by Nick Jenkin
Nancy – We passed a bar which I eyed up for a late-night drink on the way back. It was me who seemed to be in the mood tonight although my cold was beginning to weigh heavily. I had been very restrained up to now but the next day was a mere 27 miles down to Venice for the boat at midday.
Nick – Turning a corner there was the Italian restaurant the owner had described.
Nancy – No, really Nick, an Italian restaurant, in Italy?
Nick – Yes dear. It was in Italy and it was not serving, souvlaki, curry, roast beef or Wiener schnitzel but pizza and pasta. It was time to relax.
Nancy – We had a lovely evening. I think we are both fairly positive people and generally make the best of what we have. The restaurant was friendly and comfortable.
Nick – Half way through the meal, a large Italian family arrived, not Greek or Indian or…you get the idea, with children in tow, and we enjoyed watching how they sorted themselves out. There was an older gentleman, who was obviously the reason for the meal, and everyone paid him homage, bringing presents and giving him special hugs and kisses. He was brought to tears of happiness especially by the children.
We older blokes become increasingly more aware of our mortality the more the years pass. All those memories and those missed opportunities. Oh, for the chance to do it all again.
Nancy – The children were very well behaved and the parents gave us a conspiratorial wink as they settled into their meal. The noise level rose, the temperature rose, windows were thrown open and the moon peaked its head in around the blinds.
Nick – I ordered a bottle of red but by the time our meal came, Nancy was beginning to feel under the weather with her cold, poor dear. She had one glass so I was forced to drink most of it myself, shame.
Nancy used to drink more red wine but after a few ‘interesting’ evenings we realised that she had a regular cycle of behaviour with red that she doesn’t have with white wine. One glass and she is laughing merrily, 2 and she can pick a fight in an empty room and 3, she becomes maudlin and falls asleep. A big drinker she is not.
Nancy – I cannot pick a fight in an empty room! Nick has to be present to pick a fight with. But, I have to admit, there is probably something in what he says. For some reason, I like a good red wine but red wine doesn’t like me. Nowadays, I rarely touch it but, just occasionally, when I only want to drink the odd glass of wine or be kind to Nick, I will help him out. He will not touch white wine at all, except for Retsina. He says it is far too acidic for his taste.
Nick – Well, if it’s owning up time, Nancy is very kind to me in this way. Over the years she has developed a kind of pity for me, an old man who has no defence against a sexy glass of red. I hope I am kind to her in other ways.
Nancy – Nope.
Nick – Oh!
Nancy – Yes you are, silly.
Nick – Nancy had pasta and I had pizza, what else? My pizza was enormous. I always say at the beginning ‘I will never finish this’ but I always do, usually with Nancy’s help. Ha, that’s one way that I am kind to her!
Nancy – Yes dear.
Nick – She was also very nice to me that night because she didn’t want to have a further drink in the bar after all but still came with me to have a cup of tea. Oh dear, poor thing, she can be so kind.
I spied a very large and cheap bottle of the Italian, Moretti beer. Very nice, I like Moretti’s. But have you noticed that the picture on the label of Moretti beer bottles is of a man wearing, what I always think of as, a typical Bavarian outfit – lederhosen and a feathered alpine hat. I always thought it was a bit odd because it didn’t make me think of Italy at all. Well, get this, originally the beer was brewed in Udine which was then part of Austria. There was also a dispute between the brewery and a German photographer who claimed he took the original photo. So, now it is all clear!
Nancy – I often wonder where Nick’s brain goes when he is having a beer. Now I know. Snore!
Nick – As I said, the beer was cheap but then, looking around, so was the bar. The lights were full on and it had no atmosphere, but it served to give the locals a no-frills beer. That evening it was interesting enough for us because it was set on the road which meant we could take a table in the window and watch the Italian world go by. Fascinating!
I was very kind to Nancy, again, because I only had one beer when I really wanted another 3! We were in bed by 10.
Nancy – So kind!
