Travels and Tribulations

LAX is a nightmare as usual. Why do you have to pick up the bags anyway? If they don’t enter the terminal, they can’t do any harm; they’re checked right through! We were supposed to be able to check the bags through transfer, but the bike is too big and we have to take it to our airline to check it back in – no time; spectacularly unhelpful staff; running around changing terminals; hot and sweaty; no signage or information; lengthy queues. I am checked for explosives and the woman in the row ahead on the flight is sick – all in all, a terrible experience.

Frankfurt airport, by contrast, is clean, bright, grey, efficient and tidy – everything you would expect from Germany. There are glamorous shops selling beer steins and Steiff bears (a lion on wheels will set you back a mere 700 euros). I have a laugenbrezen mit sonnenblumenkernen (sunflower seed Bavarian soft pretzel) and Him Outdoors a nusshornschen (praline croissant). Suddenly I feel grubby and dowdy around all these immaculately dressed, shod and coiffured Europeans. Men cycle about the terminal on sit-up-and-beg bikes. A bus takes us to the plane and the captain announces ‘Take of in 30 seconds’ and we do.

How wonderful to be surrounded by foreign accents and languages – immersed in a continental sea of French, German and Italian, the sharp tones of Kiwi and American are gradually fading away. On the train from Bologna, racing through the countryside it is dry and flat with rolling hills in the distance. Blue sky with some fluffy white clouds. Rows of overgrown vines and olive trees interspersed with tumbledown farmhouses and quintessential villas – dots of cream, faded pink or golden yellow with genteel green or brown wooden shutters and terracotta tiled roofs.

The boys on the train have white shirts tucked into jeans and soulful brown eyes. Cell phones ring and are answered with rapid fire Italian – ‘Ok, ok, ciao Mama.’ Not having validated our tickets at the station we are reprimanded by the stern conductor who writes an essay on our tickets while the doe-eyed boy looks serene. The women are in tight white trousers, high heels, lots of gold jewellery and boxy white leather jackets, looking immaculate and so clean – how do they not get dirty?

We walk the kilometre from the station to our hotel through the promenading throng. Families are out on post-prandial perambulations; mother pushing pram and father with infant atop his shoulders. Folk weave crazily on bicycles along the pavement, calling out ‘buonjiorno’ and ringing their bell. Men stroll casually with smouldering eyes and cigarettes; women in killer heels and wicked make-up totter along the cobblestones with miniature dogs – tiny terriers, poodles, Pomeranians and one with three pugs, each with an individual plastic bag tied to its leash in the shape of a bow: a stylish poop collector Italian style.

At the Grand Hotel, Rimini the fountains are lit and the tables are spread with white linen cloths and glassware. There is some kind of car rally and the square is full of Lamborghinis, Porsches, MGs and Jaguars – all vintage models and some looking as though they have come directly from the Wacky Races. They are stunning machines and spectators admire and murmur as the smell of leaded petrol hangs in the air.