukulele, then lie down again. There was a lot of thinking time.

I’m a dreamer, and once I was able to sit up again without too much pain, I noticed there were extraordinary deals circulating on all of the legitimate travel websites. It was really strange to think about traveling since we couldn’t even leave our houses to go to a local event or visit a friend. There were no local events. There was no gathering together in living rooms. Orcas Island isn’t a cozy outdoor place in February or March, so we were all in our little individual homes, waiting for a safe time and season to commune.

Gosh, the deals were unbeatable though. Would we kick ourselves later for not planning an inexpensive, refundable trip? All we’d have to do was cancel it if COVID was still raging in the summertime. I couldn’t do a whole lot but hang around the house or go on extensive walks, since walking was one of the only things my back agreed with.

So for two weeks, I dreamed and planned and compared prices.

After a few days of research, I decided to create our own customized trip without the help of travel companies, just to see if the total price would exceed or be comparable to the package deals I was finding. I chose little Italian towns we really wanted to explore, added up the flights and AirBnBs, and marveled that our own trip didn’t cost more than the city-bound packages on the travel sites.

So should we go for it, we asked ourselves? Might as well!

In April we got our first vaccine.

In May we got the second.

June began a summer of seeing people out again, going to the lake, enjoying life, and warming up for long periods of time.

July brought a heat wave with it, so we had to go to the lake to cool off and enjoy one another; staying in our houses just didn’t make sense. The lake was filled with happy swimmers and paddlers, and town was filled with tourists. Life finally felt normal again, which brought us closer to this dream we had planned months ago – a dream that was looking more and more like a reality. Unbelievably so.

I called airlines to inquire whether mandatory quarantines in Italy for those “transiting through” the UK applied to us. I was seeing notices all over the internet, warning of this. Our tickets would stop us in London to change planes but we’d never leave the airport. No one had an answer for me.

Our 11-year-old still couldn’t get a vaccine. Should we lie about his age for the sake of his safety and get one anyway? The thought crossed my mind more than once. What’s worse – lying for the sake of saving a child from this pandemic illness that affects each person differently, or waiting for more testing and hoping everything goes well on the trip?

We talked the moral and health issues over as a family. I hated the idea of lying. Our son didn’t like the idea of getting a vaccine that wasn’t fully tested for his age. He’s so close to the age of kids who are fully vaccinated – would his body react all that differently from theirs? I didn’t like the idea of saying he was 12, vaccinating him, and then telling my local doctor that we lied in order to get the shot the next time our son happened to have an appointment. Neither option was a good one. We sided with not vaccinating him. I hoped it wasn’t a dire mistake. I’d never forgive myself.

Reminders for scheduling Walgreens COVID tests were typed into my calendar. You can only book tests three days before getting them. Which would work – the results-within-minutes BinaxNow test or the results-in-24-hours RapidID test? An acquaintance who had recently traveled to Central America recommended the former.

Time was ticking down. I couldn’t believe it all seemed to be a go.

We booked COVID tests and hoped for the best for our younger one. We would not gather with others indoors, nor would we eat inside restaurants. Airplanes, trains, and buses would be the main places we’d potentially swap airborne pathogens with strangers. Planes are statistically safe. Our train tickets showed half-capacity routes with large, spacious areas between passengers. Buses would be the main unknown.

We packed our bags in disbelief.

We digested as many Italian words for travelers as possible. We hadn’t devoted much time to everyday Italian beforehand, thinking this might all just be a fantasy. Our younger one and I had studied the language on Duolingo in the spring, but that program is mainly for getting a firm foundation. Saying ‘Il ragazzo mangia la mela’ (The boy eats the apple) doesn’t get you very far when you need directions to the train station.

A few nights before our departure date, I called the airline one last time. Considering we had tickets with no change fees, I asked if there happened to be any other flights available that wouldn’t transit through the UK. I simply could not find a website that clearly defined the phrase “transiting through.” COVID restrictions morph and change by the day; finding accurate, up-to-the-minute information can be really tough.

The woman I spoke with at Aer Lingus, the Irish airline that offered the only reasonably priced flight I could find in a sea of $1800 tickets back in March, stated that I had already used my “no change fee” status. I kindly reminded her that I had not initiated Aer Lingus’s route changes in June, which caused our amazingly affordable tickets to be completely dropped out of the blue. Thankfully, Aer Lingus rebooked tickets for us on a British Airways flight for no charge.

