Unpacked – For Now

I’ve been enjoying a season of travel these past few months.

Earlier this spring, my partner Mick, our friends Mark and Mary, and I spent 12 days traveling around Italy. We’ve traveled with Mark and Mary before, renting a car in Dublin and driving into Northern Ireland, then back south to Connemara National Park, Galway, the Cliffs of Moher, and back to Dublin. It all worked out so well, we decided we could do other trips together and still remain friends. Last week, I took a girls’ trip to Asheville, North Carolina, for a few days with my good friend Luann, whom I’ve known for more than 20 years. We, too, have traveled together before, most memorably to New York City where Luann tromped all over Manhattan with me in spite of a torn meniscus in her knee.

This year’s trips have offered what the best travel always does: a shift in my own perspective and some renewed excitement for creative work.

For me, travel isn’t about packing in monuments and museums and other tourist sites on a tight schedule that has me sleeping in a different place every night. Nor is it about doing nothing by a pool, although there have been times when I could see the value in that. I’m somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, with a tilt, at times, toward slow travel. My preferred style is to stay in one or two places for several days and explore on foot. Mick, Mark, Mary, and I chose a few things in Italy that required reservations made before we left the U.S.: a walking tour in Milan that ended with a viewing of The Last Supper, a Tuscan cooking class where we made pizza and gelato, a visit to the Ufizzi Galleries, and a walking tour of Vatican City that included the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. We knew we wanted to hike in Cinque Terre, but we figured out where to buy passes for the trail when we got there. The trail was harder than we expected, but we went anyway and enjoyed stunning views of the sea and mountains, hillside vineyards, lemon trees, and narrow cobblestoned streets in the towns on both ends of our hike. We knew we wanted to go to restaurants that were away from all the monuments in Rome, so we asked the hotel staff where they went and had some of the best food of our lives (cacio e pepe in my case). We stumbled into an open air market in the middle of Florence and bought gorgeous leather wallets for our family members. Also in Florence, we meandered into an Irish pub and were amused to learn that the owners were two young guys from Florence who spent all of two days in Dublin before they opened their pub; they didn’t go anywhere else in Ireland. We compared that with the Irish pub we went to in Rome which had Irish owners working behind the bar. (And, yes, I’m inclined to visit Irish pubs wherever I find them.) We wandered into an artichoke festival in a small town outside of Rome for our very last day in Italy after deciding we’d had enough of crowds around ancient sites; one of our hotel staff lived in that town and told us we could sit by the sea there.  And we did sit by the sea, but discovered there were places there that did not want us in their bars (no English, no tables in two places with plenty of tables available). We did not argue; we moved on.

I went to Italy knowing very little Italian, grateful and amazed at the number of people with whom I could communicate anyway. Menus usually offered items in English alongside Italian. Hotel and museum staff all spoke English; we found walking tours in English. And I made an effort, learning Italian words for please, thank you, and some foods. I was reminded over and over how many people in other countries easily flip between their native tongue and someone else’s. That makes me want to be better about knowing at least a scrap of the native language when I travel to another country. And it reminds me just how hard it must be for people coming here with very little English in their command. 

Travel to Asheville was so easy after being in Italy – only two hours on a plane instead of more than eight, and signs we could read without a translation app. Luann and I stayed at the Aloft Hotel downtown (I highly recommend it), walked everywhere. Walking everywhere while traveling in European cities is usually easy, but that isn’t always the case for U.S. cities; I live in a notoriously unwalkable area with mediocre public transportation. Asheville was a nice contrast. And, after being overwhelmed in Italy by the magnificent art produced by long-dead artists, I was delighted to visit artists working in their studios in warehouses along the river in Asheville. Chatting with artists always makes me think about expanding what I do – writing, painting, photography or a mish-mash of all three. Asheville also has a fantastic selection of tap rooms, only three of which we managed to go to. And one of my favorite things of all was stumbling upon the Asheville Drum Circle in Pritchard Park when we were on our way to dinner at Tupelo Honey on our last night in Asheville. It wasn’t until I looked it up later that I learned this drum circle has been drumming on Friday nights since 2001 and everyone is welcome. The sound was mesmerizing and primal, and I absolutely loved it. 

Now I’m back home daydreaming about future travel and art projects. I’m taking stock of the art materials already in my house, just waiting for me to do something with them. And I’m thinking about how important it is to get out of my own backyard, talk to someone I’ve not met before, say yes to eating something I can’t identify, and walk down streets without knowing what’s on the other end. 

There’s comfort in familiarity, but there are sparks of delight waiting around unfamiliar corners. If it turns a little awkward (no English, no tables), just go in a different direction.

All photos by kcmickelson 2024 except “getting on the plane in Rome”, which is courtesy of Mary Rutherford.