My Visit to the Po Valley (Part 1 of 5)
The Guareschi love continues here at philosophymom's journal, and it's only fair, right? I mean, since I moved to the new blog, Sherlock Holmes has been getting all the attention, and I was actually starting to feel bad for my *other* longest-standing literary obsession, Don Camillo. So I must say that it has relieved quite a bit of my guilt to dump the last three posts on you. :-) And now you will be rewarded for your patience during those posts which, worthy though they were, consisted of mostly recycled text. Today, see, I'm going to begin the story of my 1998, real-life, hop-on-an-airplane-in-Baltimore-and-get-out-in-Milan trip to the Little World; and that's something I've never fully done online before.
My dilemma
Okay, I *did* publish some of my Little World photos, with captions, at the old Don Camillo tribute site, but I always held back -- uncharacteristically, I hardly need add -- from giving a blow-by-blow account of my experience. Why? Because, especially in the period immediately following the trip, I was afraid of implying to the world that Alberto and Carlotta Guareschi, who graciously took care of me the whole time I was in their country, were running "Don Camillo package tours" for all comers.
Little World
Don't get me wrong: I'm sure they've been as gracious to many other Little World visitors over the years as they were to me in '98. I know there's nothing extraordinary about *me* that earned me the deluxe treatment, and I certainly haven't played things low-key in the hopes of keeping myself among an exclusive group or anything. But I have always thought that the Guareschis should get to decide on their own just when and how often they wanted to do that sort of thing (all I'd asked them for when I told them I'd be visiting Italy in 1998 was a handshake; they rolled out the red carpet on their own initiative). It seemed a poor return of their hospitality to set them up for possible innundation with requests to ferry people about the countryside "like you did for that lady from Baltimore."
Why tell all now, then? Because 15 years have passed, and the Gs are in their 70s now, and I don't think anyone reading this will assume that because they were in a position to show one woman around all those years ago, they are necessarily able to put on tours now. Also, because they should finally get full credit from me for how wonderful they were back then.
How it happened
Back in January of 1998, still near the beginning of the era of widespread home Internet access, I (like many people with too little to say and too much time on their hands) was putting together a vanity homepage. Thinking it would be nice to link to a Guareschi site or two as a way of indicating my (then) quarter-century's interest in the Don Camillo stories, I unfortunately didn't find any appropriate webpages in languages I could read (those pre-Google search engines missed the one that did exist). In the process of looking for them, however, I learned a lot more about Guareschi than I'd previously known.
Among my finds were the so-called "non-Camillo" books (six of which, it turned out, were obtainable in English), as well as the Fernandel-Cervi Don Camillo films (alas, virtually unknown -- not to mention unavailable -- in English ... so I obtained and watched them in French!). But the happiest discovery of all was that the author's children were still living in Italy and were eager to exchange information with anyone interested in preserving the memory of their father and his work.
Communicating in Spanish (decent on Alberto G's part; half-remembered from high school and much Babelfish-assisted on mine), we really bonded as they shared tons of GG info. and I put it online for a small but grateful audience of fellow Anglophone fans. Then I told them I was thinking of making a trip to northern Italy for a few days in the summer to see the Little World for myself (combining it with a stop at my beloved Oxford, which I hadn't seen in a decade), and asked if they could suggest the best Don Camillo-related sites to try to see. Also, I wondered, would Alberto & Carlotta be in town (wherever that was), so that I could swing by one afternoon and say hello?
Here's a map one *could* use at a "Don Camillo package tours" website. All the Little World spots I ended up visiting -- Busseto, Roncole Verdi, Diolo, Soragna, Fontanelle, Brescello -- are shown.
Yes, and yes, were the answers. But getting around in Northern Italy wouldn't be easy for a non- Italian speaker who couldn't drive a stick shift, they warned (public transport didn't go everywhere I'd want to go, and no one the Gs knew had ever rented an automatic transmission car). Perhaps, they offered, if I timed my trip right, they could help me out...
Next up: my activities on Day One of my visit
My dilemma
Okay, I *did* publish some of my Little World photos, with captions, at the old Don Camillo tribute site, but I always held back -- uncharacteristically, I hardly need add -- from giving a blow-by-blow account of my experience. Why? Because, especially in the period immediately following the trip, I was afraid of implying to the world that Alberto and Carlotta Guareschi, who graciously took care of me the whole time I was in their country, were running "Don Camillo package tours" for all comers.
Little World
Don't get me wrong: I'm sure they've been as gracious to many other Little World visitors over the years as they were to me in '98. I know there's nothing extraordinary about *me* that earned me the deluxe treatment, and I certainly haven't played things low-key in the hopes of keeping myself among an exclusive group or anything. But I have always thought that the Guareschis should get to decide on their own just when and how often they wanted to do that sort of thing (all I'd asked them for when I told them I'd be visiting Italy in 1998 was a handshake; they rolled out the red carpet on their own initiative). It seemed a poor return of their hospitality to set them up for possible innundation with requests to ferry people about the countryside "like you did for that lady from Baltimore."
Why tell all now, then? Because 15 years have passed, and the Gs are in their 70s now, and I don't think anyone reading this will assume that because they were in a position to show one woman around all those years ago, they are necessarily able to put on tours now. Also, because they should finally get full credit from me for how wonderful they were back then.
How it happened
Back in January of 1998, still near the beginning of the era of widespread home Internet access, I (like many people with too little to say and too much time on their hands) was putting together a vanity homepage. Thinking it would be nice to link to a Guareschi site or two as a way of indicating my (then) quarter-century's interest in the Don Camillo stories, I unfortunately didn't find any appropriate webpages in languages I could read (those pre-Google search engines missed the one that did exist). In the process of looking for them, however, I learned a lot more about Guareschi than I'd previously known.
Among my finds were the so-called "non-Camillo" books (six of which, it turned out, were obtainable in English), as well as the Fernandel-Cervi Don Camillo films (alas, virtually unknown -- not to mention unavailable -- in English ... so I obtained and watched them in French!). But the happiest discovery of all was that the author's children were still living in Italy and were eager to exchange information with anyone interested in preserving the memory of their father and his work.
Communicating in Spanish (decent on Alberto G's part; half-remembered from high school and much Babelfish-assisted on mine), we really bonded as they shared tons of GG info. and I put it online for a small but grateful audience of fellow Anglophone fans. Then I told them I was thinking of making a trip to northern Italy for a few days in the summer to see the Little World for myself (combining it with a stop at my beloved Oxford, which I hadn't seen in a decade), and asked if they could suggest the best Don Camillo-related sites to try to see. Also, I wondered, would Alberto & Carlotta be in town (wherever that was), so that I could swing by one afternoon and say hello?
Here's a map one *could* use at a "Don Camillo package tours" website. All the Little World spots I ended up visiting -- Busseto, Roncole Verdi, Diolo, Soragna, Fontanelle, Brescello -- are shown.
Yes, and yes, were the answers. But getting around in Northern Italy wouldn't be easy for a non- Italian speaker who couldn't drive a stick shift, they warned (public transport didn't go everywhere I'd want to go, and no one the Gs knew had ever rented an automatic transmission car). Perhaps, they offered, if I timed my trip right, they could help me out...
Next up: my activities on Day One of my visit