Before I leave the United States I book the BnBs in the *must have* cities. But then leave a lot of gaps for on the fly decisions. One of the must haves this year was the city of Lecce on the southern heel of Italy. This was the very first one I booked six months ago. Unfortunately the apartment we were staying at in Napoli was booked or I would have liked to have stayed a couple more days. Instead we had to move, and if we are moving, we decided to just hit the road for another city. After her long flight and partial recovery, a number one priority of The Nerdist, my travel companion, was a hot tub. So she found a place in Taranto and we booked the four days between Napoli and Lecce.
In my mind we would go to Taranto, Lecce, up to Bari to see the tomb of Saint Nicola, the legend that grew to be Santa Claus in the US. Then a couple of last days in Firenze before heading to Rome to catch our return flights. It was the night before we were to leave Napoli, over pizza, when she asked, “When are we going to Venice?”
Two years ago I went to Venice and honestly, I didn’t care if I ever went back. At the time there were not a lot of restaurants open. It was still early post pandemic recovery in Italy. The apartment we were in was at water level, it was damp and moldy. I never do good with mold. Additionally, the wifi wasn’t working. I contacted the host a couple of times she mostly just told me to wait and it would be available shortly. It never was. When I marked her AirBnB down a star in my feedback she wrote me a nasty message demanding I change my rating. It wasn’t nice. And no, I didn’t. This being Italy, I couldn’t be positive there wasn’t a contract out for my life. 😀
Additionally, last year I heard several of the canals had gone dry because of a perfect storm of a high pressure cell that settled over the city, the draught, and the annular tide where the sun and moon combine forces to change the tide. With the water that low, from what people told me, the smell was horrible. I could believe it. That was my excuse for not going last year.
So yeah, months back we had talked about going to Venice but honestly, I had hoped she had forgotten. And maybe, on her own, she might have been fine with forgetting. But before she left, talking to her mother, she found out her mother had spent some time in Venice when she was young. She had some stories about it, and unbeknownst to me it had become a focal point of her daughter’s trip. For mom, we had to change plans. So I contacted the Taranto BnB from the pizza table, mentioning the plan might be changing and telling him I would confirm in the morning. He didn’t respond.
By morning we had it sorted out and I used the AirBnB app to notify him we would be shortening our stay at his place by two days. Mom, after all, had to be accommodated. We were on the train early because it was going to be a complicated travel day. A train to Salerno, a bus to Potenza, then another bus to Taranto. I sent through the cancellation of two days and it was refused by the AirBnB host. This is the first time I have had something like this happen.
He then wrote to me and said he had to turn away another booking, so he was losing money and he wasn’t happy. I totally understand, but I have read the AirBnB rules. I had the right to cancel that many days out for no charge. In fact until noon I could even cancel the whole reservation and only have to pay fifty percent for the first day. We were signed up to take a cooking class from him the second day so I was concerned that our relationship might be soured by this mix up. How might that class go if he isn’t happy about being shorted? I offered a cash compromise. I would pay him ninety euro, half price for his two lost days.
I had a noon deadline with AirBnB to get a full refund and our train was getting close to Salerno. A deal had to be struck or not. She was feeling her hot tub hopes drifting away. I was actually pushing to cut bait and cancel the whole reservation. I was thinking we could head to Amalfi instead. Walk the beautiful coastal trails. Just as we pulled into the Salerno station he answered and agreed to my pay-half-in-cash proposal. As it turned out, I am glad. The next two days were the most memorable of this year’s trip.
This is one of those times where just one installment isn’t going to do it. Oh no, there is another whole part to this story. But I am going to skip a whole chunk here. I will try to get that out shortly.
For twenty euro (remember that) our host, Francesco, picked us up at the bus station and brought us back to his BnB. He is an interesting guy who talked constantly. His spoken english was excellent. Understanding my spoken english, not so good. These days technology can bridge that gap. We are both listeners though, wanting to learn about his life and city so really it worked out very well. I hadn’t actually looked at the listing when I booked it. It wasn’t a apartment like we had been getting but instead just a room. At that, just a room off of his apartment with a separate entrance. The dreamt about hot tub was beautiful.
The next day, part of what we did was an afternoon trip to Grottaglie, also known as “The City of Ceramics” about a twenty minute drive away. In the car, since I have susceptibility to motion sickness, I was riding in the front seat. Picture this, Francesco, our host, is taking a computer programming class. He is learning the language of Python. I mention I am really interested in microcontroller boards (called Arduino and invented in Italy) and he had played with them some too. We were off. In deep conversation of programming ideas and past projects. This conversation, some of it verbal but at other times via google translate. Sometimes slowing down, when a particular concept was interesting to him, but at other times, fairly flying down a lane-and-a-half-wide Italian country roads, reading a translate message I had just typed to him. At one point I thought to look into the back seat. She was wide-eyed. I figured she’s here for adventure, if we die, we die.
