Senza glutine?

August long weekend. Everyone was away. I pretty much spent that entire weekend deciding on a holiday. For some resason I was stuck for an idea. Having worked in the travel industry all my professional life it was an unnerving feeling to be completely unsure about where to go and what to do. I trawled through the internet, trying desperately to find some inspiration. #holidays for solo travellers (not like that, dirty! ALT + <--), #europe holidays females, #october europe holidays. I knew I had a week to take, and it was going to be on my own. Do I do my own thing or book a group tour? I literally got to the "Confirm booking" button on various holidays over the course of that weekend, only to have a last second "hmmm, is this the right choice?" feeling. In the end I went with a 7 night group tour of the Italian Lakes.

I'm not going to name the company I travelled with because as I work in the travel industry, I feel like I will be able to be most truthful and open about my experience by keeping the brand anonymous.

I had a transfer at 4:15am to Gatwick Airport. Luckily the pick-up was just up the road. As I walked through my complex I passed a couple coming home after a big night. I can’t lie; I did envy them, on their way to a nice warm bed. I suppose one lacks a little perspective at 4am. The transfer was long and cold. I tried to fall back asleep but my brain was too busy pondering the fact that the boy band market in the UK is already flooded and wondering if teenage girls actually have their ears open when it comes to voting for this year’s X Factor contestants.

When I arrived at Milan Malpensa Airport I was met by Dimitri, who would be our Tour leader for the week. My room wasn’t ready yet so I left my luggage and went for a walk. It was a Sunday and not a lot was going on so I just wandered up and down one little strip of shops and restaurants for a bit. Back at the hotel later my roomie arrived and funnily enough from Kenthurst. She was a couple of years older and we knew a bunch of the same people. What a small world hey! Certainly broke the ice and gave us lots to talk about. I was glad Ruth was on the tour. When we went to meet the group later that evening it became apparent we were going to be spending the week with retirees. Not that it was a problem to be honest, they were a nice bunch of people. Most of them anyway…

There was a group of 4 couples from New York who I enjoyed listening to, purely so I could practice my New York accent later on my own. John and Sharrie from New Jersey. I really liked these 2, Sharrie especially, had a few really lovely chats with her. Then there was Jack and Beryl from Durham and 2 couples from Manchester who had not met previously and I have a feeling probably continued their new found friendship post-tour. Cute. Even more cute were Guy (pronounced ghee) and his wife, a French-Canadian couple who spent the entire trip giggling with one another. He reminded me a lot of the man on the front cover of a book from my childhood, There’s a Lion up my Nose. Google it. I decided against telling Guy about this.

I’d say about a 3^rd of the passengers were Australian, all (except for one) of which were women. One couple from Perth and the rest travelling solo (aside from a mother, daughter, aunty trio). I guess it’s just because I’m not around the Australian accent a lot but I was sure everyone spoke just like Steve Irwin. A few character highlights though were Shaaaarrrleeeeene from the Centraaaaaaal Cooooaaast and Jan from Noosa. Sharlene was really lovely, a high school teacher who travels about twice a year. She was actually a very smart lady but the pace of her speech gave a different impression. She’d always come out with simple comments or just something funny in general. I actually really enjoyed spending time with her. Jan was not so much the same story. Unfortunately she put most people off-side. Very loud, bossy and outspoken. She also had this dreadful cough and would sneeze extra loud at dinner so everyone would go “ooohhh wow”. I know this because I heard her sneeze normally many other times when she wasn’t around a load of people. And she would leave her rubbish (including used tissues) on the seat in the coach every day. Rude. She often took wine to her room on her own. One night someone saw her swimming in the hotel pool late at night. It was about 15 degrees and the pool was dirty as it was off-season and cold. She also wasn’t eating pizza or pasta because she didn’t want to eat food she could get at home! Jan decided to leave a couple of days early because she was “over it”, although she was headed to Napoli on her own which I can’t imagine being less stressful than on a tour where everything is sorted.  

We had an incident on the coach one day. Some people didn’t follow the seat rotation instructions, which upset others. I didn’t care where I sat. My seat was taken so I moved, but I ended up in 3 different seats because I was then in someone else’s seat. It got very tense and I wanted to shout “People! I’m the youngest person on this coach and I’m behaving the least childish!” Dimitri was very annoyed about it and gave specific instructions for the next big drive. Jan misunderstood his instructions and ended up telling off some people who were doing nothing wrong. It seemed that the Americans were not following the rules and the Australians were getting upset. I was really embarrassed for my country. It was ridiculous.