But, one strange thing happened before our heads hit the pillow. We quietly let ourselves into the front door of the digs so as not to disturb the silence of the sleeping house, but there, seated around the kitchen table, was a crowd of 10 people tucking into plates, piled high with different kinds of food and, every one of them, eating in absolute silence. Because downstairs was open-plan we had to pass the end of the table to reach the stairs, so we called out ‘Buona notte’ and waved, but the crowd just ignored us. Not one even acknowledged our presence.
Were we invisible? Was it a phantom meal from another dimension? Were we hallucinating because we were tired? Perhaps we had stumbled into a Bunuel film?
Day 4, Pass the Port
Nick – The next morning, we planned to be out of the B&B by 8am which gave us 2 hours to drive 27miles and find the ferry port while still leaving us 2 hours to get lost. We were even planning it into our calculations now.
We rose at 7, dragged ourselves out of the beautiful bathroom, and went for breakfast.
Nancy – However, when we went downstairs the group of travellers, from the night before, were seated around the same table, with plates piled high again but this time with breakfast food. Again, there was complete silence. Then, slowly, it dawned on us, they were deaf or hard of hearing. No wonder they had ignored us, they hadn’t heard us and therefore hadn’t even seen us.
They were signing rapidly at each other and when they saw us this time they said ‘Good morning’ in various ways but all with wide inclusive smiles.
The breakfast was mad. The owner had saved us a table separate from the litter strewn breakfast table of the other group and it was so full of breakfast options that it was difficult to find room for our own plates. Different breads, cereals, fruits, cakes, meats, cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, yogurts, preserves, croissants, cheesecakes. The choice was endless. Then the owner asked what we wanted for breakfast. She was about to cook us anything we fancied on top of the food already piled high on our table. Continental breakfast, this was not! We both declined, partly because we were short of time but also because neither of us, Nick especially, can eat very much in the morning.
Nick – We also had tea to drink. Now, I don’t know about you but, speaking generally of course, it is our experience that Italians have no idea about making tea. Regularly when we have stayed in Venice or Florence we are served up a tea bag with a string on it, floating in a cup of almost cold water. Even when prompted, the water has never come back more than lukewarm. On the other hand, speaking generally again, the Greeks seem to have mastered the concept of boiling water.
Nancy – As Nick and I were in the middle of collecting things to eat from across the table, the other group of travellers re-emerged with their cases packed and ready to leave. It was then that we heard a noise coming from one of the cases. Of course, we realised, they were totally unaware of it. I prodded Nick who was just about to intervene when the owner stepped in and pointed it out to them. After a hectic search of several cases, they found an electric toothbrush still rub-a-dub-dubbing anything in its path.
Nick – That was when that we started to think about how different the world of a deaf person must be. After they had made their goodbyes, all hugs and kisses with the owner, I asked Nancy how a deaf person wakes themselves up in the morning if they are on a deadline. She didn’t have a clue and neither did I. I later discovered there are 2 ways, one is with a vibrating mechanism attached to a clock, nowadays I suppose a mobile phone on vibrate mode might do it, the other is a flashing light attached to a clock. I must say neith
er would work for Nancy. She once slept through an earthquake in Greece.
Nancy – Unfortunately Nick hears every small sound. So even if I turn over in the night it can wake him and he starts mumbling threats to my very life. He is a terrible sleeper. That being said, when we had our first earthquake on Symi, in the middle of the night, Nick thought it was a loud lorry rumbling past on the dirt road outside so turned over and went back to sleep while I, as Nick said, slept through it completely. In the morning, we learnt that all our Greek neighbours had turned out of their houses, as one is meant to do, and we could have been squished in our bed.
Nick – I sleep in the nude, gosh, so by the time I had got washed, dressed and done my hair, I would probably have been dead anyway! I don’t like to be seen by my adoring public without being properly prepared. However, thinking about it, maybe next time I could rush outside completely starkers. No one would be able to say anything because it is a perfectly legitimate excuse. Um? I would still have to do my hair though!