(Quick interesting side note here. Just as we drove into the city limits of Grottaglie there were a number of police vehicles pulling over every car and checking documents. In all my years of travel in Europe I have always carried my passport in my pocket. This is the first time I was asked for it. I am so glad I had it and won’t ever be tempted to be lazy about that again.)
What followed once we arrived at Nicola Fasano’s factory was incredible. We were toured through this amazing old building turning out the finest of Italian ceramics. It was an such a unique experience to see this up close. At the point we were there, the plates had already been formed. They were getting their initial coat of glaze. Then we got to witness the craftsmanship that followed.
It was all work at its very finest. It really was, and yet it is impossible for me to not center on one particular task. A worker was seated in front of a turntable. He put a plate on it and then he was able to spin it, using his hand from below. Then he proceeded to use a squeeze bottle to draw lines, in glaze, at exactly the same intervals, and at exactly the same thickness, all around the plate. His coworkers are going to tease him because I single this one thing out. For all I know there are probably way more difficult tasks they preform. All of what they do is so incredible. But to me, looking at it with my naive eyes, I thought this was one of the most amazing displays of craftsmanship I have ever seen.
I loved some of the dinner plate designs with faces. They had dozens and dozens of these designs. If I had more room in my life for ceramics this shop would have been a very dangerous place for me. To have a collection of these, all with different looks and expressions, would be so much fun to have set at a table. When your guests arrive, the fun of watching who picks out which face. Throwing that new information into the mix of the never ending analysis of your friends. Yes, very dangerous indeed.
I have my own picked out. I am currently eating on divorce plates and that has to be over. They are white, dipped in yellow and I think they are beautiful. Simple, vibrant. I can see some pasta, with the primary red of the tomato, contrasting with the yellow of those plates. The yellow, warming and bringing out the color of the coarse, freshly shredded parmesan. The knockout blow arriving in the form of bright green parsley. It is going to be amazing! Shipping is expensive. I think I could bring back two placesets a year in my suitcase, but I already carry so much olive oil. I haven’t gotten that puzzle figured out yet. Maybe I will pay to check an extra bag.
At one point we even got to meet the owner. An older, eclectic, long haired Italian man. He asked me where we were from. Of all the typically simple questions to answer, this one always trips me up these days. I got around it by saying she is from Minnesota. Not really expecting any response other than a vague look. But to my surprise, he responded immediately, “Oh yes, Minnesota, one of my best customers is from there, Williams Sonoma.” Wow! I realized I had fondled his craftsmanship before!
Francesco himself has a ceramics side hustle. He either bought or built a machine, that is essentially a large scale inkjet printer. The difference is it dispenses ceramic glaze instead of ink. A mix of modern and ancient technology he uses a computer to print to clay tiles before firing. He can put any image onto a tile. A very cool business.
Another interesting thing I observed. Converting everything to MPH, at one point we driving along at about sixty. Francesco is talking and waving his arms around. We come through a roundabout and suddenly we were behind a car doing forty. We followed that guy for three or four miles. At no point did Francesco express the slightest irritation. Zero. None. We were simply driving slower now. There is no part of America I have experienced where that would be the case. Impatience up to and including gun play? Not out of the realm of possibility.
People always want me to politically query the locals. Francesco was quite happy with his country and its government right now. From his descriptions he seems to be a wallet based voter. The economy in Italy, particularly in Southern Italy, has been growing the last two years. Good for both of his businesses. The increase in military activity in and around the area has war ships pulling into port. To him that looks like lots of tourists who could care less about the weight of what they buy. The perfect customers for a ceramic salesman.
But Francesco is a hustler. He mentioned at one point that he had to get our room turned around quickly because he had contacted the people he turned down. They had immediately booked the days I cancelled. <cha-ching!> He had just made ninety euro off renting the same space twice. When he said it I was looking directly at his face and I saw the shortest instant of “whoops, shouldn’t have told them that” cross his face. But like any good extrovert he jumped into telling a story and conversation moved on. What can I do but think, well played? It was a deal I proposed, I couldn’t be upset it had worked out really well for him.
The day we left we were exhausted. Francesco offered to give us a ride back to the bus station, “Twenty five euro, the same as picking you up.” I didn’t say anything but I did whip out my phone and confirm. <Cha-ching!>
No comments:
Post a Comment