2005 Italy Letter,P2: We’ve spent a lot of time looking for signs in Italy. There are rarely separate street name signs – just a little plaque on the side of the building. A not too obvious plaque that requires effort to find! Other street signs too are a bit too discrete for our taste. There are always signs indicating the presence of a campground, for example. But since it is small and inconspicuous, it is easy to miss. And there are no signs indicating a major museum that can be seen from across the square. You need to be right there to notice the building name in small print. The same is true of Tourist Information offices.

Actual highway signs, though, are terrific. They tell you what is coming up, and then warn you at 700 meters, at 500 meters, at 100 meters, etc. Arrows always indicate the number of lanes going to a particular destination. If a lane is going to disappear, the arrows on the sign will let you know. When necessary, city names will be indicated in large white letters on the roadway itself, so you know which lane to get into. If it wasn’t for the ubiquitous construction, we’d have no problem at all.

… One of the things that struck us both about Italy in general was that there are so few birds or other animals. We see pigeons and wrens, though not many, and don’t hear songbirds. But just as Adelle noted that there were no birds in the water, we walked back from the beach where there was a large area of brackish water on which were swans, several kinds of ducks and a few terns. It just goes to show that you should never make broad generalizations. But the fact is, we hardly see any animals – domestic or otherwise although there were some as we moved south. The farm landscape is nearly all crops.

… Next morning (in Ventimiglia on the Italian Riviera) we got ready to go to the market only to find that our original information was wrong. The market is only held on Friday. Disappointed, we walked downtown to go to the supermarket, and bumped into an indoor market that was nearly as good as any outdoor market. We bought too much stuff, walked a short way, and then found the supermarket. Ron still wanted to get a few things in the supermarket, so Adelle sat down with all the packages in a café across the street, had a cappuccino, and watched everyone go by. There were very few tourists in this area. Many passers-by were greeted by name, and most were locals. The time passed very pleasantly watching people go by.

So what conclusions did she reach from her observations from the café? First, that babies are adored by older siblings. It is a pleasure to watch them interact. The older children take care of the little ones, often kissing them. Second, that all those old stereotypes about elderly Italian ladies wearing black is a myth. There seem to be a lot of well dressed, swinging old ladies in Italy.

Before we left Italy, we had to buy some salami and a pannetone. That was the least we could do. There was a lot left to taste, but we couldn’t taste everything we saw because we just can’t eat fast enough! Continued......

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