Ray:
Hey, you did more steps than you think! The number of steps up the dome of the Duomo is something more like 450.
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Lisa,
That's probably because my partner has an aversion to climbing lots of steps so I would always try to downplay the actual number and have apparently ended up believing my own lies .
You don't seem to have had much trouble with baggage on your Tuscany trip. That was perhaps the major negative experience for me. There were many times I wished I was travelling light with everything in a rucksack that was not too heavy to carry all day long, as I used to do in my youth. 20Kg suitcases which gradually increase to 30Kg as the holiday progresses, in addition to camera gear, tends to make one feel like a beast of burden.
Probably the second day in Italy was the worst, baggage-wise. (Or more appropriately, baggage-stupid.) We'd booked an apartment in Capri for a week. We made our way, from arrival at Rome airport, to Capri via Sorrento where we spent our first night. The next morning, we get a taxi to the pier for ferries to Capri. No problem so far. We buy our tickets. Not too expensive. We're early. We look for a place to sit, but no such place. There
is a waiting room, but it's under renovation. So we trundle our suitcases for several hundred metres along uneven flagstones, both of us trying to think of procedures we might adopt if the little plastic wheels on the suitcases were to disintegrate, and eventually arrive at the place where the ferry will moor, when it arrives. There are a few other people already waiting. But no seats. It's quite cold and very windy, so we stand against a wall to shield ourselves from the cold wind. (This is the coldest March in 50 years, according to the locals - just our luck!)
The ferry arrives, reasonably on time. We heave and drag our heavy cases up the gangway, park them in the appropriate luggage area and then repeat the whole process on arrival at Capri, by which time we are getting tremendous respect for the toughness of those plastic wheels and their axles. Maybe they are indestructible.
We arrive at the taxi stand thinking our troubles are over. Show the driver the address of our apartment, but there appears to be some problem. The driver speaks a little English. I speak almost no Italian (After all, I'm of English descent. Can't expect
me to speak a foreign language.) I gather he can take us part of the way to the apartment, but from there on we must hire a porter because the road is too narrow. I'm trying to imagine an Italian porter carrying baqggage along a road or path too narrow for a taxi. I'm very confused at this stage. The taxi stand is right next to the bus terminus. A bit of quick thinking determines the bus is going to the same place the taxi will take us, at 1/10th the price. I don't need to persuade my partner to save the money and take the bus, but it's me who has to lug the suitcases up the steps into the bus. Okay! No problem. I can make sacrifices in order to save some money.
We arrive at the bus terminus the other end, but no porters. I refer to my phrase book and start asking, "Where are the porters?" Okay! That's the easy part. The porters are a hundred metres further up the road. I tell my partner to guard the baggage, by which I mean my camera and accessories, because by this time I don't really care much for the suitcases.
I walk up the road to check out what sort of porters these are and discover they are little battery operated trollies with a driver included. I'm grateful that the driver actually offers to drive down the road to where my partner is guarding the baggage. (I'm already thinking I might be required to drag the baggage to the porter.)
There's room on the the trolley for both the baggage and us. Not allowed, apparently. Insurance reasons no doubt. So we have to follow the trolley on foot. Do you think he will wait? No chance at all. He races off to a destination he's familiar with. We tag along far behind, asking everyone we meet for directions.
Eventually we arrive. We know we've arrived because we see our suitcases on the roadside at the foot of a series of 50 steps up to our apartment. (Or was that 70 steps?) Whatever, it was a very arduous lift. I remember being a bit embarrassed because about half way up, struggling across the front of another apartment lower down than ours, an octoganarian rose from his chair on his verandah and offered to help. Okay! maybe he was only in his seventies).
Anyway, the trouble was probably worth it. Early next morning, I threw open the doors to the balcony and was confronted with the following scene.
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