Nancy – So true!
We left our digs spot on 8 but not before the owner gave us a pretty gift of personally dried fruit to take with us and some hugs and kisses. She even came out to wave us off.
Nick – First stop the petrol station. Even at 8 in the morning it was not too early for an old man to cross the road and admire the scooter.
We had been given directions back to the E70 – out of the door, turn right, turn right again at the roundabout then straight on. When we looked ahead, we saw the IKEA store, the same IKEA store that we had stopped at the previous day before we went careering off into the city centre and roving around Padua. It was enough to make me spit but not with my visor down. If we had known, we could have saved ourselves one hell of a lot of time and worry. I said nothing about the bloody obvious this time. The worst thing is we actually have a sat-nav in Greece!
Once on the motorway I settled into musing. Driving the scooter can be a lonely affair because it is so difficult to communicate above the noise. But I don’t mind. It allows me time to do some thinking, out there, in front, on my own.
‘We open in Venice and next stop Verona…’ Shut up.
Nancy – It was a beautiful Sunday morning and my head, at least, was clear. The E70 was empty, the sun was out and, even at 8 in the morning, at the end of September, we weren’t cold. We hadn’t seen a drop of rain since we left London. Now we had 4 hours to get to our boat in Venice, what could go wrong.
Nick – Nancy, for goodness’ sake shut up. You will tempt fate! What could go wrong, indeed!
As we soaked up the sunshine, shades on, looking cool, the Carabinieri pulled us over. It was like an Italian movie. They flashed their head lights, overtook and then a black leather glove with a white wristband emerged from the car window and waved us down. I pulled onto the hard shoulder and stopped the bike. Talk about looking cool. They got out of their blue and white police car, pulled on their white caps and sauntered over. They were both very smooth in their Ray-Bans.
Of course, they wanted to see our papers and I knew what they were after. I had guessed the day before when we had first joined the E70 and saw the number “249” on a notice. To use the E70, motor cycles must have an engine size of more than 249 cc’s. That is, only bikes of 250 cc’s and above can use the motorway. Seeing our scooter is a mere 125 cc’s we were breaking the law.
Why didn’t I tell Nancy? Well, for a start I wasn’t absolutely sure that what I saw was what it meant and, secondly, it was probable that we would get away with it anyway. Thirdly, and more importantly, if I had told Nancy she would have worried about it all the way through Italy, and, what is the use of worrying about something that will probably never happen. Today my luck was out.
Nancy – I suppose it was a good thing that Nick hadn’t told me because I would have worried. However, and it is a big ‘however’, we are sharing our life together and it is our policy that we share everything that is important.
No wonder the day before the Italian drivers were the worst in Europe, pulling up behind us, honking their horns and almost driving us off the road. They must have been livid with us breaking the law!
Nick – So, there we were, gazing at the sunlit fields while the Carabinieri gazed at our documents. They were very ‘nice’, that peculiarly British word, polite, apologetic even.
Nancy – And so good looking. Suave young men with nice bums and a twinkle in their eyes, behind their sunglasses.
Nick – You would think they would have had something better to do on a quiet Sunday morning but then perhaps that is the point, there was nothing else to do except us.
There was good news and bad news. The bad news was a fine of 35 euros. The good news it was 30% off for good behaviour, that is, for actually paying on the spot. The other bad news, they charged an administration fee on top of that just for writing out the ticket.
Nancy – Ten minutes later and 20-odd euros lighter they very kindly escorted us off the motorway, with lights flashing.
Nick – More bad news. The next exit was only a couple of hundred yards ahead. A few more minutes and we would have escaped the police altogether. Is that sod’s law or what?
However, things looked up again. We were travelling with ANEK shipping Lines and, when we stopped to find our whereabouts, there was an ANEK sign on the roundabout dead ahead.
