Vintage Fiats, arranged by IC Bellagio, floor it at Palazzo di Verginana near Imola. Photo by Harrison Shiels
A vacation’s last day usually means a morning trip to the airport…an especially depressing journey at the conclusion of a wondrous trip to Italy. IC Bellagio, Italy’s premier custom tour company, created, organized, and facilitated a dream week buzzing around the vibrant Emilia-Romagna Region of Italy. My itinerary included strolling the UNESCO World Heritage site piazza in the city of Modena – home to tradizionale balsamic vinegar makers such as Acetaia Rossi Barattini – during “SciCola” – a Festival del Cioccolato! Literally la dolce vita!
Emilia-Romagna’s tourist board put me in the center of Modena at the Milano Palace Hotel, with its Ristorante Damadeo, and arranged visits for me throughout the “Motor Valley” to the laboratory-like factory headquarters hand-crafting Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati super sports cars. I was even driven through the panoramic countryside around Imola, home to the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, in a colorful vintage Fiat, with a stop in the tiny, walled village of Dozza for a café americano, or, in my case, a glass of local vino bianco.
But early on a cloudy, Sunday morning, my coach was turning into a pumpkin: a van – not a high-performance sportscar – was scheduled to take me to the Bologna airport where I would submit to an entire, equally unglamorous day trekking back to the USA through Paris. I stood next to my suitcase outside the lobby entrance of the mountaintop, panoramic, Palazzo di Verignana luxury resort and inhaled fresh air while I took a last look at the elegant scenery. The clean, black van I presumed was my ride was parked, but without a driver. I noticed, however, a wavy-haired woman dressed warmly standing on the driveway. As the only two people out there, we inevitably made eye contact.
“Mr. Shiels?” she asked me.
“Si?”
“Allora. I am Emanuela. I will drive you to the airport,” she pronounced.
“Buongiorno,” I greeted her in an apologetic tone. “Piacere di conoscerti.”
“You speak Italian?” she asked in English.
“Cosi cosi,” I answered, suggesting I spoke a little Italian…badly: “Piccolo. Mi Italiano parlare male.”
Emanuela smiled and gestured toward the van. When she tried to take my luggage from me, I refused her. As I slung the heavy suitcase into the vehicle, I admitted to her I was not accustomed to having a “bella donna” beautiful female driver.
“Grazie,” said the confident Italian woman, with a smile. She apparently appreciated the compliment since we then chatted amiably while rolling over the curvy, hilly roads to the airport. She told me, in her Italian accent, she had lived in Naples and been a tour guide in Rome before moving to Bologna. “You might like to visit Naples. It is a mess, but wonderful chaos.”
I asked Emanuela how she ended up in in the Emilia-Romagna region?
“For love,” she answered as she steered the van. “I followed a man to Bologna for love. But it did not work out.”
“I suspect you could have any man you want, anyway,” I offered. She did not disagree. Instead, while keeping her eyes on the road, Emanuela nodded. “Si, but I always choose difficult ones. Now I have become aware of that, so I am working on it…”
“Now you choose only a man who does not need fixing?” I asked.
Emanuela tossed her head and chuckled. Then, in an exaggerated voice asked, “Do you think a man such as that exists?! One that does not need fixing? Find him and then show me!” We both laughed for a bit at her comedy. Then she told me she was currently dating a New Zealander she met on karaoke night. “We were only friends at first…and then we were not only friends.”
“Did the Kiwi meet you by hearing you sing? He must have liked it?”
“Si. I sang in a band when I lived in Rome. The band was called ‘Grog.’ We performed Irish drinking and pirate songs.”
That bore repeating, so, I slowly unspooled what she had revealed. “You…are an Italian woman… who performed Irish drinking songs…in Rome?”
“And pirate songs,” she reminded me.
Though Emanuela was driving on a tree-lined road, I could not resist sticking my hands into the front seat to show her the gold, Irish Claddagh rings I wore – one on each hand. She said she had never seen someone wear two of them. “Two different weddings,” I explained with a shrug she could see via a quick glance in the rearview mirror. Then we both laughed for a bit, again, at the comedy.
Emanuela told me, when we reached the curbside at the airport and I pulled my suitcase from the van, that she would then drive 30-minutes back to Palazzo di Verignana resort to pick up some other IC Bellagio guests and take them to tour Ferrari headquarters in Maranello. “I should finish with everything in the afternoon.”
I hate goodbyes. So, after a handshake, hug, and gratuity, as I rolled my suitcase toward the airport door, I sang to the Italian beauty the lyric of an Irish drinking song: “And there’s no, nay, never…no nay never no more…”
And as Emanuela, smiling, opened the driver’s door to get back behind the wheel, she continued the song, singing back to me: “…Will I play the wild rover…no never no more.”
Ciao, Bella!
Make plans now to visit Italy’s Emilia-Romagna Region during the Italian Grand Prix Formula 1 race May 15-18 and Motor Valley Fest May 22-25.
Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at MShiels@aol.com His new book: Travel Tattler – Not So Torrid Tales, may be purchased via Amazon.com Hear his radio talk show on WJIM AM 1240 in Lansing weekdays from 9 am – noon.
