J.J.

After driving for thirty-plus years while traveling abroad, Charley got sick of it. We decided our new policy would be to hire someone local to get behind the wheel who could speak decent English, unless we were with a tour group (which we'd only done twice, when we couldn't make all the arrangements ourselves). If someone else were driving, we could relax and enjoy the surroundings without getting lost or having an argument.

John Jennings drove us from Kenmare, Ireland, on the southwest coast through the Dingle Peninsula, Ring of Kerry, Lakes of Killarney, to Kinsale, Ardmore, Cobh, Blarney, and up to Dublin on the east coast.

A retired 6-foot Waterford police detective with bushy gray eyebrows overhanging piercing olive eyes, he showed up the first morning in a biker's jacket that matched his eyes. A trimmed gray mustache gave his squared face a rugged Sean Connery look. I could picture him in an interrogation, never taking his eyes off a suspect. "Call me J.J.," he said.

I asked him where he was from. "I'm from Waterford," he said, "but I spent last night in a B&B over the mountains. It's only about fifteen minutes from where I picked you up." We proceeded to retrace the exact route through the mountain passes that J.J. had traversed to meet us. It took us thirty minutes.

"Why didn't you stay closer?" I said.

"There was a gym in one of the hotels near where I booked, and I like to stay in shape. But the gym wasn't open. Besides, B&B's in Kenmare, where you stayed, are too dear (pricey)."

"What else do you do for excitement?" I asked.

"I climbed St. Patrick's Mountain to the shrine three times on my hands and knees in rock and gravel," he said.

"You must feel very blessed," I said.

I sat in the rear directly behind J.J., whose driver's seat was on the right but who was, of course, driving on the left side of the road. His gray hair was sheared to a stubble, police-style, surrounding his bald 60-year-old dome. A half-inch tentacle from his beard sprouted untended to the left.

J.J.'s right hand never strayed from the wheel, while the long fingers and soft flesh of his left hand gestured in the air to emphasize his constant tales. Strawberry-blond wisps of hair escaped the cuffs of his jacket. His hands belied his avocation as a rugby player throughout his thirties.

While maneuvering through fog on the Dingle Peninsula, weaving around banks of peat and through stone tunnels in the mountainous Killarney National Park, passing lorries and bikers on roads wide enough for a single car approaching Kinsale, and circling round-abouts outside Cork, J.J.'s left hand would scrunch together, supplicating for understanding, or jump up and down to imitate the actions he was describing. We learned of Gaelic Games in his youth on a pitch longer and wider than a soccer field, where'd he had to change afterward on the embankment into rained-out clothes to bike home; of his All-Ireland basketball championship game in the 60's representing County Mayo; of the farm his father owned, whose horses competed in local Sunday jumping competitions.

Since J.J. was so tall as a youth, he couldn't jump in competition on his own horse. "Dad told me to tend another horse while my best friend did the jumpin' in the ring on mine," he said. "My friend was shorter than me.

"'And whatever you do,' Dad said, 'don't let him eat the grass. It will give him a stomach ache.'

"For three hours I pulled that horse's neck up off the turf every time he tried to eat.  Ohh, my arm was achin'.

"Meanwhile, my best friend won first prize. He brought my Rory out to me and Dad said, 'Since you trained him, why don't you ride him to pick up the trophy?'

"I did just that. I rode up to the judge and took hold of that silver urn and turned Rory around to head out. Everyone was cheering like crazy. That's when Rory decided to buck and I went flying forward and landed on my arse. Managed to hold onto the trophy, though. I still have it.

"Now when we get to Blarney Castle, Pamela and Charles, the Stone is 100 steps up inside. You must go to the top and lean backwards while you hang over the wall to kiss the Stone. You'll be given the gift of eloquent speech." He turned in his seat to face us with the smile of a leprechaun.

Seems J.J. had been multiply blessed - three times by St. Patrick, and once by the Blarney Stone!

   

Snapshots from Italy III - Hiring a Taxi in Ischia

Haggling with the taxi drivers in Ischia was "Fun at first," Charley told me.  On alternate mornings we walked the winding half-mile descent to the town of Lacco Ameno below our hotel, then along the coastline another mile-and-a-half to Casamicciola, the town beyond.  On our return we stopped for a light lunch in the marina facing Vesuvius, across the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Mt. Vesuvius across a marina on Ischia

All the shops were closed between 1-4 p.m. on the island, likewise with the hotel shuttle from town.  With a torn Plantar Fascia ligament (mine) and joints complaining from old football injuries (Charley's), we sometimes grabbed a taxi back to our hotel before heading to the pool or the sea.

Lunch stop in Lacco Ameno, Ischia

During the lunch hours in Lacco Ameno, the cab drivers sat along a wall, like birds on an electrical wire. The first time we approached them we made the mistake of asking the driver sitting in the last cab (closest to us) to take us back. No other drivers were sitting in their cabs.