But, and this was interesting, it took us in a different direction to the one we had originally intended to take. One of our friends had told us how fantastic it was, leaving Venice for Greece because you had such a spectacular view of the Grand Canal and Saint Mark’s Square. Also, we had done our usual internet research on the location of the port and every site showed our ship leaving Venice from one of the islands.
So, the final good news was that, although the Carabinieri stopped us, had they not done so we would probably have been heading for the wrong port, in Venice itself, with a strong likelihood that we would have missed our boat!
Nancy – As it was, within a few minutes, we were parked up at the correct port and relaxing.
But Who’s Driving the Boat?
Nick – Well here we were in the Venice lagoon. It was the middle of the fourth day and in all we had travelled approximately 1,100 miles, half of those on the train. The back of the journey was broken because the next leg, Venice to Patra in northern Greece, all 871 miles of it, was by sea, what a breeze.
Although the scooter is great it’s a liability, something to always keep an eye on, to worry about. Now it was safely stowed in the hold, we had 32 hours in a floating hotel. Thirty-two hours to spoil ourselves rotten and do exactly what we wanted. It was party time. This wasn’t so much a journey as a cruise. “The Hellenic Spirit” has a swimming pool, a nightclub, a couple of bars, 2 restaurants and we had a cabin with a view of the sea drifting endlessly by. Of course, by now this was the beginning of October and, although it was sunny, the pool was empty as was the nightclub. In fact, the whole ship was almost empty. It was fantastic, we more or less had it to ourselves.
Every time we travel by ship, Nancy and I like to be there to watch the ropes untied. It’s a sort of rite of passage. The massive ropes are manhandled over the quay into the water and then dragged on board and the gap between ship and land widen as it pulls away.
I find it exhilarating but sad at the same time. The people on board are travelling to new destinations and new stages of their lives, and when they wave goodbye to the people on shore they never know if they will meet them again.
Nancy – We didn’t know if we would be passing this way again. We certainly wouldn’t be riding a scooter across Europe again, that was sure.
Nick – As a young man in the merchant navy, I regularly shipped out of Southampton, travelling to Australia on the other side of the world. The handrails of the liner would be full of people waving and crying. They would shout last minute messages of love to those left behind on the quay, but their voices would be drowned out by the hubbub. There would be hundreds of lines of c
oloured, paper tape, stretching from ship to shore, thrown down from the passengers to their soulmates, and each person would hold an end of the tape as the boat pulled away. They would stretch out their arms, leaning into the gap, hopelessly trying to put off the inevitable moment when the tape would snap and the link between them would be broken. Then the 2 loose ends would finally drift aimlessly away on the wind.
Dead on 12, midday, the horn of “The Hellenic Spirit” deafened us with its blast and Italy floated away and slowly disintegrated into a heat haze. How I love ships, and this one was beautiful. The youngest and fastest of the ANEK Lines fleet, it was a floating castle, averaging 32 knots, while holding 1,850 passengers and 600 cars. It’s a big beauty at 670 feet long, about the length of 2 football pitches! Have you ever walked a football pitch?
Nancy – Venice slowly drifted by but, despite our friend’s raving revue, it was merely a line of grey buildings in the distance. We think they have either changed the location of the international port or our friend was on a cruise liner, they still seem to dock on the islands.
Nick – We love Venice. I went there first with a buddy. Being fed up with January we booked a cheap flight with an airline that will remain nameless, for £20 each way and then a cheap B&B on the main drag from the station to St Mark’s square. When we got there, it turned out that it was the beginning of Carnival week. Aren’t all the best things unexpected? It was amazing.
Nancy – After we met, Nick surprised me by booking us a holiday for carnival week again. I instantly fell in love with it, just as Nick had, and we have been back half a dozen times since. To view it from a distance was like honey on the elbow. We could see it, we could smell it but we couldn’t taste it. How much we wished to be there on a vaporetti, heading down the Grand Canal, wrapped up against the cold wind with the snow on the mountains in the distance.