Rome > Hospital > Orvieto

I never thought I would come to regret a high-speed train’s high-speed capabilities. And then Dean and I boarded one from Puglia to Rome.

The trip started out fairly uneventfully. We got two seats next to each other, facing forwards. (This was important because going backwards makes me kind of nauseous.) As we made our way north west, we took on more and more passengers until the train was completely packed. And then it happened: after a stop at one of the stations, the train started backing up and I realized that we were going to be riding backwards for the duration of the trip. And honestly, if the train had continued on at the speed it had been going, I would have been fine. But we were behind schedule and apparently the conductor decided that they were going to try to make up for lost time. So all of a sudden, we were flying. Like, so, so fast. Now, I have been on fast trains on this trip before, but this was at a speed I had never experienced in Italy thus far. And, mind you, Italy doesn’t have the smoothest tracks. So there we were, hurdling backwards at mach speeds on a track that repeatedly jolted us from side to side. Oh, and we were wearing masks, of course. (I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but I seem much more prone to car/air/train sickness when I’m wearing a mask.) Well, I finally got so nauseous, that I had to go out to the little area between the cars so that I could face forward and take my mask off for some “fresh” air. But because we were going so fast, I had to brace myself by lock-arming my body into a little stairwell next to the door. I stayed like this for a good twenty to thirty minutes, sweat pouring down my face the whole time. Ah, glamorous Italian travel!

Eventually, the train slowed down and I was able to go back to my seat. Then, because I wasn’t dealing with the nausea it anymore, I realized that I had to go to the bathroom. So just as I got to the bathroom, a guy walked out of it with a weird look on his face. So I walk in and start to pee. Again, I’m wearing a mask, so it takes me a few seconds to realize that this man has just smoked a cigarette and the bathroom is completely filled with smoke. And because this was my first time using the bathroom the whole trip, it took me a loooong time to go. I eventually finish, wash my hands, and open the door. I, and a big puff of smoke, exit the bathroom. I go back and sit in my seat and just as I realize that I smell like I just smoked a cigarette, I notice that many of the people I had just passed on the way to my seat are glaring at me. Like, so, so annoyed that this American just went to the bathroom for a cigarette. ‘Whatever,’ I think. ‘Who cares?’ I think. ‘We’ll be in Rome in forty-five minutes and I’ll never see these people again.’

And then the train stopped.

Not at a station.

But in the middle of nowhere.

I can’t tell you exactly where we were, but all I know is that it was a long, long walk to Rome from there. The conductor made a few announcements in Italian, but I wasn’t able to understand what he said. Besides, the collective groan that came from the passengers around us told me everything we needed to know. The train had a mechanical issue.

So we wait. For ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. Forty-five. An hour.

Meanwhile, Joe Camel goes back to the bathroom TWICE more to smoke. And both times he walks by, I want to point at him and announce, “Um, hello! Can we all agree that the smoke smell coming off of this guy smells WAY fresher than it did on me?!” 

Side note: Have you noticed that I haven’t mentioned Dean during this whole segment? Well, that’s because he bought a lil’ bottle of wine and a sandwich when we first got on the train and was happily watching some show on his iPad the whole time. His contentedness infuriated me, but also kind of calmed me. And, luckily, eventually, the train began to move again. Slowly at first, but soon we got to full speed again and made it to Rome in what I describe in my notes from that day as “in a big puff of smoke.”   

For dinner that night, we went to an incredible restaurant that one of Dean’s friends had recommended called Trattoria Abruzzi. We got to sit outside and after the suffocating train ride, it felt so good to eat a pile of pasta carbonara on a cool Rome evening.  

Vatican Museums

The next morning, we had tickets to do a pre-opening hours tour of the Vatican Museums. We got a bit of a late start, so the morning involved a power walk and a quick pit stop at a café for breakfast where we had the best cornetto I’ve had in all of Italy so far. I’m not sure if it’s because it was super fresh or what, but my God, was it good. We washed it down with a few shots of espresso and were the last people to arrive for the tour.

