Italy: Getting to Pescara

Wednesday, April 1, 2009. The airport in Rome – officially known as Leonardo di Vinci, but usually referred to by its proximate location, Fiumicino, a town on the coast a good distance from Rome proper – proves easy to navigate, and Jake and Stone find their way to the trains heading into the Eternal City. Thanks to Stone’s recent and earnest studying of Italian she is able to fairly easily purchase train tickets from the airport to Tiburtina, one of Rome’s two main travel hubs (the other being Termini). The more usual way into the city is via the Leonardo Express, but we need a train from Rome to Pescara, and that train runs out of Tiburtina.

The train ride to the Tiburtina station proves to be an immediate test of our adaptability. The train is hot and humid, and crowded with people and their various travel baggage, including an incongruous baby pram of Victorian proportions that all but completely blocks one doorway. Still, people jump over bags and slither around each other easily enough as they get on and off of this local, very local, train. After about 40 minutes, and with an equal number of people saying “scusi” in perfect Italian!, we arrive at Tiburtina. Here Stone’s Italian skills once again are necessary to get us two tickets to Pescara, but the train schedule board is easy enough to read, as are the signs that directs us to the proper track.

As is apparently necessary when riding all Italian trains, we have to get our tickets time-stamped at a little yellow box beside the track before we board. When the train for Pescara pulls up, both of us initially think that it is a “work train,” such as is often visible after hours in the NYC subway. But no, this rusting and graffiti smeared string of cars is our ride to Pescara. The inside proves to be better looking than the outside, and there are so few passengers that we have little trouble finding seats and storing our luggage.

Figlia, who is studying at the university in Pescara for a semester during her junior year at college, has told her parents to take the train from Rome to Pescara, rather than the bus, because the train ride is so scenic, and indeed it is. Tivoli (home of Hadrian’s Villa) proves to be an early sight to behold, and the rest of the four-hour plus train ride across the Apennine Mountains features bucolic mountain and valley views, distant snowy peaks, ruined castles on the always-surviving hills, villages that seem to spill down their respective hillsides, lonely stone huts that have sheltered who knows who over the centuries, and even a large flock of sheep and their attendant shepherd (complete with vocational crook!). But the ride also reveals a few dreary small towns and some scrubby countryside where spring has yet to penetrate the higher elevations.

Pescara Centrale is like the city of Pescara itself – a modern and functional train station, but nothing to put on a post card. Using our calling card we call Figlia (after punching in and re-punching about 80-90 digits) to let her know we have arrived, and minutes later there is a most happy, hug filled family reunion. Using Figlia’s Italian cell phone, we arrange for our pickup and ride to our rented apartment in northern Pescara. The 1 BR apartment is in a newly constructed condo development and features a large terrace with a view that is urban but pleasant. We all settle in (Figlia having no classes she considers mandatory till next week, decides to sleep on the fold-out couch) and then head out for dinner.

The late night weather has turned rainy, but it is only a 10 minute walk to the suggested restaurant – Pizzeria Mexico. The restaurant validates its peculiar name by a décor that features not one, but three faded sombreros tacked to a wall in the larger than expected dining room. There is a soccer game on the little TV watched by two or three families as they have their dinner. Figlia’s Italian skills again come in handy in ordering dinner, which proves to be surprisingly good for such an unassuming local place, and the half bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is so deliciously memorable that we get the OK to bring the bottle home as a first-night-in-Italy souvenir.

Thursday, April 2, 2009. The morning brings a day flush with Italian sunshine. From our terrace we see people going about their business, in cars, on noisy scooters and quiet bicycles, and many simply walk. Despite the warm morning all the locals make their way wrapped in sweaters or coats, or often as not, both. Figlia has a theory that almost all Italians are deathly afraid of being cold or hungry. (Jake wonders privately if this cultural trait is some pre-historic memory of World War II.)

We head out to join the passing parade, and buy our bus tickets (one Euro each) at a tabbachi on the main street. As with the train tickets, these bus tickets must be validated with a date stamp, obtained from a little yellow box on the bus. Buses are generally boarded either in the rear or the front of the bus, and one exits the bus through the middle door. Such a system frees the bus driver from the hassle of collecting fares and relies on the general honesty of the bus riders. Figlia says that the police routinely check for scofflaws and hand out stiff fines, but during our five or six times on Italian buses we never saw any checking go on.

