travel

The City Mouse and the Country Mouse Make Peace

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We love to have a project waiting in the wings. Now that things have settled down (at least a little), we can think about the next thing we want to do. We plan to spend this next year in Chiusa di Pesio. We’ll be waiting for Tony’s citizenship to go through, learning from Beatrice across the street how to milk cows and make cheese, and enjoying life in small-town Italy.

We’d also like to spend the next several months exploring Italy a little bit. We were totally unfazed by our eight hour train ride from Trieste. There are many amazing Italian cities within that distance of us.… Read more

Daydreams

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The Tour de France is coming through our little village this year. Not only that, but it’s coming right down our street. We can hardly believe our good fortune. Tony’s already setting up a photo shoot in his head. He wants to catch a few bicyclists going by our house, with me and the children waving down from the window. Maybe he’ll make it a video.

Yesterday I sent out the annual newsletter for the study abroad group with which I spent half a year in the Middle East. We spent a semester studying Arabic in Damascus, Syria, and then took it on the road to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Spain.… Read more

Trieste

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

And here the real fun begins. Ryanair has two daily flights from London to Bergamo. The first leaves at 6:35 in the morning. The second arrives at 10:00 at night. When we initially booked our tickets, we guessed that it would be easier to get to the airport in London early in the morning than to get home from Bergamo late at night. We never considered the idea that both were impossible.

We had already moved up to London to be close to Victoria Station, where we knew we could catch a bus to the airport. We calculated that we would need to leave at 3:30 a.m.,… Read more

London Town #3

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We woke up on Saturday morning with the Temple still closed, packed our bags, and got a ride from another kind person down to the train station. Our hotel turned out to be very nice, within walking distance of everything and right next to a private cricket field called Vincent Square. The coffee-maker was hidden away in a little cherry-wood cupboard on the wall, with drawers underneath for coffee, tea, sugar, and cream. Raj had a great time disassembling it.

After unloading our baggage at the hotel, we had lunch in front of a funky monument to Henry Purcell and the “flowering” of the English Baroque (he had a towering cubist flower headdress and a slightly inane smile).… Read more

London Town #2

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Eventually, we decided it was time to go down to the Temple. We stopped at a little roadside stand to buy some cherries and made sure we picked up our muesli and yoghurt for breakfast. We also found some blue stilton. Then we made our way back to Victoria Station. Through the train window on the 45-minute ride, we caught tantalizing glimpses of the beautiful English countryside. The famous constant rain makes the landscape incredibly lush. We saw mile after mile of light green fields with dark green hedges and little flocks of spotted sheep.

The houses in England are delightfully quaint, whether they are flats in the city or little country cottages.… Read more

London Town #1

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We had a fun-filled and adventurous vacation last week. Since we already had tickets on the cheapest Ryanair flight to London, we thought we’d take advantage of it and go visit the Temple there. We planned to spend four nights in the Temple’s accommodations for out-of-town guests, and then fly home again. What could be simpler?

Well, there were a few crucial bits of information that we now know. Most importantly, everything that you and I have heard about Ryanair is true. #1 They do indeed have the lowest imaginable fares for air travel in Europe. #2 They travel between some of the most inconveniently located airports in the world.… Read more

Waldensian Valleys

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Today we went to the Waldensian Valleys. Last week, we went through San Germano Chisone just as it was getting dark. We happened to stop just in front of the Chiesa Valdese (Waldensian Church), where someone was filling water bottles at the town fountain. So we filled ours too. But today we went back to see the valleys a little better. We drove up and up and up, higher than Melle, into Angrogna. There, we parked the car and walked down a path to a place where the mountain’s bones are exposed and broken in pieces. This was the Cave Church.… Read more

Deep Magic from Before the Dawn of Time

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

April 3

Yesterday we drove to Melle, where the Bodrero family originates. As we drove farther from Torino, the towns got smaller and smaller, and the little church in the center of each seemed more and more ancient. Finally, as we wound up toward the Western hills at the foot of the Alps, we passed into the town of Melle. The boroughs of the town climb up into the very tops of the hills, reaching a stillness broken only by birdsongs. The little green meadows are sprinkled with tiny, delicate butter-yellow flowers.

Through the town center and up a little winding hill is the borough of the Bodreros – a little cluster of centuries-old stone houses with shale roofs and tidy little gardens.… Read more

In Italy

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We are in Italy. Our first adventure (after over 24 hours of airplanes and airports) was our rental car. We packed all our seventeen (more or less) bags into it and set off, map in hand. We had gotten almost out of the airport parking lot when the car began to smell bad. And then worse. We turned around and headed back, concerned. A passerby flagged us down, pointing to the engine, from which smoke was beginning to billow. Tony parked the car and rushed back in to the car rental place. I was still sitting in the car with the children when a man came up to the window and said I should get out, and asked me where my husband was, and said the car was on fire.… Read more