When I originally submitted my memoir, "Are We There Yet?", to the editor it was almost 120,000 words. I was advised that that was too long for a memoir. It was suggested that I cut it to 90,000 words or less. In order to do so, I had to edit out some of my favorite "Crazy Travel Stories of Cheryl & Hank". This is one of them.Enjoiy!
In the summer of 1992, Hank and I took a train through the Swiss Alps to Italy, spending two days
in Interlaken on the way. We rented the only car Hertz had left that day, a huge black BMW sedan
which we nick-named "the Beast". It was the road trip of a lifetime: We took a romantic gondola ride in
Venice, stood in awe before Michaelangelo’s David in Florence, and ate way too many Roman
gnocchi’s while exploring the City of Seven Hills. Without a GPS, there was nary a hill in Rome that
we missed.
As amazing as the views were along this route, I spent much of the drive with my sweater over my head, afraid to look out the window. We did eventually arrive safely at our hotel, which was right on the water. The hotels along the Amalfi coast are built at beach level, well below the Amalfi Coast Road above. Most have steep driveways down to the office and some have funiculars to carry guests from the beach back up to the hotel or street level. After the treacherous drive to get there, we were happy just to check-in.
We spent three days exploring the Amalfi coast, stopping along the way at roadside pottery stands and vendors of Italian street food. Since what goes down must come up, our exit from the hotel required us to drive the BMW up the steep hill from the hotel back to the Coast Road after we checked out. As we left the office area, there were two directional signs in Italian, which we were unable to read. This led to a brief argument with Hank saying that we should go “this way”, and me insisting that we should go “that way”. Since he was driving, we headed up the hill in the direction Hank had chosen.
As we crept our way along, the driveway became narrower and narrower and I began to ask Hank, “Are you sure this is the right way?” He insisted it was so we kept going until we were stopped by two enormous ceramic plant pots filled with geraniums, one on each side of the driveway. Because our BMW was so wide, we couldn’t drive between the two. This caused me to wonder, once again, how this could possibly be the correct exit from the hotel. Why would they place these behemoths this close to the only exit road?
But Hank insisted, so, feeling like a foolish American tourist, I got out of the car, made sure no one was looking, and leaned all my weight against the pots, one by one, managing to move each of them a few inches so that we could squeeze through. Once we did, we could see that after another few steep meters of gravel, the road leveled off. Maybe we’d finally made it!
Except we hadn’t. As we drove over the crest of the hill, Hank slammed on the brakes so that we wouldn’t hit a cluster of patio tables sporting colorful umbrellas, and, most embarrassing of all, the well-dressed and tanned guests sitting under them sipping their morning mimosas. Apparently, the sign we chose to follow led not back to the Coast Road, but to the rooftop bar!
I was so mortified I would have liked to disappear into my seat but Hank remained undaunted. He had just started to turn “the beast” around when two waiters ran out of the cabana waving their arms and screaming something in Italian. I think it may have been a good thing that we couldn’t understand them.
They gestured for Hank to get out of the car, moved tables, pushed more potted geraniums out of the way, and turned the car around, as the wealthy sun-glassed cocktail guests stared at us as if we had just landed a UFO in their midst. I couldn’t wait to get out of there! Hank insists that my version of the story has “grown” over the years but I warn him that she who writes the memoir gets to tell the tale.