I haven’t actually talked much about Italy itself have I. Food has become somewhat of a challenge since I went gluten free. It was possibly a good thing I can’t eat pizza and pasta because I’d have come back a couple of stone heavier! Fortunately Italy is one of the most aware countries when it comes to coeliac disease. Gluten free products are sometimes stocked in pharmacies, all children are tested and anyone with the condition gets 2 paid days off work per month to source their food. I went to Italy with possibly a higher expectation than I should have had in this regard. Although it was generally a pretty good experience. The places which had had prior knowledge were very accommodating, other places weren’t so much. I went to a restaurant in Bellagio and said “senza glutine?” as I did everywhere and they went and checked to come back and ask me if some gluten free raviolli was ok. YES YES YES! One of the men on our tour asked me if I was making up some special dietary requirement so that I’d get something better than everyone else. “Dude, we’re in Italy! Why the hell would I do that?!”. I had gelato a few times of course. I generally get 2 scoops and mix chocolate with another flavour. First time I had orange and chocolate (as jaffa ice cream is my favourite). But it was more of an orange sherbert flavour, really nice. Then I tried a traditional chocolate and mint, although it was more of a peppermint and a bit too strong for gelato. My absolute favourite (possibly that I’ve ever had) was mandarin and chocolate. Literally tasted like a mandarin. It was delicious!  

One thing that I think people forget when they travel is that you’re not going to the same place you’re from so it’s going to be different. Embrace it. Don’t expect them to change for you. I always try and speak as much of the local language as possible. Ok, I have studied languages and really enjoy this element of travel more than most people. However, it is also the polite thing to do. I think English speakers often take the fact they speak English for granted and expect that wherever they go, regardless of the native language, the people will also speak English. I had the unfortunate experience on the train home after this holiday to get stuck in a conversation with the Vice President of the Industrial Court of Trinidad & Tobago who was visiting London for a few days. It was unfortunate because he reeked of booze, kept hitting on me and then made one of the most ignorant comments I ever heard. He had also been to Italy but didn’t like it because they wouldn’t accept USD or Pounds, and they didn’t want to speak English. I actually told him they shouldn’t have to.

I really loved exploring the magical Italian Lakes region. On the 1^st day the weather was proper awful. We visited a town called Sirmione, which I had been told by a colleague was lovely. It was very pretty, regardless of the torrential rain. Luckily the rest of the week was dry and often sunny. I imagine Sirmione was almost as nice as my favourite place, a town (also on Lake Garda) called Malcesine. I climbed to the top of the castle which had the most magnificent views. Jan from Noosa likened it to Noosa. Now, I’ve never been to Noosa, but I can be almost certain that Malcesine is nothing at all like Noosa. The other highlight of the tour for me was Villa Carlotta, a villa on Lake Como with amazing gardens. I also saw George Clooney’s and Richard Branson’s villas on Lake Como. Isola Bella was a small Island on Lake Maggiore with a gorgeous palace and gardens, owned and still resided by (at times) the Borromeo family. Other places visited (about which I have nothing interesting to say and am only writing it for my own recollection) include Riva del Garda, Verona, Bellagio, Isola Madre, Isola Pescatori and Stresa.

My only issue with the tour I was on was our tour leader. Everything else was great. Some people complained about the location of the hotels and other such things. But you get what you pay for and this wasn’t an overly expensive tour. Other passengers had travelled with this company before and had the complete opposite experience when it came to tour leaders. I guess it was just an individual issue so it hasn't put me off. It was his last tour before going into the off-season and therefore 5 months of holiday. He was well and truly over it and already in holiday mode. There were no maps for us, he provided us with minimal information and he really just didn’t give a damn. He was also obsessed with women, a bit sleazy. One evening he was trying to get me and Ruth to go out clubbing and told us we were boring when we said no. The first thing I thought of was Brit Lapthorne. Most Aussies have probably heard that name. She was an Aussie girl, travelling on her own in Croatia, went out clubbing and was never seen alive again. I'm not saying that it’s the only reason I didn't go and that that’s what would have happened to me if I had. But I’d like to think I'm a cautious traveller so I'm definitely not going "out-out" in a foreign country with someone I don’t know, particularly like, or trust. He was always going on about his tips too (which I know a lot of people didn't give a lot in) and on the tour sheet on the last evening he listed a couple of details and then wrote “end of my service!!!” to try and reiterate that the planning he had done for our transfers for the next day were out of the kindness of his heart. Pfffff!

I don’t really have an in summary statement to close off this post. It was a great week, I took lots of nice photos, met some great people and saw magnificent countryside. Highly recommended.