Hello. Well, this is my fourth day in Italy and I want to tell you a story that, believe it or not, is far from atypical in Italy during the month of August. The story is that of Sarah’s and my attempt to take a bus from Caiazzo to Caserta, a ride which should have taken only about 25 minutes on the bus.
Caiazzo is the city just outside of which is the village from which my father hails and where were are spending our time con i miei nonni (with my grandparents.) There is more I’ll write about the village, but I’ll stick to the story about the buses for now.
This is the time of the year that is Feragosto [fair-Ah-gosto], which is the start of the national period of vacation. Most people start their vacations on the 4th of the month, but the official start of the vacation as marked by the government is the 15th. Feragosto comes from feria [vacation] + agosto [August] and everything starts to shut down for a few weeks during this time. I don’t think that most Americans are actually aware of how much vacation time the Europeans get, and if you were, you’d be quite jealous.
During this period of vacation, the things that continue to function, such as the civil services, do so half-assed at best. This is where the troubles with the bud began. We got up early in the morning, because of the extreme heat wave that is affecting all of Europe right now, and because in order to make use of these civil services, you more than likely have to do it before 8AM. Well, I was up and ready to go by 7:45, but getting Sarah out of bed was another story. We scrapped out original plan of going to Naples, and we decided to go to Caserta. It was closer than Naples and I figured that the bus to Caserta, though later in the day than we had intended, would still get us there in time to take a walk around and see the Royal Palace.
We starting waling to Caiazzo from the village, and were picked up and given a ride, as happens most of the time, by a relative or someone we know. This time it was a cousing of ours, Giovanni San Giovanni. We thanked him for the ride, and went to the tabacco shop to get the tickets for the bus. I asked when they wouyld dpart and was told that it would be around ten thirty or thereabouts. ‘Thereabouts’ is where the problem lies. We had purchased the tickets at 9:50 and were prepared to wait the 40 minutes for the bus to arrive. My grandfather had showed about at about 10:10 because he had come into the town to see if he could get some green beans for lunch. He sat on the bench with us and waited. We talked for a bit, and finally saw a bus arrive at about 10:15. Good! A little earlier than I had expected but that was nothing to complain about. I stepped onto the bus and asked if it was heading to Caserta, and sure enough — it wasn’t. So we sat back down on the bench with my grandfather and waited some more.
Here’s a pic of Sarah and Nonno when when we were waiting for the bus that never came. This is probably before we had seen the bus that was early but not going to Caserta because there are still smiles on their faces. We were told back at the tobacconist that there was going to be a train for Caserta at 11:30, but that would have brought us into the city at 12:30 at least and the day was already getting to be too hot. That time of the day would have been a half hour before all of the shops started to close, so we scrapped the idea of going into the city, and went to the grocery with Nonno and headed back to the village to eat, and then nap after the meal. It was just going to be another typical day in the village.