Sunday after church, Lacco Ameno, Ischia

The driver whose cab was first in line hurried off the wall and began shouting at the driver we'd approached, sweeping his arms in large window-washing motions, while their noses got closer and closer and their voices louder and louder. The driver we'd approached ushered us into his van, hurling insults while flinging his free hand toward his pursuer. Thankfully, we've never seen anyone resort to punches in Italy.

Flea market on Sunday, Casamicciola, Ischia

"Un momento!" I said.  "Quanto costa?"

"Quindici Euros."

"Fifteen?  It's only a mile and half up the road!" Charley said.

"Prezzo minimo, signore," he said.

Our driver started his engine and we roared past the curses of the first driver, our necks lurching forward and Charley's leg dangling from the open door.

The next time we approached the lineup, none of the drivers got off the wall.  In fact, they wouldn't even look at us.

"Mezzatorre Hotel?  Quanto costa?" Charley said.

"Venti (20)" was the response.

"No, not twenty!  Fifteen," Charley said.

"Non, venti."

"You enjoy yourselves, have a good rest!  We'll walk," Charley announced.

And we did!

Halfway up the steep, circuitous hotel driveway a renegade driver stopped next to us. "Dieci (ten)," he said.

We jumped in.

Snapshots from Italy II - Our Morning Walks

Our hotel on the Italian island of Ischia sits on a promontory overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea between the towns of Lacco Ameno and Forio.  We spend each morning walking miles up and down the hillsides to work off the pasta (not always a successful remedy!).  One of our favorite walks winds through the forest above our hotel, past the Italian film director's house (which sits at the end of a dirt road), past a bocce court as the road becomes asphalt, along the coast to an overview of Forio. Then we wind down cobblestone streets past the Church of San Francesco de Paola, past the beach resorts in Forio and the marina, to a cafe in town for a cold drink.

View from our hotel promontory

Tower rooms in our hotel and pool

At the beginning of this walk to Forio we must descend our hotel's half-mile driveway. Part-way down there is a sign that reads, "Madonna di Zaro" (Madonna of the Hillside).

Charley and I ascend the dirt path through the forested hillside toward the shrine, which sits atop winding wooden steps.  On this walk, we are not alone. In a dirt car-park, taxis and a van wait in leafy shade for their customers, who begin to file singly down the steps after their supplications. Scattered next to the vehicles are picnickers' plastic bottles, sandwich wrappers, melon rinds, and the condom evidence of lovers' trysts.

Having been blessed by the Madonna, the group assembles to board the van.  "You sit in back (in Italian)," one woman directs.
                                                                              "No, I sit next to my husband in the middle," the other woman answers.

"Take a different seat!" she hears.  "Angelo and I want middle."

Angelo and his wife get their wish.  If only the Madonna had the power to cleanse the wooded hillside as she had (dubiously?) cleansed the petitioners' souls!

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Overlooking the town of Forio, Ischia

Down a serpentine, one-way street on our way to Forio, we wait to enter the blind curves till we hear no engines. We slow at families' niched shrines and again at the Church of San Frencesco de Paola (half-way down the twist of S-turns) before entering the narrow tunnel just past the church's pink facade.  In the middle of the tunnel we hear a car approaching from behind, but there is no place to disappear. The tunnel is just wide enough for one car.  The horn blares at Charley, behind me on the cobblestones.  "You honking at me?" he yells.  "Slow down and wait!"

A family shrine

Of course, the woman doesn't understand a word!  She waits till we exit the tunnel before shouting curses as she passes.

On the roads hugging hillsides on Ischia, sidewalks are built as a brief nod to the tourist, then they disappear. Crosswalks are mere suggestions. Charley decides that since crosswalks are meaningless, he can cross where he pleases.  He grabs my hand and holds his free hand up like a traffic cop, defying two lanes of traffic to stop or hit us.

Forio, Ischia

Once we get past the beaches, we hug the sides of cobblestone houses and produce shops while cement trucks and faces frozen behind glass in tour buses whiz at forty-five mph within twelve inches of our sucked-in stomachs. Young girls with their arms around their boyfriends' waists zoom around us on cycles, the boyfriends yelling back to them and flinging one hand in the air with fingers together like blown kisses for emphasis. Taxi drivers never disrupt their phone conversations around blind curves. We stand on the asphalt's six-inch shoulder, waiting till Charley can swing out into the curve with me following. He uses a sideways pushing motion away from us, certain that motorists coming out of the curve will see him and make NASCAR moves to avoid us. Ahead of him, housewives in flip-flops with their groceries defy the drivers without ever looking up.

Forio, Ischia

In front of one market, a car slows to claim its parking space.  It's the same space where Charley is walking. "Hey, stop!" he yells to the female driver, who stops within three feet of his upright palms.


Out jumps Nana, with her cloth grocery bag. "Quoi?  Quoi?" Nana asks.

In other words, "What's your problem?  Don't you know my daughter owned a motorino (motorbike) when she was six?"

.

Fruit and vegetable vendor in Forio

Blind curve on Ischia

Another blind curve on Ischia