The tour itself was, of course, spectacular. Because we were the first people in the museum, we got to enjoy many of the rooms completely empty. My favorite part though was our guide. She was the sweetest Italian woman and the whole time she called us her “dears,” and when she referred to us as a group, she called us her “family.” (“Can my family move over to the right here to make room for others? Thank you, my dears.”) And then, of course, there was the Sistine Chapel. You can’t take photos in there, which was actually kind of great, because it made you pay attention (and savour) what you were seeing in the moment. The tour finished with breakfast in the Acorn Courtyard, which was lovely.

For lunch that day, I took Dean to Hosteria Costanza (which, you may remember, is the place where I got accidentally day drunk on my previous visit to Rome). Well, surprise, surprise, it happened again. But Dean loved it, which made me really happy.

Rome Adventure

Frequent readers of this blog know will that I love seeing sites featured in my favorite movies. “Cineturismo,” as they call it here in Italy. Ever since I saw the movie Rome Adventure with Troy Donahue and Suzanne Plechette, I’ve been dying to recreate a scene from the movie that was filmed in Piazza Navona. In the scene, Troy is sitting at a small table in a café with an ENTIRE bottle of a liqueur called Strega in front of him. Suzanne joins him at the table and the following dialogue unfolds:

Suzanne: I always wanted to come to one of these places, but I was afraid to come by myself.

Troy: What would you like to drink?

Suzanne: What are you drinking?

Troy: It’s Strega. Actually, it’s a liqueur. The word means “the sorceress.”

Suzanne: Ooh, what does Strega do for you?

Troy: I don’t know what it does for everybody else, but a couple of Strega’s turn the world gold for me.

Suzanne: Oh, well then, I’ll have Strega too. I’m feeling particularly golden today.

I mean, that’s 1962 dialogue for you, folks. Anywhoo, when I first visited Piazza Navona, I couldn’t find a café that served Strega. They all looked at me like I was nuts when I asked. And then I couldn’t find it in any liquor stores either. When I finally found it at a fancy mall in Rome, I got so excited that I bought it on the spot and wound up having to carry it with me from Rome to Ravello to Naples to Ostuni to Lecce and then to Rome again. So, back to that afternoon in Rome with Dean, I showed him the scene from the movie and then we set out to Piazza Navona to turn our worlds golden.

We honestly had no idea if it was even legal to bring personal liquor to Piazza Navona and drink it out in the open, but we decided that we wouldn’t ask for permission and just hope that if we got in trouble, the Italian police would find the story behind why we were doing it charming. (Mind you, we were probably still a little buzzed from lunch, so our logic may not have been super sound at this point.)

Well, we arrived in Piazza Navona with a backpack full of the Strega, two glasses, and a loaf of bread Dean had bought in Matera. We found a little doorway to sit in with a view of the fountain and went for it. The Strega itself was quite…syrupy. But it was super fun and gave me the same rush I used to get when Dean and I would outsmart the Indiana toll road in college. I consider myself a rule-follower, but honestly, if Italian cafés refuse to cater to my 1960s movie fantasies, I’m going to have to insist on taking matters into my own hands.

Later that evening, we toured through Trastevere, drank wine, and ate crostini smeared with an intense black garlic. With only one more city to go, we marveled at how well the trip had gone. So few hiccups. So few disruptions. So few disasters.

Disaster Strikes

I’m not going to spend a lot of time telling this story or embellishing it because, honestly, it’s still a bit upsetting to me. But here’s what happened.

Dean and I were scheduled to take a train from Rome’s Termini station to Orvieto in the early afternoon. That morning, we woke to dark, cloudy skies and rain. Since we didn’t have any plans in Rome that day, we decided to catch an earlier train to Orvieto. We knew it was going to be a bit tight, but we made it to the tracks with a few minutes to spare. But there was just one problem: the boards said our train was leaving from “2 EST.” We didn’t know what “EST” meant, but we did know that our train was not at track 2. After a bit of scrambling, we found out that 2 EST was a track set back about a fourth of a mile beyond track 1. So, we decided to make a run for it.

At one point, I realized that the ground was a bit slippery from some rain that had seeped through the overhang covering the walkway. As I was running, I yelled back to Dean, “Careful! It’s slippery!” Then my jacket, which was tied to my backpack came loose and fell on the ground. I didn’t realize it until I turned around and saw Dean pick it up. More running. More heavy breathing. More “are we going to make it?” thoughts. And then I had the distinct feeling that Dean was no longer running behind me.