On the ride down the busy main road into the heart of Pescara Jake and Stone try to spot the name of the road, which they never can do, street signs being at an apparent premium. (Being from New Jersey, we are not unfamiliar with this phenomenon.) But Figlia tells them not to bother as the street changes names about four or five times along its four or five mile route. (Being from New Jersey, Jake and Stone are not unfamiliar with this phenomenon.) We get off at Pescara Centrale, which is pretty much the center of town, and seek out breakfast. We find a “bar” and have the usual Italian breakfast fare of several pastries, some espresso, Coke Light (Diet Coke) and cappuccino. As we sit eating our calories and sipping our caffeine, local customers come in, usually buy just a coffee of some definition, drink it standing up at the counter, jest with each other and the women serving them, then go about their day.

At the main Abruzzo tourist office on the same street (named here as Corso Vittorio Emanuele II) we get what information we can, which is not much: a couple of nice looking but not overly helpful brochures and a map of the Abuzzo region, which later proves to be of no help since none of the roads on the map are numbered or have names. However, the tourist office does provide us with the address of the nearest car rental and luckily it is right on the main bus line. We buy bus tickets again, this time at a convenient machine by the bus stop, and get a quick ride down to Danelli Auto on Via Marconi (same street, different name) where we rent, despite their being a Peugeot dealer, a nice 4-door Fiat Punto.

As good luck would have it, Figlia’s apartment is less than a kilometer away, so Jake braves the traffic and completes his maiden voyage in Italian urban traffic to her place and arrives with both car and passengers intact. Figlia lives with three Italian roommates, and shares a room with one of them. Two roomies are at home and say hello in English as they eat in the kitchen, TV blaring. The tiny hallway is filled with clothes hanging out to dry on a large but space efficient clothes rack. The 3BR apartment is small, clean and decorated in co-ed style with posters, hand written notes, pictures of impossibly handsome young men, and the like. Figlia’s roommate (currently not in) is a Tim Burton fan and has decked out her side of their shared room with movie posters and other Burton paraphernalia; on her bed is a pillow cover with a sort of creepy/funny skull and crossbones. Figlia says she gets along well with all of her roommates, and that all of them can cook a great meal at the drop of a hat. Generally, they cook and she washes the dishes; they all four share the other cleaning duties.

We decide to drive out to a fairly new Abuzzo sensation, a mega shopping mall called Megalo, that lies about 10 miles outside of Pescara just off one of the main autostradas that mimic our interstates. Megalo proves to be a scene worthy of Jersey at its most (in)famous, but we all enjoy it for what it is, and Stone and Figlia both opt to get their hair cut at a glamorous (and it turns out, expensive, but what the heck!) shop. Though there are maybe a dozen places to get food in this mall, this is Italy not Jersey, so all the good places are closed for the afternoon and won’t reopen until 7 PM. We do finally find a little place that serves OK pizza and good gelato, thus getting some sort of late lunch.

Back in Pescara, Figlia directs us to her favorite local restaurant for dinner, as long as someone else is footing the bill. Taverna 58, on Corso Mantheone, sits down in “Old Pescara” near the Pescara River and provides us with one of our most memorable meals. Grilled meats are an Abruzzo tradition, so our order includes rabbit and lamb, but we also share Figlia’s favorite dish of chitarrina with mushrooms and truffles dell'aquila, and of course, several other pastas and glasses of red wine. But besides the alluring food, Taverna 58 is a place percolating with history, personality and style:
-- Both Gabriele d’Annunzio (famous author and name sake for the Pescara university Figlia currently attends) and Ennio Flaiano (screenwriter for some of Fellini’s films) were born on the same block as the restaurant.
-- The wine cellar (which we were lucky enough to allowed to view after our dinner) dates from the 13th century.
-- On the menu is a quotation that translates (roughly) into “Art is a way to keep your feet firmly planted on the clouds.”
-- During our two and a half hour meal we got to share some of the famous “hot zabaglione with Marsala” whipped up in a large copper bowl at the table next to us by the maitre d' who reportedly did the same for Italian TV a few years back to commemorate his 100,000th such serving(!).
-- Near the end of our dinner we were also given free shots of some sort of local dessert wine or sherry, apparently because the night just called for it.
At a bill of only 120 Euro, it was a night perhaps worth twice the price.

Driving back to our apartment we get lost, but knowing we want to go north, Stone adroitly drives toward the Adriatic Sea where we hook a left at the beach and drive the quiet, palm tree lined Viale della Riviera till we see some recognizable landmarks that guide us home. Before going to bed we try to watch some TV, but several of the stations don’t seem to work correctly, so we end up watching “South Park.” Being in Italian it is much more enjoyed by Figlia than by either the semi-literate Stone or the completely and hopelessly illiterate Jake. Later, thankfully, sleep comes in its universal language.

Other Places