Now, due to the spike in COVID in the UK, we wanted to see what our other options were. The woman at Aer Lingus very nicely began what became an hours-long search for another route away from London Heathrow Airport. Upon finding an option through Frankfurt, Germany, she put me on hold. A few minutes later, she came back and said, “I’m so sorry. My manager has informed me that we cannot use this carrier. I will have to refund your tickets.”

“Wait, refund our tickets? What do you mean?” I held back my inner gasps.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am, I removed you from your other tickets and put you on the new flight. Since I am not authorized to use this carrier now, I can only refund your tickets.”

My jaw dropped. By this point, it was 3 AM. Oh my gosh.

“Uhhhhhhhhh…… Well….. Please put me on the line with your manager; she must be able to help me.”

My husband happened to walk in the laundry room where I was talking. He had awakened and seen lights on downstairs.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“We’ve lost our tickets.”

“Wait, I’m in a dream, right?” He really thought he was, and looked like it too.

“No, you’re not. I can’t believe it. I’m going to work on it and figure out what to do.”

He went back upstairs, dazed and confused, hoping it really was a dream.

On came the manager. She promised that over the next few hours, she would comb her sources for a reasonable flight path for us. I told her that I would go to bed for a few hours and wait for her call to awaken me. Before heading to bed, I did some rapid flight research, in case we’d be forced to accept a refund and start anew. I found one flight that had reasonably overpriced tickets, also stopping through Frankfurt. All of the others were ridiculously exorbitant – completely off the charts. Like buying a ticket with Jeff Bezos to space. Well, like paying first class times seven. Ugggh.

I hovered over the overpriced tickets and read the fine print that said I had 24 hours to cancel with a full refund, and bought those things before I could lose them too.

Six in the morning came quickly with a ring on the phone. The Aer Lingus manager announced enthusiastically that she had found a flight. But there was a 12-hour layover in London.

Wait. That’s what we had been trying to avoid in the first place. Now we’d have to stay in a hotel outside of the airport and then surely we’d be considered “transiting through” the UK. That would guarantee a 5-day quarantine in Italy upon our arrival in Rome.

“Is that really the only option available?”

“Yes, I’m so sorry, ma’am.”

“Uhh…. (long pause) Uhh…. (long pause) Uhh…. (long pause) Okay. We’ll go ahead and take the refund.”

Just like that, only days before the trip, we lost our plane tickets. Our oh-so-affordable tickets. We couldn’t just cancel the trip, though. At this point, all of our refundable AirBnBs were passing the dates of refundability. In fact, by noon that day, another of our six AirBnBs we booked would surpass its refundable date. We could either scrap the trip and lose a lot of money from AirBnBs that we never got to stay in, or accept these new, more expensive airline tickets and resurrect the adventure from near-ruin.

I explained everything that happened to my husband, who was taking it all in as best as possible in the early morning hours. Neither of us likes to pay more than we have to for something, but we decided it was the best of the two options. Off through Frankfurt we’d go. No transit or quarantine gray area.

We had decided at the beginning of the summer to have wood floors installed in our house. Too many years of clammy mornings in the partially subterranean room our boys sleep in made me adamant about a change from mold-harboring carpet to dry wood. When we learned our house would be on the August schedule, that meant we’d be gone during the installation. What an unexpected boon!

We moved our furniture and packed our bags.

We headed to the public school for COVID tests on our last afternoon on the island. A new free program of weekly Wednesday testing had begun. My husband is a coach and the kids are still considered part of the district even though they don’t go to the public school, so the three of them qualified for testing.

In the process of getting tested, the nurse mentioned that the tests would not count for travel.

Not count? But they’re BinaxNOW tests. Don’t all BinaxNOW tests count? Uh oh.

Months before, my husband had done a lot of research on COVID tests and contemplated buying a 6-pack of BinaxNOW rapid antigen at-home tests online for $125. When we heard that the same tests were free at Walgreens, we scrapped the expensive option but wondered if we could ever run into any problems. Our travel plans were completely dependent on the COVID tests we needed to have right before flying out. They’d be in our control if we had them in our hands at home. They’d be out of our control if we depended on an outside source to administer them to us.