I turned around and saw him sprawled out on the ground. 

At first, I thought he had just tripped and I would help him up and we would still make the train. But then I got closer and as he lifted his head, I saw a pool of blood on the ground. The next fifteen minutes or so are kind of a blur because I’m one of those people who gets faint around blood. Then I had this weird thing happen where I wanted to go get paper towels for him, but I also didn’t want to leave him, so I kept walking about ten feet away and then coming back to him several times, over and over, trying to decide what was more important in that moment. Fairly quickly, a few station employees came over to help us. (I actually thought they were just random people at first and when I kept repeatedly thanking them, one finally said, “It’s okay. We work here. It’s our job.”) An ambulance was called. I had to do a bit of translating (they wanted to know if Dean was vaccinated before they got close to him). They eventually took him to the hospital, but I wasn’t allowed to join due to COVID. So they brought me to the lounge in the station and I found the furthest, most secluded part of the lounge…and sobbed. (On and off for a good twenty minutes or so.) The whole thing was just so scary and emotional.

I finally pulled myself together and messaged my friend Seth who lives in Rome, asking him if he had any advice (on dealing with the Italian hospital system, etc.). He asked me if I wanted him to join me at the station, but I said no. And yet, twenty minutes later, I looked up and there he was. I immediately burst into tears again. I can’t adequately describe what it feels like to be dealing with a traumatic situation in a foreign country and then, in the moment when you need it most, have a friend show up for you. It was such a simple act on his part, but it meant the world to me. And I still get emotional when I think about it.

After about 45 minutes, I heard from Dean. He was all stitched up and on his way back to the train station. When he arrived, he had a giant pad of gauze taped to his head, but other than that, he was in pretty good spirits, if a bit dazed. Seth helped us get some medication Dean needed, plus something for him to eat.

And then we had to decide what to do. Did we continue on to Orvieto? (There was another train leaving in twenty minutes or so—the train AFTER our original train.) Or did we abandon the last city on our itinerary and stay in Rome to be safe? I left it up to Dean and he decided we should continue on with our original plans. So we made our way to 2 EST once again, tried to ignore the grate on the ground where he had hit is head, and hopped on the train bound for Orvieto.

Healing in Orvieto

So there was a moment on the train to Orvieto when Dean’s medication started to wear off and he started to feel a bit of pain. In that moment, I was like, ‘Oh God, what have I done? I just let him make this decision when he is hopped up on a ton of painkillers and probably not very clear-headed.’ But he rallied and honestly, it wound up being the best decision. Because our trip to Orvieto was like a balm to what happened at the train station.

We stayed in a castle outside of town with stunning views and a creepy abandoned tower on the property. When we went into town for dinner that night, both of us were completely enamored by the city center. And it was anchored by one of the most stunning duomos I saw in all of Italy. The facade had everything…Splashes of color. Vine-like columns. Gold mosaics. Statues of mythical beasts. Dramatic doors. I mean, this thing was ORNATE. And while Italy is known for its tiny, winding lanes, Orvieto had some of the tiniest and windiest.

The next day, Dean had booked a bike tour of some local wineries for us. It was my first time on a motorized bicycle and I have to admit that I started the tour a bit trepidatious. After what we had been through the day before, I wasn’t super excited to be sharing the road with speeding Fiats. But I had never ridden a motorized bicycle before, so I distracted myself with focusing on the logistics of learning something new.

The wine tour was a blast and there came a moment when we were riding from one winery to the next and Dean put his hand out to trail it through some wildflowers growing alongside the road. There was something about this image that was so simple and joyful and I felt my body release much of the tension it had been holding for the past day.

We finished the day with a visit to the duomo, a stroll through town as the sun was setting, dinner al fresco, and the best gelato I had in all of Italy. Don’t believe me? Here’s my proof:

The next day, we made our way to FCO and due to several delays, Dean and I wound up saying goodbye to each other about six different times in the airport. But each time we said goodbye, I felt another wave of gratitude for this person who has been such an instrumental part of my life for so many years. Plus, it will be fun to start conversations in the future with, “Remember when we were in Italy and…”