Mary was

trying out her new phone in her new digs in Cologne a

couple of weeks ago, and called us. Dave picked up the

cordless, I was on the "regular phone."

Amazing: she sounded clearer and closer to me than he

did.

We'd had

postcards, but she told us more about her recent vacation

trip with Rainer to Corsica and parts of Italy.

(I doubt if

I even knew where Corsica was before they mentioned it,

but when I saw it cradled there in the Mediterranean

where the boot of Italy curves toward France, I assumed

it was Italian. It's French. Of course, the German

spelling - Korsika - that Mary uses, having

collected maps from the German auto club ADAC, didn't

help my perception.)

While there

they took a boat trip to see Bonifacio, at the south tip

of the island. The vista from the sea is spectacular, she

said, with the old city hanging on the cliffs, and

numerous turquoise grottos where land and sea meet.

Corsica is

very mountainous and dry, Mary said. "It's

supposedly the greenest island around, but it's still hot

and dusty, very stony and mountainous, making the

smallest of walks quite arduous."

They drove

up the island's west coast into which are carved graceful

bays lined with winding roads, stopping occasionally to

walk up a narrow gorge formed by a mountain river.

Back on the

mainland: The Ligurian coast, Italy's coastline east of

the Cote d'Azur, was crowded but picturesque. "Genoa

is not that exciting," she said, "one of

biggest ports around. But the coast is pretty,

mountainous, with pretty fishing towns. Everything is

concentrated on the coast, and it's one of the few places

in Italy where you can actually go out and walk. They are

not much for walking like people in France and other

countries.

"Then

we city-hopped," she continued, with Pisa early on,

since they had heard the Tower of Pisa had re-opened. It

had not, but this was Rainer's first look and he was as

intrigued as tourists have been for centuries.

They spent

a day each in Siena, Venice and Verona, particularly

enjoying camping on Lake Como, then proceeded to Verona,

the setting of the Romeo and Juliet story. She said she

and Rainer got "the lostest" in Verona, where

Dave and I visited several years ago only after a series

of frustrating wrong turns.

Italy's

autostradas are well-marked, but the moment you get off,

you're on your own. The exit ramps "T" into the

local roads with nary a sign suggesting which way to turn

toward your destination. And the pouring-down-rainy day

Dave and I arrived was a religious holiday, with no one

to ask directions in our pathetic pantomime.

When Mary

and Rainer (finally) arrived in Verona, the opera

"Aida" was being staged in the ancient Roman

stadium there. Huge cranes were lifting sets into place

over those amazingly high walls. A crowd of 20,000 was

expected next day.

Except for

poor ventilation in their tent, they had pretty good

camping along the way, she said, even in Venice. (She

calls it Venedig, as Germans do.) "There was noise

on the river, big ships going by all night, and a lot of

bugs, but it was convenient. The campground was across

the river, and a boat goes to Venice every 20

minutes."

It was in

Umbria that they had one of those magical experiences

that no guide book can guarantee. The annual Spoleto

music festival, parent to the South Carolina event, was

underway. The town is small and medieval, Mary said, and

jammed with people. "They couldn't even get into the

church, and so they were doing a concert right in front

of it."

It was

obvious there'd be no camping nearby, so they continued

toward Urbino on the way to the coast, up a mountain,

following a road their tour book said had a campground

and a restaurant on it. They'd gone forever, with

civilization thinning out to nothing, she said, and

Rainer was ready to turn around, when suddenly there it

was, a completely empty field with an old farmhouse

nearby.

She knocked

on the door, was assured this was indeed a campground,

and asked why no one was there. Since the earthquake two

years ago, nobody comes anymore, the proprietress

answered. The campground is too far off the beaten track

for tourists, and shunned by locals out of fear.

The site

was near Assisi. You may remember seeing frescos crash

from the ceiling of the cathedral in full view of TV

cameras recording earlier damage.

"Our

hostess had a restaurant too and cooked just for

us," Mary said, although she was required to serve

them outside on the piazza, presumably because her house

was not considered structurally sound enough for public

use.

"She

had nothing for vegetarians," Mary noted. "Most

of the stuff on her menu was wild. Rainer had noodles

with rabbit sauce, and I had gnocchi with lamb sauce.

There were two pheasant dishes, traditional in that area

- it would be hard to be a vegetarian there.

"There

was a huge wood stove inside, and Rainer was interested

in how she did everything. She served huge portions, all

the while complaining in Italian about how they have no

business and how much better things used to be.

"But

for us it was beautiful. We were so far up the hill, the

air was different, clean and clear and crisp, and it was

cool overnight."

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