We got home and I hurriedly searched online for any Walgreens slots that were still open. I had one appointment for myself in Anacortes for the BinaxNOW test and one in Renton for the RapidID test, just in case. Not that the latter would necessarily work since it takes 24 hours for results, but I just felt better having an appointment in two locations rather than one. Now I needed four appointments in a row before our flight. We were scheduled for a 6:20 PM departure from SeaTac, and we had to arrive at the airport three hours early for our international flight.

The Anacortes Walgreens slots were all filled up. So were the slots in a lot of towns on the way to Seattle. I found a store in Burien near the airport that had plenty of open slots – shwoo! We booked them, dropped off our pets with loving caretakers, and enjoyed one last night of sleep in our own beds.

Still in disbelief that this trip might really be happening, we boarded the 8:50 AM ferry the next morning, August 5th, and began our drive to Seattle.

Our plans had almost been thwarted a few nights before when we lost our tickets, and now we felt a heavy dose of anxiety regarding COVID testing. Would the BinaxNOW tests we were about to take count? We had done so much research before the trip, gotten as well-versed as possible regarding changing COVID requirements and Green Passes, and filled out various passenger locator forms that monitor the movement of humans over borders during pandemic times. But we still felt like at any moment it could all crumble.

Wanting some advice as soon as possible, we stopped at the Walgreens in Anacortes to inquire about the travel legitimacy of the BinaxNOW test. The pharmacy assistant said no, it would not count. We would need the RapidID test, which we would have needed to take the day before flying out.

“But an acquaintance of ours had her family tested on the way to the airport just a month ago before flying to Central America, and it was fine,” we pleaded.

“Well, the airlines don’t communicate with us about what they need. We just administer the tests.”

Uh oh.

Our anxiety levels shot up. I’m a pretty go-with-the-flow person; not an anxious type. This immediate leveling-up of stress was heavy. All of our plans and a lot of money now hung in the balance. Whatever was about to happen over the next several hours would determine whether we’d be excitedly flying over the Atlantic or solemnly catching a ferry back to a house whose floors were being torn out.

All we could do was continue moving forward. We have phones but we don’t have cell service, so we found a fickle connection in a Starbucks parking lot and got directions to Burien. On we drove. We had never been there before, and we took a route that looked like we were driving as far away from the airport direction as possible. Our anxiety spiked even higher. Could we now cause ourselves to miss the appointments in Burien? Things just didn’t look right; our internal compasses nagged at us.

My husband asked if we had a Seattle map in the car. I had recently taken everything out of the car, washed the exterior, and cleaned everything inside. I had junked any maps and doodads we hadn’t used in the past nine years. Could I have junked all of the Seattle maps since we’re rarely there?

No! Thankfully, there was a nice big one in the side pocket next to me. Another shwoo!! He unfolded it and traced our path. Thank God, we were just about to come into Burien. We could have stayed on the normal course headed toward SeaTac, but at least this route got us there too.

I had created a document in the Notes app on my MacBook and shared it with my husband’s and son’s iPhones. It had a screen shot of every Walgreens; every Italian train, ferry, and bus QR code for tickets we had pre-purchased; and every walking path we’d need to know to get us from ports or train stations to our AirBnBs. We wouldn’t have service until arriving in Italy and purchasing a SIM card, and even then I didn’t want to depend on whatever unknown service that might be. I wanted to make sure every last piece of information we needed from the aether was in our hands.

We followed the map in my Notes to the Burien Walgreens, arriving in perfect timing to go in and inquire about the tests before having them administered to us through the side window of the store.

We asked the burning question.

“No, these tests won’t count for travel,” said the pharmacy assistant.

“But they’re the same tests as the ones you buy online to self-administer before traveling,” we insisted.

I haven’t felt such a level of anxious uncertainty in a long time.

With 45 minutes to spare before our appointments, we asked where the nearest Taco Bell was and drove off to get some lunch to bring back and eat in the car in the Walgreens parking lot. The time ticked down. There was nothing we could do but go through the motions now and hope for the best.

We drove the car around to the side window for our 2:00 appointments, swabbed our noses, and handed the test tubes to the assistant. My husband and kids were emoting about the discomfort they felt in their nasal passages. I, meanwhile, felt very little reason to complain.

“Maybe you didn’t swab far enough, Mom.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you have to go up farther than what’s comfortable.”

