As is usual, the past few days have flown by. We left Seattle on Wednesday and are now settled into our temporary accommodations in Partigliano.
Instead of the usual dull, uneventful trip from there to here, our journey was a mix of highs and lows. We started with a few lows. When we checked our bags at SeaTac they said they were over weight. This was strange as we have a travel scale and weighed them before we left home. As we switched bags on and off Dom saw that the scale was not going to zero. It read 5 lbs. He pointed that out to the woman and got that straightened out--our bags were just under the 50 lb. limit. Then, when we got to our gate they were making about half the passengers get new boarding passes at the desk. This involved waiting in a long line with a considerable number of our fellow passengers. We were initially told they needed to check our passports but they never even looked at them so no idea what was really going on.
When we got onboard and to our seats we found people already in them--parents who wanted to sit by their daughter and grandchild in the next two center seats. So, we traded with them for a their window seats. That seemed pretty good to us but I asked the flight attendant who was overseeing all this to tell Michelle (the flight purser and a friend of our neighbor and fellow flight attendant ) we had changed seats. The flight attendant came back right away and asked for our boarding passes. When she came back again she asked us to follow her and we were reseated in row 4--Business Elite! It was a great experience and we really appreciate our neighbor’s effort on our behalf. Michelle and all the rest of the staff were really nice to us. One of the things I noticed about the front of the plane was how much quieter it is. Darn near everyone there seriously tried to sleep after dinner--very peaceful. Of course now we are spoiled for steerage class but it was fun while it lasted.
We had a very short connection in Amsterdam and although we made the plane to Nice, France our luggage did not. Dealing with delayed baggage with jet lag was not fun. Initially we were told that it was possible our bags would be on the afternoon flight. So we went and picked up our Renault lease car, drove it to the airport parking garage and slept in it for a few hours. At four thirty we went back to the baggage people and found out it would be the next morning before all our bags would catch up with us. This was a bit of a pain (although of course it could have been worse as they might never have shown up at all) as we had a reservation for the night in Sanremo, Italy, about an hour drive away. We decided to go stay in Sanremo and return to Nice the next morning.
This worked out pretty well as we arrived at our hotel in time to have a nice walk through the town and an early dinner. On Friday morning we checked out of our hotel and headed back to Nice. Because the flight with the last bag would not arrive until about 11:15 we stopped at Hanbury Botanical Gardens right on the French/Italian boarder. The gardens are huge and very interesting. I will write a more detailed post about them later and for now will just say we had a nice walk, a perfect cappuccino in the sunshine and I ran down the battery in the camera.
Once in Nice we picked up the bags and made it out of the parking garage within the 20 minute free window. Then we were on our way to Partigliano.
We arrived there at about 6 pm. Erina and Bruno were pleased to see us and we quickly settled into their rental house. At about 7:30 we decided to go out for a bite to eat before heading to bed early. Unfortunately, being rather rummy, we walked out of the house without either of the two house keys and one of them left in the lock on the inside. The latter means no other key will work in the lock. Erina and Bruno were not pleased but after some scrambling around she got her brother Antonio to bring his ladder. He climbed up on the roof and then went through the skylight up there and came through to open the door. At the same time her son-in-law Vito was showing her how, when the door is not double locked, it is possible to use a stiff piece of plastic (he used a hunk of a black flower pot) to get it open. In the end I think she was rather more displeased by Vito’s demonstration than by our locking ourselves out.
Yesterday we had a rather leisurely day. With nothing in the house to eat we went off to the supermarket and stopped on the way for cappuccino and pastry. The store, as is normal here, was an absolute zoo on Saturday morning but I managed to wend my way through it and come home with most of what we need for the next few days. After lunch we took short naps and then went to Mary and Orlando’s to pick up some things we left there last fall. We had a nice visit with them, made plans for this morning and came back to the house for a quick dinner.
This morning I went on the annual Marcia delle Ville (Walk of the Villas) in Marlia with Mary Caselli and Dom went to their house and watched the Formula 1 race with Orlando. Mary and I walked 10 km while the guys feasted on eggs and bacon. Mary and I arrived back there in time to watch the end of the race and for some further visiting. It was after noon before we arrived back here at the house.
Later today we plan to go into Lucca for a little walk. It is the monthly antique fair yesterday and today so there should be lots of people out and about.
Tomorrow we will start our search for lights (Italians usually take all of them with them when they move) and other things we will need for the new apartment.
Posting photos is difficult with the internet connection we have right now so those might come separately or not at all for a while.
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