“Well, he was watching each one of us. Wouldn’t he have said something if I wasn’t swabbing high enough?”

“It’s okay, Mom. It’ll be fine.”

“No, what if I didn’t do it right? What if my results don’t come back conclusive??”

By this time, we were driving away from the window. Our test results would be emailed to us in about 30 minutes, but we couldn’t check the results until we had access to WiFi at the airport. I did not want to get to that point in the day and receive an “inconclusive” result, blocking me from entering the airport.

Back around to the parking lot I drove. I unstrapped my seatbelt to go in and talk to the pharmacist.

“Mom, come on! Let’s just go!” The kids thought I was being ridiculous.

“No. Life has taught me the hard way when I haven’t listened to my instincts and double-checked something that was iffy. I can’t come back here later. I can’t get a new appointment somewhere else. If I don’t pass this test, I can’t get on the plane. I’m not taking that chance at this point.”

I waited awhile for the pharmacist to finish what she was doing. She was slammed with orders and there was a hefty line of people waiting to have prescriptions filled. She was young, quick, and sharp, and she only had about 10 seconds for me.

“I’m so sorry, but I just got a COVID test and I wonder if I didn’t swab my nose far enough. What would happen if I didn’t?”

The assistant who had administered the test tuned in at that point, in between all of the busy paperwork and test-tube-gathering he was attending to, and said, “The results would probably come out negative.”

“No,” interjected the pharmacist, politely yet sternly. “The results could say inconclusive. What’s your last name?”

She found our paperwork that was scrolling out from a small printer.

“Two of you are negative. The results from the other two will be ready in 10 minutes.”

She hurriedly went back to filling orders, and I went back to the parking lot to wait with the gang.

When I went back in, another assistant was helping out. She asked what I needed, but implied that results could not be verbalized. Oh gosh. The pharmacist tuned in immediately and shot her a look that said, ‘Just do it. You have my permission.’ The assistant found a little piece of scratch paper, wrote our first names on it, and put a minus sign next to each one.

Hallelujah!!

At least we were all clear of sickness. Now we had to see what the airport had to say. Would the tests count?

We drove to SeaTac and dropped our car off at Extra Car Airport Parking – my husband had made a reservation months before, and they offered fantastic deals for long-term parking. Aside from COVID testing, the timing of everything was going like clockwork – smooth as silk. We boarded the shuttle van and our Hawaiian driver was lighthearted and friendly, as sunny as the day outside. We had made it this far. Would our plans work out or be shut down in mere moments at check-in?

Into the airport we walked, and with no line to wait in, we approached the check-in agent. We pulled out our passports and flimsy paper vaccine cards, and showed her the flight confirmation and itinerary in my Notes.

“May I see his COVID test, please?” Her eyes implied our younger son, the only one of us who couldn’t get vaccinated.

A few moments elapsed. We were all standing with rapt attention, noting every move she made, wondering what our fate would be.

“Okay, thank you very much. Please load your bags one at a time here.”

Oh my gosh! No way! We’re going to Italy! Our minds individually buzzed as we shot wide-eyed looks of restrained astonishment at each other. Our brains were as loud with disbelief as our mouths were silent.

Off went our luggage on the conveyor belt, and away we walked from the desk, tickets in hand for a boarding time of 5:40. The COVID tests counted! Not only had they counted, only one of them was asked for. After all of that consternation, an exhausted, relieved, bewildered awe set in.

We found our gate and searched for an open area in which to hang out for 90 minutes before boarding our plane. We could finally relax…

I now sit here and write the beginning of this story wrapped in a fleece blanket and sweatshirt. The late-August air is unusually cold and crisp, and the thick cloud cover is all too familiar for these parts. Our younger son’s newly-adopted bearded dragon changes its position on my arm, and my body longs to be hiking steep mountains in hot, humid weather in between Cinque Terre towns rather than sitting chilly in front of a screen.

I write so that I won’t lose the experiences so quickly. I want to draw them out and bask in them just a little longer. To pretend I can walk out the door and jump in the warm, clear-blue Tyrrhenian Sea for a few more hours of fabulous floating. To remind myself of the little details that are already starting to fade now that we’re 9 time zones and nearly half a planet away from them.

Join me for the next several days’ diversion from Orcas Island life, walking Italy’s scenic towns.

Off we go from the Puget Sound…